Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n
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A67746
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A counterpoyson, or Soverain antidote against all griefe as also, the benefit of affliction and how to husband it so that the weakest Christian (with blessing from above) may be able to support himself in his most miserable exigents : together with the victory of patience : extracted out of the choicest authors, ancient and modern, both holy and humane : necessary to be read of all that any way suffer tribulation.
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Younge, Richard.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing Y148; ESTC R15238
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252,343
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448
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precious oyntment may not have the least fly in it nor a delicate Garden the least weed though the Wildernesse bee overgrowne with them I know the blind World so blames the Religious and their Religion also for this nicenesse that they thinke them hypocrites for it but this was Jobs comfort in the aspersion of hypocrisie my witnesse is in heaven and my record on high And as touching others that are offended their answer is take thou O God who needest not our sinne to further thy worke of grace the charge of thy Glory give us grace to take charge of thy Precepts For sure we are that what is absolutely evill can by no circumstance be made good poyson may be quallified and become medecinall there is use to bee made of an enemy sicknesse may turne to our better health and death it selfe to the faithfull is but a doore to life but sinne be it never so small can never be made good Thus you have seen their feare but looke also upon their courage for they more feare the least sin than the greatest torment All the feare of Satan and his instruments ariseth from the want of the due feare of God but the more a man feares God the lesse he feares every thing else Feare God honour the King 1 Pet. 2. 14 1â—7 Hee that feares God doth but honour the King hee need not feare him Rom. 13. 3. the Law hath not power to smite the vertuous True many have an opinion not wise that Pieâ—y and Religion abates fortitude and makes vallour Feminine but it is a foundation-lesse conceit The true beleever feares nothing but the displeasure of the highâ—st and runs away from nothing but sin Indeed he is not like our hot-spurs that will sight in no cause but a bad that feare where they should not feare and feare not where they should feare that feare the blasts of mens breath and not the fire of Gods wrath that feare more to have the World call them Cowards for refusing then God to judge them rebels for undertaking that tremble at the thought of a Prison and yet not feare Hell fire That can governe Townes and Cities and let a silly woman over-rule them at home it may bee a servant or a Child as Themistocles Sunne did in Gâ—eece What I will said hee my Mother will have done and what my Mother will have my Father doeth That will undertake a long journey by Sea in a wherry as the desperate Marriner hoyseth saile in a storme and sayes none of his Ancestors were drowned That will rush fearelesly into infected houses and say the Plague never seaseth on valiant blood it kils none but cowards That langushing of some sicknesse will strive to drinke it away and so make hast to dispatch both Body and Soule at once that will runne on high battlements gallop downe steep hils ride-over narrow Bridges walke on weake Ice and never thinke what if I fall but what if I passe over and fall not No he is not thus fearelesse for this is presumption and desperate madnesse not that courage and fortitude which ariseth from faith and the true feare of God but from blindnesse and invincible ignorance of their owne estate as what thinke you would any man put his life to a venter if he knew that when hee dyed he should presently drop into hell I thinke not But let the beleeving Christian who knowes hee hath a place reserved for him in Heaven have a warrant from Gods Word you cannot name the service or danger that he will stick at Nor can he lightly faile of successe It is observed that Trajan was never vanquished because he never undertooke warre without just cause In fine as he is most fearefull to offend so hee is most couragious in a good cause as abundance of examples witnesse whereof I 'le but instance two for the time would be too short to tell of Abraham and Moses and Caleb and David and Gideon and Barack and Sampson and Jâ—phâ—ha and many others of whom the Holy Ghost gives this generall testimony that by faith of weake they were made strong waxed valiant in Battell turned to slight the Armies of the Aliants subdued Kingdomes stopt the mouthes of Lyons quenched the violence of the fire c. Heb. 11. 22. to 35. Nor will I pitch upon Joshua whom neither Caesar nor Pompey nor Alexander the Great nor William the Conquerour nor any other ever came neare either for valour or victories but even Jonathan before and the Martyrs after Christ shall make it good As what thinke you of Jonathan whom neither steepnesse of Rocks nor multitude of enemies could discourage or disswade from so unlikely an assault Is it possible if the dâ—â—ine power of faith did not adde spirit and courage making men more than men that two should dare to thinke of encountring so many thousands and yet behold Jonathan and his Armour-bearer put to flight and terrified the hearts of all the Philistims being thirty thousand Charrets sixe thousand Hose-men and Foot-men like the sand of the Sea shore 1 Sam. 14. 15. O divine power of faith that in all attempts and difficulties makes us more than men and regardes no more Armies of adversaries than sworntes of flyes A naturall man in a project so unlikely would have had many thoughts of discouragement and strong reasons to disswade him but his faith dissolves impediments as the Sunne doth dewes yea he contemnes all feares over-lookes all impossibilities breakes through all difficulties with a resolute courage and flyes over all carnall objections with celestiall wings because the strength of his God was the ground of his strength in God But secondly to shew that their courage is no lesse passive then active looke upon that Noble Army of Martyrs mentioned in Ecclesiasticall History who went as willingly and cheerefully to the stake as our Gallants to a Play and leapt into their beds of flames as if they had beeue beds of Downes yea even weake women and young striplings when with one dash of a pen they might have beene released If any shall yet doubt which of the two the Religious oâ— Prophane are most valiant and couragious let them looke upon the demeanor of the twelve spyes Numbers the 13. and 14. Chapters and observe the difference between the two faithfull and true hearted and the other ten then will they conclude that Piety and Religion doth not make men Cowards or if it doe that as there is no feast to the Churles so there is no fight to the Cowards True they are not soone nor easily provoked but all the better the longer the cold fitt in an Ague the stronger the hot fitt I know men of the Sword will be loth to allow of this Doctrine but truth is truth aswell when it is not acknowledged as when it is and experience tolls us that he who feares not to doe evill is alwayes afraid to suffer evill Yea the Word of God is expresse that none can be truly
his God banish him his Countrey hee hath his conversation in Heaven kill his body it shall rise againe so he fights with a shadow that contends with an upright man Wherefore let all who suffer in their good names if conscious and guilty of an enemies imputations repent and amend if otherwise contemne them owne them not so much as once to take notice thereof A wicked heart is as a Barrell of powder to temptation let thine bee as a River of water Yea seeing God esteems men as they are and not as they have been although formerly thou hast beene culpable yet now thou mayest answer for thy selfe as Paul did for Onesimus Though in times past I was unprofitable yet now I am profitable and oppose to them that sweet and divine sentence of sweet and holy Bernard Tell me not Satan what I have beene but what I am and will be Or that of Beza in the like case Whatsoever I was I am now in Christ a New Creature and that is it which troubles thee I might have so continued long enough ere thou wouldest have vexed at it but now I see thou dost envy me the grace of my Saviour Or that Apopthegme of Diogenes to a base fellow that told him he had once beene a forger of money whose answer was T is true such as thou art now I was once but such as I am now thou wilt never be Yea thou mayst say by how much more I have formerly sinned by so much more is Gods power and goodnesse now magnified As Saint Augustine hearing the Donatists revile him for the former wickednesse of his youth answered The more desperate my disease was so much the more I admire the Physitian Yea thou mayst yet straine it a peg higher and say the greater my sinnes were the greater is my honour as the Divels which Mary Magdalen once had are mentioned for her glory Thus if we cannot avoid ill tongues let our care bee not to deserve them and t is all one as if we avoyded them For how little is that man hurt whom malice condemnes on Earth and God commends in Heaven let the World accuse mee so long as God acquits me I care not CHAP. XVIII That it is more laudable to forgive than revenge 2. BEcause it is more generous and laudible to forgive than revenge certainely in taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy but in passing it over he is superiour to him for it is a Princes part to pardon yea qouth Alexander There can be nothing more noble than to doe well to those that deserve ill And Saint Gregory it is more honour to suffer injuries by silence than to overcome them by answering againe Princes use not to chide when Embassadours have offered them undecencies but deny them audience as if silence were the way royall to correct a wrong And certainely he injoyes a brave composednesse that seats himselfe above the flight of the injurious claw Like the Emperour Augustus who though of a most tenatious and retentive memory would forget wrongs as soone as they were offered Or Agathocles Antigonus and Caesar who being great Potentates were as little moved at vulgar wrongs as a Lyon at the barking of Curres yea the Orator gives it as a high praise to Caesar that he could forgeâ— nothing but wrongs remember nothing but benefits and who so truely noble as he that can doe ill and will not True it is not rare to see a great man vex himselfe at the neglect of a peasant but this argnes a poore spirit A true Lyon would passe it by with an honourable scorne You 'l confesse then t is Princely to disdaine a wrong and is that all No forgivenesse saith Seneca is a valiant kind of revenge and none are so frequent in pardoning as the couragious Hee that is modestly valiant stirs not till he must needs and then to purpose Like the Flint he hath fire in him but it appeares not untill you force it from him who more valiant than Joshua and he held it the noblest victory to overcome evill with good for the Gibeonites tooke not so much paines in comming to deceive him as he in going to deliver them And Cicero more commends Caesar for overcomming his owne courage in pardoning Marcellus than for the great victories he had against his other enemies Yea a dominion over ones selfe is greater than the Grand Signiory of Turkie For as the greatest knowledge is truely to know thy selfe so the greatest conquest is to subdue thy selfe he is a wise man that can avoid an evil he is a patient man that can indure it but hee is a valiant man that can conquer it And indeed for a man to overcome an enemy and be overcome by his owne passions is to conquer a petty Village with the losse of a large City What saith a Father miserable is that victory wherein thou overcommest thine enemy and the Divell in the meane time overcoms thee thou slayest his body the Divell thy soule now wee deeme him to have the honour of the warre that hath the profit of it But as an Emperour said of the meanes prescribed him to cure his Leprosie which was the blood of Infants I had rather be sicke still than bee recovered by such a medicine so wilt thou in this case if thou hast either Bowels or braines Yea if the price or honour of the conquest is rated by the difficulty than to suppresse anger in thy selfe is to conquer with Hercules one of the Furies To tame all passions is to leade Cerberus in chaines and to indure afflictions and persecutions strongly and patiently is with Atlas to beare the whole World on thy shoulders as saith the Poet. It is no shame to suffer ill but to doe it to bee evill we are all naturally disposed to be holy and good is the difficulty Yea every Beast and Vermine can kill It is true prowesse and honour to give life and preserve it Yea a Beast being snarled at by a Cur will passe by as scorning to take notice thereof I but is it wisedome so to doe Yes first the ancient received opinion is that the sinewes of wisedome are slownesse of beleife and distrust Secondly none more wise than Salomon and he is of opinion That it is the glory of a man to passe by an offence Pro. 19. 11. We fooles think it ignominy and cowardise to put up the lye without a stab a wrong without a challenge but Salomon to whose wisedome all wise men will subscribe was of another judgement and to this of Salomon the wisest heathen have set their seale Pittacus the Philosopher holds That pardon is better than revenge inasmuch as the one is proper to the spirit the other to a cruell Beast But how Socrates whom the Oracle of Apollo prâ—nounced the wisest man alive and all the rest of Philosophers approved of it both by judgement and practice We shall have occasion to relate in the reasons insuing No truer