travell what varieties be In severall Countries and with easie toyle Fetch home the goulden glories of each soyle The Campe 's a Church where God is truely served And where the faythfull are in death preserved From lasting danger for his numerous host Of warlike Angels pitch where danger 's most Then idle Truant from this Schole depart And Sloven get thee from this Court to Cart. And Coward goe make faces at a play There stand and fight that here didst runne away Drudge to thy yoake thou art no free-man here And wandring Puffe seeke suites and belly-cheere Divell get thee from the Church from the elect One Achan may an host of Saints infect Vaine-glorious Pride that over-valuestall Thy owne hand doth making great things of small Effeminate floath that dar'st not march watch fight Whom winde raine cold heate hunger doth affright Envie that dost detract from others worth And smotherest due desert from shining forth Lust that the bodie weakens and the minde Makes feminine as if it altered kinde Drinke that dost wash witte wealth and worth away And like a whoore thy lovers dost betray Foole-frantike Furie that doest Aiax-like Thy friend with fist thy God with curses strike Curst Avarice that grind'st the poore to dust And let'st the souldiar starue to feede thy lust Avant to Hell and leaue the honored traine Who loue religion and count grace a gaine For here thou read'st all cloudie vices dampe The glorious splendor of the Christian Campe Which should resemble heauen where Michael fought With the old Dragon and his rebell rout And cast them headlong downe so chace away Serpentine sinne which doth thy soule betray To Death and Hell then looke to outward foes For these o're-come because we yeelde to those This BACHILER most clerely hath exprest And who art thou that wilt be to the rest A Divell to tempt as he a Saint hath bin To teach to woe to weane thy soule from sinne Him imitate abhor thine owne base minde Which wert of God-like art of Divel-like kinde And if thou think'st I praise the Campe too much Know but for thee it is or would be such THO. SCOT Minister to the English in Virecht MILES CHRISTIANVS OR THE CAMPE ROYAL Deut. 23 9. When the host goeth forth against thine enimies then keepe thee from everie wicked thing vers 14. For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of the Campe. c. THE Lawes and ordinances for Israel were various according to their severall States and occasions And for as much as they had manie enimies to interrupt and trouble their peace by a kinde of necessitie they must wage warre therefore in sundrie places we finde many wholesome lawes ordinances for that also Here in particular we meete with orders from God by the hand of Moses to them The Order in these two verses giuen is negatiue in the 9 ver affirmatiue in the 14 verse which by reason of a fit coherence betweene them I haue joyned together In the words of the 9 verse two things are generally to be noted 1 The substance of a precept to forbeare all evill 2 The circumstance of the time when that precept is most to be regarded viz. when the host goeth forth which is the time of warre The host mahhaneh so called from encamping or quartering Yet tetze going before mahhaneh may be of forme masculine according also as the Spanish Italian French our former English and other versions read When thou go est forth c. otherwise called tsaba importing order for battail When the host goeth forth Mahhaneh though of the common gender is here made feminine by the forme of the verbe though such should not their mindes be that go out like an armie but masculine and manlike Against thine enimie or upon thine enimie viz. to battell as ch 20 1.21 10. to warre An usuall Ellipsis of the verbe infinite easie to be understood and supplied The antecedent part of the words occasion this observation in the first place in that Moses ordereth their going out to warre and speakes of the subiect of their warre an enimie saying When the host goeth forth against thine enimie Observe Observ 1 There must be no warres but against an enimie and against a true enimie there may be warres Which point hath two branches Iud. 11. Such were the Ammonites upon whom they went out 1 The subject against whom we warre must be our enimie He speaks not of going out simply as if it were no matter against whom they went out but of going out upon an enimie An enimie seeking their hurte Enimies invading unquiet turbulent enimies such as would oppresse them Iustice is the same to an action that a foundation is to an house Num. 10 9. The reason is 1 we must looke as neare as may be that our warre be a just war That which is altogether just shalt thou follow Deut. 16 20. That warre is no just warre where it is not against an enimie 2. That it may appeare we are not a people that delight in war who haue a curse denounced against them Psal 68 30. Scatter the people that delight in warre who out of a delight to proue troublesome to neighbour-bordering nations ever anon put occasions of warre on foote 3 It is against the nature of warre to be moved against any but an enimie Such hostilitie is a plaine robberie Consect This therefore warreth against the practise of those 1 who will goe out to warre upon any humour whatsoever and not alwaies against an enimie but against such as wrong them not to make a vaine ostentation of their might and what they are able to doe to enlarge their borders and make their names grow great in the world Then which what more wicked out of meere ambition to make combustions among men Devise not evill sayth the wise man Prov. 3 29. against thy neighbour seeing he dwelleth securely by thee And the Prophet threatneth a woe Ies 33 1. against such as are so unreasonablie forward to spoile when they were not spoyled Woe to thee that spoylest and wast not spoyled that dealest treacherously and they dealt not treacherously with thee when thou ceasest to spoile thou shalt be spoiled and when thou shalt make an ende to deale treacherously they shall deale treacherously with thee 2. This is against them also who are readie for any employment in wars whether against freind or foe they care not so they may finde paye bootie and preye regarding onely their owne private ends and particular gaines Such whether they be enimies or no against whom they goe in service of war shall giue an account to God for their going out and may looke never to goe in again in peace The second branch of the observation is that against an enimie there may be wars and the Scripture doth not disallow it Gods word doth not take away wars upon just occasion onely it ordereth them It takes away the abuse of wars but not the
sinewes and disioint us wholly enfeeble and disarme us in the sight of our enemies Exod. 32 25. 2 Chr. 28 19. the people were made naked before their enimies pharang is to strip or draw off uncover What did Aaron or Iudah take their armour from them in no wise but had occasioned God for the sinne they caused them to commit to take his armour of defense from them Stript them they had in a manner of Gods wonderfull and mightie protection and so they were as a people stark naked Their defense protection was gone from them as is said Num. 14 9. Feare them not they are bread for us their defense is departed from them the meaning is God had left them for their wickednes and so they became naked and as weak as water Deprived they were of the power and providence of Almightie God for that time Though we haue no defense in the world if we haue Gods protection his arme over us we want no furniture and covering on the otherside if we haue all outward fense wanting Gods protection we are but bare and open to our enimies Secondly we cannot do evill then without great presumption inasmuch as we haue least time to repent us of any evill done Our dayes are never of the longest What is your life sayth Iames it is euen a vapour which appeareth for a litle time and then it vanisheth If our liues be alwaies so momentanie much more when we goe with the host against our enimies Souldiers are specially mortis stipendiarij We neede not proue unto you the evidence of this which experience in the wars doth ever shew yet for our remembrance looke upon these places of Scripture where you shall see the hazards of the wars Deut. 20 5 6 7. order is giuen for such and such to returne the reason is from verie great likelihood least they dye in battell Iudg. 9 17. My father sayth he fought for you and adventured his life far So that the life of a man in the wars is in the greatest perill venture that may be 2 Sam. 11 25. The sword devoureth one as well as another Chap. 15 21. Surely in what place my Lord the King shall be whether in death or life there will thy servant be 18 3. Thou shalt not goe forth said the people to the king for if we flee away they will not care for us neither if half of us die will they care for us c. by all which we may see the continuall hazards we are in at that time we carrie our liues in our hands and there is but a step betweene us and death What time will there be or place for repentance in case we doe especially if we will sinne Then to sinne must needs be a sinning with a high hand and presumptuously when we know that for that and other reasons we ought then to sinne least Thirdly how heynously was God offended with the whole host of Israel and Iosua for the sinne of Achan Ios 6. and Num. 25 with all the people yea with the Heads v. 45. Take all the heads of the people hang them up before the Lord against the Sunne c. Num. 16. And they fell upon their faces said O God the God of the spirits of all flesh shall one man sinne and wilt thou be wroth with all the Congregation Fourthly because it is the greatest honour when the occasions are greatest to be abstemious from sinne At other times perhaps we haue not that freedome of our selues we cannot alwaies do the evill we would we are pent and walled in perhaps then if we do no evill it is no marvail but when the dore is open as it were and we haue more oportunitie to sinne abroad then not to sinne is a greater glorie As it is a greater grace to abstaine from drunckennes and surfeting at feasts meetings when the occasions will be more because of more freedome and plentie of the creatures because of the vile provocations through prophane healths which one or other commonly puts afoote And change of place brings change of objects Achan had not had the occasion but there where he was to haue played the thief And for Achan to absteine at other times was no praise to Achan but then to haue forborn had been his glorie If thou faint in the day of adversitie or if thou art remisse in the day of streights thy strength is small or narrow is thy vertue Prov. 24 10. If thou shewest not thy self a man when occasions come upon thee thy resolution and courage is but weake Fiftly he that hath power over himself abroad will undoubtedly keep him self at home Let a man liue soberly Tit. 2. godly and righteously abroad and such a one shall be safer from evill doing at home Sixtly and lastly we should so minde our calling hoc agere and be so employed and exercised so intent and taken up therein as to finde no leasure to sinne This serues for complaint for alas when are we more sinfull we runne into forbidden evill because it is forbidden and then especially when it is most forbidden So malignant is our nature such peccant humours are we repleat of unlesse purged with a great deale of grace It is this doth aggravate our sinn that we then sin most when wherein we ought to sin least We are sinfull enough at home but when we are gone forth with the host to fight against the common adversarie then then we are excessiue fall together by the eares fight unmanly one with another then we ring of prophanenes then towne and countrie all places where we come are filled with the noise and clamour of our evils our drinking and drabbing stabbing and pillaging without respect of persons I wish we might not speake so often of these things T is no pleasure to us to grate your eares with the unpleasant and harsh sound hereof Yet as he that will haue his sores cured must suffer them to be touched yea sometime launced so if you will haue these evils healed you must heare of them and sometime with bitter reproofe to them Is this to keep us from evill to run into the wilfull and headie practise thereof as the horse rusheth into the battell And is it not usually seene Note that manie come sober and civill at least to the warrs but when once the host is gone forth and they with it they do as much forget goodnes as though they had never knowne or beene where it grew And yet some of them haue had good education graue instructions sweet plantations and haue sproute up with the blossomes of hope some of them haue had religious carefull parents who haue sown them with the feeds of moralitie toward men true pietie toward God who yet when they betake themselues to the warres loose all civilitie all frugalitie Secondly let this admonish you to looke better to your selues for keeping your selues from sinne as at
into a ditch or well and yet say deliver us from evill We must thinke sinne to be to us as the forbidden fruit to Adam which he might not eat of upon pain of death We must let evill be to us as the hony to them 1 Sam. 14. which Saul too strictly forbad his souldiers to meddle withall Sinne must be to us as the wine to the Rechabites abominable to sip of Yea we must keep our selues everie one his brother as near as is possible for that sinn we may keepe others from and do not becommeth our sinne The Apostle bids us not to partake in other mens sinns then do we partake in other mens sinnes not onely when we joyne with them but when we doe not if it lye in us hinder them from evill And the evill which any doe by our connivence shall trouble us as well as them perhaps more And such as are in place must watch keep others from evill as much as in them is and much is in them to do a great deale more then they do visit their unlawfull haunts and haue a vigilant eye to them And one another must we keep by good counsell by forbearing to joine in evill and by discovering intended evill But especially let everie man keepe himself least we be exemplarie to others in evill sith a mans own good should chiefly be tendred by himself 1 Thes 4 4 5. This is the will of God euen your sanctification that ye should abstaine from fornication c. 1 Thes 5 22. Abstein from all appearance of evill 1 Pet. 2 9. I beseech you as pilgrims and strangers absteyn from fleshly lusts 1 Tim. 5 22. Keepe thy self pure and in another place 1 Tim. 4 16. Take heede unto thy self Iam. 1. to keep himself unspotted of the world is pure religion Iude 23. hating euen the garment spotted with the flesh And Rev. 18. touch no unclean thing hold all sin for unclean to keep thy self from it And that we may do thus the better consider briefly what meanes may be used by us The means may be reduced to this method and order viz. they are either generall or speciall Of the former sort is to gird to ones self the whole armour of God Eph. 6 14. And of that armour to remember the sword which is the word of God and specially such places of the Scriptures as this and the like before And let thy heart be the sheath of this spirituall sword Psal 119 11. I haue hid thy word within my heart that I might not sinne against thee Secondly thinke of prayer which though it be no proper piece of that armour yet necessarily belongs thereunto With prayer join vowes from a resolved spirit Pray I say to God to keepe thee as the prophet Ier. 17 14. to God do thou pray for his grace The Lord is faithfull who shall stablish you keep you from evill 2 Thes 3 3. And his grace is powerfull 1 Pet. 1 5. to guard thee Forget not vowes which is the bond of the soule Num. 30 3. And the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is both a prayer and a vow in sense and we shall do well to joyne them together in practise Of the latter sort of means to wit the particular are these four which follow The first is to look to the heart and to the verie first risings of evill there The heart is the fountain Other evils lye without you but the evils of sin lye within you in Ambuscado euen in our verie hearts Salomons counsel is Pro. 4. Aboue all keepings keep thy heart Let not thy heart consent nor giue it leaue to thinke of evill and thy hand shall never act any unworthy thing Secondly keep from outward occasions and make a covenant with thine eyes And if thou wilt indeed keep thee from wickednes keep thee from wicked companie Prov. 1 10. If thou be a child of wisdome heare the wholesome counsel of thy mother saying My son if sinners intice thee consent thou not If still they urge thee as sin is impudent and importunate and will hardly be said nay say ver 11. Come with us let us lay wait for blood c. ver 14. Cast in thy lot among us let us all haue one purse My sonne walke not thou in the way with them refraine thy foot from their path for their feete runne to evill c. There is no more diuelish occasion to all wickednes then wicked vicious company Thirdly betake thy self to the opposite good thing or busie thy self in wel-doing about thy calling generall as a Christian in prayer in reading profitable books divine or politique when thy leasure serues thee not in those bawdy and wicked Playbooks or Amorous toyes the scumme and scurf of scald and scabby heads as one calleth them Particular in the place that thou art in And somtimes unbend thy self thou mayst to the moderate exercise of some lawfull recreation Fourthly labour for a greater measure of Gods fear What is the reason we are so headlong in sin and so voide of all care but the want of this grace There is a slavish fear and a fear filiall if it be but from a slavish fear that thou fears to do evill to avoid punishment which will certainly follow thy sin for be sure thy sinne will finde thee out Num. 32 23. And the stipend of sin is death Rom. 6 23. And if you liue in the works of the flesh you shall dye Rom. 8 14. euen that is somewhat and shall lessen thy punishment in hell If it be from a filiall fear and respect that withholds thee it is so much the better that like a childe the loue of thy Father mixt with an awfull fear of his displeasure restreineth thee Were such a fear or any feare of God before our eyes in our hearts it would keep us from a great deale of sin It would tye our tongues from lyings slanders and false accusations from hideous blasphemies which flye up down among you from filthie-speaking Would binde our hands from revenge shackle our feet from running to any evill whatsoever But this fear of God being away as it is from the most we make no scruple no conscience no matter of any wicked thing or word If thou hadst the fear of that glorious God whose order this is which is here giuen thou wouldst not dare to put forth thy hand to evill Compare Mal. 3 5. with Rom. 3 14-18 and there may be seene that the want of Gods fear is the cause why mē dare do any wickednes The second thing to be noted here is that this prohibition is absolute and universall to forbeare all evill Then keep thee from everie wicked thing or from all Observ 2. Observ 2 Men must keep themselues from all and everie evill when the host goeth forth c. There is a twofold prohibition from evill as one sheweth The one absolute and simple as to blaspheme to lye
those tippling-places in your Camps the verie sincks and nurseries of all impuritie It followeth in the 17 verse There shall be no whore of the Daughters of Israell nor a Sodomite of the sonnes of Israel meaning none permitted Num. 5 2 3. Command the Children of Israel that they put out of the Campe everie Leaper everie one that hath an issue whosoever is defiled by the dead both male and female shall ye put out without the Campe shall ye put them that they defile not their Camps in the mids of whom I dwell Must Leapers be put out and shall they be suffred in the Camp who haue a worse Leaprosie of all wickednes cleaving unto them to infect all they come neare So then the word of God which is holy his holy and blessed trueth must be diligently taught by holy men whose liues may cast forth holynes to others And the ordinances of Discipline Civill and Ecclesiasticall subordinate to the word The one is to plant the other to preserue holynes in us Thirdly to make choise as neare as we can of the best men What hopes of a holy Camp when the subject matter is not pickt whereof the Romans were not a little carefull as may be seene in their wars By making choyce of the best men I meane not the best timbred men but the best conditioned not onely he that hath not a tattred outside but whose minde is not ragged Make option of the most stayed civill and best disposed and not such as Iepthah and Ieroboam entertained vaine men Iudg. 11.3 2 Chron. 13.7 The skumme of men fitter to fill prisons and Iayles then places of better note to become dennes of theeues then an armie of Saints Such as one sayth who if the Diuell should offer a stipend unto would not refuse him service and be more faythfull to him though it were to beare armes against God himself How happie were it if our Camps were rid of such And I haue often thought that if as we find Deut. 20. Iudg. 7. they that had built houses and had not dedicated them planted vineyards and had not eaten of the fruite of them betrothed wiues and had not taken them I say if they must be casheired and be gone from Israels Campe what should a world of our debauched men professed drunkards robbers swearers fornicators and such like cattell I wonder what they should haue done there I know we haue not all such God forbid but some not more noble in blood then in vertue stayed sober religious men fearing God and eschewing evill in great measure but the number of such is rare and of the other multiplying What is the reason we haue so many of the one sort and so few of the other Is it because the good are fewer and we cannot get them which also is true but is it not rather because we stand not a great number of us upon the grace and goodnes of the men we take on whether there be any blush or appearance of any in them chusing our men as Samuel and the rest would haue chosen a King 1 Sam. 16 6 7. Sed quotusquisque est non iniqua cuiusdā quaerela qui non malit strenuū militēquā pium imo ne locus quident amplius in exercitu horrendum fane piis relinquitur looking on his countenance or the height of his stature things I confesse to be regarded but that is not all there is somewhat els to be looked after that we may possibly make an holy camp But if we cannot doe withall but we must take such as we can a miserable necessitie as the Romans sometime were constreyned to use sclaues for the defense of their common weale yet when they are under us let us cause them to be outwardly at least conformable to holynes and labour that they may be instructed to the end that holynes which grew not in them before may now come up Plant amongst you a godly and painfull ministrie and subject your selues and your men unto it And these be the principall meanes to make a holy Campe we can doe no more then propound them and pray the Lord to giue you hearts to improue them And the rather to stirre you up hearken to a motiue two or three for the conclusion of this point Motiues toward a holy Campe and holynes in our persons The first is Holynes will call more unto us and make men more in loue with our profession from which many are and may be justly daunted because holynes is so great a stranger to us The Complaint hath been old but as true as ancient Rara fides pietasque viris qui castra sequuntur Wherefore manie are out of loue with the profession and forsweare the Campe which with unsavourie sinne of all sortes doeth stinke in the nosthrils of the world or the civiller sort of it Oh how many would Sanctitie and true reformation in our Camps invite unto us and what a glorie holynes would adde to our profession honourable in it selfe but would be double honourable by the acquisition of this further grace Secondly The continuall dangers we are in and subject unto calleth upon us to labour to be holy For then let what come can come we are ready for death if that be readie for us Then mayest thou say with Conrades in the hystorie Generall hyst of the Turks pag 33. Let the Persian Archer strike me I will dye in an assured hope and with that arrow as with a Chariot come unto that rest which shall be dearer to me then if I should with a base ordinarie kinde of death in my sinnes ende my dayes in my bedde Thirdly then shall you be sure of Gods gracious presence among you for good and against all evil plainly intimated here If they would labour for a holy Camp they should haue the holy Lord among them whose presence should be all in all to them but if otherwise let us not expect God among us unlesse it be to confound our armies It suites not with a King to walke in dung-hills or to be seene in noysome places and will God walke among our Camps if we haue no care to sweepe his paths The second branch of this Conclusion followeth That he see no uncleannes in thee Which is the negatiue part of the order touching their Camp Holynes there must be uncleannes there should not be uncleannes Ervah signifieth nakednes and denoteth that uncomely part whereon man bestoweth more abundant honour Genes 9. C ham discovered the nakednes of his Father So called in Hebrew because it should alwaies be covered Sinne being denominated nakednes in the sacred tongue argues the manner of sinns attaching us by propagation Psal 51. In sinne did my Mother warme me Observation 4. Sinne is a nakednes the Greeke saith Observat 4 a shame Genes 3. Our first parents were naked sinne had made them so Consect 1. Oh then labour to be ashamed of it Rom. 6. What fruit had ye in those