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A66338
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A sermon preached before the Queen at White-Hall, April 2, 1690 being the fifth Wednesday in Lent / by William Wake.
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Wake, William, 1657-1737.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing W264; ESTC R24588
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17,349
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40
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God for all that mischief which should accrue to the Church by the means of such persons as he admitted into the Government of it without that due Caution he ought to have used in a matter of such importance Neither be thou partaker of other mens sins I shall conclude this point with that advice which the Heathen Orator once gave to his Friend If you should ever come to be in Authority says he Employ no wicked Person in any of your Affairs for whatsoever faults He commits the blame will be sure to fall on you And this may serve for the first way whereby we may become partakers of other Mens Sins viz. by giving Occasion to the Committing of them The 2d is By our Approving of them when Committed And this too is a Circumstance which renders a Man not only partaker of anothers Sin but oftentimes more heinously guilty than He who committed it A Man may fall into Sin by Ignorance or Surprise may be hurried on by his Passions and carried away in such a manner by the violence of temptation as not to be able to command Himself and to withstand the force of them And this tho' it will not altogether excuse yet will lessen and extenuate a Mans Guilt will render him tho' not innocent yet not extremely ill He may Commit the Sin and yet be so far from being pleased with it that he may abhor himself for Committing of it But there can be no Excuse for any one to justifie and approve what he knows to be Evil. Here is no room for passion or surprise In short it must be the Evidence of a Soul harden'd in wickedness not only to do what is Evil but to take pleasure in it and to applaud and encourage the practise of it Now two ways there are whereby we may declare our Approbation of anothers Sin and by both but especially by the former of which we shall be sure to render our selves partakers of it 1 st By making some Advantage to our selves by it 2 ldy By Justifying and Applauding of it to others 1st By making some Advantage to our selves by it This was the Case of Ahab in the business of Naboth and for which God charges him with all the Murder and Oppression that without his Knowledge or Direction had been committed in it 1 Kings xxi He desired by any means to have purchased Naboth's Vineyard and he was much discontented be cause he could not perswade Him to part with it He laid him down upon his Bed and turned away his face and would eat no bread but it does not Appear that he at all design'd by any unjust Violence to ravish it from Him But his Wife wrote Letters to the Elders of his City and commanded them saying Proclaim a Fast and set Naboth on high among the people and set two men sons of Belial to bear witness against him saying Thou didst blaspheme God and the King and then carry him out and stone him that he may die This they did and put him to death accordingly And then the Queen first made her Husband acquainted with what was done But what then was Ahab's Crime Why he received the News with satisfaction he was pleased with what had pass'd and he rose up from his bed and went down to take possession of the Vineyard And for this God charges him by Elijah with all the Violence that without his knowledge had been before committed Thus saith the LORD Hast thou killed and also taken possession therefore In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood even thine The truth is so great is the Equity of this Proceeding that we find even the positive Laws of most Cuntries to observe the same measure He that conceals a Thief and receives what is stollen and partakes with him in his Booty shall if discovered be look'd upon as if he had committed the Theft And therefore Solomon says of such a one Prov. xxix 24. That he hateth his own Soul that is He puts his Life in danger by it And for what concerns the Conscience is even by the Heathen Moralists themselves adjudged as much a Thief as the other And the Reason of this is clear Because by joining with the Sinner at the last and partaking with him in the Advantage for which the Villany was committed instead of correcting him for it himself or bringing him forth to a publick Punishment he plainly declares his Consent to what was done and both preserves him and encourages him to do the like again Nay but 2 dly Tho' we should not make any Advantage to our selves by the Sins of others yet our very justifying and applauding of them would of themselves be sufficient to render us partakers of them The Malignity of Sin lies not so much in what we do as in the Affections of the Heart the Will and Intention with which we do it The outward Act may accidentally add indeed to the Aggravation of our Guilt But 't is the Heart and the Affections of that to which God principally looks and for which we shall either be acquitted or condemn'd at the last day A man may do that which is in its self very innocent and yet commit a great Sin by doing it if he thought it to be Evil and yet did it And on the other side there are such Circumstances wherein what is in its self unlawful may yet without Sin be done by us if a man were invincibly and therefore excusably ignorant that it was so He that loves any Evil and wishes for an Opportunity to commit it and would be sure to embrace it if he had is already guilty of it tho' he should never find the Opportunity he desires for it Thus in the Instances which our Saviour Christ himself gives us Matth. v. He that looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart He that is angry with his brother and would do him a mischief if he could is already a Murderer though he never should be able to strike his Ponyard into his Breast And therefore in the Case before us If when a Sin is done by another We are pleased with it we commend the Fact and so declare our selves to be in our Hearts consenting to it we evidently thereby as far as concerns our Will and Inclinations bear a part in it and shall accordingly be accounted in God's sight to have a share in the Guilt of it Hence it is that we may observe how studious Good men have always shew'd themselves in flying the very Conversation of Sinners As if their keeping company with Evil men should seem to some an Approving of their Evil Actions It was the Resolution of Holy David Psal. ci that he would not suffer any wicked man to stand before him to dwell in his House or receive the least Favour and Countenance from him And in
somewhat which himself does to involve his Soul in the Guilt of it For else as a great man among the Heathens themselves very well argued another mans wickedness might be my Evil which says he God would not have that it might not be in another mans power to make me unhappy 'T is true indeed so great was the care of God heretofore to restrain the Jews from an Idolatrous Worship that he threatned for this Sin to visit the Iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation i. e. upon those who could not possibly have been in any manner accessary to their Impieties But besides that there is a great deal of difference between being partakers of other mens Sins and being Visited or Punished upon Occasion of them and that too only with some Temporal Evils such as their own Sins had very well deserved We are plainly assured by God himself Ezekiel xviii that even this complaint should be taken away The Children should no more bear the Iniquity of their fathers neither the fathers of their Children but the Soul that sinned it should die And in all the accounts we meet with in the New Testament of the judgment to come we are expresly told that every man shall receive according to his own works or as our Apostle has Phrased it Gal. vi 5. Every man shall bear his own Burden It remains therefore that no one either becomes partaker of the Guilt of another mans Sins now or shall be Punish'd for them hereafter any farther than he has by some Circumstance or other render'd himself accessary thereunto And our present business must be to enquire how many ways a man may do so Now those are in General these three 1 st By giving Occasion to other mens sins 2 dly By Approving of them when Committed And 3 dly By neglecting to hinder them from committing them when we might and ought to have done it 1st A man may become a partaker of Other mens Sins by giving Occasion to the Committing of them This is in General so very clear that I do not know that it has ever been deny'd or doubted of by any But now how many ways a man may become so far the Occasion of anothers Sin as to render himself thereby a partaker in the Guilt of it I shall not undertake precisely to define I will offer some of those that are the most obvious and particularly reflected on as such in the Holy Scriptures And First He who Contrives the Commission of any Sin and either by his Authority over any other Commands or else by his Arguments and insinuations Persuades him to commit it it is not to be question'd but that such a one does undoubtedly thereby render himself partaker of it This was the case of David in the business of Uriah 2 Sam. chap. xi th xii th When having committed Adultery with Bathsheba and not knowing otherwise how to prevent the scandal of it he order'd Joab who then commanded the Royal Army before Rabbah to set Uriah her husband in the fore-front of the hottest Battel that he might be smitten and dye and so he might take Bathsheba to be his Wife But tho Joab therefore executed the Command and the Enemy slew him as he had projected it yet God charges neither the one nor the other of them with his Death He lays the whole Guilt of his Bloud at the King's door who had been the Occasion of it 2 Sam. xii 9. Wherefore says the Prophet hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword Thou hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon And then he goes on in the next verses to pronounce Judgment against him upon the account of it Now therefore the sword shall not depart from thy house Behold I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house and I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy neighbour and he shall lye with thy wives in the sight of this sun For thou didst it secretly but I will do this thing before all Israel and before this sun And immediately upon this Admonition we find David himself confessing his Sin and imploring God's forgiveness v. 13. And David said unto Nathan I have sinned against the LORD And in that great Penitential Psalm Psal. li. composed on purpose to be a standing memorial in the House of God of his Humiliation and Repentance for this very sin he particularly acknowledges himself guilty of the murder of Uriah and deprecates God's anger upon the account of it v. 14. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness O God! thou God of my Salvation and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness The truth is such a one as this is for the most part more guilty of the Sin committed than he who was either over-aw'd or perswaded into the Commission of it For tho every man ought to have such a care of himself and such a concern for his duty as not to suffer either the Authority of the Greatest Person or the Insinuations of the Dearest Friend in the world to be able to prevail with him in a matter where the Glory of God and the Salvation of his own Soul are at stake Yet there is a certain easiness and tenderness in our natures that not only too much exposes us to be overcome by such persons as we have either a very great value for or have otherwise been very much obliged to and do what we ought not out of a false and unreasonable regard to them but does also render us many times extremely pityable tho not excusable in the doing of it Whilst he who thus executes the office of the Devil projects the Villany and prompts us to the Execution of it must remain utterly inexcusable both in the sight of God and Man for his Impiety But Secondly A man may be the occasion of anothers sin and so become Partaker of it tho he does not in so eminent a degree as this concur to it if he does but in any other manner truly and effectually assist him in the committing of it Now this may be done many ways As 1 st By contributing a helping hand to the doing of it Upon which account it was a Constitution of the Roman Law That if one committed a Theft by the assistance of another as for instance If one set a ladder ready or left a door open that another might go in and steal his neighbours goods he was adjudged thereby to be partaker of the Crime and stood liable to the same Punishment that the other did who committed the Robbery And the same must be said 2dly of him who counsels and advises another to any sin and thereby puts him upon the Execution of it As if for example a man should persuade another in necessity to supply