good propos'd but we an Intellectual They as 't were an Apple but we an Inheritance They a transitory Kingdom but we a Kingdom not to be moved They were promis'd a Redemption indeed from Egypt but we from Hell They to be fed with milk and hony but we never to hunger or thirst They a long life but we an Eternal one They a Canaan but we a Heaven And that God will exact the most strict accompt of our wanderings to whom he hath held the greatest light for the better clearing of our ways we may infer from our Saviour's words in the eleventh Chapter of St. Matthew where Tyre and Sidon are more excusable than Corazin and Bethsaida because the later had been obliged with greater Means of Conviction but all in vain This affords a Lesson for our Humiliation That however our Reward is extremely Great even a Kingdom which cannot be moved a Kingdom of Grace and of Glory too yet God hath placed it very high and the way to it is very steep We must not flatter our selves therefore that we are able to fall upwards that with a yawning Relyance we can ever climb up the Hill of Sion and drop as 't were into Heaven with a drowzy Confidence We have no incouragement from our Apostle to believe we shall go thither by meerly believing we are Regenerate and cannot fail of our being there He does not here press on his Hebrew Christians to receive their Salvation with Faith but to serve for it with Reverence Not to expect it only with confidence but strictly to endeavour it with godly Fear For our God is a Consuming Fire To Him be Glory for ever and ever HOW A Man is to work out HIS OWN SALVATION PHILIP II. 12. Work out your own Salvation with Fear and Trembling THe words in general are a Command delivered by St. Paul in the Name of God the Great Master to the Servants of God in the Church at Philippi In which there are chiefly four things to be consider'd First the quality of the Servants Next the wages which they expected Thirdly the work with which the wages was to be earn'd And lastly the manner or qualification with which the working was to be cloath'd First for the Quality of the Servants They were such as had been diligent in the performance of their Duty They had not only been sometimes dutiful they had not only been good by fits but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they had always obeyed They had evermore liv'd in the fear of God Next for the Wages which they expected That is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Salvation both as it signifies a deliverance from the tremendous Pains of Hell and as importing an Advancement to the ravishing Ioys of Heaven Then Thirdly for the Work with which the Wages was to be earn'd That is evidently obedience to the Lord Iesus Christ Very significantly implyed in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that looks back upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As ye have always obey'd so now much more obey the Gospel Continue the Course of your obedience Go on to finish the work which ye have begun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 work and work out your own Salvation Last of all for the Manner or Qualification of the working whereby to make it become effectual for the receiving of the Reward There must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Salvation is to be wrought for with Fear and Trembling And that according to the threefold Signification of this expression First with Meekness and Humility We must not put the least Trust in the greatest Performances of our own nor must we be puff't or lifted up with the Gifts and Graces which God hath given us Next with Diligence and Solicitude That we may not for want of Perseverance finally miss of the Prize that is set before us and for which we have hitherto as it were contended by our obedience Thirdly with Awefulness and Horror or holy Dread Because as God is in one Cafe a quickning Light so he is in another a consuming Fire He who purposely created us to do him service is He who will turn us to Destruction unless we serve him as he Requires And now to anticipate an Inquiry how Humility and Solicitude as well as Awefulness and Dread are comprehended under the notion of Fear and Trembling I think it is easy to make it clear from the consideration of the Context without recourse to those other Scriptures wherein we meet with the same expression For First in vain should we indeavour the working out of our Salvation but that it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do And therefore we must do it with all Humility of Mind because in our selves as of our selves there dwelleth no good thing no not so much as Inclination to any thing that is good no not so much as Aversation from any thing that is evil But every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights If we can triumph over the Law as the strength of Sin by treading Sin under our Feet as the sting of Death All the Thanks must be to God who hath given us the Victory through our Lord Iesus Christ. And yet Secondly Although it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do yet the Apostle makes it a Reason why we our selves are to work out our own Salvation And therefore we must do it with Care and Diligence lest whilst God by his Grace is not wanting unto us we finally miss of his Glory by having been wanting unto our selves Thus we see there is pregnant Reason for the Double Importance of the Phrase as 't is meerly rational And of the literal Signification I suppose there cannot be any Doubt For We must work out our Salvation with Fear and Trembling in as much as that signifies the greatest Awefulness and Dread because of the Dreadfulness of our Doom in case we work not at all or not at all to that purpose that God requires And thus I hope I have so divided as withal to have explained and clear'd the Text. The first three Parts of the whole Division may well be thrust up together into this Doctrinal Proposition That our Salvation is not attainable by a meer Orthodoxy of Iudgment in point of Faith or a bare Rectitude of Opinions concerning God But by obedience to the Gospel or Law of Christ. For what is expressed by obedience in the former part of this Verse is also expressed in the later by the working out of our own Salvation And as Salvation is a Thing which requires our working So 't is not any kind of working will serve our Turn For The last Particular of the four affords us a second Proposition which is as apt to defend us from Carnal Security as the First To wit That however Unavoidable our State of Bliss may seem to us by our having with the Philippians obeyed
Fortunes are our Conversation will be above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. we shall behave our selves as men who are free of God's City Our Hearts will evermore be There unless our Treasure is somewhere else If the Kingdom of Heaven is that Pearl of great Price to which our Lord in his Parable thought fit to liken it And if we are those Merchants that traffick for it we cannot choose but be busy in our Inquiries after the Price still resolving upon the Purchase at any Rate that can be ask't and ever asking what we shall give or as here what we shall do that we may any ways inherit Eternal Life So it follows again on the other side That if we are commonly looking downwards and behave our selves here as men at home as if we did not intend any farther Iourney If the Burden of our Inquiries is such as This What shall we do to live long upon the Earth and not see the Grave or what shall we do to escape going to Heaven 'till such time as we are pass't the pleasant Injoyments of the Earth how shall we put the evil Day afar off how shall we be saved without Repentance or repent without Amendment or amend no more than will serve our turn what shall we do to be good enough and yet no better than needs we must what shall we do to serve two Masters and reconcile the two Kingdoms of God and Mammon and so confute what is said by our blessed Saviour in the Sixteenth of St. Luke what for a Religion wherein to live with most pleasure and one to dye in with greatest safety what shall we do to live the Life of the sensual'st Epicure and yet at last dye the Death of the strictest Saint If I say our Affections are clinging thus unto the Earth It is an absolute Demonstration that all our Treasure is here below and that we are men of the present world in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds For our Saviour's famous Rule is at once of universal and endless Truth Wheresoever the Carkass is there the Eagles will be gathered together wheresoever our Treasure is there our Hearts will be also And whither our Hearts are gone before the Case is evident and clear our Tongues and our Actions will follow after § 7. Now since these are the Inquiries of several Seekers to wit of Them who do affect to dwell here and of them that look out for a better Country that is an heavenly And since we may judge by their Inquiries to which kind of Master they do belong to God or Mammon 'T is plain the Lesson or the Use we are to take from it is This that when we find our selves beset with a twofold evil the one of Sin and the other of Affliction in so much as we know not which way to turn there being on the right hand a fear of Beggery or Disgrace and on the left hand a fear of Hell when I say we are reduced to such an hard pinch of our Affairs we must not carnally cast about and tacitly say within our selves what shall we do to keep our Livelyhoods or what shall we do to hold fast our Lives But what shall we do to keep a good Conscience and to hold fast our Integrity And since 't is nobler to be led by the hope of a Reward than to be frighted into our Duties by the fear of being punish't if we neglect them let us not ask like the Children of Hagar in the spirit of Bondage which is unto fear what shall we do that we may not inherit a Death Aeternal But as the Children of Sarah in the spirit of Adoption which is unto hope what shall we do that we may inherit Aeternal Life Which Life being hid with Christ in God as St. Paul speaks to the Colossians for God's sake whither should we go either to seek it when it is absent or to find it when it is hid or to secure it when it is found unless to Him who hath the words of Eternal Life that is the words which are the means by which alone we may attain to Eternal Life The words which teach us how to know it the words which tell us where to seek it the words which shew us how to find it the words which afford us those Rules and Precepts by our conformity unto which we cannot but take it into possession There is no other Name to make us Inheritors of Eternity but only the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ Acts 4. 12. And considering what is said by our blessed Saviour That This and this only is Life Eternal to know the only true God with a practical knowledge and Iesus Christ whom he hath sent John 17. 2. we should religiously resolve not to know any thing else Not I mean in comparison of Iesus Christ and him crucified nor yet to any other end than to serve and assist us in that one knowledge Look what carking and caring any Covetous man useth to get his wealth look what industry and labour an Ambitious man useth to get his Honour look what vigilance and solicitude any Amorous man useth to get his Idol the same solicitude and diligence is each Religious man to use for the getting of an Interest in Iesus Christ. Which gives me a passage from the second to the third Observable I proposed from the Nature and Quality of the young man's Inquiry to the condition of the Oracle inquired of As he sought for nothing less than Eternal Life so did he seek it from Him alone who is the way to that Life and the Life it self He did not go to take Advice from the Witch of Endor for the madness of Saul had made him wiser or more at least in his wits than to knock at Hell-door for the way to Heaven Nor did he ask of Apollo Pythius or go to Iupiter Ammon to be inform'd about the way to Eternal Life for all the Oracles of the Heathen were put to silence by our Messias as Plutarch and others of their own great Writers have well observ'd and should they speak never so loudly he very well knew they could not teach him Nor did he go to Aaron's Ephod to ask the Urim and Thummim about the means of his Salvation for he knew that That Oracle was now grown Dimm and that in case it had been legible it could not help him Nor did he betake himself to Moses the Iewish Law-giver much less to the Scribes the learned Interpreters of the Law for he found Mysterious Moses had still a Veil upon his Face which the Scribes and Pharisees were not able to Remove much less durst he go to the Law it self for a Relief there being nothing more plain than that the Law worketh wrath Those Tables of Stone are as the Hones or the Grindstones at which the Sting of Death is whetted and made more sharp For as the sting of Death is Sin so
the strength of Sin is the Law 1 Cor. 15. 56. The Law does thunder out a Curse as well as a Rigid Obligation the one from Mount Ebal as well as the other from Mount Sinai upon every Soul of man who shall but fail in the least Iota For it is written saith St. Paul who only saith it out of the Law Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Or to consider it yet more distinctly admit Aeternal Life had been expected from the Law by this Inquirer yet sure it may sooner be ask't than answer'd To which of the Laws he should have had recourse for it Certainly not to the Ceremonial for That was but a shadow of things to come whereof the Body is Christ Coloss. 2. 17. The very Sacrifice of the Law was not able to expiate but only to commemorate the Peoples Sins Heb. 10. 3. Therefore in vain would he have sought to the Ceremonial Law And as vainly to the Iudicial For that was a Politick Constitution peculiar only to the Iews and reaching no farther than to a Civil Iurisdiction Much less yet could he seek to the Moral Law of Moses for Life Eternal For the Moral Law exacted so Universal an obedience and also denounced so great a Curse as I said before on the least omission that he could look for nothing thence but the justest matter of Despair For first our Nature is so corrupt and our Persons so much corrupter since our having found out many Inventions that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the Truth is not in us 1 John 1. 8. And secondly if Righteousness come by the Law then is Christ dead in vain Gal. 2. 21. What then remain'd to this inquisitive Iew but that the Law should be his Schoolmaster to bring him unto Christ Gal. 3. 24. The Law being adapted by the infinite Wisdom of God's oeconomy either to lead or to drive him thither For requiring more from him than he was able to perform and yet denouncing a Curse on his Non-Performance it could not but make him stand affrighted at the ugly Condition he was in I mean his desperate Impossibility of ever attaining to Life Eternal by the meer perfection of his obedience Hence he saw it concern'd him to seek somewhere else He found it clear by Demonstration and by the woful Demonstration of sad Experience he stood in need of a Saviour and of such a Saviour too as might deliver him from the Curse and from the Rigour of the Law by being made both a Curse and a Ransom for him Again he saw both by the Doctrins and by the Miracles of Christ that He was most likely to be That Saviour to wit a Saviour from whom he was to look for such a Clue as might be able to conduct him out of the Labyrinth he was in And therefore just as this Saviour was gone forth into the way This kind of Neophyte in my Text came running to him and asked him meekly kneeling upon his Knees Good Master what shall I do that I may inherit Eternal Life Now if Christ was His Oracle who only liv'd under the Law How much more must he be ours who were born and bred under the Gospel Shall men of our Dignity and Profession of our Proficiency and Growth in the School of Christ an holy Generation a Royal Priesthood a Peculiar People shall such as We go in Inquest of Life Eternal to such deceivable Oracles as either Zuinglius or Calvin Piscator or Erastus or Iohn of Leyden to the Sepulchres of Martyrs to the Discipline of Monasteries to daily Ave Maries and Masses to Papal Indulgences or Bulls or to the outward Scarrifications and Buffettings of the Flesh shall we lean upon such Reeds as will but run through our Elbows or shall we inlighten our selves by Candles when behold the Sun of Righteousness is long since Risen in our Horizon or to fly for Refuge to the Saints when behold a Saviour Christ is called very fitly the Sun of Righteousness Mal. 4. 2. to whom the Apostles are but as Stars in the Firmament of the Gospel which only shine forth with a borrowed light and have no other brightness than what He lends them Now all the Stars in the Firmament cannot make up one Sun or afford us one Day without his Presence Just so All the learned and the good men on Earth All the Angels Saints in Heaven cannot make up one Saviour or but light us the way to Eternal Life without the Influence and Lustre of Jesus Christ. Iairus a Ruler of the Synagogue a man that wanted no worldly means whereby to Cure his only Daughter did yet despair of her Recovery until he fell down at the Feet of Christ Luke 8. 41. And so the Woman who had been sick of a bloody Flux no less than twelve years together and had spent all she had in Physicians Fees was not the better but the worse until she crowded towards Christ and touch't the Hemm of his Garment Luke 8. 43. That we are every one sick of a bloody Flux too appears by our scarlet and crimson Sins Which Flux and Fountain of our Sins can never possibly be cur'd unless by Him who is the Fountain for Sin and for Uncleanness Zach. 13. 1. For as Red wine is good for a bloody Flux in the Body so is That which gushed out of our Saviour's Body who called himself The True Vine the only Good thing for this Disease in the Soul And of this Wine we drink in the Cup of Blessing which we Bless in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. To him alone must we fly as to the Physician of our Souls who saith to us under the Gospel as once to Israel under the Law I am the Lord God that healeth thee Exod 15. 26. He alone saith St. Peter is the Head-stone of the Corner nor is there Salvation in any other Acts 4. 11 12. It pleased the Father that in him should all Fulness dwell Coloss. 1. 19 And of his Fulness have all we received Grace for Grace John 1. 16. All things necessary to life and to life Eternal are delivered to him of the Father Matth. 11. 27. And this 't will be easy out of Scripture for I am speaking to Believers I should not else produce a Text to make apparent by an Induction For first if we are hungry He alone is the Bread of Life which whoso eateth shall live for ever John 6. 58. Next if we are thirsty He alone is the living Water which whoso drinketh shall never thirst John 4. 13. Thirdly if we are foul He alone has that Blood by which we may be cleansed from all our Sins 1 John 1. 7. Fourthly if we are foolish He is the Wisdom of the Father who hath laid up in Him all the Treasures of Knowledge Coloss. 2. 3. He is Doctor Catholicus and only He.
under a Necessity of taking pains Conceiving it infinitely difficult for any man to live a strict and a vertuous life who is not bless'd with some Calling wherein to labour Ask't he was indeed by Xenophon and other Friends why of so many great Offers he would not accept at least of some if not in his own yet in his Childrens consideration But still He answer'd If they live as they ought they cannot want Blessings and if they live otherwise I cannot wish that they may have them If they are dutiful to their God they will find him an indulgent and loving Father And if they rebel against their Maker what have I to do with them Now consider how these Heathens who liv'd before Christ had more of Christian Self-denyal than most of Them that come after They were many of them plac'd upon exceeding high Mountains shew'd the Kingdoms of the Earth and the glory of them Yea though they were proffer'd those Injoyments and strongly tempted to accept them yet so great was their courage they did not yield Men who if they are not fit for our imitation are fit to shame us at least for our imitating no more of the Life of Christ. Who as it were in opposition to this Temptation of the Devil drawn from the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them made choice of Poverty and Despisedness for his external Qualifications For though by reason of his Divinity he could not possibly be obnoxious to the unworthiness of Sin yet by reason of his Humanity he was capable of suffering the most unworthy Solicitations And even those Solicitations disturb'd his Ease although they had not the power to hurt his Safety Something therefore there was in it for our Edification That when it pleased the God of Heaven to take upon him our Nature who had it in his own choice both of whom he would be born and in what Quality he would live He did not choose the greatest but rather the meanest and the most abject of all Conditions Now whoever he is that chooseth be he wise or foolish ever chooseth what is Best either really or in shew either best in it self or best to his imagina tion From whence it follows that our Saviour being the Wisdom of the Father as God the Son could not choose but choose wisely and what was really the best when he made choice to be so meanly both born and bred As for his Birth sure a Carpenter's Spouse was a very mean Parent The Stable of an Inn was an exceeding mean Place wherein an Oxe and an Ass were as mean Attendants And then for his Breeding It was in Galilee yea in Nazareth the meanest part of all Palestine In the House of Goodman Ioseph one of the meanest men of Nazareth And in the way of a Carpenter as mean a Trade as could well be chosen Our Saviour shall not choose for us if he chooses no better for Himself will the men of this World be apt to say We would choose had we our choice to be born of Princes to be bred in stately Palaces and brought up at Court None should be greater if we could help it nor any richer than our selves We would choose the very Things wherewith the Devil here tempted Christ All the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them Would not be so poorly spirited as to refuse a frank offer for want of a little Complaisance an act of Worship and Veneration A Beast indeed will rest contented when his Belly is full and looks no higher when he is Empty than to That which grows up from the Ground he treads on But Man is made of another Metal and He is scarce fit to live who has no Ambition but sits him down like a Beast completely satisfied with a sufficience Conscience and Contentment are fit for persecuted Churchmen or well-bred Quakers or else for men whose Wits are lost in their Studies and whose overmuch Learning has made them as mad as any Paul a Man who talks of Contentment in All Conditions and would have us look no farther as to the Goods of this World than Food and Rayment Is it not Pity that such as These should be the Reasonings of the Followers and Friends of Christ who followed the things which They eschew and eschewed those things which They contend for His choice I say was to be poorer and more despised than other men And because being a Man he was to be of some Calling he pitch'd on That that was lyable to least Temptations and so was registred at Nazareth not in the Quality of a Freeholder but of an Handicraft-Man He was but Faber Lignarius a Wooden Smith Had he been a Freeholder he had had though not a Kingdom yet a small Pittance of this World He might have trod his own Ground and have breath'd his own Air and have eaten his own Bread without depending upon the Charity of any other man's hands or on the Labour of his own But he was on the contrary so poor and destitute that he had neither Food nor Rayment but what he earn'd or had given him or got by Miracle As long as from his Twelfth to his Thirtieth year of Age diverse Fathers are of opinion that he wrought for his Living in his Father in Law 's Shop Nor is there any Church-Writer who gives another Accompt of him And from thence until his Death he obtain'd his Bread either by Teaching as a Prophet or doing good as a Physician Both gratuitously and freely although by some he was rewarded Now that our Saviour's way of choosing may have some Influence upon ours and this our second Consideration may be as useful as it is long § 18. Let us consider in the Third place how God and Satan are two Competitors for our choice Satan tempts us to joyn with Him in his Attempts against God God solicits us on the contrary to side with Him against Satan Satan tempts us to Rebellion with the Things that are seen which are but Temporal God solicits us to Obedience with the Things that are not seen which are Eternal Satan's Proposals are to the Flesh God's especially to the Spirit Satan takes us up to an exceeding high Mountain and discovers to us from thence all the Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them God on the other side takes us up to Mount Sion or at least takes us down to the Valley of Achor and discovers to us from thence the Kingdom of Heaven and Glory of it and saith to us in effect as the Devil to Christ All This will I give you if falling down ye will worship me Now it remains that we consider to which Proposal of the two our Affections and Appetites have the most reason to incline Let 's put them Both into the Scales and then choose That that shall weigh the heaviest As for the Things of this present World the best we can say of them is This They all
kept them And then for his Children both Sons and Daughters the Devil gave them all up unto the Wind out of the Wilderness which blew down the House wherein they were met upon their Heads After This the bassl'd Tempter was thus insulted over by God Hast thou consider'd my Servant Job who holdeth fast his Integrity although thou movedst me against him to swallow him up without a Cause Satan therefore ask't Sufferance to tempt him farther to smite the Body of Iob with Byles and to smite him Cap a Pe too from Head to Foot His chain Before was very long It reach't as far as Iob's All besides his Person In so much that of the Richest he became the very Poorest of all the People For 't is a Proverb and an Hyperbole to say a man is as poor as Iob. But now the Chain is made longer by one considerable Link For having nothing left to him except a Body and a Soul and what was much worse than nothing a vexing Wife a Wife whom the Devil had leave enough to take from him but would not use it now at last his Body too is in the power of the Destroyer who disposed of his Flesh to the very Bone Nor is there any thing exempted besides his Soul § 3. Thus we see by Example how great a stroak the Devil carrys by God's long Sufferance and Permission in the outward management of the World That is to say in the Disposal of all Those Things which do pass amongst men for great and glorious How was Satan permitted to harden Pharaoh to inrage Sennacherib to excite Nebuchadnezzar against the Israel of God and to dispose of all they had according to his own Lust Should I produce as many Examples as are producible out of Scripture and dwell on each as I have done in the Case of Iob I should be in some danger of being Endless It shall therefore suffice me to say in brief That whensoever one man invades another man's Right or whensoever one Nation usurps Dominion over another against that Precept of God and Nature writ in every man's Heart What thou wouldest that no man should do to thee do Thou to no man or against those other Precepts Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not covet Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbour's House much less his House with all his Land too nay Thou shalt not covet any thing much less All that is thy Neighbours 't is not God but the Devil who is the Author of That Injustice God does patiently permit and invisibly over-rule and wisely order such Perpetrations to many most worthy and righteous Ends which in part we well know and in part we know not touching which I shall speak in their proper place But still the Robberies and Invasions are the Contrivances of the Devil Now in every such Invasion there are two Parties tempted one with loss and another with Acquisition They that suffer the Injustice are strongly tempted with Affliction And They that do it are tempted worse because with the Bait of a Prosperity which in such case is irresistible The Devil trys with one Action to murder two Souls at once Two at once in case the Robbery does only lye betwixt Man and Man But many Thousands of them at once when betwixt the two Parts of an Armed Nation For then the Devil at the same time provokes the stronger Party to Pride as well as the weaker to Impatience The Injurious side to Insolence and the oppressed to Despair This I take to be the Reason why when the Devil will do a Mischief of most considerable Importance he does not content himself with Brutish or Inanimate Instruments but rather prefers the use of such as ought to be rational and religious and so are to render a sad Accompt of what is done in the Body That by dashing many Thousands as when whole Armies meet against each other and getting Victory for the Oppressors he may in one kind or other destroy them All. To wit the Bodies of some and the Souls of others Had the Devil for Example infested Iob with nothing worse than the Fire and Whirlwind or only tormented his Flesh with Byles he had in vain spread his Net to catch no more than one Bird for though Iob was a Phoenix he was but one Had fought to plunder Iob alone of his Faith and Patience Whereas by stirring up the Sabaeans and the Chaldaeans to do him Mischief he cunningly caught at one Draught as great a Multitude of Souls as he had prosperously employ'd in so foul a Riot § 4. Now 't is plain by this Instance of Satan's Power to take away He has a power to bestow too by God's permission and that in order to an end not as bad only but worse propos'd by Satan unto Himself For when he takes from the Innocent how liberal is he to the Guilty It may be said of his Instruments They do not always serve him for naught He often caresses them whilst they are here that so hereafter he may have liberty to glut his Malice on them the more What he snatches as 't were with one hand from the Innocent Party he commonly gives as with the other to the Kennel of Robbers whom He employs Look what Camels and other Cattle he deprived Iob of he did confer at the same Instant on Such as drove them out of his Fields And thus I hope my Proposition is clear from Scripture § 5. Secondly from Reason 't will be as easy to evince it For if the Goods of this world were not suffer'd by God to be disposed of by the Devil our Leviathan would have had reason for his Denial of any Difference 'twixt Right and Wrong If God alone does still dispose of all Possessions under the Sun as prosperous Rebels and Usurpers are wont to urge and the Devil of none at all by God's permission All things then must needs be right except the Laws and the Statutes which forbid men to steal upon pain of Death They would not only be irrational but cruel things For why should any man be censur'd much less certainly should he be punish't for taking That which God gives him Shall not God without offence dispose of things as He pleaseth why then are we so wicked so void of all Ingenuity as to prosecute a Man who is call'd a Thief in case he breaks up our Houses takes our Cash out of our Coffers drives our Cattle out of our Grounds or carries our Corn out of our Barns if God has made him His Messenger and by his absolute Decree or by his All-working Providence disposed of our Substance to That man's use Or why did God himself say Thou shalt not steal if a man can have nothing but what God gives him For whatsoever God gives him becomes his own No propriety of man can exclude that of God or be equal to it And in Conveyances of Title amongst our selves still we know a Deed