have offered the exposal of his Daughters to the Iusts of the beastly Sodomites though it were to redeem his guests from the abuse of â—ouler and more abominable filthiness Absolutely there cannot be a Case imagined wherein it should be impossible to avoid one sin unless by the committing of another The Case which of all other cometh nearest to a Perplexity is that of an erroneous Conscience Because of a double bond the bond of God's Law which to transgress is a sin and the bond of particular Conscience which also to transgress is a sin Whereupon there seemeth to follow an inevitable necessity of sinning when God's Law requireth one thing and particular conscience dictateth the flat contrary for in such a case a man must either obey God's Law and so sin against his own conscience or obey his own conscience and so sin against God's Law But neither in this case is there any perplexity at all in the things themselves that which there is is through the default of the man only whose judgment being erroneous mis-leadeth his conscience and so casteth him upon a necessity of sinning But yet the necessity is no simple and absolute and unavoidable and perpetual necessity for it is only a necessity ex hypothesi and for a time and continueth but stante tali errore And still there is a way out betwixt those sins and that without a third and that way is deponere erroneam conscientiam He must rectifie his judgment and reform the error of his Conscience and then all is well There is no perplexity no necessity no obligation no expediency which should either enforce or perswade us to any sin The resolution is damnable Let us do evil that good may come I must take leave before I pass from this point to make two Instances and to measure out from the Rule of my Text an answer to them both They are such as I would desire you of this place to take due and special consideration of I desire to deal plainly and I hope it shall be by God's blessing upon it effectually for your good and the Churches peace One instance shall be in a sin of Commission and the other in a sin of Omission The sin of Commission wherein I would instance is indeed a sin beyond Commission it is the usurping of the Magistrates Office without a Commission The Question is Whether the zealous intention of a good end may not warrant it good or at least excuse it from being evil and a sin I need not frame a Case for the illustration of this instance the inconsiderate forwardness of some hath made it to my hand You may read it in the disfigured windows and walls of this Church Pictures and Statua's and Images and for their sakes the windows and walls wherein they stood have been heretofore and of late pulled down and broken in pieces and defaced without the Command or so much as leave of those who have power to reform things amiss in that kind Charity bindeth us to think the best of those that have done it that is they did it out of a forward though misgoverned zeal intending therein Gods glory in the farther suppression of Idolatry by taking away these as they supposed likely occasions of it Now in such a case as this the question is Whether the intention of such an end can justifie such a deed And the fact of Phineas Numb 25. who for a much like end for the staying of the people from Idolatry executed vengeance upon Zimri and Cosbi being but a private man and no Magistrate seemeth to make for it But my Text ruleth it otherwise If it be evil it is not to be done no not for the preventing of Idolatry I pass by some considerations otherwise of good moment as namely first whether Statua's and Pictures may not be permitted in Christian Churches for the adorning of God's House and for civil and historical uses not only lawfully and decently but even profitably I must confess I never heard substantial reason given why they might not at the least so long as there is no apparent danger of superstition And secondly whether things either in their first erection or by succeeding abuse superstitious may not be profitably continued if the Superstition be abolished Otherwise not Pictures only and Crosses and Images but most of our Hospitals and Schools and Colleges and Churches too must down and so the hatred of Idolatry should but usher in licentious Sacrilege contrary to that passage of our Apostle in the next Chapter before this Thou that abhorrest Idols committest thou Sacrilege And thirdly whether these forward ones have not bewrayed somewhat their own self-guiltiness in this act at least for the manner of it in doing it secretly and in the dark A man should not dare to do that which he would not willingly either be seen when it is doing or own being done To pass by these consider no more but this one thing only into what dangerous and unsufferable absurdities a man might run if he should but follow these mens grounds Erranti nullus terminus Error knoweth no stay and a false Principle once received multiplieth into a thousand absurd conclusions It is good for men to go upon sure grounds else they may run and wander in insinitum A little error at the first if there be way given to it will increase beyond belief As a small spark may fire a large City and a cloud no bigger than a mans hand in short space overspread the face of the whole Heavens For grant for the suppression of Idolatry in case the Magistrate will not do his office that it is lawful for a private man to take upon him to reform what he thinketh amiss and to do the part and office of a Magistrate which must needs have been their ground if they had any for this action there can be no sufficient cause given why by the same reason and upon the same grounds a private man may not take upon him to establish Laws raise Powers administer Iustice execute Malefactors or do any other thing the Magistrate should do in case the Magistrate slack to do his duty in any of the premises Which if it were once granted as granted it must be if these mens fact be justifiable every wise man seeth the end could be no other but vast Anarchy and confusion both in Church and Commonwealth whereupon must unavoidably follow the speedy subversion both of Religion and State If things be amiss and the Magistrate help it not private men may lament it and as occasion serveth and their condition and calling permitteth soberly and discreetly put the Magistrate in mind of it But they not make themselves Magistrates to reform it And as to the act of Phinehas though I rather think he did yet what if he did not well in so doing It is a thing we are not certain of and we must
regarding the secret whisperings or murmurings no nor yet the loud roarings and bellowings of their own Consciences there against Stat contra ratio secretam gannit in aurem It doth so but yet they turn a deaf ear to it and despise it Wonder not if when they out of the terrors of their troubled Consciences shall howl and roar in the ears of the Almighty for mercy or for some mitigation at least of their torment he then turn a deaf ear against them and despise them To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is sin Iames 4. Sin not to be excused by any plea or colour But how much more inexcusably then is it sin to him that knoweth the evil he should not do and yet will do it There is not a proner way to Hell than to sin against Conscience Happy is he which condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth but most wretched is he that alloweth himself to the practice of that which in his judgment he cannot but condemn Neither maketh it any difference at all here whether a man be otherwise sui juris or no. For although there be a great respect due to the higher powers in doubtful cases as I shall touch anon yet where the thing required is simply unlawful and understood so to be Inferiours must absolutely resolve to disobey whatsoever come of it God's faithful servants have ever been most resolute in such exigents We are not careful to answer thee in this matter belike in a matter of another nature they would have taken care to have given the King a more satisfactory at least a more respective answer but in this matter be it known to thee O King that we will not serve thy gods Da veniam Imperator c You know whose answers they were If we be sure God hath forbidden it we sin against our own consciences if we do it at the command of any mortal man whosoever or upon any worldly inducement whatsoever That is the first Conclusion The second is this If a man be in his conscience fully perswaded that a thing is evil and unlawful which yet in truth is not so but lawful the thing by him so judged unlawful cannot by him be done without sin Even an erroneous conscience bindeth thus far that a man cannot go against it and be guiltless because his practice should then run cross to his judgment and so the thing done could not be of Faith For if his reason judge it to be evil and yet he will do it it argueth manifestly that he hath a will to do evil and so becometh a transgressor of that General Law which bindeth all men to eschew all evil Yet in this case we must admit of some difference according to the different nature of the things and the different condition of the persons For if the things so judged unlawful be in their own Nature not necessary but indifferent so as they may either be done or left undone without sin and the Person withal be sui juris in respect of such things no superiour power having determined his liberty therein then although he may not do any of these things by reason of the contrary perswasion of his conscience without sin yet he may without sin leave them undone As for example Say a man should hold it utterly unlawful as some erroneously do to play at cards or dice or to lay a wager or to cast lots in trivial matters if it be in truth lawful to do every of these things as I make no question but it is so they be done with sobriety and with due circumstances yet he that is otherwise perswaded of them cannot by reason of that perswasion do any of them without sin Yet forsomuch as they are things no way necessary but indifferent both in their nature and for their use also no superiour power having enjoyned any man to use them therefore he that judgeth them unlawful may abstain from them without sin and so indeed he is in conscience bound to do so long as he continueth to be of that opinion But now on the other side if the things so mis-judged to be unlawful be any way necessary either in respect of their own nature or by the injunction of authority then the person is by that his error brought into such a strait between two sins as he can by no possible means avoid both so long as he persisteth in that his error For both if he do the thing he goeth against the perswasion of his Conscience and that is a great sin and if he do it not either he omitteth a necessary duty or else disobeyeth lawful Authority and to do either of both is a sin too Out of which snare since there is no way of escape but one which is to rectifie his Iudgment and to quit his pernicious Error it concerneth every man therefore that unfeignedly desireth to do his duty in the fear of God and to keep a good Conscience not to be too stiff in his present apprehensions but to examine well the Principles and Grounds of his opinions strongly suspecting that wind that driveth him upon such rocks to be but a blast of his own fancy rather than a breathing of the holy Spirit of truth Once this is most certain that whosoever shall adventure to do any thing repugnant to the Judgment of his own Conscience be that Judgment true or be it false shall commit a grievous sin in so doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it cannot be of Faith and whatsoever is not of Faith is sin That is now where the Conscience apparently inclineth the one way But say the scales hang even so as a man cannot well resolve whether way he should rather take now he is in one mind by and by in another but constant in neither right S. Iames his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a double minded man This is it we call a doubting conscience concerning which the second question is what a man ought to do in case of doubtfulness Perfect directions here as in most deliberatives would require a large discourse because there are so many considerable circumstances that may vary the case especially in respect of the cause from which that doubtfulness of mind may spring Many times it ariseth from meer fickleness of mind or weakness of judgment as the lightest things are soonest driven out of their place by the wind Even as S. Iames saith a double minded man is wavering in all his ways and S. Paul speaketh of some that were like children off and on soon wherried about with every blast of doctrine Sometimes it proceedeth from tenderness of Conscience which is indeed a very blessed and gracious thing but yet as tender things may soon miscarry if they be not the more choicely handled very abnoxious through Satans diligence and subtilty to be wrought upon to dangerous inconveniences Sometimes it
any one man for another and to the third Why God should punish the lesser offender for the greater In which and all other doubts of like kind it is enough for the clearing of God's justice to consider that when God doth so they are first only temporal punishments which he so inflicteth and those secondly no more than what the sufferer by his own Sins hath most rightfully deserved All those other considerations as that the Prince and People are but one Body and so each may feel the smart of others sins and stripes That oftentimes we have given way to other mens sins when we might have stopped them or consent when we should have withstood them or silent allowance when we should have checked them or perhaps furtherance when we should rather have hindred them That the punishments brought upon us for our fathers or other mens sins may turn to our great spiritual advantage in the humbling of our Souls the subduing of our Corruptions the increasing of our Care the exercising of our Graces That where all have deserved the punishment it is left to the discretion of the Iudge whom he will pick out the Father or the Son the Governour or the Subject the Ring-leader or the Follower the Greater or the Lesser Offender to shew exemplary justice upon as he shall see expedient I say all these and other like Considerations many though they are to be admitted as true and observed as useful yet they are such as belong rather to God's Providence and his Wisdom than to his Iustice. If therefore thou knowest not the very particular reason why God should punish thee in this or that manner or upon this or that occasion let it suffice thee that the Counsels and purposes of God are secret and thou art not to enquire with sorupolous curiosity into the dispensation and courses of his Providence farther than it hath pleased him either to reveal it in his Word or by his manifest Works to discover it unto thee But whatsoever thou dost never make question of his Iustice. Begin first to make inquiry into thine own self and if after impartial search thou there findest not corruption enough to deserve all-out as much as God hath laid upon thee then complain of Injustice but not before And so much for the Doubts Let us now from the premises raise some instructions for our use First Parents we think have reason to be careful and so they have for their children and to desire and labour as much as in them lieth their well-doing Here is a fair course then for you that are parents and have children to care for do you that which is good and honest and right and they are like to fare the better for it Wouldest thou then Brother leave thy lands and thy estate to thy Child entire and free from Incumbrances It is an honest care but here is the way Abstineas igitur damnandis Leave them free from the guilt of thy sins which are able to cumber them beyond any statute or mortgage If not the bond of God's Law if not the care of thine own Soul if not the fear of Hell if not the inward checks of thine own Conscience At peccaturo obstet tibi filius infans at the least let the good of thy poor sweet infants restrain thee from doing that sin which might pull down from heaven a plague upon them and theirs Go to then do not applaud thy self in thy witty villanies when thou hast circumvented and prospered when Ahab-like thou hast killed and taken possession when thou hast larded thy leaner Revenues with fat collops sacrilegiously cut out of the sides or flanks of the Church and hast nailed all these with all the appurtenances by Fines and Vouchers and Entails as firm as Law can make them to thy child and his child and his childs child for ever After all this stir cast up thy bills and see what a goodly bargain thou hast made thou hast damned thy self to undo thy Child thou hast brought a curse upon thine own Soul to purchase that for thy Child which will bring a curse both upon it and him When thy Indentures were drawn and thy learned Council fee'd to peruse the Instrument and with exact severity to ponder with thee every clause and syllable therein could none of you spy a flaw in that clause with all and singular th' appurtenances neither observe that thereby thou didst settle upon thy Posterity together with thy Estate the wrath and vengeance and curse of God which is one of those appurtenances Hadst thou not a faithful Counsellor within thine own Breast if thou wouldst but have conferred and advised with him plainly and undissemblingly that could have told thee thou hadst by thy Oppression and Injustice ipso facto cut off the entail from thy Issue even long before thou hadst made it But if thou wouldst leave to thy posterity a firm and secure and durable estate do this rather purchase for them by thy charitable works the prayers and blessings of the poor settle upon them the fruits of a religious sober and honest education bequeath them the legacy of thy good example in all vertuous and godly living and that portion thou leavest them besides of earthly things be it much or little be sure it be well-gotten otherwise never look it should prosper with them A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and sowereth it and a little ill gotten like a Gangreen spreadeth through the whole estate and worse than Aqua fortis or the poisoned shirt that Dejanira gave Hercules cleaveth unto it and feedeth upon it and by little and little gnaweth and fretteth and consumeth it to nothing And surely God's Iustice hath wonderfully manifested it self unto the World in this kind sometimes even to the publick astonishment and admiration of all men that men of ancient Families and great Estates well left by their Ancestors and free from Debts Legacies or other Encumbrances not notedly guilty of any expenceful sin or vanity but wary and husbandly and careful to thrive in the World not kept under with any great burden of needy friends or charge of Children not much hindred by any extraordinary losses â—or casualities of fire thieves suretiship or sutes that such men I say should yet sink and decay and run behind hand in the World and their Estates crumble and moulder away and come to nothing and no man knoweth how No question but they have sins enough of their own to deserve all this and ten times more than all this but yet withal who knoweth but that it might nay who knoweth not that sometimes it doth so legible now and then are Gods Iudgments come upon them for the greediness and avarice and oppression and sacrilege and injustice of their not long foregoing Ancestors You that are parents take heed of these sins It may be for some other reasons known best to himself God suffereth you to go
and power over the Creatures First if any shall oppose the legal Prohibitions of the Old Testament whereby some Creatures were forbidden the Iews pronounced by God himself unclean and decreed unlawful it should not trouble us For whatever the principal reasons were for which those prohibitions were then made unto them as there be divers reasons given thereof by Divines both ancient and modern certain it is they now concern not us The Church during her non-age and pupillage though she were Heir of all and had right to all yet was to be held under Tutors and Governours and to be trained up under the Law of Ceremonies as under a School master during the appointed time But When the fulness of the time appointed was come her wardship expired and livery sued out as it were by the coming and suffering of Christ in the flesh the Church was then to enter upon her full Royalties and no more to be burdened with those beggarly rudiments of legal observances The hand-writing of Ordinances was then blotted out and the muddy partition wall broken down and the legal impurity of the Creatures scowred off by the blood of Christ. They have little to do then but withal much to answer who by seeking to bring in Iudaism again into the Christian Church either in whole or in part do thereby as much as lieth in them though perhaps unawares to themselves yet indeed and in truth evacuate the Cross of Christ. In that large sheet of the Creatures which reacheth from Heaven to the Earth whatsoever we find we may freely kill and eat and use every other way to our comforts without scruple God having cleansed all we are not to call or esteem any thing common or unclean God having created all good we are to refuse nothing If any shall oppose secondly the seeming morality of some of these prohibitions as being given before the law of Ceremonies pressed from Moral Reasons and confirmed by Apostolical Constitution since upon which ground some would impose upon the Christian Church this as a perpetual yoke to abstain from blood Or thirdly the Prophanation which some Creatures have contracted by being used in the exercise of idolatrous Worship whereby they become Anathema and are to be held as execrable things as Achan's wedge was and the Brazen Serpent which Hezekiah stamped to powder upon which ground also some others have inferred an utter unlawfulness to use any thing in the Church which was abused in Popery by calling them Rags and Reliques of Idolatry neither this nor that ought to trouble us For although neither my aim which lieth another way nor the time will permit me now to give a just and full satisfying answer to the several Instances and their grounds yet the very words and weight of my Text do give us a clear resolution in the general and sufficient to rest our Consciences and our Iudgments and Practice upon that notwithstanding all pretensions of reason to the contrary yet these things for so much as they are still good ought not to be refused For the Apostle hath here laid a sure foundation and impregnable in that he groundeth the use upon the power and from the Goodness of the Creature inferreth the lawfulness of it Every Creature of God is good and nothing to be refused He concludeth it is therefore not to be refused because it is good So that look whatsoever Goodness there is in any Creature that is whatsoever natural power it hath which either immediately and of it self is or may by the improvement of human Art and Industry be taught to be of any use unto man for necessity nourishment service lawful delight or otherwise the Creature wherein such goodness or power is to be found may not be refused as upon tie of Conscience but that power and goodness it hath may lawfully be employed to those uses for which it is meet in regard thereof Ever provided we be careful to observe all those requisite conditions which must guide our Consciences and regulate our Practice in the use of all lawful and indifferent things They that teach otherwise lay burdens upon their own Consciences which they need not and upon the Consciences of their Brethren which they should not and are injurious to that liberty which the blessed Son of God hath purchased for his Church and which the blessed Spirit of God hath asserted in my Text. Injurious in the second place to this branch of our Christian liberty is the Church of Rome whom St. Paul in this passage hath branded with an indelible note of infamy inasmuch as those very Doctrines wherein he giveth instance as in Doctrines of Devils are the received Tenets and Conclusions of that Church Not to insist on other prejudices done to Christian liberty by the intolerable usurpation of the man of sin who exerciseth a spiritual Tyranny over mens Consciences as opposite to Evangelical liberty as Antichrist is to Christ let us but a little see how she hath fulfilled St. Paul's Prediction in teaching lying and devilish Doctrines and that with seared Consciences and in Hypocrisie in the two specialties mentioned in the next former Verse viz. forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from Meats Marriage the holy Ordinance of God instituted in the place and estate of Innocency honoured by Christ's presence at Cana in Galilee the Seed-plot of the Church and the sole allowed remedy against Incontinency and burning lusts by the Apostle commended as honourable in all men and commanded in case of ustion to all men is yet by this purple strumpet forbidden and that sub mortali to Bishops Priests Deacons Sub deacons Monks Friars Nuns in a word to the whole Clergy as they extend that title both Secular and Regular Wherein besides the Devilishness of the Doctrine in contrarying the Ordinance of God and in denying men subject to sinful lusts the lawful remedy and so casting them upon a necessity of sinning see if they do not teach this lye with seared Consciences For with what Conscience can they make the same thing a Sacrament in the Lay and Sacrilege in the Clergy With what Conscience permit Stews and forbid Marriage With what Conscience alledge Scriptures for the single life of Priests and yet confess it to be an Ordinance only of Ecclesiastical and not of Divine right With what Conscience confess Fornication to be against the Law of God and Priests Marriage only against the Law of holy Church and yet make Marriage in a Priest a far fouler sin than Fornication or Incest With what Conscience exact a vow of Continency from Clerks by those Canons which defend their open Incontinency With what Conscience forbid lawful Marriages to some and yet by dispensation allow unlawful Marriages to others And is not the like also done in the other particular concerning Meats The Laws of that
the Church is Besides these that do it thus by open Assault I would there were not others also that did by secret underminings go about to deprive us of that liberty which we have in Christ Jesus even then when they most pretend the maintenance of it They inveigh against the Church Governors as if they lorded it over Gods Heritage and against the Church Orders and Constitutions as if they were contrary to Christian liberty Wherein besides that they do manifest wrong to the Church in both particulars they consider not that those very accusations which they thus irreverently dart at the face of their Mother to whom they owe better respect but miss it do recoil pat upon themselves and cannot be avoided For whereas these Constitutions of the Church are made for Order Decency and Uniformity sake and to serve unto Edification and not with any intention at all to lay a tye upon the consciences of men or to work their judgments to an opinion as if there were some necessity or inherent holiness in the things required thereby neither do our Governours neither ought they to press them any further which is sufficient to acquit both the Governours from that Lording and the Constitutions from that trenching upon Christian liberty wherewith they are charged Alas that our brethren who thus accuse them should suffer themselves to be so far blinded with prejudices and partial affections as not to see that themselves in the mean time do really exercise a spiritual Lordship over their disciples who depend in a manner wholly upon their judgments by imposing upon their consciences sundry Magisterial conclusions for which they have no sound warrant from the written Word of God Whereby besides the great injury done to their brethren in the impeachment of their Christian liberty and leading them into error they do withal exasperate against them the minds of those that being in authority look to be obeyed and engage them in such sufferings as they can have no just cause of rejoyceing in For beloved this we must know that as it is injustice to condemn the innocent as well as it is injustice to clear the guilty and both these are equally abominable to the Lord so it is superstition to forbid that as sinful which is in truth indifferent and therefore lawful as well as it is superstition to enjoyn that as necessary which is in truth indifferent and therefore arbitrary Doth that heavy woe in Isa. 5. appertain think ye to them only that out of prophaneness call evil good and nothing at all concern them that out of preciseness call good evil Doth not he decline out of the way that turneth aside on the right hand as well as he that turneth on the left They that positively make that to be sin which the Law of God never made so to be how can they be excused from symbolizing with the Pharisees and the Papists in making the narrow ways of God yet narrower than they are teaching for Doctrines mens Precepts and so casting a snare upon the consciences of their brethren If our Church should press things as far and upon such grounds the one way as some forward spirits do the other way if as they say it is a sin to kneel at the Communion and therefore we charge you upon your consciences not to do it so the Church should say it is a sin not to kneel and therefore we require you upon your consciences to do it and so in all other lawful yet arbitrary Ceremonies possibly then the Church could no more be able to acquit her self from encroaching upon Christian Liberty than they are that accuse her for it Which since they have done and she hath not she is therefore free and themselves only guilty It is our duty for the better securing of our selves as well against those open impugners as against these secret underminers to look heedfully to our trenches and fortifications and to stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free lest by some device or other we be lifted out of it To those that seek to enthral us we should give place by subjection no not for an hour lest we be ensnared by our own default ere we be aware For indeed we cannot be ensnared in this kind but merely by our own default and therefore St. Paul often admonisheth us to take heed that none deceive spoil or beguile us as if it were in our power if we would but use requisite care thereunto to prevent it and as if it were our fault most if we did not prevent it And so in truth it is For we oftentimes betray away our own liberty when we might maintain it and so become servants unto men when we both might and ought to keep our selves free Which fault we shall be the better able to avoid when we shall know the true causes whence it springeth which are evermore one of these two an unsound head or an unsound heart Sometimes we esteem too highly of others so far as either to envassal our judgments to their opinions or to enthral our consciences to their precepts and that is our weakness there the fault is in the head Sometimes we apply our selves to the wills of others with an eye to our own benefit or satisfaction in some other carnal or worldly respect and that is our fleshliness there the fault is in the heart This latter is the worst and therefore in the first place to be avoided The most and worser sort unconscionable men do often transgress this way when for fear of a frown or worse displeasure or to curry favour with those they may have use of or in hope either of raising themselves to some advancement or of raising to themselves some advantage or for some other like respects they become officious instruments to others for the accomplishing of their lusts in such services as are evidently even to their own apprehensions sinful and wicked So Doeg did King Saul service in shedding the blood of fourscore and five innocent Priests and Absalom's Servants murdered their Masters brother upon his bare command and Pilate partly to gratifie the Iews but especially for fear of Caesar's displeasure gave sentence of death upon Iesus who in his own conscience he thought had not deserved it In such cases as these are when we are commanded by our superiors or required by our friends or any other way sollicited to do that which we know we cannot do without sin we are to maintain our liberty if we cannot otherwise fairly decline the service by a flat and peremptory denyal though it be to the greatest power upon earth As the three young men did to the great Nebuchadnezzar Be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy Gods nor worship the golden Image which thou hast set up And the ancient Christians to the heathen Emperours Daveniam Imperator tu
into which he fell a fresh remembrance withal of the matter of Uriah not without some grief and shame thereat As the distress Iosephs brethren met with in Aegypt Gen. 42. brought to their remembrance their treacherous dealings with him which was by probable computation at the least twenty years after the thing was done Yea and after their Fathers death which by the like probable computation was dear upon twenty year s more the remorse of the same sin wrought upon their Consciences afresh perplexing their hearts with new fears and jealousies True it is the sinner once throughly purged of the sin by repentance hath no more conscience of that sin in that fearful degree ordinarily as to be a perpetual rack to his soul and to torment him with restless doubtings of his reconcilement even to despair yet can it not chuse but put some affrightment into him to remember into what a desperate estate he had before plunged himself by his own wilful disobedience if God had not been infinitely gracious to him therein Great presumptions will not suffer him that hath repented them for ever quite to forget them and he shall never be able to remember them without shame and horrour 33. Great cause then had David to pray so earnestly as we see here he doth against them and as great cause have the best of us to use our best care and endeavour to avoid them being they spring from such a cursed root and are both so grievous to the holy Spirit of God and of such bitter consequence to the guilty offender Our next business will be the sin and danger being so great to learn what is best to be done on our part for the avoiding and preventing both of sin and danger Now the means of prevention our third discovery are First to seek help from the hand of God by praying with David here that the Lord would keep us back and then to put to our own helping hand by seconding our prayers with our best endeavours to keep our selves back from these presumptuous sins 34. A Iove Principium We have no stay nor command of our selves so masterful are our Wills and head-strong but that if God should leave us wholly to the wildness of our unruly nature and to take our own course we should soon run our selves upon our own ruin Like unto the horse and mule that have no understanding to guide themselves in a right and safe way but they must be holden in with bit and bridle put into their mouths else they will either do or find mischief If we be not kept back with strong hand and no other hand but the hand of God is strong enough to keep us back we shall soon run into all extremities of evil with the greatest impetuousness that can be as the horse rusheth into the battle running into every excess of riot as fast as any temptation is set before us and committing all manner of wickedness with all kind of greediness David knew it full well and therefore durst not trust his own heart too far but being jealous over himself with a Godly jealousie evermore he made God his refuge If at any time he had been kept back from sinning when some opportunity did seem to tempt or provoke him thereunto he blessed God for it for he saw it was Gods doing more than his own Blessed be the Lord that hath kept his servant from evil in the case of Nabal 1 Sam. 25. If at any time he desired to be kept back from sinning when Satan had laid a bait for him without suitable to some lust stirring within he sought to God for it for he knew that he must do it himself could not keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins here in the Text. Without his help and blessing all endeavours are in vain his help and blessing therefore must be sought for in the first place by prayer 35. But we may not think when we have so done that we have done all that lieth upon us to do and so an end of the business It is Gods blessing I confess that doth the deed not our endeavours but we are vain if we expect Gods blessing without doing our endeavours Can we be so sensless as to imagine it should serve our turn to say Lord keep us back and yet our selves in the mean time thrust forward as fast as we can No if we will have our prayers effectual and in their efficacy is our chiefest hope and comfort we must second our faithful prayers with our faithful endeavours Oculus ad Coelum manus ad clavum Then may we with confidence expect that God should do his part in keeping us back when we are duly careful to do our part also towards the keeping our selves back from presumptuous sins Against which sins the best and most sovereign preservatives I am yet able to prescribe are these fouâ— following It is every mans concernment and therefore I hope it shall be without offence if after the example of God himself in delivering the Law I speak to every mans soul as it were in particular 36. For the avoiding then of Presumptuous sins First be sure never to do any thing against the clear light of thine own Conscience Every known sin hath a spice of wilfulness and presumption in it The very composure of Davids Prayer in the present passage implieth as much in passing immediately after the mention of his secret and unknown sins to the mentioning of these presumptuous Sins as if there were scarce any medium at all between them And every sin against Conscience is a known sin A man hath not a heavier Foe than his own Conscience after he hath sinned nor before he sin a faster Friend Oh take heed of losing such a Friend or of making it of a Friend an Accuser If I should see one that I loved well fall into the company of a â—heater or other crafty Companion that would be sure to inveigle him in some ill bargain or draw him into some hurtful inconvenience if he should close with him of whom yet he had no suspicion I should do but the part of a Friend to take him aside tell him who had him in hand and bid him look well to himself and beware a cheat But if he should after such warning given grow into farther familiarity with him and I should still give him signs one after another to break off speech and to quit the company of such a dangerous fellow and all to no purpose Who could either pity him or blame me if I should leave him at last to be gulled and fooled that set so little by the wholsom and timely admonitions of his friend Much greater than his is thy folly if thou neglectest the warnings and despisest the murmurings of thine own conscience Thou sufferest it but deservedly if thy Conscience having so often warned thee in vain at length grow weary of that office and leave thee
making can or does injoyn even the performance of that inward Law which Almighty God hath imprinted in the Conscience of all good Christians and inclines those whom he loves to perform He considering this did therefore become a Law to himself practising not only what the Law injoyns but what his Conscience told him was his Duty in reconciling differences and preventing Law-suits both in his Parish and in the Neighbourhood To which may be added his often visiting sick and disconsolate Families perswading them to patience and raising them from dejection by his advice and chearful discourse and by adding his own Alms if there were any so poor as to need it considering how acceptable it is to Almighty God when we do as we are advis'd by St. Paul help to bear one anothers burthen either of sorrow or want and what a comfort it will be when the Searcher of all hearts shall call us to a strict account as well for that evil we have done as the good we have omitted to remember we have comforted and been helpful to a dejected or distressed Family And that his practice was to do good the following Narrative may be one Example He met with a poor dejected Neighbour that complain'd he had taken a Meadow the Rent of which was 9 l. a year and when the Hay was made ready to be carried into his Barn several days constant rain had so raised the water that a sudden Flood carried all away and his rich Landlord would bate him no Rent and that unless he had half abated he and seven Children were utterly undone It may be noted That in this Age there are a sort of people so unlike the God of mercy so void of the bowels of pity that they love only themselves and children love them so as not to be concern'd whether the rest of mankind waste their days in sorrow or shame People that are curst with riches and a mistake that nothing but riches can make them and theirs happy But 't was not so with Dr. Sanderson for he was concern'd and spoke comfortably to the poor dejected man bade him go home and pray and not load himself with sorrow for he would go to his Landlord next morning and if his Landlord would not abate what he desired he and a Friend would pay it for him To the Landlord he went the next day and in a conference the Doctor presented to him the sad condition of his poor dejected Tenant telling him how much God is pleas'd when men compassionate the poor and told him That though God loves Sacrifice yet he loves Mercy so much better that he is best pleas'd when he is call'd the God of mercy And told him the riches he was possest of were given him by that God of mercy who would not be pleas'd if he that had so much given yea and forgiven him to should prove like the rich Steward in the Gospel that took his fellow servant by the throat to make him pay the utmost farthing This he told him And told him That the Law of this Nation by which Law he claims his Rent does not undertake to make men honest or merciful that was too nice an undertaking but does what it can to restrain men from being dishonest or unmerciful and yet that our Law was defective in both and that taking any Rent from his poor Tenant for what God suffered him not to enjoy though the Law allowed him to do so yet if he did so he was too like that rich Steward which he had mention'd to him and told him that riches so gotten and added to his great Estate would as Iob says prove like gravel in his teeth would in time so corrode his Conscience or become so nauseous when he lay upon his Death-bed that he would then labour to vomit it up and not be able and therefore advis'd him being very rich to make Friends of his unrighteous Mammon before that evil day come upon him But however neither for his own sake nor for God's sake to take any Rent of his poor dejected sad Tenant for that were to gain a temporal and lose his eternal happiness These and other such reasons were urged with so grave and so compassionate an earnestneâ—s that the Landlord forgave his Tenant the whole Rent The Reader will easily believe that Dr. Sanderson who was himself so meek and merciful did suddenly and gladly carry this comfortable news to the dejected Tenant and will believe also that at the telling of it there was a mutual rejoycing 'T was one of Iob's boasts That he had seen none perish for want of cloathing and that he had often made the heart of the widow to rejoyce And doubtless Dr. Sanderson might have made the same religious boast of this and very many like occasions But since he did not I rejoyce that I have this just occasion to do it for him and that I can tell the Reader I might tire my self and him in telling how like the whole course of Dr. Sanderson's Life was to this which I have now related Thus he went on in an obscure and quiet privicy doing good daily both by word and by deed as often as any occasion offered it self yet not so obscurely but that his very great Learning Prudence and Piety were much noted and valued by the Bishop of his Diocess and by most of the Nobility and Gentry of that County By the first of which he was often summon'd to preach many Visitation Sermons and by the latter at many Assises Which Sermons though they were much esteemed by them that procured and were â—it to judge them yet they were the less â—alu'd because he read them which he was forc'd to do for though he had aâ— extraordinary memory even the Art of iâ— yet he was punish'd with such an innate invincible feare and 〈◊〉 that his memory was wholly useless as to the repetition of his Sermons so as he had â—â—it them which gave occasion to say when some of them were first printed and exposed to censure which was in the year 1632. That the best Sermons that were ever reâ—â—â— were never preach'd In this contented obscurity he continued â—ill the learned and pious Archbishop Lâ—ud who knew him well in Oxford for he was his contemporary there told the King 't was the knowing and conscientious King Charles the I. that there was one Mr. Sanderson an obscure Country Minister that was of such sincerity and so excellent in all Casuistical Learning that he desired his Majesty would take so much notice of him as to make him his Chaplain The King granted it most willingly and gave the Bishop charge to hasten it for he long'd to discourse with a Man that had dedicated his Studies to that useful part of learning The Bishop forgot not the King's desire and Mr. Sanderson was made his Chaplain in Ordinary in November following 1631. And when the King and he became better known to each other then as
Dean of Westminster's House for the space of five months or more But not long after that time when Dr. Sanderson had made the Reformation ready for a view the Church and State were both fall'n into such a confusion that Dr. Sanderson's Model for Reformation became then useless Nevertheless the Repute of his Moderation and Wisdom was such that he was in the year 1642. propos'd by both Houses of Parliament to the King then in Oxford to be one of their Trustees for the settling of Church affairs and was allowed of by the King to be so but that Treaty came to nothing In the year 1643. the two Houses of Parliament took upon them to make an Ordinance and call an Assembly of Divines to debate and settle Church-controversies of which many that were elected were very unfit to judge in which Dr. Sanderson was also named by the Parliament but did not appear I suppose for the same reason that many other worthy and learned men did forbear the Summons wanting the King's Authority And here I must look back and tell the Reader that in the year 1642. he was Iuly 21. named by a more undoubted Authority to a more noble imployment which was to be Professor Regius of Divinity in Oxford but though Knowledge be said to puff up yet his modesty and too mean an opinion of his great Abilities and some other real or pretended reasons exprest in his Speech when he first appear'd in the Chair and since printed kept him from entring into it till October 1646. He did for about a years time continue to read his matchless Lectures which were first de Iuramento a Point very Seraphical and as difficult and at that time very dangerous to be handled as it ought to be But this learned man as he was eminently furnished with Abilities to satisfie the Consciences of men upon that important Subject so he wanted not courage to assert the true obligation of it and Oaths in a degenerate Age when men had made perjury a main part or at least very useful to their Religion How much the learned World stands obliged to him for these and his following Lectures de Conscientia I shall not attempt to declare as being very sensible that the best Pens fall short in the commendation of them So that I shall only add That they continue to this day and will do for ever as a complete standard for the resolution of the most material doubts in that part of â—asuistical Divinity And therefore I proceed to tell the Reader That about the time of his reading those Lectures the King being then Prisoner in the Iste of Wight that part of the Parliament then at Westminster sent the Covenant the Negative Oath and I know not what more to Oxford to be taken by the Doctor of the Chair and all Heads of Houses and all the other inâ—eriour Scholars of what degree soever were also to take these Oaths by a fixed day for those that did not were to abandon their Colledges and the University too within 24 hours after the beating of a Drum And if they remain'd longer they were to be proceeded against as Spies Dr. Laud the Archbishop of Canterbury the Earl of Strafford and many others had been formerly murthered but the King yet was not and the University had yet some faint hopes that in a Treaty then in being betwixt him and them that confined him or pretended to be suddenly there might be such an Agreement made that the Dissenters in the University might both preserve their Consciences and the poor Subsistance which they then enjoyed by their Colledges And being possess'd of this mistaken hope That the men in present Power were not yet grown so merciless as not to allow manifest reason for their not submitting to the enjoyn'd Oaths the University appointed twenty Delegates to meet consider and draw up a Manifesto to them why they could not take those Oaths but by violation of their Consciences And of these Delegates Dr. Shelden late Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Hammond Dr. Sanderson Dr. Morley now Bishop of Winchester and that most honest very learned and as judicious Civil Lawyer Dr. Zouch were a part the rest I cannot now name but the whole number of the Delegates requested Dr. Zouch to draw up the Law part and give it to Dr. Sanderson and he was requested to methodize and add what referr'd to Reason and Conscience and put it into form He yielded to their desires and did so And then after they had been read in a full Convocation and allow'd of they were printed in Latin that the Parliaments proceedings and the Universities sufferings might be manifested to all Nations and the Imposers of these Oaths might repent or answer them but they were past the first and for the latter I might swear they neither can nor ever will And these reasons were also suddenly turn'd into English by Dr. Sanderson that all those of these three Kingdoms might the better judge of the cause of the Loyal Parties sufferings About this time the Independants who were then grown to be the most powerful part of the Army had taken the King from a close to a more large imprisonment and by their own pretences to liberty of Conscience were obliged to allow somewhat like that to the King who had in the year 1646. sent for Dr. Sanderson Dr. Hammond Dr. Sheldon the late Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Morley the now Bishop of Winchester to attend him in order to advise with them how far he might with a good Conscience comply with the Proposals of the Parliament for a Peace in Church and State but these having been then denied him by the Presbyterian Parliament were now by their own rules allow'd him by those Independants now in present power And with some of those Divines Dr. Sanderson also gave his attendance on his Majesty in the Isle of Wight preach'd there before him and had in that attendance many both publick and private Conferences with him to his Majesties great satisfaction At which time he desired Dr. Sanderson that being the Parliament had then propos'd to him the abolishing of Episcopal Government in the Church as inconsistant with Monarchy and selling theirs and the Cathedral Church-Land to pay those Soldiers that they had rais'd to fight against him that he would consider of it and declare his judgment He undertook to do so and did it but it might not be printed till our King 's happy restoration and then it was And at Dr. Sanderson's then taking his leave of his Majesty in this his last attendance on him the King requested him to betake himself to the writing Cases of Conscience for the good of Posterity To which his answer was That he was now grown old and unfit to write Cases of Conscience But the King was so bold with him as to say It was the simplest answer he ever heard from Dr. Sanderson for no young man was fit to be made a Iudge or
Books writ ex professo against the being of any original sin and that Adam by his fall transmitted some calamity only but no Crime to his Posterity the good old man was exceedingly troubled and bewailed the misery of those licentious times and seem'd to wonder save that the times were such that any should write or be permitted to publish any Error so contradictory to truth and the Doctrine of the Church of England established as he truly said by clear evidence of Scripture and the just and supreme power of this Nation both Sacred and Civil I name not the Books nor their Authors which are not unknown to learned men and I wish they had never been known because both the Doctrine and the unadvis'd Abettors of it are anâ— shall be to me Apocryphâ—l Another little story I must not pass in silence being an Argument of Dr. Sanderson's Piety great Ability and Judgment as a Casuist Discoursing with an honourable Person whose Piety I value more than his Nobility and Learning though both be great about a case of Conscience concerning Oaths and Vows their Nature and Obligation in which for some particular Reasons he then desired more fully to be inform'd I commended to him Dr. Sanderson's Book De Iuramento which having read with great satisfaction he ask'd me If I thought the Doctor could be induced to write Cases of Conscience if he might have an honorary Pension allow'd him to furnish him with Books for that purpose I told him I believe he would and in a Letter to the Doctor told him what great satisfaction that Honourable Person and many more had reaped by reading his Book De Iuramento and ask'd him whether he would be pleas'd for the benefit of the Church to write some Tract of Cases of Conscience He reply'd That he was glad that any had received any benefit by his Books and added further That if any future Tract of his could bring such benefit to any as we seem'd to say his former had done he would willingly though without any Pension set about that work Having received this answer that honourable Person before mention'd did by my hands return 50 l. to the good Doctor whose condition then as most good mens at that time were was but low and he presently revised finished and published that excellent Book De Conscientiâ A Book little in bulk but not so if we consider the benefit an intelligent Reader may receive by it For there are so many general Propositions concerning Conscience the Nature and Obligation of it explained and proved with such firm consequence and evidence of Reason that he who reads remembers and can with prudence pertinently apply them Hic nunc to particular Cases may by their light and help rationally resolve a thousand particular doubts and scruples of Conscience Here you may see the Charity of that honourable Person in promoting and the Piety and Industry of the good Doctor in performing that excellent work And here I shall add the Judgment of that learned and pious Prelate concerning a passage very pertinent to our present purpose When he was in Oxon and read his publick Lectures in the Schools as Regius Professor of Divinity and by the truth of his Positions and evidences of his Proofs gave great content and satisfaction to all his hearers especially in his clear Resolutions of all difficult Cases which occur'd in the Explication of the subject matter of his Lectures a Person of Quality yet alive privately ask'd him What course a young Divine should take in his Studies to enable him to be a good Casuist His answer was That a convenient understanding of the Learned Languages at least of Hebrew Greek Latin and a sufficient knowledge of Arts and Sciences presuppos'd There were two things in humane Literature a comprehension of which would be of very great use to enable a man to be a rational and able Casuist which otherwise was very difficult if not impossible 1. A convenient knowledge of Moral Philosophy especially that part of it which treats of the Nature of Humane Actions To know quid sit actus humanus spontaneus invitus mixtus unde habent bonitatem malitiam moralem an ex genere objecto vel ex circumstantiis How the variety of circumstances varies the goodness or evil of humane Actions How far knowledge and ignorance may aggravate or excuse increase or diminish the goodness or evil of our Actions For every Case of Conscience being only this Is this Action good or bad May I do it or may I not He who in these knows not how and whence humane Actions become morally good and evil never can in Hypothesi rationally and certainly determine whether this or that particular Action be so 2. The second thing which he said would be a great help and advantage to a Casuist was a convenient knowledge of the Nature and Obligation of Laws in general To know what a Law is what a natural and a Positive Law what 's required to the Latio dispensatio derogatio vel abrogatio legis what promulgation is antecedently required to the Obligation of any Positive Law what ignorance takes off the Obligation of a Law or does excuse diminish or aggravate the transgression For every Case of Conscience being only this Is this lawful for me or is it not and the Law the only Rule and Measure by which I must judg of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any Action It evidently follows that he who in these knows not the Nature and Obligation of Laws never can be a good Casuist or rationally assure himself or others of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of Actions in particular This was the Judgment and good counsel of that learned and pious Prelate and having by long experience found the truth and benefit of it I conceive I could not without ingratitude to him and want of charity to others conceal it Pray pardon this rude and I fear impertinent Scrible which if nothing else may signifie thus much that I am willing to obey your Desires and am indeed London May 10. 1678. Your affectionate Friend Thomas Lincoln THE PREFACE TO THE READER HOW these Sermons will be looked upon if at all looked upon by the men of the Times is no very â—ard matter to conjecture I confess they are not A-la mode nor fitted to the Palate of those men who are resolved before-hand without tasting or trial to nauseate as unsavoury and unwholesome whatsoever shall be tendered unto them from the hand of an Episcopal Divine And therefore the republishing of them in this state of Church-affairs now the things so much contended for in some of them are worn out of date and thrown aside will be deemed at least a very unseasonable Undertaking to as much purpose perhaps it will be said as if a man would this year re-print an Almanack for the Last For the latter part of the Objection at the peril be it of those that had the hardiness
is such a Restraint 33 34 2. That it is from God 35 3. That it is from the mercy of God and therefore called Grace 36 Inferences from the Consideration of God's Restraint 37 I. As it lyeth upon others 1. toobless God for our Preservation 38 2. not to trust wicked men too far 39 3. nor to fear them too much 40 4. to endeavour to restrain others from Sinning 41 II. As it lyeth upon our selves 1. To be humble under it 42 2. to entertain the means of such Restraint with Thankfulness 43 3. to pray that God would restrain our Corruptions 44 4. but especially to pray and labour for sanctifying Grace Sermon VII Ad Populum on 1 Pet. 2. 16. Sect. 1 2 THE Occasion Scope of the TEXT 3 5 Coherence and of the TEXT 6 Division of the TEXT 7 8 OBSERVATION I Christian Liberty to be maintained 9 12 with the Explication 13 17 and Five Reasons thereof 18 20 Inferences I. Not to usurp upon the Liberty of others 21 24 II. Nor to betray our own 25 Observation II. Christian Liberty not to be abused 26 28 The words explained and thence 29 31 Three Reasons of the Point 32 34 Four abuses of Christian Liberty viz. I. by casting off the Obligation of the moral Law 35 36 II. by exceeding the bounds of Sobriety 37 III. by giving Scandal to others 38 IV. by disobeying lawful Superiours 39-40 The Grounds and Objections of the Anti-Ceremonians 41-46 propounded and particularly answered 47-50 How mens Laws bind the Conscience 51-52 OBSERVATION III. We being the Servants of God Which is of all other 53-54 1. the most Just Service 55 2. the most Necessary Service 56-57 3. the most Easie Service 58 4. the most Honourable Service 59 5. and the most Profitable Service 60 Ought to carry our selves as his Servants with all 61-63 I. Reverence to his Person in 3 branches 64-66 II. Obedience to his Will both in Doing and Suffering 67-70 III. Faithfulness in his Business in 3 branches 69 The Conclusion AD CLERUM The first Sermon ROM 〈◊〉 _ Meats accounting them Clean or Unclean and of Days accounting them Holy or Servile according as they stood under the Levitical Law These latter St. Paul calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Weak in the Faith those former then must by the Law of Opposition be strong in the Faith It would have become both the one sort and the other notwithstanding they differed in their private Iudgments yet to have preserved the common Peace of the Church and laboured the edification not the ruine one of another the strong by affording faithful instruction to the Consciences of the weak and the weak by allowing favourable construction to the actions of the strong But whilst either measured other by themselves neither one nor other did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Apostle elsewhere speaketh Walk uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel Faults and offences there were on all hands The Strong faulty in contemning the Weak the Weak faulty in condemning the Strong The Strong proudly scorned the weak as silly and superstitious for making scruple at some such things as themselves firmly believed were Lawful The weak rashly censured the Strong as Prophane and Irreligious for adventuring on some such things as themselves deeply suspected were unlawful The blessed Apostle desirous all things should be done in the Church in love and unto edification aequâ lance and eódem Charitatis moderamine as Interpreters speak taketh upon him to arbitrate and to mediate in the business and like a just Umpire layeth his hand upon both parties unpartially sheweth them their several oversights and beginneth to draw them to a fair and honourable composition as thus The strong shall remit somewhat of his superciliousness in disesteeming and despising the Weak and the Weak he shall abate something of his edge and acrimony in judging and condemning the Strong If the Parties will stand to this Order it will prove a blessed agreement for so shall brotherly Love be maintained Scandals shall be removed the Christian Church shall be edified and God's Name shall be glorified This is the scope of my Text and of the whole Chapter In the three first Verses whereof there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first Verse the Proposal of a general Doctrine as touching the usage of weak ones with whom the Church is so to deal as that it neither give offence to nor take offence at the weakness of any Him that is weak in the Faith receive you but not to doubtful Disputations Next there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the second Verse a Declaration of the former general Proposal by instancing in a particular case touching the difference of Meats There is one man strong in the Faith he is infallibly resolved there is no meat unclean of it self or if received with thankfulness and sobriety unlawful and because he knoweth he standeth upon a sure ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is confident he may eat any thing and he useth his Liberty accordingly eating indifferently of all that is set before him making no question for Conscience sake One man believeth he may eat all things There is another man weak in the Faith he standeth yet unresolved and doubtful whether some kinds of Meats as namely those forbidden in the Law be clean or he is rather carried with a strong suspicion that they are unclean out of which timorousness of Judgment he chuseth to forbear those Meats and contenteth himself with the fruits of the Earth Another who is weak eateth Herbs This is Species facti this is the case Now the question is In this case what is to be done for the avoidance of scandal and the maintainance of Christian Charity And this question my Text resolveth in this third Verse wherein is contained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Paul's judgment or his counsel rather and advice upon the Case Let not him that eateth despise c. The remainder of the Verse and of the Chapter being spent in giving reasons of the judgment in this and another like case concerning the difference and observation of days I have made choice to intreat at this time of St. Paul's advice as useful for this Place and Auditory and the present Assembly Which advice as the Parties and the faults are is also two-fold The Parties two He that eateth that is the Strong and he that eateth not that is the Weak The Faults likewise two The strong mans fault that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 despising of his brothers Infirmity and the weak mans fault that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judging of his Brothers liberty Proportionably the parts of the advice accommodated to the Parties and their Faults are two The one for the Strong that he despise not Let not him that eateth despise him that
we too severely censure the Persons either for the future as Reprobates and Cast-aways and such as shall be certainly damned or at leastwise for the present as Hypocriâ—es and unsanctified and profane and such as are in the state of Damnation not considering into what fearful sins it may please God to suffer not only his chosen ones before Calling but even his holy ones too after Calling sometimes to fall for ends most times unknown to us but ever just and gracious in him Or thirdly when for want either of Charity oâ— Knowledge as in the present case of this Chapter we interpret things for the worst to our Brethren and condemn them of sin for such actions as are not directly and in themselves necessarily sinful but may with due circumstances be performed with a good conscience and without sin Now all judging and condemning of our Brethren in any of these kinds is sinful and damnable and that in very many respects especially these four which may serve as so many weighty reasons why we ought not to judge one another The usurpation the rashness the uncharitableness and the scandal of it First it is an Usurpation He that is of right to judge must have a Calling and Commission for it Quis constituit te sharply replied upon Moses Exod. 2. Who made thee a Iudge and Quis constituit me reasonably alledged by our Saviour Luke 12. Who made me a Iudge Thou takest too much upon thee then thou son of man whosoever thou art that judgest thus saucily to thrust thy self into God's seat and to invade his Throne Remember thy self well and learn to know thine own rank Quis tu Who art thou that judgest another Iames 4. Or Who art thou that judgest anothers Servant in the next following Verse to my Text. As if the Apostle had said What art thou Or what hast thou to do to judge him that standeth or falleth to his own Master Thou art his fellow-Servant not his Lord. He hath another Lord that can and will judge him who is thy Lord too and can and will judge thee for so he argueth anon at Verse 10. Why dost thou judge thy brother We shall all stand before the Iudgment-Seat of Christ. God hath reserved three Prerogatives Royal to himself Vengeance Glory and Iudgment As it is not safe for us then to encroach upon God's Royalties in either of the other two Glory or Vengeance so neither in this of Judgment Dominus judicabit The Lord himself will judge his people Heb. 10. It is flat Usurpation in us to judge and therefore we must not judge Secondly it is rashness in us A Judge must understand the truth both for matter of fact and for point of Law and he must be sure he is in the right for both before he proceed to sentence or else he will give rash judgment How then dare any of us undertake to sit as Iudges upon other mens Consciences wherewith we are so little acquainted that we are indeed but too much unacquainted with our own We are not able to search the depth of our own wicked and deceitful hearts and to ran sack throughly the many secret windings and turnings therein how much less then are we able to fathome the bottoms of other mens hearts with any certainty to pronounce of them either good or evil We must then leave the judgments of other mens Spirits and hearts and reins to him that is the Father of Spirits and alone searcheth the hearts and reins before whose eyes all things are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the word is most Emphatical Heb. 4. Wherefore our Apostles precept elsewhere is good to this purpose 1 Cor. 4. Iudge nothing before the time until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts Unless we be able to bring these hidden things to light and to make manifest these counsels it is rashness in us to judge and therefore we must not judge Thirdly this judging is uncharitable Charity is not easily suspicious but upon just cause much less then censorious and peremptory Indeed when we are to judge of Things it is wisdom to judge of them Secundùm quod sunt as near as we can to judge of them just as they are without any sway or partial inclination either to the right hand or to the left But when we are to judge of Men and their Actions it is not altogether so there the rule of charity must take place dubia in meliorem partem sunt interpretanda Unless we see manifest cause to the contrary we ought ever to interpret what is done by others with as much favour as may be To err thus is better than to hit right the other way because this course is safe and secureth us as from injuring others so from endangering our selves whereas in judging ill though right we are still unjust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the event only and not our choice freeing us from wrong judgment True Charity is ingenuous it thinketh no evil 1 Cor. 13. How far then are they from Charity that are ever suspicious and think nothing well For us let it be our care to maintain Charity and to avoid as far as humane frailty will give leave even sinister suspicions of our brethrens actions or if through frailty we cannot that yet let us not from light suspicions fall into uncharitable censures let us at leastwise suspend our definitive judgment and not determine too peremptorily against such as do not in every respect just as we do or as we would have them do or as we think they should do It is uncharitable for us to judge and therefore we must not judge Lastly There is Scandal in judging Possibly he that is judged may have that strength of Faith and Charity that though rash and uncharitable censures lye thick in his way he can lightly skip over all those stumbling-blocks and scape a fall Saint Paul had such a measure of strength with me it is a very small thing saith he that I should be judged of you or of humane judgment 1 Cor. 4. If our judging light upon such an Object it is indeed no scandal to him but that 's no thanks to us We are to esteem things by their natures not events and therefore we give a scandal if we judge notwithstanding he that is judged take it not as a scandal For that judging is in itself a scandal is clear from Vers. 13. of this Chapter Let us not therefore saith S. Paul judge one another any more but judge this rather That no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall into his brothers way And thus we see four main Reasons against this judging of our brethren 1. We have no right to judge and so our
defects thereof The question is wholly about things in their nature indifferent such as are the use of our food rayment and the like about which the common actions of life are chiefly conversant Whether in the choice and use of such things we may not be sometimes sufficiently guided by the light of reason and the common rules of discretion but that we must be able and are so bound to do or else we sin for every thing we do in such matters to deduce our warrant from some places or other of Scripture Before the Scriptures were written it pleased God by visions and dreams and other like revelations immediately to make known his good pleasure to the Patriarchs and Prophets and by them unto the people which kind of Revelations served them to all the same intents and purposes whereto the sacred Scriptures now do us viz. to instruct them what they should believe and do for his better service and the furtherance of their own Salvations Now as it were unreasonable for any man to think that they either had or did expect an immediate revelation from God every time they eat or drank or bought or sold or did any other of the common actions of life for the warranting of each of those particular actions to their consciences no less unreasonable it is to think that we should now expect the like warrant from the Scriptures for the doing of the like actons Without all doubt the Law of Nature and the light of reason was the rule whereby they were guided for the most part in such matters which the wisdom of God would never have left in them or us as a principal relick of his decayed image in us if he had not meant that we should make use of it for the direction of our lives and actions thereby Certainly God never infused any power into any creature whereof he intended not some use Else what shall we say of the Indies and other barbarous Nations to whom God never vouchsafed the lively Oracles of his written word Must we think that they were left a lawless people without any Rule at all whereby to order their actions How then come they to be guilty of transgression for where there is no Law there can be no transgression Or how cometh it about that their consciences should at any time or in any case either accuse them or excuse them if they had no guide nor rule to walk by But if we must grant they had a Rule and there is no way you see but grant it we must then we must also of necessity grant that there is some other Rule for humane actions besides the written word for that we presupposed these nations to have wanted Which Rule what other could it be than the Law of Nature and of right Reason imprinted in their hearts Which is as truly the Law and Word of God as is that which is printed in our Bibles So long as our actions are warranted either by the one or the other we cannot be said to want the warrant of Gods word Nec differt Scripturâ an ratione consistat saith Tertullian it mattereth not much from whether of both we have our direction so long as we have it from either You see then those men are in a great error who make the holy Scripture the sole rule of all humane actions whatsoever For the maintenance whereof there was never yet produced any piece of an argument either from Reason or from authority of holy Writ or from the testimony either of the ancient Fathers or of other classical Divines of latter times which may not be clearly and abundantly answered to the satisfaction of any rational man not extremely fore-possessed with prejudice They who think to salve the matter by this mitigation That at leastwise our actions ought to be framed according to those General rules of the Law of nature which are here and there in the Scriptures dispensedly contained as viz. That we should do as we would be done to That all things be done decently and orderly and unto edification That nothing be done against conscience and the like speak somewhat indeed to the truth but little to the purpose For they consider not First that these general rules are but occasionally and incidentally mentioned in Scripture rather to manifest unto us a former than to lay upon us a new obligation Secondly that those Rules had been of force for the ordering of mens actions though the Scripture had never expressed them and were of such force before those Scriptures were written wherein they are now expressed For they bind not originally quà scripta but quà justa because they are righteous not because they are written Thirdly that an action comformable to these general rules might not be condemned as sinful although the doer thereof should look at those rules meerly as they are the dictates of the law of nature and should not be able to vouch his warrant for it from any place of Scripture neither should have at the time of the doing thereof any present thought or consideration of any such place The contrary whereunto I permit to any mans reasonable judgment if it be not desperately rash and uncharitable to affirm Lastly that if mens actions done agreeable to those rules are said to be of faith precisely for this reason because those rules are contained in the word then it will follow that before those particular Scriptures were written wherein any of those rules are first delivered every action done according to those rules had been done without faith there being as yet no Scripture for it and consequently had been a sin So that by this doctrine it had been a sin before the writing of S. Matthew's Gospel for any man to have done to others as he would they should do to him and it had been a sin before the writing of the former Epistle to the Corinthians for any man to have done any thing decently and orderly supposing these two rules to be in those two places first mentioned because this supposed there could then have been no warrant brought from the Scriptures for so doing Well then we see the former Opinion will by no means hold neither in the rigour of it nor yet in the mitigation We are therefore to beware of it and that so much the more heedfully because of the evil consequents and effects that issue from it to wit a world of superstitions uncharitable censures bitter contentions contempt of superiours perplexities of conscience First it filleth mens heads with many superstitious conceits making them to cast impurity upon sundry things which yet are lawful to as many as use them lawfully For the taking away of the indifferency of any thing that is indifferent is in truth Superstition whether either of the two ways it be done either by requiring it as necessary or by forbidding it as unlawful He that condemneth a thing as
hominem and accidentally evil It is our Apostle's own distinction in the fourteenth verse of this Chapter Nothing unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean unclean to him But then we must know withal that it holdeth not the other way Mens judgments or opinions although they may make that which is good in it self to become evil to them yet they cannot make that which is evil in it self to become good either in it self or to them If a man were verily perswaded that it were evil to ask his Father blessing that mis-perswasion would make it become evil to him But if the same man should be as verily perswaded that it were good to curse his Father or to deny him relief being an unbeliever that mis-perswasion could not make either of them become good to him Some that persecuted the Apostles were perswaded they did God good service in it It was Saint Paul's case before his conversion who verily thought in himself that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Iesus But those their perswasions would not serve to justifie those their actions Saint Paul confesseth himself to have been a persecutor and blasphemer and injurious for so doing although he followed the guidance of his own Conscience therein and to have stood in need of mercy for the remission of those wicked acts though he did them ignorantly and out of Zeal to the Law The reason of which difference is that which I touched in the beginning even because any one defect is enough to render an action evil and consequently a defect in the agent may do it though the substance of the action remain still as it was good but all conditions must concur to make an action good and consequently a right intention in the Agent will not suffice thereunto so long as the substance of the action remaineth still as it was evil Thirdly that the Conscience hath this power over mens wills and actions by virtue of that unchangeable Law of God which he establisheth by an Ordinance of Nature in our first Creation that the will of every man which is the fountain whence all our actions immediately flow should conform it self to the judgment of the practick understanding or Conscience as to its proper and immediate rule and yield it self to be guided thereby So that if the understanding through Error point out a wrong way and the will follow it the fault is chiefly in the understanding for mis-guiding the will But if the understanding shew the right way and the will take a wrong then the fault is meerly in the will for not following the guide which God hath set over it It may be demanded secondly Whether or no in every particular thing we do an actual consideration of the lawfulness and expediency thereof be so requisite as that for want thereof we should sin in doing it The reason of the doubt is because otherwise how should it appear to be of Faith and Whatsoever is not of faith is sin I answer First that in matters of weight and worthy of consultation it is very necessary that the lawfulness and expediency of them be first diligently examined before they be enterprized And secondly that even in smaller matters the like examination is needful when there is any apparent cause of doubting But thirdly that in such small and trivial matters as it much skilleth not whether we do them or no or whether we do this rather than that and wherein no doubt ariseth to trouble us an actual consideration of their lawfulness or expediency is so far from being requisite that it would rather be troublesome and incommodious True it is that all voluntary actions are done with some deliberation more or less because it is the nature of the will to consult with the understanding in every act else it should be irrational and brutish Yet there are many things which we daily do wherein the sentence of the understanding is so quick and present because there is no difficulty in them that they seem to be and are therefore sometimes so termed actus indeliberati such as are to sit down and to rise up to pluck a flower as we walk in a Garden to ask the time of the day or the name of the next Town as we travel by the way or whether we eat of this or that dish at the Table and the like For the doing of every of which it were a ridiculous servility to be imposed upon men if they should be tyed to district examination of the lawfulness and expediency thereof There is not in them dignus vindice nodus and a man's time ought to be more precious unto him than to be trifled away in such needless and minute enquiries It is even as if we should tie a great learned man that is ready in his Latin tongue to bethink himself first of some Grammar Rule or Example for the declining and parsing of every word he were to speak before he should adventure to utter a Latin sentence But as such a man is sufficiently assured out of the habit of his learning that he speaketh congruously and with good propriety though he have no present actual reference to his Grammar Rules so here an habitual knowledge of the nature and use of indifferent things is sufficient to warrant to the Conscience the lawfulness of these common actions of life so as they may be said to be of Faith though there be no farther actual or particular disquisition used about them A very needful thing it is the whilst for Christian men to endeavour to have a right judgment concerning indifferent things without which it can scarcely be avoided but that both their Consciences will be full of distracting scruples within themselves and their conversations full of unbrotherly carriage towards others It may be demanded thirdly Since Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin What measure of Faith or what degree of Perswasion is necessary for the warranting of our actions so as less than that will not serve I answer that what is here demanded cannot positively be defined by any peremptory and immoveable rules There is most an end a Latitude in such things as these are which may be straitned or extended more or less according to the exigence of present occasions and as the different state or quality of particular business shall require There is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fulness of perswasion arising from evident infallible and demonstrative proofs which is attainable for the performance of sundry duties both of civil Iustice and of Religion And where it may be attained it is to be endeavoured after though it be not of absolute necessity for we cannot make our assurances too strong The Apostle useth that word at the fifth Verse Let every man be fully perswaded in his own mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a metaphorical word and seemeth
may proceed from the probability of those reasons that seem to stand on either side betwixt which it is not easie to judge which are strongest or from the differing judgments and opinions of learned and godly men thereabout and from many other causes But for some general resolution of the Question what is to be done where the conscience is doubtful I answer First that if the doubtfulness be not concerning the lawfulness of any of the things to be done considered simply and in themselves but of the expediency of them as they are compared one with another as when of two things proposed at once whereof one must and but one can be done I am sufficiently perswaded of the lawfulness of either but am doubtful whether of the two rather to pitch upon in such a case the party ought first to weigh the conveniences and inconveniences of both as well and advisedly as he can by himself alone and to do that which then shall appear to him to be subject to the fewer and lesser inconveniences Or if the reasons seem so equally strong on both sides that he cannot of himself decide the doubt then secondly if the matter be of weight and worth the while he should do well to make his doubts known to some prudent and pious man especially to his own spiritual Pastor if he be a man meetly qualified for it resolving to rest upon his judgment and to follow his direction Or if the matter be of small moment he may then thirdly do whether of both he hath best liking to as the Apostle saith in one particular case and it may be applied to many more Let him do what he will he sinneth not resting his conscience upon this perswasion that so long as he is unfeignedly desirous to do for the best and hath not been negligent to use all requisite diligence to inform himself aright God will accept of his good intention therein and pardon his errour if he shall be mistaken in his choice But secondly if the question be concerning the very lawfulness of the thing it self whether it may be lawfully done or no and the conscience stand in doubt because reasons seem to be probable both pro and contra and there are learned men as well of the one opinion as of the other c. as we see it is for instance in the question of Usury and of second marriage after divorce and in sundry other doubtful cases in moral divinity in such a case the person if he be sui juris is certainly bound to forbear the doing of that thing of the lawfulness whereof he so doubteth and if he forbear it not he sinneth It is the very point the Apostle in this verse intendeth to teach and for the confirming whereof he voucheth this Rule of the Text He that doubteth saith he is damned if he eat he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned of his own conscience because he doth that willingly whereof he doubteth when he hath free liberty to let it alone no necessity urging him thereunto And the reason why he ought rather to forbear than to adventure the doing of that whereof he doubteth is because in doubtful cases Wisdom would that the safer part should be chosen And that part is safer which if we chuse we are sure we shall do well than that which if we chuse we know not but we may do ill As for example in the instances now proposed If I doubt of the lawfulness of Usury or of Marrying after divorce I am sure that if I Marry not nor let out my money I shall not sin in so abstaining but if I shall do either of both doubtingly I cannot be without some fear lest I should sin in so doing and so those actions of mine being not done in Faith must needs be sin even by the Rule of the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For whatsoever is not of Faith is sin But then thirdly if the liberty of the agent be determined by the command of some superior power to whom he oweth obedience so as he is not now sui juris ad hoc to do or not to do at his own choice but to do what he is commanded this one circumstance quite altereth the whole case and now he is bound in conscience to do the thing commanded his doubtfulness of mind whether that thing be lawful or no notwithstanding To do that whereof he doubteth where he hath free liberty to leave it undone bringeth upon him as we have already shewn the guilt of wilful transgression but not so where he is not left at his own liberty And where lawful authority prescribeth in alterutram partem there the liberty ad utramque partem contradictionis is taken away from so many as are under that authority If they that are over them have determined it oneway it is not thenceforth any more at their choice whether they will take that way or the contrary but they must go the way that is appointed them without gainsaying or grudging And if in the deed done at the command of one that is endued with lawful authority there be a sin it must go on his score that requireth it wrongfully not on his that doth but his duty in obeying A Prince commandeth his Subjects to serve in his Wars it may be the quarrel is unjust it may be there may appear to the understanding of the subject great likelihoods of such injustice yet may the Subject for all that fight in the quarrel yea he is bound in conscience so to do nay he is deep in disloyalty and treason if he refuse the service whatsoever pretensions he may make of conscience for such refusal Neither need that fear trouble him lest he should bring upon himself the guilt of innocent blood for the blood that is unrighteously shed in that quarrel he must answer for that set him on work not he that spilt it And truly it is a great wonder to me that any man endued with understanding and that is able in any measure to weigh the force of those precepts and reasons which bind inferiours to yield obedience to their superiours should be otherwise minded in cases of like nature Whatsoever is commanded us by those whom God hath set over us either in Church Common-wealth or Family quod tamen non sit certum displicere Deo saith S. Bern. which is not evidently contrary to the Law and will of God ought to be of us received and obeyed no otherwise than as if God himself had commanded it because God himself hath commanded us to obey the higher Powers and to submit our selves to their ordinances Say it be not well done of them to command it Sed enim quid hoc reâ—ert tuâ saith he What is that to thee Let them look to that whom it concerneth Tolle quod tuum est vade Do thou what is thine own part faithfully and
it is as dayly experience sheweth that many men who make no conscience of a lye do yet take some bog at an Oath And it cannot but open a wide gap to the raising and receiving of false reports and to many other abuses of very noisom consequence in the common weal if the Magistrate when he may help it to enrich himself or his Officers or for any other indirect end shall suffer men to be impleaded and brought into trouble upon Bills and Presentments tendered without Oath Secondly since Laws cannot be so conceived but that through the infinite variety of humane occurrences they may sometimes fall heavy upon particular men and yet for the preventing of more general inconveniences it is necessary there should be Laws for better a mischief sometimes than always an Inconvenience there hath been left for any thing I find to the contrary in all well governed Policies a kind of latitude more or less and power in the Magistrates even in those Courts that were strictissimi juris upon fit occasion to qualifie and to mitigate something the rigour of the Laws by the Rules of Equity For I know not any extremity of wrong beyond the extremity of Right when Laws intended for fences are made snares and are calumniously wrested to oppress that innocency which they should protect And this is most properly Calumny in the prime notion of the word for a man upon a meer trick or quillet from the letters and syllables of the Law or other writing or evidence pressed with advantage to bring his Action or lay his Accusation against another man who yet bonâ fide and in Equity and Conscience hath done nothing worthy to bring him into such trouble Now if the Magistrate of Justice shall use his full power by interpreting the Law in rigour where he should not to second the boldness of a calumnious Accuser or if he shall not use his full power by affording his lawful favour in due time and place to succour the innocency of the so accused he shall thereby but give encouragement to the Raisers and he must look to answer for it one day as the Receiver of a false report Thirdly since that Iustice which especially supporteth the Common-weal consisteth in nothing more than in the right distribution of rewards and punishments many Law-givers have been careful by proposing rewards to encourage men to give in true and needful Informations and on the contrary to suppress those that are false or idle by proposing punishments For the Informers Office though it be as we heard a necessary yet it is in truth a very thankless office and men would be loth without special grievance to undergo the hatred and envy which commonly attendeth such as are officious that way unless there were some profit mixt withal to sweeten that hatred and to countervail that envy For which cause in most penal Statutes a moiety or a third or fourth which was the usual proportion in Rome whence the name of quadruplatores came or some other greater or lesser part of the fine penalty or forfeiture expressed in the Law is by the said Law allowed to the Informer by way of recompence for the service he hath done the State by his information And if he be faithful and conscionable in his Office good reason he should have it For he that hath an office in any lawful Calling and the Informers calling is such howsoever through the iniquity of those that have usually exercised it it hath long laboured of an ill name but he that hath such an office as it is meet he should attend it so it is meet it should maintain him for Who goeth to warfare at any time of his own cost But if such an Informer shall indict one man for an offence pretending it to be done to the great hurt of the Common-weal yet for favour fear or fee balk another man whom he knoweth to have committed the same offence or a greater or if having entred his complaint in the open Court he shall afterwards let the suit fall and take up the matter in a private Chamber this is Collusion and so far forth a false report as every thing may be called false when it is partial and should be entire And the Magistrate if he have power to chastise such an Informer some semblance whereof there was in that Iudicium Praevaricationis in Rome he shall do the Common-weal good service and himself much honour now and then to use it Fourthly since nothing is so powerful to repress audacious Accusers as severe punishment is it is observable what care and caution was used among the Romans whilst that state flourished to deter men from unjust Calumniations In private and civil Controversies for trial of right between party and party they had their Sponsiones which was a Sum of Money in some proportionable rate to the value of the thing in Question which the Plaintiff entred Bond to pay to the Defendant in case he should not be able to prove his Action the Defendant also making the like Sponsion and entring the like Bond in case he should be cast But in publick and criminal matters whether Capital or Penal if for want of due proof on the Accusers part the party accused were quit in judgment there went a Trial upon the Accuser at the suit of the accused which they called Iudicium Calumniae wherein they examined the original ground and foundation of the accusation which if it appeared to have proceeded from some just error or mistake bonâfide it excused him but if it should appear the Accusation to have proceeded from some left handed respect as Malice Envy Gain c. he was then condemned of Calumny And his ordinary punishment then was whereunto he had virtually bound himself by suscribing his Libel Poena talionis the same kind of punishment whatsoever it was which by the Laws had been due to the party accused if the libel had been proved against him Yea and for his farther shame it was provided by one Law that he should be burnt in the forehead with the Letter K. to proclaim him a Calumniator to the world that in old Orthography being the first letter of the word Kalumnia The same letter would serve the turn very well with us also though we use it to signifie another thing and yet not so much another thing as a thing more general but comprehending this as one species of it But as I said I may not prescribe especially beyond Law The thing for which I mention all this is this If all that care and severity in them could not prevent it but that still unjust actions would be brought and false accusations raised what a world of unconscionable Suits and wrongful Informations may we think there would be if contenticus Plantiffs and calumnious Sycophants when they have failed their proof should yet get off easily and
their hands must needs have some of their Children and for the most part they set by the most untoward and mis-shapen chip of the whole block to make timber for the Pulpit but some of their children they will have thrust into the Ministery though they have neither a head nor a heart for it Again a man may have a good sufficiency in him for a Calling and yet out of a sloathful desire of ease and liberty if it seem painful or austere or an ambitious desire of eminency and reputation if it seem base and contemptible or some other secret corruption cannot set his mind that way as Solomon saith there may be A price in the hand of a fool to buy wisdom and yet the fool have no heart to it And divers other occurrents there may be and are to hinder this happy conjuncture of Nature Skill and Education Now in such Cases as these where our Education bendeth us one way our Inclination swayeth us another way and it may be our Gifts and Abilities lead us a third in this distraction what are we to do which way to take what Calling to pitch upon In point of Conscience there can no more General Rules be given to meet with all Cases and regulate all difficulties than in point of Law there can be general resolutions given to set an end to all sutes or provisions made to prevent all inconveniences Particulars are infinite and various but Rules are not must not cannot be so He whose case it is if he be not able to direct himself should do well to take advice of his learned Counsel This we can readily do in matters of Law for the quieting of our Estates why should we not do it at least as readily in matter of Conscience for the quieting of our souls But yet for some light at least in the generality what if thou shouldest proceed thus First have an eye to thy Education and if it be possible to bring the rest that way do so rather than forsake it For besides that it would be some grief to thy Parents to whom thou shouldest be a comfort to have cast away so much charge as they have been at for thy education and some dishonour to them withal whom thou art bound by the law of God and Nature to honour to have their judgments so much slighted and their choice so little regarded by their child the very consideration of so much precious time as has been spent in fitting thee to that course which would be almost all lost upon thy change should prevail with thee to try all possible means rather than forego it It were a thing indeed much to be wished that Parents and Friends and Guardians and all those other whatsoever that have the Education of young ones committed unto them all greedy desires to make their children great all base penurious niggardness in saving their own purses all fond cherishing of their children in their humours all doting opinion of their forwardness and wit and towardliness all other corrupt partial affections whatsoever laid aside would out of the observation of their natural propensions and inclinations and of their particular abilities and defects frame them from the beginning to such courses as wherein they were likeliest to go on with chearfulness and profit This indeed were to be wished but this is not always done If it have not been so done to thee the fault is theirs that should have done it and not thine and thou art not able now to remedy that which is past and gone But as for thee and for the future if thy Parents have not done their part yet do not thou forget thy duty if they have done one fault in making a bad choice do not thou add another in making a worse change disparage not their Iudgments by misliking neither gain-say their Wills by forsaking their choice upon every small incongruity with thine own Iudgment or Will If thine Inclination draw thee another way labour throughly to subdue thy nature therein Suspect thine own corruption Think this backwardness proceedeth not from true judgment in thee but issueth rather from the root of some carnal affection Consider thy years are green affections strong judgment unsetled Hope that this backwardness will grow off as years and stayedness grow on Pray and endeavour that thou maist daily more and more wean thy affections from thine own bent and take liking to that course whereunto thou hast been so long in framing Thus possibly thou maist in time make that chearful and delightful unto thee which now is grievous and irksome And as for thy insufficiency if that dishearten thee which is indeed a main rub do thus Impute thy former non-proficiency to thine own sloath and negligence Think if after so long time spent in this course thou hast attained to no greater perfection in it how long it would be ere thou shouldst come to a tolerable mediocrity in another Resolve not to lose all that precious time forepast by beginning the world anew but rather save as much of it as is redeemable by adding to thy diligence Suspect that it cometh from thy pride that thou canst not content thy self with a Calling wherein thou maist not be excellent and imagine that God of purpose to humble thee might divert thy education to another for which thou art less apt Observe what strange things past belief and such as have seemed insuperable have been conquered and subdued by the obstinacy and improbity of unwearied labour and of assiduity Doubt not but by Gods blessing upon thy faithful industry to attain in time if not to such perfection as thou desirest and mightest perhaps have attained in some other course if thou hadst been bred up to it yet to such a competent sufficiency as may render thy endeavours acceptable to God comfortable to thy self and serviceable to community If by these and the like considerations and the use of other good means thou canst bring thy affections to some indifferent liking of and thy abilities to some indifferent mediocrity for that course which Education hath opened unto thee thou hast no more to do There 's thy Course that 's thy Calling that 's the work whereunto God hath appointed thee But if after long striving and pains and trial thou canst neither bring thy mind to it nor do any good upon it having faithfully desired and endeavoured it so that thou must needs leave the course of thy Education or which is another case if thy Education have left thee free as many Parents God knoweth are but too careless that way then Secondly thou art in the next place to consider of thy Gifts and Abilities and to take direction from them rather than from thine inclination And this Rule I take to be very sound not only from the Apostles intimation vers 17. As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one where he seemeth to make
which only we affirm that it may be found in an Unbeliever and a Reprobate and that is a Natural or Moral integrity when the heart of a meer natural man is careful to follow the direction and guidance of right reason according to that light of Nature or Revelation which is in him without hollowness halting and hypocrisse Rectus usus Naturalium we might well call it the term were fit enough to express it had not the Papists and some other Sectaries with sowring it by the Leaven of their Pelagianism rendred it suspicious The Philosophers and learned among the Heathen by that which they call a good conscience understand no other thing than this very Integrity whereof we now speak Not that an Unbeliever can have a good conscience taken in strict propriety of truth and in a spiritual sence For the whole man being corrupted through the fall of Adam the conscience also is wrapped up in the common pollution so that to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled as speaketh St. Paul Tit. 1. and being so defiled can never be made good till their hearts be sprinkled from that pollution by the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God and till the Conscience be purged by the same blood from dead works to serve the living God as speaketh the same Apostle Heb. 9. and 10. But yet a good Conscience in that sence as they meant it a Conscience morally good many of them had who never had Faith in Christ nor so much as the least inkling of the Doctrine of Salvation By which Not having the Law they were a Law unto themselves doing by nature many of the things contained in the Law and choosing rather to undergo the greatest miseries as shame torment exile yea death it self or any thing that could befal them than wilfully to transgress those rules and notions and dictates of piety and equity which the God of Nature had imprinted in their Consciences Could heathen men and unbelievers have taken so much comfort in the testimony of an excusing Conscience as it appeareth many of them did if such a Conscience were not in the kind that is Morally Good Or how else could St. Paul have made that protestation he did in the Council Men and Brethren I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day At least if he meant to include as most of the learned conceive he did the whole time of his life as well before his conversion as after Balaam was but a cursed Hypocrite and therefore it was but a Copy of his countenance and no better for his heart even then hankered after the wages of unrighteousness when he looked asquint upon Balak's liberal offer with this answer If Balak would give me his house full of Gold and silver I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more But I assure my self many thousands of Unbelievers in the world free from his hypocrisie would not for ten times as much as he there spake of have gone beyond the Rules of the Law of Nature written in their hearts to have done either less or more Abimelech seemeth to be so affected at least in this particular action and passage with Abraham wherein God thus approveth his integrity Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart The Reason of which moral integrity in men unregenerate and meerly natural is that imperium Rationis that power of natural Conscience and Reason which it hath and exerciseth over the whole man doing the office of a Law-giver and having the strength of a Law They are a Law unto themselves saith the Apostle Rom. 2. As a Law it prescribeth what is to be done as a Law it commandeth that what is prescribed be done as a Law it proposeth rewards and punishments accordingly as what it prescribeth and commandeth is done or not done Abimelech's own Reason by the light of Nature informed him that to take another mans Wife from him was injurious and enjoyneth him therefore as he will avoid the horrors and upbraidings of a condemning heart by no means to do it Resolved accordingly to do and to obey the Law of Reason written in his heart before he durst take Sarah into his house he maketh inquiry first whether she were a single woman or a wife and therefore although upon mis-information he took another mans wife unwitting that she was so he pleadeth here and that justly the integrity of his heart And from obedience to the same Law especially spring those many rare examples of Iustice Temperance Gratitude Beneficence and other moral vertues which we read of in Heathen men not without admiration which were so many strong evidences also of this moral integrity of their hearts A point that would bear much enlargement if we intended to amplifie it by Instances and did not rather desire to draw it briefly into use by Inferences A just condemnation it may he first to many of us who call our selves Christians and Believers and have many blessed means of direction and instruction for the due ordering of our hearts and lives which those Heathens wanted yet come so many paces nay leagues short of them both in the detestation of vicious and gross enormities and in the conscionable practice of many offices of vertue Among them what strictness of Iustice which we either slack or pervert What zeal of the common good which we put off each man to other as an unconcerning thing What remission of private injuries which we pursue with implacable revenge What contempt of honours and riches which we so pant after so adore What temperance and frugality in their provisions wherein no excess satisfieth us What free beneficence to the poor and to pious uses whereto we contribute penuriously and with grudging What conscience of Oaths and Promises which we so slight What reverence of their Priests whom we count as the scum of the people What loathing of swinish drunkenness wherein some of us glory What detestation of Usury as a monster in nature whereof some of ours make a trade Particularities are infinite but what should I say more Certainly unless our righteousnesses exceed theirs we shall never come to heaven but how shall we escape the nethermost hell if our unrighteousnesses exceed theirs Shall not Uncircumcision which is by nature if it keep the Law judge thee who by the Letter and Circumcision dost transgress the Law said St. Paul to the Iew Make application to thy self thou that art a Christian. Secondly if even in Unbelievers and Hypocrites and Castaways there may be in particular actions integrity and singleness of heart then it can be but an uncertain Rule for us to judge of the true state of our own and other mens hearts by what they are in some few particular actions Men
are indeed that not which they shew themselves in some passages but what they are in the more general and constant tenor of their lives If we should compare Abimelech and David together by their different behaviour in the same kind of temptation in two particulars of the sacred History and look no farther we could not but give Sentence upon them quite contrary to right and truth We should see Abimelech on the one side though allured with Sarah's beauty yet free from the least injurious thought to her husband or adulterous intent in himself We should behold David on the other side inflamed with lust after Bathsheba whom he knew to be another mans Wife plotting first how to compass his filthy desires with the Wife and then after how to conceal it from the Husband by many wicked and politick fetches and when none of those would take at last to have him murthered being one of his principal Worthies in a most base and unworthy fashion with the loss of the lives of a number of innocent persons more besides the betraying of Gods cause the disheartning of his People and the incouragement of his and their enemies When we should see and consider all this on both sides and lay the one against the other what could we think but that Abimelech were the Saint and David the Infidel Abimelech the man after Gods own heart and David a stranger to the Covenant of God Yet was David all this while within that Covenant and for any thing we know or is likely Abimelech not Particular actions then are not good evidences either way as wherein both an unbeliever awed sometimes by the Law of natural Conscience may manifest much simplicity and integrity of heart and the true Child of God swayed sometimes with the law of sinful concupiscence may bewray much foul Hypocrisie and infidelity But look into the more constant course of both their lives and then may you find the Hypocrite and the unbeliever wholly distinguished from the godly by the want of those right marks of sincerity that are in the godly no zeal of Gods glory no sense of original corruption no bemoaning of his privy Hypocrisie and secret Atheism no suspicion of the deceitfulness of his own heart no tenderness of Conscience in smaller duties no faithful dependance upon the providence or promises of God for outward things no self-denial or poverty of spirit no thirst after the salvation of his brethren and the like none of these I say to be found in any constant manner in the general course of his life although there may be some sudden light flashes of some of them now and then in some particular Actions Measure no mans heart then especially not thine own by those rarer discoveries of moral integrity in particular actions but by the powerful manifestations of habitual grace in the more constant tenor of life and practice We may learn hence thirdly not to flatter our selves too much upon every integrity of heart or to think our selves discharged from sin in the sight of God upon every acquital of our own Consciences when as all this may befall an Hypocrite an Unbeliever a Reprobate When men accuse us of hypocrisie or unfaithfulness or lay to our charge things we never did it is I confess a very comfortable and blessed thing if we can find protection against their accusations in our own hearts and be able to plead the integrity thereof in bar against their calumniations Our integrity though it be but Moral and though but only in those actions wherein they charge us wrongfully and the testimony of our own consciences may be of very serviceable use to us thus far to make us regardless of the accusations of unjust men that one testimony within shall relieve us more than a thousand false witnesses without can injure us With me it is a very small thing saith St. Paul that I should be judged of you or of mans judgment as if he should have said I know my self better than you do and therefore so long as I know nothing by my self of those things wherein you consure me I little reckon what either you or any others shall think or say by me We may by his example make use of this the inward testimony of our hearts being sufficient to Iustifie us against the accusations of men but we may not rest upon this as if the acquital of our hearts were sufficient to justifie us in the sight of God St. Paul knew it who durst not rest thereupon but therefore addeth in the very next following words Yea I judge not mine own self for I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Our hearts are close and false and nothing so deceitful as they and who can know them perfectly but he that made them and can search into them Other men can know very little of them our selves something more but God alone all If therefore when other men condemn us we find our selves aggrieved we may remove our cause into an Higher Court appeal from them to our own Consciences and be releived there But that is not the Highest Court of all there lieth yet an appeal further and higher than it even to the Iudgment seat or rather to the Mercy-seat of God who both can find just matter in us to condemn us even in those things wherein our own hearts have acquitted us and yet can withal find a gracious mean to justifie us even from those things wherein our own hearts condemn us Whether therefore our hearts condemn us or condemn us not God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things To conclude all this Point and therewithal the first general part of my Text Let no Excusations of our own Consciences on the one side or confidence of any integrity in our selves make us presume we shall be able to stand just in the sight of God if he should enter into judgment with us but let us rather make sute unto him that since we cannot understand all our own errors he would be pleased to cleanse us from our secret sins And on the other side let no accusations of our own Consciences or guiltiness of our own manifold frailties and secret hypocrisies make us despair of obtaining his favour and righteousness if denying our selves and renouncing all integrity in our selves as our selves we cast our selves wholly at the footstool of his mercy and seek his favour in the face of his only begotten Son Iesus Christ the righteous Of the former branch of Gods reply to Abimelech in those former words of the Text Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart hiherto I now proceed to the latter branch thereof in those remaining words For I also with-held thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word signifieth properly to hold
what we lawfully may but we ought also to bear one anothers burdens and to forbear for one anothers sakes what otherwise we might do and so to fulfil the Law of Christ. St. Paul who hath forbidden us in one place to make our selves the servants of any man 1 Cor. 7. hath yet bidden us in another place by love to serve one another Gal. 5. 13. And his practice therein consenteth with his doctrine as it should do in every teacher of truth for though he were free from all and knew it and would not be brought under the power of any yet in love he became servant to all that by all means he might win some It was an excellent saying of Luther Omnia libera per fidem omnia serva per charitatem We should know and be fully perswaded with the perswasion of faith that all things are lawful and yet withal we should purpose and be fully resolved for charity's sake to forbear the use of many things if we find them inexpedient He that will have his own way in every thing he hath a liberty unto whosoever shall take offence at it maketh his liberty but a cloak of maliciousness by using it uncharitably The fourth and last way whereby we may use our liberty for a cloak of maliciousness is by using it undutifully pretending it unto our disobedience to lawful authority The Anabaptists that deny all subjection to Magistrates in indifferent things do it upon this ground that they imagine Christian liberty to be violated when by humane Laws it is determined either the one way or the other And I cannot but wonder that many of our brethren in our own Church who in the question of Ceremonies must argue from their ground or else they talk of Christian liberty to no purpose should yet hold off before they grow to their conclusion which to my apprehension seemeth by the rules of good discourse to issue most naturally and necessarily from it It were a happy thing for the peace both of this Church and of their own consciences if they would in calm blood review their own dictates in this kind and see whether their own principle which the cause they are engaged in maketh them doat upon can be reasonably defended and yet the Anabaptists inference thence which the evidence of truth maketh them to abhor he fairly avoided Yet somewhat they have to say for the proof of that their ground which if it be sound it is good reason we should subscribe to it if it be not it is as good reason they should retract it Let us hear therefore what it is and put it to trial First say they Ecclesiastical Constitutions for there is the quarrel determine us precisely ad unum in the use of indifferent things which God and Christ have left free ad utrumlibet Secondly by inducing a necessity upon the thing they enjoyn they take upon them as if they could alter the nature of things and make that to become necessary which is indifferent which is not in the power of any man but of God only to do Thirdly these Constitutions are so far pressed as if men were bound in conscience to obey them which taketh away the freedom of the conscience for if the conscience be bound how is she free Nor so only but fourthly the things so enjoyned are by consequence imposed upon us as of absolute necessity unto salvation forasmuch as it is necessary unto salvation for every man to do that which he is bound in conscience to do by which device kneeling at the Communion standing at the Gospel bowing at the name of Jesus and the like become to be of necessity unto salvation Fifthly say they these Constitutions cannot be defended but by such Arguments as the Papists use for the establishing of that their rotten Tenet that humane Laws bind the conscience as well as Divine Than all which premisses what can be imagined more contrarious to true Christian liberty In which Objections before I come to their particular answer I cannot but observe the unjust I would we might not say unconscionable partiality of the Objectors First in laying the accusation against the Ecclesiastical Laws only whereas their Arguments if they had any strength in them would as well conclude against the Political Laws in the Civil State and against domestical orders in private Families as against the Laws Ecclesiastical yet must these only be guilty and they innocent which is not equal Let them either damn them all or quit them all or else let them shew wherein they are unlike which they have not yet done neither can do Secondly when they condemn the things enjoyned as simply and utterly unlawful upon quite other grounds and yet keep a stir about Christian liberty for which argument there can be no place without supposal of indifferency for Christ hath left us no liberty to unlawful things how can they answer this their manifest partiality Thirdly if they were put to speak upon their consciences whether or no if power were in their own hands and Church-affairs left to their ordering they would not forbid those things they now dislike every way as strictly and with as much imposition of necessity as the Church presently enjoyneth them I doubt not but they would say Yea and what equity is there in this dealing to condemn that in others which they would allow in themselves Fourthly in some things they are content to submit to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions notwithstanding their Christian liberty which liberty they stifly pretend for their refusal of other some whereas the case seemeth to be every way equal in both all being enjoyned by the same Authority and for the same end and in the same manner If their liberty be impeached by these why not as much by those Or if obedience to those may consist with Christian liberty why not as well obedience to these in allowing some rejecting others where there is the same reason of all are not they very partial And now I come to answer their arguments or rather flourishes for they are in truth no better That first allegation that the determining of any thing in unam partem taketh away a mans liberty to it is not true For the liberty of a Christian to any thing indifferent consisteth in this that his judgment is throughly perswaded of the indifferency of it and therefore it is the determination of the judgment in the opinion of the thing not the use of it that taketh away Christian liberty Otherwise not only Laws Political and Ecclesiastical but also all Vows Promises Covenants Contracts and what not that pitcheth upon any certain resolution de futuro should be prejudicial to Christian liberty because they do all determine something in unam partem which before was free and indifferent in utramque partem For example if my friend invite me to sup with him I may by no
means promise him to come because the liberty I had before to go or not to go is now determined by making such a promise neither may a young man bind himself an Apprentice with any certain Master or to any certain Trade because the liberty he had before of placing himself indifferently with that Master or with another and in that trade or in another is now determin'd by such a contract And so it might be instanc'd in a thousand other things For indeed to what purpose hath God left indifferent things determinable both ways by Christian liberty if they may never be actually determined either way without impeachment of that liberty It is a very vain power that may not be brought into act but God made no power in vain Our Brethren I hope will wave this first argument when they shall have well examined it unless they will frame to themselves under the name of Christian liberty a very Chimaera a non ens a meer notional liberty whereof there can be no use That which was alledged secondly that they that make such Laws take upon them to alter the nature of things by making indifferent things to become necessary being said gratis without either truth or proof is sufficiently answered by the bare denial For they that make Laws concerning indifferent things have no intention at all to meddle with the nature of them they leave that in medio as they found it but only for some reasons of conveniency to order the use of them the indifferency of their nature still being where it was Nay so far is our Church from having any intention of taking away the indifferency of those things which for order and comeliness she enjoyneth that she hath by her publick declaration protested the contrary wherewith they ought to be satisfied Especially since her sincerity in that declaration that none may cavil as if it were protestatio contraria facto appeareth by these two most clear Evidences among many other in that she both alloweth different Rites used in other Churches and also teacheth her own rites to be mutable neither of which she could do if she conceived the nature of the things themselves to be changed or their indifferency to be removed by her Constitutions Neither is that true which was thirdly alledged that where men are bound in conscience to obey there the conscience is not left free or else there would be a contradiction For there is no contradiction where the Affirmative and Negative are not ad idem as it is in this case for Obedience is one thing and the Thing Commanded another The Thing is commanded by the Law of Man and in regard thereof the conscience is free but Obedience to men is commanded by the Law of God and in regard thereof the conscience is bound So that we are bound in conscience to obedience in indifferent things lawfully commanded the conscience still remaining no less free in respect of the things themselves so commanded than it was before And you may know it by this In Laws properly humane such as are those that are made concerning indifferent things the Magistrate doth not nor can say this you are bound in conscience to do and therefore I command you to do it as he might say if the bond of obedience did spring from the nature of the things commanded But now when the Magistrate beginneth at the other end as he must do and saith I command you to do this or that and therefore you are bound in conscience to do it this plainly sheweth that the bond of obedience ariseth from that power in the Magistrate and duty in the subject which is of Divine Ordinance You may observe therefore that in humane Laws not meerly such that is such as are established concerning things simply necessary or meerly unlawful the Magistrate may there derive the bond of obedience from the nature of the things themselves As for example if he should make a Law to inhibit Sacriledge or Adultery he might then well say You are bound in conscience to abstain from these things and therefore I command you so to abstain which he could not so well say in the Laws made to inhibit the eating of flesh or the transportation of Grain And the reason of the difference is evident because those former Laws are rather Divine than Humane the substance of them being divine and but the sanction only humane and so bind by their immediate vertue and in respect of the things themselves therein commanded which the latter being meerly humane both for substance and sanction do not The consideration of which difference and the reason of it will abundantly discover the vanity of the fourth allegation also wherein it was objected that the things enjoyned by the Ecclesiastical Laws are imposed upon men as of necessity to salvation which is most untrue Remember once again that obedience is one thing and the things commanded another Obedience to lawful Authority is a duty commanded by God himself and in his Law and so is a part of that holiness without which no man shall see God but the things themselves commanded by lawful Authority are neither in truth necessary to salvation nor do they that are in Authority impose them as such only they are the object and that but by accident neither and contingently not necessarily about which that obedience is conversant and wherein it is to be exercised An example or two will make it plain We know every man is bound in conscience to employ himself in the works of his particular calling with faithfulness and diligence and that faithfulness and diligence is a branch of that holiness and righteousness which is necessary unto salvation Were it not now a very fond thing and ridiculous for a man from hence to conclude that therefore drawing of wine or making of shoes were necessary to salvation because these are the proper imployment of the Vintners and Shoemakers Calling which they in conscience are bound to follow nor may without sin neglect them Again if a Master command his servant to go to the Market to sell his corn and to buy in provision for his house or to wear a livery of such or such a colour and fashion in this case who can reasonably deny but that the servant is bound in conscience to do the very things his Master biddeth him to do to go to sell to buy to wear And yet is there any man so forsaken of common sence as thence to conclude that going to market selling of corn buying of meat wearing a blue coat are necessary to salvation Or that the Master imposeth those things upon the servant as of necessity unto salvation The obligation of the servants conscience to do the things commanded ariseth from the force of that divine Law which bindeth servants to obey their masters in lawful things The master in the things he so commandeth hath no particular actual respect to the conscience of his servant
which perhaps all that while never came within his thoughts but merely respecteth his own occasions and conveniences In this example as in a glass let the objectors behold the lineaments and features of their own Argument Because kneeling standing bowing are commanded by the Church and the people are bound in conscience to obey the Laws of the Church therefore the Church imposeth upon the people kneeling standing and bowing as necessary to salvation If that which they object were indeed true and that the Church did impose these Rites and Ceremonies upon the people as of necessity to salvation and require to have them so accepted doubtless the imposition were so prejudicial to Christian liberty as that every faithful man were bound in conscience for the maintenance of that liberty to disobey her authority therein and to confess against the imposition But our Church hath been so far from any intention of doing that her self that by her foresaid publick declaration she hath manifested her utter dislike of it in others What should I say more Denique teipsum concute It would better become the Patriarchs of that party that thus deeply but untruly charge her to look unto their own cloaks dive into their own bosoms and survey their own positions and practice if happily they may be able to clear themselves of trenching upon Christian liberty and ensnaring the consciences of their brethren and imposing upon their Proselites their own traditions of kneel not stand not bow not like those mentioned Col. 2. of touch not taste not handle not requiring to have them accepted of the People as of necessity unto salvation If upon due examination they can acquit themselves in this matter their accounts will be the easier but if they cannot they shall find when the burden lighteth upon them that it will be no light matter to have been themselves guilty of that very crime whereof they have unjustly accused others As for consent with the Papists in their doctrine concerning the power that mens Laws have over the conscience which is the last objection it ought not to move us We are not ashamed to consent with them or any others in any truth but in this point we differ from them so far as they differ from the truth which difference I conceive to be neither so great as some men nor yet so little as other some men would make it They teach that Humane Laws especially the Ecclesiastical bind the consciences of men not only in respect of the obedience but also in respect of the things themselves commanded and that by their own direct immediate and proper virtue In which doctrine of theirs three things are to be misliked First that they give a preheminence to the Ecclesiastical Laws above the Secular in this power of binding Wee may see it in them and in these objectors how men will run into extremities beyond all reason when they give themselves to be led by corrupt respects As he said of himself and his fellow-Philosophers Scurror ego ipse mihi populo tu so it is here They of Rome carried with a wretched desire to exalt the Papacy and indeed the whole Clergy as much as they may and to avile the secular powers as much as they dare they therefore ascribe this power over the conscience to the Ecclesiastical Laws especially but do not shew themselves all out so zealous for the Secular Ours at home on the contrary out of an appetite they have to bring in a new platform of Discipline into the Church and for that purpose to present the established Government unto the eyes and the hearts of the people in as deformed a shape as they can quarrel the Ecclesiastical Laws especially for tyrannizing over the conscience but do not shew themselves so much aggrieved at the secular Whereas the very truth is whatsoever advantages the secular powers may have above the Ecclesiastical or the Ecclesiastical above the secular in other respects yet as to the poweâ—â—â— binding the Conscience all humane Laws in general are of like reason and stand upon equal terms It is to be misliked secondly in the Romish Doctrine that they subject the conscience to the things themselves also and not only tie it to the obedience whereby they assume unto themselves interpretative the power of altering the nature of the things by removing of their indifferency and inducing a necessity for so long as they remain indifferent it is certain they cannot bind And thirdly and principally it is to be misliked in them that they would have this binding power to flow from the proper and inherent virtue of the Laws themselves immediately and per-se which is in effect to equal them with the divine Law for what can that do more Whereas humane Lawâ— in things not repugnant to the Law of God do bind the conscience indeed to obedience but it is by consequent and by vertue of a former Divine Law commanding us in all lawful things to obey the superior powers But whether mediately or immediately may some say whether directly or by consequent whether by its own or by a borrowed vertue what is it material to be argued so longas the same effect will follow and that as entirely to all intents and purposes the one way as well as the other As if a debt be alike recoverable it skilleth not much whether it be due upon the original bond or upon an assignment If they may be sure to be obeyed the higher powers are satisfied Let Scholars wrangle about words and distinctions so they have the thing it is all they look after This Objection is in part true and for that reason the differences in this controversie are not altogether of so great consequence as they have seemed to some Yet they that think the difference either to be none at all or not of considerable moment judge not aright for albeit it be all one in respect of the Governors whence the Obligation of Conscience springeth so long as they are conscioâ—ably obeyed as was truly alledged Yet unto inferiors who are bound in conscience to yield obedience it is not all one but it much concerneth them to understand whence that Obligation ariseth in respect of this very point whereof we now speak of Christian liberty and for two weighty and important considerations For first If the obligation spring as they would have it from the Constitution it self by the proper and immediate vertue thereof then the conscience of the subject is tyed to obey the Constitution in the rigour of it whatsoever occasions may occur and whatsoever other inconveniences may follow thereupon so as he sinneth mortally who at any time in any case though of never so great necessity doth otherwise than the very letter of the Constitution requireth yea though it be extra casum scandali contemptûs Which were an heavy case and might prove to be of very pernicious consequence and is indeed repugnant
to Christian liberty by enthralling the conscience where it ought to be free But if on the other side which is the truth the Constitution of the Magistrate bind the conscience of the subject not immediately and by its own virtue but by consequent only and by vertue of that Law of God which commandeth all men to obey their superiours in lawful things then is there a liberty left to the subject in cases extraordinary and of some pressing necessity not otherwise well to be avoided to do otherwise sometimes than the Constitution requireth And he may so do with a free conscience so long as he is sure of these two things First that he be driven thereunto by a true and real and not by a pretended necessity only and secondly that in the manner of doing he use such godly discretion as neither to shew the least contempt of the Law in himself nor to give ill example to others to despise Government or Governors And this first difference is material And so is the second also if not much more which is this If the Magistrates Constitution did bind the conscience virtute propriâ— and immediately then should the conscience of the subject be bound to obey the Constitution of the Magistrate ex intuitu praecepti upon the bare knowledge and by â—he bare warrant thereof without farther enquiry and consequently should be bound to obey as well in unlawful things as lawful Which consequence though they that teach otherwise will not admit yet in truth they cannot avoid for the proper and immediate cause being supposed the effect must needs follow Neither do I yet see what sufficient reason they that think otherwise can shew why the conscience of the subject should be bound to obey the Laws of the Magistrate in lawful things and not as well in unlawful things The true reason of it is well known to be this even because God hath commanded us to obey in lawful things but not in unlawful But for them to assign this reason were evidently to overthrow their own Tenent because it evidently deriveth the bond of Conscience from a higher power than that of the Magistrate even the Commandment of God And so the Apostles indeed do both of them derive it St. Paul in Rom. 13. men must be subject to the higher powers Why Because the powers are commanded of God And that for conscience sake too Why Because the Magistrates are the Ministers of God Neither may they be resisted And why Because to resist them is to resist the Ordinance of God That is St. Pauls doctrine And St. Peter accordeth with him Submit your selves saith he to every ordinance of man What for the mans sake Or for the Ordinance sake No but propter Dominum for the Lords sake verâ— 13. And all this may very well stand with Christian liberty for the conscience all this while is subject to none but God By these Answers to their Objections you may see what little reason some men have to make so much noise as they do about Christian liberty Whereupon if I have insisted far beyond both your expectations and my own first purpose I have now no other thing whereby to excuse it but the earnestness of my desire if it be possible to contain within some reasonable bounds of sobriety and duty those of my brethren who think they can never run far enough from superstition unless they run themselves quite out of their allegiance There are sundry other things which I am forced to pass by very needful to be rightly understood and very useful for the resolution of many cases of conscience which may arise from the joynt consideration of these two points of Christian Obedience and of Christian Liberty For the winding of our selves out of which perplexities when they may concern us I know not how to commend both to my own practice and yours a shorter and fuller rule of direction than to follow the clew of this Text Wherein the Apostle hath set just bounds both to our obedience and liberty Bounds to our obedience that we obey so far as we may without prejudice to our Christian liberty in all our acts of obedience to our superiors still keeping our consciences free by subjecting them to none but God Submit your selves c. but yet as free and as the servants of God and of none besides Bounds to our Liberty that the freedom of our judgments and consciences ever reserved we must yet in the use of indifferent things moderate our liberty by ordering our selves according unto Christian sobriety by condescending sometimes to our brethren in Christian Charity and by submitting our selves to the lawful commands of our Governors in Christian duty In any of which respects if we shall fail and that under the pretension of Christian liberty we shall thereby quite contrary to the express direction of both the Apostles but abuse the name of liberty for an occasion to the flesh and for a cloak of maliciousness As free but not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness but as the servants of God And so I pass from this second to my third and last Observation wherein if I have been too long or too obscure in the former I shall now endeavour to recompence it by being both shorter and plainer The Observation was this In the whole exercise both of the liberty we have in Christ and of those respects we owe unto men we must evermore remember our selves to be and accordingly behave our selves as those that are Gods servants in these last words But as the servants of God containing our condition and our carriage By our condition we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the servants of God and our carriage must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the the servants of God I shall fit my method to this division and first shew you sundry reasons for which we should desire to be in this Condition to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the servants of God and then give some directions how we may frame our carriage answerably thereunto to demean our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the servants of God For the first We cannot imagine any consideration that may be found in any service in the world to render it desirable which is not to be found and that in a far more eminent degree in this service of God If Iustice may provoke us or Necessity enforce us or Easiness hearten us or Honour allure us or Profit draw us to any service behold here they all concur the service of God and of Christ is excellently all these It is of all other the most just the most necessary the most easie the most honourable the most profitable service And what would you have more First It is the most just service whether we look at the title of Right on his part or reasons of Equity on ours As for him he is our Lord and Master pleno jure he hath right
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being the Phrase there in keeping back as they did part of the full price when they should have laid it down all Thus we are tied in Iustice to honour all men 11. The next tie is that of Equity where the Rule is Quod tibi fieri non vis A Rule which Severus a wise Emperour magnified exceedingly Lampridius saith that he learnt it of the Christians And it may very well be so for Christ himself commended it to his Disciples as a perfect breviate of the whole Law Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets He meaneth so far as concerneth our dealings and transactions with men A short Lesson but of a large comprehension all one in the meaning and result with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Iames calleth it that Royal Law which comprehendeth in it the whole Second Table of the Law with all the several offices reducible to each Commandment therein Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself If we would but once perfectly learn this one Lesson and soundly follow it Do as we would be done to sailing always by that Compass and framing all our actions by that Rule we should not need any other Law for the guiding of our consciences or other direction for the ordering of our Conversations in respect of our carriage towards others But there is a base wretched pride in us that disordereth all both within and without and will not suffer us to be I say not just but even so much as reasonable Like some broken Merchants that drive their Creditors to low Compositions for great Sums but call hard upon their poor Neighbours for petty reckonings that stand uncrost in the Book or the Evil Servant in the Parable Mat. 18 who having craved his Masters forbearance for a very vast Sum went presently and shook his fellow-servant by the throat for a trifle or as young prodigal heirs that are ready to borrow of every man that will lend them but never take any care to pay scores so are many of us Nulla retrorsum We care not how much honour cometh to our selves from others how little goeth from our selves to others Nay you shall observe it and the reason of it is manifest for the same pride that maketh men over-prize themselves maketh them also undervalue their brethren you shall observe it I say that those very men that stand most upon the terms of bitterness and look for most respect from those that are below them are ever the slackest in giving to those that are above them their due honour Who so forward generally to set bounds and to give Law to the higher powers as those very men that exercise the most unbounded and unlimited tyranny among their poor neighbours and underlings crowing over them without all mercy and beyond all reason I forbid no man to maintain the rights and to preserve the dignity that belongeth either to his Place or Person rather I hold him much to blame if he do not by all fair and justifiable means endeavour so to do For qui sibi nequam cui bonus He that is wretchless of his own honour there is no great fear that he will be over careful of doing his neighbour right in giving him his Let every man therefore in Gods name take to himself that portion of honour and respect that is due to him and good luck may he have with his honour Provided always that he be withal sure of these two things First that he take no more than his due for this is but just and then that he be as willing to give as to take for that is but equal He that doth otherwise is partial and unreasonable And thus we are tied in Equity to honour all men 12. There is yet a third tie that of Religion in respect of that Image of God which is to be found in man All honour is in regard of some excellency or other and there is in man no excellency at all of and from himself but all the excellency that is in him is such only as God hath been pleased to put upon him So as those Characters and impressions of excellency which God hath stamped upon man as some image of himself is the true foundation of all that honour that can any way belong unto him And that excellency is twofold Natural and Personal The Natural excellency is that whereby man excelleth other creatures Personal that whereby one man excelleth another 13. Of the Natural first which ariseth from the Image of God stamped upon man in his Creation And this excellency being it was put upon the whole species of mankind is therefore to be found in all men and that alike so as in this respect all men are honourable and all alike honourable Thou that comparing thy self with thy poorer Brother thinkest thy self the better man and so despisest him compare thy self and him another while in puris naturalibus and thou shalt find no difference Take him as a man he is every way as good a man as thou thou carriest a body about thee no less mortal than his he harboureth a soul within him no less immortal than thine And where is the difference Well then here is the first honour we owe to all men even as they are men and that without all either exception none to be excluded or differences none to be preferred viz. this That we despise no man but that as much as lieth in us we preserve the being and advance the well-being of every man and that because of Gods Image set upon him As when a piece of base metal is coyned with the Kings stamp and made current by his Edict no man may thenceforth presume either to refuse it in pay or to abate the value of it So God having stamped his own Image upon every man and withal signified his blessed pleasure how precious he would have him to be in our eyes and esteem according as you shall find the tenour of the Edict in Gen. 9. At the hand of every mans brother will I require the life of man with the reason of the Edict also annexed for in the Image of God made he man we must look to answer it as an high contempt of that Sacred Majesty if we set any man at nought or make less account of him than God would have us The contumelious usage of the Image is in common construction ever understood as a dishonour meant to the Prototype upon which consideration it was that the Romans when they meant to set a mark of publick disgrace or dishonour upon any eminent person did manifest their such intention by throwing down breaking trampling upon or doing some other like disgrace unto their statues or pictures And Solomon in sundry places interpreteth all acts of oppressing mocking or otherwise dèspising our neighbours not without a strong reflection upon
speak of the Donatists and other Schismaticks of old who confined the Church to some little corner of the World for which they were soundly confuted by St. Augustine Optatus and other godly Fathers of their times First of all extremely partial in this kind are the Romish Party at this day Who contrary to all truth and reason make the Roman and the Catholick Church terms convertible exacting external Communion with them and subjection to their Bishop as a condition so essentially requisite for the qualifying of any person to be a member of that Church of Christ out of which there is no Salvation as that they have inserted a clause to that purpose into the very definition of a Church So cutting off from this brotherhood in a manner wholly all the spacious Churches of Africk and Asia together with all those both Eastern and Western Churches of Europe also which dare not submit to so vast a power as the Bishops of Rome pretend to nor can think themselves obliged to receive all their dictates for undoubted Articles of faith 41. The like Partiality appeareth secondly in our brethren of the Separation Marvel not that I call them Brethren though they will by no means own us as such the more unjust and uncharitable they And in this uncharitableness such a coincidence there is sometimes of extremes the Saparatists and the Romanists consequently to their otherwise most distant Principles do fully agree like Samsons Foxes tied together by the tails to set all on fire although their faces look quite contrary ways But we envy not either these or those their uncharitableness nor may we imitate them therein But as the Orthodox Fathers did the wayward Donatists then so we hold it our duty now to account these our uncharitable brethren as well of the one sort as the other our Brethren still whether they will thank us for it or no Velint nolint fratres sunt These our Brethren I say of the Separation are so violent and peremptory in unchurching all the World but themselves that they thrust and pen up the whole Flock of Christ in a far narrower pingle than ever the Donatists did concluding the Communion of Saints within the compass of a private Parlour or two in Amsterdam 42. And it were much to be wished in the third place that some in our own Church who have not yet directly denied us to be their Brethren had not some of the leaven of this Partiality hidden in their breasts They would hardly else be so much swelled up with an high opinion of themselves nor so much sowred in their affections towards their brethren as they bewray themselves to be by using the terms of Brotherbood of Profession of Christianity the Communion of Saints the Godly Party and the like as titles of distinction to difference some few in the Church a disaffected party to the established Government and Ceremonies from the rest As if all but themselves were scarce to be owned either as Brethren or Professors or Christians or Saints or Godly men Who knoweth of what ill consequence the usage of such appropriating and distinctive titles that sound so like the Pharisees I am holier than thou and warp so much towards a separation may prove and what evil effects they may produce in future But however it is not well done of any of us in the mean time to take up new Forms and Phrases and to accustom ourselves to a garb of speaking in Scripture-language but in a different notion from that wherein the Scriptures understand it I may not I cannot judge any mans heart but truly to me it seemeth scarce a possible thing for any man that appropriateth the name of Brethren or any of those other titles of the same extent to some part only of the Christian Church to fulfil our Apostles precept here of loving the Brotherhood according to the true meaning thereof For whom he taketh not in he must needs leave out and then he can love them but as those that are without Perhaps wish them well pray for their conversion shew them civil respect c. which is no more than he might or would do to a very Iew Turk or Pagan 43 As for us beloved brethren let us in the name and fear of God beware of all rotten or corrupt partiality in the performance either of this or of any other Christian duty either to God or man And let us humbly beseech the God of all grace and peace to put into our hearts a spirit of Wisdom and Charity that we may duly both honour and love all men in such sort as becometh us to do but especially that we may love and honour him above all who hath already so loved and honoured us as to make us Christians and hath further engaged himself by his gracious Promise to love honour and reward all those that seek his honour and glory To whom be all honour and glory ascribed c. AD AULAM. The Fourth Sermon BEUVOYR JULY 1636. Psal. 19. 13. Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins Let them not have dominion over me So shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression 1. THis Psalm is one of Davids Meditations That it is Davids we have it from the Title in the beginning That it is a Meditation from the close in the end of it Now there are but two things especially whereon to employ our meditations with profit to the right knowledge whereof some have therefore reduced the whole body of Divinity God and our selves And the meditation is then most both compleat and fruitful when it taketh in both Which is to be done either viâ ascensus when we begin below and at our selves and so build upwards raising our thoughts higher to the contemplation of God or viâ descensus when we begin aloft and with him and so work downward drawing our thoughts home upon our selves 2. This latter is the method of this Psalm in the former part whereof David beginneth as high as at the most Highest and then descendeth as low as to himself in the latter For the succouring of his Meditations there he maketh use of the two great Books that of Nature or of the works of God and that of Scripture or of the Word of God In that he readeth the Power in this the Will of this Maker That declareth his Glory this revealeth his Pleasure That from the beginning of the Psalm The heavens declare the glory of God c. to the end of the sixth verse This from the beginning of the seventh verse The Law of the Lord is perfect c. to the end of the eleventh verse 3. Hence coming to reâ—â—ect upon himself he hath now use of a third Book that of his own conscience wherein are enrolled the principal acts and passages of his whole life That by a just survey of the particulars therein enregistred he might observe what proportion
a fair trial upon it Yet cometh that Challenge far short of this Protestation Samuel speaketh only of not taking St. Paul also of not coveting according to the express letter of the prohibition in the Decalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt not covet saith the Law his Conscience answereth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have not coveied So good a Proficient was he so perfect a Scholar in this holy learning that he con'd it Verbatim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might he well say and truly for he had indeed learned to be content with his own 20. And might not we learn it too think ye as well as he Sure we might for what should hinder Only if we would but tie our selves strictly to those Rules those I mean of Iustice and Charity which are the first Elements of this learning For Iustice first the Rule is Suum cuique That every man have what of right to him appertaineth Now every mans right unto any of the things of this World ariseth from Gods disposal thereof by such ways and means ordinarily as by the general Law and common consent of all civil Nations or by the positive Laws of particular Kingdoms and Common-wealths not repugnant thereunto are allowed for that end as Descent Gift Purchase Industry c. Whose distributions however unequal they may seem to us are yet evermore just in themselves and as they come from him So that every man is by us to be accounted the just owner and proprietary of that whereof he is the legal possessor yea though it do appear to us to have been very unjustly gotten either by himself or by any of those from whom he had it His very possession I say although without a justifiable Title is yet sufficient to make it his as to the intendment of the Law in that behalf that is to say so far forth as to render our desiring of it from him unlawful in foro interno unless in that one Case only when the right is in us though he be in possession In all other Cases possession is a good plea the Title of Possession being in all reason to be esteemed good against him that is not able to shew a better 21. If then we be at any time carried with a restless and immoderate desire after that which the hand of Providence hath been pleased to dispose otherwhere and our selves have no Antecedent right whereby to entitle it Ours do we not take upon us after a sort to controll the holy and wise Appointments of our good God For if it were indeed fitter for us than him and not in opinion only could not the Lord by his Almighty power and would he not in the dispensation of his good providence have by some honest means or other disposed it upon us rather than upon him By this extreme partiality to our selves we become unjust Iudges of evil thoughts in setling that upon our selves in our own thoughts as fittest for us which God hath thought fit to settle rather upon another The Story in Xenophon how young Cyrus was corrected by his Tutor for bestowing the Two Coats upon Two of his School-fellows according to the fitness thereof to their Two Bodies in his own discretion without enquiring first as he should have done who was the right owner of either is so well known and withall pertinent to our present purpose that I shall not need either to relate it or apply it When Almighty God then by disposing of these outward things hath manifested his pleasure to give our neighbour a property in them it is an unjust desire in us to covet them from him and to wish them transferred upon our selves 22. The other Rule I told you of is that of Charity Which binding us to love our neighbour as our selves must needs bind us consequently to rejoyce in his good as in our own and not wish any thing to his prejudice no more than to our own and consequently to these to be content that he should enjoy that which God hath allotted him with our good wills as we desire to hold that which is in like manner allotted us with his good will There is no such Enemy to Brotherly love as is Self-love For look how much we bestow upon our selves more than we should we must needs leave to our brother so much less than we should And it is nothing but this overmuch love of our selves that maketh us so much covet to have to our selves that which belongeth not to us If ye fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self ye do well saith St. Iames Very well this But if ye have respect to Persons especially if ye become partial once to your own persons that is not well then you commit sin saith he and are convinced of the Law as transgressors 23. But this is Durus sermo may some say It were hard so to confine mens minds to that which is their own as not to allow any desire at all of that which is anothers If we should conceive the Law thus strict it would destroy not only all Humane Ordinances that concern Trading and Commerce as buying selling exchanging c. without which publick Societies cannot subsist but even the Divine Ordinance also of earning our livings by labour and industry Then might no man endeavour by honourable and vertuous atchievements to raise himself a fortune or make way for his future advancement or do any thing whatsoever whereby to acquire or derive upon himself a property in any thing that were not his own already Since none of all this can be done without a desire in some degree or other of that which is anothers 24. This Objection need not much trouble us Nor justice nor Charity nor the holy Law of God which giveth rules to both condemn all desire of that which is anothers but an inordinate desire only that which is orderly and rightly qualified they all allow All the difficulty in this matter will be and that will make us some business how to discern between an orderly and an inordinate desire that so we may be able to judge rightly concerning our own desires at all times whether they be such as are allowed and may consist with contentment or such as are forbiden and cannot consist therewith Which is to be done by duly considering of those three especial Qualifications which are all requisite the concurrence I mean of the whole three to the making up of an orderly desire in any of which if there be a failure the desire becometh inordinate and sinful These three are in respect First of the Object Secondly of the Act Thirdly of the Effect of the desire 25. For the Object first If I desire but that from my neighbour say it be his House Land Beast or other Commodity which I find him willing or may reasonably presume he will not be unwilling for that I see no cause why he should be
of both Laws Civil and Canon with the vast Tomes of Glosses Repertories Responses and Commentaries thereon and take in the Reports and year-books of our Common-Law to boot for Divinity get through a course of Councils Fathers School men Casuists Expositors Controversers of all sorts and Sects When all is done after much weariness to the flesh and in comparison thereof little satisfaction to the mind for the more knowledge we gain by all this travel the more we discern our own Ignorance and thereby but encrease our own sorrow the short of all is this and when I have said it I have done You shall evermore find try it when you will Temperance the best Physick Patience the best Law and A good Conscience the best Divinity I have done Now to God c. AD AULAM. The Tenth Sermon WHITE-HALL at a publick Fast JULY 8. 1640. Psal. 119. 75. I know O Lord that thy Iudgments are right and that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled 1. IN which words the holy Prophet in two several Conclusions giveth unto God the Glory of those two his great Attributes that shine forth with so much lustre in all the Works of his Providence his Iustice and his Mercy The glory of his Iustice in the former conclusion I know O Lord that thy judgments are right the glory of his Mercy in the latter And that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled And to secure us the better of the truth of both Conclusions because flesh and blood will be ready to stumble at both We have his Scio prefixed expresly to the former only but the speech being copulative intended to both I know O Lord that thy judgments are right and I know also that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled Our order must be to begin with the Conclusions first as they lie in the Text and after that to proceed to David's knowledg of them although that stand first in the order of the words In the former Conclusion we have to consider of Two things First what these judgments of God are that David here speaketh of as the Subject and then of the righteousness thereof as the Praedicate I know O Lord that thy judgments are right 2. What Iudgments first There are judicia oris and there are judici◠operis the judgments of Gods mouth and the judgments of Gods hands Of the former there is mention at Verse 13. With my lips have I been telling of all the judgments of thy mouth And by these Iudgments are meant nothing else but the holy Law of God and his whole written Word which every where in this Psalm are indifferently called his Statutes his Commandments his Precepts his Testimonies his Iudgments And the Laws of God are therefore amongst other reasons called by the name of Iudgments because by them we come to have a right judgment whereby to discern between Good and Evil. We could not otherwise with any certainty judg what was meet for us to do and what was needful for us to shun A lege tuâ intellexi at verse 104. By thy Law have I gotten understanding St. Paul confesseth Rom. 7. that he had never rightly known what sin was if it had not been for the Law and he instanceth in that of lust which he had not known to be a sin if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet And no question but these judgments these judicia oris are all right too for it were unreasonable to think that God should make that a rule of right to us which were it self not right We have both the name that of judgments and the thing too that they are right in the 19th Psalm Where having highly commended the Law of God under the several appellations of Law Testimonies Statutes and Commandments ver 7 and 8. the Prophet then concludeth under this name of Iudgments ver 9. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether 3. Besides these Iudicia Oris which are Gods judgments of directions there are also Iudicia Operis which are his judgments for correction And these do ever include aliquid poenale something inflicted upon us by Almighty God as it were by way of punishment something that breedeth us Trouble or Grief The Apostle saith Heb. 12. that every chastening is grievous and so it is more or less or else it could be to us no punishment And these again are of two sorts yet not distinguished so much by the things themselves that are inflicted as by the condition of the persons on whom they are inflicted and especially by the Affection and Intention of God that inflicteth them For all whether publick calamities that light upon whole Nations Cities or other greater or lesser Societies of men such as are Pestilences Famine War Inundations unseasonable Weather and the like or private Afflictions that light upon particular Families or Persons as sickness poverty disgraces injuries death of friends and the like All these and whatsoever other of either kind may undergo a two-fold consideration in either of both which they may not unfitly be termed the Iudgments of God though in different respects 4. For either these things are sent by Almighty God in his heavy displeasure as Plagues upon his Enemies intending therein their destruction Such as were those publick judgments upon the Old World swept away with the flood upon Sodom and the other Cities consumed with fire from Heaven upon Pharaoh and his Host over-whelmed in the Red Sea upon the Canaanites spewed out of the Land for their abominations upon Ierusalem at the final destruction thereof by the Romans And those private judgments also that befel sundry particular persons as Cain Absolon Senacherib Herod and others Or else they are laid by Almighty God as gentle Corrections upon his own Children in his Fatherly love towards them and for their good to chastise them for their strayings to bring them to repentance for their sins to make them more observant and careful of their duty thence-forward to exercise their Faith and Patience and other Graces and the like Such as were those distresses that befel the whole people of Israel sundry times under Moses and in the days of their Iudges and Kings and those particular Trials and Afflictions wherewith Abraham and Ioseph and Iob and David and Paul and other the holy Saints and Servants of God were exercised in their times 5. Both the one sort and the other are called Iudgments but as I said in different respects and for different reasons Those former Plagues are called Gods Iudgments because they come from God not as a loving and merciful Father but as a just and severe Iudg who proceeding according to course of Law giveth sentence against a malefactor to cut him off And therefore this kind of judgment David earnestly deprecateth Psal. 143. Enter not into judgment with thy servant for then neither can I nor any flesh living be
and fears within insomuch as he was troubled on every side and his flesh had no rest at the fifth verse there Nevertheless saith he God that comforteth those that are cast down comforted us by the coming of Titus at vers 6. 35. Thirdly God manifesteth his love and faithfulness to his children in their troubles by the issues that he giveth out of them Deliverance and Honour Deliverance first That God hath often promised Call upon me in the time of trouble and I will hear thee Psal. 50. And he hath faithfully performed it Many or great are the troubles of the Righteous but the Lord delivereth them out of all Psal. 34. And he delivereth him safe and sound many times without the breaking of a bone yea sometimes without so much as the loss of a hair of his head How oft do we hear it repeated in one Psalm and made good by sundry instances So when they cried unto the Lord in their trouble he delivered them from their distress 36. Some evidence it is of his love and faithfulness that he delivered them at all but much more that he doth it with the addition of honour Yet hath he bound himself by his gracious promise to that also He shall call upon me and I will hear him yea I am with him in trouble I will deliver him and bring him to honour Psal. 91. As gold cast into the furnace receiveth there a new lustre and shineth brighter when it cometh forth than it did before so are the Saints of God more glorious after their great afflictions their graces ever more resplendent and many times even their outward estate also more honourable We may see in the examples of Ioseph of Iob of David himself and others if we had time to produce them that of Psal. 113. verified He raiseth the poor out of the dust and lifteth the needy out of the mire and from the dunghil that he may set him with Princes even with the Princes of his people But we have an example beyond all example even our blessed Saviour Iesus Christ. Never any sufferings so grievous as his never man so emptied and trodden down and made a man of sorrows as he never any issues so honourable as his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath highly exalted him and given him a name above every name that at the name of Iesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess to his honour And what hath befallen him the head concerneth us also his members not only by way of merit but by way of conformity also Si compatimur conregnabimus If we be partakers of his sufferings we shall be also of his glory God as out of very faithfulness he doth cause us to be troubled so will he out of the very same faithfulness give an honourable issue also to all our troubles if we cleave unto him by stedfast faith and constant obedience possibly in this life if he see it useful for us but undoubtedly in the life to come Whereunto c. AD AULAM. The Eleventh Sermon WHITEHALL JULY 5. 1640. 1 Cor. 10. 23. All things are lawful for me But all things are not expedient All things are lawful for me But all things edifie not 1. IN which words the Apostle with much holy wisdom by setting just bounds unto our Christian Liberty in the Power first and then in the exercise of that power excellently preventeth both the Error of those that would shrink it in and the Presumption of those that would stretch it out more than they ought He extendeth our Liberty in the Power but restraineth it in the Use. Would you know what a large power God hath permitted unto you in indifferent things and what may be done ex plenitudine potestatis and without scruple of conscience For that you have Omnia licent All things are lawful But would you know withal with what caution you ought to use that power and what at all times is fit to be done ex intuitu charitatis and for the avoiding of offence You have for that too Non omnia expediunt All things are not expedient All things edifie not If we will sail by this Card regulate our judgement and practice by our Apostles rule and example in the Text we shall neither dash against the Rock of Superstition on the right hand nor fall into the Gulph of Profaneness on the left we shall neither betray our Christian Liberty nor abuse it 2. In the words themselves are apparently observable concerning that Liberty two things the Extension first and then the Limitation of it The extension is in the former clause Wherein we have the Things and the Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things lawful and All lawful for me The Limitation is in the latter clauses wherein is declared first what it is must limit us and that is the reason of Expediency But all things are not expedient And secondly one special means whereby to judge of that Expediency which is the usefulness of it unto Edification But all things edifie not I am to begin with the Extension of which only at this time And first and chiefly in respect of the things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things are lawful 3. What All things Simply and â—ithout exception All What meant Iohn Baptist then to come in with his Non licet to Herod about his Brothers Wife It is not lawful for thee to have her Mat. 14. Or if Iohn were an austere man and had too much of Elias's spirit in him Yet how is it that our blessed Saviour the very pattern of love and meekness when the Pharisees put a question to him Whether it were lawful for a man to put away his Wife for every cause resolveth it in effect as if he had said No it is not lawful St. Peter saith the wicked Sodomites vexed the righteous soul of Lot daily with their unlawful deeds And who that hearkneth to the holy Law of God or but to the dictates of natural conscience will not acknowledge Blasphemy Idolatry Sacriledge Perjury Oppression Incest Parricide Treason c. to be things altogether unlawful And doth St. Paul now dissent so far from the judgement of his Master of his Fellow-Apostle of the whole world besides as to pronounce of all these things that they are lawful 4. Here the rule of Logicians must help Signa distributiva sunt intelligenda accommodatè ad subjectam materiam Notes of Universality are not ever to be understood in that fulness of latitude which the words seem to import but most often with such convenient restrictions as the matter in hand will require Now the Apostle by mentioning Expediency in the Text giveth us clearly to understand that by All things he intendeth all such things only whose Expediency or Inexpediency are meet to be taken into consideration as much as to say All indifferent things and none other For things absolutely necessary although it may
End and then he is to judge of the Expediency of the Means by their serviceableness thereunto 15. It is no doubt lawful for a Christian being that God hath tied him to live out his time in the World therefore to propose to himself in sundry particular actions of this Life worldly Ends Gain Preferment Reputation Delight so as he desire nothing but what is meet for him and that his desires thereof be also moderate And he may consequently apply himself to such Means as are expedient and conducing to those Ends. But those Ends and Means are but the Bye of a Christian not the Main He liveth in the World and so must and therefore also may use it But wo unto him if he have not far higher and nobler Ends than these to which all his Actions must refer and whereto all those worldly both Means and Ends must be subordinate And those are to seek the Glory of God and the Salvation of his own Soul by discharging a good Conscience and advancing the common Good In the use therefore and choice of such things as are in themselves lawful as all indifferent things are we are to judge those Means that may any way further us towards the attainment of any of those Ends to be so far forth expedient and those that any way hinder the same to be so far forth inexpedient and by how much more or less they so either further or hinder to be by so much more or less either expedient or inexpedient 16. Besides the End the reason of Expediency dependeth also very much upon such other particular Circumstances as do attend humane Actions as Times Places Persons Measure Manner and the rest By reason of the infinite variety and uncertainty whereof it is utterly impossible to give such general Rules of Expediency as shall serve to all particular Cases so that there is no remedy but the weighing of particular Circumstances in particular actions must be left to the Discretion and Charity of particular men Wherein every man that desireth to walk conscionably must endeavour at all times and in all his actions to lay things together as well as he can and taking one thing with another according to that measure of Wisdom and Charity wherewith God hath endowed him to resolve ever to do that which seemeth to him most convenient to be done as things then stand Only let him be sure still his Eye and Aim be upon the right End in the main and that then all things be ordered with reference thereunto 17. This discovery of the Nature of Expediency what it is and what dependence it hath upon and relation unto the End and Circumstances of mens actions discovereth unto us withal sundry material differences between Lawfulness and Expediency and thence also the very true reason why in the exercise of our Christian Liberty it should be needful for us to have regard as well to the Expediency as to the Lawfulness of those things we are to do Some of those Differences are First that as the Natures of things are unchangeable but their Ends and Circumstances various and variable so their Lawfulness which is rooted in their Nature is also constant and permanent and ever the same but their Expediency which hangeth upon so many turning hinges is ever and anon changing What is expedient to day may be inexpedient to morrow but once lawful and ever lawful Secondly That a thing may be at the same time expedient in one respect and inexpedient in another but no respects can make the same thing to be at once hoth lawful and unlawful Because respects cannot alter the Natures of things from which their Lawfulness or Unlawfulness ariseth Thirdly That the Lawfulness and Unlawfulness of things consisteth in puncto indivisibili as they use to speak even as the Nature and Essence of every thing doth and so are not capable either of them of the degrees of more or less all lawful things being equally lawful and all unlawful things equally unlawful But there is a latitude of expediency and inexpediency they do both suspicere magis minus so as one thing may be more or less expedient than another and more or less inexpedient than another And that therefore fourthly It is a harder thing to judge rightly of the Expediency of things to be done than of their lawfulness For to judge whether a thing be lawful or no there need no more to be done but to consider the nature of it in general and therein what conformity it hath with the principles of Reason and the written Word of God And universalia certiora a man of competent judgment and not forestalled with prejudice will not easily mistake in such generalities because they are neither many nor subject to much uncertainty But descendendo contingit errare the more we descend to Particulars in the more danger are we of being mistaken therein because we have both far more things to consider of and those also far more uncertain than before And it may fall out and not seldom doth that when we have laid things together in the Balance weighing one Circumstance with another as carefully as we could and thereupon have resolved to do this or that as in our judgment the most expedient for that time some Circumstance or other may come into our minds afterwards which we did not forethink or some casual intervening Accident may happen which we could not foresee that may turn the scales quite the other way and render the thing which seemed expedient but now now altogether inexpedient 18. From these and other like Differences we may gather the true reason why the Apostle so much and so often presseth the Point of Expediency as meet to be taken into our Consideration and Practice as well as that of Lawfulness Even because things lawful in themselves and in the kind may for want of a right End or through a neglect of due Circumstances become sinful in the doer Not as if an Act of ours could change the nature of the things from what they are for it is beyond the power of any Creature in the world to do that God only is Dominus Naturae to him it belongeth only as chief Lord to change either the Physical or Moral Nature of things at his pleasure Things in their own nature indifferent God by commanding can make necessary and by forbidding unlawful as he made Circumcision necessary and eating of Pork unlawful to the Iews under the old Law But no Scruple of Conscience no Command of the higher Powers no Opinions or Consent of Men no Scandal or Abuse whatsoever can make any indifferent thing to become either necessary or unlawful universally and perpetually and in the nature of it but it still remaineth indifferent as it was before any act of ours notwithstanding Yet may such an indifferent thing remaining still in the nature of it indifferent as before by some act of ours or otherwise become in
friends acquaintance or indeed more generally yet all wordly comforts stays and helps whatsoever 2. But then why these named the rarest and the rest to be included in these Because we promise to our selves more help from them than from any of the other We have a nearer relation to and a greater interest in them than any other and they of all other are the unlikest to forsake us The very brute Creatures forsake not their young ones A Hen will not desert her Chickens nor a Bear indure to be robbed of her Whelps 3. But then Thirdly why both named Father and Mother too Partly because it can hardly be imagined that both of them should forsake their child though one should hap to be unkind Partly because the Fathers love being commonly with more providence the Mothers with more tenderness both together do better express than alone either would do the abundant love of God towards us who is infinitely dear over us beyond the care of the most provident Father beyond the affection of the tenderest Mother 4. But then Fourthly When may they be said to forsake us When at any time they leave us destitute of such help as we stand in need of Whether it be out of Choice when they list not to help us though they might if they would or out of necessity when they cannot help us though they would if they could 4. The meaning of the words in the former part of the verse thus opened the result thereof is that There is a possibility of failing in all inferiour helps Fathers and Mothers our nearest and dearest friends all earthly visible helps and comforts always may fail us sometimes will fail us and at last must fail us leaving us destitute and succourless The truth whereof will the better appear if instancing especially in our natural Parents as the Text leadeth us we take a view of sundry particular causes of their so failing us under the two general heads but now mentioned to wit Choice and Necessity Under either kind three Sometimes they forsake us voluntarily aad of their own accord and through their own default when it is in their power to help us if they were so pleased which kind of forsaking may arise from three several Causes 5. First Natural Parents may prove unnatural meerly out of the naughtiness of their own hard and incompassionate hearts For although God hath imprinted this natural affection towards their own off-spring in the hearts of men in as deep and indelible characters as almost any other branch of the Law of Nature O nimiùm potens Quanto parentes sanguinis vinculo tenes Natura yet so desperately wicked is the heart of man that if it should be left to the wildness of its own corruption without any other bridle than the light of natural principles only it would eftsoons shake off that also and quite raze out all impressions of the Law of Nature at least so blur and confound the Characters that the Conscience should be able to spell very little or nothing at all of Duty out of them Else what needed the Apostle among other sins to have listed this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this want of natural affection in two several Catalogues Rom. 1. and 2 Tim. 3. Or to have charged Titus that young women should be taught among other things to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to love their Children If he had not observed some to have neglected their duty in that particular whereof Histories and experience afford us many examples Can a woman forget her sucking Child that she should not have compassion of the Son of her womb Saith the Lord by the Prophet He speaketh of it as of a monstrous thing and scarce credible of any Can she forget she in the single number But withal in the same words implyedly confessing it possible in more than one Yea they may forget They in the plural number Isa. 49. 15. 6. Secondly Parents not altogether void of natural affection may yet have their affections so alienated from their children upon some personal dislike as to forsake them Of which dislike I deny not but there may be just cause As among the Hebrews in the case of Blasphemy the Fathers hand was to be first in the execution of his Son Deut. 13. And both Civilians and Casuists allow the Father jus abdicationis a right of abdication in some cases But such cases are not much pertinent here or considerable as to our purpose For they that give their earthly Parents just cause to forsake them can have little confidence that God as their heavenly Father should take them up But when Parents shall withdraw their love and help from their Children upon some small oversights or venial miscarriages or take distaste at them either without cause or more than there is cause upon some wrong either surmise of their own or suggestion of others as Saul reviled Ionathan and threw a Iavelin at him to smite him interpreting his friendship with David as it had been a plotted Conspiracy between his Son and his Servant to take his Crown and his life from him Or when they shall disinherit their Children for some deformity of Body or defect of parts or the like As reason sheweth it to be a great sin and not to be excused by any pretence so it is an observation grounded upon manifold experience that where the right heirs have been disinherited upon almost whatsoever pretence the blessing of God hath not usually followed upon the persons and seldom hath the estate prospered in the hands of those that have succeeded in their rooms 7. Thirdly Parents whose affection towards their Children hath not been sowred by any personal dislike may yet have their affection so over-powered by some stronger lust as to become cruel to their children and forsake them For as in the World Might oftentimes over-beareth Right so in the soul of man the violence of a stronger passion or affection which in the case in hand may happen sundry ways beareth down the weaker It may happen as sometimes it hath done out of Superstition So Agamemnon sacrificed his Daughter Iphigenia The Heathens generally deceived by their cheating Oracles and some of the Iews led by their example sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils and caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch Sometimes out of revenge As Medea to be revenged of Iason for leaving her and placing his affection elsewhere slew her own two Sons begotten by him in his sight Saevus amor docuit natorum sanguine matres Commaculâsse manus Sometimes out of fear So the Parents of the blind man owned their Son indeed Ioh. 9. but for fear of being cast out of the Synagogue durst not speak a word in his just defence but left him to shift as well as he could for himself And Herod the great for no other cause than his own causeless fears and jealousies
awe and esteem to your persons preserve the authority of your places put life into your spirits and enable you to do the works of your Callings with courage and freedom 10. Secondly Samuel here justifieth himself for their greater conviction and for the more aggravating of their sin If his Government had been tyrannous or corrupt it had been somewhat the more excusable in them to have attempted a change tho I cannot say that the greatest tyranny or corruption in a Governor imaginable could have warranted such an attempt in toto Yet whatsoever fault there had been in them for so doing had he been liable to any just exceptions in that kind he must have born his share also of the blame as well as they they for that their seditious attempt and he for giving them the occasion Whereas his innocency putteth off all the blame from him and leaveth it wholly upon them who now can no more excuse themselves than they can accuse him They had rejected him with a Nolumus hunc regnare rather they had rejected God in him They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them Chap. 8. It stood him therefore upon to clear himself from all sinister surmises and suspicions of injustice that it might appear to them and to all the World that he had given them no cause why they should so reject him and that therefore they must thank themselves for it and not him if in any after-times they should have cause to repent it It is a brave thing for a Magistrate or indeed for any Man to walk with an even foot and in an upright course that when bad people shall go about to disparage him or to speak or but think unworthily of him he may be able to contest with them for the maintenance of his innocency and to stand upon his own justification as St. Paul did I have coveâ—ed no Man's silver or gold or apparel And as Moses did I have not taken an Ass from them neither have I hurt one of them And as our blessed Saviour himself did I have done many good works among you for which of those works do you stone me And as Samuel here doth Behold here I am witness against me whose Ox c. 11. Thirdly Samuel had now surrendred the administration into the hands of the new King and so having given up his Office he thought it meet to render an account how he hath carried himself therein It goeth sore with an evil steward to hear of a reckoning whereas he that hath been faithful desireth nothing more Whatsoever our Callings are we are but stewards over some part of God's Houshold and it were good for us estsoons to remember that our Master will require of us an account of our stewardships The time will come when we must all appear before the Iudgment-seat of Christ to give in our accounts And we must look to have them examined most strictly even ad ultimum quadranteâ—i to the very utmost Farthing Not an idle word nor a vain thought but must then be accounted for They that judg others now shall then be re-judged and all their proceedings re-examined and re-viewed with a most curious unerring and unpartial eye O happy thrice happy that servant who conscious to his own faithfulness shall not need to seek to the Hills and Rocks to hide him from the face of the great Iudg or to run to the Thickets as Adam did till he be fetcht out with that terrible process Adam where art thou but shall readily present himself with much assurance and comfort before him as Samuel here did before the King and the People and say Behold here I am 12. And why might not Samuel do this fourthly even in wisdom for the timely preventing of future cavil and danger There were some pretensions against his Sons of Injustice and Corruption and if matters should come to publick scanning like enough much might be proved against them Which how far they might be stretched to the Father's prejudice in after-times who could tell Little reason had he howsoever to trust a giddy people so unthankful and so new-fangled as he had found them to be and to suffer either his safety or credit to lie at their courtesie So long as these things should hang upon the file or lie in the desk he might perhaps be safe but he could not be secure That therefore the miscarriages of others might not fall on his neck he might think it safest for him toget his Quietus est betimes And therefore he requireth them all if any Man had ought to object against him that they would now produce it in open Court if they had not Reason would they should forthwith acquit him by their general Suffrages By which means having obtained a publick Testimony from them as we see in the Verses following and so being as it were quit by Proclamation he is thenceforth safe against all evil calumniations and fearless of after-claps It is a base and unmanly thing to use indirect and under-hand dealing to shift off a just Trial but a point of honest and Christian wisdom in a fair and open way handsomly to prevent an unjust Accusation No fault for a Man to use the Serpent's wisdom so it be not tainted with the Serpent's poison too but rightly tempered with a due mixture of Dove-like simplicity and innocency 13. Lastly To dissuade the people formerly from asking a King Samuel had told them what a King might do de Iure if he should use his absolute Power and what if a King should do it de Facto no remedy but submit they might not at any hand resist And he knew that by their obstinacy in asking a King they had so highly displeased the Lord that it were but just with him if he should suffer their new King to rule over them with rigour and tyranny It might very well be that out of this very consideration Samuel was the rather induced at this time to declare his own integrity that so he might propose unto the new King now in the entrance of his Reign a pattern of Equity and Justice in his own Example Even as St. Paul oftentimes proposeth his own example to the Churches for their imitation I beseech you Brethren to be followers of me Those things which ye have heard and seen in me do c. We see the World is much given to be led by example Whatever the attempt be usually one of the first enquiries is not whether there be any Law or any Reason or any Conscience but whether there be any Precedent for it yea or no And if any such be to be found it seldom sticketh it helpeth out many an ill matter it giveth a fair colour to many foul proceedings when Men have this yet to plead for themselves that they do but as others have done before them and continue things as
be their End to make themselves great and rich howsoever are not much moved with arguments of this nature The evidence of God's Law and conscience of their own duty work little upon them Gain is the thing they look after as for Equity they little regard it Let me tell them then that unjust gain is not gain but loss Nor is this a Paradox when a mere heathen Man could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and another Lucrum puta lucrum si justum fiet St. Paul placeth gain in godliness not in wealth and our Saviour teacheth that he that should gain the whole world if he should for that lose his own soul should have little cause to boast of his peniworth Lucrum in arca damnum inconscientia the gain will no ways countervail the loss All this is most certain truth but still we hit not upon the right string The Worldling hath his portion in this present life and in these outward things and therefore what losses befal him therein he can feel as soon as another Man and value them as well But he is not much sensible either of a spiritual or an eternal loss To come home to him then let him know that the gain of unrighteousness shall not long prosper with him and his Treasures of wickedness profit little saith Solomon Prov. 10. His meaning is take them à primo ad ultimum and they profit nothing A Man may seem to profit by them and to come up wonderfully for a time but time and experience thew that they moulder away again at the last and crumble to nothing and that for the most part within the compass of an age Seldom shall you see them hold so long but very rarely beyond the next Generation An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning but the end thereof shall not be blessed the same Solomon Prov. 20. The morsels of deceit and violence that were so pleasant in the chewing the time will come when they shall be vomited up again with sorrow and bitterness What gained Ahab by it when he had made himself Master of Naboth's Vineyard but the hastning of his own destruction And what was Gehazi the better for the gifts he received from Naaman which brought an hereditary Leprosie with them And what was Achan the richer for the golden Wedg he had saved out of the spoils and hidden in his Tent which brought destruction upon him and all that appertained to him 24. Brethren let us be wise and wary and not deceive our selves These gobbets are but Saâ—ans baits which when we swallow we swallow a hook with them wherewith he will strike us through at the last though he suffer us a while to play upon the line and to please our selves with those new morsels Let us therefore beware that we suffer not the least portion of unjust gain to cleave to our fingers or to mingle with our other substance There is a secret poison in it which in time will diffuse it self through the whole heap and seize upon every part and like Mercury-water or Aqua-fortis eat out all as some write of the Ostriches feather that it will in time moult and consume all the feathers in the tub wherein it is put Know you not that a small handful of leaven if it be hidden in a great trough full of meal will work it self into every part of it sowre the whole lump And that a single rood of Capite-land will bring the whole estate into wardship though containing many thousand Acres of never so free a Tenure It was wisely done therefore of Samuel as well as justly not to meddle with the taking of any Man's Ox or Ass. 25. It ought to be the care of every private Man thus far to follow Samuel's example that he keep himself from doing any Man wrong But Men that are in place of Government as Samuel was have yet a further charge lying upon them over and besides the former and that is to preserve others from wrong and being wronged to releive them to the utmost of their power A Magistrate should be so far from taking any Man's Ox or Ass from him that so far as he can hinder it he should not suffer any other Man so to do Where Commutative Iustice is by private persons violated through fraud oppression or bribery there it behoveth the Magistrate to set in and do his part in the administration of Distributive Iustice for the rectifying and redressing thereof It is the very end for which principally Laws and Courts and Magistrates were ordained 26. The more have they to answer for that abuse any part of this so sacred an Ordinance for the abetting countenancing or strengthning of any injurious act They that have skill in the Laws by giving dangerous counsel in the Chamber or pleading smoothly at the Bar. They that attend about the Courts by keeping back just complaints or doing other casts of their office in favour of an evil person or cause but especially the Magistrates themselves by a perfunctory or partial hearing by pressing the Laws with rigour or qualifying them with some mitigation where they ought not Where others do wrong if they know it and can help it their very connivance maketh them Accessaries and then the greatness and eminency of their places enhanceth the crime yet further and maketh them Principals Qui non prohibet peccare cum potest jubet He that suffereth another to take any Man's Ox or Ass from him or his house or land or common from him or his tithe or glebe from him or his liberty or good name from him or his life or any part of his livelihood from him being able to remedy it it is all one as if he should bid him do it Me nemo ministro Fur erit is a fit Motto for every good Magistrate 27. I have now done with the Genus the Species follow which I shall dispatch with more brevity The particulars are three Fraud Oppression and Bribery Whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed Or of whose hand have I received a bribe to blind mine eyes therewith Most Injuries are reduced to the two first heads Fraus and Vis. Sometimes a Man is wronged and perceiveth it not till afterwards which if he had known in time he might have prevented this is Defrauding Sometimes he seeth and feeleth how and wherein he is wronged but knoweth not which way in the world to avoid it this is Oppression There he met with a Fox here with a Lion In that he is over-wrought by Craft in this over-born by Might Both are joyned together in the Psalm He shall redeem their soul from falshood and violence Psal. 72. And in the Prophet I will punish those that leap on the threshold which fill their Masters houses with violence and deceit Zeph. 1. and they are sometimes joyned together in practice As Pharaoh said consulting the destruction of the
though somewhat more obscure is yet oftner found in the Scriptures than of the other Samuel undoubtedly learned it from Moses who hath it twice once in Exodus and again repeated in Deuteronomy in the self-same words Thou shalt take no gift for a gift blindeth the eyes of the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous A marvellous power sure there is in them that can work upon Men so strongly yea sometimes upon wise and righteous Men as Moses his words express as to stop their mouths and bind their hands and blind their eyes that they can neither speak nor do nor see what is right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in Euripides They say that even the Gods may be tempted with gifts Very like if applied to such gods as are spoken of in the Psalm Dixi Dii I have said ye are gods 40. But then what is it to blind the eyes Or how can bribes do it Iustice is not unfitly pourtrayed in the form of a Man with his right eye open to look at the Cause and his left eye shut or muffled that he may not look at the Person Now a gift putteth all this out of order and setteth it the quite contrary way It giveth the left eye liberty but too much to look asquint upon the person but putteth the right eye quite out that it cannot discern the Cause Even as in the next fore-going Chapter Nahash the Ammonite would have covenanted with the Inhabitants of Iabesh-Gilead upon condition he might thrust out all their right eyes From this property of hood-winking and muffling up the eyes it is that a Bribe is in the Hebrew the Text-word here called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Copher of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caphar to cover to dawb up or to draw over with lime plaister or the like Whereunto our English word to cover hath such near affinity in the sound that were it not apparently taken from the French Couvrir and that from the Latin Cooperire it might with some probability be thought to owe its Original to the Hebrew But however it be for the word the thing is clear enough this Copher doth so cover and plaister up the eyes that they cannot see to do their office aright and as they ought 41. And the reason of all this is because gifts if they be handsomly conveyed and not tendred in the name nor appearing in the likeness of Bribes for then wise and righteous Men will reject them with disdain and shake their hands and laps from receiving them but I say if they come as presents only and by way of kindness and respect they are sometimes well accepted and that deservedly even of wise and righteous Men as testimonies of the love and observance of the givers And then the nature of ingenuous persons is such that they cannot but entertain a good opinion of those that shew good respect unto them and are glad when any opportunity is offered them whereby to manifest such their good opinion and to requite one courtesy with another Whereby it cometh to pass that gifts by little and little and by insensible degrees win upon the affections of such Men as are yet just in their intentions and would not willingly be corrupted and at the last over-master them and the affections once throughly possest it is then no great mastery to do the rest and to surprise the judgment The good Magistrate therefore that would save his eyes and preserve their sight had need not only to hate bribes but to be very jealous of presents lest some of those things which he receiveth but as gifts be yet meant him for bribes But especially to suspect those gifts as so meant where the quantity and proportion of the gift considered and compared with the quality and condition of the giver may cast any just cause of suspicion upon them but to conclude them absolutely so meant if they be sent from persons that have business in the Courts 42. The only thing now remaining to be spoken to from the Text and that but in a word or two is Samuel's Equity in offering in case any thing should be truly charged against him in any the premisses to make the wronged parties restitution Whose Oxe have I taken Or c. And I will restore it you Samuel was confident he had not wittingly done any Man wrong either by Fraud Oppression or Bribery whereby he should be bound to make or should need to offer Restitution Yet partly to shew what was fit to be done in such cases and his own readiness so to do if there should be cause and partly for that it was possible in so long time of his Government and amid so many causes as passed through his hands that he might through misinformation precipitancy negligence prejudice or other humane frailty have committed some oversight in Judgment for which it might be reasonable for him to make some kind of compensation to the parties thereby damnified he here offereth Restitution A duty in case of Injury most necessary both for quieting the Conscience within and to give satisfaction to the World and for the more assurance of the Truth and Sincerity of our repentance in the sight of God for the wrongs we have done Without which at least in the desire and endeavour there can be no true repentance for the sin and consequently no security of the remission of the guilt That of Augustine Non dimittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum is a famous received Aphorism in this case well known to all but little considered and less practised by most 43. There is an enforced Restitution whereof perhaps Zophar speaketh in Iob 20. That which he laboured for he shall restore and not swallow it down according to his substance shall the restitution be and he shall not rejoice therein and such as the Law imposed upon thefts and other manifest wrongs which altho not much worth is yet better than none But as Samuel's offer here was voluntary so it is the voluntary restitution that best pleaseth God pacifieth the Conscience and in some measure satisfieth the World Such was that of Zacheus Luk. 19. in restoring four-fold to every Man from whom he had gained any thing wrongfully It may be feared if every Officer that hath to do in or about the Courts of Iustice should be tied to that proportion many one would have but a very small surplusage remaining whereout to bestow the one moity to pious uses as Zacheus there did 44. There is scarce any one point in the whole body of Moral Divinity that soundeth so harsh to the ear or relisheth so harsh in the palate of a worldling as this of Restitution doth To such a Man this is durus sermo indeed a hard very hard saying yet as hard as it seemeth to be it is full of Reason and Equity So full that I dare confidently say whoever he be that complaineth
into some such irregularity as made him conscious he had transgressed his Statutes did therefore apprehend the Proctor's invitation as an introduction to punishment the fear of which made his Bed restless that night but at their meeting the next morning that fear vanish'd immediately by the Proctor's chearful countenance and the freedom of their discourse of Friends And let me tell my Reader that this first meeting prov'd the begining of as spiritual a friendship as humane nature is capable of of a friendship free from all self-ends and it continued to be so till death forc'd a separation of it on earth but 't is now reunited in Heaven And now having given this account of his behaviour and the considerable accidents in his Proctorship I proceed to tell my Reader that this busie employment being ended he preach'd his Sermon for his degree of Batchelor in Divinity in as eligant Latin and as remarkable for the method and matter as hath been preached in that University since that day And having well performed his other Exercises for that degree he took it the nine and twentieth of May following having been ordained Deacon and Priest in the year 1611. by Iohn King then Bishop of London who had not long before been Dean of Christ-Church and then knew him so well that he own'd it at his Ordination and became his more affectionate Friend And in this year being then about the 29th of his Age he took from the University a Licence to preach In the year 1618. he was by Sir Nicholas Sanderson Lord Viscount Castleton presented to the Rectory of Wibberton not far from Boston in the County of Lincoln a Living of very good value but it lay in so low and wet a part of that Countrey as was inconsistent with his health And health being next to a good Conscience the greatest of God's blessings in this life and requiring therefore of every man a care and diligence to preserve it and he apprehending a danger of losing it if he continued at Wibberton a second Winter did therefore resign it back into the hands of his worthy Kinsman and Patron about one year after his donation of it to him And about this time of his resignation he was presented to the Rectory of Boothby Pannel in the same County of Lincoln a Town which has been made famous and must continue to be famous because Dr. Sanderson the humble and learned Dr. Sanderson was more than forty years Parson of Boothby Pannel and from thence dated all or most of his matchless Writings To this Living which was of less value but a purer Air then Wibberton he was presented by Thomas Harrington of the same County and Parish Esq a Gentleman of a very ancient Family and of great use and esteem in his Country during his whole life And in this Boothby Pannel the meek and charitable Dr. Sanderson and his Patron liv'd with an endearing mutual and comfortable friendship till the death of the last put a period to it About the time that he was made Parson of Boothby Pannel he resign'd his Fellowship of Lincoln Colledge unto the then Rector and Fellows And his resignation is recorded in these words Ego Robertus Sanderson per c. I Robert Sanderson Fellow of the Colledge of St. Maries and All-Saints commonly call'd Lincoln Colledge in the University of Oxford do freely and willingly resign into the hands of the Rector and Fellows all the Right and Title that I have in the said Colledge wishing to them and their Successors all peace and piety and happiness in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen May 6. 1619. Robert Sanderson And not long after this Resignation he was by the then Bishop of York or the King Sede vacante made Prebend of the Collegiate Church of Southwell in that Diocess and shortly after of Lincoln by the Bishop of that See And being now resolv'd to set down his rest in a quiet privacy at Boothby Pannel and looking back with some sadness upon his removal from his general and chearful Acquaintance left in Oxford and the peculiar pleasures of a University life he could not but think the want of Society would render this of a Country Parson still more uncomfortable by reason of that want of conversation and therefore he did put on some faint purposes to marry For he had considered that though marriage be cumbred with more worldly care than a single life yet a complying and prudent Wife changes those very cares into so mutual Joys as makes them become like the Sufferings of St. Paul which he would not have wanted because they occasion'd his rejoycing in them And he having well considered this and observ'd the secret unutterable joys that Children beget in Parents and the mutual pleasures and contented trouble of their daily care and constant endeavours to bring up those little Images of themselves so as to make them as happy as all those cares and endeavours can make them He having considered all this the hopes of such happiness turn'd his faint purpose into a positive resolution to marry And he was so happy as to obtain Anne the Daughter of Henry Nelson Batchelor in Divinity then Rector of Haugham in the County of Lincoln a man of noted worth and learning And the giver of all good things was so good to him as to give him such a Wife as was sutable to his own desires a Wife that made his life happy by being always content when he was chearful that was always chearful when he was content that divided her joys with him and abated of his sorrow by bearing a part of that burthen a Wife that demonstrated her affection by a chearful obedience to all his desires during the whole course of his life and at his death too for she out-liv'd him And in this Boothby Pannel he either found or made his Parishoners peaceable and complying with him in the constant decent and regular service of God And thus his Parish his Patron and he liv'd together in a religious love and a contented quietness He not troubling their thoughts by preaching high and useless notions but such and only such plain truths as were necessary to be known believed and practised in order to the honour of God and their own salvation And their assent to what he taught was testified by such a conformity to his Doctrine as declared they believed and loved him For it may be noted he would often say That without the last the most evident truths heard as from an Enemy or an evil liver either are not or are at least the less effectual and usually rather harden than convince the hearer And this excellent man did not think his Duty discharged by only reading the Church-Prayers Catechizing Preaching and administring the Sacraments seasonably but thought if the Law or the Canons may seem to injoyn no more yet that God would require more than the defective Laws of man's