they would become Romane Catholiques nor did I know of any conspiracy against them with minde or purpose to reveale it unto them may be a preservative more than sufficient a soveraigne Antidote against the sinne of perjury which hee had swallowed or harboured in his brest specially if the concealement of his treason make for the good of the Church To put the like interrogatory unto the Almighty Iudge concerning the ruine or welfare of men no Magistrate no authority of earth hath any power Yet hee to free himselfe from that foule aspersion which the Iewes had cast upon him as if such as perished in their sinnes had therefore perished because it was his will and pleasure they should not live but dye hath interposed his often mentioned voluntary oath As I live I will not the death of him that dyes but rather that he should live Shall it here bee enough to make answer for him interpretando by interpreting his meaning to be this I doe not will the death of him that dyes so he will repent which I know he cannot doe nor doe I will his non-repentance with purpose to make this part of my will knowne to him however according to my secret and reserved will I have resolved never to grant him the meanes without which he cannot possibly repent whereas without repentance hee cannot live but must dye But did Gods oath give men no better assurance than this interpretation of it doth I see no reason yet heartily wish that others might see more why any man should so much blame the Iesuites for secret evasions or mentall reservations in matter of oath For the performance of our oaths in the best manner that wee are capable of is but an observance of a particular branch of that generall precept Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Who then can justly challenge the Iesuite of imperfection or falshood much lesse of perjury for secret evasions or mentall reservations when his life is called in question if once it bee granted that the God of truth in matter of oath concerning the eternall life or death of more men than the Iesuites have to deale with doth use the like 6 In matters then determined by Divine Oath the distinction of voluntas signi and beneplaciti can have no place specially in their doctrine who make the bare entity or personall being of men the immediate object of the immutable decree concerning life and death everlasting For the entity or personall being of man is so indivisible that an universall negation and a particular affirmation of the same thing to wit Salvation falling upon man as man or upon the personall being of men drawes to the strictest point of contradiction Farre ever be it from us to thinke that God should sweare unto this universall negative I will not the death of the man that dyeth and yet beleeve withall that he wils the death of some men that dye as they are men or as they are the sonnes of Adam that hee should by his secret or reserved will recall any part of his will declared by oath that hee should proclaime an universall pardon to all the sonnes of Adam under the seale of his oath and yet exempt many from all possibility of receiving any benefit by it 7 Shall we then conclude that the former distinction hath no use at all in Divinity Or if this conclusion be too rigorous let us see in what cases it may have place or to what particulars it may bee confined First it hath place in matters of threatning or of plagues not denounced by oath Thus God by his Prophet Ionas did signifie his will to have Nineveh destroyed at forty dayes end this was voluntas signi and he truly intended what hee signified yet was it his voluntas beneplaciti his good will and pleasure at the very same time that the Ninevites should repent and live And by their repentance his good will and pleasure was fulfilled in their safety But in this case there was no contrariety betweene Gods will declared or signified .i. voluntas signi and his good will and pleasure .i. voluntas beneplaciti no contradiction in the object of his will however considered for that was not one and the same but much different in respect of Gods will signified by Ionas and of his good will and pleasure which not signified by him was fulfilled One and the same immutable will or decree of God did from eternity award two doomes much different unto Ninevch taking it as it stood affected when Ionas threatned destruction unto it or as it should continue so affected and taking it as it proved upon the judgement threatned All the alteration was in Nineveh none in Gods will or decree and Nineveh being altered to the better the selfe same rule of Iustice doth not deale with it after the selfe same manner The doome or sentence could not bee the same without some alteration in the Iudge who is unalterable And in that hee is unalterably Iust and Good his doome or award was of necessity to alter as the object of it altered Deus saepe mutat sententiam nunquam consilium Gods unchangeable will or counsell doth often change his doome or sentence The same rule holds thus farre true in matter of blessing or promise not confirmed by oath upon the parties alteration unto worse unto whom the promise is made the blessing promised may be revoked without any alteration of Gods will or counsell Yet may we not say that the death or destruction of any to whom God promiseth life is so truely the object of his good will and pleasure as the life and salvation of them is unto whom he threatneth destruction The same distinctiō is of good use in some extraordinarie cases or as applyed to men after they have made up the full measure of their iniquity and are cut off from all possibility of repentance Thus God willed Pharaoh to let his people goe out of Egypt and signified this his will unto him by Moses and Aaron in mighty signes and wonders This was voluntas signi onely not voluntas beneplaciti For though it were his good will and pleasure that his people should depart out of Egypt yet was it no branch of this his good will and pleasure that Pharaoh should now repent or bee willing to let them goe Rather it was his good will and pleasure specially after the seventh plague to have the heart of Pharaoh hardned And yet after his heart was so hardned that it could not repent God so punished him as if it had beene free and possible for him to repent and grant a friendly passe unto his people But Pharaohs case was extraordinary his punishment so exemplary as not to be drawne into example For as our Apostle intimates it was an argument of Gods great mercy and long suffering to permit Pharaoh to live any longer on earth after he was become a vessell of wrath destinated to everlasting punishment in
and destruction when they approached were armed with absolute necessitie derived from Gods decree to punish them for their fathers sinnes and in this conceipt many yeelded unto them when they might easily haue conquered them To discover the vanitie of this skale and to acquit his omnipotent decree from the suspected imposition of necessitie As I live saith the Lord God yee shall not have occasion any more to use this Proverbe in Israel The Fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge Behold all soules are mine as the soule of the father so also the soule of the son is mine the soule that sinneth it shall die Ezek. 18. ver 2 3 4. Have I any plasure at all that the wicked should die saith the Lord God And not that he should returne from his wayes and live ver 23. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby yee have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will yee dye O house of Israel For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God wherefore turne your selves and live ye vers 31 32. If the returning of this people wherein God tooke pleasure were not necessary as the event hath proved for the most part of them did not returne it must needs argue a spice of their frenzy to think their death wherein he tooke no pleasure should be necessary The onely orthodoxall resolution of this point then must be this It was Gods good will and pleasure the formall dictate and absolute injunction of his eternall and irresistible decree that neither the life or death of such as perished should be necessary but that both should be possible albeit the choise of life had beene more pleasant to God who had complained with griefe Perditio tua ex te O Israel CHAP. 17. That Gods will is alwayes done albeit many particulars which God willeth bee not done and many done which he willeth should not be done 1 AVt erit aut non erit is a Prophecie which will never bee out of date impossible ever to bee impeached of falshood an answer as universally true to all as unsufficient to any question concerning things to come The truth of every disjunctive proposition as Logicians teach is fully salved if any one member though of never so many be true Or if the disjunction or division be artificially formall the actuall existence of one part or member excludes the actuall existence of the other so doth the absolute necessity of the one exclude all possibility of the others reduction into act If I should wage any summe that it would either raine all day to morrow or be faire all day to morrow no man of understanding would put me to prove that it did both raine all the day and hold up all the day The proofe of either part would be sufficient to evince the truth of my disjunctive assertion that both should be actually true is impossible Or if my adversary could substantially prove either any intermission of raine or interruption of faire weather His advantage against mee would bee as evident because the proposition which he was to make good against me was but disjunctive so that of any two minutes in the whole day if the one were rainy and the other faire my universall disjunctive must needs be false and his apparantly true because directly contradictory unto mine That it should at one and the same time raine and not raine is impossible and comes not within the compasse of any contradictory contestation it can be no object of lay or wager 2 When wee say that God in many humane actions decrees a mixture or multiplicity of possibilities our meaning is that the tenour of Gods eternall omnipotent word from which all things derive as well the law and maâ—â—â—â—â— of their being as their being it selfe is in respect of the severall possible events decreed not conjunctive or categoricall but disjunctive And we hold it a sinne to thinke or say that the onely wise Almighty Creator is not able to conceive or make propositions as truly disjunctive as any of our making are or not able to make as formall and contradictory opposition betweene their severall parts as any humane wit can conceive Thus much being granted our intended inference is an everlasting truth Gods decree or determinate proposition concerning the supposed multiplicity of possibilities or manifold events all alike possible is alwaies exactly fulfilled when any one of the events whose possibilities are decreed goes actuall existence To reduce more of them then one into act at one and the same time is in many cases altogether impossible and falls not within the object of Omnipotency If the reduction of any one of them into actuall possession of its owne being were in respect of his decree or by any other meanes altogether necessary his decree should necessarily be broken and his omnipotency might be overborne For the necessity of ones being takes away all possibilitie of being from the contradictorie which omnipotency as is supposed had bestowed upon it Finally Gods decree in respect of all and every part of its proper object is alike Omnipotent and therefore it is as impossible for any necessity by vertue or respect of what cause soever to incroach upon those events the Law or manner of whose production God hath decreed to be contingent as for Contingency to hinder the production of those events the law or manner of whose production or existence he hath decreed to be necessary As impossible for necessity to mingle with absolute contingency from which God hath separated it as for contingencie to be wedded to absolute necessity whose mariage God hath forbidden by an everlasting decree 3 The onely difficulty wherewith these conclusions can as I conceive with probability bee charged may be conceived thus Admitting Gods decree concerning the house of Israels life or death were as evidently it was disjunctive and did essentially include a possibility of life and a possibility of death in respect of all or most of their persons or of their publike state Yet no man will denie but that amongst the severall or opposite members of this or the like decree God wills one more than another For so he saith That hee willed not the death but the life of him that dyed Now if that which God willeth not may come to passe and that which he willeth may not come to passe or if of two possible events that whose actuall being he willeth tenne thousand times more ardently never get actuall being or existence as being prevented by the actuall accomplishment of the contradictorie or incompatible event which he lesse willeth How can his will in this case bee fulfilled and if his will be not fulfilled his decree must needs bee broken and if his decree may be broken how is his will said to be irresistible how do we beleeve him to be Omnipotent Some perhaps would hence conclude that
actuall goodnesse hee which is actually and infinitely good cannot but hate or dislik actuall evill in whomsoever it is found as much as he loveth the contrary good Now punishment or malum poenae being as necessarie a consequent of Gods hate or dislike of sinne as reward or happinesse is of his loue to vertue and pietie the reasonable creature by declining from vertue to vice from good to bad doth ipso facto and inevitably bring evill malum poenae damni tribulation and anguish upon it selfe By reward and punishment in this place wee understand not onely life and death everlasting of whose reference to Gods aeternall decree we shall in particular dispute hereafter if Superiours shall so think fit but every temporall blessing or crosse all prosperity or calamitie specially publike remarkable Prosperitie we alwayes take to be a pledge of Gods love though not alwaies of the Person on whom it is bestowed yet of some good quality in him or in some of his serving for publique use or private imitation and is alwayes in the beginning at least an effect of Gods antecedent will Calamitie we take alwayes for a token of Gods dislike though not alwaies of the person afflicted yet either of somewhat in him to bee amended or of somewhat formerly done by him to bee by others avoided and is an effect of Gods consequent will For hee wils no evill at all not malum poenae but as it is either a punishment or correction for evill done or good neglected or as it is a medecine to prevent the doing of evill or neglect of goodnesse 3 From the infinite varietie of possibilities authorized by the aeternall decree and their correspondent consequences which one time or other actually follow upon their reductions into Act by the irresistible award of the same decree wee may resolve many difficulties and abandon sundry inconveniences wherewith the Heathen in their vaine speculations and many Christians in more grievous temptations charge either the truth or goodnesse of Gods Providence The varietie of such possibilities amounts partly from the specificall nature of the objects made possible by the divine decree partly from the severall degrees of good or evill contained in such objects or in mens actions concerning them The whole latitude if I may so speake of Gods providence as it concernes kingdomes states or persons consists in moderating and ordering the possible devolutions or alternations of the resonable creature from his antecedent will to his consequent The alternations or devolutions themselves may be numberlesse save onely to God so may the degrees bee of mans dissonancie or consonancie to Gods antecedent will throughout the course of his life CHAP. 19. Of the divers acceptions or importances of Fate especially among the Heathen writers 1 THE very name of Fate will be I know to many very offensive unto whom I am unwilling to give the least offence The use of it I must confesse is in some cases prohibited by St. Austin a man too modest to vsurpe greater authoritie then he had and oecumenicall authoritie in this point hee had none or none so great as might impose silence upon all posteritie Would to God such as are most forward to presse us with this Reverend fathers interlocutorie sentence once or twice perhaps vttered for not vsing the name could be perswaded to stand to his definitive sentence often pronounced against the nature of the Errour which the Heathens against whom hee disputes covered under this name Vpon condition they would be pleased not to revive the nature of the errour or bury their opinions that way tending my heart and mouth should never give breath unto the name The opinion which some rigid Stoicks had of Fate is an haeresie not to bee named among the Heathen so deepely tainted with the very dregs of heathenisme that it is a wonder any Christian writer should come neere it that any at least should take infection from it especially seeing the Reverend and learned Fathers of the primitive church had provided so many excellent preservatives against it But albeit Fate according to that sense or meaning where in some heathens tooke it was become a wicked Idol yet seeing the word or name whether in the ordinary use of Greeke or Latine writers hath greater varietie of significations or importances then almost any other word in the world besides to abandon all for one ill sense or importance seemes to me as rude and uncivill a part as to roote out a whole clan or surname because one of the same name and stocke had beene at deadly sohood with our family or had otherwise deserved death Vpon diligent perusall of the best Philosophers historians or Poets amongst the Heathens of some historians and Moralists of best note amongst Christians we may finde realities or solid matter answering to this word Fate which cannot bee so well expressed by any other terme or name by any paraphrase more briefe than the true and proper definition of the matter or reality signified by it Now if the matter defined prove to bee no Idoll the name certainly is indifferent and of the definition there may be a good morall or historicall use For finding out the true and proper definition or description of it we are to explicate the divers acceptions or importances of the name 2 Fatum à fando dictum and sometimes imports no more then the dictate of nature or the certaine course appointed to things naturall Thus naturall death is by some accounted fatall And Dido according to this importance did not die by Fate because shee prevented Lachesis by cutting the thred of her owne life before this great Arbitresse of mortality had passed sentence upon her Sed quia nec fato merita nec morte peribat And according to this importance it is used by the Prince of Romane Historians in the sixt booke of his Annals Per idem tempus Lucius Piso Pontifex rarum in tanta claritudine fato obijt About the same time L. Piso High Priest died a naturall death being 80. yeares of age a matter rare in those times in a man of so great birth and place Sometimes againe Death it selfe howsoever it come upon men is termed Fate or Destiny perhaps because the comming of it is by course of nature certaine albeit the time and manner of it be unknown or incomprehensible So another Roman Poet saith The parthians poysoned arrowes carryed Fates upon their points able to let in Death at the least breach of skin Fatumque in sanguine summo est It may be Virgil held naturall death to be fatall because it cannot be avoided being otherwise of our opinion that Dido might have lived longer or that it was not absolutely necessary from the houre of her birth that she should live so many yeares and no more For so some of the wisest amongst the Heathens held death to be fatall that is simply necessary unto all albeit to dye at this or that set houre
their fury can procure unto their subjects In the case betweene Kings and Subjects properly so called or betweene superiour and inferiour subjects there is a kinde of allowance to bee made according to Geometricall proportion without swerving from the exact rule of Retaliation It is a memorable comparison which Cominaeus according to this allowance hath made betweene the evills which Lewis the eleventh French King had done to others and the like evils which God in the end of his raigne did bring upon him 2 To be disrespected by them whom hee had advanced far above their deserts and graced with dignities whereof their education and profession was uncapable could not but be a great griefe unto this great King as the like ungratefulnesse would be unto any other yet a just usuall award of Divine Iustice upon such Princes as thus neglect the rule of humane distributive justice in the dispensing of honorable favours But for a Prince which had alwayes required exact obedience alwayes accustomed to expect an observance from his Subjects more than ordinarily is given unto other Princes to be in his old age inforced to observe and flatter the churlish humour of his Physitian whose untoward service hee had recompenced with a standing fee of a thousand Crownes a month besides other gratuities extraordinary this was a perpetuall torment whereof Lewis in his perplexity could not but often complaine unto others yet could not remedy For this was a disease which he durst not make knowne unto his Physitian whose displeasure he feared more than any thing else besides death which was the only cause why he so much feared his displeasure And is it not as the wise King speakes a vanity of vanities or more than so a misery of miseries that the feare of this last point or close of life should make great men slaves for the most part of their lives and bring a necessity upon them of fearing every one with more than a slavish feare that may in probability be conceived as an instrument or messenger of its approach Now this King was so excessively afraid of death that he had given it in strict charge unto his friends and followers not to give him warning of this his last enemy by name whensoever it should to their seeming approach but to exhort him onely to a confession or expiation of his sinnes Yet was it his ill hap or fate after he had set his house in order and after his dejected spirits had beene somewhat raysed with new hopes of recovery to have death rung into his eares by his servants after such an indiscreet and unmannerly fashion as if they had sought to put him into purgatory whilest he was alive His Barber with others whom he had rewarded farre above their deserts without any preamble or circumlocution of respective language as if they had come unto him rather as Iudges to pronounce the sentence of death upon him than as gentle remembrancers of his mortality told him bluntly and peremptorily that his houre was come that hee was not to expect any further comfort from his Physitian or from the Hermit who as he thought had prolonged his life 3 If we could unpartially weigh the quality and condition of the parties who were thus uncivilly and unseasonably bold with him in the one scale of just estimation and the greatnesse of his person his natively timorous disposition and accustomance in the other the disparity would move us to bee of Cominaeus his minde in this point That this untoward remembrance or denunciation of death was more bitter and grievous unto Lewis than the sharp message of death which he had sent by Commissioners unto those two great Peeres of France the Duke of Nemours and the Earle of Saint Paul giving them but a short respite to marshall their thoughts and order their consciences before their finall encounter with this last enemie of mortality which they could not feare so much as Lewis did As this great King had done unto these great subjects so have his servants done to him 4 Lewis again had caused certain places of Little ease to be made or at least did well accept the invention of iron cages or grates little more in compass than the square of a tall mans length wherein he detained such as offended him some for divers months others for many yeares together And through consciousnesse of this his rigorous dealing with others he confined himselfe for a long time to a custody or durance as strait for his greatnesse as the iron cages were for their mediocrity They were not more desirous to see these close prisons opened or to heare of the day of their deliverance from them than he was carefull to cause the iron Fences wherewith he had incompassed the Castle wherein he had imprisoned himselfe to bee close shut save onely at such times as hee appointed them upon speciall occasions to be opened His miserable Captives were not afraid of passengers or of such as came to visit them they needed no guard to secure them Lewis caused certaine Archers to keep Centinell as well by day as by night to shoot at all that came neere his Castle gates otherwise than by his special command or appointment In fine he was more afraid to be delivered out of his Prison by the Nobility of France than his Captives were to be put in such cages That which he feared from his Nobility was not death or violence but his deposition or removall from the present government from which many wise Princes in their declining age have with honour and security sequestred themselves 5 Whether Lewis in entertaining the invention of iron cages and the use which he made of them or the Cardinall which to please his severe humor first invented them were more faultie I cannot tell nor will I dispute the rule of retaliation was more conspicuously remarkable in the Cardinall For as â—ominaeus tells us who himselfe had lodged eight months in one of them the Cardinall was by Lewis command detained prisoner fourteene yeeres together in the first that was made It was well observed whether by a Christian or Heathen I now remember not Neque lex hâc justior ulla est Quam necis artisices arte perire sua A law â—â—â—re just than this cannot beset Which cruell skill doth catch in ijs owne net One Perillus was the body or subject of the Embleme whereof this Motto was the soule He died a miserable death in that brazen Bull which he had made at the Tyrants request for the deadly torture of others And albeit this Cardinall did not dye for ought I reade in the cage of his owne invention yet had he a greater share of vexation in it than was intended for others What good effect this long and hard durance wrought in the Cardinalls soule is not specified by my Author But it is an observation of excellent use which an Heathen Philosopher hath
Lancaster that he might become a more skilfull slaughterman of the House of York Thus did blood touch blood and for a long time run in the blood of his royall race untill the issue was staunched by the blood of the cruell Tyrant slaine in battaile by Henry the seventh All these instances mentioned in this with some others in the former chapters will fall under another more usefull consideration in the Treatise of Prodigies or Divine forewarnings betokening blood CHAP. 35. Grosser sinnes visited upon Gods Saints according to the former Rule of Counterpassion 1 AS it is generally more safe to speake the truth of times past than to open our mouths against the iniquity of times present so to trace the prints of Divine Providence in thus fitting punishments to mens enormities will be lesse offensive whilest this search is made abroad than it would be were it or the like made neerer hand or at home Yet were it well and it might goe much better with this Land and People if every ancient every noble or private Family specially such as have had much dealings with other men would make the like search within their owne pale Few Families there be of greater note but either have or might have had undoubted experience of some visitations upon them according to the rule of Counterpassion within two or three descents That most private men doe not finde experiments of this rule in themselves this falls out for want of observation or because they keepe not a true Register of their owne doings or sufferings No man can plead any personall exemption from this Canon by reason of his righteousnesse or integrity none can altogether secure his posterity that some one or other of his sinnes shall not bee visited upon them Nor can it justly be accounted any taxe or prejudice unto any Family to undergoe with patience that mulct which the righteous Iudge hath laid upon them To murmure or grudge at our owne or others visitation whose welfare we wish or tender is blame-worthy with God and good men And albeit this distemper be not onely meritorious of death yet is it this which for the most part brings a necessity of dying upon such as have otherwise deserved death whether bodily or spirituall For no man which with patience and humility acknowledgeth the equity or justice of his punishment as it proceeds from God but will in some measure recall himselfe or inhibit his progresse in that sinne the smart of whose punishment he feeles And unto every degree of sincere revocation or repentance some degree of mitigation is awarded The best meanes for instilling the Spirit either of meeknesse or patience in suffering for offences past or of feare to offend in the like kinde againe will be to take the punishments or corrections of Gods Saints into serious consideration 2 If for the manifestation of Gods justice it must be done unto his dearest Saints as they have done unto others either whilest they themselves were his enemies or made him their enemy after their reconcilement had beene wrought what may they looke for in the end which still continue adversaries to the truth David was a man after Gods owne heart excepting the case of Vriah yet not therefore free from disgrace danger or harme after the Prophet had solemnly denounced his pardon Thy sinnes are forgiven thee In respect of the adultery committed by Bathsheba Absolons offence against his Father David was much greater than Davids had beene against Vriah The one was done in secret the other in the open Sunne The death if not of Bathshebaes childe yet of his Son Absolon was more bitter unto David than his owne death could have beene So much he confesseth himselfe and testifies the truth of his confession with his teares And the King was moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept and as he went thus hee said O my sonne Absolom my sonne my sonne Absolom would God I had dyed for thee O Absolom my sonne my sonne 2 King 18. 33. So that here was more than a full retaliation if we consider his offence as it had reference onely unto Vriah For one mans life is as much worth as anothers and Vriah lost but one life David was to suffer the losse of two Yet this is not all that the Prophet had to say to him for this offence for so he saith 2 Sam. 12. 9. Thou hast killed Vriah the Hittite with the sword hast taken his wife to be thy wife and hast slaine him with the sword of the children of Ammon Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house because thou hast despised me and taken the wife of Vrias the Hittite to bee thy wife 3 But when it is said that David was a man after Gods owne heart excepting the matter of Vriah this exception includes if not an interruption in the bond of grace by which he had beene intirely linked unto Gods favour yet some wound or breach in the estate of his wonted favour and liking with God And no marvell if that sinne which made this breach and for a time removed the fence of Gods favourable protection were visited upon his person and upon his posterity But are the sins which men commit whilst they are Gods enemies thus visited upon any after their full admission into the estate and favour of Gods sonnes or whilest the bond of their reconciliation remaines unwounded and entire We doe not reade of any grosser sinnes committed by Saint Paul after our Saviour had effectually called him We may without breach of charity perswade our selves that he was as free from that time forward from wronging any man Iew or Gentile as Samuel had beene from wronging Israel Saint Stephen at his death prayed for him not against him But though hee freely forgave him yet will not the righteous Iudge suffer the wrongs which he had done unto this blessed Martyr passe without some solemn remembrance Those which stoned Saint Stephen laid downe their garments at Pauls feet and his willingnesse to take charge of them argues he was consenting to his death so I thinke was not Barnabas And for this reason we doe not reade that Barnabas was stoned as Paul was by the Iewes which came from Antioch and Iconium unto Lystra and Derbe albeit both had beene alike offensive for preaching the Gospell at Iconium where the same violence had beene likewise joyntly attempted against both Vpon the matter then betwixt Saint Paul and Saint Stephen albeit Saint Stephen make himselfe no partie this is the onely difference Stephen dyed by the hands of his persecutors so did not Paul Yet it seemes the righteous Lord suffered these malignant Iewes to doe as much unto Saint Paul as had beene done by his consent unto Saint Stephen even as much as they themselves desired which did despite him no lesse than their countrimen and brethren in iniquity had done S. Stephen For they drew him out of
Pausanias a famous Antiquary or to describe him better to a meere English Reader the Cambden of Greece hath observed as much as now we doe in his narrations of the warres between the Romans and the Corinthians or Achaians managed by Metellus and Critolaus The History though briefe as being but an appendix of his intended Topography is fraught with many remarkable circumstances pointing out unto us a Divine Providâ—nce of which two concerning the selected band of Arcadia put to flight but with more honour than the rest of Critolaus army are more specially parallell to the rule of retaliation These Arcadians after the foile retyred safe to the number of a thousand unto Elatea a City of the Phocenses where they found good welcome at the first upon some â—ermes of ancient confederacy or alliance But the sudden noise of Critolaus and his companies overthrow dissolved the links of former amity The poore Arcadians were commanded by the State of Phocis forthwith to relinquish Elatea and in their returne to Peloponnesus meeting unexpectedly with Metellus forces were all slaine by the Romans in the selfe same place in which their fore-elders had forsaken the Grecian Lâ—â—guers or conâ—â—derates against Philip of Macedon Honest Countrimen see Meteors or other appearances as perfectly as Philosophers do but they often erre in guessing at the place or subject where in the appearance is made Thus many imagine the Sunne to be reddish in a foggy morning when as the rednesse is in the ayre So did this heathen Antiquary expresly and fully discern the power of Divine Iustice in this event from the circumstance of the persons a race of truce-breakers and from the place of their discomfiture His eyesight or apprehension herein was as cleare as any Christians Wherein then consists his error In attributing this award of Divine Iustice unto the Gods of Greece But did any Southsayer of Greece foretell that the fathers breach of truce should be thus visited upon their children as Elias foretold that the dogs should lap Ahabs blood and eate Iezebel and their childrens flesh in the same place where they had lapt the blood of Naboth whom Iezebel had caused to be stoned to death The identity of Iustice done upon divers people and Nations rightly argues that the God of Israel did then rule and execute judgement unto the ends of the world although he did not deale so with any Nation as he did with Israel neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Lawes much lesse such distinct foreknowledge of his judgements or visitations as was usuall in Israel unlesse it were in some cases extraordinary 4 To have seene with our eyes what we have read in a faithfull and judicious Historian one to dye in a fit of the Falling-sicknesse or as it was then presumed to bee vexed to death by an evill spirit at the time appointed for his consecration even whilest he did prostrate himselfe before the Altar to receive the Holy Ghost by the imposition of his Metropolitans hands would have moved the like question to that of Christs Disciples concerning him that was borne blinde Lord who did sinne this man or his parents Whose shame did he fome out with his last breath his owne or some others Such as is here expressed was the â—ate of Strachyquaz sonne to Bâ—leslaus the first and brother to Bâ—leslaâ—s the second King of Bâ—hâ—me who with the Bishop of Mentz was an eye witnesse of this prodigious fearefull accident And if consecration dinners were then in use as doubtlesse they were when Kings sonnes and brothers thought it no scorne to be consecrated Bishops Respondent ultima primis Strachyquaz did better brooke his name after his death than at his birth or baptisme or as my Author speakes on his lustration day The realitie answering to his name and portended by it he left behinde him The dinner provided was indeed terribile convivium a banquet of dread or horrour to all spectators a feast of whose dâ—â—â—â—ies few I thinke would eate And thus much doth the name Strachyquaz in the Bohemiaâ—â— language import A name imposed upon this unfortunate person at his birth in triumphant memorie of that bloody banquet unto which his father Bolestaus the first had invited Wenceslaus the King his Elder brother with intent to murther him as he did taking opportunitie to accomplish this impietie in the Temple of God where this King afterwards Sainted was at his midnights devotions 5. To sit as Coroners upon the soules of men deceased is a thing which I have ever misliked though sometimes practised by men otherwise of deserved esteeme And whosoever in this case will take upon him to sit as Iudge my request shall bee not to serve upon the Iury. Yet if my opinion were in this particular demanded Whether this man dying as the story presumes of a Deuill the manner of his death were any certaine prognosticke or probable presumption of his damnation my verdit should goe in mitiorem partem That thus to dye of a Devill unlesse his former life had beene devillish which the historie no way intimates doth no more argue his damnation than the untimely death of Ieroboams Child did argue him to have beene guiltie of his Parents actuall sinnes in the manner of whose death notwithstanding as wel as in Strachyquaz his tragicall end the sinnes of their Parents were remarkeably visited according to that rule of Iustice which now we treat of that is by way of counterpassion in respect if not of time yet of the places wherein they were visited That Ieroboams child dyed in Gods favour the text instructs us 1 King 14. 13. All Israel shall mourne for him and bury him for hee onely of Ieroboam shall come to the grave because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel c. 6 But to returne to Strachyquaz the maner of whose death as is apparent was more fearefull and prodigious yet no signe of damnation For as there is vates praeteritorum futurorum a branch of prophesie in discovering times past as well as events to come so there may bee and oft-times are prodigious and portentuous accidents which point at nothing de futuro sâ—â— a retro which looke backwards not forwards The best use or signification of this fearefull disaster was to advertise the present generation and their successors that the execrable and sacrilegious murder committed by Boleslaus father to Strachyquaz was not expiated as yet but to be visâ—â—â—d upon more generations without heartie repentance and confession of this wicked usurpers and his complices sinnes wherewith the land of Boheme had beene polluted The first borne of Egypt was slaine for their fathers offences against the infant males of the Hebrewes And Strachyquaz dyed this fearefull death by the visitation of his fathers sinnes upon him But he might perhaps have lived much longer and have dyed in peace had he lived according to that rule whose profession hee had taken upon him that is
her opinion needed no reformation A practice injoyned by S. Paul I exhort or desire first of all that supplications prayers intercessions and giving thankes be made for all men If any man shall seeke to lay that restraint upon this place which S. Austine somewhere doth as if the word all men did import only genera singulorum all sorts of men not singula generum every particular man the scanning of the words following the sifting of the matter contained in both with the reason of the exhortation and other reall circumstances will shake off this or other like restriction with greater ease than it can be laid upon it Wee are commanded to pray for no more than them whose salvation we are unfainedly to desire otherwise our prayers were hypocriticall Are we then to desire the salvation of some men onely as they are dispersed here and there throughout all nations sorts or conditions of men or for every man of what condition soever of what sort or nation soever he be The Apostle exhorts us to pray for Kings not excepting the most malignant enemies which the Christians then had and for all that be in authority And if we must pray for all that are in authority with fervency of desire that they may come unto the knowledge of the truth then questionlesse wee are to desire wee are to pray for the salvation of all and every one which are under authority God is no accepter of persons nor will the Omnipotent permit us so to respect the persons of the mighty in our prayers as that we should pray that all and every one of them might become Peeres of the heavenly Ierusalem and but some choice or selected ones of the meaner sort might bee admitted into the same society Wee must pray then for high and low rich and poore without excepting any either in particular or indefinitely The reason why our prayers for all men must be universall is because wee are bound to desire the spirituall good of all men not as they fall under our indefinite but under our uniuersall consideration The reason againe why wee are bound to desire the spirituall good of all men universally considered is because wee must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect Vnto this universall desire wee must adde our best endeavours that saving truth may be imparted unto all because it is our heavenly Fathers will his unfaigned will that all should come to the knowledge of truth 2 Both parts of this inference as first that it is our duty to pray for all sorts of men and for every man of what sort soever And secondly that we are therefore to pray thus universally because it is Gods will not onely that we should thus pray but that all without exception shold come unto the truth and be saved are expressely included in the prayers appointed by the Church of England to bee used upon the most solemne day of devotions The Collects or Praiers are in number three The first Almighty God we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family for the which our Lord Iesus Christ was contented to be betrayed and given up into the hands of wicked men and to suffer death upon the Crosse c. The tenour of this petition if we respect onely the forme is indefinite not universall but every Logician knows and every Divine should consider that the necessity of the matter whether in prayers or propositions will stretch the indefinite forme wherewith it is instamped as farre as an absolute universall That the forme of this petition is in the intention of the Church of England to be as farre extended as we have said that is to all and every one of the congregation present the prayer following puts out of question For in that wee are taught to pray for the whole Church and for every member of it Almighty and everlasting God by whose spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy holy Congregation that every member of the same in his vocation and ministery may truly and godly serve thee c. If here it be excepted that albeit this prayer be conceived in termes formally universall yet is the universall forme of it to be no further extended than its proper matter or subject and that as will be alleaged is the mysticall live-body of Christ whose extent or the number of whose members is to us unknowne the third and last prayer will clearely quit this exception and free both the former petitions from these or the like restrictions For in the last prayer wee are taught to pray for all and every one which are out of the Church that they may bee brought into the Church and bee made partakers with us of Gods mercy and the common salvation Mercifull God who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made nor wouldest the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live have mercy upon all Iewes Turkes Infidells and heretiques and take from them all ignorance hardnesse of heart and contempt of thy Word And so fetch them home blessed Lord to thy flocke that they may bee saved among the remnant of the true Israelites and be made one fold under one shepheard Iesus Christ our Lord. If God therefore will not the death of any Iew Turke or Infidell because of nothing hee made them men wee may safely conclude that he willeth not the death of any but the life of all whom of men or infidells hee hath made Christians to whom he hath vouchsafed the ordinary meanes of salvation and daily invites by his messengers to imbrace them Hee which made all things without invitation out of meere love made nothing hatefull nor is it possible that the unerring fountaine of truth and love should cast his dislike much lesse fix his hatred upon any thing that was not first in it nature odious Nothing can make the creature hatefull or odious to the Creator besides its hatred or enmity of that love by which it was created and by which he sought the restauration of it when it was lost Nor is it every degree of mans hatred or enmity unto God but a full measure of it which utterly exempts man from his love as that reverend Bishop and glorious Martyr one of the first Reformers of the Religion profest in this Land observes 3 If with these authorized devotions we compare the doctrine of our Church in the publike catechisme what can bee more cleare then that as God the Father doth love all mankind without exception so the Sonne of God did redeeme not some onely of all sorts but all mankind universally taken First wee are taught to beleve in God the Father who made us and all the world Now if the Church our mother have in the former prayers truly taught us that God hateth nothing which he hath made this will
bring forth another truth viz. That either there be some men which are not of Gods making or else that hee hateth no man not Esau as he is a man but as a sinner but as an enemy or contemner of his goodnesse And consequently to this branch or corollary of this former truth wee are in the same Catechisme in the very next place taught to beleeve in God the Son who hath redeemed us and all mankind And if all mankind were redeemed by him than all of this kind were unfeignedly loved none were hated by him And though in the same place wee are taught to beleeve in the holy Ghost as in the sanctifier of all that are sanctified yet this wee are taught with this caveat that he doth sanctifie al the elect people of God not all mankind All then are not sanctified by God the holy Ghost which are redeemed by God the Sonne nor doth God the Father bestow all his spirituall blessings upon all whom hee doth unfeignedly love or on whom hee hath bestowed the blessing of Baptisme as the seale or pledge of their redemption All these inferences are so cleere that the consideration of them makes us doubt whether such amongst us as teach the contrary to any of these have at any time subscribed unto the booke of Common prayers or whether they had read it before they did subscribe unto it or contradict it That this universall extent of Gods love and of the redemption wrought by Christ is a fundamentall principle whereon many serious and fruitfull exhortations in the booke of Homilies are immediately grounded shall by Gods assistance appeare in the Article concerning Christ For a concludent proofe that God doth unfeignedly will not genera singulorum all sorts of men onely but singula generum every one of all sorts to be saved take it briefely thus All they which are saved and all they which are not saved make up both parts of the former distinction or division to the full But God will have all to bee saved which are saved he likewise willeth the salvation of all such as are not saved that is of such as dye therefore he willeth the salvation of every one of all sorts That God doth will the salvation of all that are saved no man ever questioned that God did will not the life but death of such as dyed the Iewes Gods owne people did sometimes more then question and to prevent the like querulous murmurings of misbeliefe in others he once for all interposed his solemne oath As I live saith the Lord I will not the death of him that dyeth but rather that he should repent and live None then can be saved whom God would not have saved many are not saved whom God would have saved 4 But how or by what Will doth he will that they should be saved that are not saved Doth he will their salvatioÌ„ by his revealed not by his secret will Doth he give signification onely of his good will towards them whereas his good will and pleasure is not finally to doe them any reall good This I take to be the meaning of voluntas signi and beneplaciti But it being granted that God doth will the salvation of all men by his revealed will or voluntate signi This alone will sufficiently inferre our intended conclusion That he truly wils the salvation of all without the exemption of any Vpon such as contradict this doctrine it lyes upon them to prove not the negative onely that God doth not will the salvation of all by his secret will but this positive particular that God doth nill or unwill the salvation of some by his secret will whose salvation he willeth by his revealed will Now if it be answered that he doth by his secret will or good pleasure unwill or nill the salvation of the same parties to whom he willeth salvation by his will revealed or signified they must without remedy acknowledge the one or the other member of this division as either that there be two wils in God of as different inclinations ad extra as the reasonable and sensitive appetite are in man or that there is a manifest contradiction in the object of one and the same Divine Will That All men should be saved and that some men should not be saved implyeth as formall a contradiction as to say All men are living creatures some men are no living creatures Now that all men should bee living creatures and that some men should not be living creatures falls not within the object of Omnipotency And if the will of God be at truly undivided in it selfe as the omnipotent power is it is no lesse impossible that the salvation of all and the non-salvation of some should be the object or true parts of the object of one and the same divine will undivided in it selfe than that the actuall salvation of all and the actuall and finall condemnation of some or the non-salvation of all should be really effected by the omnipotent power Whether this divine will be clearly revealed or in part revealed and in part reserved or secret in respect of us all is one so this will in it selfe and in its nature bee but one and undivided The manifestation or reservation of it or whatsoever other references it may have to us can neither increase nor abate the former contradiction in the object Or if voluntas signi bee not essentially the same with voluntas beneplaciti there is a manifest contradiction or contrariety betwixt them If the salvation of all bee the object of the one and the non-salvation or reprobation of others be the object of the other 5 Yet doe we not like rigorous Critiques so much intend the utter banishment of this distinction out of the confines of Divinity as the confinement of it to its proper seat and place Rightly confined or limited it may beare faith and allegiance to the truth and open some passages for clearing some branches of it But permitted to use that extent of liberty which hath beene given to it by some it wil make way for canonization 〈◊〉 â—â—esuiticall perjuries for deification of mentall evasions or reservations Let us compare Iesuiticall practices with that patterne which is the necessary resultance of some mens interpretation of Gods oath in this case Were this interrogatory put to any Iesuiticall Assassinat imagine a powder-plotter Doe you will or intend the ruine of the King or State or doe you know of any such project or intendment there is none of this crue so mischievously minded but would be ready to sweare unto this negative As the Lord liveth and as I hope for life and salvation by him I neither intend the ruine of King or State nor doe I know of any conspiracy against him And yet in case the event should evidently discover his protestation to be most false yet would he rest perswaded that this or the like mentall evasion or reservation I neither intended the ruine of King or State so
hell The reason why God thus plagued Pharaoh for not doing that which now he could not doe all possibility of amendment being taken from him was to teach all generations following by his fearefull end to beware of his desperate beginnings of struggling with God or of persecuting them whose patronage hee had in peculiar manner undertaken And here again there is no contradiction betweene these two proposition God from all eternity did will the death of Pharaoh God from all eternity did not will the death but rather the life of Pharaoh For albeit Pharaoh continued one and the same man from his birth unto his death yet did he not all this time continue one and the same object of Gods immutable will and eternall decree This object did alter as Pharaohs dispositions or affections towards God or his neighbours altered There is no contrariety much lesse any contradiction betweene these God unfaignedly loveth all men God doth not love but hate the Reprobate although they be men yea the greatest part of men For here the object of his love and hate is not the same he loves all men unfaignedly as they are men or as men which have not made up the full measure of iniquity but having made up that or having their soules betroathed unto wickednesse he hates them His hate of them as Reprobates is no lesse necessary or usuall than his love of them as men But though he necessarily bates them being once become Reprobates or having made up the full measure of iniquity yet was there no necessity layd upon them by his eternall decree to make up such a measure of iniquity 8 How these deductions will consort with some moderne Catechismes I doe not know sure I am they are consonant to the opinion of that learned Bishop and blessed Martyr in his Preface to his expositions of the ten Commandements a fit Catechisme for a Bishop to make Every man is called in the Scripture wicked and the enemy of God for the privation and lacke of faith and love that he oweth to God Et impii vocantur qui non omnino sunt pii that is They are called wicked that in all things honour not God beleeve not in God and observe not his Commandements as they should doe which we cannot do by reason of this naturall infirmity or hatred of the flesh as Paul calleth it against God In this sense taketh Paul this word wicked So must we interpret St. Paul and take his words or else no man should be damned Now we know that Paul himselfe St. Iohn and Christ damneth the contemners of God or such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent Those the Scripture excludeth from the generall promise of grace Thou seest by the places afore rehearsed that though wee cannot beleeve in God as undoubtedly as is required by reason of this our naturall sicknesse and disease yet for Christs sake in the judgement of God wee are accounted as faithfull beleevers for whose sake this naturall disease and sicknesse is pardoned by what name soever S. Paul calleth the naturall infirmity or originall sinne in man And this imperfection or naturall sicknesse taken of Adam excludeth not the person from the promise of God in Christ except wee transgresse the limits and bounds of this originall sinne by our owne folly and malice and either of a contempt or hate of Gods word we fall into sinne and transforme our selves into the image of the devill Then wee exclude by this meanes our selves from the promises and merits of Christ who only received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his Law SECTION III. That Gods good will and pleasure is never frustrated albeit his unspeakeable love take no effect in many to whom it is unfeignedly tendered CHAP. 16. In what sense God may be said to have done all that he could for his Vineyard or for such as perish 1 TO found both parts of a contradiction in truth fals not within the Sphere of omnipotency and we may with consent of al Divines maintaine it to be impossible The true originall aswell of our aptnesse to conceive difficulties in the points proposed as our ignorance in assoyling them is because we extend not this Maxime so far as it naturally would reach and the reason why we extend it not so farre is our pronenesse to extend our owne power to the utmost and for the most part farther then justice or true goodnesse can accompany it It is our nature to be humorous and the nature of humor to be unconstant Fortunes character may be every sonne of Adams Motto Tantum constans in levitate Onely constant in unconstancy And being such nothing can imply any constant contradiction to our nature nothing that is truly and constantly the same but will one time or other contradict our changeable and inconstant humors And these enraged with contradiction doe Tyrant-like arme power without just tryall or examination without either respect or reverence against whatsoever contradicts them The right use of power in creatures meerely sensitive is to satiate their appetites of sense for nothing hath power to move it selfe but what is sensitive and all power whether of body or minde was bestowed on man for the execution of his will or accomplishing his desire of good but since his will by his fall became irregular and his desires corrupt his power is become like a common officer or undercommander to all his unruly appetites domineering by turne or succession all other inclinations being under the command of it So the wise man hath charactered the resolution of voluptuous men cap. 1. 6. Come on therefore let us enjoy the good things that are present and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth And ver 11. Let our strength be the Law of justice for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth Even in such as are by most esteemed good men and sober those notions of truth and equity which are naturall and implanted are so weake and ill taken that rather than upstart carnall appetites or desires which custome countenanceth should be enraged through their reluctance they presently yeeld their consents to such proposalls as were they resolute firme and constant would as offensively contradict them as punishment or paine doth our sense of pleasure Vnto such proposalls we often yeeld as are impossible to be approved by Equity to whom we usually professe our dearest love and allegiance with promises to frame our lives by her rules But love in us whether one simple and indivisible quality or an aggregation or cluster of divers inclinations all rooted in one Center is not alike set on divers objects Hence when it comes to opposition betweene sense and reason betweene our selves our private friends and common equity it divides it selfe unequally The particular inconveniences whereto we are daily exposed by the inordinate love of the world and the flesh are infinite all may be reduced to these
destruction commeth as a whirlewind when distresse and anguish commeth upon you Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seeke me earely but they shall not finde mee For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the feare of the Lord. They would none of my counsel they despised all my reproofe Therefore shall they eate of the fruit of their owne way and be filled with their owne devices For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fooles shall destroy them But who so harkeneth unto me shall dwell safely and be quiet from feare of evill And it were to be wished that some moderne Divines would better explicate than they doe a schoole tenet held by many concerning Gods punishing sinners in the life to come citra condignum that is lesse than they deserve For by how much their punishment is lesse than the rule of divine Iustice exacts so much of that delight or good pleasure which God should have reaped from their salvation may seeme by this remission to be diminished But this point I leave to the judicious Readers consideration who may inform himselfe from the Expositors of that sacred Maxime His mercy is above all his works Psal 145. 9. 3 To thinke God should punish sinne unlesse it were truly against his will or any sinne more deeply than it is against his will and pleasure is one of those three grosse transformations of the divine nature which Saint Augustine refutes For thus to doe is neither incident to the divine nature nor to any other imaginable Most of us are by nature cholericke and often take offence where none is given and almost alwayes greater than is justly given But to be offended with any thing that goes not against their present wills is a way wardnesse of men whereof the humane nature is uncapable To punish any which doe not contradict their wills is an injustice scarce incident to the inhabitants of Hell It is the mutability of our wills or multiplicity of humors which makes us so hard to be pleased Our minds at lest our affections are set upon one thing fasting upon another full on this to day on that to morrow on sweet meates in health on sowre in sicknesse on kindnesse in mirth on cruelty in anger and because each hath his severall inconstant motions wee cannot hold consort long together without crossing or thwarring But no man ever offended by merrily consorting with his brother disposed to mirth nor by consenting to wreake his will whilest hee was in rage No man ever punished his servant for doing that which for the present he would have him doe nor doe the Devills themselves vex the wicked till Gods justice overtake them but the godly because the one doth what they would the other what they would not have him doe neither could displease them were it not their wicked will to have all as bad and miserable as themselves Could the damned by their suffering either ease these tormentors of paine or abate their malice they would be lesse displeased at them and lesse displeased torment them lesse And whom then have they made the subject of their thoughts or did they rather dreame than thinke on God that sometimes write as if it were not as much against Gods will to have men dye as it is against mans will to suffer death For they suffer death not because God delighteth in it but that Gods will may be fulfilled in their suffering or passion according to the measure it hath beene neglected or opposed by their actions 4 But though the rule of justice bee exactly observed in proportioning their paines to the degrees or fervency of his love neglected yet seeing the continuance of their neglect was but temporall how stands it with his justice to make their paines eternall The doubt were pertinent if the immortall happinesse wherunto the riches of Gods bountie did daily lead them during their pilgrimage on earth whereof they had sweet promises and full assurance had not farther exceeded all the pleasures of this mortall life for whose purchase they morgaged their hopes of immortality than the paines of hell doe these grievances or corrections which caused them murmure against their heavenly Father In this sense we may maintaine what Mirandula in another doth that no man is everlastingly punished for temporall offences as committed against God How then Man wilfully exchanging his everlasting inheritance for momentany and transient pleasures becomes the Author of his owne woe and reapes the fruit of his rash bargaines and so makes up that measure of Gods glory and pleasure by his eternall sufferings which he might and would not doe by eternall participation of his joyfull presence And it is more than just for it is justice tempered with abundant mercy that they should suffer everlasting paines who not twice or thrice or seven times onely but more than seventy times seven times have wilfully refused to accomplish Gods eternall pleasure by accepting the sweet profers of their eternall joy In every moment of this life we have a pledge of his bounty to assure us of a better inheritance the very first neglect whereof might in justice condemne us to everlasting bondage The often and perpetuall neglect turnes flames of eternall love into an eternall consuming fire For if love and mercy bee his property as hee is Creator and preserver of all mankinde his love as was said before must needs be more indissolubly set on those attributes than on man The end of his love to man is to make him happy by being like him in the love of goodnesse Now the more he loves him with reference to this end or the oftner hee pardons him for neglecting or refusing the meanes that draw unto it the greater is his wrath against impenitency or finall contempt of his loving mercy This is his most deare and tender attribute which being foully wronged will not suffer justice to sleepe Patientia laesa sit furor Long restraint of anger upon just and frequent provocations makes the out-bursting of it though unseemely and violent seeme not altogether unjust nor immoderate Albeit the forme and manner of proceeding which humane patience much abused usually observes in taking revenge cannot in exact justice bee warranted or approved yet this excesse of anger or delinquency in the forme is so tempered with matter of equity that it makes those actions of patient men much abused seeme excusable which in others would be intollerable The ideall perfection of this rule of equity thus often corrupted by humane passions is in the Divine Nature without mixture of such passion or perturbation as is pictured out to the terror of the ungodly in the propheticall characters or descriptions of his anger Et excitatus est tanquam dormiens Dominus c. Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleepe and like a mightie man that shouteth by reason of wine Psal 78. 65. Although he
danger doe willingly drinke it And the lesse suspitious or more charitably affected hee is to his professed Physitian the greater wrong he hath in being thus uncharitably dealt with It would little boote the malefactor in this kinde to plead Albeit I gave it him hee might have chosen whether he would have drunke it because I did not inforce him with a drawen Dagger or other weapon to be his owne executioner In many cases one may be the true cause of anothers death and deserve death himselfe although he be not any necessarie cause of his death or plot his destruction without possibilitie of avoidance But if our willing choyse of those waies which lead to death be necessarie in respect of the Almighties decree so that there be no possibilitie left to escape it hee is a more necessarie and more immediate cause of all their deaths that thus perish then any man can be of his death whom he poisons And if the case stood thus with any their miserie were greater by how much they did lesse suspect his goodnesse However most miserable because most desperate Reason and knowledge the two ornaments of the humane nature should be to them a curse He that neither knowes nor doth his Masters will shall be beaten because it was possible for him to have known it but w th fewer stripes because not knowing it there was no possibility left for him to doe it But he that knowes it and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes because the knowledge of his will to punish sinners and reward the righteous did include a possibilitie to avoyd death and to be made partaker of life If otherwise there bee no possibilitie left for him that knowes Gods displeasure against sinne to avoid the wayes of sinne those are death his case before and after death is much more miserable than his whom God in just judgement hath deprived of knowledge And the Praeserver of men should be accounted much more favourable to stocks and truncks than unto many men upon whom hee bestoâ—es his best gifts in great plentie if these be bestowed upon the Conditions now mentioned or be charged with remedilesse miserie 4 But admitting their miserie to be fatall and inevitable by divine decree is it not possible to acquit this decree or the Author of it from being the Author of evill did the Stoick condemne all Iudges of injustice that sentenced malefactors unto violent death whereto by their opinion all that suffered it were inevitably destinated Perhaps the feare of censure in publique Courts did make them silent in this point But was not this care to keepe themselves harmelesse or feare not to offend Magistrates altogether fatall Galen 〈◊〉 my remembrance in his Stoicall discourse quòd mores animi sequuntur temperamentum corporis hath framed this answer to the question proposed We doe not offend in killing Snakes or Toades or other like venemous creatures albeit their naturall temper or disposition be unaltrably harmefull unto men And if nature or temper of bodie make some of our owne stamp and ranke more noysome than these creatures are unto their neighbours to fit the one sort with the same measure of punishment which is due unto the other is no injustice no inequality And Lipsius a man not too much abhorrent from any opinioÌ„ that was fashionable to his new stile or might serve to set forth the point which for the present he much affected gives this briefe placet in favour of the Stoicks opinion Fatali culpae fatalis paena punishment is fatall to fatall crimes But this is principium petere to take that for granted which is questioned For if the harmes which malefactors do and suffer be truly fatall the one is no true crime the other is no just punishment To Galen I answer that if we could by any skill in physick or complexions discerne some men to bee as naturally disposed to mischiefe all that come in their way or by chance offend them as are the Snake the Sloworm or other serpent it would be the wisest way for such as love their lives to rid the world of these fatally mischievous reasonable creatures as fast as they met with them or to appoint some certaine daies for hunting them as wee do noysome beasts But to examine their suspitious intentions to question their actions to arraign their persons or put them upon a formall or legall tryall of their life would be as ridiculous as to produce witnesses against a Snake to empannell a Iury upon a mad Dog or to take bale for a Wolfes appearance before a Butcher in an assembly of Mastives 5 The common notions of good and evill the ingraffed opinion of contingency in humane actions have taught the Lawgivers of every nation to put notorious malefactors unto more exquisite tortures than we do harmfull creatures either to enforce them to utter what no destiny nor complexion makes them voluntarily confesse or else to deterre others that are as naturally disposed to evill as they were from doing the like Scarce any malefactor unless he be poysoned with this opinion of absolute necessity but will acknowledge that it was possible for him to have done otherwise theÌ„ he hath done possible for him to have avoided the doome which is passed upon him by man which to have avoided had been absolutely impossible if it were to be awarded upon him by Gods eternall decree or which is all one if in respect of this decree it had been necessary As ignorance of the true God and his saving truth makes the former error more excusable in the Stoicks than in such Christians as shal maintain it so might impotency exempt that God which the Stoicks worshipped whether Nature Fate or some other distinct celestiall power from those imputatioÌ„s unto which omnipotency makes the God of Christians lyable if all things were by vertue of his decree absolutely necessary It was a received opinion among many Heathens that the gods themselves were subject unto Fate for this reason when any thing fell out in their judgement amiss Fates commonly did either intirely bear the blame or the greatest part of it And their gods indeed had deserved pity rather than blame if they could do no better than they did as being over-mastered by Fates But for a Christian to inveigh against Fates is to accuse or deny his God If Fates be nothing hee hath no reason to complaine of them if any thing they bee they are of the true Gods making who made all things who cannot possibly be subject to any thing that he hath made Nor can it stand with our allegiance to say when any disasters befall us that our God could no otherwise choose that our mischances were the absolutely necessary effects of his Omnipotent decree One speciall cause of this error and of some mens adherence to it is a jealousie or zealous needlesse feare lest they should grant God to be impotent or not so omnipotent but that
the true Church would be unwilling to put our selves upon this tryall Scripture wee grant and are ready upon as high and hard termes as they to maintaine is the onely infallible rule of rectitude or obliquitie in opinions concerning God or mans salvation Yet are we not hereby bound to reject reason and infallible rule of Art as incompetent Iudges what propositions in Scripture are equipollent which opposite which subordinate or what collections from undoubted sacred Maximes are necessary or probable or what conclusions are altogether false and sophisticall Nor ought they to suspect reason in others to bee unsanctified because it is accompanied with rules of prophane sciences For even these are the gifts of God and are sanctified in every Christian by the rule of faith And in as much as both of us admit Scripture to be the onely rule of faith in it selfe most infallible both of us are tyed by infallible consequents of truth from this rule derived to admit of this Maxime following Gods threats and promises his exhortations admonitions or protestations whether immediately made by himselfe or by his Prophets containe in them greater truth and syncerity then is in our admonitions exhortations and promises His truth and syncerity in all his wayes are the rule or patterne which we are to imitate but which wee cannot hope to equalize 2 Put the case then a religious wise and gracious Prince should exhort a young gentleman that in rigour of Law had deserved death for some aemulous quarrell in the Court to behave himselfe better hereafter and he should be sure to find greater favour at his hands than any of his adversaries no man would suspect any determination in the Prince to take away his life for this offence or any purpose to intrap him in some other A minister of publique iustice in our memory told a Butcher whom he then sentenced to death for manslaughter that he might kill Calves Oxen and Sheepe but mankinde was no butchery ware hee might not kill his honest neighbours The solecisme was so uncouth and so ill beseeming the seat of gravity and of justice that it moved laughter though in a case to be lamented throughout the assembly and a young Student standing neare the barre advised the poore condemned man to entreat a Licence to kill Calves and Sheepe that Lent The wisest of men may sometimes erre sometimes place good words amisse or give wholsome counsell such as this was had it beene uttered in due time and place out of season But to spend good words of comfort and encouragement upon such as thou hast certainly appointed to dye to floute the children of destruction with faire promises of preeminence That be farre from thee O Lord. Shall not the Iudge of all the earth doe that which is right and just a thing welbeseeming the best and wisest Princes of the earth to imitate Was then the sentence of condenmation for Cains exile or utter destruction without possibility of revocation when thou entreatedst him as a most loving Father Why art thou worth and why is thy countenance fallen If thou doe well shalt not thou bee accepted and if thou doest not well sinne lyeth at the doore and unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him Did that which the Text saith afterward came to passe come to passe by inevitable necessity And Cain talked with Abel his brother and it came to passe when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slue him My adversaries for I am not theirs must be entreated to pardon me if I be as resolute and peremptory for my opinion hitherto delivered as they are for any other For reason and conscience ruled by Scripture perswades me it is possible for the Iudge of quick dead to be unjust in his sentences or unsyncere in his incouragement as that Cains destruction should be in respect of his decree altogether necessarie or impossible to have beene avoyded When the Lord tooke first notice of his aemulation and envie at his yonger brother God would not banish him from his brothers presence nor so tie his hands that he could not strike But he used all the meanes that aequitie in like case requires to move his heart that way which it was very possible for it to bee moved And unto this motion Cain had both Gods assistance and incouragement as readie as his generall concâ—urse to conceave anger in his heart or to lift up his hand against his brother 3 The very tenor of Gods grand covenant with the sonnes of Abraham includes this twofold possibilitie one of attaining his extraordinary gracious favour by doing well another of incurring miserable calamities by doing ill If yee walke in my statutes and keepe my commandements and doe them then will I give you raine in due season and the land shall yeeld her increase and the trees of the field shall yeeld their fruit And your threshing shall reach to the vintage and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time and yee shall eate your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely c. I am the Lord your God which brought you forth out of the Land of Aegypt that yee should not bee their bondmen and I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you goe upright Levit. 26. ver 3. ad 14. But if yee will not hearken unto mee and will not doe all these commandements And if yee shall despise my statutes or if your soule abhorre my judgements so that ye will not doe all my commandements but that ye breake my covenant I also will doe this unto you I will even appoint over you terrour consumption and the burning ague c. Levit. 26. ver 14 15 16 c. This tenor or condition was to continue one and the same throughout all generations But some generations as the event hath proved were de facto partakers of the blessings promised others have had their portion in the curses Shall wee hence inferre that prosperitie was in respect of GODS decree or good pleasure altogether necessarie unto such as prospered not so much as possible unto those that perished or that their calamity was absolutely necessary I would say rather I have Gods word yea his heartie wishes for my warrant that the most prosperous times which any of Abrahams or Davids posteritie enjoyed did come farre short of that measure of prosperitie which by Gods aeternall decree was possible to all even to the whole stocke of Iacob throughout all their generations O that my people had hearkned unto me and Israel had walked in my wayes I should soone have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him but their time should have endured for ever Psal 81. verse 13 14 15. But in what estate fed with the finest of the wheate and satified with hony out of the Rocke verse 16.
the seat of Chance or Fortune in our way and to declare what is meant by these termes and whether such events as we say fall out by Fortune or Chance have any alliance with necessity In this discussion I hope wee shall arive at that point whereat the favourers of absolute necessity and the favourers of other opinions concerning Fate and Fortune more fluctuant will bee content to cast anchor Fortune saith Plutarch is a part of Chance as free-will or choise is of contingency Every casuall event is contingent but every contingent effect is not casuall or a chance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The very name of Chance in Greek saith Aristotle implies as much as to be to no end or purpose yet this etymology under correction was no part of the Ancients meaning which gave the Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to such events as we terme casuall unlesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frustra be referred onely as perhaps Aristotle intended to the efficient cause After a manner of speech not much unlike to this the Schoolemen say that is gratis dictum as wee would say freely spoken not for which a man takes no fee but for which he hath no just ground or reason And that in phrase of Scripture is said to bee done gratis or frustra which is done without just motives or provocation not that which is done or attempted to no end or purpose Oderunt me frustra and Oderunt me gratis They hated me without a cause or They hated me vainly are in some translations equivalent The word in the originall answers to both In analogy to this kinde of speech those events were said to fall out by chance or to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the opinion of such as gave this name had no efficient cause or at least none discernable but were supposed to move themselves or to take possession of such short beeing as they had without the assignement of any superiour power or of any constant or setled cause intruding themselves into the course of nature like unbidden guests sometimes as unwelcome as frost in summer sometimes as welcome as warme weather to such as want fire in winter 5 Fortune hath her authority placed onely in reasonable actions or deliberations yet not in all these but onely in such events as fall out either so farre beyond or contrary to mens intentions that they may be rather wondred at then expected If husbandmen should digge their Vineyards with purpose to finde Gold the fruitefull vintage thereon following though no part of their intentions could not so properly bâ—e ascribed to Fortune as if a husbandman intending onely to dig his Vineyard in hope of a plentifull vintage should finde store of Gold 6 The meaning of Plato of Aristotle and Plutarch may bee better perceived by fit instance then by large scholastique commentaries upon their severall definitions of Fortune Valerius Maximus and to my remembrance Plutarch hath a memorable storie of one Iason Phereus that was cured of an impostume in a fray or Duell The blow of an enemy was the cause of this mans health but by a rare and unusuall accident quite contrary to his intention that gave it and altogether beyond his expectation that received it His purpose was only to maintaine his reputation or revenge his wrongs either to wound or to be wounded without any hope or thought of curing his disease the danger wherof was not fully discovered til it was past But a more perfect Idaea or exemplarie forme of fortune good or bad then any historian relates the greeke Epigrammatist hath pictured for our contemplation The matter of the Epigram was in English thus A silly poore wretch being deprived of all meanes to live resolves to deprive himselfe of breath but whilest he sought a place convenient for acting this desperate purpose finding store of gold which another had hid he returned home againe leaving his halter in the place which was worse taken by him that hid the gold then meant by him that left it for he hanged himselfe in it for griefe of his losse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A poore wretch finding gold for ioy left 's halter in its steed Which he that left the gold for griefe did make his fatall threed To finde Gold was no part of that poore mans hopes whom despaire of like meanes to live by had made desirous of death the other had as little minde to dispatch himselfe when he came to visit the supposed stay and comfort of his life wherein his soule had solaced her selfe with the foole in the Gospell CHAP. 21. Of the proper subject and nature of Fate 1 THE most usefull issue which these or the like cases afford is this whether the event specified in them bee meerely casuall contingent or in some sort necessarie One and the same determination will as well befit the like quaestion concerning such events as are properly tearmed Fatall whose proper subject nature and definition we are more particularly to inquire after The first quaere which few meddle withall would bee this Whether fatall events participate more of contingencie then of necessitie But setting aside all comparison it sufficeth us that they truely participate of both but in different degrees or measures according to the diversitie of times Contingencie is alwayes as necessarily praesupposed to the production of events fatall as necessitie is included in them And as the proper forme or essence of Fates consists not in every sort of necessitie but in some peculiar branch thereof so neither is every Contingent subject a fit matter for receiving that forme or branch of necessitie wherein the nature of Fate consists and which giues denomination and being to events fatall I have heard many unthrifts upon the loosing of a faire game at Tables curse the Dice or cry vengeance upon ill luck but I never heard any Gamester frame such inditements either in verse or prose against Fates as were usuall amongst the heathens whose language in other cases is with our unthrifts most familiar Such pettie adventures as Cardes and Dice are as met all too base to be instampt with the inscription of Fate whose proper subject in publike affaires is matter either of tragedie or of triumph in private matter either of extraordinarie and unusuall prosperitie or of calamitie Most of Gods creatures are the subject of contingency mankind onely or humane societie is the the proper sphaere without whose circumference neither fortune or fatall events doe wander Yet is not every part of man subject to fate though man according to every part bee subject to that contingencie which is praesupposed to Fates Iustin Martyr though a professed enemy to Stoicall Fates and a most valiant champion a chiefe leader to all the rest which have defended the Christian truth against that sect being most potent in the infancie of Christianitie was not so nice as either to
on which Gods will is alwaies done by means infinite at least to man incomprehensible 4 The incarnation of our blessed Saviour was in the opinion of some of the Ancients absolutely necessary before the creation of mankind should in time infallibly have been accomplished for confirming or augmenting that happy estate wherein Adam was created if so he had continued stedfast in it untill the time appointed by God for his change or translation But however the Schooles may determine or wave this question I must confesse neither very usefull nor in this place much necessary there was no necessity questionlesse that the second Adam should become a bloudy sacrifice for our sinnes unlesse the first Adam had sinned but after he by his actuall transgression had utterly cut off that possibility of perseverance which the eternall decree had bestowed upon him the humiliation and bitter passion of the Sonne of God became as necessary in respect of Gods mercy and bounty towards man and of his infinite justice which notwithstanding his infinite mercy was to be fully satisfied as his incarnation After Cain had despised Gods 〈◊〉 and had slaine his brother Abel it was necessary the Messias should proceed from Seth yet not then so necessary that he should be the sonne of Abraham as the Son of Seth. Others lineally descended from Seth might have forfeited their reall possibilities or ordinary hopes of attaining unto this glorie At the least when God first made his promise to the Woman and her seed the birth of Abraham was not in respect of the eternall decree so necessary as Christs birth was It was possible to have written Terah as childlesse as Iechoniah after his mariage with Abrahams mother But after the same God had passed that promise unto Abraham and confirmed it by solemne oath In thy seed shall alâ— the nations of the earth be blessed It was thenceforth altogether as necessary that our Redeemer should be the seed of Abraham as of the Woman Yet not then so necessary that he should bee the sonne of Iudah or that Iudah should have a sonne called Iesse or that Iesse should have a son called David a man after Gods owne heart That glory which long after Gods oath to Abraham befell the Tribe of Iudah was for ought we know or can object unto the contrary a part of that dignity whose possibility was once really possessed by Reuben though utterly forfeited by his misdemeanour But after Iacob had prophesied that the Scepter should not depart from Iudah till Shilo come or rather after the Lord had sworne not to faile David in bestowing the prerogative promised to Iudah upon his seed the necessity becomes as great that our High Priest after the Order of Melchisedeck should bee the sonne of David as the son of Man or seed of Abraham Now if we can perswade our selves that God either speakes or sweares as he truly intends or that mortall man may certainly know where to have him or what to trust to wee must beleeve and acknowledge those events concerning which he hath sworne not to repent to be farre more necessary in respect of the irresistible decree from the first interposition of such oath then those ordinary blessings or cursings which hee seriously threatâ—eth or promiseth but disjunctively with expresse reservation of their repentance whom he threatneth or of their defection whom he incourageth by his promises yet such was his covenant of life and death with his people such was his decree concerning the prosperity or calamity of Davids temporall Kingdome as the Prophets comments upon the promise made to David expresly testifie By these and the like oracles fully exemplified in the alternation of Ierusalem and Iudahs contrary fates or successe we may discerne the course of that eternall providence by whose irresistible unerring disposition all other States or Kingdomes have the certaine periods of their prosperity or calamity assigned and by which Princes and greatest statesmen stand or fall SECTION III. Of the manifestation of Divine Providence in the remarkable erection declination and periods of Kingdomes in over-ruling policy and disposing the successe of humane undertakings CHAP. 24. Of the contrary Fates or Awards whereof Davids temporall kingdome was capable and of its devolution from Gods antecedent to his consequent Will 1 HOMER was not so blinded with the heathenish misconceit of Fate as not-to-see more wayes to death than one In Achilles he described two courses of life the one shorter but decked with glory the other longer but bare and naked of â—ame both alike possible by Fates Thetis foresaw Fates by two wayes Might bring me to my end The one by Troy where if my time I should with honour spend It was but short but if at home A sluggard still I stayd My life was long but with no Fame Or praise to be repay'd Now as one poyson sometimes expels another so this opinion of double Fate if men be disposed to use this terme takes away the malignity of that error which holds all events to be fatall albeit of such twofolded fates or successe the one part or the other must by absolute necessity be fulfilled according to the parties choise unto whom they are awarded The body of that which Homer shadowed in Achilles is evidently contained in Gods forementioned covenant with Israell and sealed unto us by manifest experience in Davids line For of Gods speciall providence over the seed of Abraham or the Iewish nation in generall we have treated at large in the first Booke of the Comments upon the Apostles Creed The contrary Fates of Davids kingdome in succeeding ages seeme to wrastle strive as Iacob and Esau did in the womb or to countersway each other like two opposite scales unequally ballanced by turnes That thus it fared with Davids Kingdome doth not argue Gods decree concerning it to have beene mutable but rather immutably to have elevated depressed both Prince and People according to the degrees of their mutability in turning to him or from him 2 Salomon had the largest talent of wealth and the greatest measure of wit to use it that any earthly King either before or after him had His possibilities to increase his kingdome and propagate greatnesse to his posterity were much greater than any earthly Monarch since him might expect Many parts of Gods glorious promises made to David were literally meant of him which were never literally fulfilled in him or in his naturall linage because they did not performe the conditions which God required that they might bee more capable of his extraordinary undeserved favours The Covenant with David is expressed Psal 89. I have found David my servant with my holy oyle have I anointed him With whom my hand shall bee established mine arme also shall strengthen him The enemy also shall not exact upon him nor the sonne of wickednesse afflict him And I will beat downe his foes before his face and plague them that hate him This promise
part tainted with eâ—roneous opinion and superstition are than confidence in the puritie of opinions or profession of Orthodoxall religion without correspondency of practise cannot better be expressed than it is by Salvianus That saying of our Saviour Hee that exalts himselfe shall bee brought lowe was evidently experienced in the Goaths and in us they hâ—mbled themselves and were exalted we exalted our selves and were dejected This our Generall found true in himselfe being led captive into that Citie of the Enemies into which he presumed he should the same day have entred as Conquerour Herein the judgement of God was apparent upon him that hee should suffer whatsoever hee had presumed or undertaken to doe The King of the Goathes as hee concludes fought with prayers and supplications before he came to fight with the arme of flesh and he therefore went out with confidence unto Battaile as having obtained victorie in his prayer A second parallel to the former battaile for the alternant inclinations of victorie or sudden turning of wofull and sad beginnings unto joyfull issue might bee taken from that famous battaile of Flodden if wee may beleeve eyther the ordinarie Scottish Historie or the constant report of the English which were then alive and tooke the Relation from the mouthes of such as were imployed in that service being men of note no way partiall In their observation it was the extraordinary valour the of Scottish vauntguard in the very first onset or joyning of battaile which brought victory otherwise doubtfull or declining from them to the English For the sudden discomfiture and confused flight of the English Vantguard unto the maine Battaile made that unfortunate King beleeve that the English Army began to reele and out of this mistake as one that had prepared himselfe to follow the chase rather then to order his owne Battaile hee was encompassed by the English in that very place as some report which he had beene forewarned but in termes generall and ambiguous to eschue 6 That great warre betweene Charles the fift and the confederate Princes of Germany begun in the yeare 1546. was more lingring For as the Iudicious Historian observes we shall hardly finde any record in antiquity of two such great Armies lying so neare one to the other so long as these two armies did without a ful battel The war was managed as if it had bin a game at Chess wherein divers oversights were coÌ„mitted on both sides yet the disadvantage given or taken still so recoverable that the old Maxime Non licet bis peccare in bello may seeme by the event of this warre to be restrained to praelium rather to a set battaile then to war Charles the Emperour did in the esteeme of Warriours manage his businesses more cautelously than the Confederates did and yet if wee should speake in the ordinary Politician or Souldiers language was more beholding to Fortune than to prudence or counsell of Warre It was a great oversight to expose himselfe unto such imminent danger as he did at Genge out of a desire to view his Enemies Army For as the Spaniards confesse if the confederate Princes had beene as vigilant to take advantage as he was carelesse to give it they might have put an end to this war as soone as it was begunne It is noted likewise as a great oversight in them that they did not assault him whilest hee was encamped about Ingolstade and Râ—â—isborne expecting fresh supplies out of Italy and the Low Countries yet the losse of this opportunity they had easily redeemed not long after had not their project beene disclosed to Charles who removed his Camp before they had notice and by favour of the great windes which that night hapned surprized Donaverd a place of good importance for his present designes That Count Egmond with his Netherland forces on whose skill and valour Charles did most relye should escape the surprisall intended by the Landgrave was more from good hap and Caesar Magius his extemporary sophisme than from any forecast either of the Emperour himselfe or of Count Egmond For unlesse his Souldiers had been perswaded that the Landgrave was nearer to them over night than indeed he was hee had beene nearer to them or sooner upon them in the morning than they could have wished But this false Alarum given by Magius made them willing though much wearied to march all night Not long after their safe conduct unto the maine Campe the chiefe Counsellors of warre were instant with Charles to dissolve his Army for that wâ—nter untill the next Spring That his resolution to the contrary proved so successefull was more than in humane wisdome could be forecast so long as the successe of Maurice Duke of Saxony and the Bohemians which had invaded the Territories of Iohn Duke of Saxonie was uncertaine But the prevailing power of this unexpected enemie being a known Professor of that Religion for whose maintenance his noble Vncle and Father in Law had taken arms enforced the Confederates to divide their Army which could not but give advantage to Charles But that Henry the eight of England and Francis the first of France neither of them likely to have stood as by-standers in this great businesse if they had lived should both dye in this interim this was the Lords doing not Fortunes Charles could not ground any resolution upon the hope of it nor could the confederate Princes foresee the disadvantage which from their death did redound unto them Yet after all these prejudices on the confederate Princes behalfe Charles his expedition into Saxony against Iohn Prince Elector who had retired thither with part of the Army to prevent Maurice his further proceedings was very doubtfull and full of danger and yet was Charles who before had shewed himselfe to bee more timorous and backward more resolute and forward in this expedition than any of his Captaines or Commanders 7 Doubtlesse lest his Captaines his Souldiers or Counsell of Warre should boast as if their own right hands their policy and strength had gotten the victory the Lord of Hosts the Lord mighty in Battaile did so dispose that the Emperour one while should feare where no feare was and another while be couragiously wilfull or resolute against his grave Counsell of Warre and against all probabilitie of hopefull successe At Nordling when his Army was full and his Souldiers fresh when the Spaniards after some difficult passages had beene conquered by their undaunted Resolution were perswaded that victorie was hard before them Charles would not give them leave to overtake it or as if it had beene snatched out of their jawes they did gnash with their teeth for very indignation nor was this hope of victory in the Spaniards conceived from intemperate heate of warre or longing desire to fight without good grounds of reason For Maximilian Egmond a wise and well experienced Commander was so taken with the same perswasion that when the Emperour called him back he pulled his
to forewarne great Subjects or inferiour Princes not to interpose as Arbitrators or Vmpires upon advantage when their betters fall at variance The advice I confesse is very good and ignorance hereof or want of like conâ—ideration it may be was some part of this great Earles folly not his principall fault some occasion no tue or prime cause of these two great Princes combination against him For besides Lewes and Charles Cominaeus a man no way inferiour to Machiavel in politique wit had espied a third principall actor in this Tragedy whose first appearance was to his apprehension in the likenesse of Lady Fortune but was discovered upon better review to be Divine Providence This good Authors Comment upon this accident is so full and lively as it will not admit any paraphrase of mine without wrong not onely to him but to the Reader Onely of one clause pertinent as well to the Discourse following as to that or the like passage of sacred Writ As every man sowes so shall he reape I must give the Reader speciall notice This Earle was alwayes delighted to sow the seeds of warre war being as he and the World thought the chiefe field or surest ground of his glory and he ends his thus honoured life with a bloody and unglorious death This was by Gods appointment the most naturall crop and proper harvest of such a seed-time as he had made Yet was not the finger of God more remarkable in knitting these two Princes which al their life times had stood as we say at the staffes end than in loosing the strict link of mutuall amity between other ancient Friends and sworne Confederates albeit the Politician seeke in this case as in the former altogether to cover or obliterate all impression of it For it is his manner or humour as was observed before to bring as much grist as he can and more then he ought to his owne Mill to entitle such partiall and subordinate meanes as fall within the compasse of his profession sole or prime causes of those effects which are immediately produced by Divine Providence 4 He spake merrily that said A man could not bestow his almes worse than on blinde men seeing they could finde in their hearts to see their best benefactors hanged But it hath beene delivered in good earnest as a cautelous rule by some politique Discoursers that the most thanklesse office any great Personage can doe to his dearest friend were to make him King It is a lesson of every dayes teaching The greater men grow the more they scorne to bee thought to be beholden unto others The very sight of such as they have beene more beholding unto than they can handsomely requite seemes to upbraid ambitious minds Hee is a meane Historian that cannot instance in divers upstart Princes which could not long suffer the heads of those men whose hands had put Crownes on theirs unto which they had no lawful title to stand where nature had given them lawfull possession â—i upon their owners shoulders Politique rules or Aphorismes grounded upon historicall observations of this kinde are not altogether without use But the doctrine inveiled in Poeticall fictions is in this and many other cases more Catholique than the Historians or Politicians observation Vsuall it is with the Poets when they represent the originall and progresse of tragicall dissentions betweene quondam friends in the first place to dispatch the Furies abroad with fire-brands in their hands to kindle or blow the coales of cruell and without the mutuall blood of the Actors unquenchable hatred And to speake the truth without fiction it seemes scarce possible that such light sparkles of humane anger as are usually the first seeds of quarrels betweene neighbour Princes or confederate States should grow unto such raging and devouring flames as they often doe unlesse some spirit more potent than the spirit or breath of man did blow them Now if by Furies the Poets meane infernall Fiends or evill Spirits their language doth not varie much from the ancient dialect of Canaan God saith the Author of the Booke of Iudges cap. 9. ver 23 24. sent an evill spirit betweene Abimelech and the men of Schechem and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech That the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sonnes of Ierubbaal might come and their blood be layd upon Abimelech their brother which flew them and upon the men of Shechem which ayded him in the killing of his brethren The mutuall disasters of both parties related in the verses following is but the just award of lothams imprecation vers 19 20. If yee then have dealt truly and sincerely with Ierubbaal and with his house this day then rejoyce ye in Abimelech and let him also rejoyce in you But if not let fire come out from Abimelech and devoure the men of Shechem and the house of Millo and let fire come out from the men of Shechem and from the house of Millo and devoure Abimelech 5 It would be more easie than safe out of the Histories of times ancient and moderne domestique and forraine to parallell this last instance so exactly as well for successe as practise as might be sufficient if not to perswade the irreligious Politician yet to leave him without excuse for not being perswaded that there is an immortall King of Kings and Lord of Lords from whose jurisdiction no corner of the Earth can be exempted an everlastingly wise and righteous Iudge which oversees the inventions of mans heart with a stedfast eye and measures their actions with a constant hand one that visiteth the same irregularities by the same rule or canon and fitteth like sinnes with like punishments after thousand of yeares distance in time in places distant some thousand of miles But leaving the collection of parallell examples or experiments sutable to the rule proposed unto the Readers private observation the proofe of the last mentioned conclusion will bee more apparent and concludent from the examples or instances in the last Section concerning the rule of retaliation CHAP. 30. Of Gods speciall providence in defeating cunning plots and conspiracies and in accomplishing extraordinary matters by meanes ordinary 1 WHen it is said that In God we live wee move and have our beeing this is not to be understood only of being or life naturall or of motion properly so called but is to be extended unto life and operations purely intellectuall So that the incomprehensible Nature in respect of our apprehensions is as properly an agent superartificiall as supernaturall All the skill wherewith any intelligent Creature is or can be endowed all the devises and projects of mens hearts are as essentially subordinate to his incomprehensible wisedome or counsell of his will as the life being and motions of things naturall are to his creative conservative or cooperative power Howbeit this subordination of the rationall creatures cogitations to his infinite wisedome doth no way deprive it of all liberty or freedome in projecting devising
from their greatnesse but from some other causes best knowne unto himselfe His judgements upon Princes and other Potentates are often executed according to the most strict arithmeticall proportion that can be required in the rule of Retaliation upon equalls as well for the manner as for the matter of punishment And although God in this life never plagueth any according to the full measure of their offences committed against himselfe yet he often visiteth Kings and Monarks with a fuller visible measure of calamity than they have brought upon others and with calamity of the same kinde Though Pharaoh had beene the greatest Monark and his Court the most glorious seat of Nobility till their time on earth yet because hee and his Nobles had plotted cruelty against the innocent without relentance or remorse the dignity of his or their persons procures no mitigation either for the matter or manner of punishment Their dues are fully paid them as we say in kinde the guiltlesse blood of poore Hebrew infants is rendred seven â—old into the bosome of the Aegyptian Nobility and men of Warre 2 Never did any State or Kingdome since the foundation of the world were laid receive so terrible a wound within its owne territories in one day as at this time Egypt did but females did in some measure feele the smart Yet in this last as in the former plagues no Egyptian woman had cause to lament for her selfe for her sister or daughter but many for their husbaÌ„ds their brothers or sons What was the reason The Egyptian Mid-wives and they were women if no other of their sex besides had beene more merciful to the infant males of the Hebrewes than the Egyptian men had been And as they had done so hath the Lord requited the one and rewarded the other To the mercilesse Courâ—iers Politicians and men of Warre he hath rendred vengeance and judgement without mercy and punished them with miserable and ignominious death shewing compassion on the weaker and more pitifull sex 3 It was a rare document of divine justice to ordaine of divine wisdome so to contrive that the dogges should lap King Ahabs blood in the same place where they had lapped the blood of Naboth stoned to death through his connivance or permission As sure a token it was of justice tempred with mercy and of the great Kings speciall grace or favour unto this gracelesse King of Israel that the dogs which lapped his blood should not so much as touch his body Being slaine in battell his death was honourable as the world accounteth honour yet was it not so much the dignity of his royall person as his humiliation upon the Prophets chalenge which made him capable of this favour but not a dram either of disgrace or misery from which Ahab was by Gods mercy in part released which did not fall into the scale of Iustice wherein the impiety of proud Iezabel was exactly waighed The measure of her husbands punishment is not so much less as hers was fuller than Naboths had been The sight of her coÌ„manding letters caused poore Naboth to be stoned to death by the men of his citie and at Iehues call her body is dashed against the stones by her owne servants The dogs lapped Naboths blood but they devoured Iezabels flesh she had beene shamelesly cruell in her life and she hath a most shamefull and a most fearfull death Nor would the all-seeing Iudge suffer that respect to be done to her corps which her cruell executioner intended upon remembrance that she had beene daughter to a King It was I must confesse a ruefull case and yet a judgement more righteous than rufull that she which had issued from royall womb she from whose wombe had issued royall progenie for she had beene respectively lawfull daughter lawfull wife and lawful mother unto three Kings should be entombed ere her corps were cold in the entrailes of dogs should have no better burial than the dead Ass or other carion albeit she died in her owne royall palace But thus the Almighties arme sometimes reacheth greatest Princes even in this life heavier blowes than they can give unto their poorest subjects But where the blow or matter of punishment which falls on them is much lighter the wound or torment may be more grievous as was observed before than their furie can procure unto their despised brethren 4 But neither doth the sacred relation concerning Pharaohs overthrow or Iezabels death containe a more perspicuous ocular demonstration of Divine Iustice executed according to the rigour of Retaliation than hath beene represented or rather really acted upon a publike Stage within the memory of some now living The subject of this rufull spectacle was Henry the second French King of that name The accident is not recorded by Gods Spirit yet the experiment as unpartiall Writers which I take it were eye witnesses of it have related is as exactly parallell to the rules of Gods Spirit and affords as good instruction for moderne Princes as examples in the Sacred Story did to posterity This youthfull King in the beginning of his reigne had licenced others to feed their eyes with the sight of a deadly Duell authorized by him in favour of Vivonus to the disgrace and prejudice as the Court of France expected of Chabotius whose hands notwithstanding the Lord did strengthen to kill the Favourite who after many bitter provocations had drawne him within the Lists more against his will than an old Beare is brought to the stake The death of Vivonus though most just doth no way excuse the barbarous injustice of this King who hath this justice done upon him hee had made a sport of shedding blood and he himselfe is slaine in Ludicro certamine running at Tilt and slaine by that hand which had beene his instrument to apprehend those Noble and religious Gentlemen which had been lately imprisoned and in whose misery the Court of France did then rejoyce and adding gall to wormwood solemnized these and the like triumphant shewes or sportings in their sight yet was it not Count Montgomeries hand but the right hand of the Lord which did at one and the same instant unty the Kings Bever and guide the splinter or glance of Montgomeries Speare into that eye which had beheld a Duell that could not be determined without the death of the one or other combatant both being Frenchmen his natural subjects with such delight as yong Gallants do ordinary prizes or other like spectacles of recreation Of Vivonus his death few or none but Frenchmen were eye-witnesses but of this Kings tragicall triumph Spain Germany with other countries were spectators by their proxies or Ambassadors As if the Lord would have these theÌ„ present to cary this message to their masters to be by theÌ„ directed to the rest of ChristiaÌ„ Princes Discite justitiaÌ„ moniti non temnere divos Take warning by this Princes Fate Not to approve what God doth
hate God is no accepter of persons in respect of the execution of his most righteous law as is the people so is the Prince his word must be alike fulfilled in both not only subjects that kill one another but Princes be they Kings or Monarks that authorize murder or suffer their subjects blood to be unjustly spilt by man shall their blood be spilt if other executioners faile even by the hand of their dearest friends such was Count Montgomery to this king 5 The caveat which from the untimely death of this Earle a judgement inflicted by divine justice not so much for this though this were pretended by the Queen Mother and Dowager to take away his life as for other offences hath beene elsewhere commended to yong gallants or Princes servants was to my remembrance this Not to be instruments thogh to Kings in the execution of manifest injustice seeing this noble Gentleman after much honor many victories â—otten by war in defence of those of the reformed Religion whom he had formerly wronged came at length to lose his head in that very place whither by Henry the seconds appointment he had brought divers noble Gentlemen to the fagot some of that honorable bench which afterward sentenced him to death CHAP. 34. The sinnes of parents visited upon their children according to the rule of retaliation 1 ALL the parties hitherto instanced in were visited by the rule of retaliation in their owne persons some of them not in their owne persons alone But it is usuall with the supreme Iudge to visit the ouâ—crying sinnes of irreligious parents upon their children according to the former rule And to this purpose the visitation of Ahabs and of Iezabels bloody sinnes against Naboth may by expresse warrant of Sacred Writ be improved But no Histories profane or sacred afford more fit instances for the proofe of this conclusion than our owne Chronicles doe It was a question amongst the Heathen Philosophers An res posterorum pertineant ad defunctos Whether the ill or welfare of posterity did any way increase or diminish the happinesse of their deceased ancestors The negative part is determined by the great Philosopher in his Moralls And I know no just cause or reason why any Christian Divine should either appeale from his determination or revive the doubt Yet if the affirmative part of the former question were supposed as true or were it lawfull to imagine or feign such interchange of speech or Dialogues betwixt deceased Grandfathers Vnkles and their Nephewes as our Saviour I take it not by way of reall history but of fiction doth betweene Abraham and Dives me thinks Edward the third and Lionel Duke of Clarence might have taken up Iothams parable against Bullinbrooke and the House of Lancaster If yee have dealt truly and sincerely with us and with the prime stemmes of this royall stock then rejoyce yee and your posterity in your devises but if not Let fire come out from among your selves or from our stock to devoure you and to make your posterity curse your dealings with us And in what region soever 〈◊〉 soule did in the third generation reside it might have framed its responsary unto this parable out of Adonibezeks song As I have done to you and yours so hath the Lord requited me and mine And had this or the like saying upon the deposition of Bullinbrookes heyre beene daily rung into the eares of Edward the fourth Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum Amongst men none more happy is than he That can his owne by others harmes foresee it might have wrought better effects for the bodily or temporall good of his harmlesse sonnes than any dirge could after his death procure unto his soule Few Chronicles else will exhibit such a continued pedigree of unhallowed policies ill successe as our owne Annalls of those times doe 2 Vnto Richard the second and his misleaders it seemed a branch of plausible policy to banish his cozen Henry of Bullinbrook this land the vicinity of whose heroicall spirit was an heart-sore to this degenerate Prince But what successe did the Counsell of the Lord award unto this jealous devise Bullinbrook by his presence amongst foraine Nations which scarce knew him before gained so much honour and so much love with the chiefe Peeres of this Realme which had knowne him before by his absence that Richard the second was taken in his owne feare and his Crowne set upon Bullingbrookes head with generall applause But the lesse right he had unto it the greater was his jealousie lest Richard the second or some other more principall stemme of the royall Stock might take it off againe The only meanes as he thought for securing himselfe from this feare and for setling the Crowne upon the House of Lancaster was to put the poore deposed King to death whose errours deserved pitie and compassion from every true English heart if not for his Grandfathers yet for his heroicall Fathers sake that Gideon which had brought so much honour to the English Nation And after Richards death the master-piece of his policy was to suffer Mortimer the lawfull heyre unto the Duke of Clarence and now unto the English Crowne to live a miserable Captive under the enemy who had more reason to revenge himselfe upon the English by Mortimers death than Bullinbrook had to murther Richard the second This soule sinne of Bullinbrooke was visited upon the third generation His grandchilde and heyre Henry the sixt a man more free from staine of guiltlesse blood than either Richard the second or Bullinbrooke had beene is cruelly murthered by Edward the fourth a stemme of Mortimers stock and of Lionel Duke of Clarence For though God hath sworne not to punish the children for their fathers offences yet he hath professed it as a rule of his eternall justice to visit the sinnes of fathers upon the children And from the equity of this rule many Princely Races have utterly determined and expired in the dayes of such Princes as were most free from the actuall sinnes of their Ancestors which were the causes of their expiration as is in other Meditations shewed at large 3 But though it were just with God to visit Bullinbrookes sinne on Henry the sixt did Edward the fourth commit no injustice by doing that which God would have done yes he did therefore most unjustly because he did doe that which God would not have done by him And therefore the Counsell of the Lord which overthrew the bloody devises of Bullinbrooke for setling the Crowne of this Kingdome on himselfe and his heyre males did more speedily overthrow the devise of Edward the fourth God visits his sinne in the next generation upon his lovely and harmlesse Sonnes in their nonage before the devises of their hearts were capable of any evill or mischiefe towards men and did visit them by the hands of their bloody uncle Richard the third who by their Fathers appointment had practised butchery upon the House of
the Citie supposing he had beene dead Howbeit as the Disciples stood round about him he rose up and came into the Citie and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe Acts 14. 19 20. Paul wee may conclude was more extraordinarily preserved by God not lesse rigorously dealt withall by the Iewes than Saint Stephen had beene That he was extraordinarily preserved we have reason to beleeve because he was appointed to be a patterne of suffring more violence than this from the time of his calling That he was appointed to bee a patterne of suffering evills we must beleeve because God himselfe doth expresly testifie as much at the time of his calling unto Ananius who was to ratifie his calling so farre as the notice of it concerned the visible Church For when Ananias did demurre upon his admission into the Church The Lord said unto him goe thy way for he is a chosen vessell unto mee to beare my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my names sake Act. 9. 15 16 And yet perhaps Saint Paul had not been made such a spectacle to the world of suffrance or persecutions unlesse he had persecuted more than Saint Stephen unlesse hee had made havocke of the Church 4 It is not probable that these Iewes had any minde to punish Paul for his offence against Stephen of which if they had any notice or remembrance this would have made them more ready to pardon him for preaching the Gospel at this time than to put him to death for persecuting such as had preached it before Their resolution to stone him at this time rather than beat him with rods as their usuall manner was argues that their wills though otherwise free more than enough to doe mischiefe were by the all-seeing Providence determined or guided in the manner of practising mischiefe To say the Author of beeing and Fountaine of goodnesse did instill this spirit of fury and malice into the hearts of these Iewes or did by any decree absolutely necessitate them to conceive so full a measure of mischiefe as now possessed them were I take it to swerve from the forme of wholsome words would give some advantage to the adversaries of truth It was Sathan thēselves which had charged their brests with this extraordinary measure of fury and malice But these being so overcharged as that without some vent or other they were ready to burst He who is as well the supreme moderator of mens thoughts and resolutions as Iudge of their actions did not onely permit or suffer but direct appoint and order that they should exonerate or discharge their furious malice upon Saint Paul not upon Barnabas and upon Saint Paul by that peculiar kinde of violence which now they practise rather than by any other unto which they were more accustomed CHAP. 36. Of sinnes visited or punished according to the circumstance of time or place wherein they were committed 1 IT may be the circumstance of the time wherein this visitation happened to S. Paul might suggest as much as wee have observed unto himselfe or unto others then living whom the remembrance or notice of his former trespasses might concerne But however it were in this particular the identitie whether of the time or of the place wherein men have done and afterwards suffer extraordinary evill are in their nature better Remembrancers of Gods justice than the exact identity or likenesse of the evills which they have done to others and from others suffer is If a man should meet with mischiefe in the same place or be overtaken by it on the same day wherein he had done the like mischiefe vnto others the event would naturally argue a legall and formall processe of Divine Iustice calling time and place which are alwayes witnesses of actions done in greatest secresie to give speciall evidence against him and to make his owne conscience confesse that which all the world besides were not able to prove Some within our memories have concluded their unseasonable sportings with death sudden and casuall in respect of men upon the same day after revolution of times wherein they had deserved or cunningly avoided the sentence of death being more than due unto them if Iustice might have had its naturall course And it might peradventure have gone better with them if they had hid themselves for that day in the house of mourning or not adventured upon the house of mirth or fields of sport 2 To particularize in or comment upon domestique moderne examples would bee offensive Beatus populus qui scit jubilationem That people or Family is happy which knows the times seasons of rejoycing and mirth but more happy are they which know the times and seasons of mourning or for preventing the day of visitation And the best meanes to foresee or prevent it would be to keepe an exact Calendar of our owne and of our forefathers sins for these we are bound to confesse with our owne And if we would unpartially judge our selves for both by unfaigned repentance and hearty contrition we might escape the judgements of God which by our neglect hang over us and without amendment will fall upon us It is a saying amongst the later Iewes Volvitur meritum in diem meriti Though punishments do not immediately pursue the fact which deserves it nor instantly overtake the party which committed such fact yet it resteth not but roules about untill it meet with them or their posterity at the same point of time wherein it was deserved The Temple by their calculation was twice destroyed upon the same day of the same month upon which Moses had broken the Tables Though so it were de facto yet this revolution infers not this destruction to be fatall It might have beene at both times prevented had that generation wherein it hapned beene as zealous of Gods glory as Moses had been or had they held idolatry or hypocrisie in as great detestation as Moses had done Some foraigne writers have observed that the hope of this Land whilest he lived Edward the sixt did dye upon the selfe same day after revolution of some yeares in which his Father had put Sir Thomas Moore to death a man otherwise faulty yet so true a pattern of morall justice as it cannot seeme strange if the righteous Iudge did take speciall notice of King Henries dealing with him and insert the day of his death in his everlasting Calendar to be after signed with the untimely death of King Henries only Son How the sins of parents are often punished in their harmlesse or lesse harmfull posterity is elsewhere discussed I will not interrupt this Discourse with any digression concerning Divine equity in this point nor with any Apology for these curious observations as some enstyle them I relate onely matters of fact or punishments answerable to offences as well for the circumstance of place as of time 3
if hee had continued as hee once resolved to doe a true pâ—nitentiarie and not affected to be a prelate For if God would not suffer his Temple to be built by David a man otherwise after his owne heart onely because hee had beene a man of warre wee may from the morall Analogie of this sacred embleme collect that the same holy Lord would not suffer the sonne of that malignant cruell Pagan Fratricide which had imbrued his hands in the blood of his Priests and murthered his annointed King in the holy place to beare rule over his house or Church This his unseasonable ambitious humor without any other actuall remarkable crime might in Divine Iustice exact some print of the supreame Iudges indignation All this notwithstanding being granted doth not prove there was no good thing found in the partie that was thus punished as well as in Ieroboams child It was a fauour to the one that he dyed in peace though in his infancie and it might be some matter of honour or favour to the other that he had Christian buriall in the Church wherein hee died and that hee was not made a prey to the fowles of the ayre But this wee speake skeptique wise what became of Strachyquaz after his fearefull end we leave it for the eternall Iudge to determine 7 Whatsoever became of him the death of his grandmother Drahomira was much more terrible as she had lived so she dyed a malitious blasphemous Pagan a cruell bloody step-dame to Christs infant Church in that Kingdome The storie I know will unto many seeme strange yet in my observation very capable of credit if we consider the exigence of those times and the then desperate state of Boheme Christianity and paganisme lay then at stake whether should be entertained whether expelled the Pagans by their unconfeionable policie which aymes at nothing but some private end alwayes readie to hazard whatsoever lyes within their levell rather then misse of it had so cunningly played the foregame and by their bloody plots removed so many principall men out of the way that there was no possibilitie left save onely in the Almighties immediate hand to make any thing of the aftergame Now in case of such desperate extremities specially when they happen during the infancie of any particular Church it cannot to mee seeme incredible if the good spirit of God doe out vy those prodigious cruelties which Sathan deviseth against the Saints by sudden miraculous executions upon their Actors Sathans instruments The Tragedy of Drahomira was briefly thus This Queen-mother had animated her Pagan-sonne Boleslaus surnamed Savus the Cruell to murder his elder brother and Liege Lord Wenceslaus onely because he had approved himselfe a zealous professor of the doctrine of life To terrifie others from taking the sacred function upon them she caused the bodies of those Priests and Prelates whom Boleslaus had â—assacred to lye unburied and one Podivivus a man of principall note in his time to hang two intire yeares upon the gallowes Vpon these and many like provocations of Gods just vengeance her grave was made before she felt her selfe sicke her buriall like to that of Corah of Dathan and Abiram Whether this opening of the earth were truly miraculous or whethet it happened in the period of some naturall declination the supporters or pillars of it being digged up or undermined before the opening of it at that time wherein this wicked woman was to passe over that very place in which she had caused the Priests bodies to lye unburied was the Lords doing and no lesse wonderfull to Christian eyes than if it had beene as perhaps it was a meere miracle The truth of this story wanted not the testimony of many ages For passengers from the day of her death untill the day wherein mine Author wrote this Story which was within this age current eschewed the place wherein she dyed as execrable and accursed by God CHAP. 37. What manner of sinnes they be which usually provoke Gods judgements according to the rule of Counterpassion And of the frequency of this kinde of punishment foresignified by Gods Prophets 1 IVstice as was intimated before doth not formally consist in retaliation and yet is retaliation a formall part or branch of Iustice And of this branch Nemesis amongst the Heathen was the ordinary Arbitresse Shee was in their Divinity a Goddesse of Iustice not Iustice her selfe nor did every wrong in their opinion belong unto her cognizance but such insolent wrongs onely as deserved vengeance or indignation Nor doth the righteous most mercifull Lord and onely God usually punish ordinary or private but publique and outcrying sinnes by the severe Law or Rule of Counterpassion And it is observable that most Prophesies which are powred out against any Land City or People with fuller indignation are so intermingled with threats of judgement by way of Counterpassion that the quality and circumstances of the crimes may seeme to serve the Prophets as glasses for representing the nature and quality of the judgements to come And if the crimes were as well knowne to mâ—n as the judgements are we would thinke the one were moulded in the other This exact proportion betwixt the patterne of sinnes which Babylon had set and the manner of Gods judgements upon her for them hath beene observed before and I will not make the prophesies concerning her destruction any part of this observation The prophesies concerning other Nations and Cities will afford plenty of instances to this purpose 2 Samaria shall be as an heape of the field and as plantings of a Vineyard and I will powre downe the stones thereof into the valley and I will discover the foundations thereof And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces and all the hires thereof shall be burnt with the fire and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot and they shall returne to the hire of an harlot Micah 1. 6 7. The wound of Samaria as the Prophet addes vers 9. was incurable but so was not the wound of Iudah as yet although it was come to Iudah by infection and had touched at the very gates of Ierusalem For so he saith vers 12. The inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good but evill came downe from the Lord unto the gate of Ierusalem Thither it came but it found no entrance in for the present as it did into the gates of other Cities of Iudah Lachish of all the Cities of Iudah was the first which tooke the impression of Israels idolatry and did in part derive it unto Sion And as she was the first and principall in sinne so she was the first in the plagues here threatned The Chariots of Ashur did first triumph in her streets and her inhabitants felt the dint of the Assyrian swords when Ierusalem escaped with the lash of Rabshakehs tongue That which is afterwards related in the sacred story concerning Ierusalems