it for his time I will not bring the evil in his dayes As if God had said This wretched King hath provoked me and pulled down a curse from me upon his house which it were but just to bring upon him and it without farther delay yet because he made not a scoff at my Prophet but took my words something to heart and was humbled by them he shall not say but I will deal mercifully with him and beyond his merit as ill as he deserveth it I will do him this favour I will not bring the evil that is determined against his house in his dayes The thing I would observe hence is That When God hath determined a judgement upon any people family or place it is his great mercy to us if he do not let us live to see it It cannot but be a great grief I say not now to a religious but even to any soul that hath not quite cast off all natural affection to forethink and foreknow the future calamities of his countrey and kindred Xerxes could not forbear weeping beholding his huge army that followed him onely to think that within some few scores of years so many thousands of proper men would be all dead and rotten and yet that a thing that must needs have happened by the necessity of nature if no sad accident or common calamity should hasten the accomplishment of it The declination of a Common-wealth and the funeral of a Kingdome foreseen in the general corruption of manners and decay of discipline the most certain symtomes of a totering State have fetched teares from the eyes and bloud from the hearts of heathen men zealously affected to their Countrey How much more grief then must it needs be to them that acknowledge the true God not only to foreknow the extraordinary plagues and miseries and calamities which shall befall their posterity but also to fore-read in them Gods fierce wrath and heavy displeasure and bitter vengeance against their own sins and the sins of their posterity Our blessed Saviour though himself without sinne and so no way accessory to the procuring of the evils that should ensue could not yet but Weep over the City of Ierusalem when he beheld the present security and the future ruine thereof A grief it is then to know these things shall happen but some happinesse withall and to be acknowledged as a great favour from God to be assured that we shall never see them It is no small mercy in him it is no small Comfort to us if either he take us away before his judgements come or keep his judgements away till we be gone When God had told Abraham in Gen. 15. that his seed should be a stranger in a land that was not theirs meaning Egypt where they should be kept under and afflicted 400 years lest the good Patriarch should have been swallowed up with grief at it he comfortteth him as with a promise of their glorious deliverance at the last so with a promise also of prosperity to his own person and for his own time But thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace and shalt be buried in a good old age vers 15. In Esay 39. when Hezekiah heard from the mouth of the Prophet Esaiah that all the treasures in the Lords house should be carried into Babylon and that his sonnes whom he should beget should be taken away and made Eunuches in the palace of the King of Babylon he submitted himself as it became him to do to the sentence of God and comforted himself with this that yet there should be peace and truth in his dayes verse 8. In 4 Kings 22. when Huldah had prophesied of the evil that God would bring upon the City of Ierusalem and the whole land of Iudah in the name of the Lord she pronounceth this as a courtesie from the Lord unto good King Iosiah Because thy heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy fathers and thou shalt be gathered unto thy grave in peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place verse last Indeed every man should have and every good man hath an honest care of posterity would rejoyce to see things setled well for them would grieve to see things likely to go ill with them That common speech which was so frequent with Tiberius was monstrous and not favouring of common humanity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When I am gone let Heaven and Earth be jumbled again into their old Chaos but he that mended it with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea saith he whilest I live seemeth to have renounced all that was man in him Aristotle hath taught us better what reason taught him that Res posterorum pertinent ad defunctos the good or evil of those that come after us doth more than nothing concern us when we are dead and gone This is true but yet Proximus egomet mî though it were the speech of a Shark in the Comedy will bear a good construction Every man is neerest to himself and that Charity which looketh abroad and seeketh not only her own yet beginneth at home and seeketh first her own Whence it is that a godly man as he hath just cause to grieve for posterities sake if they must feel Gods judgements so he hath good cause to rejoyce for his own sake if he shall escape them and he is no lesse to take knowledge of Gods Mercy in sparing him than of his Iustice in striking them This point is usefull many ways I will touch but some of them and that very briefly First here is one Comfort among many other against the bitternesse of temporal death If God cut thee off in the middest of thy days and best of thy strength if death turn thee pale before age have turned thee gray if the flower be plucked off before it begin to wither grudge not at thy lot therein but meet Gods Messenger cheerfully and imbrace him thankfully It may be God hath some great work in hand from which he meaneth to save thee It may be he sendeth death to thee as he sent his Angel to Lot to pluck thee out of the middest of a froward and crooked generation and to snatch thee away lest a worse thing than death should happen unto thee Cast not therefore a longing eye back upon Sodome neither desire to linger in the plain it is but a valley of tears and misery but up to the mountain from whence commeth thy salvation lest some evil overtake thee Possibly that which thou thinkest an untimely death may be to thee a double advantage a great advantage in ushering thee so early into GODS glorious presence and some advantage too in plucking thee so seasonably from Gods imminent Iudgements It is a favour to be taken away betimes when evil is determined upon those that are left
such is every sinne Another reason is grounded upon that Principle Bonum ex caâ—sa integra Malum ex partiali Any partiall or particular defect in Object End Manner or other Circumstance is enough to make the whole action bad but to make it good there must be an universall concurrence of all requisite conditions in every of these respects As a disfigured eye or nose or lippe maketh the face deformed but to make it comely there is required the due proportion of every part And any one short Clause or Proviso not legall is sufficient to abate the whole writ or instrument though in every other part absolute and without exception The Intention then be it granted never so good is unsufficient to warrant an Action good so long as it faileth either in the object or manner or any requisite circumstance whatsoever Saul pretended a good end in sparing the fat things of Amalek that he might therewith do sacrifice to the Lord but God rejected both it and him 1 Sam. 15. We can think no other but that Vzzah intended the safety of Gods ark when it tottered in the cart and he stretched out his hand to stay it from falling but God interpreted it a presumption and punished it 2 Sam. 6. Doubtlesse Peter meant no hurt to Christ but rather good when he took him aside and advised him to be good to himself and to keep him out of danger yet Christ rebuked him for it and set him packing in the Divels name Get thee behind me Satan Matth. 16. But what will we say and let that stand for a third reason if our pretended good intention prove indeed no good intention And certainly be it as fair and glorious as we could be content to imagine it such it will prove to be if it set us upon any sinfull or unwarranted meanes indeed no good intention but a bad For granted it must be that the Intention of any end doth virtually include the meanes as in a Syllogisme the Premises do the Conclusion No more then can the choice of ill means proceed from a good intention then can a false Conclusion be inferred from true Premises and that is impossible From which ground it is that the Fathers and other Divines do oftentimes argue from the intention to the action and from the goodnesse of the one to the goodnesse of both to that purpose applying those speeches of our Saviour in the twelfth and in the sixth of Matthew Either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt And if thine eye be single the whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darknesse The light of the body is the eye and of the work the intention No marvell when the eye is evil if the whole body be dark and when the intention is evil if the whole work be naught That which deceiveth most men in judging of good or bad intentions is that they take the end and the intention for one and the same thing betwixt which two there is a spacious difference For the end is the thing propter quid for which we work that whereat we aime in working and so hath rationem causae finalis but the intention is the cause à qua from which we work that which setteth us on working and so hath rationem causae efficientis Now between these two kinds of causes the finall and the efficient there is not onely a great difference but even a repugnancy in such sort as that it is impossible they should at any time coincidere which some other kindes of causes may do It is therefore an error to think that if the end be good the intention of that end must needs be good for there may as well be a bad intention of a good end as a bad desire of a good object Whatsoever the end be we intend it is certain that intention cannot be good which putteth us upon the choice of evil meanes Methinkes the Church of Rome should blush if her forehead died red with the blood of GODS Saints were capable of any tincture of of shame at the discovery of her manifold impostures in counterfeiting of Reliques in coyning of Miracles in compiling of Legends in gelding of good Authors by expurgatory Indexes in juggling with Magistrates by lewd Equivocations c. Practises warrantable by no pretense Yet in their account but piae fraudes for so they terme them no lesse ridiculously than fasly for the one word contradicteth the other But what do I speak of these but petty things in comparison of those her lowder impieties breaking covenants of truce and peace dissolving of lawfull and dispensing for unlawfull marriages assoyling Subjects from their Oaths and Allegiance plotting Treasons and practising Rebellions excommunicating and dethroning Kings arbitrary disposing of Kingdomes stabbing and murthering of Princes warranting unjust invasions and blowing up Parliament-houses For all which and divers other foul attempts their Catholick defence is the advancement forsooth of the Catholick Cause Like his in the Poet Quocunque modo rem is their Resolution by right or wrong the State of the Papacy must be upheld That is their unum necessarium and if heaven favour not rather than faile help must be had from hell to keep Antichrist in his throne But to let them passe and touch neerer home There are God knoweth many Ignorants abroad in the world some of them so unreasonable as to think they have sufficiently non-plus't any reprover if being admonished of something ill done they have but returned this poore reply Is it not better to doe so than to doe worse But alas what necessity of doing either so or worse when Gods law bindeth thee from both He that said Doe not commit adultery said also Doe not kill and he that said Doe not steale said also Doe not lye If then thou lye or kill or doe any other sinne though thou thinkest thereby to avoâ—d stealth or adultery or some other sinne yet thou art become a transgressour of the Law and by offending in one point of it guilty of all It is but a poore choyce when a man is desperately resolved to cast himself away whether he should rather hang or drown or stab or pine himself to death there may be more horror more paine more lingring in one than another but they all come to one period and determine in the same point death is the issue of them all And it can be but a slender comfort for a man that will needs thrust himself into the mouth of hell by sinning wilfully that he is damned rather for lying than for stealing or whoring or killing or some greater crime Damnation is the wages of them all Murther can but hang a man and without favour Petty Larceny will hang a man too The greatest sinnes can but damne a man and
of all men shall be made manifest and every man that hath deserved well shall have praise of God and not of man Secondly Phinehes as he did not post off this execution to other men so he did not put it off to another day Phinehes might have thought thus We are now in a religious work humbling our selves in a publick solemn and frequent assembly before the face of God to appease his just wrath against us for our sinnes Et quod nunc instat agamus It would be unseasonable leaving this work now another time may serve as well to inflict deserved punishment upon that wicked miscreant But zeal will admit no put-offs it is all upon the spur till it be doing what it conceiveth fit to be done There are no passions of the mind so impetuous and so impatient of delay as Love and Anger and these two are the prime ingredients of true zeal If any man should have interposed for Zimri and taken upon him to have mediated with Phinehes for his reprivall I verily think in that heat he might sooner have provoked his own then have prorogued Zimries execution Delayes in any thing that is good are ill and in the best things worst As Wax when it is chafed and Iron when it is hot will take impressions but if the Seal or Stamp be not speedily put to the heat abateth and they return to their former hardnesse so the best affections of the best men if they be not taken in the heat abate and lessen and dye In the administration then of Iustice and the execution of Iudgement where there is Zeal there will be Expedition and the best way to preserve Zeal where it is is to use Expedition I am not able to say where the want is or where specially but certainly a great want there is generally in this Kingdom of Zeal to Iustice in some that should have it if that complaint be as just as it is common among men that have had suits in the Courts that they have been wronged with far lesse damage then they have been righted there have been so many frustratoriae and venatoriae dilationes as Saint Bernard in his time called them so many lingring and costly delaies used And for Executing judgement upon Malefactors if Phinehes had suffered Zimri to have lived but a day longer for any thing we know the plague might have lasted also a day longer and why might not to morrow have been as yesterday with them and lessened the peoples number twenty three thousand more especially their former crying sinnes having received a new accession of a double guilt the guilt of Zimries fact and the guilt of their connivence No rack should make me confesse that man to be truly zealous of judgement who when he hath power to cut him short shall but so much as reprive a foul and notorious Malefactor or grant him any respite or liberty to make his friends and to sue a pardon Salomon hath told us and we find it but too true Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sonnes of men is fully set in them to do evil Thirdly Phinehes was nothing retarded in his resolution by forecasting what ill-will he might purchase or into what dangers he might cast himself by executing judgement upon two such great personages The times were such as wherein sin had gotten head and was countenanced both with might and multitude Zimri was a mighty man a Prince of a chief house and he that should dare to touch him should be like to pull upon himself the enmity of the whole Tribe of Simeon It seemeth he was confident that his might and popularity in his own Tribe would priviledge him from the enquiry of the Magistrate how durst he else have so braved Moses and the whole Congregation And the woman also was the daughter of one of the Five Kings of Midian and could Phinehes think that the death of two such great persons could go unrevenged All this Phinehes either forecasteth not or regardeth not His eye was so fixed upon the glory of God that it did not so much as reflect upon his own safety and his thoughts strongly possessed with zeal of the common good had not any leisure to think of private dangers Zeal is ever courageous and therefore Iethro thought none worthy to be Magistrates but such as were Men of courage And he hath neither Courage nor Zeal in him befitting a Magistrate that is afraid to do justice upon a great offender The sluggard saith there is a Lion in the way and then he steppeth backward and keepeth aloof off But the worthy Magistrate would meet with such a Lion to choose that he might win awe to Gods Ordinance and make the way passable for others by tearing such a beast in pieces and would no more fear to make a Worshipfull theef or a Right worshipfull murtherer if such a one should come in his Circuit an example of Justice then to twitch up a poor sheepstealer Great ones will soon presume of impunity and mean ones too by their example in time learn to kick at authority if Magistrates be not forward to maintain the dignity of their places by executing good Lawes without favour or fear Hitherto of the spirit and zeal of Phinehes by occasion of this his former Action or gesture of standing up There yet remain to be considered the other action and the successe of it He executed judgement and the plague was stayed Both which because I would not be long I will joyne together in the handling when I shall have first a little cleered the translation The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used is a word that hath three different significations to Iudge to Pray to Appease And interpreters have taken liberty to make choice of any of the three in translating this place The Greek rendreth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the vulgar Latine which for the most part followeth the Septuagint Placavit as if we should read it thus Then stood up Phinehes and made an atonement or appeased God And the thing is true God himself testifying of Phinehes Numb 25. that By being zealous for God he had turned away his wrath and Made atonement for the children of Israel The Chaldee interpreteth it by Vetsalle and the ordinary English translation of the Psalmes usually read in our Churches accordingly Then stood up Phinehes and prayed But Hierome and Vatablus and the best translators render it according to the most proper signification of the word and most fully to the story it self Dijudicavit He executed judgement Verily prayer is a speciall meanes to appease Gods wrath and to remove his Plagues and prayer is as the salt of the Sacrifice sanctifying and seasoning every Action we undertake and I doubt not but Phinehes when he lift up his hand to execute
of himself and for whose sakes especially it is that he maketh so much account of the rest The Egyptians were plagued not only in the blasting of their corn the murrain of their cattel the unwholesomenesse of their waters the annoyance of vermine and such like but also and much more in the death of their first-born that was their last and greatest plague The newes of his children slain with the fall of an house did put Iob though not quite out of patience yet more to the tryal of his patience than the losse of all his substance besides though of many thousands of Oxen and Asses and Sheep and Camels Now if no man charge God with injustice if when a man sinneth he punish him in his body or goods or good name or in other things why should it be suspected of injustice when he sinneth to punish him in his children at least there where the evil of the children seen or foreseen redoundeth to the grief and afflion of the father And so was Davids murther and adultery justly punished in the losse of his incestuous son Amnon and of his murtherous son Absalon Upon which ground some think that clause Unto the third and fourth generation to have been added in the second Commandement respectively to the ordinary ages of men who oftentimes live to see their children to the third and sometimes to the fourth generation but very seldome farther Implying as they think that God usually punisheth the sins of the fathers upon the children within such a compasse of time as they may in likelihood see it and grieve at it and then what ever evil it be it is rather inflicted as a punishment to them than to their children This in part satisfieth the doubt that the punishments which God layeth upon the children for the fathers sins are only temporal punishments and consequently by our second ground not properly punishments But yet for so much as these temporal evils be it properly be it improperly are still a kind of Punishment and we have been already taught from the third ground that all evils of punishment whether proper or improper are brought upon men evermore and only for their own personal sinnes the doubt is not yet wholly removed unlesse we admit of a second Consideration and that concerneth the condition of those children upon whom such punishments are inflicted for their fathers sins And first It is considerable that Children most times tread in their Fathers steps and continue in their sinnes and so draw upon themselves their punishments And this they doe especially by a three-fold conveyance of sinne from their Parents viz. Nature Example and Education First Nature and this is seen especially in those sinnes that are more sensual than other and doe after a sort symbolize with the predominant humour in the body It is plain from experience that some sinnes especially the proneness and inclination unto them doe follow some complexions and constitutions of body more than others and arise from them As Ambition Rage rashnesse and turbulent intermedling in other mens affairs from Choler Wantonnesse and Licentious mirth from Bloud Drunkennesse and Lazinesse from Flegm Envie and Sullennesse implacable thirst of Revenge from Melancholy And these kind of sinnes to note that by the way doe oftentimes prove our master-sinnes such as Divines usually call our bosom and darling and beloved sinnes Peccatum in deliciis because naturally we have a stronger proneness and inclination to these than to other sinnes And therefore we ought to pray against and to strive against and to fight against these sinnes and to avoid the occasions of them especially and above all other sinnes And if it shall please God so to strengthen us with his grace and enable us by his spirit as to have in some good measure subdued these sinnes in us and denied our selves in them it is to be comfortably hoped that we have wrought the main and the master-piece of our Mortification But to return where I was as colour and favour and proportion of hair and face and lineament and as diseases and infirmities of the Body so commonly the abilities and dispositions and tempers of the mind and affections become hereditary and as wee say Runne in a bloud Naturae sequitur semina quisque suae An evil bird hatcheth an evil egge and one Viper will breed a generation of Vipers Secondly We are God knoweth but too apish apt to be led much by examples more by the worst most by the nearest Velocius citius nos Corrumpunt vitiorum exempla domestica Young ones will doe as they see the old ones doe before them and they will on Non quâ eundum sed quâ itur not as their father biddeth them but as he leadeth them Si nociva senem juvat alea If the father be given to swearing or gaming or scoffing or whoring or riot or contention or excesse in drink or any thing else that naught is let him counsel and advise his sonne as often and as earnestly as he can he shall find one cursed example without the singular mercy and grace of God to do more hurt upon him than a thousand wholesom admonitions wil doe good fugienda patrum vestigia ducunt Et monstrata diu veteris trahit orbita culpae A third means of conveying vices from parents to children is Education when parents train and bring up their children in those sinfull courses wherein themselves have lived and delighted So covetous worldlings are ever distilling into the ears of their children precepts of parsimony and good husbandry reading them lectures of thrift and inculcating principles of getting and saving Sunt quaedam vitiorum elementa his protinus illos Imbuet coget minimas ediscere sordes Idle wandering Beggars train up their children in a trade of begging and lying and cursing and filching and all idlenesse and abominable filthinesse And idolatrous parents how carefull they are to nuzzle up their Posterity in Superstition and Idolatry I would our profest Popelings and half-baked Protestants did not let us see but too often Wretched and accursed is our supine carelesnesse if these mens wicked diligence whose first care for the fruit of their bodies is to poyson their souls by sacrificing their sons and daughters to Idols shall rise up in judgement against us and condemn our foul neglect in not seasoning the tender years of our children with such religious godly and vertuous informations as they are capable of However it be whether by Nature Example or Education one or more or all of these certain it is that most times sinnes passe along from the father to the sonne and so downward by a kind of lineal descent from predecessors to posterity and that for the most part with advantage and encrease whole families being tainted with the special vices of their stock Iohn Baptist speaketh of a generation of vipers and
not gotten with the work of their own hands and in the sweat of their own faces And again writing to the Ephesians Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour c. If he will not steal he must labour and if he do not labour he doth steal steal from himself steal from his family steal from the poor He stealeth from himself and so is a kind of Felo de se. Spend he must and if there be no gettings to repair what is spent the stock will shrink and waste and beggary will be the end God hath ordained Labour as a Proper means whereby to obtain the good things of this life without which as there is no promise so ordinarily there is no performance of those blessings of plenty and sufficiency God hath a bountifull hand He openeth it and filleth all things living with plenteousnesse but unlesse we have a diligent hand wherewith to receive it we may starve No Mill we say no meal And he that by the sloth of his hands dissurnisheth himself of the means of getting he is as neer of kinne to a waster as may be they may call Brothers and it is but just if Gods curse light upon him and that he hath and bring him to want it to nothing He stealeth also from his Family which should eat the fruit of his labours The painfull house-wife see in what a happy case her husband is and her children and her servants and all that belong to her They are not afraid of hunger or cold or any such thing they are well fed and well clad and carefully looked unto Her Husband prayseth her and her servants and her children when they have kneeled down and asked her blessing arise up and call her blessed Prov. 31. But the idle man that for want of a course to live in impoverisheth himself and his family whom he is bound to maintain is a burden to his friends an eye-sore to his kindred the shame of his name the ruine of his house and the bane of his posterity He bequeatheth misery to his off-spring instead of plenty they that should fare the better for him are undone by him and he that should give his children Gods blessing and his pulleth upon himself Gods curse and theirs If any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house he hath denied the faith and is in that respect even worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 The very Infidels take themselves bound to this care Let not him that professeth the faith of Christ by his supine carelesnesse this way justifie the Infidel and deny the Faith He stealeth also which is the basest theft of all from the poor in robbing them of that relief which he should minister unto them out of his honest gettings the overplus whereof is their proper revenew The good housewife of whom we heard something already out of the 31. of the Proverbs Seeketh wooll and flax Layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distasâ—e But cui bono and to what end and for whose sake all this Not only for her self To make her coverings of tapestry though that also nor yet only for her houshold To cloath them in Scarlet though that also but withall that she might have somewhat in her hands To reach out to the poor and needy like another Dorcas to make coates and garments for them that their loynes might blesse her So every man should be painfull and carefull to get some of the things of this Earth by his faithfull labour not as a foolish worldling to make a Mammon of it but as a wise Steward to make him friends with it So Distributing it to the necessities of the poor Saints that it may redound also upon the by to his own advantage whilest sowing to them temporal things the comfort of his Almes he reapeth in recompence of it their spiritual things the benefit of their Prayers Saint Paul exhorteth the Ephesians by word of mouth and it was the very close of his solemn farewell when he took his last leave of them and should see their face no more that By their labour they ought to support the weak and minister to the necessities of others remembring the words of the Lord Iesus how he said It is more blessed to give than to receive And after his departure he thought it needfull for him to put them in mind of the same duty once again by letter Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour working with his hands the thing that is good that he may have to give to him that needeth Lay all this that I have now last said together and say if you know a verier thief than the Idle person that stealeth from himself and so is a foolish thief stealeth from his family and friends and so is an unnatural thief stealeth from the poor and so is a base thief Fourthly and lastly a Calling is necessary in regard of the Publike God hath made us sociable creatures contrived us into policies and societies and common-wealths made us fellow-members of one body and every one anothers members As therefore we are not born so neither must we live to and for our selves alone but our Parents and Friends and acquaintance nay every man of us hath a kind of right and interest in every other man of us and our Country and the Common-wealth in us all And as in the artificial body of a Clock one wheel moveth another and each part giveth and receiveth help to and from other and as in the natural body of a Man consisting of many members all the members Have not the same office for that would make a confusion yet there is no member in the body so mean or small but hath its proper faculty function and use whereby it becometh usefull to the whole body and helpfull to its fellow members in the body so should it be in the civil body of the State and in the Mystical body of the Church Every man should conferre aliquid in publicum put-to his helping hand to advance the common good employ himself some way or other in such sort as he may be serviceable to the whole body and profitable to his fellow-members in the body For which reason the ancient renowned Common-wealths were so carefull to ordain that no man should live but in some profession and to take district examination who did otherwise and to punish them some with fasting some with infamy some with banishment yea and some with death The care of the Indians Aegyptians Athenians and other herein Historians relate and I omit It were to be wished that Christian Commonwealths would take some greater care if but from their example to rid themselves of such unnecessary burdens as are good for nothing but to devour the fruits
have so much as named among the Saints not named with allowance not named with any extenuation not named but with some detestation But the very thing for which I have spoken all this is to shew how inexcusable the Adulterer is when even those of the Gentiles who by reason of the darknesse of their understandings and the want of Scripture-light could espy no obliquity in Fornication could yet through all that darknesse see something in Adultery deservedly punishable even in their judgements with death They could not so far quench that spark of the light of nature which was in them nor hold back the truth of God in unrighteousnesse as not by the glimpse thereof to discern a kinde of reverend Majesty in Gods holy ordinance of Wedlock which they knew might not be dishonoured nor the bed defiled by Adultery without guilt They saw Adultery was a mixt crime and such as carried with it the face of Injustice as well as Uncleannesse nor could be committed by the two offending parties without wrong done to a third And therefore if any thing might be said colourably to excuse Fornication as there can be nothing said justly yet if any such thing could be said for Fornication it would not reach to excuse Adultery because of the injury that cleaveth thereunto Against Fornication God hath ordained Marriage as a Remedy what a beast then is the Adulterer and what a Monster whom that remedy doth no good upon In the marriage knot there is some expression and representation of the Love-covenant betwixt Christ and his Church but what good assurance can the Adulterer have that he is within that Covenant when he breaketh this Knot Every married person hath ipso facto surrendred up the right and interest he had in and over his own body and put it out of his own into the power of another what an arrant Thief then is the Adulterer that taketh upon him to dispose at his pleasure that which is none of his But I say too well by him when I compare him but to a thief Solomon maketh him worse than a Thief Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfie his soul when he is hungry c. But who so committeth adultery with a Woman lacketh understanding he that doth it destroyeth his own soul c. Where he maketh both the injury greater and the reconcilement harder in and for the Adulterer then for the Thief Nay God himself maketh him worse than a Thief in his Law in his Moral Law next after murther placing Adultery before Theft as the greater sin and in his Iudicial Law punishing Theft with a mulct but Adultery with Death the greater Punishment To conclude this first point Abimelech an Heathen man who had not the knowledge of the true God of Heaven to direct him in the right way and withall a King who had therefore none upon earth above him to controll him if he should transgresse would yet have abhorred to have defiled himself knowingly by Adultery with another mans Wife although the man were but a stranger and the woman exceeding beautifull Certainly Abimelech shall one day rise up in judgement and condemn thy filthinesse and injustice whosoever thou art that committest or causest another to commit adultery Who knowing the judgement of God that they which do such things are worthy of death either doest the same things thy self or hast pleasure in them that do them or being in place and office to punish incontinent persons by easie commutations of publick penance for a private pecuniary mulct dost at once both beguilty thine own conscience with sordid Bribery and embolden the adulterer to commit that sin again without fear from which he hath once escaped without shame or so much as valuable losse And thus much for that first Observation The next thing we shall observe from Gods approving of Abimelechs answer and acknowledgement of the integrity of his heart is That some Ignorance hath the weight of a just excuse For we noted before that Ignorance was the ground of his Plea He had indeed taken Sarah into his house who was another mans Wife but he hopeth that shall not be imputed to him as a fault because he knew not she was a married woman the parties themselves upon inquiry having informed him otherwise And therefore he appealeth to God himself the trier and judger of mens hearts whether he were not innocent in this matter and God giveth sentence with him Yea I know that thou diddest this in the integrity of thy heart Where you see his ignorance is allowed for a sufficient excuse For our clearer understanding of which point that I may not wade farther into that great question so much mooted among Divines than is pertinent to this story of Abimelech and may be usefull for us thence viz. whether or no or how far Ignorance and Errour may excuse or lessen sinful Actions proceeding therefrom in point of Conscience let us first lay down one general certain and fundamental ground whereupon indeed dependeth especially the resolution of almost all those difficulties that may occur in this and many other like Questions And that is this It is a condition so essential to every sin to be Voluntary that all other circumstances and respects laid aside every sin is simply and absolutely by so much greater or lesser by how much it is more or lesse voluntary For whereas there are in the reasonable soul three prime faculties from whence all humane Actions flow the Understanding the Will and the sensual Appetite or Affections all of these concur indeed to every Action properly Humane yet so as the Will carrieth the greatest sway and is therefore the justest measure of the Moral goodnesse or badnesse thereof In any of the three there may be a fault all of them being depraved in the state of corrupt Nature and the very truth is there is in every sin every compleat sin a fault in every of the three And therefore all sins by reason of the blindnesse of the Understanding may be called Ignorances and by reason of the impotency of the Affections Infirmities and by reason of the perversenesse of the will Rebellions But for the most part it falleth out so that although all the three be faulty yet the obliquity of the sinful Action springeth most immediately and chiefly from the special default of some one or other of the three If the main defect be in the Vnderstanding not apprehending that good it should or not aright the sin arising from such defect we call more properly a sin of Ignorance If the main defect be in the Affections some passion blinding or corrupting the Judgement the sin arising from such defect we call a sin of Infirmity If the main defect be in the Will with perverse resolution bent upon any evil the sin arising from such wilfulnesse we call a Rebellion or a sin of Presumption And