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
part in them as much as may be so if we look into a Christian man as he is proposed to us in the Gospel we may justly marvel to what purpose God hath planted in him this faculty and passion of anger since he hath so little use of it and the Gospel in a manner doth spiritually diet and physick him for it and endeavours much to abate if not quite to purge out that quality Beloved we have hitherto seen who Iacob is and what manner of man the Christian is that is described unto us in holy Scripture Let us a little consider his brother Esau the Christian in passage and who commonly in the account of the world goes for one Is he so gentle and tractable a creature Is his countenance so smooth his body so free from gall and spleen To try this as the Devil sometimes spake unto Iob Touch him in his goods touch him in his body and see if he will not curse thee to thy face so touch this man a little in his goods touch him in his reputation and honour touch him in any thing that he loves for this is the onely way to try how far these commands of peace and forbearance and long suffering prevail with us and see if he will not forget and loose all his patience Which of us is there that understands the words and precepts of our Saviour in their litteral sense and as they lie The precepts of suffering wrong rather then to go to Law of yeilding the coat to him that would take the cloak of readiness to receive more wrongs then to revenge one these and all the Evangelical commands of the like nature Interpretamento detorquemus we have found out favourable interpretations and glosses restrictions and evasions to wind our selves out of them to shift them all off and put them by and yet pass for sound and currant Christians We think we may be justly angry continue long Suits in Law call to the Magistrate for revenge yea sometimes take it into our own hands all this and much more we think we may lawfully and with good reason do any precept of Christ to the contrary notwithstanding And as it usually comes to pass the permitting and tolerating lesser sins opens way to greater so by giving passage and inlet to those lesser impatiences an discontents we lay open a gap to those fouler crimes even of murther and bloudshed For as men commonly suppose that all the former breaches of our patience which but now I mentioned may well enough stand with the duties of Christians so there are who stay not here but think that in some cases it may be lawful yea peradventure necessary at least very pardonable for Christians privately to seek each others bloud and put their lives upon their swords without any wrong to their vocation out of this have sprung many great inconveniences both private and publick First Laws made too favourable in case of bloudshed Secondly a too much facility and easiness in Princes and Magistrates sometimes to give pardon and release for that crime Thirdly and cheifly for it is the special cause indeed that moved me to speak in this Argument an over promptness in many young men who desire to be counted men of valour and resolution upon every sleight occasion to raise a quarrel and admit of no other means of composing and ending it but by sword and single Combat Partly therefore to shew the grievousness and greatness of this sin of Bloudshed and partly to give the best counsel I can for the restraint of those conceits and errours which give way unto it I have made choice of these few words out of the Old Testament which but now I read In the New Testament there is no precept given concerning Bloudshed The Apostles seem not to have thought that Christians ever should have had need of such a prohibition For what needed to forbid those to seek each others Bloud who are not permitted to speak over hastily one to another When therefore I had resolved with my self to speak something concerning the sin of Bloud-shed I was in a manner constrain'd to reflect upon the Old Testament and make choise of these words And the Land cannot be purged of Bloud that is shed in it but by the Bloud of him that shed it In which words for my more orderly proceeding I will observe these two general parts First the greatness of the sin Secondly the means to cleanse and satisfie for the guilt of it The first that is the greatness of the sin is expressed by two circumstances First by the generality extent and largeness of the guilt of it and secondly by the difficulty of cleansing it The largeness and compass of the guilt of this sin is noted unto us in the word Land and the Land cannot be purged It is true in some sense of all sins Nemo sibi uni errat no man sins in private and to himself alone For as the Scripture notes of that action of Iepthe when he vowed his daughter unto God That it became a Custom in Israel so is it in all sins The errour is onely in one person but the example spreads far and wide and thus every man that sins sins against the whole Land yea against the whole world For who can tell how far the example and infection of an evil action doth spread In other sins the infection is no larger then the disease but this sin like a plague one brings the infection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but thousands die for it yet this sin of Bloud diffuses and spreads it self above all other sins for in other sins noxa sequitur caput the guilt of them is confined to the person that committed them God himself hath pronounced of them The son shall not bear the sins of the father the soul that sinneth shall die the death But the sin of Bloud seems to claim an exception from this Law if by time it be not purged like the frogs of Egypt the whole land stank of them it leaves a guilt upon the whole land in which it is committed Other sins come in like Rivers and break their banks to the prejudice and wrong of private persons but this comes in like a Sea raging and threatning to overwhelm whole Countreys If Bloud in any land do lie unrevenged every particular soul hath cause to fear lest part of the penalty fall on him We read in the Books of Kings that long after Saul's death God plagued the Land of Iewry with three years famine because Saul in his life-time without any just cause shed the Bloud of some of the Gibeonites neither the famine ceased till seven of Saul's nephews had died for it In this story there are many things rare and worth our observation First the generality and extent of the guilt of Bloud-shed which is the cause for which I urged it it drew a general famine on the whole Land Secondly the continuance and length of the punishment
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉