at last have the reward of the Sons of peace and reign with thee in thy Kingdom of peace for ever Grant this O God for thy Son's sake Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with thee and the holy Ghost be ascribed all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion now and for ever The profit of GODLINESS The First SERMON On 1 TIM iv 8. But Godliness is profitable unto all things THat which Zeba and Zalmannah tell Gideon in the Book of Iudges As is the man so is his strength is true not onely as we are men but as we are Christians too As is the Christian so is his strength for the performance of the Acts of Christianity Some Christians are as Iether was young and unfit to draw the sword others as Gideon strong and fit for manlike employments Some Christians there are to whom there can no better Argument be used then the love of Christ and the commemoration of their duties such as St. Paul was who to gain Christ esteemed all other things as dung Others there are that cannot think so meanly of the world at first but as Naaman vowed to serve God and yet would bow himself in the house of Rimmon so they can be content to give their names unto Christ but with some respect and bowing to the world and such are the greatest part of Professors The Spouse in the fortieth Psalm could be content to forget her own people and her Fathers house but scarcely is there a soul so wedded to Christ as that it can forget the world that hath nurs'd and breed it up that hath had so long so inward so sweet acquaintance and familiarity with it This is a second and weaker sort of Christians The holy Ghost being to deal with such is content to condescend unto their weakness and in this little piece of Scripture which I have read seems as it were to shew a willingness to endure the world to enjoy some part of our love by an argument drawn from our love to gain and profit he labours to win our love to him and as Rebecca did with old Isaac provide us such meat as our soul loves In the words therefore we will first by way of Introduction and Preface consider what cause the holy Ghost might have to use this Argument drawn from Profit and Commodity Secondly we will consider the words themselves And first of the reason of this Motive Profit and Commodity is a Lure that calls the greatest part of the world after it Most of the bargains which the world makes are copied out according to that pattern which Iudas gave at the betraying of Christ What will ye give me and I will betray deliver him into your hands This question What will ye give me what commodity what profit will accrue unto me is the preface and way into all our actions Good or evil men will do neither except it be by way of bargain and sale This common disease of the world hath likewise seised upon the Professors of godliness except this also bring us in some Revenue â—t hath no savour It was the divils question unto God concerning Iob. Doth Iob serve God for nought hast thou not hedged him on every side and laid thine hand upon him Indeed he mistook Iob's mind for Iob served not God for this but for another cause yet beleive me he had great cause to ask the question for who is it that can content himself to serve God for nothing As David said to old Barzillai in the Book of Kings Let Chimham go with me and I will do him good so must God deal with us if he will have us to serve him God like the Husbandman in the Gospel may go forth at the first hour and at the ninth hour and at the eleventh hour early and late at every hour of the day and find idle persons for whosoever labours not with God is idle how busie soever he seems to be in the world but except he bring his penny with him he shall find none to work in his Vineyard Aristotle discoursing concerning the qualities and conditions of man's age tells us that Young men for the most part consider not so much profit and conveniency as equity and duty as being led by their natural temper and simplicity which teaches them to do rather what is good then what is profitable But Old men that have ends of their actions their minds run more on commodity and gain as being led by advise and consultation whose property it is to have an eye to profit and conveniency and not onely to bare and naked goodness I will not deny but there may be found some such men that are but young in the world men that are children in evil who know not how pleasant a savour gain hath yet certainly the most men even in their youngest days are old and expert enough in the world For we bring with us into the world the old man whose wisdom and policy is to have an ear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to enterprize any thing but for some further end then the thing it selfe either the more free enjoying of our pleasures or the filling of our purses or the increase of our preferments These are the gods of the world These like God sit at the top of Iacob's Ladder and all our actions are but steps and rounds to go up to them God and goodness is not reward enough to draw men on When God gave Laws to his own people the Iews to bring them on the better how is he fain to make many promises of possession of the Land of freedom from bondage of abundance of all things which might work upon their affections And hence it is that themselves when by their manifold back-slidings they had shut up the passages of God's good and gracious promises complain in the Scriptures What profit hath come to us by serving of the Lord or Which way hath it availed us to have kept his Law Again as it is on the one side with goodness in regard of gain so is it on the other side with evil Evil though many love it very well yet very few there are that are grown to that heighth of wickedness as meerly to do mischief without any other respect of reward When the Patriarchs moved with envy had resolved to murder their brother Ioseph as soon as ever the Ismaelitish Merchants did appear as soon as any air of gain did shew it self streight their thrist of bloud began to allay What profit say they is there in our brother's bloud Let us sell him rather to the Ishmaelites Hope of gain as if they had look'd upon the Brasen Serpent presently asswaged their hot and fiery disease All this that I have said doth plainly shew unto you how potent profit and gain are to sway with out weak natures that God himself though he come with all spiritual graces possible yet if he come empty-handed if he bring not something which may work upon our
your Collection The other on Rom. xiv 1. Him that is weak in the faith receive c. was preach'd at St. Paul's Cross and I moved him to Print it That of My Kingdom is not of this world I once saw and returned to Mr. Hales with four more which I saw him put into Mr. Chillingworth's hands That of Dixi Custodiam I have heard him often speak of it with a kind of complacency That of He spake a Parable that men ought always to pray I believe is his by the passage of the Spunge and the Knife which I have heard from his mouth The Sermon which you had from D. Hammond upon Son remember c. was preach'd at Eaton Colledge The other of Duels was either one or two and preach'd at the Hague to Sir D. Carlton and his company That you call a Letter on I can do all things is a Sermon The Sermon of Peter went out and wept c. is under his own hand One caution I should put in that you print nothing which is not written with his own hand or be very careful in compareing them for not long since one shewed me a Sermon which he said was his which I am confident could not be for I saw nothing in it which was not Vulgaris mone tae of a vulgar stamp common and flat and low There be some Sermons that I much doubt of for there is little of his spirit and Genius in them and some that are imperfect That of Genes xvii 1. Walk before me c. is most imperfect as appears by the Autogâ—aphum which I saw at Eaton a fortnight since For his LETTERS he had much trouble in that kind from several freinds and I heard him speak of that friends Letter you mention pleasantly Mr. He sets up Tops and I must whip them for him But I am very glad to hear you have gained those Letters into your hands written from the Synod of Dort You may please to take notice that in his younger days he was a Calvinist and even then when he was employed at that Synod and at the well pressing S Ioh. iij. 16. by Episcopius There I bid Iohn Calvin good-night as he has often told me I beleive they will be as acceptable or in your phrase as saleable as his Sermons I would not have you to venture those Papers out of your hands to me for they may miscarry and I fear it would be very difficult to find another Copy Peradventure I may shortly see you at the Term I hope I shall and then I shall advise you further the best I can about those other Sermons you have I see you will be troubled yet a while to put things in a right way I have drawn in my mind the Model of his Life but I am like Mr. HALES in this which was one of his defects not to pen any thing till I must needs God prosper you in your work and business you have in hand that neither the Church nor the Authour suffer Septemb. 17. 16â—7 Your assured Freind to his power Anthony Farindon 2 Pet. III. 16. Which the Vnlearned and Vnstable Wrest as they do the other Scriptures unto their own Destruction THE love and favour which it pleased God to bear our Fathers before the Law so far prevail'd with him as that without any Books and Writings by familiar and friendly conversing with them and communicating himself unto them he made them receive and understand his Laws their inward conceits and Intellectuals being after a wonderful manner as it were Figured and Character'd as St. Basil expresses it by his Spirit so that they could not but see and consent unto and confess the truth of them Which way of manifesting his will unto many other gracious priviledges which it had above that which in after ages came in place of it had this added that it brought with it unto the man to whom it was made a preservation against all doubt and hesitancy a full assurance both who the Authour was and how far his intent and meaning reacht We that are their offspring ought as St. Chrysostom tell us so to have demeaned our selves that it might have been with us as it was with them that we might have had no need of writing no other teacher but the Spirit no other books but our hearts no other means to have been taught the things of God Nisi inspirationis divinae internam suavioremque doctrinam ubi sine sonis sermonum c fiue elementis literarum to dulcius quo secretius veritas loquitur as saith Fulgentius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Isidorus Pelusiotâ— for it is a greater argument of our shame and imperfection that the holy things are written in books For as God in anger tells the Jews that he himself would not go before them as hitherto he had done to conduct them into the promised land but would leave his Angel with them as his deputy so hath he dealt with us the unhappy posterity degenerated from the antient purity of our forefathers When himself refused to speak unto our hearts because of the hardness of them he then began to put his Laws in writing Which thing for a long time amongst his own people seems not to have brought with it any sensible inconvenience For amongst all those acts of the Jews which God in his book hath registred for our instruction there is not one concerning any pretended ambiguity or obscurity of the Textâ— and Letter of their Law which might draw them into faction and schism the Devil belike having other sufficient advantages on which he wrought But ever since the Gospel was committed to writing what age what monument of the Churches Acts is not full of debate and strife concerning the force and meaning of those writings which the holy Ghost hath left us to be the law and rule of faith St. Paul one of the first Pen-men of the holy Ghost who in Paradise heard words which it was not lawful for man to utter hath left us words in writing which it is not safe for any man to be too busie to interpret No sooner had he laid down his pen almost ere the ink was dry were there found Syllabarum aucupes such as St. Ambrose spake of qui nescire aliquid erubescunt per occasionem obscuritatis tendunt laqueos deceptionis who thought there could be no greater disparagement unto them then to seem to be ignorant of any thing and under pretence of interpreting obscure places laid gins to entrap the uncautelous who taking advantage of the obscurity of St. Pauls text made the Letter of the Gospel of life and peace the most forcible instrument of mortal quarrel and contention The growth of which the holy Ghost by the ministery of St. Peter hath endeavoured to cut up in the bud and to strangle in the womb in this short admonition which but now hath sounded in your ears Which the unlearned c. In which words
for our more orderly proceeding we will consider First the sin it self that is here reprehended Wresting of Scripture where we will briefly consider what it is and what causes and motioners it finds in our corrupt understandings Secondly the persons guilty of this offence discipher'd unto us in two Epithets unlearned unstable Last of all the danger in the last words unto their own damnation And first of the sin it self together with some of the special causes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They wrest They deal with Scripture as Chimicks deal with natural bodies torturing them to extract that out of them which God and Nature never put in them Scripture is a rule which will not fit it self to the obliquity of our conceits but our perverse and crooked discourse must fit it self to the straightness of that rule A learned Writer in the age of our fathers commenting upon Scripture spake most truly when he said That his Comments gave no light unto the Text the Text gave light unto his Comments Other Expositions may give rules and directions for understanding their Authors but Scripture gives rules to Exposition it self and interprets the Interpreter Wherefore when we made in Scripture non pro sententia divinarum Scripturarum as St. Austine speaks sed pro nostra itae dimicantes ut tam velimus Scripturarum esse quae nostra est When we strive to give unto it and not to receive from it the sense when we factiously contend to fasten our conceits upon God and like the Harlot in the Book of Kings take our dead and putrified fancies and lay them in the bosome of Scripture as of a mother then are we guilty of this great sin of wresting of Scripture The nature of which will the better appear if we consider a little some of those motioners which drive us upon it One very potent and strong mean is the exceeding affection and love unto our own opinions and conceits For grown we are unto extremities on both hands we cannot with patience either admit of other mens opinions or endure that our own should be withstood As it was in the Lacedaemonian army almost all were Captains so in these disputes all will be leaders and we take our selves to be much discountenanced if others think not as we do So that the complaint which one makes concerning the dissention of Physicians about the diseases of our bodies is true likewise in these disputes which concern the cure of our souls Hinc illae circa aegros miserae sententiarum concertationes nullo idem censente ne videatur accessio alterius From hence have sprung those miserable contentions about the distemper of our souls singularity alone and that we will not seem to stand as cyphers to make up the sum of other mens opinions being cause enough to make us disagree A fault antiently amongst the Christians so apparent that it needed not an Apostolical spirit to discover it the very heathen themselves to our shame and confusion have justly judiciously and sharply taxt us for it Ammianus Marcellinus passing his censure upon Constantius the Emperour Christianam religionem absolutam simplicem saith he and they are words very well worth your marking Christianam religionem absolutam simplicem anili superstitione confudit In qua scrutanda perplexius quam componenda gratius excitavit dissidia plurima quae progressa fusius aluit concertatione verborum dum ritum omnem ad suum trahere conatur arbitrium The Christian Religion a Religion of great simplicity and perfection he troubled with dotage and superstition For going about rather perplexedly to search the controversies then gravely to compose them he raised great stirs and by disputing spread them far and wide whilst he went about to make himselfsole Lord and Commander of the whole Profession Now that it may appear wherefore I have noted this it is no hard thing for a man that hath wit and is strongly possest of an opinion and resolute to maintain it to find some places of Scripture which by good handling will be woed to cast a favourable countenance upon it Pythagoras's Scholars having been bred up in the doctrine of Numbers when afterward they diverted upon the studies of Nature fancied unto themselves somewhat in natural bodies like unto Numbers and thereupon fell into a conceit that Numbers were the principles of them So fares it with him that to the reading of Scripture comes fore-possest with some opinion As Antipheron Orietes in Aristotle thought that every where he saw his own shape and picture going afore him so in divers parts of Scripture where these men walk they will easily perswade themselves that they see the image of their own conceits It was and is to this day a fashion in the hotter Countreys at noon when the Sun is in his strength to retire themselves to their closets or beds if they were at home to cool and shady places if they were abroad to avoid the inconvenience of the heat of it To this the Spouse in the Canticles alluding calls after her Beloved as after a shepherd Shew me O thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest thy flock where thou dost rest at noon The Donatists conceiting unto themselves that the Church was shut up in them alone being urged by the Fathers to shew how the Church being universal came on a suddain thus to be confin'd to Africk they had presently their Scripture for it for so they found it written in the Canticles Indica quem diligit anima mea ubi pascas ubi cubes in meridie In which Text meridies doubtless as they thought was their Southern Countrey of Africk where the Shepherd of Israel was and no where else to feed his flocks I may not trouble you with instances in this kind little observation is able to furnish the man of slenderest reading with abundance The Texts of Scripture which are especially subject to this abuse are those that are of ambiguous and doubtful meaning For as Thucydides observes of the fat and fertile places of Greece that they were evermore the occasions of stirs and seditionsâ— the neighbouring Nations every one striving to make it self Lord of them so is it with these places that are so fertile as it were of interpretation and yeild a multiplicity of sense they are the Palaestra for good wits to prove masteries in where every one desires to be Lord and Absolute A second thing occasioning us to transgress against Scripture and the discreet and sober handling of it is our too quick and speedy entrance upon the practise of interpreting it in our young and green years before that time and experience have ripened us and setled our conceits For that which in all other business and here likewise doth most especially commend us is our cauteâ—ous and wary handling it But this is a flower seldome seen in youths garden Aristotle differencing age and youth makes it a property of youth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
thus far spoken of his Admission let us now a little consider of his Restraint and see whether he may have any part in hearing and handling Religious Controversies where plainly to speak my mind as his admission before was so his exclusion here is much more necessary the way to these Schools should be open to none but to men of upright life and conversation and that as well in regard of the profane and wicked men themselves as of the Cause which they presume to handle for as for themselves this is but the Field wherein they sowe and reap their own infamy and disgrace Our own experience tells us how hard a thing it is for men of behaviour known to be spotless to avoid the lash of those mens tongues who make it their cheif fence to disgrace the persons when they cannot touch the cause For what else are the Writings of many men but mutual Pasquils and Satyrs against each others lives wherein digladiating like Eschines and Demosthenes they reciprocally lay open each others filthiness to the view and scorn of the world The fear therefore of being stained and publickly disgraced might be reason enough to keep them back from entring these contentions And as for the cause it self into which this kind of men do put themselves needs must it go but ill with it for is it possible that those respects which sway and govern their ordinary actions should have no influence upon their pens It cannot be that they who speak and plot and act wickedness should ever write uprightly Nam ut in vita ita in causis quoque spes improbas habent Doubtless as in their lives so in the causes they undertake they nourish hopes full of improbity Besides all this the opinion of the common sort is not to be contemned whom no kind of reason so much abuses and carries away as when the discredit of the person is retorted on the cause which thing our adversaries here at home amongst us know very well a master-piece of whose policy it is to put into the hands of the people such Pamphlets which hurt not our cause at all but onely discredit our persons St. Chrysostom observes out of the ancient Customes of the Olympick Games that whensoever any man offered himself to contend in them he was not to be admitted till publick Proclamation had been made throughout the multitude to this purpose Whether any man knew him to be either a Servant or a Thief or otherwise of infamous life And if any imputation in this kind were proved against him it was sufficient to keep him back Had the Heathen this care that their vanities should not be discredited how great then must our care be that they which enter into these Exercises be of pure and upright condition Let mens skill and judgment therefore be never so good yet if their lives be notoriously subject to exception let them know that there is no place for them in these Olympicks Men indeed in civil business have found out a distinction between an Honest man and a good Common-wealths-man And therefore Fabricius in the Roman Story is much commended for nominating to the Consulship Ruffinus a wicked man and his utter enemy because he knew him to be serviceable to the Common-wealth for those Wars which were then depending But in the business of the Lord and Common-wealth of God we can admit of no such distinction For God himself in the Book of Psalms staves them off with a Quid tuae ut euarres mea c. What hast thou to do to take my words into thy mouth since thou hatest to be reformed The world for the managing of her matters may employ such as her self hath fitted But let every one who names the name of God depart from iniquity For these reasons therefore it is very expedient that none but right good men should undertake the Lords quarrels the rather because there is some truth in that which Quintilian spake Cogitare optima simul deterrima non magis est unius animi quam ejusdem hominis bonum esse ac malum As impossible it is that good and bad thoughts should harbour in the same heart as it is for the same man to be joyntly good and bad And so from the consideration of this sick person let us proceed to visit the next The weak persons I have hitherto treated of are the fewest as consisting in a kind of extreme For the greatest sort of men are in a mediocrity of men eminently Good or extremely ill the number is smallest but this rank of sick persons that now we are to view is an whole army and may be every one of us if we do well examine our selves shall find our selves in it For the weak whom we now are to speak of is he that hath not that degree and perfection of faith and strength of spiritual constitution that he ought to have Wherefore our Recipe here must be like the Tree of Life in the Book of the Revelation it must be Medicine to heal whole Nations For who is he amongst men that can free himself from this weakness Yea we our selves that are set over others for their cure may speak of our selves and our Charge as Iolaus in Euripides doth of himself and Hercules children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We take care of these our selves standing in need of others care for us Hippocrates counsels his Physician to look especially that himself be healthy to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fair of colour and full of flesh For otherwise saith he how can he give comfort and hope of success to a sick patient who by his ill colour and meagreness bewrays some imperfection of his own But what Physician of Soul and Manners is capable of this counsel or who is it that taking the cure of others dâ—th not in most of his actions bewray his own disease Even thus hath it pleased God to tie us together with a mutual sense of each others weakness and as our selves receive and bear with others so for our selves interchangeably must we request the same courtesie at others hands Notwithstanding as it is with the health of our bodies no man at any time is perfectly well onely he goes for an healthy man who is least sick so fares it with our souls God hath included all under the name of Weak some perad venture are less weak then others but no man is strong Infaelicissimum Consolationis genus est de miseriis hominum peccatorum capere solatia It is but a miserable comfort to judge our own perfections onely by others defects yet this is all the comfort we have Let us leave therefore those who by reason of being less crazie pass for healthy and consider of those whom some sensible and eminent imperfection above others hath rank'd in the number of the weak And of those there are sundry kinds especially two One is Weak because he is not yet fully informed not so sufficiently Catechized
death and hell you shall in these words find nothing pertinent But if you take this Resurrection for that act by which through the power of saving grace Christ the Sun of righteousness rises in our hearts and raises us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness here in these words you may perchance find a notable branch of it For to raise our thoughts from this earth and clay and from things beneath and such are those which here Abraham calls The good things of our life and to set them above where Christ sits at the right hand of God this is that practick Resurrection which above all concerns us that other of Christ in Person in regard of us is but a Resurrection in speculation for to him that is dead in sin and trespasses and who places his good in the things of this life Christ is as it were not risen at all to such a one he is still in the grave and under the bands of death But to him that is risen with Christ and seeks that good things that are above to him alone is Christ risen To know and beleive perfectly the whole story of Christ's Resurrection what were it if we did not practise this Resurrection of our own Cogita non exacturum à te Deum quantum cognovâ—ris sed quantum vixeris God will not reckon with thee how much thou knowest but how well thou hast lived Epictetus that great Philosopher makes this pretty Parable Should a Shepherd saith he call his sheep to account how they had profited would he like of that sheep which brought before him his hay his grass and fodder or rather that sheep which having well digested all these exprest himself in fat in flesh and wooll Beloved you are the flock of Christ and the sheep of his hands should the great Shepherd of the flock call you before him to see how you have profited would he content himself with this that you had well Con'd your Catechism that you had diligently read the Gospel and exactly knew the whole story of the Resurrection would it not give him better satisfaction to find Christ's Resurrection exprest in yours and as it were digested into flesh and wooll 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To have read Chrysippus his Book this is not virtue To have read the Gospel to have gathered all the circumstances of the Resurrection of Christ this is not Christianity to have risen as Christ hath done so to have digested the Resurrection of Christ as that we have made it our own this is rightly to understand the Doctrine of the Resurrection of Christ. For this cause have I refused to treat this day of that Resurrection in the Doctrine of which I know you are perfect and have reflected on that in the knowledge of which I fear you are imperfect which that I might the better do I have made choice to prosecute my former Meditations begun when I last spake unto you in this place For so doing I shall open unto you one of the hardest points of your Spiritual Resurrection even to raise your thoughts from the things of this life and seat them with Christ above To make my way more fair to this I will take leave to put you in mind in short how I proceeded in the opening of these words when I last spake unto you out of this place You may be pleased to remember that after some instruction drawn from the first word Son I proceeded to consider the ensuing words wherein having by an Alchimy which then I used changed the word Recordare Remember into Cave Beware and so read my Text thus Beware thou receive not thy good things in this life I shewed you that we had never greater cause to consult our best wits what we are to do and how we are to carry our selves then when the world and outward blessings come upon us Upon this I moved this Question Whether or no if the things of this world should by some providence of God knock and offer themselves to us we are bound to exclude them and refuse them or we might open and admit of them I divided my answer according to the divers abilities and strengths of men First Qui potest capere capiat he that hath strength and spiritual wisdom to manage them let him receive them But in the second place he that is weak let him let strong diet alone and feed on herbs let him not intangle himself with more then he can manage Let him try Quid ferre recusent Quid valeant humeri To the first the sum of what I spake was this Receive them we may and that without danger of a Recepisti first if we so received them as if we received them not secondly if we esteemed them not good thirdly if we did not esteem them ours And here the time cut me off and suffered me not to descend unto the second part upon which now I am about to fall Cave ne recipias Take heed thou receive not thy good things In this matter of Receiving and entertaining these outward and foreign good things there have been two ways commended to you the one the more glorious to receive them of this we have spoken The other the more safe not to receive them of this we are now to speak These ways are trodden by two kinds of persons the one is the strong man and more virtuous the other is weaker but more cautelous the one encounters temptation the other avoids it We may compare them to the two great Captains Hannibal and Fabius the one ever calling for the battel the other evermore declining it In one of these two ranks must every good man be found if we compare them together we shall find that the one is far more excellent the other far more in number For to be able to meet and check our enemy to encounter occasions to act our parts in common life upon the common stage and yet to keep our uprightness this indeed is truly to live truly to serve God and men and therefore God the more because men On the contrary to avoid occasions to follow that other vincendi genus non pugnare to overcome the world by contemning and avoiding it this argues a wise indeed but a weak and fainting spirit I have often wondred at Antiquity which doting extremely upon a sequestred a solitary retired and Monkish life sticks not to give out that all perfection is in it whereas indeed there is no greater argument of imperfection in good men quam non posse pati solem non multitudinem not to be able without offence to walk the publick ways to entertain the common occasions but to live onely to God and to themselves Vtilis ipse sibi fortassis inutilis orbi Men of no great publick use but excellent for themselves Saints indeed in private but being called forth into common life are like Batts in the Sun utterly ignorant of publick practise like Scheubelius a great
or to avenge their own wrongs and so to decline the sentence of the Magistrate is quite to cut off all use of Authority Indeed it hath been sometimes seen that the event of a Battel by consent of both Armies hath been put upon single Combat to avoid further effusion of bloud but Combats betwixt Subjects for private causes till these latter Ages of the world was never allowed yet I must confess the practise of it is very ancient For Cain the second man in the world was the first Duelist the first that ever challenged the Feild in the fourth of Genesis the Text saith That Cain spake unto his Brother and when they were in the Feild he arose and slew him The Septuagint to make the sense more plain do add another clause and tell us what it was he said unto his brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us go out into the feild and when they were in the feild he arose and slew him Let us go out into the feild it is the very form and proper language of a Challenge Many times indeed our Gallants can formalize other words but evermore the substance and usually the very words are no other but these of Cain Let us go out into the Feild Abel I perswade my self understood them not as a challenge for had he so done he would have made so much use of his discretion as to have refused it yet can we not chuse but acknowledge a secret judgment of God in this that the words of Cain should still be so Religiously kept till this day as a Proem and Introduction to that action which doubtless is no other then what Cain's was When therefore our Gallants are so ready to challange the Feild and to go into the Feild let them but remember whose words they use and so accordingly think of their action Again notwithstanding Duels are of so antient and worshipful a Parentage yet could they never gain so good acceptance as to be permitted much less to be counted lawful in the civil part of the world till Barbarism had over-ran it About five or six hundred years after Christ at the fall of the Roman Empire aboundance of rude and barbarous people brake in and possest the civiller part of the world who abolishing the ancient Laws of the Empire set up many strange Customs in their rooms Amongst the rest for the determining of quarrels that might arise in case of doubtful title or of false accusation or the like they put themselves upon many unusual forms of Trial as to handle red hot Iron to walk bare-foot on burning coals to put their hands and feet in scalding water and many other of the like nature which are reckoned up by Hottoman a French Lawyer For they presumed so far on Gods providence that if the party accused were innocent he might do any of these without any smart or harm In the same cases when by reason of unsufficient and doubtful evidence the Judges could not proceed to Sentence as sometimes it falls out and the parties contending would admit of no reasonable composition their manner was to permit them to try it out by their swords that so the Conquerour might be thought to be in the right They permitted I say thus to do for at the best 't was but a permission to prevent farther mischeif for to this end sometimes some known abuses are tolerated So God permitted the Jews upon sleight occasions to put their wives away because he saw that otherwise their exorbitant lusts would not be bounded within these limits which he is Paradise in the beginning had set And it is observed of the wise men which had the managing and bringing up of Nero the Emperour that they suffered him to practise his lusts upon Acte one of his Mothers Chamber-maids Ne in stupra foeminarum illustrium perrumperet si illa libidine prohiberetur Lest if he were forbidden that he should turn his lust upon some of the Noble-women Permission and toleration warrants not the goodness of any action But as Caiaphas said Better one man die then all the people perish so they that first permitted Duels seem to have thought better one or two mutinous persons and disorderly die in their folly then the whole Common-wealth to be put into tumult and combustion yet even by these men it was never so promiscuously tolerated that every hasty couple upon the venting of a little choler should presently draw their swords but it was a publick or solemn action done by order with inspection either of the Prince himself or of some other Magistrate appointed to order it Now certainly there can be no very great reason for that action which was thus begun by Cain and continued onely by Goths and Vandals and meer Barbarism Yet that we may a little better acquaint our selves with the quality of it let us a little examine the causes and pretences which are brought by them who call for trial by single Combat The causes are usually two First disdain to seem to do or suffer any thing for fear of death Secondly point of honour and not to suffer any contumely and indignity especially if it bring with it dis-reputation and note of cowardise For the first Disdain to fear death I must confess I have often wondred with my self how men durst die so ventrously except they were sure they died well In aliis rebus siquid erratum est potest post modum corrigi in other things which are learnt by practising if we mistake we may amend it for the errour of a former action may be corrected in the next we learn then by erring and men come at length not to err by having often erred but no man learns to die by practising it we die but once and a fault committed then can never afterward be amended quia poena statim sequitur errorem because the punishment immediately follows upon the errour To die is an action of that moment that we ought to be very well advised when we come to it Ab hoc momento pendet aeternitas you may not look back upon the opinion of honour and reputation which remains behind you but rather look forward upon that infinite space of Eternity either of bliss or bale which befalls us immediately after our last breath To be loath to die upon every sleight occasion is not a necessary sign of fear and cowardise He that knew what life is and the true use of it had he many lives to spare yet would he be loth to part with one of them upon better terms then those our Books tell us that Aristippus a Philosopher being at Sea in a dangerous Tempest and bewraying some fear when the weather was cleared up a desperate Ruffian came and upbraided him with it and tells him That it was a shame that he professing wisdom should be afraid of his life whereas himself having had no such education exprest no agony or dread at all To whom the Philosopher replied there
him sit down and consider with himself his enemies one by one and he shall quickly discover their weakness Primi in praeliis vincantur oculi It s a saying that the first thing that is overcome in a Souldier is his eye while he judges of his enemy by his multitude and provision rather then by his strength Beloved if we judge not of our adversary in gross and as it were by the eye we shall easily see that we shall not need to do as the King in the Gospel doth send to his enemy with conditions of peace for there is no treaty of peace to be had with these Had Zimri peace that slew his master saith the Scripture and There is no peace unto the wicked saith my God Not onely Zimri and the wicked but no Christian hath or can have peace he must be always as fighting and always conquering Let us single out some one of this Army and let us examine his strength Is it Sin doth so much affright us I make choice of it because it is the dreadfullest enemy that a Christian hath Let us a little consider its strength and we shall quickly see there is no such need to fear it Sins are of two sorts either great and capital or small and ordinary sins I know it were a paradox in nature to tell you that the greatest and mightiest things are of least force yet this is true in the case we speak of the greatest things are the weakest Your own experience tells you that rapes and murthers parricide poisoning treason and the rest of that rabble of arch sins are the sins of the fewest and that they have no strength at all but upon the weakest men for doubtless if they were the strongest they would reign with greatest latitude they would be the commonest they would be the sins of the most But wandring thoughts idle words petty lusts inconsiderate wrath immoderate love to the things of the world and the rest of that swarm of ordinary sins these are they that have largest extent and dominion and some of these or all of these more or less prevail with every man As the Magicians in Exodus when they saw not the power of God in the Serpents in the Bloud in the Frogs at the coming of the plague of the Lice presently cried Digitus Dei hic est this is the finger of God so I know not how it comes to pass though we see and confess that in those great and heinous crimes the Devil hath least power yet at the coming of Lice of the rout of smaller and ordinary sins we presently yeild our selves captives and cry out Digitus Diaboli the strength of the Devil is in these as if we were like unto that fabulous Rack in Plinie which if a man thrust at with his whole body he could not move it yet a man might shake it with one of his fingers Now what an errour is it in us Christians when we see the principal and captain sins so easily vanquish'd to think the common souldier or lesser sort invincible For certainly if the greatest sins be the weakest the lesser cannot be very strong Secondly is it Original corruption that doth so much affright us Let us consider this a little and see what great cause we have to fear it And first Beloved let us take heed that we seem not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fight with our own fansie and not so much to find as to feign an enemy Mistake me not I beseech you I speak not this as doubting that we drew any natural infection from the loins of our parents but granting this I take it to be impossible to judge of what strength it is and deny that it is any such cause why we should take it to be so strong as that we should stand in fear to encounter it and overcome it for we can never come to discover how far our nature is necessarily weak for whil'st we are in our infancy and as yet not altered à puris naturaelibus from that which God and nature made us none of us understand our selves and e'r we can come to be of years to be able to discover it or define any thing concerning the nature of it custom or education either good hath much abated or evil hath much improved the force of it so that for any thing we know the strength of it may be much less then we suppose and that it is but a fear that makes it seem so great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Chrysostom It is the nature of timerous and fearful men evermore to be framing to themselves causeless fears I confess it is a strange thing and it hath many times much amazed me to see how ripe to sin many children are in their young and tender years and e'r they understand what the name of Sin and evil means they are unexpectedly and no man knows by what means wonderfully prompt and witty to villany and wickedness as if they had gone to schole to it in their mothers womb I know not to what cause to impute this thing but I verily suppose I might quit Original sin from the guilt of it For it is a ruled case and concluded by the general consent of the Schools that Original sin is alike in all and St. Paul seems to me to speak to that purpose when he saith that God hath alike concluded all under sin and that all are alike deprived of the glory of God Were therefore Original sin the cause of this strange exorbitancy in some young children they should all be so a thing which our own experience teaches us to be false for we see many times even in young children many good and gracious things which being followed with good education must needs come to excellent effect In pueris elucet spes plurimorum saith Quintilian quae ubi emoritur aetate manifestum est non defecisse naturam sed curam In children many times an hope of excellent things appears which in riper age for want of cherishing fades and withers away a certain sign that Nature is not so weak as Parents and Tutors are negligent whence then comes this difference certainly not from our Nature which is one in all but from some other cause As for Original sin of what strength it is I will not discuss onely thus much I will say there is none of us all but is much more wicked then the strength of any primitive corruption can constrain Again let us take heed that we abuse not our selves that we use not the names of Original weakness as a stale or stalking-horse as a pretence to choke and cover somewhat else For oftentimes when evil education wicked examples long custom and continuance in sin hath bred in us an habit and necessity of sinning presently Original sin and the weakness of mans nature bear the blame Vbi per secordiam vires tempus ingenium defluxere naturae infirmitas accusatur When through sloth and
idleness luxury and distemper our time is lost our bodies decay'd our wits dull'd we cast all the fault on the weakness of our nature That Law of sin in our members of which St. Paul spake and which some take to be Original corruption St. Austin once pronounced of it whether he meant to stand to it I know not but so he once pronounced of it Lex peccati est violentia consuetudinis That Law of sin that carries us against our wills to sin is nothing else but the force and violence of long custom and continuance in sin I know that by the errour of our first Parents the Devil hath blinded and bound us more then ever the Philistines did Samson Yet this needs not to make us thus stand in fear of Original weakness for blind and bound as we are let the Devil build never so strong yet if our hair be grown if Christ do strengthen us we shall be able Samson-like to bear his strongest pillars and pull down his house about his ears Thirdly Is it the Devil that we think so strong an adversary Let us a little consider his strength he may be considered either as an inward enemy suggesting unto us sinful thoughts or as an outward enemy lying in wait to afflict us in body in goods or the like First against us inwardly he hath no force of his own from our selves it is that he borrows this strength to overthrow us In Paradise he borrowed the Serpent to abuse us but now every man is that Serpent by which himself is abused For as Hannibal having overthrown the Romans took their armour and fought against them with their own weapons so the Devil arms himself against us with our own strength our senses our will our appetite with these weapons he fights against us and uses us against our selves let us but recover our own again and the Devil will be disarm'd Think you that the Devil is an immediate stickler in every sin that is committed I know ye do But take heed lest this be but an excuse to unlode your faults upon the Devil and to build them upon his back for St. Chrysostom thought otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Devils hand says he is not in every fault many are done meerly by our own carelesness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A negligent careless person sins though the Devil never tempt him Let the truth of this lie where it will I think I may safely speak thus much that if we would but shut up our wills and use that grace of God which is offered I doubt not but a great part of this suggesting power of his would fall to nothing As for that other force of his by which he lies in wait to annoy us outwardly why should we so dread that Are there not more with us both in multitude and strength to preserve us The Angel of the Lord saith the Psalmist pitches his tents round about those that fear him to deliver them and the Apostle assures us that the Angels are ministring spirits sent forth for those that shall be heirs of salvation Shall we think that the strength of those to preserve is less then that of the evil Angels to destroy One Garcaeus writing upon the Meteors told me long since that whereas many times before great tempests there is wont to be heard in the air above us great noise and rushing the cause of this was the banding of good and evil Angels the one striving to annoy us with tempests the other striving to preserve us from the danger of it And I doubt not but as about Moses body so about every faithful person these do contend the one to hazard the other to deliver Yea but the Devil inspires into us evil thoughts well and cannot good Angels inspire good they are all for any thing appears by the Law of their Creation equal and shall we think that God did give unto the Devil an inspiring faculty to entangle which he denied to his good Angels to free us from Though good Angels could not inspire good thoughts yet God both can and doth So that for any thing yet appears we have no such cause to stand in fear of the strength of the Devil either inwardly or outwardly Thus have I examined the force of three of our principal enemies I could proceed to examine other particulars of this army of our adversaries the World the Flesh Persecutions and the rest and make the like question of them as I have done of these and so conclude as Socrates did to Alcibiades If you have just cause to fear none of these why should you fear them all since that of such as these the whole knot of them consists But I must proceed to search out yet another meaning of this word of doing in my Text and that breifly Thirdly therefore we may take this word of doing in its largest sense as if the Apostle had meant literally that indeed a Christian can do all things that he had such a power and command over the creature as that he could do with it what he list In which sense it is likewise true though with some limitation and here is the third degree of our Christian Omnipotency In the former parts the omnipotence of a Christian suffered no restraint it was illimited unconfin'd He is absolutely omnipotent in his patience and can suffer all things he is likewise absolutely omnipotent in Battel and can conquer all his enemies But in this third signification his power seems to be streightned for how many things are there which no Christian man can do yet is he so streightned as that his Omnipotency suffers not We are taught in the Schools though God be Omnipotent yet many things may be named which he cannot do He cannot deny Himself He cannot lie He cannot sin He cannot die Yet may we not conclude that therefore God is not Omnipotent for therefore is he the more Omnipotent because he cannot do these things for ability to do these things is imperfection and weakness but in God we must conceive nothing but what argues perfection and strength In some degree we may apply this unto our selves in things that tend to Christian perfection every Christian is Omnipotent he cannot raise the dead turn water into wine speak with tongues True but if he could had he for this any further degree of perfection above other Christians our Saviour seems to deny it For many saith he at that day shall come and say Have we not cast out devils and wrought miracles in thy name And he will answer them Away I know you not Beloved our Saviour loves not to sleight any part of Christian perfection yet my meaning is not to deny unto a Christian the power of doing miracles for every Christian man doth every day greater miracles then yet I have spoken of But Beloved in this matter of miracles we do much abuse our selves for why seems it unto us a greater miracle that our Saviour
that by reason of their calling they debar themselves of many the thriving Arts of the world it must needs be that if riches do come upon them that God himself doth extraordinarily pour them on Wherefore good men must not consider how much or how little it is they have but the means by which it comes unto them All the Prophets and Apostles which were hungry had not that offer which St. Peter had all kind of flesh let down from heaven and free choice to eat of what they listed When Daniel was in Babylon in the Lions Den God sends his Angel into Iewry takes a Prophet by the hair of the head carries him into Babylon and all to carry but a mess of pottage for Daniel's dinner Daniel's fare is meaner then St. Peter's but the miracle is as great and the care of God is the same The righteous man that hath much is as St. Peter he that hath least is as Daniel the word and promise of God is alike made good unto them both And thus much of these two Errours of which the due avoiding shall keep us from mistaking of those promises and charging God foolishly Now because much of that which we have formerly spoken was spent in proving that God doth force the world many times even in a very eminent sort to serve the necessities and purposes of those that are his yet since ordinarily the case of good men in the things of this world is meaner then that of the world's children their riches are many times small if they be any at all and promotion looks little after them That we may a little the better content our selves and know in what case we stand give me leave to shew you how it comes about that the wicked though they have no promise yet have a larger portion in the world's blessings then the godly Where it shall appear that it cannot otherwise be except it should please God to alter the ordinary course of the world The first cause therefore that the sons of this world thus usually climb aloft above the sons of God and nest themselves in the tallest Cedars is their infinite and importunate Ambition From this root hath sprung forth both that infinite mass of wealth which private men and that boundless compass of Government which great princes have attain'd unto Nothing was ever more unjust then the raising of these great Kingdoms and if the Laws of equity and moderation might have taken place they had never been St. Austin saw no difference between the Roman Empire and Spartacus his conspiracy onely the one lasted a little longer and this makes no difference in the thing it self And hence it is that God gave limits and bounds unto the Kingdom which his people had and having poured out the vials of his wrath upon the usurping people that held the Land of promise from them to whom it was due he permitted not the Iews to grate too much upon the bordering Nations And this is the reason why the Iews that in all other respects went side by side or rather before the rest of the world onely in latitude of Kingdom yeilded to the Monarchs of the earth For the one made the will of God the other their own ambition the measure of their desires The most moderate and wisest kind of men are many times slowest in giving entertainment to these great thoughts of heart In Iotham's parable in the Book of Iudges where the Trees go forth to chuse a King the Olive would not leave his fatness nor the Vine his fruit nor the Fig-tree his sweetness no not for a Kingdom Onely the Brier the basest of all shrubs no sooner had the Trees made the motion to him but he is very apprehensive of it and thinks himself a goodly creature fit to make a King of Sober men who best understand the nature of business know well how great a charge extraordinary wealth◠and places of Authority bring with them There is none so poor but hath his time to make an account of were there nothing but this what a sum would this amount unto Add unto these our Words unto Words Actions unto all these Wealth and Ability and last of all Honour and Authority how do each of these successively like places in Arithmetick infinitely increase the sum of our accounts No marvel then if wise and considerate men are slow in tasking themselves so heavily and rather content themselves quietly at home Let the world go well or ill so it be not long of them The second thing that makes them come on in the world is their spacious wide and unlimited conscience which can enlarge it self to the swallowing of any means that bring gain and preferment with them he that once hath cauterized and seared his conscience and put on a resolution to gain by all occasions must needs quickly grow rich But good men are evermore shie and scrupulous what they do though there be no apparent occasion Evil is of a slie insinuating nature it will creep in at every little passage all the care and wariness we can possibly use to prevent it is too little When David had cut off the lap of Saul's garment the Scripture tells us that his heart smote him because he had done this thing I have often wondred with my self what it was that in an action so innocent and harmless done with so hohourable intent onely to bring a testimony of his innocency and righteousness might thus importunately trouble his conscience He intended no wrong unto Saul not so much as in his thought yet had he but a little advised himself through scruple and tenderness of conscience he would not have used so harmless a witness of his innocency Common reason told St. Paul that the labourer is worthy of his hire and by instinct of the holy Ghost himself learn'd and taught that it was but justice and equity that men that labour in the Gospel should live by the Gospel Who feeds a flock eats not the milk and clothes not himself with the wooll of it yet notwithstanding that he might take away all occasion of evil that lazie and idle drones who suck the sweet of other men's labours might not take example by him to live at other mens cost that he might make the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free without any charge that men that have no silver might come and buy and eat might come I say and buy the wine and milk of the Word without money that the Gospel might not be slandered as a means of gain he would not use that liberty that God and men gave him neither would he eat the milk or wear the wooll of his own flock but with his own hands and labours purchas'd himself his necessary maintenance What hope of these mens extraordinary thriving who are so nice and scrupulous of what they finger What then must we think of those that abuse godliness unto gain that refuse to do deeds of charity except
they bring them in some revenue that read Scripture for no other purpose but to cull out certain thrifty Texts to pretend unto their covetousness and distrust as that Charity begins from it self that he is worse then an infidel that provides not for his family But as for those other Scriptures that perswade us to be open-handed to lend looking for nothing again having two coats to part with him that hath none these we can gently pass by as Meteors and aiery speculations and think we have done God and men good service when we have invented some shifting interpretation to put them and remove them out of the way When Azahel wounded by Abner lay in the way wallowing in his own bloud the people which followed after Abner stood still as they came to Azahel till he was removed out of the way Men are willing to be Christians and yet unwilling to leave the thriving courses which the world takes when in their pursuit of gain they meet with these or the like places of holy Scripture cannot chuse but be much amused and stand still as it were at Azahel's body Now those that have been the Authours of certain mollifying Paraphrases and distinctions and the like have removed these harsher places of Scripture as it were Azahel's body and made the way open and clear to our covetous desires How scrupulous our fore-fathers were in expounding of these or the like Texts of Scripture themselves have left us notable Monuments St. Basil makes a strange Supposition and to it gives as strange an Answer Wert thou brought saith he unto those streights that thou hadst but one loaf of bread left and that thou knew'st no means to provide other when that is spent if there should come some poor and needy man and ask thee food what thinkest thou is thy duty to do Even to take that one loaf and put it into the hands of him that requires it and looking up unto heaven say Lord thou seest this one loaf thou knowest the streights in which I am and that there is no other means but thy providence yet have I preferr'd the keeping of thy commands before mine own necessities Beloved this is a point of piety cujus non andeo dicere nomen I should scarcely durst to have taught it had I not had the warrant of so grave a man For in this Age we are taught that we must begin from our selves that we must not tempt God by making our selves destitute of means and other such thriving doctrines which strongly savour of love unto the world and distrust in God's promises There may be many reasons of mollifying some texts of Scripture and restraining them but amongst those let that be the last which is drawn from our commodity and so there be no other cause to hinder let not respect to our persons or to our purses restrain any Scripture from that latitude and compass of sense of which it is naturally capable I will yet draw a third reason why the wicked should thrive in the world above the rate of beâ—ter men and that is the negotiating of the Divil in these cases who doubtless busies himself exceedingly that those who do him service may have their hire and therefore whatsoever he can do in disposing of the things of the world he will effect and with all his might strive that their ambitious and partial and covetous desires may have good success Doubtless it was an overlashing speech which the Divil used unto our Saviour when he offered him all the Kingdoms of the world upon condition he would fall down and worship him For whatsoever the issue of the temptation had been he could not have made his promise good Yet certainly there are many cases unknown to us wherein the Divil by God's permission does dispose of the world Iob in his losses and afflictions takes notice of no such thing yet we all know that the divil had an especial hand in them Wherefore wicked men if God do not hinder doubtless have all the service that the world and the divil possibly can do them and on the contrary side could the divil and the world hinder good men should have nothing at all Needs therefore must they thrive that have the divil and the world to farther them and to do them all the good offices they can Many other reasons may you frame to your selves why the wicked should thus flourish in the world which I must leave to your private Meditations For I must not forget that there is yet a good part of my Text behind Now as Homer is wont to tell us when he speaks of Rivers and Mountains that men indeed call them thus and thus but the gods have other names for them so you must know that hitherto we have spoken of profit and gain as men are wont to like of it we will now speak of it in a sense that God and holy Saints are wont to use For besides this first there is a second profit of Godliness by which it doth reflect upon the former Care and industry without godliness brings in the things of the world upon us but in this case we cannot call them profits What profit is it for a man to gain the whole world and to lose his own soul Godliness it is therefore that makes even profit it self profitable For the true profit is the enjoying using and bestowing of them and this alone doth piety teach So that piety serves not onely as a Bayly to bring them in but as an Instructor to teach us how to lay them out For it is a greater part of wisdom wisely to dispend them when we have them then to get them at the first As one told Hannibal that he knew how to conquer better then how to use the Victory so many there are in the world who know how to gather but few that know how to use How many do our eyes see every day who make no end of heaping up wealth but never bethink themselves how to employ it By lying thus idly by us it gathers a rust as St. Iames tells us which rust eats out our soul but piety Abdita terris inimica lamnae washes off the rust of it and makes it bright by using it One onely true use there is of these outward blessings and that is it which our Saviour teaches in the Gospel Make ye friends saith he of the unrighteous Mammon The world I know makes it profit enough to have it but this other profit that comes by expence and laying it out it can hardly be brought to learn Many there are that can be content to hear that Godliness is profitable to them but that Godliness should make them profitable to others it should cost them any thing that they cannot endure to hear It was St. Basil's observation of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know many saith he that can with some ease be brought to fast to pray to lament and mourn for sin to perform all