many c. Or if we render it with others Did not be who is one make it i. e. the covenant of marriage and he hath abundance of spirit still to breath into our seed And wherefore did that one make that order that a man should cleave to his wife but that he might have a godly seed and therefore take heed what you do in putting away your wives and taking others for hereby you offend him that breaths the spirit of life into us Or if we take it as others interpret it their wickedness is still argued to be the greater because they boasted that they were the children of Abraham Now Did that one i. e. the first of your family do so of whose spirit we are the residue and what did that one he sought a godly seed he put not away Sarah though she was barren which to you would seem a just cause nor matched with an Idolater that he might have issue Or if we receive that rendring of the words which the learned De Dieu prefers above all the rest it argues them of great inhumanity and that they had not common good nature in them which makes the sin still greater No one would do thus that had but any reliques of the spirit of God in him and therefore much less they that seek a godly seed as you pretend to do You see that he might well call this covering violence with his garment ver 16. because it was such a wrong to those that by the Laws of God and nature deserved better at their hands To spread ones garment or ones skirts over a woman is a phrase in holy writ for to marry her Ruth 3.9 Ezek. 16.8 By taking therefore of a strange woman into their society which was engaged before to another they did as it were marry to violence and contract a relation with injustice Or as the forenamed author thinks it should be translated Violence covered their garments i. e. when as they ought still to have cast their garments of love and protection over their wives violence and wrong did cover those garments their marriage was an act of injustice and their skirts which they spread over strangers were all over stained with cruelty hard-heartedness and oppression 5. And Zachary tells us by way of prophesie what should be in after times toward the end of this Nation and what manner of Rulers should be over the people He compares their Shepherds i. e. Governours as I have shewn before unto young Lyons who do not use to protect but to devour the sheep Zach. 11.3 And he calls the people the flock of slaughter ver 4. whom he is bid to instruct either because they were to be destroyed by the armies of their enemies or because they were a prey unto their Governours According as it follows ver 5. Their possessors slay them and they hold themselves not guilty Yea to such a confidence were they arrived in these sins that they Bless God for the riches which they had got in this sort They had some devotion you see left though no honesty nor goodness God is intituled to all wicked possessions and acquisitions that he may make them good and defend them against all the clamors of men and the suits of their own conscience And it seems the people were very bad also for ver 6. he threatens them that he would have no more pitty on them then their Rulers had but let them destroy one another by seditions and at last deliver them all into the hands of the King that oppressed them who should be so far from taking any pastoral care of them that he should only slay and devour them as you may read v. â—6 6. And some understand by that King the Roman Caesar to whom they made themselves a prey by such sins as those I have been treating of That long Captivity which indures to this day had its way prepared by their avarice and cruelty as those acquaint us upon whom the spirit of prophecy was again poured forth For our Lord coming and reproving the chief of that generation when he lived for devouring widdows houses for extortion rapine and blood for covetousness and oppression for being without natural affection and the like sins while they made long prayers and pretended a great deal of sanctity and religion He declaring also that faith judgement mercy and the love of God were more to be regarded then their strict observation of dayes and the multitude of sacrifices They out of a great zeal for their religion which they thought he did not speak honourably enough concerning most shamefully put him to death I believe they took themselves to be very religious persons and were zealous in what they did only their zeal was not equally dispensed nor conveyed alike through the whole body of duties that God commanded Their heat was like the flushing in mens faces or the burning in their hands which we do not take to be an argument of a good temper but rather a sign that there are obstructions as the ordinary language calls them in the body so that there is not a free motion of the vital blood in all the parts I mean they spent so much zeal in a few things that they left no warmth of affection for other most necessary duties In those things their heat was staid and stopt which made them of an extraordinary high colour and to have the repute in the world of very great Saints and most vertuous persons Yea they themselves gazed so much upon this flame that they took no notice how cold they were in matters of common honesty but they committed all iniquity in a comfortable belief that they were good men and most beloved of God Their great zeal for the Sabbath and such like matters made them take themselves for pious and devout persons but the partiality and particularity of it whereby it remained there confined made them really to be such as our Saviour calls Hypocrites which appellation they took in such disdain that they conspired his death who would not let such as they pass for godly men 7. And are Christians to this day more reformed who have inherited their promises I wish I could say that we are as free from covetousness rapine and unmercifulness as the Pharises were from Sabbath-breaking and Idolatry R. D. Kimchi upon Hos 2.19 20. hath confessed a great deal of that truth which I have endeavoured to illustrate but I can only wish that the latter part of his gloss were found as true as the former part hath proved He saith those words cannot have a compleat sense till the time of the Messiah and that God uses the word betroth three times because of the 3. captivities after which God doth as it were marry them to himself but in the dayes of the Messiah after a more excellent manner then in former times For when they came out of Aegypt he did not betroth them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for
others nor fearing any from them as you may read ver 8. And in the 3. chap. 1 2 3. he speaks of most barbarous and butcherly actions the flaying and peiling of the people to the very bones And as if that did not make them miserable enough they would have no pitty on those poor Skeletons but broke their very bones and chopt them in pieces as one doth when he puts flesh in a pot which is as much as to say they utterly devoured them and eat them up They did abhorr Judgement and pervert all Equity ver 9. and which is to be observed at that very time they built up Zion and Jerusalem with this blood and iniquity ver 10. i. e. They repaired or enlarged the great City they adorned the Kings pallace which was on mount Zian and in all likelyhood they beautified the Temple for that is mentioned together with these two ver 12. with this robbery and murder that they committed They were reformers of things amiss or decayed in Gods worship at the cost and charges of many a poor innocent that they had rent in pieces and shared amongst them For that these words were spoken in the times of reformation you may learn from Jer. 26.18 where we are told that Micah made this threatning which is mentioned ver 12. of making Zion like a plowed field c. in the dayes of Hezekiah who you know repented of the evil his Fathers had done and so turned away the evil in his time Now what is all this which Micah saith but what the Prophet Isaiah hath already told us chap. 1. ver 10 21 23. and again chap. 3. ver 13 14 15. where God reproves the Elders great ones for beating his people to pieces and grinding the faces of the poor whose cause he saith he was come to plead The Rulers then being so bad there is little reason to expect much justice or mercy among the people who also oppressed and offered violence one to another as far as their power would reach For proof of which spare not to read Mich. 6. ver 10 11 12. and likewise the six first verses of the seventh Chapter which tells us largely of the General cruelty covetousness treachery c. both of the Princes and all the people though never so nearly related one to another Which was so great and universal that it was as hard to find a merciful and a just man as to find a bunch of grapes after the gleanings of the Vintage And therefore in the sixth Chapter ver 6 c. God by the same Prophet calls not for their sacrifices and religious services in which it seems they were frank enough and could have been contented to have put themselves to any expence so they might but quietly have kept their covetous griping and devouring lusts and desires but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with God 5. And in the dayes of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah things still grew worse and proceeded to a greater height of injustice and cruelty For as he is noted for a most gross Idolater so likewise for a great shedder of innocent blood wherewith he filled Jerusalem 2 King 21.16.24.3 such violence iniquity grievances perverting of judgement there was in his dayes that the Prophet Habakkuk who some think was one of those that God sent to admonish him 2 King 21.10 could not endure to behold it and seems to be wearied with crying to God against it as you may see if you read Habak 1.2 3 4. Whereupon God threatens to raise up with such speed that no body would believe it the Chaldean Nation to destroy them ver 5. And this he did not long after the time of Manasseh when the Chaldeans brought the Assyrian power under their feet of which only the Jews stood in fear 6. If we draw nearer to the time of the first captivity into Babylon by the hands of those Chaldeans which they little dreamed of we shall hear no new Sermons but the very same sins still reproved Zephaniah will be our informer in this matter who lived in the dayes of Josiah a good Prince and very zealous to reform things amiss in the worship of God With him it is manifest from 2 Chron. 35.8 the Nobles of the Realm joyned to purge the Land from Idolatry though we may guess from Zeph. 1. v. 4 5 6. that many of the people did not affect their proceedings And yet if you do but read the five first verses of the third Chapter you will eafily discern how shameless these very Reformers were in their unjust and violent dealing and that they would rather part with any thing even their Idols then these rich and thriving sins And therefore the Prophet exhorts those that had any of those rare vertues in them any mercifulness and righteousness that they would go on to practice them and in those wayes to seek the Lord telling them that it was probable but not certain that they might be secured in that deluge of misery that was like to overflow the whole Land chap. 2. ver 3. And afterwards chap. 3.12 13. he prophesies that the poor and the afflicted they that had been oppressed and stript naked by the great and the rich were the persons that should escape and be left in the Land when all those mens possessions were taken from them and that they should be such a remnant as should not do iniquity nor speak lyes nor have a deceitful tongue in their mouth but should trust in God and not in these evil arts 7. Jeremiah also who prophesied in the dayes of the same Josiah and likewise of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah in the time of both the first and second captivity and afterward also He I say speaks the very same words as will be very evident to those who will do themselves so much right for the understanding of this truth as to ponder these places of his prophesie He tells us in the 3. chap. ver 10. That Judah did not return to God with her whole heart but fainedly which words were spoken as you may see ver 6. in the dayes of Josiah who had made a Covenant to serve the Lord with all their heart and all their soul and all the people stood unto it 2 King 23.3 This is the returning which the Prophet saith was but fained because notwithstanding this great profession they were not sincerely out of love with their sins nor did with all their heart as they pretended abhor them For he tells us chap. 7.9 10. that many of them though they came to the house of God to worship in the time of this reformation yet had an Altar likewise in some private corner for Baal And beside this they were all guilty of cheating oppression stealing false-witnessing and all manner of injustice as you may see there ver 4 5 6 9. Insomuch that he saith ver 11. the house of God was become a den of Robbers a meer nest of thieves
And indeed it is very strange if God should be so free and liberall as to give a way all his own rights and let his creatures do even as they list If men swallow once this conceit they will not be so kind as to give him any thing back again Witness the Manichees and the Borborites of old who thought that sin did not hurt Gods elect but as gold thrust into the dirt still retained its nature and lustre so they thought they rolled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any kind of filthy and fleshly actions Irenaeus yet were not hurt at all nor did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lose their spiritual nature or subsistence And witness the ranting crew among us whom we may call as the Jews do us sometimes in spite not Kedoshim but Kedishim not Sancti but Cinaedi not Saints but Sinners in the worst use of the word I cannot tell how true it is but I have read it as a speech of some amongst us That God oftimes saves his people even contrary to his own rules I am sure the actions of many are so conformable to it as if they fed upon nothing but such poisonous doctrine And either God must act contrary to himself as they do and break his word in favour of base pretenders or else such unrighteous covetous persons such extortioners lyars c. shall never enter into heaven 9. But yet as if heaven were full of none but such as they I have known some have the impudence to justifie bad actions by the Examples of the Saints miscarriages which are recorded in Holy Writ Who methinks are just like to bad painters who as Plutarch observes because they are not able by their skill to represent in their colours a beautifull face De discrim Adul am 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they draw the likeness of things in wrinkles and scars and wounds When men cannot imitate the good that is in those Examples they will pick out all the bad and draw the copy of it in their lives It is the fault of the world that they carp at the failings of good men when they are alive and take no notice of their piety and holiness and yet they will imitate those failings when they are dead and think to crust over all their sins by those Examples which they would have railed at before If Vice be ugly then it is most ill favoured in those who are good and if these men were good they would be of that judgement And as the Lacedemonians brought their children to behold their slaves when they were drunk not that they might learn of them but that they might abhor that dirty and sottish sin so would these men look upon the sins of others not to be like them and do the same but the more to abominate and detest them which leave such a foul blemish upon them that commit them And at the day of judgement they will be condemned not only for sinning but for falling into those sins which they had fair warning to watch against by the Examples of others before them 10. You must come near therefore to those that make a fair shew and examine their actions before you believe all their excellent speeches and pious discourses about some matters in Religion If you stand at a distance from them you would take them to be very glorious Saints they do so glitter in an outward profession and perform such splendid works of devotion but if you come near to them and handle them you will find them hot without and cold within full of fierceness and violence in their external motions but void of all true love and goodness in their hearts I have sometimes compared them in my own thoughts unto those Indian Calicoes which when we behold afarr off seem to be a rare needlework of all sorts of silk but when we come close to them are only thin painted stuff that hath neitheir substance nor cost in it These men look like the Kings daughter whose garments were of needle work and wrought gold whereby you would imagine that they were all glorious within also but if you come to deal with them you shall see by many of their actions that this outward bravery is a meer varnish and gloss that they set upon themselves some painted raiment to hide their nakedness but which an observant eye may easily look thorough it is so thin and beggerly 11. Especially observe how many of them change with times and occasions and say that they must follow Providence If you follow them close you will soon find that as their profit leads them so they cry up particular pieces of godliness Just like Alcibiades who as Plutarch saith of a flatterer at Athens was a gallant De discrim adul amic and at Sparta wore a thred-bare cloak in Thracia was a warrier and at Tissapherne gave himself to pride and luxury So do these men vary according as several humours stir within them Sometimes they would have all Gods people be no less then Kings and at other times they must be as poor as beggars Sometimes they pine and macerate themselves with fasting and again they think that none but they may make a free use of the creature Many of them there are that will sail with every wind if it blow them any profit and all of them are carried as the fierce gusts of their various passions do make a zealous bluster in them But a good man who directs his life not by his worldly interest or mutable fancies but by the word of God he alwayes steers the same course and remains constantly the same man as that word doth whose righteousness is everlasting We may say of him as the same Plutarch doth of those brave men Epimanondas and Agesilaus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They had every where a becoming deportment and as he saith of Plato who was the same at Syracuse that he was in his Academy and before Dionysius such an one as he was before Dion He changes not his behaviour with places and persons for he walks before God who is alwayes the same and changes not 12. And if any of these men we have been treating of be so hardy as to suffer for their Opinion for I can call it nothing else and not alway cast to be on the thriving side yet it is with a full bad will And they are so far from bearing it meekly and patiently that they struggle by all means to throw the cross from off their shoulders If there be any way to ease themselves they inquire not much whether it be good or bad but are easily inclined to think that Providence makes an offer to them for their deliverance though it be by unlawfull means Such as they would not have spared Saul if they had been in Davids case when he had him at his mercy but they would have applauded Abishai for a Saint who said God hath delivered thine enemy into thy hand and
bidden him smite him to the ground And observe them also when they are uppermost again whether they be not as zealous to lay the cross on other mens shoulders as they were to cast it from off their own As far as I can observe it is the temper of this false zeal wheresoever it is to endure no oppression quietly to endeavour alway to be above to trample upon others to be proud and disobedient to contemn all authoriy which is not on their side and to speak evil of dignities if they do not speak well of them CAP. XXV 1. The design of God is to make men thoroughly good 2. Though men now think otherwise yet the Ancient Christians prove the Divinity of their Religion from the excellent lives of them that professed it 3. They proved Christs Divinity likewise from the goodness of his followers 4. They upbraid false Christians that they could not confute heathens by their lives 5. The definition of a Christian according to Phavorinus who speaks the Ancients sense 6. Religion reforms men in every thing 7. A Summary of our Religion out of Erasmus 8. Christ represented it unto us in his life and taught us to deny not only sinfull but meer naturall desires 9. This is so clear in the Scriptures that every one may see it that had not rather talk and dispute then live well 10. With what minds we must study the Scripture 1. BUT let it be remembred by all those that intend to go to heaven that Gods design is to banish all wickedness out of the world and by inhabiting of our nature to expell all sin and baseness out of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homil. 7. in Iad Corinth and to bring in his own image It is an excellent saying of Chrysostome That God hath so disposed matters in the Gospel as if he intended that there should not be a relique of wickedness left among us The whole dispensation looks as if he designed to root it out from the face of the earth And this only can bring the world into obedience to Christ this only can set up his Kingdom and make all his enemies fall at his feet Let us advance this in our hearts and lives and it will set Christ upon his throne and make him victorious among men And therefore that excellent man gives this as a reason why Idolatry did still remain in some places because Christians were no better and did not destroy all the works of the Devil And what is it I beseech you that still upholds all humane inventions in such honour but because there is so little true Goodness appears in the lives of most that oppose them Men look upon the Gospel as if it served for nothing but to form their opinions but had no design of making them like to God They are enemies to their own salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mutining and seditiously rising against their own eternal welfare They oppose him that comes to bring them the glad tidings of Salvation or whosoever shall press them in Christs name to be very good They dispute many times against too high a degree of holiness They spend more time in excusing their faults then striving to amend them They are wilfully bent not to be over-happy while they are here in the world and will not believe that God intends to advance them so high in a heavenly life And so it is no wonder that things are so bad among others when even they that profess the name of Christ many of them are no more in love with the Doctrine that is according to Godliness 2. And indeed why should they be in love with a thing that incroaches so much upon their liberty if they can go to heaven by some neat device that leaves them room to do as they list why should men be at the trouble to die to the world if it be the design of Christ to make them great men in it As Cato counted it one of his oversights of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Simplicius relates it that he took a journey by water when he might have gone by land so men may well count it foolishness to go through the tears of repentance to wash off all their dirt and filth when they hope they may go to heaven through the earth though they be all besmeared with the mire of the world But it is not great boasts of the purity of Religion of the holiness of Ordinances and such like things that will alwaies carry the name from purity of heart and holiness of life There was a time when it was the greatest glory of Christians that they were holy themselves as well as that they had an holy Religion and so I hope it will one day be again Then the Gospel flourishes when men can argue for the Divinity of it from the great reformation that it works in those that profess it whom it makes truly Divine And so in the dayes of Origen they were able to do Lib. 1. contr cels for he challenges Celsus the heathen to tell him how it should happen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without a special hand of God that such a multitude of sick persons should be recovered of most desperate diseases whereof they had long laboured by preaching of the Gospel only When we see so many rid of their intemperance injustice neglect of God and such like things we must needs see that that word is from God which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 able to free them from such evils too stubborn for all the Philosophy in the world to deal withall 3. Lib. 3. In the next Book but one the same Origen adventures to bring the excellent lives of Christians for an argument of the Divinity of Christ whom they worshipped And he saith that the very worst of them even they who were most slothfull in their religion did make greater progress in vertue then the very best of the heathen Which was a plain argument he thought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there was no ordinary divinity in that person who did such great things in his followers And when in the next book Celsus by way of scorn calls the Christians and Jews bats and frogs and worms and such like insects who flock together and contend with each other which are the greatest sinners he tels him what noble lives the Christians did lead And asks him whether he was not ashamed to call him a crawling worm who ascends up to heaven to live with God and sends up pure prayers unto him that doth all things as if God saw him and speaks all thing as if he heard him and cannot be perswaded from Godliness by any dangers any labour any fair words and language Will not all this saith he be sufficient to save a man from being compared to a worm whatsoever he might be called before so great a godliness What must they who repell the sharpest stings to wanton pleasures that are pure and chast