〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even the whole counsel of God In my Application of this Instance and Case blame me not if I do it with some reference to my self Being heretofore by appointment as now again I was to provide my self for this place against such a meeting as this is as in my conscience I then thought it needful for me I delivered my mind and I dare say the Truth too for substance something freely touching the Ceremonies and Constitutions of our Church And I have now also with like freedome shewed the unlawfulnesse of the late disorderly attempts in this Town and that from the ground of my present Text. I was then blamed for that I think unjustly for I do not yet see what I should rerract of that I then delivered and it is not unlikely I shall be blamed again for this unless I prevent it You have heard now already both heretofore that to judge any mans heart and at this time that to slander any truth are without repentance sins justly damnable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that offend either in the one or the other their damnation is just To preserve therefore both you from the sin and my self from the blame consider I pray you with reason and charity what I shall say You that are our hearers know not with what hearts we speak unto you that is onely known to our own hearts and to God who is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things That which you are to look at and to regard is with what truth we speak unto you So long as what we preach is true agreeable to Gods Word right reason you are not upon I know not what light surmizes or suspicions to judge with what spirits or with what dispositions of heart we preach Whether we preach Christ of envy and strife or of good will whether sincerely or of contention whether in pretence or in truth it is our own good or hurt we must answer for that and at our perill be it if we do not look to that But what is that to you Notwithstanding every way so long as it is Christ and his truth which are preached it is your part therein to rejoice If an Angel from Heaven should preach any untruth unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him be accursed but if the very Devil of hell should preach the truth he must be heard and believed and obeyed So long as Scribes and Pharisees hold them to Moses's Text and Doctrine let them be as damned Hypocrites as Scribes and Pharisees can be yet all whatsoever they bid you observe that you are to observe and do Let me then demand Did I deliver any untruth It had been well done then to have shewn it that I might have acknowledged and retracted it Did I speak nothing but the truth with what conscience then could any that heard me say as yet I heard some did that I preached factiously That I came to cast bones among them That I might have chosen a fitter Text That I might have had as much thanks to have kept away For Faction I hate it my desire and aim next after the good of your souls was above all the Peace of the Church and the Unity of Brethren For casting bones if that must needs be the phrase they were cast in these parts long before my coming by that great enemy to peace and unity and busie sower of discord the Devil otherwise I should not have found at my first coming such snarling about them and such biting and devouring one another as I did My endeavour was rather to have gathered up the bones and to have taken away the matter of difference I mean the errour in judgement about and inconformity in practice unto the lawfull Ceremonies of the Church that so if it had been possible all might hâ—ve been quiet without despising or judging one another for these things For thanks I hold not that worth the answering alas it is a poor aim for Gods Minister to preach for thanks For the choyce of my Text and Argument both then and now how is it not unequall that men who plead so as none more for liberty and plainness in reproving sin should not allow those that come amongst them that liberty and plainness against themselves and their own sins I dare appeale to your selves Have you never been taught that it is the Ministers duty as to oppose against all errors and sins in the general so to bend himself as neer as he can especially against the apparent errors and sins of his present auditory And do you not believe it is so Why then might I not nay how ought I not bend my speech both then against a common errour of sundry in these parts in point of Ceremony and now against the late petulancy or at least oversight of some mis-guided ones The noise of these things abroad and the scandall taken thereat by such as hear of them and the ill fruits of them at home in breeding jealousies and cherishing contentions among neighbours cannot but stir us up if we be sensible as every good member should be of the damage and loss the Church acquireth by them to put you in minde and to admonish you as opportunities invite us both privately and publickly Is it not time trow ye to thrust in the sickle when the fields look white unto the harvest Is it not time our Pulpits should a little eccho of these things when all the Countrey far and neer ringeth of them For my own part however others censure me I am sure my own heart telleth me I could not have discharged my Conscience if being called to this place I should have balked what either then or now I have delivered My Conscience prompting me all circumstances considered that these things were pro hîc nunc necessary to be delivered rather than any other if for any outward inferiour respect I should have passed them over with silence I think I should have much swerved from the Rule of my Text and have done a great evil that some small good might come of it But many thousand times better were it for me that all the world should censure me for speaking what they think I should not than that my own heart should condemn me for not speaking what it telleth me I should And thus much of things simply evil I should proceed to apply this Rule We must not do evil that good may come unto evils not simply but accidentally such and that both in the generall and also in some few specials of greatest use namely unto evils which become such through Conscience Scandall or Comparison In my choice of the Scripture I aimed at all this and had gathered much of my provision for it But the Cases being many and weighty I foresaw I could not go onward with my first project without much wronging one or both either the things themselves if I should
not see and more inexcusable because thou shuttest thine eyes against the light lest thou shouldst see and be converted and God should heal thee Briefly they wanted the light thou shunnest it they lived in darkness thou delightest in it their ignorance was simple thine affected and wilful And therefore although we doubt not but that the times of their ignorance God winked at yet thou hast no warrant to presume that God will also in these times wink at thee who rejectest the counsel of God against thine own soul and for want of love and affection to the truth art justly given over to strong delusions to believe fables and to put thy confidence in things that are lies So much for that matter Secondly here is a needful admonition for us all not to flatter our selves for our ignorance of those things that concern us in our general or particular Callings as if for that ignorance our reckoning should be easier at the day of judgement Ignorance indeed excuseth sometimes sometimes lesseneth a fault but yet not all ignorance all faults not wilful and affected ignorance any fault Nay it is so far from doing that that on the contrary it maketh the offence much more grievous and the offender much more inexcusable A heedless servant that neither knoweth nor doth his Masters will deserveth some stripes A stubborn servant that knoweth it and yet transgresseth it deserveth more stripes But worse than them both is that ungracious servant who fearing his Master will appoint him something he had rather let alone keepeth himself out of the way beforehand and michâ—th in a corner out of sight of purpose that he might not know his Masters will that so he may after stand upon it when he is chidden and say He knew it not such an untoward servant deserveth yet more stripes Would the Spirit of God think you in the Scripture so often cal upon us to get the knowledge of Gods will and to increase therein or would he commence his suit against a land and enter his action against the people thereof for want of such knowledge if ignorance were better or safer O it is a fearful thing for a man to shun instruction and to say he desireth not the knowledge of God Nâ—â—uerunt intelligere ut bene agerent When men are once come to that pass that they will not understand nor seek after God when they hate the light because they take pleasure in the works of darkness when they are afraid to know too much lest their hearts should condemn them for not doing thereafter when like the deaf Adder they stop their ears against the voyce of the charmer for fear they should be charmed by the power of that voyce out of their crooked and Serpentine courses when they are so resolved to take freedom to sin that they chuse to be still Ignorant rather than hazard the foregoing of any part of that freedom what do they but even run on blindfold into hell and through inner poast along unto utter darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Frustrà sibi de ignorantiâ blandiuntur saith S. Bernard qui ut liberiùs peccent libenter ignorant Saint Paul so speaketh of such men as if their case were desperate If any man be ignorant let him be ignorant as who say if he will needs be wilful at his peril be it But as many as desire to walk in the fear of God with upright and sincere hearts let them thirst after the knowledge of God and his will as the Hart after the rivers of waters let them cry after knowledge and lift up their voices for understanding let them seek it as silver and dig for it as for hid treasures let their feet tread often in Gods Courts and even wear the thresholds of his house let them delight in his holy Ordinances and rejoyce in the light of his Word depending upon the ministery thereof with unsatisfied ears and unwearted attention and feeding thereon with uncloyed appetites that so they may see and hear and learn and understand and believe and obey and increase in wisedom and in grace and in favour with God and all good men But then in the third place consider that if all ignorance will not excuse an offender though some do how canst thou hope to finde any colour of excuse or extenuation that sinnest wilfully with knowledge and against the light of thine own conscience The least sin thus committed is in some degree a Presumptuous sin and carryeth with it a contempt of God and in that regard is greater than any sin of Ignorance To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is a sin saith Saint Iames Sin beyond all plea of excuse Saint Paul though he were a Persecutor of the Truth a Blasphemer of the Lord and injurious to the Brethren yet he obtained Mercy because he did all that ignorantly His bare ignorance was not enough to justifie him but he stood need of Gods mercy or else he had perished in those sins for all his ignorance But yet who can tell whether ever he should have found that mercy if he had done the same things and not in ignorance Ignorance then though it do not deserve pardon yet it often findeth it because it is not joyned with open contempt of him that is able to pardon But he that sinneth against knowledge doth Ponere obicem if you will allow the phrase and it may be allowed in this sense he doth not only provoke the Iustice of God by his sin as every other sinner doth but he doth also damb up the Mercy of God by his contempt and doth his part to shut himself out for ever from all possibility of pardon unless the boundless over-flowing mercy of God come in upon him with a strong tide and with an unresisted current break it self a passage through Do this then my beloved Brethren Labour to get knowledge labour to increase your knowledge labour to abound in knowledge but beware you rest not in your knowledge Rather give all diligence to adde to your knowledge Temperance and Patience and Godliness and brotherly kindeness and Charity and other good graces Without these your knowledge is unprofitable nay damnable Qui apponit scientiam apponit dolorem is true in this sense also He that increaseth knowledge unless his care of obedience rise in some good proportion with it doth but lay more rods in steep for his own back and increase the number of his stripes and adde to the weight and measure of his own most just condemnation Know this that although Integrity of heart may stand with some ignorances as Abimelech here pleadeth it and God alloweth it yet that mans heart is devoid of all singlenesse and sincerity who alloweth himself in any course he knoweth to be sinful or taketh this liberty to
himself to continue and persist in any known ungodlinesse And thus much for our second Observation I adde but a Third and that taken from the very thing which Abimelech here pleadeth viz. the integrity of his heart considered together with his present personal estate and condition I dare not say he was a Cast-away for what knoweth any man how God might after this time and even from these beginnings deal with him in the riches of his mercy But at the time when the things storied in this chapter were done Abimelech doubtlesse was an unbeleever a stranger to the covenant of God made with Abraham and so in the state of a carnal and meer natural man And yet both he pleadeth and God approveth the innocency and integrity of his heart in this businesse Yea I know that thou diddest this in the integrity of thine heart Note hence That in an unbeleever and natural man and therefore also in a wicked person and a cast-away for as to the present state the unregenerate and the Reprobate are equally incapable of good things there may be truth and singlenesse and integrity of heart in some particular Actions We use to teach and that truly according to the plain evidence of Scripture and the judgement of the ancient Fathers against the contrary tenet of the later Church of Rome that all the works of unbeleevers and natural men are not only stained with sin for so are the best works of the faithful too but also are really and truly sins both in their own nature because they spring from a corrupt fountain for That which is born of the flesh is flesh and it is impossible that a corrupt tree should bring forth good fruit and also in Gods estimation because he beholdeth them as out of Christ in and through whom alone he is well pleased St. Augustines judgement concerning such mens works is well known who pronounceth of the best of them that they are but splendida peccata glorious sins and the best of them are indeed no better We may not say therefore that there was in Abimelechs heart as nor in the heart of any man a legal integrity as if his person or any of his actions were innocent and free from sin in that perfection which the Law requireth Neither yet can we say there was in his heart as nor in the heart of any unbeleever an Evangelical integrity as if his person were accepted and for the persons sake all or any of his actions approved with God accepting them as perfect through the supply of the abundant perfections of Christ then to come That first and legall integrity supposeth the righteousnesse of works which no man hath this latter and Evangelical integrity the righteousnesse of Faith which no unbeliever hath no mans heart being either legally perfect that is in Adam or Evangelically perfect that is out of Christ. But there is â— third kinde of integrity of heart inferiour to both these which God here acknowledgeth in Abimelech and of which only we affirm that it may be found in an unbeliever and a Reprobate and that is a Natural or Moral integrity when the heart of a meer natural man is careful to follow the direction and guidance of right reason according to that light of Nature or Revelation which is in him without hollownesse halting and hypocrisie Rectus usus Naturalium we might well call it the term were fit enough to expresse it had not the Papists and some other Sectaries by sowring it with the leaven of their Pelagianism rendred it suspicious The Philosophers and learned among the Heathen by that which they call a good conscience understand no other thing then this very Integrity whereof we now speak Not that an Unbeliever can have a good conscience taken in strict propriety of truth and in a spiritual sense For the whole man being corrupted through the fall of Adam the conscience also is wrapped in the common pollution so that to them that are defiled and unbeleeving nothing is pure but even their minde and conscience is defiled as speaketh S. Paul Tit. 1. and being so defiled can never be made good till their hearts be sprinkled from that pollution by the bloud of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God and till the Conscience be purged by the same bloud from dead works to serve the living God as speaketh the same Apostle Heb. 9. and 10. But yet a good Conscience in that sense as they meant it a Conscience morally good many of them had who never had Faith in Christ nor so much as the least inckling of the Doctrine of Salvation By which Not having the Law they were a Law unto themselves doing by nature many of the things contained in the Law and chusing rather to undergo the greatest miseries as shame torment exile yea death it self or any thing that could befall them than wilfully to transgresse those rules and notions and dictates of piety and equity which the God of Nature had imprinted in their Consciences Could heathen men and unbeleevers have taken so much comfort in the testimony of an excusing Conscience as it appeareth many of them did if such a Conscience were not in the kinde that is Morally Good Or how else could St. Paul have made that protestatâ—on he did in the Councel Men and Brethren I have lived in all good conscience before God untill this day At least if he meant to include as most of the learned conceive he did the whole time of his life as well before his conversion as after Balaam was but a cursed Hypocrite and therefore it was but a copy of his countenance and no better for his heart even then hankered after the wages of unrighteousnesse when he looked a squint upon Balaks liberal offer with this answer If Balak would give me his house full of gold and silver I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do lesse or more But I assure my self many thousands of unbeleevers in the world free from his hypocrisie would not for ten times as much as he there spake of have gone beyond the Rules of the Law of Nature written in their hearts to have done either lesse or more Abimelech seemeth to be so affected at least in this particular action and passage with Abraham wherein God thus approveth his integrity Yea I know that thou diddest this in the integrity of thy heart The Reason of which moral integrity in men unregenerate and meerly natural is that Imperium Rationis that power of natural Conscience and Reason which it hath and exerciseth over the whole man doing the office of a Law-giver and having the strength of a law They are a law unto themselves saith the Apostle Rom. 2. As a Law it prescribeth what is to be done as a Law it commandeth that what is prescribed be done as a Law it proposeth rewards and punishments accordingly
Levellers whose Principles are so destructive of all that Order and Iustice by which publick societies are supported do yet style themselves as by a kinde of peculiarity The Godly And that secondly it is the easyest thing in the world and nothing more common then for men to pretend Conscience when they are not minded to obey I do not believe thirdly though I am well perswaded of the godliness of many of them otherwise that the refusal of indifferent Ceremonies enjoyned by Lawful Authority is any part of their Godliness or any good fruit evidence or signe thereof But certain it is fourthly that the godliest men are men and know but in part and by the power of godliness in their hearts are no more secured from the possibility of falling into Errour through Ignorance then from the possibility of falling into Sin through Infirmity And as for Tenderness of Conscience fifthly a most gracious blessed fruit of the holy Spirit of God where it is really and not in pretence only nor mistaken for sure it is â—o very tender Conscience though sometimes called so that straineth at a Gnat and swalloweth a Camel it is with it as with other tender things very subject to receive harme and soon put out of order Through the cunning of Satan it dangerously exposeth men to temptations on the right hand and through its own aptitude to entertain and to cherish unnecessary scruples it strongly disposeth them to listen thereunto so long till at the last they are overcome thereof Needful it is therefore that in the publick teaching the Errours should be sometimes refuted and the Temptations discovered And this ever to be done seasonably soberly discreetly and convincingly and when we are to deal with men whose Consciences are so far as we can discern truly tender with the spirit of Meekness and Compassion For tender things must be tenderly dealt withall or they are lost I know it is not allwayes so done nor can we expect it should All Preachers are neither so charitable nor so prudent nor so conscientious as they should be And they that are such in a good measure are men still and may be transported now and then through passion and infirmity beyond the just bounds of moderation But then the fault is not so much in the choise of the argument they treat of as in the ill-managing thereof which ought not to cast any prejudice upon others who deal in the same argument but after another manner § VII But that which pincheth most in this first particular is as I suppose this That upon all publick occasions especially in Visitation-Sermons they who agree with us in the substance of the same reformed Religion are for the most part the only mark shot at whilest the common enemy the Papist hath little or nothing said against him For answer hereunto First so far as concerneth the Sermons here published the Objection is void for therein the Papist hath had his share as well as his fellows so oft as the Text gave occasion or the file of my discourse led me thereunto as by the papers themselves whereunto reference to be had will evidently appear Secondly admitting all true that is alleaged either we are excusable in what they blame us for or they that blame us inexcusable who do the very same things Do not they usually in their Sermons fall bitterly upon the Papists and Arminians but seldome meddle with the Socinians scarce ever name the Turks I have been often told of their declamations against the observing of Christmas that great superstitious thing but I remember not to have heard of much spoken against Perjury and Sacriledge and some other sins wherewith our times abound Nay doth not their zeal even against Popery it self Popery I mean truly so called of late years and since most of the Pulpits are in their possession seem to abate at leastwise in comparison of the zeal they shew against Episcopacy and against the Liturgy Festivals and Ceremonies lately in use among us These they cry down with all the noise they can and with all the strength they have having first branded them with the name of Popery and this must now pass for preaching against Popery I demand then Is there not the like reason of reproving Sins and refuting Errours If so are not Perjury and Sacriledge as great sins at least as keeping Christmas holy day Howsoever are not the Errors of the Turks that deny the whole structure of the Christian Religion foundation and all far worse then the Errors of the Papists who by their additional superstructures have only altered the fabrick but keep the foundation still And are not the Errours of the Socinians who deny the Trinity Gods Omniscience the Eternity of the Son the Divinity of the Holy Ghost Original sin the calling of Ministers and far worse then those the Arminians are charged withall of Free Will Vniversal Redemption Falling from Grace c. And are not the old rotten points of Popery the Popes Oecumenical Pastorship and Infallibility the Scriptures unsufficiency Image-worship Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Half-Communion c. Errours of as great a magnitude as those other points of Popery lately and falsly dubb'd such of Episcopacy Liturgy Festivals and Ceremonies If they be why do our Brethren preach oftner and inveigh more against these later and lesser in comparison then against those former and greater sins and Errours I doubt not but they have some Reasons wherewith to satisfie themselves for their so doing else they were much to blame Be those Reasons what they will if they will serve to excuse them they will serve as well to justifie us § VIII It will be said perhaps First That the Turks have no Communion with us They are out of the Church and our chiefest care should be for those within leaving those without for God to judge Or indeed Secondly To what purpose would it be to address our speeches to them some thousands of miles out of hearing If our voyces were as loud as Stentors or that of Mars in Homer the sound would not reach them Besides that Thirdly There is little danger in our people of receiving hurt or infection from them who have no such agents here to tamper with the people in that behalfe no such artifices and plausible pretensions whereby to work them over to their side no such advantages as the agreement in some Common Principles might afford for bringing on the rest as the Papists have Who being within the pale of the visible Catholick Church and living in the midst of us have their instruments ready at hand in every corner to gain Proselytes for Rome the specious pretences of Antiquity Vniversality Consent of Councels and Fathers c. Wherewith to dazle the eyes of weak and credulous persons and some ground also to work upon in the agreement that is between them and us in the principall Articles of the Christian Faith § IX These Reasons I confess are satisfactory
Glory and judgement As it is not safe for us then to encroach upon GODS Royalties in either of the other two Glory or Vengeance so neither in this of Judgement Dominus judicabit The Lord himself will judge his people Heb. 10. It is flat Usurpation in us to judge and therefore we must not judge Secondly it is rashnesse in us A Judge must understand the truth both for matter of fact and for point of Law and he must be sure he is in the right for both before he proceed to sentence or else he will give rash judgement How then dare any of us undertake to sit as Iudges upon other mens Consciences wherewith we are so little acquainted that we are indeed but too much unacquainted with our own We are not able to search the depth of our own wicked and deceitfull hearts and to ransack throughly the many secret windings and turnings therein how much lesse then are we able to fadome the bottomes of other mens hearts with any certainty to pronounce of them either good or evil We must then leave the judgements of other mens spirits and hearts and reines to him that is the Father of spirits and alone searcheth the hearts and reines before whose eyes all things are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the word is most Emphaticall Hebrewes 4. Wherefore our Apostles precept elsewhere is good to this purpose 1 Cor. 4. Iudge nothing before the time untill the LORD come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darknesse and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts Unlesse we be able to bring these hidden things to light and to make manifest these counsels it is rashnessi in us to judge and therefore we must not judge Thirdly this judging is uncharitable Charity is not easily suspicious but upon just cause much lesse then censorious and peremptory Indeed when we are to judge of Things it is wisdome to judge of them secundùm quod sunt as neer as we can to judge of them just as they are without any sway or partiall inclination either to the right hand or to the left But when we are to judge of Men and their Actions it is not altogether so there the rule of Charity must take place Dubia in meliorem partem sunt interpretanda Unlesse we see manifest cause to the contrary we ought ever to interpret what is done by others with as much favour as may be To erre thus is better than to hit right the other way because this course is safe and secureth us as from injuring others so from endangering our selves whereas in judging ill though right we are still unjust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the event onely and not our choyce freeing us from wrong judgement True Charity is ingenious it thinketh no evil 1 Cor. 13. How far then are they from Charity that are ever suspicious and think nothing well For us let it be our care to maintain Charity and to avoid as far as humane frailty will give leave even sinister suspicions of our brethrens actions or if through frailty we cannot that yet let us not from light suspicions fall into uncharitable censures let us at leastwise suspend our definitive judgement and not determine too peremptorily against such as do not in every respect just as we do or as we would have them do or as we think they should do It is uncharitable for us to judge and therefore we must not judge Lastly there is Scandall in judging Possibly he that is judged may have that strength of Faith and Charity that though rash and uncharitable censures lie thick in his way he can lightly skip over all those stumbling-blocks and scape a fall Saint Paul had such a measure of strength With me it is a very small thing saith he that I should be judged of you or of humane judgement 1 Cor. 4. If our judging light upon such an object it is indeed no scandall to him but that 's no thanks to us We are to esteem things by their natures not events and therefore we give a scandall if we judge notwithstanding he that is judged take it not as a scandall For that judging is in it self a scandall is clear from ver 13. of this Chapter Let us not therefore saith S. Paul judge one another any more but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brothers way And thus we see four main Reasons against this judging of our brethren 1. We have no right to judge and so our judging is usurpation 2. We may erre in our judgements and so our judging is rashnesse 3. We take things the worst way when we judge and so our judging is uncharitable 4. We offer occasion of offence by our judging and so our judging is scandalous Let not him therefore that eateth not judge him that eateth And so I have done with my Text in the general use of it wherein we have seen the two faults of despising and of judging our brethren laid open and the uglinesse of both discovered I now descend to make such Application as I promised both of the case and rules unto some differences and to some offences given and taken in our Church in point of Ceremony The Case ruled in my Text was of eating and not eating the Differences which some maintain in our Church are many in the particular as of kneeling and not kneeling wearing and not wearing crossing and not crossing c. But all these and most of the rest of them may be comprehended in grosse under the terms of conforming and not conforming Let us first compare the Cases that having found wherein they agree or disagree we may thereby judge how far S. Pauls advice in my Text ought to rule us for not despising for not judging one another There are four speciall things wherein if we compare this our Case with the Apostles in every of the four we shall find some agreement and some disparity also 1. The nature of the matter 2. The abilities of the persons 3. Their severall practise about the things and 4. Their mutuall carriage one towards another And first let us consider how the two Cases agree in each of these First the matter whereabout the eater and the not-eater differed in the case of the Romans was in the nature of it indifferent so it is between the conformer and not conformer in our Case As there fish and flesh and herbs were meerly indifferent such as might be eaten or not eaten without sin so here Cap and Surplis Crosse and Ring and the rest are things meerly indifferent such as in regard of their own nature may be used or not used without sin as being neither expresly commanded nor expresly forbidden in the Word of God Secondly the Persons agree For as there so here also some are strong in faith some weak
unclean of it self That is I stedfastly believe it is a most certain and undoubted truth Again at the two and twentieth verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hast thou faith have it to thy self before God that is art thou in thy conscience perswaded that thou maist lawfully partake any of the good creatures of God Let that perswasion suffice thee for the approving of thine own heart in the sight of God but trouble not the Church nor offend thy weaker brother by a needlesse and unseasonable ostentation of that thy knowledge Lastly in this three and twentieth verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of faith that is he that is not yet fully perswaded in his own mind that it is lawfull for him to eat some kinds of meats as namely swines flesh or bloodings and yet is drawn against his own judgement to eat thereof because he seeth others so to do or because he would be loth to undergo the taunts and jears of scorners or out of any other poor respect such a man is cast and condemned by the judgement of his own heart as a transgressor because he adventureth to do that which he doth not believe to be lawfull And then the Apostle proceeding ab hypothesi ad thesin immediately reduceth that particular case into a generall rule in these words For whatsoever is not of faith is sin By the processe of which his discourse it may appear that by Faith no other thing is here meant than such a perswasion of the mind and conscience as we have now declared and that the true purport and intent of these words is but thus much in effect Whosoever shall enterprise the doing of any thing which he verily believeth to be unlawfull or at leastwise is not reasonably well perswaded of the lawfulnesse of it let the thing be otherwise and in it self what it can be lawfull or unlawfull indifferent or necessary convenient or inconvenient it mattereth not to him it is a sin howsoever Which being the plain evident and undeniable purpose of these words I shall not need to spend any more breath either in the farther refutation of such conclusions as are mis-inferred hence which fall of themselves or in the farther Explication of the meaning of the Text which already appeareth but addresse my self rather to the application of it Wherein because upon this great principle may depend the resolution of very many Cases of Conscience which may trouble us in our Christian and holy walking it will not be unprofitable to proceed by resolving some of the most material doubts and questions among those which have occurred unto my thoughts by occasion of this Text in my meditations thereon First it may be demanded What power the Conscience hath to make a thing otherwise good and lawfull to become unlawfull and sinfull and whence it hath that power I answer First that it is not in the power of any mans judgement or conscience to alter the naturall condition of any thing whatsoever either in respect of quality or degree but that still every thing that was good remaineth good and every thing that was evil remaineth evil and that in the very same degree of good or evil as it was before neither better nor worse any mans particular judgement or opinion thereof notwithstanding For the differences between good and evil and the severall degrees of both spring from such conditions as are intrinsecall to the things themselves which no Outward respects and much lesse then mens opinions can vary He that esteemeth any creature unclean may defile himself but he cannot bring impurity upon that creature by such his estimation Secondly that mens judgements may make that which is good in its own nature the naturall goodnesse still remaining become evil to them in the use essentially good and quoad rem but quoad hominem and accidentally evil It is our Apostles own distinction in the fourteenth verse of this Chapter Nothing unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean unclean to him But then we must know withall that it holdeth not the other way Mens judgements or opinions although they may make that which is good in it self to become evil to them yet they cannot make that which is evill in it self to become good either in it self or to them If a man were verily perswaded that it were evil to ask his father blessing that mis-perswasion would make it become evil to him But if the same man should be as verily perswaded that it were good to curse his father or to deny him relief being an unbeliever that mis-perswasion could not make either of them become good to him Some that persecuted the Apostles were perswaded they did God good service in it It was Saint Pauls case before his conversion who verily thought in himself that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Iesus But those their perswasions would not serve to justifie those their actions Saint Paul confesseth himself to have been a persecutor and blasphemer and injurious for so doing although he followed the guidance of his own conscience therein and to have stood in need of mercy for the remission of those wicked acts though he did them ignorantly and out of zeal to the Law The reason of which difference is that which I touched in the beginning even because any one defect is enough to render an action evill and consequently a defect in the agent may do it though the substance of the action remain still as it was good but all conditions must concur to make an action good and consequently a right intention in the agent will not suffice thereunto so long as the substance of the action remaineth still as it was evill Thirdly that the Conscience hath this power over mens wils and actions by virtue of that unchangeable Law of God which he establisheth by an ordinance of nature in our first creation that the will of every man which is the fountain whence all our actions immediately flow should conforme it self to the judgement of the practique understanding or conscience as to its proper and immediate rule and yield it self to be guided thereby So that if the understanding through Errour point out a wrong way and the will follow it the fault is chiefly in the understanding for mis-guiding the will But if the understanding shew the right way and the will take a wrong then the fault is meerly in the will for not following that guide which GOD hath set over it It may be demanded secondly Whether or no in every particular thing we do an actuall consideration of the lawfulnesse and expediency thereof be so requisite as that for want thereof we should sinne in doing it The reason of the doubt is because otherwise how should it appeare to be of faith and Whatsoever is not of faith is sin I answer First that in
Title too I have said ye are Gods Psalm 82. If you be Gods why should you feare the faces of men This is Gods fashion he giveth grace to the humble but he resisteth the proud he exalteth the meek and lowly but he putteth the mighty out of their seats If you will deale answerably to that high name he hath put upon you and be indeed as Gods follow the example of God lift up the poore oppressed out of the mire and tumble downe the confidence of the mighty and proud oppressour when you receive the Congregation judge uprightly and feare not to say to the wicked be they never so great Lift not up your horne So shall you vindicate your selves from contempt so shall you preserve your persons and places from being baffelled and blurted by every lewd companion Courage in the Magistrate against these great ones especially is thirdly necessary in respect of the Offenders These wicked ones of whom Iob speaketh the longer teeth they have the deeper they bite and the stronger jawes they have the sorer they grinde and the greater power they have the more mischief they doe And therefore these great ones of all other would be well hampered and have their teeth filed their jawes broken their power curbed I say not the poore and the small should be spared when they offend good reason they should be punished with severity But you must remember I now speak of Courage and a little Courage will serve to bring under those that are under already So that if meane men scape unpunished when they transgresse it is oftner for want of care or conscience in the Magistrate then of Courage But here is the true triall of your Courage when you are to deale with these great ones men not inferiour to your selves perhaps your equalls yea and it may bee too your Magistracy set aside men much greater than your selves men great in place great in wealth in great favour that have great friends but withall that doe great harme Let it bee your honour that you dare bee just when these dare bee unjust and when they dare smite others with the fist of violence that you dare smite them with the sword of justice and that you dare use your power when they dare abuse theirs All Transgressours should be looked unto but more the greater and the greatest most as a Sheepherd should watch his Sheep even from Flyes and Maukes but much more from Foxes most of all from Wolves Sure hee is a sorry Sheepherd that is busie to kill Flyes and Maukes in his Sheepe but letteth the Wolfe worry at pleasure Why one Wolfe will doe more mischief in a night than a thousand of them in a twelve-moneth And as sure he is a sorry Magistrate that stocketh and whippeth and hangeth poor Sneaks when they offend though that is to be done too but letteth the great theeves doe what they list and dareth not meddle with them like Saul who when God commanded him to destroy all the Amalekites both man and beast slew indeed the rascality of both but spared the greatest of the men and the fattest of the cattell and slew them not The good Magistrate should rather with Iob here break the jawes of the wicked and in spight of his heart pluck the spoile out of his teeth Thus have you heard the four duties or properties of a good Magistrate contained in this Scripture with the grounds and reasons of most of them opened They are 1. a love and zeal to justice 2. Compassion to the poor and distressed 3. Paines and Patience in examination of causes 4. Stoutnesse and Courage in execution of justice The uses and inferences of all these yet remaine to be handled now in the last place and altogether All which for order and brevities sake we will reduce unto three heads accordingly as from each of the foure mentioned Duties or Properties or Rules call them which you will there arise Inferences of three sorts First of Direction for the choyce and appointment of Magistrates according to these four properties â—econdly of Reproof for a just rebuke of such Magistrates as faile in any of these four Duties Thirdly of Exhortation to those that are or shall be Magistrates to carry themselves therein according to these four Rules Wherein what I shall speak of Magistrates ought also to be extended and applyed the due proportion ever observed to all kinds of officers whatsoever any way appertaining unto Iustice. And first for Directions Saint Paul saith The powers that are are ordained of God and yet Saint Peter calleth the Magistracy an humane ordinance Certainly the holy Spirit of God which speaketh in these two great Apostles is not contrary to it self The truth is the substance of the power of every Magistrate is the Ordinance of God and that is Saint Pauls meaning but the Specification of the circumstances thereto belonging as in regard of places persons titles continuance jurisdiction subordination and the rest is as Saint Peter termeth it an humane ordinance introduced by Custome or positive Law And therefore some kindes of Magistracy are higher some lower some annuall or for a set time some during life some after one manner some after another according to the severall Lawes or Customes whereon they are grounded As in other circumstances so in this concerning the deputation of the Magistrates person there is great difference some having their power by Succession others by Nomination and other some by Election As amongst us the supreme Magistrate the King hath his Power by succession some inferiour Magistrates theirs by nomination or speciall appointment either immediately or mediately from the King as most of our Iudges and Iustices some again by the elections and voices of the multitude as most Officers and Governours in our Cities Corporations or Colledges The Directions which I would inferre from my Text cannot reach the first kind because such Magistrates are born to us not chosen by us They do concern in some sort the second but most neerly the third kind viz. Those that are chosen by suffrages and voices and therefore unto this third kind onely I will apply them We may not think because our voices are our own that therefore we may bestow them as we list neither must we suffer our selves in a matter of this nature to be carried by favour faction spight hope feare importunity or any other corrupt and partiall respect from those Rules which ought to levell our choice But we must conferre our voices and our best furtherance otherwise upon those whom all things duly considered we conceive to be the fittest and the greater the place is and the more the power is we give unto them and from our selves the greater ought our care in voycing to be It is true indeed when we have used all our best care and proceeded with the greatest caution we can we may be deceived and make an unworthy choice For we cannot
judge of mens fitnesse by any demonstrative certainty all we can do is to go upon probabilities which can yield at the most but a conjecturall certainty full of uncertainty Men ambitious and in appetite till they have obtained their desires use to dissemble those vices which might make a stop in their preferments which having once gotten what they fished for they bewray with greater freedome and they use likewise to make a shew of that zeal and forwardnesse in them to do good which afterwards cometh to just nothing Absalom to steal away the hearts of the people though he were even then most unnaturally unjust in his purposes against a father and such a father yet he made shew of much compassion to the injured and of a great desire to do justice O saith he that I were made a Iudge in the Land that every man that hath any suite or cause might come unto me and I would do him justice And yet I doubt not but if things had so come to passe he would have been as bad as the worst When the Roman Souldiers had in a tumult proclaimed Galba Emperour they thought they had done a good dayes work every man promised himself so much good of the new Emperour But when he was in he proved no better than those that had been before him One giveth this censure of him Omnium consensu capax imperij nisi imperasset he had been a man in every mans judgement worthy to have been Emperour if he had not been Emperour and so shewed himself unworthy Magistratus indicat virum is a common saying and a true We may guesse upon likelyhoods what they will be when we choose them but the thing it self after they are chosen sheweth the certainty what they are But this uncertainty should be so farre from making us carelesse in our choice that it should rather adde so much the more to our care to put things so hazardous as neer as we can out of hazard Now those very Rules that must direct them to govern must direct us also to choose And namely an eye would be had to the four properties specified in my Text. The first a Zeal of Iustice and a Delight therein Seest thou a man carelesse of the common good one that palpably preferreth his own before the publick weale one that loveth his ease so well that he careth not which way things goe backward or forward so he may sit still and not be troubled one that would divide honorem ab onere be proud of the honour and title and yet loath to undergoe the envie and burthen that attendeth them set him aside Never think that mans robes will do well upon him A Iusticeship or other office would sit upon such a mans back as handsomely as Sauls armour did upon Davids unweildy and sagging about his shoulders so as he could not tell how to stirre and turn himself under it He is a fit man to make a Magistrate of that will put on righteousnesse as a garment and clothe himself with judgement as with a Robe and a Diadem The second property is Compassion on the poor Seest thou a man destitute of counsell and understanding a man of forlorne hopes or estate and in whom there is no help or one that having either counsell or help in him is yet a churle of either but especially one that is sore in his bargaines cruell in his dealings hard to his Tenants or an Oppressour in any kind Take none of him Sooner commit a flock of Sheep to a Wolf than a Magistracy or office of justice to an Oppressour Such a man is more likely to put out the eyes of him that seeth then to be eyes to the blind and to break the bones of the strong then to be legges to the lame and to turn the fatherlesse a begging then to be a Father to the poore The third property is Diligence to search out the truth Seest thou a man hasty and rash and heady in his own businesses a man impatient of delay or pains one that cannot conceale what is meet till it be seasonable to utter it but poureth out all his heart at once and before the time one that is easily possest with what is first told him or being once possest will not with any reason be perswaded to the contrary one that lendeth eare so much to some particular friend or follower as to believe any information from him not any but from him one that to be counted a man of dispatch loveth to make an end of a businesse before it be ripe suspect him He will scarce have the Conscience or if that yet not the wit or not the patience to search out the cause which he knoweth not The last Property is Courage to execute Seest thou a man first of a timorous nature and cowardly disposition or secondly of a wavering and fickle mind as we say of children wonne with an apple and lost with a nut or thirdly that is apt to be wrought upon or moulded into any forme with faire words friendly invitations or complementall glozes or fourthly that dependeth upon some great man whose vassall or creature he is or fifthly a taker and one that may be dealt withall for that is now the periphrasis of bribery or sixthly guilty of the same transgressions he should punish or of other as foul Never a man of these is for the turne not one of these will venture to break the jawes or tuskes of an oppressing Tygre or Boare and to pluck the spoile out of his teeth The timorous man is afraid of every shadow and if he do but heare of teeth he thinketh it is good sleeping in a whole skinne and so keepeth aloofe off for fear of biting The double minded man as Saint Iames saith is unstable in all his wayes he beginneth to do something in a sudden heat when the fit taketh him but before one jaw can be half broken he is not the man he was he is sorry for what is done and instead of breaking the rest falleth a binding up that which he hath broken and so seeketh to salve up the matter as well as he can and no hurt done The vain man that will be flattered so he get fair words himself he careth not who getteth foul blowes and so the beast will but now and then give him a lick with the tongue he letteth him use his teeth upon others at his pleasure The depending creature is charmed with a letter or message from his Lord or his honourable friend which to him is as good as a Supersede as or Prohibition The taker hath his fingers so oyled that his hand slippeth off when he should pluck away the spoyl and so he leaveth it undone The guilty man by no means liketh this breaking of jawes he thinketh it may be his own case another day You see when you are to chuse Magistrates here is refuse enough to be
than they the great God of heaven and earth hath reposed in you and expecteth from you Chastise him with severe indignation if he begin and if he continue spit defiance in his face who ere he be that shall think you so base as to sell your freedome for a bribe Gird your sword upon your thigh keeping your selves ever within the compass of your Commissions and Callings as the Sun in the Zodiack go through stitch right on in the course of Iustice as the Sun in the firmament with unresisted violence and as a Giant that rejoyceth to run his race and who can stop him Bear not the sword in vain but let your right hand teach you terrible things Defend the poor and fatherless and deliver the oppressed from them that are mightier then he Smite through the loyns of those that rise up to do wrong that they rise not again Break the jaws of the wicked and pluck the spoyl out of his teeth Thus if you do the wicked shall fear you the good shall blesse you the poor shall pray for you posterity shall praise you your own hearts shall chear you and the great God of Heaven shall reward you This that you may do in some good measure the same God of Heaven enable you and give you and every of us grace in our severall places and callings to seek his glory and to endeavour the discharge of a good conscience To which God blessed for ever Father Sonne and Holy Ghost three Persons and one eternall invisible and onely wise God be ascribed all the Kingdome Power and Glory for ever and ever AMEN AD MAGISTRATUM The Second Sermon At the Assises at Lincoln 7 March 1624. at the request of William Lister Esq then high Sheriff of the County EXOD. 23. ver 1. 3. 1. Thou shalt not raise a false report put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness 2. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgement 3. Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause THere is no one thing Religion ever excepted that more secureth and adorneth the State than Iustice doth It is both Columna and Corona Reipublicae as a Prop to make it subsist firm in it selfe and as a Crown to render it glorious in the eyes of others As the Cement in a building that holdeth all together so is Iustice to the publick Body as whereunto it oweth a great part both of its strength for by it the throne is established in the sixteenth and of its height too for it exalteth a Nation in the 14th of the Proverbs As then in a Building when for want of good looking to the Morter getting wet dissolveth and the wals belly out the house cannot but settle apace and without speedy repaires fall to the ground so there is not a more certain symptome of a declining and decaying and tottering State than is the generall dissolution of manners for want of the due execution and administration of Iustice. The more cause have we that are Gods Ministers by frequent exhortations admonitions obsecrations expostulations even out of season sometimes but especially upon such seasonable opportunities as this to be instant with all them that have any thing to do in matters of Iustice but especially with you who are Gods Ministers too though in another kind you who are in Commission to sit upon the Bench of judicature either for Sentence or Assistance to do your God and King service to do your Country and Calling honour to do your selves and others right by advancing to the utmost of your powers the due course of Iustice. Wherein as I verily think none dare but the guilty so I am well assured none can justly mislike in us the choice either of our Argument that we beat upon these things or of our Method that we begin first with you For as we cannot be perswaded on the one side but that we are bound for the discharge of our duties to put you in mind of yours so we cannot be perswaded on the other side but that if there were generally in the greater ones that care and conscience and zeal there ought to be of the common good a thousand corruptions rife among inferiours would be if not wholly reformed at leastwise practised with lesse connivence from you confidence in them grievance to others But right and reason will that every man bear his own burthen And therefore as we may not make you innocent if you be faulty by transferring your faults upon others so far be it from us to impute their faults to you otherwise then as by not doing your best to hinder them you make them yours For Iustice we know is an Engine that turneth upon many hinges And to the exercise of judicature besides the Sentence which is properly yours there are diverse other things required Informations and Testimonies and Arguings and Inquests and sundry Formalities which I am neither able to name nor yet covetous to learne wherein you are to rest much upon the faithfulnesse of other men In any of whom if there be as sometimes there will be foul and unfaithfull dealing such as you either cannot spie or cannot help wrong sentence may proceed from out your lips without your fault As in a curious Watch or Clock that moveth upon many wheeles the finger may point a wrong hour though the wheel that next moveth it be most exactly true if but some little pinne or notch or spring be out of order in or about any of the baser and inferiour wheels What he said of old Non fieri potest quin Principes etiam valde boni iniqua faciant was then and ever since and yet is and ever will be most true For say a Iudge be never so honestly minded never so zealous of the truth never so carefull to do right yet if there be a spitefull Accuser that will suggest any thing or an audacious Witnesse that will sweare any thing or a crafty Pleader that will maintain any thing or a tame Iury that will swallow any thing or a craving Clerk or Officer that for a bribe will foist in any thing the Iudge who is tyed as it is meet he should to proceed secundum allegata probata cannot with his best care and wisdome prevent it but that sometimes justice shall be perverted innocency oppressed and guilty ones justified Out of which consideration I the rather desired for this Assise-Assembly to choose a Text as neer as I could of equall latitude with the Assise-Businesse For which purpose I could not readily think of any other portion of Scripture so proper and full to meet with all sorts of persons and all sorts of abuses as these three verses are Is there either Calumny in the Accuser or Perjury in the Witnesse or Supinity in the Iurer or
more to expresse their sorrow lay grovelling upon the Earth mourning and sorrowing for their sin and for the Plague it could not be but the bold lewdnesse of Zimri in bringing his strumpet with such impudence before their noses must needs adde much to the grief and bring fresh vexation to the soules of all that were righteous among them But the rest continued though with double grief yet in the same course of humiliation and in the same posture of body as before Onely Phinehes burning with an holy indignation thought it was now no time to sit still weept but rowzing up himself and his spirits with zeal as hot as fire he stood up from the place where he was and made haste to execute judgement Here is a rich example for all you to imitate whom it doth concern I speak not onely nor indeed so much to you the Honourable and reverend Iudge of this Circuit of whose zeal to do justice and judgment I am by so much the better perswaded by how much the eminency of your place and the weight of your charge and the expectation of the people doth with greater importunity exact it at your hands But I speak withall and most especially to all you that are in Commission of the Peace and whose daily and continuall care it should be to see the wholesome lawes of the Realme duly and seasonably executed Yea and to all you also that have any office appertaining to justice or any businesse about these Courts so as it may lie in you to give any kind of furtherance to the speeding either of Iustice in Civil or of judgement in Criminall causes Look upon the zeal of Phinehes observe what approbation it had from God what a blessing it procured to his seed after him what glorious renown it hath won him with all after-ages what ease it did and what good it wrought for the present state and think if it be not worthy your imitation It is good saith the Apostle to be zealously affected alwaies in a good thing And is it not a good thing to do justice and to execute judgement nay Religion excepted and the care of that is a branch of justice too do you know any better thing any thing you can do more acceptable to God more serviceable to the State more comfortable to your own soules If you be called to the Magistracie it is your own businesse as the proper work of your calling and men account him no wiser then he should be that sluggeth in his own businesse or goeth heartlesly about it It is the Kings businesse who hath entrusted you with it and he is scarce a good subject that slacketh the Kings businesse or doth it to the halves Nay it is the Lords businesse for Ye judge not for man but for the Lord who is with you in the cause and in the judgement and Cursed is he that doth the Lords businesse negligently That you may therefore do all under one your own businesse and the Kings businesse and the Lords businesse with that zeal and forwardnesse which becometh you in so weighty an affaire lay this pattern before your eyes and hearts See what Phinehes did and thereby both examine what hitherto you have done and learn what henceforth you should do First Phinehes doth not post off the matter to others the fervency of his zeal made him willing to be himself the Actor He harboured no such cool thoughts as too many Magistrates do Here is a shamefull crime committed by a shamelesse person and in a shamelesse manner pitty such an audacious offender should go unpunished My heart riseth against him and much adoe I have to refrain from being my self his executioner rather then he should carry it away thus But why should I derive the envy of the fact upon my self and but gain the imputation of a busie officious fellow in being more forward then others A thousand more saw it as well as I whom it concerneth as neerly as it doth me and if none of them will stirre in it why should I Doubtlesse my uncle Moses and my father Eleazar and they that are in place of authority will not let it passe so but will call him to account for it and give him condigne punishment If I should do it it would be thought but the attempt of a rash young fellow It will be better discretion therefore to forbear and to give my betters leave to go before me Such pretentions as these would have kept off Phinehes from this noble exploit if he had been of the temper of some of ours who owe it to nothing so much as their lukewarmnesse that they have at least some reputation of being moderate and discreet men But true zeal is more forward then mannerly and will not lose the opportunity of doing what it ought for waiting till others begin Alas if every man should be so squeamish as many are nothing at all would be done And therefore the good Magistrate must consider not what others do but what both he and they are in conscience bound to do and though there should be many more joyned with him in the same common care and with equall power yet he must resolve to take that common affaire no otherwise into his speciall care then if he were left alone therein and the whole burden lay upon his shoulders As when sundry persons are so bound in one common bond for the payment of one entire summe conjunctim divisim every one per se in toto in solidum that every particular person by himself is as well liable to the payment of the whole as they altogether are Admit loose or idle people for who can hold their tongues shall for thy diligence say thou art an hard and austere man or busiest thy self more then thou hast thank for thy labour First that man never cared to do well that is afraid to hear ill He that observeth the wind saith Salomon shall not sow and the words especially of idle people are no better Secondly He maketh an ill purchase that forgoeth the least part of his duty to gain a little popularity the breath of the people being but a sorry plaster for a wounded conscience Thirdly what a man by strict and severe execution of Iustice loseth in the breadth he commonly gaineth it all and more in the weight and in the length of his Credit A kind quiet Man that carrieth it for the present and in the voice of the multitude but it is more solid and the more lasting praise to be reputed in the opinion of the better and the wiser sort a Iust man and a good Patriot or Common-wealths-man Fourthly if all should condemn thee for that wherein thou hast done but well thy comfort is thine own conscience shall bestead thee more then a thousand witnesses and stand for thee against ten thousand tongues at that last day when the hearts
the evil upon his house Wherein we shall be occasioned to enquire how the first of these may stand with Gods holiness the second with his Truth the third with his Iustice And first of Ahabs humiliation Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me This Ahab was King of Israel that is King over those ten Tribes which revolted from Rehoboam the Son of Salomon and clave to Ieroboam the son of Nebat Search the whole sacred story in the Books of Kings and Chronicles and unless we will be so very charitable as notwithstanding many strong presumptions of his Hypocrisie to exempt Iehu the son of Nimshi and that is but one of twenty we shall not find in the whole List and Catalogue of the Kings of Israel one good one that clave unto the Lord with an upright heart Twenty Kings of Israel and not one or but one good and yet than this Ahab of the twenty scarce one worse It is said in the sixteenth Chapter of this Book that Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him at verse 30. and at verse 33. that He did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the Kings of Israel that were before him and at verse 25. of this Chapter that There was none like unto Ahab which did sell himself to work wickednesse in the sight of the Lord. An Oppressour he was and a Murderer and an Idolater and a Persecuter of that holy Truth which God had plentifully revealed by his Prophets and powerfully confirmed by Miracles and mercifully declared by many gracious deliverances even to him in such manner as that he could not but know it to be the Truth and therefore an Hypocrite and in all likelyhood an obstinate sinner against the holy Ghost and a Cast-away This is Ahab this the man But what is his carriage what doth he he humbleth himself before the Lord. Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me The manner and occasion of his humbling is set down a little before at V. 27. And it came to passe when Ahab heard those words the words of Eliah the Prophet dealing plainly and roundly with him for his hatefull Oppression and Murther That he rent his cloathes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly And that is the humbling here spoken and allowed of and for which God here promiseth that he will not bring the evill in his dayes Lay all this together the man and his ill conditions and his present carriage with the occasion and successe of it and it offereth three notable things to our consideration See first how far an Hypocrite a Cast-away may go in the outward performance of holy duties and particularly in the practice of Repentance here is Ahab humbled such a man and yet so penitent See again secondly how deep Gods word though in the mouth but of weak instruments when he is pleased to give strength unto it pierceth into the consciences of obstinate sinners and bringeth the proudest of them upon their knees in despight of their hearts here is Ahab quelled by Eliah such a great one by such a weak one See yet again thirdly how prone God is to mercy and how ready to apprehend any advantage as it were and occasion to shew compassion here is Ahab humbled and his judgement adjourned such a real substantial favour and yet upon such an empty shadow of Repentance Of these three at this time in their order and of the first first An Hypocrite may go very farre in the outward performances of holy duties For the right conceiving of which assertion Note first that I speak not now of the common graces of Illumination and Edification and good dexterity for the practising of some particular Calling which gifts with sundry other like are oftentimes found even in such apparently wicked and prophane men as have not so much as the form much lesse the power of Godlinesse but I speak even of those Graces which de tota specie if they be true and sincere are the undoubted blessed fruits of Gods holy renewing Spirit of sanctification such as are Repentance Faith Hope Ioy Humility Patience Temperance Meeknesse Zeal Reformation c. in such as these Hypocrites may go very farr as to the outward semblance and performance Note secondly that I speak not of the inward power and reality of these graces for Cast-aways and Hypocrites not having union with God by a lively faith in his Son nor communion with him by the effectual working of his Spirit have no part nor fellowship in these things which are proper to the chosen and called of God and peculiar to those that are his peculiar people but I speak only of the outward performances and exercises of such actions as may seem to flow from such spiritual graces habitually rooted in the heart when as yet they may spring also and when they are found in unregenerate men do so spring from Nature perhaps moralized or otherwise restrained but yet unrenewed by saving and sanctifying grace Note thirdly that when I say an Hypocrite may go very farre in such outward performances by the Hypocrite is meant not only the grosse or formal Hypocrite but every natural and unregenerate man including also the Elect of God before their effectual calling and conversion as also Reprobates and Cast-awayes for the whole time of their lives all of which may have such fair semblances of the forenamed Graces and of other like them as not only others who are to judge the best by the Law of Charity but themselves also through the wretched deceitfulnesse of their own wicked and corrupt hearts may mistake for those very graces they resemble The Parable of the seed sown in the stony ground may serve for a full both declaration and proof hereof which seed is said to have sprouted forth immediately Springing up forthwith after it was sown but yet never came to good but speedily withered away because for want of deepnesse of earth it had not moysture enough to feed it to any perfection of growth and ripenesse And that branch of the Parable our blessed Saviour himself in his exposition applieth to such hearers as When they hear the Word immediately receive it with gladnesse and who so forward as they to repent and believe and reform their lives but yet all that forwardnesse cometh to nothing they endure but for a short time Because they have no root in themselves but want the sap and moysture of Grace to give life and lasting to those beginnings and imperfect offers and essayes of goodnesse they made shew of Here are good affections to see to unto the good word of God they receive it with joy it worketh not only upon their judgements but it seemeth also to rejoice yea after a sort to ravish their hearts
cold to his heart and the Text saith He went away sorrowfull And ever mark it in something or other the Hypocrite bewrayeth himself what he is if not to the observation of others yet at least sufficiently for the conviction of his own heart if he would not be wanting to himself in the due search and triall of his heart A mans bloud riseth when he heareth a stranger swear an Oath but if the same man can hear his prentice lye and equivocate and cosen and never moove at it let him not be too brag of his zeal his coldnesse here discovereth the other to have been but a false fire and a fruit not of true zeal but of Hypocrisie A Iesuite maketh scruple of disclosing an intended treason revealed to him in confession but he maketh no bones of laying a powder-plot or contriving the Murther of an annointed King A Pharisee is very precise in Tithing Mint and Cummin but balketh justice and mercy One straineth at a Gnat and swalloweth a Camel maketh conscience of some petty sinnes neglecting greater Another casteth out a beam but feeleth not a moat maketh conscience of some greater sinnes neglecteth smaller Shame of the world the cry of people maketh him forbear some sins an eye had to his own private and secret ends other some fear of temporal punishment or it may be eternall other some hope of some advantage another way as in his credit profit c. other some the terrours of an affrighted conscience other some but if in the mean time there be no care nor scruple nor forbearance of other sins where there appeareth no hinderance from these or the like respects all is naught all is but counterfeit and damnable hypocrisie The rule never faileth Quicquid propter Deum fit aequaliter fit True obedience as it disputeth not the command but obeyeth cheerfully so neither doth it divide the command but obeyeth equally David had wanted one main assurance of the uprightnesse of his heart if he had not had an equal and universal Respect to all Gods Commandements That is the first note of Sincerity Integrity The other is Constancy continuance or lasting The seeming Graces of Hypocrites may be as forward and impetuous for the time as the true Graces of the sincere believer nay more forward oftentimes as in the stony ground the seed sprang up so much the sooner by how much it had the lesse depth of earth But the very same cause that made it put up so soon made it wither again as soon even because it wanted deepnesse of earth So the Hypocrite when the fit taketh him he is all on the spurre there is no way with him but a new man he will become out of hand yea that he will Momento turbinis But he setteth on too violently to hold out long this reformation ripeneth too fast to be right spiritual fruit As an horse that is good at hand but naught at length so is the Hypocrite free and fiery for a spurt but he jadeth and tyreth in a journey But true grace all to the contrary as it ripeneth for the most part by leisure so it ever lasteth longer as Philosophers say of Habits that as they are gotten hardly so they are not lost easily We heard but now that the Faith Repentance Reformation Obedience Ioy sorrow Zeal and other the graces and affections of Hypocrites had their first motion and issue from false and erroneous grounds as Shame Fear Hope and such respects And it thence cometh to passe that where these respects cease which gave them motion the graces themselves can no more stand than a House can stand when the foundation is taken from under it The Boy that goeth to his book no longer than his Master holdeth the rod over him the Masters back once turned away goeth the Book and he to play and right so is it with the Hypocrite Take away the rod from Pharaoh and he will be old Pharaoh still And Ahab here in this Chap. thus humbled before God at the voice of his Prophet this fit once past we see in the next Chap. regardeth neither God nor Prophet but through unbelief disobeyeth God and imprisoneth the Prophet Now then here is a wide difference between the Hypocrite and the godly man The one doth all by fits and by starts and by sudden motions and flashes whereas the other goeth on fairly and soberly in a setled constant regular course of humiliation and obedience Aristotle hath excellently taught us to distinguish between colours that arise from passion and from complexion The one he saith is scarce worth the name of a Quality or colour because it scarce giveth denomination to the subject wherein it is If Socrates be of a pale or an high-coloured complexion to the question Qualis est Socrates What a like man is Socrates it may be fitly answered saith Aristotle that he is a pale man or that he is an high-coloured man But when a man of another complexion is yet pale for fear or anger or red with blushing we do not use to say neither can we say properly that he is a pale man or a high-coloured man Accordingly we are to pronounce of those good things that sometimes appear in Hypocrites We call them indeed Graces and we do well because they seem to be such and because we in Charity are to hope that they be such as they seem but they are in true judgement nothing lesse than true graces neither should they indeed if we were able to discern the falsenesse of them give denomination to those Hypocrites in whom they are found For why should a man from a sudden and short fit of Repentance or Zeal or Charity or Religion be called a Penitent or a Zealous or a Charitable or a Religious man more than a man for once or twice blushing an high-coloured man Then are Graces true when they are habitual and constant and equal to themselves That is the second Note Constancy I will not trouble you with other Notes besides these Do but lay these two together and they will make a perfect good Rule for us to judge our own hearts by and to make tryall of the sincerity of those good things that seem to be in us Measure them not by the present heat for that may be as much perhaps more in an hypocrite than in a true believer but by their Integrity and Constancy A man of a cold complexion hath as much heat in a sharp fit of an Ague as he that is of a hot constitution and in health and more too his bloud is more enflamed and he burneth more But whether do you think is the more kindly heat that which cometh from the violence of a Fever or that which ariseth from the condition of a mans Temper No man maketh doubt of it but this is the more kindly though that may be more sensible and intense Well then a man
findeth himself hot in his body and fain he would know whether it be Calor praeter naturam or no whether a kindly and naturall heat or else the fore-runner or symptome of some disease There is no better way to come to that knowledge than by these two Notes Universality and Constancy First for Vniversality Physicians say of heat and sweat and such like things Vniversalia salutaria partialia ex morbo If a man be hot in one part and cold in another as if the palms of his hands burn and the soles of his feet be cold then all is not right but if he be of an indifferent equal heat all over that is held a good sign of health Then for Constancy and Lasting if the heat come by fits and starts and paroxysms leaping eftsoones and suddenly out of one extreme into another so as the party one while gloweth as hot as fire another while is chill and cold as ice and keepeth not at any certain stay that is an ill sign too and it is to be feared there is an Ague either bred or in breeding but if he continue at some reasonable certainty and with in a good mediocrity of heat and cold it is thought a good sign of health As men judge of the state of their bodies by the like rule judge thou of the state of thy soul. First for integrity and universality Is thy Repentance thy Obedience thy Zeal thy Hatred of sin other graces in thee Vniversal equally bent upon all good equally set against all evill things it is a good sign of Grace and Sanctification in the heart But if thou repentest of one sin and persistest in another if thou obeyest one commandement and breakest another if thou art zealous in one point and cool in another if thou hatest one vice and lovest another flatter not thy self too much thou hast reason to suspect all is not sound within Then for Continuance and Lasting I deny not but in case of prevailing temptations the godly may have sometimes uncomfortable and fearfull intermissions in the practice of godlinesse which yet make him not altogether Gracelesse as a man may have sometimes little distempers in his body through mis-dyet or otherwise and yet not be heart-sick or greater distempers too sometimes to make him sick and yet be heart-whole But yet if for the most part and in the ordinary constant course of thy life thou hast the practice of repentance and obedience and other fruits of grace in some good comfortable measure it is a good sign of Grace and Sanctification in the heart But if thou hast these things only by fits and starts and sudden moods and art sometimes violently hot upon them other sometimes again and oftner key cold presume not too much upon shewes but suspect thy self still of Hypocrisie and Insincerity and never cease by repentance and prayer and the constant exercise of other good graces to Physick and Dyet thy soul till thou hast by Gods goodness put thy self into some reasonable assurance that thou art the true child of God a sincere believer and not an Hypocrite as Ahab here notwithstanding all this his solemn humiliation was Here is Ahab an Hypocrite and yet humbled before the Lord. But yet now this humiliation such as it was what should work it in him That we find declared at verse 27. And it came to passe that when Ahab heard these words c. There came to him a message from God by the hand of Eliah and that was it that humbled him Alas what was Eliah to Ahab a silly plain Prophet to a mighty King that he durst thus presume to rush boldly and unsent-for into the presence of such a potent Monarch who had no lesse power and withall more colour to take away his life than Naboth's and that when he was in the top of his jollity solacing himself in the new-taken possession of his new-gotten Vineyard and there to his face charge him plainly with and shake him up roundly for and denounce Gods judgements powerfully against his bloudy abominable oppressions We would think a Monarch nusled up in Idolatry and accustomed to bloud and hardened in Sinne and Obstinacy should not have brooked that insolency from such a one as Eliah was but have made his life a ransome for his sawcinesse And yet behold the words of this underling in comparison how they fall like thunder upon the great guilty offender and strike palsie into his knees and trembling into his joynts and tumble him from the height of his jollity and roll him in sack-cloth and ashes and cast him into a strong fit of legal humiliation Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me And here now cometh in our second Observation even the power of Gods word over the Consciences of obstinate sinners powerfull to Cast down strong holds and every high thought that exalteth it self against God That which in Heb. 4. if I mistake not the true understanding of that place is spoken of the Essential word of God the second Person in the ever-blessed Trinity is also in some analogie true of the revealed word of God the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles that it is Quick and powerfull and more cutting than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit and of the joynts and marrow Is not my word like as a fire saith the Lord and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces Ierem. 23. Like a soft fire to dissolve and melt the hearts of relenting sinners and true converts but like a strong hammer to batter and break in pieces the rocky and flinty consciences of obstinate and hardened offenders Examples hereof if you require behold in the stories of the Kings Saul whining when Samuel reproveth him in the books of the Prophets the Ninivites drooping when Ionas threatneth them in the Acts of the Apostles Felix trembling when Paul discourseth before him in the Martyrologies of the Church Tyrants and bloudy Persecutors maskered at the bold confessions of the poor suffering Christians in this Chapter proud Ahab mourning when Eliah telleth him his sin and foretelleth him his punishment Effects which might justly seem strange to us if the Causes were not apparent One Cause and the Principal is in the instrument the Word not from any such strength in it self for so it is but a dead letter but because of Gods Ordinance in it For in his hands are the hearts and the tongues and the eares both of Kings and Prophets and he can easily when he seeth it good put the spirit of zeal and of power into the heart of the poorest Prophet and as easily the spirit of fear and of terrour into the heart of the greatest King He chooseth weak Instruments as here Eliah and yet furnisheth them with power to effect great matters that so the glory might not rest upon the instrument but redound wholly to him
thy tongue the lye and to convince thee to thy face And if thou hast why then doest thou not readily acknowledge the voice of God in it having felt in it that lively power and efficacy which it is not possible any device of the wit of man should have Take heed then how thou doest traduce or despise or but undervalue that upon any seeming pretence whatsoever for which thou hast such a strong witnesse in thine own heart from the experience of the unresisted power of it that it is indeed the word of God and not the breath of sinfull man Felix trembled at it Ahab was humbled by it the one an Atheist the other an Hypocrite thou art worse than either Atheist or Hypocrite if it work not at least as much upon thee Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself at the voice of the Prophet From Ahab's Humiliation and the Occasion thereof passe we now to consider in the last place the Successe of it Ahab is humbled at the Prophets denouncing of judgement against him and God hence taketh occasion to be so gracious to Ahab as though not wholly to remove yet to suspend and adjourn the judgement for a time Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his dayes c. And here must Gods Holinesse be brought unto a tryal before the barr of carnal reason if by any means it can justifie it self God hateth the works of Hypocrites he loatheth even sacrifices without mercy his soul cannot away with the oblations and new-Moons and solemn Feasts of men that have their hands full of bloud no not though they make many prayers and tender them with behaviour of greatest devotion stretching out their hands towards heaven and afflicting their souls with fasting and hanging down their heads as Bulrushes with pensivenesse but even their best sacrifices and confessions and prayers and humiliations are an abomination unto him so far from appeasing his wrath against other sins as that they provoke his yet farther displeasure against themselves Such is the Holinesse of our God such the purity of his nature with which holinesse and purity how can it stand to accept and reward as here he seemeth to do the counterfeit humiliation of such a wretched Hypocrite as we now suppose Ahab to be For the clearing of this difficulty first let it be granted which I take to be a certain truth and for any thing I know never yet gain-said by any that Ahab not only before and after but even in the act and at the instant of this humiliation was an Hypocrite Let it be granted secondly which is the thing urged in the doubt that this humiliation of his being performed but in hypocrisie was not acceptable to God as a good work but abominable before him as a foul sinne But yet withall it must be granted thirdly that although Ahab did not well in not being humbled with an upright heart yet he had done much worse if he had not been humbled at all and that therefore there was though no true spiritual goodnesse yet some outward moral goodnesse in Ahab's humiliation at least so far forth as a thing lesse evil may in comparison of a worser thing be termed good And then are we to know fourthly that it may stand with Gods holinesse as it doth with his goodnesse and justice to reward outward good things with outward good things and moral and temporary graces with worldly and temporal blessings as here he rewardeth Ahab's temporary and external humiliation with an outward temporal favour viz. the adjourning of an outward temporal judgement That which hence we would observe is That God rewardeth sometimes common graces with common favours temporary obedience with temporal beneficence This is proved unto us first from the general course of Gods justice and his promise grounded upon that justice to reward every man according to his works To which justice of his and to which promise of his it is agreeable as to recompence Spiritual good things with Eternal so to recompence Moral good things with temporal rewards 2. From special expresse warrant of Scripture In Mat. 6. Christ saith of Hypocrites more than once that they have their reward As in the doing of their seeming good works they aim especially at the vain praise commendation of men so they have the full reward of those works in the vain praise and commendation of men Though they have no right unto nor reason to look for a reward hereafter in heaven yet they have their reward such as it is and all they are like to have here upon earth 3. From particular examples of such as have been temporally rewarded for temporal graces To omit Heathens as viz. Aristides Cyrus c. for Justice Bias Diogenes c. for contempt of the world Codrus Regulus c. for love of their countrey and zeal to the common good and sundry others for other good things whose moral vertues are herein amply rewarded if there were nothing else but this that their names and memories have been preserved in Histories and renowned throughout the world in all succeeding generations I say to to omit these Heathens we have examples in Scripture of Ahab here of Iehu of the Ninivites of others elsewhere who for their temporary obedience zeal repentance and the like were rewarded partly by temporal blessings upon themselves and their posterity partly by the removal or adjournal of temporal punishments which otherwise had speedily overtaken them Fourthly from the greater to the lesse God sometimes temporally rewardeth the services of such men as are but bruta instrumenta brute instruments of his will and providence such as are imployed by him for the bringing about of his most holy and secret purposes Citra rationem finis aut eorum quae ad finem in the doing of such things as they doe without the least mixture in their own purpose and intent of any respect at all to God or his ends but meerly for the satisfying of their own corrupt lusts and the atchieving of their own private ends A notable example whereof we have in Gods dealing with Nebuchadnezzar in Ezek. 29. where the word of the Lord cometh to Ezekiel saying Sonne of man Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus every head was made bald and every shoulder was peeled yet had he no wages nor his army for Tyrus for the service that he had served against it Therefore thus saith the Lord God behold I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and he shall take her multitude and it shall be wages for his army I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against Tyrus because they wrought for me saith the Lord God In which place we see Egypt is given to Nebuchadnezzar as a
it for his time I will not bring the evil in his dayes As if God had said This wretched King hath provoked me and pulled down a curse from me upon his house which it were but just to bring upon him and it without farther delay yet because he made not a scoff at my Prophet but took my words something to heart and was humbled by them he shall not say but I will deal mercifully with him and beyond his merit as ill as he deserveth it I will do him this favour I will not bring the evil that is determined against his house in his dayes The thing I would observe hence is That When God hath determined a judgement upon any people family or place it is his great mercy to us if he do not let us live to see it It cannot but be a great grief I say not now to a religious but even to any soul that hath not quite cast off all natural affection to forethink and foreknow the future calamities of his countrey and kindred Xerxes could not forbear weeping beholding his huge army that followed him onely to think that within some few scores of years so many thousands of proper men would be all dead and rotten and yet that a thing that must needs have happened by the necessity of nature if no sad accident or common calamity should hasten the accomplishment of it The declination of a Common-wealth and the funeral of a Kingdome foreseen in the general corruption of manners and decay of discipline the most certain symtomes of a totering State have fetched teares from the eyes and bloud from the hearts of heathen men zealously affected to their Countrey How much more grief then must it needs be to them that acknowledge the true God not only to foreknow the extraordinary plagues and miseries and calamities which shall befall their posterity but also to fore-read in them Gods fierce wrath and heavy displeasure and bitter vengeance against their own sins and the sins of their posterity Our blessed Saviour though himself without sinne and so no way accessory to the procuring of the evils that should ensue could not yet but Weep over the City of Ierusalem when he beheld the present security and the future ruine thereof A grief it is then to know these things shall happen but some happinesse withall and to be acknowledged as a great favour from God to be assured that we shall never see them It is no small mercy in him it is no small Comfort to us if either he take us away before his judgements come or keep his judgements away till we be gone When God had told Abraham in Gen. 15. that his seed should be a stranger in a land that was not theirs meaning Egypt where they should be kept under and afflicted 400 years lest the good Patriarch should have been swallowed up with grief at it he comfortteth him as with a promise of their glorious deliverance at the last so with a promise also of prosperity to his own person and for his own time But thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace and shalt be buried in a good old age vers 15. In Esay 39. when Hezekiah heard from the mouth of the Prophet Esaiah that all the treasures in the Lords house should be carried into Babylon and that his sonnes whom he should beget should be taken away and made Eunuches in the palace of the King of Babylon he submitted himself as it became him to do to the sentence of God and comforted himself with this that yet there should be peace and truth in his dayes verse 8. In 4 Kings 22. when Huldah had prophesied of the evil that God would bring upon the City of Ierusalem and the whole land of Iudah in the name of the Lord she pronounceth this as a courtesie from the Lord unto good King Iosiah Because thy heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy fathers and thou shalt be gathered unto thy grave in peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place verse last Indeed every man should have and every good man hath an honest care of posterity would rejoyce to see things setled well for them would grieve to see things likely to go ill with them That common speech which was so frequent with Tiberius was monstrous and not favouring of common humanity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When I am gone let Heaven and Earth be jumbled again into their old Chaos but he that mended it with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea saith he whilest I live seemeth to have renounced all that was man in him Aristotle hath taught us better what reason taught him that Res posterorum pertinent ad defunctos the good or evil of those that come after us doth more than nothing concern us when we are dead and gone This is true but yet Proximus egomet mî though it were the speech of a Shark in the Comedy will bear a good construction Every man is neerest to himself and that Charity which looketh abroad and seeketh not only her own yet beginneth at home and seeketh first her own Whence it is that a godly man as he hath just cause to grieve for posterities sake if they must feel Gods judgements so he hath good cause to rejoyce for his own sake if he shall escape them and he is no lesse to take knowledge of Gods Mercy in sparing him than of his Iustice in striking them This point is usefull many ways I will touch but some of them and that very briefly First here is one Comfort among many other against the bitternesse of temporal death If God cut thee off in the middest of thy days and best of thy strength if death turn thee pale before age have turned thee gray if the flower be plucked off before it begin to wither grudge not at thy lot therein but meet Gods Messenger cheerfully and imbrace him thankfully It may be God hath some great work in hand from which he meaneth to save thee It may be he sendeth death to thee as he sent his Angel to Lot to pluck thee out of the middest of a froward and crooked generation and to snatch thee away lest a worse thing than death should happen unto thee Cast not therefore a longing eye back upon Sodome neither desire to linger in the plain it is but a valley of tears and misery but up to the mountain from whence commeth thy salvation lest some evil overtake thee Possibly that which thou thinkest an untimely death may be to thee a double advantage a great advantage in ushering thee so early into GODS glorious presence and some advantage too in plucking thee so seasonably from Gods imminent Iudgements It is a favour to be taken away betimes when evil is determined upon those that are left
Secondly here is a Warning for us to take consideration of the losse of good or usefull men and to fear when they are going from us that some evil is comming towards us The Prophet complaineth of the too great and general neglect hereof in his times The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart and mercifull men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Esa. 57. When God sendeth his Angel to pluck out his righteous Loâ—s what may Sodome expect but fire and brimstone to be rained down upon them When he plucketh up the fairest and choicest flowers in his garden and croppeth off the tops of the goodliest poppies who can think other than that he meaneth to lay his garden waste and to turn it into a wild wildernesse when he undermineth the main pillars of the house taketh away the very props and buttresses of Church and Common-weal sweepeth away religious Princes wise Senatours zealous Magistrates painfull Ministers men of eminent rancks gifts or example who can be secure that either Church or Common-weal shall stand up long and not â—otter at least if not fall God in Mercy taketh such away from the evil to come we in wisdom should look for evil to come when God taketh such away Thirdly here is instruction for wordlings to make much of those few godly ones that live among them for they are the very pawns of their peace and the pledges of their security Think not yee filthy Sodomites it is for your own sakes that ye have been spared so long know to whom you are beholden This Fellow that came in to sojourn among you this stranger this Lot whom you so hate and malign and disquiet he it is that hath bayled you hitherto and given you protection Despise not Gods patience and long suffering ye prophane ones neither blesse your selves in your ungodly wayes neither say We prosper though we walk in the lusts of our hearts This and thus we have done and nothing hath been done to us God holdeth his hand and holdeth his tongue at us surely He is such a one as our selves Learn O ye despisers that if God thus forbear you it is not at all for your own sakes or because he careth not to punish evil doers no he hath a little remnant a little flock a little handfull of his own among you a few names that have given themselves unto him call upon him daily for mercy upon the land and that weep and mourn in secret and upon their beds for your abominations whom you hate and despise and persecute and defame and account as the very scumme of the people and the refuse and off-scowring of all things to whom yet you owe your preservation Surely if it were not for some godly Iehoshaphat or other whose presence God regardeth among you if it were not for some zealous Moses or other that standeth in the gap for you Gods wrath had entred in upon you long ere this as a mighty breach of water and as an overflowing deluge overwhelmed you and you had been swept away as with the Besome of destruction and devoured as stubble before the fire It is The innocent that delivereth the land and repriveth it from destruction when the sentence of desolation is pronounced against it and it is delivered by the purenesse of his hands O the goodnesse of our GOD that would have spared the five Cities of the Salt Sea if among so many thousands of beastly and filthy persons there had been found but Ten righteous ones and that was for each City but two persons nay that would have pardoned Ierusalem if in all the streets and broad places thereof replenished with a world of Idolaters and Swearers and Adulterers and Oppressours there had been found but one single man that executed judgement and sought the truth from his heart But O the madness of the men of this foolish world withall who seek to doe them most mischief of all others who of all others seek to doe them most good thirsting most after their destruction who are the chiefest instruments of their preservation On foolish and mad world if thou hadst but wit enough yet yet to hugge and to make much of that little flock the hostages of thy peace and the earnest of thy tranquillity if thou wouldst but Know even thou at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace Thou art yet happy that God hath a remnant in thee and if thou knewest how to make use of this happinesse at least in this thy day by honouring their persons by procuring their safety and welfare by following their examples by praying for their continuance thou mightest be still and more and ever happy But if these things that belong unto thy peace be now hidden from thine eyes if these men that prolong thy peace and prorogue thy destruction be now despised in thy heart in this day of thy peace God is just thou knowest not how soon they may be taken from thee and though he do not bring the evil upon thee in their days when they are gone thou knowest not how soon vengeance may overtake thee and Then shall he tear thee in pieces and there shall be none left to deliver thee I have now done Beseech we God the Father of mercies for his dear son Iesus Christ his sake to shed his Holy Spirit into our hearts that by his good blessing upon us that which hath been presently delivered agreeably to his holy truth and word may take root downwards in our hearts and bring forth fruit upwards in our lives and conversations and so to assist us ever with his grace that we may with humble confidence lay hold on his mercies with cheerfull reverence tremble at his judgements by unfeigned repentance turn from us what he hath threatned and by unwearied Obedience assure unto us what he hath promised To which Holy Father Sonne and Spirit three persons and c. THE THIRD SERMON AD POPVLVM At Grantham Linc. Iun. 19. 1621 3 Kings 21.29 I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house I Come now this third time to entreat of this Scripture and by Gods help to finish it Of the three parts whereof heretofore propounded viz. 1. Ahabs Humiliation 2. The suspension of his judgement for his time 3. And the Devolution of it upon Iehoram the two former having been already handled the last only now remaineth to be considered of In the prosecution whereof as heretofore we have cleared GOD'S Holiness and Truth so we shall be now occasioned to clear his Iustice from such imputions as might seem to lie upon it from this Act. And that in three respects accordingly as Iehoram who standeth here punishable for Ahabs sin may be considered in a threefold
course whereunto thou hast been so long in framing Thus possibly thou mayest in time make that cheerfull and delightfull unto thee which now is grievous and irksom And as for thy insufficiency if that dishearten thee which is indeed a main rubb doe thus Impute thy former non-proficiency to thine own sloath and negligence Think if after so long time spent in this course thou hast attained to no greater perfection in it how long it would be ere thou shouldest come to a tolerable mediocrity in another Resolve not to lose all that precious time forepast by beginning the world anew but rather save as much of it as is redeemable by adding to thy diligence Suspect that it commeth from thy pride that thou canst not content thy self with a Calling wherein thou mayest not be excellent and imagine that God of purpose to humble thee might divert thy education to another for which thou art lesse apt Observe what strange things past belief and such as have seemed insuperable have been conquered and subdued by the obstinacy and improbity of unwearied labour and of assiduity Doubt not but by Gods blessing upon thy faithfull industry to attain in time if not to such perfection as thou desirest and mightest perhaps have attained in some other course if thou hadst been bred up to it yet to such a competent sufficiency as may render thy endeavours acceptable to God comfortable to thy self and serviceable to community If by these and the like considerations and the use of other good means thou canst bring thy affections to some indifferent liking of and thy abilities to some indifferent mediocrity for that course which Education hath opened unto thee thou hast no more to doe There 's thy Course that 's thy Calling that 's the Work whereunto God hath appointed thee But if after long striving and pains and tryal thou canst neither bring thy mind to it nor doe any good upon it having faithfully desired and endeavoured it so that thou must needs leave the course of thy Education or which is another case if thy Education have left thee free as many Parents God knoweth are but too carelesse that way then Secondly thou art in the next place to consider of thy Gifts and Abilities and to take direction from them rather than from thine inclination And this Rule I take to be very sound not only from the Apostles intimation vers 17. As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one where he seemeth to make the choice of mens Callings to depend much upon the distribution of Gods Gifts but withall for two good Reasons One is because our Gifts and Abilities whether of body or mind being in the brain or hand are at a better certainty than our Propensions and Inclinations are which are seated in the Heart The heart is deceitfull above all things and there are so many rotten corruptions in it that it is a very hard thing for a man to discern his own Inclinations and Propensions whether they spring from a sound or from a corrupt root Whereas in the discerning of our Gifts and Abilities we are lesse subject to grosse Errours and mistakings I mean for the truth and reality of them howsoever we are apt to overvalue them for the measure and degree Now it is meet in the choice of our Callings we should follow the surer guide and therefore rather be led by our Gifts than by our Inclinations The other Reason is because our Inclinations cannot so well produce Abilities as these can draw on them We say indeed there is nothing hard to a willing mind and in some sense it is true Not as if a willing mind could make us doe more than we are able A man can doe no more than he can doe be he never so willing but because a willing mind will make us exerere vires stir up our selves to doe as much as we are able which we use not to doe in those things we goe unwillingly about Willingness then may quicken the strength we have but it doth not put any new strength into us But Abilities can produce Inclinations de novo and make them where they find them not As we see every other natural thing is inclinable to the exercise of those natural faculties that are in it so certainly would every man have strongest inclination to those things whereto he hath strongest abilities if wicked and untoward affections did not often corrupt our inclinations and hinder them from moving their own proper and natural way It is best then to begin the choice of our Callings from our Abilities which will fetch on Inclinations and not from our Inclinations which without Abilities will not serve the turn Concerning which gifts or abilities what they are and how to make true judgement of them and how to frame the choice of our Callings from them to speak punctually and fully would require a large discourse I can but touch at some few points therein such as are of daily use and proceed First by gifts and abilities we are to understand not only those of the Minde Judgement Wit Invention Memory Fancy Eloquence c. and those of the Body Health Strength Beauty Activity c. but also those which are without Birth Wealth Honour Authority Reputation Kinred Alliance c. generally any thing that may be of use or advantage unto us for any employment Secondly as our abilities on the one side so on the other side all our wants and defects which might disable us more or lesse for any employment are to be duly weighed and considered of and the one laid against the other that we may know how to make as near as we can a just estimate of our strength and sufficiency Thirdly it is the safer way to undervalue than to overprise our selves lest ignorantly confident we affect a Calling above our strength which were to flye with waxen wings and to owe the world a laughter Be we sure of this if God have not gifted us for it he hath not called us to it Fourthly in the judging of our Abilities we should have a regard to the outward circumstances of times and places and the rest Those gifts which would have made a sufficient Priest in the beginning of the Reformation in that dearth of learning and penury of the Gospel now the times are full of knowledge and learning would be all little enough for a Parish-Clerk Fifthly something would be yeelded to the judgments of other men concerning our Abilities It is either secret pride or base faintness of heart or dull sloath or some other thing and not true modesty in us if being excellently gifted for some weighty employment in every other mans judgement we yet withdraw our selves from it with pretensions of unsufficiency Sixthly and lastly let us resolve on that course caeteris paribus not only for which we are competently fit but for which we are absolutely fittest A
holy Eucharist And we in our ordinary manner of speech call as well the Blessing before meat as the Thanksgiving after by the common name of Grace or saying of Grace Both these then together Grace before meat and Grace after meat a Sacrifice of Prayer before we use any of the good Creatures of God and a Sacrifice of Praise after we have used them the Blessing wherewith we blesse the Creature in the Name of God and the Blessing wherewith we blesse the Name of God for the Creature both these I say together is the just extent of that Thanksgiving whereof my Text speaketh and we are now to entreat Concerning Meats and Drinks unto which our Apostle hath special reference in this whole passage this duty of Thanksgiving hath been ever held so congruous to the partaking thereof that long and ancient custome hath established it in the common practice of Christians not only with inward thankfulnesse of heart to recount and acknowledge Gods goodnesse to them therein but also outwardly to expresse the same in a vocal solemn form of Blessing or Thanksgiving that which we call Grace or saying of Grace Which very phrases whether or no they have ground as to me it seemeth they have from those words of our Apostle 1 Cor. 10. For if I by Grace be a partaker why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks I say howsoever it be with the phrase sure we are the thing it self hath sufficient ground from the examples of Christ and of his holy Apostles From whom the custome of giving Thanks at meals seemeth to have been derived throughout all succeeding ages even to us Of Christ himself we read often and in every of the Evangelists that he blessed and gave thanks in the name of himself and the people before meat in the 14. and 15. of Matthew in 6. and 8. of Mark in 9. of Luke and in 6. of Iohn And in Matthew 26. that after meat also when Supper was ended he and his Disciples sang an hymne before they departed the room And S. Luke relateth of S. Paul Acts 27. when he and his company in the ship who were well toward 300 persons were to refresh themselves with food after a long fast that he took bread and first Gave thanks to God in the presence of them all and then after brake it and began to eat yea S. Paul himself so speaketh of it Rom. 14. as of the known practice of the Church among Christians of all sorts Weak and Strong He that was strong in the faith and knew the liberty he had in Christ to eat indifferently of all kinds of meats flesh as well as herbs did eat of all indifferently and gave God thanks for all The weak Christian too who made scruple of some kinds of flesh or other meats and contented himself with herbs and such like things yet gave God thanks for his herbs and for whatsoever else he durst eat He that eateth eateth to the Lord saith he there at verse 6. for he giveth God thanks and he that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not and giveth God thanks too Notwithstanding they differed in their judgements and opinions and consequently in their practice concerning the lawfull or unlawfull use of some meats yet they consented most sweetly and agreed both in their judgement and practice in the performance of this religious service of Thanksgiving So then giving of Thanks for our meats and drinks before and after meales in an outward and audible form is an ancient a commendable an Apostolical a Christian practice ordinarily requisite as an outward testimony of the inward thankfulnesse of the heart and therefore not to be omitted ordinarily neither but in some few cases There being the like necessity of this duty in regard of inward thankfulnesse as there is of vocal prayer in regard of inward Devotion and of outward Confession in regard of inward belief and look what exceptions those other outward duties may admit the very same mutandis mutatis and in their proportion are to be admitted here But not only meats and drinks but every other good Creature also of God whereof we may have use ought to be received with a due measure of thankfulnesse And if in these things also so often as in good discretion it may seem expedient for the advancing of Gods glory the benefiting of his Church or the quickning of our own Devotion we shall make some outward and sensible expression of the thankfulnesse of our hearts for them we shall therein do an acceptable service unto God and comfortable to our own souls For for this cause God instituted of old among his own people divers solemn feasts and sacrifices together with the Sanctifying of the first fruits and of the first born and divers other ordinances of that nature as on the other side to be fit remembrancers unto them of their duty of thankfulnesse so to be as well good testimonies and fit expressions of their performance of that duty But if not alwayes the outward manifestation thereof yet God ever expecteth at least the true and inward thankfulnesse of the heart for the use of his good creatures Whatsoever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Iesus giving thanks unto God and the Father by him Col. 3. Be carefull for notbing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God Phil. 4. Blesse the Lord O my soul saith David in Psal. 103. and all that is within me praise his holy name Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Forget not all his benefits as much as to say by an ordinary Hebraism forget not any of all his benefits He summoneth all that is in him to blesse God for all he hath from him he thought it was necessary for him not to receive any of the good Creatures of God without Thanksgiving Which necessity of Thanksgiving will yet more appear if we consider it either as an act of Iustice or as an act of Religion as it is indeed and truly both It is first an Act of Iustice. The very law of Nature which containeth the first seeds and principles of Iustice bindeth every man that receiveth a benefit to a thankfull acknowledgement of it first and then withall ability and opportunity supposed to some kind of retribution The best Philosophers therefore make gratitude a branch of the Law of Nature and so account of it as of a thing than which there is not any office of vertue more necessary as nor any thing on the contrary more detestable than Ingratitude You cannot lay a fouler imputation upon a man nor by any accusations in the world render him more odious to the opinions of all men than by charging him with unthankfulnesse Ingratum dicas omnia dixeris do but say
he is an unthankfull wretch you need say no more you can say no worse by any mortal creature Verily every benefit carrieth with it the force of an obligation and we all confesse it if we receive but some small kindnesse from another we can readily and complementally protest our selves much bound to him for it Indeed when we say so we often speak it but of course and think it not but yet when we do so we speak more truth than we are aware of For if it be in truth a kindnesse in him we are in truth and equity bound to him thereby The common saying is not without ground Qui beneficium accepit libertatem vendidit Some men therefore refuse kindnesses and courtesies at other mens hands because forsooth they will not be beholden to them Which though it be a perverse and unjust course and indeed a high degree of unthankfulnesse for there is unthankfulnesse as well in not accepting a kind offer as in not requiting a good turn and therefore also a high degree of folly for it is a foolish thing for a man out of the bare fear of unthankfulnesse one way to become wilfully unthankfull another though I say it be a fond and perverse course in them yet it argueth withall in them a strong apprehension of the equity of that principle of Nature and Iustice which bindeth men that receive benefits ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a necessity of requital and retribution Truth it is to God our heavenly Father first and then to our earthly Parents none of us can reddere paria none is able to make a full requital to either of them especially not to God But that freeth us not from the debt of thankfulnesse as not to our Parents so neither to God it rather bindeth us the faster thereunto The same Law of Nature which teacheth us to requite a good turn to the uttermost where there is wherewithall to do it and withall a fair opportunity offered teacheth us where there wanteth either ability or opportunity to endeavour by the best convenient means we can to testifie at least the thankfulnesse of our hearts and our unfeigned desires of requital Which desire and endeavour if every ingenuous man and our earthly Parents do accept of where they find it as of the deed it self can we doubt of Gods acceptation of our unfeigned desire herein though infinitely and without all proportion short of a just requital and retribution David knew right well that when a man hath done all he can he is but an unprofitable servant and cannot be profitable unto God as he that is wise may be profitable to himself and his neighbours and that his goodnesse though it might be pleasurable to the Saints that are on the earth yet it could not extend unto the Lord. All this he knew and yet knowing withall that God accepteth the will for the deed and the desire for the performance he doubted not to raise up his language to that key in Psal. 116. Quid retribuam What requital shall I make What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the Cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. This thankfull heart he knew God valued as a Sacrifice nay preferred before Sacrifices For having rejected them at Verse 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices c. He exacteth this at Vers. 14. of Psal. 50. Offer unto God thanksgiving c. God respecteth not so much the Calves out of our stalls or the fruits from off our grounds as these Vitulos labiorum these calves of our lips as the Prophet and these Fructus labiorum these fruits of our lips as the Apostle calleth them Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his Name Heb. 13. More than this in his Mercy he will not desire lesse than this in all reason we cannot give Thankfulnesse is an Act of Iustice we are unjust if we receive his good Creatures and not return him thanks for them It is not only an Act of Iustice it is an act of Religion too and a branch of that service whereby we do God worship and honour Who so offereth praise he honoureth me Psal. 50. ver last Now look what honour we give unto God it all redoundeth to our selves at the last with plentifull advantage Them that honour me I will honour 1 Sam. 2. Here then is the fruit of this religious Act of thanksgiving that it sanctifieth unto us the use of the good Creatures of God which is the very reason Saint Paul giveth of this present speech in the next verse Every Creature of God is Good saith he here and nothing to be refused if it be received with Thanksgiving for saith he there it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer Vnderstand not by the word of God there his written word or the Scriptures as some yet give the sense not without violence to the words though the thing they say be true but more both naturally to the construction of the words and pertinently to the drift scope of our Apostle therin understand rather the word of his eternal counsell and decree and of his power and providence whereby he ordereth and commandeth his Creatures in there several kinds to afford us such service comforts as he hath thought good Which sanctifying of the Creatures by the word of Gods decree and providence implyeth two things the own respecting the Creatures that they doe their kindly office to us the other respecting us that we reap holy comfort from them For the plainer understanding of both which instance shall be given in the Creatures appointed for our nourishment and what shall be said of them we may conceive of and apply unto every other Creature in the proper kind thereof First then the Creatures appointed for food are sanctified by the word of God when together with the Creatures he giveth his blessing to go along with it by his powerfull word Commanding it and by that command enabling it to feed us Which is the true meaning of that speech in Deut. 8. alleged by our Saviour against the Tempter Man liveth not by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God Alas what is Bread to nourish us without his word unless he say the word and command the Bread to do it there is no more sap or strength in Bread than in stones The power and nutritive vertue which the Bread hath it hath from his decree because the word is already gone out of his mouth that bread should strengthen mans heart As in the first Creation when the Creatures were produced in actu primo had their beings given them and natural powers and faculties bestowed on them all that was done by the word of Gods powerfull
decree He spake the word and they were made he commanded and they were Created So in all their operations in actu secundo when they do at any time exercise those natural faculties and doe those Offices for which they were created all this is still done by the same powerfull word and decree of God He upholdeth all things by the word of his power As we read of bread so we often read in the Scriptures of the staff of bread God sometimes threatneth he will break the staff of bread What is that Bread indeed is the staff of our strength it is the very stay and prop of our lives if God break this staff and deny us bread we are gone But that is not all bread is our staff but what is the staff of bread Verily the Word of God blessing our bread and commanding it to feed us is the staff of this staff sustaining that vertue in the bread whereby it sustaineth us If God break this staff of bread if he withdraw his blessing from the bread if by his countermaund he inhibit or restrain the vertue of the bread we are as far to seek with bread as without it If sanctified with Gods word of blessing a little pulse and water hard and homely fare shall feed Daniel as fresh and fat and fair as the Kings dainties shall his Companions a cake and a cruse of water shall suffice Eliah nourishment enough to walk in the strength thereof forty daies and nights a few barly loaves and small fishes shall multiply to the satisfying of many thousands eat while they will But if Gods Word and Blessing be wanting the lean Kine may eat up the Fat and be as thin and hollow and ill-liking as before and we may as the Prophet Haggai speaketh eat much and not have enough drink our fills and not be filled This first degree of the Creatures sanctification by the word of God is a common and ordinary blessing upon the Creatures whereof as of the light and dew of Heaven the wicked partake as well as the godly and the thankless as the thankfull But there is a second degree also beyond this which is proper and peculiar to the Godly And that is when God not only by the word of his Power bestoweth a blessing upon the Creature but also causeth the Echo of that word to sound in our hearts by the voyce of his Holy spirit and giveth us a sensible taste of his goodness to us therein filling our hearts not only with that joy and gladness which ariseth from the experience of the effect viz. the refreshing of our natural strength but also joy and gladness more spiritual and sublime than that arising from the contemplation of the prime cause viz. the favour of God towards us in the face of his Son that which David calleth the light of his countenance For as it is the kind welcome at a Friends Table that maketh the chear good rather than the quaintness or variety of the dishes Super omnia vultus Accessere boni so as that a dinner of green herbs with love and kindness is better entertainment than a stalled Oxe with bad looks so the light of Gods favourable countenance shining upon us through these things is it which putteth more true gladness into our hearts than doth the corn and the wine and the oyle themselves or any other outward thing that we do or can partake Now this sanctified and holy and comfortable use of the Creatures ariseth also from the word of Gods decree even as the former degree did but not from the same decree That former issued from the decree of common providence and so belonged unto all as that Providence is common to all But this later degree proceedeth from that special word of Gods decree whereby for the merits of Christ Jesus the second Adam he removeth from the Creature that curse wherin it was wrapped through the sin of the first Adam And in this the wicked have no portion as being out of Christ so as they cannot partake of Gods Creatures with any solid or sound comfort and so the Creatures remain in this degree unsanctified unto them For this reason the Scriptures stile the Faithfull Primogenitos the first born as to whom belongeth a double portion and Haeredes mundi heirs of the world as if none but they had any good right thereunto And S. Paul deriveth our Title to the Creatures from God but by Christ All things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods As if these things were none of theirs who are none of Christs And in the verse before my Text he saith of meats that God hath created them to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth as if those that wanted faith and saving knowledge did but usurp the bread they eat And indeed it is certain the wicked have not right to the Creatures of God in such ample sort as the Godly have A kind of Right they have and we may not deny it them given them by Gods unchangeable ordinance at the Creation which being a branch of that part of Gods Image in man which was of natural and not of supernatural grace might be and was foulely defaced by sin but was not neither could be wholly lost as hath been already in part declared A Right then they have but such a right as reaching barely to the use cannot afford unto the user true comfort or found peace of Conscience in such use of the Creatures For though nothing be in and of it self unclean for Every Creature of God is good yet to them that are unclean ex accidenti every Creature is unclean and polluted because it is not thus sanctified unto them by the Word of God And the very true cause of all this is the impurity of their hearts by reason of unbelief The Holy Ghost expresly assigneth this cause To the pure all things are pure but to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled As a nasty Vessel sowreth all that is put into it so a Conscience not purified by faith casteth pollution upon the best of Gods Creatures But what is all this to the Text may some say or what to the point What is all this to the Duty of Thanksgiving Much every manner of way or else blame Saint Paul of impertinency whose discourse should be incoherent and unjoynted if what I have now last said were beside the Text. For since the sanctification of the Creature to our use dependeth upon the powerfull and good word of God blessing it unto us that duty must needs be necessary to a sanctified use of the Creature without which we can have no fair assurance unto our consciences that that word of blessing is proceeded out of the mouth of God
the very next verse beginneth to lay down the vengeance that God brought upon him for it And yet compared with ours Ioash his ingratitude was nothing Iehoiada was bound as a subject to assist the right heir God is not bound to us he is a debter to none Ioash had right to the Crown before Iehoiada set it on his head we have no right at all to the Creature but by Gods gift Ioash though he dealt not well with the son yet he evermore esteemed the father so long as he lived and was advised by him in the affaires of his Kingdome we rebel even against God himself and cast all his counsels behind our backs Ioash slew the son but he was a mortal man and his subject and he had given him at least as he apprehended it some affront and provocation we by our sinnes and disobedience crucifie the sonne of God the Lord and giver of life by whom and in whom and from whom we enjoy all good blessings and of whom we are not able to say that ever he dealt unkindly with us or gave us the least provocation But as Israel whom God calleth Ieshurun and compareth to an Heifer fed in large and fruitfull pastures going alwayes at full bit grew fat and wanton and kicked with the heel so we the more plentifully God hath heaped his blessings upon us the more wantonly have we followed the swinge of our own hearts and the more contemptuously spurned at his holy Commandements It was a grievous bill of complaint which the Prophet in the name of God preferred against Israel in Osee 2. that his corn and wine and oyl and the silver and gold which he had given them they imployed in the service of Baal an abominable Idol If when God giveth us wit wealth power authority health strength liberty every other good thing in stead of using these things to his glory and the comfortable relief of his servants we abuse them some or all to the service of those Idols which we have erected to our selves in our hearts to the maintenance of our pride and pompe making Lucifer our God of our pelf and profits making Mammon our God of our swinish pleasures and sensuality making our Belly our God Are we not as deep in the bill as those Israelites were as unjust as they as prophane as they as unthankful every way as they Flatter we not our selves Obedience to Gods Commandements and a sober and charitable use of his Creatures is the best and surest evidence of our thankfulnesse to God and the fairest requital we can make for them If we withdraw our obedience and fall into open rebellion against God if we abuse them in making them either the occasions or instruments of sin to the dishonour of God and damage of his servants we repay him ill and unworthily for the good we have received and are guilty of unthankfulnesse in this foulest and highest degree Now we have seen what we are let us say the worst we can by unthankfull ones call them wretches caytiffes churles any thing load them with infamies disgraces contumelies charge them with injustice prophanenesse Atheism condemn them and with them the vice it self Vnthankfulnesse to the pit of Hell do all this and more and spare not and as David did at Nathans parable when we hear any case or example of ingratitude in any of the former degrees whether really done or but in a parable pronounce sentence upon the guilty The man that hath done this thing shall surely dye But withall let us remember when we have so done that our hearts instantly prompt us what Nathan told David Thou art the man We we are the men We are these unthankfull ones Vnthankfull to God first in passing by so many of his blessings without taking any consideration of thē Vnthankfull secondly In ascribing his blessings wholly or partly to our selves or any other but him Vnthankfull thirdly In valuing his blessings so lightly as to forget them Vnthankfull fourthly In diminishing the worth of his blessings and repining at our portion therein Vnthankfull fifthly In not rendring to him and his according to the good he hath done for us but sixthly and most of all unthankfull in requiting him evil for good and hatred for his good will Dealing thus with him let us not now marvel if he begin to deal something strangely and otherwise than he was wont with us If he deny us his Creatures when we want them if he take them from us when we have them if he withhold his blessing from them that it shall not attend them if we find smal comfort in them when we use them if they be unanswering our expectations when we have been at some paines and cost with them if as the Prophet speaketh We sow much and bring in little we eat and have not enough we drink and are not filled we cloath us and we are not warm and the wages we earn we put into a bag with holes if any of these things befall us let us cease to wonder thereat our selves are the causers of all our woe It is our great unthankfulnesse that blasteth all our endeavours that leaveneth with sowernesse whatsoever is sweet and turneth into poyson whatsoever is wholsome in the good Creatures of God It is the word of God and Prayer that sanctifieth them to our use and they are then good when they are received with thanksgiving so long as we continue unthankfull we are vain if we look for any sanctification in them if we expect any good from them I have now done with my first Inference for trial or rather Conviction I adde a second of Exhortation The duty it self being so necessary as we have heard Necessary as an Act of Iustice for the receipt of the Creature and necessary as an Act of Religion for the sanctifying of the Creature how should our hearts be enflamed with an holy desire and all our powers quickned up to a faithfull endeavour conscionably to perform this so necessary a duty One would think that very necessity together with the consciousnesse of our former unthankfulness should in all reason be enough to work in us that both desire and endeavour In all reason it should so but we are unreasonable and much ado there is to perswade us to any thing that is good even when we are perswaded Wherfore to enforce the exhortation more effectually I must have leave to press the performance of this duty upon our consciences with some farther Inducements and important Considerations Consider first the Excellency of the Duty There are but three heads whereto we refer all that is called good Iucundum Utile Honestum Pleasure Profit and Honesty There is nothing desirable or lovely but in one or other of these three respects Each of these singly we account good but that excellently good wherein they all concurr We love things that will give us delight sometimes when
there is neither profit nor credit in them we love things that will bring us profit though possibly neither delightfull greatly nor seemly and we love things that we think will do us honesty oftentimes without regard either of pleasure or profit How should we then be affected to this duty of giving thanks and singing praises unto our GOD wherein all these doe joyntly concurr and that also in an excellent measure David hath wrapped them all together in one verse in the beginning of Psalm 147 Praise ye the Lord for it is good yea it is a pleasant thing and praise is comely It is good it will bring you profit it is pleasant it will afford you delight and it is comely it will do you honesty and what can heart wish more Again many good vertues and graces of God in us shall expire together with us which though they be eternal in their fruit and reward yet are not so as to their proper Acts which after this life shall cease because there shall be neither need nor use of them then Whether there be Prophesies they shall fail or whether there be tongues they shall cease or whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away There shall be no use of taming the flesh by Fasting or of supplying the want either of others by Almes or of our selves by Prayer Nay even Faith and Hope themselves shall have an end for we shall not then need to believe when we shall see nor to expect when we shall enjoy But giving of Thanks and praise and honour and glory unto God shall remain in the Kingdome of heaven and of glory It is now the continual blessed exercise of the glorious Angels and Saints in Heaven and it shall be ours when we shall be translated thither O that we would learn often to practice here what we hope shall be our eternal exercise there O that we would accustom our selves being Filled in the spirit to speak to our selves in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord giving thanks alwaies for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ as speaketh our Apostle Ephes. 5. Consider secondly the multitude and variety and continuance of Gods blessings and let that provoke thy thankfulness If thou hadst received but one or a few benefits yet thanks were due even for those few or for that one more than thou art able to return But what canst thou allege or how excuse thy unthankfulness when his mercies are renewed every morning nay every moment when he is ever opening his hand and powring out his blessings and loading and even overwhelming thee with his benefits as if he did vye with thee and would have thee see how easily he can overcome thy evill with his goodness and infinitely out-strip thine infinite ingratitude with his more infinite munificence His Angels are about thee though thou knowest it not from a thousand unknown dangers he delivereth thee which thou suspectedst not he still continueth his goodness unto thee and repriveth thy destruction though thou deservedst it not What should I say more thy very life and being thou owest to him In whom we all live and move and have our being thence resolve with holy David to sing praise unto the Lord As long as thou livest and to sing praise unto thy God whilest thou hast thy being Many and continual receipts should provoke many and continual thanks Consider thirdly thy future necessities If thou wert sure of that thou hast that thou and it should continue together for ever and never part and that thou couldest make prety shift to live upon the Old stock hereafter and never stand in need to him for more there might be so much less need to take care for giving thanks for what is past But it is not so with any of us of what we have we are but Tenants at Courtesie and we stand continually upon our good behaviour whether we should hold of him any longer or no and much of our future happiness standeth upon our present thankfulness And with what face can we crave to have more and yet more we must have or we cannot subsist if we be not thankfull for what we have Peremptoria res est ingratitudo saith Saint Bernard it cutteth it of all kindnesse Ventus urens exiccans like that strong East-winde which in a night dryed up the Red-sea it holdeth off the streams of Gods bounty from flowing and dryeth up those Channels whereby his mercies were wont to be conveyed unto us Certainly this is one special cause why God so often saith us Nay and sendeth us away empty when we aske even because we are so little thankfull to him for former receipts The Rivers return all their waters to the Sea from whence they had them and they gain this by the return that the Sea feedeth them again and so by a continual fresh supply preserveth them in perpetual being and motion If they should withhold that tribute the Sea would not long suffice them nourishment So we by giving receive and by true paying the old debt get credit to run upon a new score and provoke future blessings by our thankfulnesse for former as the Earth by sending up vapours back to Heaven from the dew she hath received thence filleth the bottels of Heaven with new moysture to be â—owred down upon her again in due season in kindly and plentifull showers By our Prayers and Thanksgiving we erect a Ladder like that which Iacob saw whereon the Angels ascended and descended we preserve a mutual entercourse betwixt Heaven and earth and we maintain a kind of continual trading as it were betwixt God and us The Commodities are brought us in they are Gods blessings for these we traffique by our Prayers and Thanksgivings Let us therefore deal squarely as wise and honest Merchants should do Let us keep touch and pay it is as much as our credit is worth Let us not think to have commodities still brought us in and we send none out omnia te advorsùm spectantia this dealing cannot hold long Rather let us think that the quicker and speedier and more returns we make our gains will be the greater and that the oftner we pray and praise God for his blessings the more we secure unto our selves both the continuance and the increase of them Consider fourthly thy misery if thou shouldst want those things which God hath given thee Carendo magis quà m fruendo Fools will not know that true worth of things but by wanting which wiser men had rather learn by having them Yet this is the common folly of us all We will not prise Gods blessings as we should till he for our unthankfullness take them from us and teach us to value them better before we have them again We repine at Gods great
our so great Unthankfulness which taken away the effect will instantly and of it self cease Now those Causes are especially as I conceive these five viz. 1. Pride and Self-love 2. Envy and Discontentment 3. Riotousness and Epicurism 4. Worldly Carefulness and immoderate desires 5. Carnal Security and foreslowing the time Now then besides the application of that which hath already been spoken in the former Discoveries and Motives for every Discovery of a fault doth virtually contain some means for the correcting of it and every true Motive to a duty doth virtually contain some helps unto the practice of it besides these I say I know not how to prescribe any better remedies against unthankfulness or helps unto thankfulness than faithfully to strive for the casting out of those sins and the subduing of those Corruptions in us which cause the one and hinder the other But because the time and my strength are near spent I am content to ease both my self and you by cutting off so much of my provision as concerneth this Inference for Direction and desire you that it may suffice for the present but thus to have pointed at these Impediments and once more to name them They are Pride Envy Epicurisme Carefulnesse Security I place Pride where it would be the formost because it is of all other the principal impediment of Thankfulness Certainly there is no one thing in the World so much as Pride that maketh men unthankfull He that would be truly thankfull must have his eyes upon both the one eye upon the Gift and the other upon the Giver and this the proud man never hath Either through self-love he is stark-blind and seeth neither or else through Partiality he winketh on one eye and will not look at both Sometimes he seeth the Gift but too much and boasteth of it but then he forgetteth the Giver he boasteth as if he had not received it Sometimes again he over-looketh the Gift as not good enough for him and so repineth at the Giver as if he had not given him according to his worth Either he undervalueth the Gift or else he overvalueth himself as if he were himself the Giver or at least the deserver and is in both unthankfull To remove this Impediment who ever desireth to be thankfull let him humble himself nay empty himself nay deny himself and all his deserts confess himself with Iacob less than the least of Gods mercies and condemn his own heart of much sinfull sacrilege if it dare but think the least thought tending to rob God of the least part of his honour Envy followeth Pride the Daughter the Mother a second great impediment of thankfulness The fault is that men not content only to look upon their own things and the present but comparing these with the things of other men or times instead of giving thanks for what they have repine that others have more or better or for what they now have complain that it is not with them as it hath been These thoughts are Enemies to the tranquillity of the mind breeding many discontents and much unthankfullness whilest our eyes are evill because God is good to others or hath been so to us To remove this impediment who ever desireth to be truly thankfull let him look upon his own things and not on the things of other men and therein consider not so much what he wanteth and fain would have as what he hath and could not well want Let him think that what God hath given him came from his free bounty he owed it not and what he hath denied him he with-holdeth it either in his Iustice for his former sins or in his Mercy for his farther good that God giveth to no man all the desire of his heart in these outward things to teach him not to look for absolute contentment in this life least of all in these things If he will needs look upon other mens things let him compare himself rather with them that have lesse than those that have more and therein withall consider not so much what himself wanteth which some others have as what he hath which many others want If a few that enjoy Gods blessings in these outward things in a greater measure than he be an eye-sore to him let those many others that have a scanter portion make him acknowledge that God hath dealt liberally and bountifully with him We should do well to understand that saying of Christ not barely as a Prediction but as a kind of Promise too as I have partly intimated before The poor you shall alwaies have with you and to think that every Beggar that seeketh to us is sent of God to be as well a Glass wherein to represent Gods bounty to us as an Object whereon for us to exercise ours And as for former times let us not so much think how much better we have been as how well we are that we are not so well now impute it to our former unthankfulness and fear unless we be more thankfull for what we have it will be yet and every day worse and worse with us Counsell very needfull for us in these declining times which are not God knoweth and we all know as the times we have seen the leprous humour of Popery secretly stealing in upon us and as a leprosie spreading apace under the skinne and penury and poverty as an ulcerous sore openly breaking out in the very face of the Land Should we murmure at this or repiningly complain that it is not with us as it hath been God forbid that is the way to have it yet and yet worse Rather let us humble our selves for our former unthankfulnesse whereby we have provoked GOD to with-draw himself in some measure from us and blesse him for his great mercy who yet continueth his goodnesse in a comfortable and gracious measure unto us notwithstanding our so great unworthinesse and unthankfulnesse Thousands of our brethren in the world as good as our selves how glad would they be how thankfull to God how would they rejoyce and sing if they enjoyed but a small part of that peace and prosperity in outward things and of that liberty of treading in Gods Courts and partaking of his ordinances which we make so little account of because it is not every way as we have known it heretofore The third Impediment of Thankfulnesse is Riot and Epicurism that which the Prophet reckoneth in the Catalogue of Sodoms sins Fulnesse of bread and abundance of Idlenesse This is both a Cause and a Sign of much unthankfulnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fulnesse and Forgetfulnesse they are not more near in the sound of the words than they are in the sequel of the things When thou hast eaten and art full Then beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God Deut. 8. It much argueth that we make small account of the good
of the power and liberty even still to intimate unto the sonnes of men the knowledge of his will and the glory of his might by Dreams Miracles or other like supernatural manifestations if at any time either in the want of the ordinary means of the Word Sacraments and Ministery or for the present necessities of his Church or of some part thereof or for some other just cause perhaps unknown to us he shall see it expedient so to do He hath prescribed us but he hath not limited himself Fifthly that because the Devil and wicked spirits may suggest Dreams probably foretell future events foreseen in their causes and work many strange effects in nature applicando activa passivis which because they are without the sphere of our comprehension may to our seeming have fair appearances of Divine Revelations or Miracles when they are nothing less for the avoiding of strong delusions in this kind it is not safe for us to give easie credit to Dreams Prophecies or Miracles as Divine untill upon due tryal there shall appear both in the End whereto they point us a direct tendance to the advancement of GODS Glory and in the Means also they propose us a conformity unto the revealed Will of GOD in his written word Sixthly that so to observe our ordinary Dreams as thereby to divine or foretell of future contingents or to forecast therefrom good or ill-luck as we call it in the success of our affairs is a silly and groundless but withall an unwarranted and therefore an unlawfull and therefore also a damnable superstition Seventhly that there is yet to be made a lawfull yea and a very profitable use even of our ordinary Dreams and of the observing thereof and that both in Physick and Divinity Not at all by foretelling particulars of things to come but by taking from them among other things some reasonable conjectures in the general of the present estate both of our Bodies and Souls Of our Bodies first For since the predominancy of Choler Bloud Flegm and Melancholy as also the differences of strength and health and diseases and distempers either by dyet or passion or otherwise do cause impressions of different forms in the fancy our ordinary dreams may be a good help to lead us into those discoveries both in time of health what our natural constitution complexion and temperature is and in times of sickness from the ranckness and tyranny of which of the humours the malady springeth And as of our Bodies so of our Souls too For since our Dreams for the most part look the same way which our freest thoughts encline as the Voluptuous beast dreameth most of pleasures the Covetous wretch most of profits and the proud or ambitious most of praises preferments or revenge the observing of our ordinary Dreams may be of good use for us unto that discovery which of these three is our Master sin for unto one of the three every other sin is reduced The Lust of the flesh the Lust of the eyes or the Pride of Life But concerning Revelations and Dreams it shall suffice to have only proposed these few Conclusions without farther enlargement the manner of Gods revealing his will here to Abimelech by Dream being but an incidental circumstance upon the bye and not belonging to the main of the present story We will therefore without more ado proceed to the substance of Gods reply in the rest of the verse and therein begin with the former general part which But concerning Revelations and Dreams it shall suffice to have only proposed these few Conclusions without farther enlargement the manner of Gods revealing his will here to Abimelech by Dream being but an incidental circumstance upon the bye and not belonging to the main of the present story We will therefore without more adoe proceed to the substance of Gods reply in the rest of the verse and therein begin with the former general part which is Gods admission of Abimelechs Plea and Apology for himself The ground of whose Plea was Ignorance and the thing he pleaded his own Innocency and the integrity of his heart and God who is the searcher of all hearts alloweth the allegation and acknowledgeth that integrity Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart The Original word here translated Integrity is rendred by some Truth by others Purity and by others Simplicity and it will bear them all as signifying properly Perfection or Innocency You would think by that word that Abimelech had in this whole businesse walked in the sight of God with a pure and upright and true and single and perfect heart But alas he was far from that God plagued him and his for that he had done and God doth not use to punish the carcasse for that wherein the heart is single Again God with-held him or else he would have done more and worse and it is a poor perfection of heart where the active power only is restrained and not the inward corruption subdued Besides Sarah was taken into the house and there kept for lewd purposes and how can truth and purity of heart consist with a continued resolution of sinful uncleannesse Abimelech then cannot be defended as truly and absolutely innocent though he plead Innocency and God himself bear witnesse to the Integrity of his heart For had his heart been upright in him and sincere in this very matter of Sarah he would never have taken her into his house at all as he did But that he pleadeth for himself is that in this particular wherewith it seemed to him God by so threatning him did charge him in wronging Abraham by taking his wife from him his conscience could witnesse the Innocency of his heart how free he was from any the least injurious purpose or so much as thought that way It was told him by them both that she was his Sister and he knew no other by her than so when he took her into his house supposing her to be a single Woman if he had known she had been any mans Wife he would not for any good have done the man so foul an injury nor have sinned against his own soul by defiling anothers bed In the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands he did what he had done This is the substance of his allegation and God approveth the integrity of his heart so far viz. as free in this particular from any intent either to injure Abraham or to sin against the light of his own Conscience by committing adultery with anothers wife The meaning of the words thus cleared we may observe in them three things First the fact for which Abimelech pleadeth and that was the taking of Sarah who was anothers wife into his house Secondly the ground of his plea and that was his Ignorance he knew not when he took her that she was anothers wife Thirdly the thing he pleadeth upon that
as what it prescribeth and commandeth is done or not done Abimelechs own Reason by the light of Nature informed him that to take another mans wife from him was injurious and enjoyneth him therefore as he will avoid the horrors and upbraidings of a condemning heart by no means to do it Resolved accordingly to do and to obey the law of Reason written in his heart before he durst take Sarah into his house he maketh inquiry first whether she were a single woman or a wife and therefore although upon mis-information he took another mans wife unwitting that she was so he pleadeth here and that justly the integrity of his heart And from obedience to the same Law especially spring those many rare examples of Iustice Temperance Gratitude Beneficence and other moral vertues which we read of in Heathen men not without admiration which were so many strong evidences also of this moral integrity of their hearts A point that would bear much enlargement if we intended to amplifie in by Instances and did not rather desire to draw it briefly into use by Inferences A just condemnation it may be first to many of us who call our selves Christians and Beleevers and have many blessed means of direction and instruction for the due ordering of our hearts and lives which those Heathens wanted yet come so many paces nay leagues short of them both in the detestation of vicious and grosse enormities and in the conscionable practise of many offices of vertue Among them what strictnesse of Iustice which we either slack or pervert What zeal of the common good which we put off each man to other as an unconcerning thing What remission of private injuries which we pursue with implacable revenge What contempt of honours and riches which we so pant after so adore What temperance and frugality in their provisions wherein no excesse satisfieth us What free beneficence to the poor and to pious uses whereto we contribute penuriously and with grudging What conscience of oathes and promises which we so slight What reverence of their Priests whom we count as the scum of the people What loathing of swinish drunkennesse wherein some of us glory What detestation of usury as a monster in nature whereof some of ours make a trade Particularities are infinite but what should I say more Certainly unlesse our righteousnesses exceed theirs we shall never come to heaven but how shall we escape the nethermost hell if our unrighteousnesses exceed theirs Shall not Vncircumcision which is by nature if it keep the law judge thee who by the Letter and Circumcision doest transgresse the law said S. Paul to the Iew make application to thy self thou that art Christian. Secondly if even in unbeleevers and Hypocrites and Cast-awaies there may be in particular Actions integrity and singlenesse of heart then it can be but an uncertain Rule for us to judge of the true state of our own or other mens hearts by what they are in some few particular actions Men are indeed that not which they shew themselves in some passages but what they are in the more general and constant tenor of their lives If we should compare Abimelech and David together by their different behaviour in the same kinde of temptation in two particulars of the sacred History and look no farther we could not but give sentence upon them quite contrary to right and truth We should see Abimelech on the one side though allured with Sarahs beauty yet free from the least injurious thought to her husband or adulterous intent in himself We should behold David on the other side enflamed with lust after Bathsheba whom he knew to be another mans Wife plotting first how to compasse his filthy desires with the Wife and then after how to conceal it from the Husband by many wicked and politick fetches and when none of those would take at last to have him murthered being one of his principal Worthies in a most base and unworthy fashion with the losse of the lives of a number of innocent persons more besides the betraying of Gods cause the dis-heartning of his people and the incouragement of his and their enemies When we should see and consider all this on both sides and lay the one against the other what could we think but that Abimelech were the Saint and David the Infidel Abimelech the man after Gods own heart and David a stranger from the Covenant of God Yet was David all this while within that Covenant and for any thing we know or is likely Abimelech not Particular actions then are not good evidences either way as wherein both an unbeleever awed sometimes by the law of natural Conscience may manifest much simplicity and integrity of heart and the true Childe of God swayed sometimes with the law of sinful concupiscence may bewray much foul Hypocrisie and infidelity But look into the more constant course of both their lives and then may you finde the Hypocrite and the unbeleever wholly distinguished from the godly by the want of those right marks of sincerity that are in the godly no zeal of Gods glory no sense of original corruption no bemoaning of his privy hypocrisie and secret Atheisme no suspicion of the deceitfulnesse of his own heart no tendernesse of Conscience in smaller duties no faithful dependence upon the providence or promises of God for outward things no self-denial or poverty of spirit no thirst after the salvation of his brethren and the like none of these I say to be found in any constant manner in the general course of his life although there may be some sudden light flashes of some of them now and then in some particular Actions Measure no mans heart then especially not thine own by those rarer discoveries of moral integrity in particular actions but by the powerful manifestations of habitual grace in the more constant tenor of life and practise We may learn hence thirdly not to flatter our selves too much upon every integrity of heart or to think our selves discharged from sin in the sight of God upon every acquital of our own Consciences when as all this may befall an Hypocrite an Unbeleever a Reprobate When men accuse us of hypocrisie or unfaithfulnesse or lay to our charge things we never did it is I confesse a very comfortable and a blessed thing if we can finde protection against their accusations in our own hearts and be able to plead the integrity thereof in barre against their calumniations Our integrity though it be but Moral and though but only in those actions wherein they charge us wrongfully and the testimony of our own consciences may be of very serviceable use to us thus farre to make us regardlesse of the accusations of unjust men that one testimony within shall relieve us more than a thousand false witnesses without can injure us With me it is a very small thing saith Saint Paul that I should be judged of you or of mans judgement
which was not in that measure afforded them when they were tempted And from whom can we think that restraint to come but from that God who is the Author and the Lord of nature and hath the power and command and rule of nature by whose grace and goodnesse we are whatsoever we are and to whose powerful assistance we owe it if we do any good for it is he that setteth us on and to his powerful restraint if we eschew any evil for it is he that keepeth us off Therefore I also withheld thee from sinning against me And as to the third point in the Observation it is not much lesse evident than the two former namely that this Restraint as it is from God so it is from the Mercy of God Hence it is that Divines usually bestow upon it the name of Grace distinguishing between a twofold Grace a special renewing Grace and a Common restraining Grace The special and renewing Grace is indeed so incomparably more excellent that in comparison thereof the other is not worthy to be called by the name of Grace if we would speak properly and exactly but yet the word Grace may not unfitly be so extended as to reach to every act of Gods providence whereby at any time he restraineth men from doing those evils which otherwise they would do and that in a threefold respect of God of themselves of others First in respect of God every restraint from sin may be called Grace in as much as it proceedeth ex mero motu from the meer good will and pleasure of God without any cause motive or inducement in the man that is so restrained For take a man in the state of corrupt nature and leave him to himself and think how it is possible for him to forbear any sin whereunto he is tempted There is no power in nature to work a restraint nay there is not so much as any pronenesse in nature to desire a restraint much lesse then is there any worth in Nature to deserve a restraint Issuing therefore not at all from the Powers of Nature but from the free pleasure of God as a beam of his merciful providence this Restraint may well be called Grace And so it may be secondly in respect of the Persons themselves because though it be not available to them for their everlasting salvation yet it is some favour to them more than they have deserved that by this means their sins what in number what in weight are so much lesser than otherwise they would have been whereby also their account shall be so much the easier and their stripes so many the fewer Saint Chrysostome often observeth it as an effect of the mercy of God upon them when he cutteth off great offenders betimes with some speedy destruction and he doth it out of this very consideration that they are thereby prevented from committing many sins which if God should have lent them a longer time they would have committed If his observation be sound it may then well passe for a double Mercy of God to a sinner if he both respite his destruction and withall restrain him from sin for by the one he giveth him so much longer time for repentance which is one Mercy and by the other he preventeth so much of the increase of his sin which is another Mercy Thirdly it may be called Grace in respect of other men For in restraining men from doing evil God intendeth as principally his own glory so withall the good of mankinde especially of his Church in the preservation of humane society which could not subsist an hour if every man should be left to the wildenesse of his own nature to do what mischief the Devill and his own heart would put him upon without restraint So that the restraining of mens corrupt purposes and affections proceedeth from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle somewhere calleth it that love of GOD to mankinde whereby he willeth their preservation and might therefore in that respect bear the name of Grace though there should be no good at all intended thereby to the person so restrained Just as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those spiritual gifts which God hath distributed in a wonderful variety for the edifying of his Church though they often-times bring no good to the receiver are yet stiled graces in the Scriptures because the distribution of them proceedeth from the gracious love and favour of God to his Church whose benefit he intendeth therein God here restrained Abimelech as elsewhere he did Laban and Esau and Balaam and others not so much for their own sakes though perhaps sometimes that also as for their sakes whom they should have injured by their sins if they had acted them As here Abimelech for his chosen Abrahams sake and Laban and Esau for his servant Iacobs sake and Balaam for his people Israels sake As it is said in Psal. 105. and that with special reference as I conceive it to this very story of Abraham He suffered no man to do them wrong but reproved even Kings for their sakes saying Touch not mine anointed and do my Prophets no harm He reproved even Kings by restraining their power as here Abimelech but it was for their sakes still that so Sarah his anointed might not be touched nor his Prophet Abraham sustain any harm We see now the Observation proved in all the points of it 1. Men do not alwaies commit those evils they would and might do 2. That they do not it is from Gods restraint who with-holdeth them 3. That restraint is an act of his merciful providence and may therefore bear the name of Grace in respect of God who freely giveth it of them whose sins and stripes are the fewer for it of others who are preserved from harmes the better by it The Inferences we are to raise from the premises for our Christian practise and comfort are of two sorts for so much as they may arise from the consideration of Gods Restraining Grace either as it may lye upon other men or as it may lye upon our selves First from the consideration of Gods restraint upon others the Church and children and servants of God may learn to whom they owe their preservation even to the power and goodnesse of their God in restraining the fury of his and their enemies We live among Scorpions and as sheep in the midst of Wolves and they that hate us without a cause and are mad against us are more in number than the hairs of our heads And yet as many and as malicious as they are by the Mercy of God still we are and we live and we prosper in some measure in despite of them all Is it any thanks to them None at all The seed of the Serpent beareth a natural and an immortal hatred against God and all good men and if they had hornes to their curstnesse and power answerable to their wils we should not breath a minute
Is it any thanks to our selves Nor that neither we have neither number to match them nor policy to defeat them nor strength to resist them weak silly little flock as we are But to whom then is it thanks As if a little flock of sheep escape when a multitude of ravening Wolves watch to devour them it cannot be ascribed either in whole or in part either to the sheep in whom there is no help or to the Wolf in whom there is no mercy but it must be imputed all and wholly to the good care of the shepherd in safe guarding his sheep and keeping off the Wolf so for our safety and preservation in the midst and in the spight of so many Enemies Not unto us O Lord not unto us whose greatest strength is but weaknesse much lesse unto them whose tenderest mercies are cruel but unto thy Name be the glory O thou Shepheard of Israel who out of thine abundant love to us who are the flock of thy Pasture and the sheep of thy hands hast made thy power glorious in curbing and restraining their malice against us Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodnesse and declare the wonders that he doth for the children of men Wonders we may well call them indeed they are Miracles if things strange and above and against the ordinary course of Nature may be called Miracles When we read the stories in the Scriptures of Daniel cast into the den among the Lions and not touched of the three children walking in the midst of the fiery furnace and not scorched of a viper fastning upon Pauls hand and no harm following we are stricken with some amazement at the consideration of these strange and supernatural accidents and these we all confesse to be miraculous escapes Yet such Miracles as these and such escapes God worketh daily in our preservation notwithstanding we live encompassed with so many fire-brands of hell such herds of ravening Wolves and Lions and Tygers and such numerous generations of vipers I mean wicked and ungodly men the spawn of the old Serpent who have it by kinde from their father to thirst after the destruction of the Saints and servants of God and to whom it is as natural so to do as for the fire to burn or a viper to bite or a Lion to devour Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for this his goodnesse and daily declare these his great wonders which he daily doth for the children of men Secondly since this restraint of wicked men is so only from God as that nothing either they or we or any Creature in the world can do can with-hold them from doing us mischief unlesse God lay his restraint upon them it should teach us so much wisdome as to take heed how we trust them It is best and safest for us as in all other things so in this to keep the golden mean that we be neither too timorous nor too credulous If wicked men then threaten and plot against thee yet fear them not God can restrain them if he think good and then assure thy self they shall not harm thee If on the other side they colloague and make shew of much kindnesse to thee yet trust them not God may suffer them to take their own way and not restrain them and then assure thy self they will not spare thee Thou maist think perhaps of some one or other of these that sure his own good nature will hold him in or thou hast had trial of him heretofore and found him faithfull as heart could wish or thou hast some such tye upon him by kindred neighbourhood acquaintance covenant oath benefits or other natural or civil obligation as will keep him off at least from falling foul upon thee all at once Deceive not thy self these are but slender assurances for thee to abide upon Good nature alas where is it since Adam fell there was never any such thing in rerum natura if there be any good thing in any man it is all from Grace nature is all naught even that which seemeth to have the preheminence in nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is stark naught We may talk of this and that of good natured men and I know not what But the very truth is set grace aside I mean all grace both renewing and restraining grace there is no more good nature in any man than there was in Cain and in Iudas That thing which we use to call good nature is indeed but a subordinate means or instrument whereby God restraineth some men more than others from their birth and special constitution from sundry outragious exorbitancies and so is a branch of this restraining Grace whereof we now speak And as for thy past Experience that can give thee little security thou knowest not what fetters God layed upon him then nor how he was pleased with those fetters God might full sore against his will not only restrain him from doing thee hurt but also constrain him to do thee good as sometimes he commanded the Ravens to feed Eliah a bird so unnatural to her young ones that they might famish for her if God did not otherwise provide for them and therefore it is noted in the Scripture as a special argument of Gods providence that he feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him But as nothing that is constrained is durable but every thing when it is constrained against its natural inclination if it be let alone will at length return to his own kinde and primitive disposition as these Ravens which now fed Eliah would have been as ready another time to have pecked out his eyes so a Natural man is a natural man still howsoever ouer-ruled for the present and if God as he hath hitherto by his restraint with-held him shall but another while withhold his restraint from him he will soon discover the inbred hatred of his heart against good things and men and make thee at the last beshrew thy folly in trusting him when he hath done thee a mischief unawares And therefore if he have done thee seven courtesies and promise fair for the eighth yet trust him not for there are seven abominations in his heart And as for whatsoever other hanck thou maiest think thou hast over him be it never so strong unlesse God manacle him with his powerful restraint he can as easily unfetter himself from them all as Sampson from the green wit hs and coards wherewith the Philistines bound him All those fore-mentioned relations came in but upon the bye and since whereas the hatred of the wicked against goodness is of an ancienter date and hath his root in corrupt nature and is therefore of such force that it maketh void all obligations whether civil domestical or other that have grown by vertue of any succeeding contract It is a ruled case Inimici domestici A mans enemies may be
Hell into one band to do us any harm in our souls in our bodies in our children in our friends in our goods no not so much as our very Pigs or any small thing that we have without the special leave and sufferance of our good God He must have his Dedimus potestatem from him or he can do nothing Fourthly since this restraint is an act of Gods mercy whom we should strive to resemble in nothing more than in shewing mercy let every one of us in imitation of our Heavenly Father and in compassion to the souls of our brethren and for our own good and the good of humane society endeavour our selves faithfully the best we can to restrain and withhold and keep back others from sinning The Magistrate the Minister the Housholder every other man in his place and calling should do their best by rewards punishments rebukes incouragements admonitions perswasions good example and other like means to suppress vice and restrain disorders in those that may any way come within their charge Our first desire should be and for that we should bend our utmost endeavours that if it be possible their hearts might be seasoned with grace and the true fear of God but as in other things where we cannot attain to the full of our first aims Pulchrum est as he saith in secundis tertiisve consistere so here we may take some contentment in it as some fruit of our labours in our Callings if we can but wean them from gross disorders and reduce them from extremely debaucht courses to some good measure of Civility It ought not to be it is not our desire to make men Hypocrites and a meer Civil man is no better yet to us that cannot judge but by the outward behaviour it is less grief when men are Hypocrites than when they are Profane Our first aim is to make you good yet some rejoycing it is to us if we can but make you less evil Our aim is to make you of Natural holy and Spiritual men but we are glad if of dissolute we can but make you good Moral men if in stead of planting Grace we can but root out Vice if in stead of the power of Godliness in the reformation of the inner-man we can but bring you to some tolerable stayedness in the conformity of the outward-man If we can do but this though we are to strive for that our labour is not altogether in vain in the Lord. For hereby first mens sins are both less and fewer and that secondly abateth somewhat both of the number and weight of their stripes and maketh their punishment the easier and thirdly there is less scandal done to Religion which receiveth not so much soil and dis-reputation by close hypocrisie as by lewd and open prophaneness Fourthly the Kingdome of Satan is diminished though not directly in the strength for he loseth never a Subject by it yet somewhat in the glory thereof because he hath not so full and absolute command of some of his subjects as before he had or seemed to have Fifthly much of the hurt that might come by evil example is hereby prevented Sixthly the people of God are preserved from many injuries and contumelies which they would receive from evil men if their barbarous manners were not thus civilized as a fierce Mastiffe doth least hurt when he is chained and muzled Seventhly and lastly and which should be the strongest motive of all the rest to make us industrious to repress vicious affections in others it may please God these sorry beginnings may be the fore-runners of more blessed and more solid graces My meaning is not that these Moral restraints of our wilde corruption can either actually or but virtually prepare dispose or qualifie any man for the grace of Conversion and Renovation or have in them Virtutem seminalem any natural power which by ordinary help may be cherished and improved so far as an Egge may be hatched into a Bird and a kirnel sprowt and grow into a tree far be it from us to harbour any such Pelagian conceipts but this I say that God being a God of order doth not ordinarily work but in order and by degrees bringing men from the one extream to the other by middle courses and therefore seldom bringeth a man from the wretchedness of forlorn nature to the blessed estate of saving grace but where first by his restraining grace in some good measure he doth correct nature and moralize it Do you then that are Magistrates do we that are Ministers let all Fathers Masters and others whatsoever by wholesome severity if fairer courses will not reclaim them deter audacious persons from offending break those that are under our charge of their wills and wilfulness restrain them from lewd and licentious practises and company not suffer sin upon them for want of reproving them in due and seasonable sort snatch them out of the fire and bring them as far as we can out of the snare of the Devil to God-ward and leave the rest to him Possibly when we have faithfully done our part to the utmost of our power he will set in graciously and begin to do his part in their perfect conversion If by our good care they may be made to forbear swearing and cursing and blaspheming they may in time by his good grace be brought to fear an Oath If we restrain them from grosse prophanations upon his holy-day in the mean time they may come at length to think his Sabbath a delight If we keep them from swilling and gaming and revelling and rioting and roaring the while God may frame them ere long to a sober and sanctified use of the Creatures and so it may be said of other sins and duties I could willingly inlarge all these points of Inferences but that there are yet behinde sundry other good Uses to be made of this restraining Grace of God considered as it may lye upon our selves and therefore I now passe on to them First there is a root of Pride in us all whereby we are apt to think better of our selves than there is cause and every infirmity in our brother which should rather be an item to us of our frailty serveth as fuel to nourish this vanity and to swell us up with a Pharisaical conceit that forsooth we are not like other men Now if at any time when we see any of our brethren fall into some sin from which by the good hand of God upon us we have been hitherto preserved we then feel this swelling begin to rise in us as sometimes it will do the point already delivered may stand us in good stead to prick the bladder of our pride and to let out some of that windy vanity by considering that this our forbearance of evill wherein we seem to excell our brother is not from nature but from grace not from our selves but from God And here a little let me close with
strength though it be never so great that he shall be able to avoid any sin though it be never so foul When a Heathen man prayed unto Iupiter to save him from his Enemies one that overheard him would needs mend it with a more needful prayer that Iupiter would save him from his Friends he thought they might do him more hurt because he trusted them but as for his Enemies he could look to himself well enough for receiving harm from them We that are Christians bad need pray unto the God of Heaven that he would not give us up into the hands of our professed enemies and to pray unto God that he would not deliver us over into the hands of our false-hearted Friends but there is another prayer yet more needful and to be pressed with greater importunity than either of both that God would save us from our selves and not give us up into our own hands for then we are utterly cast away There is a wayward old-man that lurketh in every of our bosoms and we make but too much of him than whom we have not a more spightful enemy nor a more false friend Alas we do not think what a man is given over to that is given over to himself he is given over to vile affections he is given over to a reprobate sense he is given over to commit all manner of wickednesse with greedinesse It is the last and fearfullest of all other judgements and is not usually brought upon men but where they have obstinately refused to hear the voice of God in whatsoever other tone he had spoken unto them then to leave them to themselves and to their own counsels My people would not hear my voice and Israel would none of me so I gave them up unto their own hearts lust and let them follow their own imaginations As we conceive the state of the Patient to be desperate when the Physician giveth him over and letteth him eat and drink and have and doe what and when and as much as he will without prescribing him any diet or keeping back any thing from him he hath a minde unto Let us therefore pray faithfully and fervently unto God as Christ himself hath taught us that he would not by leaving us unto our selves lead us into temptation but by his gracious and powerful support deliver us from all those evils from which we have no power at all to deliver our selves Lastly since this Restraint whereof we have spoken may be but a common Grace and can give us no sound nor solid comfort if it be but a bare restraint and no more though we ought to be thankful for it because we have not deserved it yet we should not rest nor think our selves safe enough till we have a well grounded assurance that we are possessed of an higher and a better grace even the grace of sanctification For that will hold out against temptations where this may fail We may deceive our selves then and thousands in the world do so deceive themselves if upon our abstaining from sins from which God with-holdeth us we presently conclude our selves to be in the state of Grace and to have the power of godlinesse and the spirit of sanctification For between this restraining Grace whereof we have now spoken and that renewing Grace whereof we now speak there are sundry wide differences They differ first in their fountain Renewing grace springeth from the special love of God towards those that are his his in Christ restraining grace is a fruit of that general mercy of God whereof it is said in the Psalm that his mercy is over all his works They differ secondly in their extent both of Person Subject Object and Time For the Person restraining Grace is common to good and bad Renewing Grace proper and peculiar to the Elect. For the Subject Restraining Grace may binde one part or faculty of a man as the hand or tongue and leave another free as the heart or ear Renewing Grace worketh upon all in some measure sanctifieth the whole man Body and soul and spirit with all the parts and faculties of each For the Object Restraining Grace may withhold a man from one sin and give him scope to another Renewing Grace carrieth an equal and just respect to all Gods Commandements For the Time Restraining Grace may tye us now and by and by unloose us Renewing Grace holdeth out unto the end more or lesse and never leaveth us wholly destitute Thirdly they differ in their Ends. Restraining Grace is so intended chiefly for the good of humane society especially of the Church of God and of the members thereof as that indifferently it may or may not do good to the Receiver but Renewing Grace is especially intended for the Salvation of the Receiver though Ex consequenti it do good also unto others They differ fourthly and lastly in their Effects Renewing Grace mortifieth the corruption and subdueth it and diminisheth it as water quencheth fire by abating the heat but Restraining Grace only inhibiteth the exercise of the corruption for the time without any real diminution of it either in substance or quality as the fire wherein the three Children walked had as much heat in it at that very instant as it had before and after although by the greater power of God the natural power of it was then suspended from working upon them The Lions that spared Daniel were Lions still and had their ravenous disposition still albeit God stopped their mouthes for that time that they should not hurt him but that there was no change made in their natural disposition appeareth by their entertainment of their next guests whom they devoured with all greedinesse breaking their bones before they came to the ground By these two instances and examples we may in some measure conceive of the nature and power of the restraining grace of God in wicked men It bridleth the corruption that is in them for the time that it cannot break out and manacleth them in such sort that they do not shew forth the ungodly disposition of their heart but there is no reall change wrought in them all the while their heart still remaining unsanctified and their natural corruption undiminished Whereas the renewing and sanctifying Grace of God by a reall change of a Lion maketh a Lamb altereth the natural disposition of the soul by draining out some of the corruption begetteth a new heart a new spirit new habits new qualities new dispositions new thoughts new desires maketh a new man in every part and faculty compleatly New Content not thy self then with a bare forbearance of sin so long as thy heart is not changed nor thy will changed nor thy affections changed but strive to become a new man to be transformed by the renewing of thy minde to hate sin to love God to wrastle against thy secret corruptions to take delight in holy duties to subdue thine understanding and
Sever. lib. 1 Hist. sacra g Levita Samuel noÌ„ Sacerdos non Pontifex fuit Hieron lib. cont Jovin v. Drus. not ad Sulpiâ— Hist. p. 154. h 1 Sam. 7.16 i 1 Sam. 15.33 k 1 Chron. 26.29.32 l In omni negotio divino humano Vatab in 1. Parab 26. Sect. 14. Phinehes his fact examined a Serm. 2. ad Cler. Sect. 30. b Numb 25.5 c Hall 7. Contempl 4. d Num. 25.5 Sect. 15. and justâ—fied a Num. 25.12 13. b Psal. 106.31 c Gen. 15.6 applied by Saint Paul Rom. 4.3 d Iud. 3.9 15. c. 2.16.18 e Iud 5.7 10.1 3 c. f Iud. 3.10 g Nescit tarda molimina Spiritús Sancti gratia Ambr. 2. in Luc. 3. Sect. 16. yet not to be imitated a Esay 8.20 b 1 John 4.1 Sect. 17. but with limitation a Rom. 15.4 b 1 Cor. 10.11 Sect. 18. unto his zeal a Num. 25.11 b Ibid. 13. c Sirac 45.23 d 1 Mac. 2.54 e As Neh. 1.4 Job 2.13 Psal. 137.1 Esay 47.1 8. f Verbum ipsum soliditatem mentis ostendit Cassiodorus Constanter Lyranus Constantiâ mentis audaciâ operis Ludolfus hic He had zeal in the fear of the Lord and stood up with good courage of heart Sirac 45.23 a Masora populus semper à summo exigit Senec. in Octav. Act. 2. Sect. 19. Manifested by executing Iudgement b Gal. 4.18 c 3 King 9. d Chro. 19.6 e Jer. 48.10 Sect. 20. 1 Personally Eccles. 11.4 b Regium est cùm rectè feceris audire malè c 1 Cor. 4.5 Sect. 21. 2 Speedily a Virgil. Eclog 9. b Qui tardè fecit diu noluit Senec. 1. de benef 1. c Odit verus amâ—r nec patitur moras Senec in Herc. fur act 2. d Dum poenas odio per vim festinat inulte Horat. 1. Epist. 2. e Nunc ira amòrque causam junxê re quid sequetur Senec. in Med. act 4. f Saepè causas tantum dâ—fferunt quòd litigantibus plus quà m totum auferunt quia major est expensaruÌ„ sumptus quà m sententiae fructus Innocent g Bern. lib. 1. de consid h Eccl. 8.11 Sect. 22. 3. Resolutely a Num. 25.14 b Num. 25.15 compared with Num. 31.8 c Amor timere neminem verus potest Senec. in Med. act 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d viros virtutis Exod. 8.21 Iustum esse facile est cui vacat pectus metu Senec. in Oct. Act. 2. e Prov. â—2 13 26.13 Sect. 23. Executing of judgement a Num. 25.11 b Ibid. 13. Sect. 24. appeased the wrath of God a Rom. 13.4 b 1 Sam. 15.22 c Prov. 21.3 Sect. 25. and stayed the Plague a Psal. 35.13 Sect. 26. Englands Plague a Psal. 51.4 b Esay 3.15 Sect. 27. to be stayed by adding to our humiliations a Joel 2.12 15 c. Num. 25.6 b Proclamation for a weekly fast with a form of divine Service and other directions published 1625. a Mark 10.21 b 2 Sam. 21.1 c. c Ibid. vers 14. d Josh. 7.25 26. e I will not be with you any more except you destroy the accursed from among you v. 12 f Num. 25.3 4. g Num. 35.33 a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lysias apud Stob. Serm. 44. Sect. 30. With particular applications to Sect. 31. the Accuser Sect. 32. the Witnesse a Sâ—e Cic. pro Flac. although Turneb 13. advers 14. interpret the Proverb otherwise Graecâ fide id est optimâ b quibus jusjurandum jocus est testimonium ludus laus merces gratia gratulatio proposita est Cic. pro Flac. c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dictum solenne Graecorum d Prov. 19.5 9. Sect. 33. the Iurer a deinde Praetores urbani qui jurati debent optimum quemque in selectos judices referre Cic. pâ—o Cluent Unum ex selectis judicibus objiciebat Horat. 1. Serm. sat 4. Sect. 34. the Pleader a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Gol. 5. Noct. Att. 5. b Vir bonus dicendi peritus Cicero Sect. 35. the officer Sect. 36. and the Iudge a Psal. 75.2 3. b Prov. 14.34 c Prov. 16.12 d Jer. 1.10 §. 1. The Coherence (a) Sic râ—us ille fere est de quo victoria lucro Esse potest Ovid de nuce (b) Ver. 4. hic (c) Ver. 11. (ef) Ver. 13. (ef) Ver. 13. (g) Juven Satyr 13. §. 2. Argument (h) Hab. 1.13 (i) Psal. 51.6 (k) Tit. 1.2 (l) James 1.17 (a) 4 Kin. â—0 10 (b) 1 Pet. 1.17 (c) Exod. 34.7 §. 3. and Division of the Text. (d) Psal. 145.17 (e) Psal. 51.4 §. 4. Ahabs person considered (a) See 4. Kin. 10.31 (b) 3 Kings 16.30 (c) Ibid. 33. (d) Ver. 27. hic §. 5. and his carriage with the Observations thence (e) Verse 20.24 hic §. 6. Observat. I. How 〈◊〉 an Hypocrite may go in the performance of holy duties (a) 2 Tim. 3.5 (b) Tit. 12.4 §. 7. with the application (c) Mat. 13.5 (d) Luke 8.6 (e) Mat. 13.20 Mark 4.16 (f) Mat. 13.21 Mar. 4.17 (a) Heb. 6.4 5. §. 8. (b) 1 Sam. 8.9 and proof thereof (c) 4 King 10.16 28. (d) Mark 6.10 (a) Exod. 14.4 (b) Rom. 1.16 (c) See Eccl. 9.1 (d) Ier. 11.20 17.10 §. 9. Inferences thence 1. of terrour against prophaness (e) 2 Tim. 3.5 (f) Psal. 1.1 [g] Mark 6.20 [h] Mat. 13.20 [i] Mat. 24.51 §. 10. [k] Rom. 8.13 2. of exhortation to abound in the fruits of godliness [l] Gal. 5.22 [a] Mat. 5.16 [b] Mat. 11.19 §. 11. 3. of admonition to forbear judging (a) 1 Cor. 13.7 (b) Jude 23. (c) 2 Thes. 2.3 §. 12. 4. Of direction for the tryall of sincerity (d) Mat. 5.20 §. 13. by the marks 1. Of Integrity (a Mark 6.20.17.27 (b) Luke 13 3â— (c) Mat. 19.17 20. (d) ibid. ver 21. (e) Ibid. 22. (f) Mat. 23.23 (a) Ibid. 24. (b) Op. imperfect in Mar. hom 45. (c) Psa. 119.6 §. 14. 2. Of Constancy (d) Mat. 13.5 6. (e) Persius (f) Qualitatis verae tenor permanet falsa non durant Senec. Epist. 120. (a) 3 Kin. 22.27 (b) In Categ cap. de qualit §. 15 Both joyned together for Tryall §. 16. The opening of the second Oâ—servation §. 17. Observat. II. the power of Gods word (a) 2 Cor. 10.4 5. (b) Heb. 4.12 (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (d) Jer. 23.29 (e) 1 Sam. 15.24 (f) John 3.5 (g) Acts 24.25 §. 18. with the Causes thereof 1. in the Instrument (a) 2 Cor. 4.7 (b) Psal. 29.4 5. §. 19. 2. in the Object (c) Luke 16.24 (d) Gen. 25.30 31. §. 20.3 in the fit application of the one to the other (a) Vers. 20. hic (b) Vers. 19. (c) Ver. 21 c. (d) Act. 24.25 (e) Act. 24.2 c. (f) Tacit. Hist. lib. 5. §. 21. An inference against those that despise the Word * 2 Cor. 4.7 * Ephes. 6.17 §. 22. The successe of Ahab's humiliation (a) Osee 6.6 (b) Esa. 19.16 (a) Psal. 35.13 (b) Esa. 58.5 (c) Prov. 15 8. §. 23.
judgement upon Zimri and Cosbi did withall lift up his heart to God to blesse that action and to turn it to good In which respects especially if the word withall will bear it as it seemeth it will some men should have done well not to have shewn so much willingnesse to quarrell at the Church-translations in our Service-book by being clamorous against this very place as a grosse corruption and sufficient to justifie their refusall of subscription to the Book But I will not now trouble either you or my selfe with farther curiosity in examining Translations because howsoever other Translations that render it praying or appeasing may be allowed either as tolerably good or at least excusably ill yet this that rendreth it by Executing Iudgment is certainly the best whether we consider the course of the Story it selfe or the propriety of the word in the Originall or the intent of the Holy Ghost in this Scripture And this Action of Phinehes in doing judgement upon such a paire of great and bold offenders was so well pleasing unto God that his wrath was turned away from Israel and the plague which had broken in upon them in a sudden and fearfull manner was immediately stayed thereupon Oh how acceptable a sacrifice to God above the blood of Bulls and of Goates is the death of a Malefactor slaughtered by the hand of Iustice When the Magistrate who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Minister and Priest of God for this very thing putteth his knife to the throat of the beast and with the fire of an holy zeal for GOD and against sin offereth him up in Holocaustum for a whole burnt-offering and for a peace-offering unto the Lord. Samuel saith that to obey is better than sacrifice and Salomon that to do justice and judgement is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice Obedience that is the prime and the best sacrifice and the second best is the punishment of Disobedience There is no readier way to appease GODS wrath against sinne then is the rooting out of sinners nor can his deputies by any other course turn away his just judgements so effectually as by faithfull executing of Iustice and judgement themselves When Phinehes did this act the publick body of Israel was in a weak state and stood in need of a present and sharp remedy In some former distempers of the State it may be they had found some ease by dyet in humbling their soules by fasting or by an issue at the tongue or eye in an humble confession of their sinnes and in weeping and mourning for them with teares of repentance And they did well now to make triall of those remedies again wherein they had found so much help in former times especially the remedies being proper for the malady and such as often may do good but never can do harm But alas fasting and weeping and mourning before the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation had not strength enough against those more prevalent corruptions wherewith the State of Israel was then pestered This Phinehes saw who well perceived that as in a dangerous pleurisie the party cannot live unlesse he bleed so if there were any good to be done upon Israel in this their little lesse than desperate estate a vein must be opened and some of the rank blood let out for the preservation of the rest of the body This course therefore he tries and languishing Israel findeth present ease in it As soon as the blood ran instantly the grief ceased He executed judgement and the plague was stayed As God brought upon that people for their sinnes a fearfull destruction so he hath in his just wrath sent his destroying Angel against us for ours The sinnes that brought that Plague upon them were Whoredome and Idolatry I cannot say the very same sinnes have caused ours For although the execution of good Lawes against both incontinent and idolatrous persons hath been of late yeares and yet is we all know to say no more slack enough yet Gods holy name be blessed for it neither Idolatry nor Whoredome are at that height of shamelesse impudency and impunity among us that they dare brave our Moseses and out-face whole Congregations as it was in Israel But still this is sure no plague but for sinne nor nationall Plagues but for Nationall sinnes So that albeit none of us may dare to take upon us to be so far of Gods counsell as to say for what very sinnes most this plague is sent among us yet none of us can be ignorant but that besides those secret personall corruptions which are in every one of us and whereunto every mans own heart is privy there are many publick and nationall sinnes whereof the people of this Land are generally guilty abundantly sufficient to justifie GOD in his dealings towards us and to cleer him when he is judged Our wretched unthankfulnesse unto GOD for the long continuance of his Gospel and our peace our carnall confidence and security in the strength of our wooden and watry walls our riot and excesse the noted proper sinne of this Nation and much intemperate abuse of the good creatures of GOD in our meates and drinkes and disperts and other provisions and comforts of this life our incompassion to our brethren miserably wasted with War and Famine in other parts of the world our heavy Oppression of our brethren at home in racking the rents and cracking the backes and Grinding the faces of the poor our cheap and irreverent regard unto Gods holy ordinances of his Word and Sacraments and Sabbaths and Ministers our wantonnesse and Toyishnesse of understanding in corrupting the simplicity of our Christian Faith and troubling the peace of the Church with a thousand niceties and novelties and unnecessary wranglings in matters of Religion and to reckon no more that universall Corruption which is in those which because they should be such we call the Courts of Iustice by sale of offices enhauncing of fees devising new subtilties both for delay and evasion trucking for expedition making trappes of petty penall Statutes and but Cobwebs of the most weighty and materiall Lawes I doubt not but by the mercy of God many of his servants in this Land are free from some and some from all of these common crimes in some good measure but I fear me not the best of us all not a man of us all but are guilty of all or some of them at least thus farre that we have not mourned for the corruptions of the times so feelingly nor endeavoured the reformation of them to our power so faithfully as we might and ought to have done By these and other sinnes we have provoked Gods heavy judgement against us and the Plague is grievously broken in upon us and now it would be good for us to know by what meanes we might best appease his wrath and stay this Plague Publick Humiliations have ever been thought
and so they are proper Remedies against Publick judgements To turne unto the Lord our God with all our heart and with Fasting and with Weeping and with Mourning to sanctifie a Fast and call a solemn assembly and gather the people and Elders together and weep before the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation and to let the Priests the Ministers of the Lord weep between the Porch and the Altar and to pray the Lord to spare his people and not be angry with them for ever Never did people thus humble themselves with true lowly penitent and obedient hearts who found not comfort by it in the meane time and in the end benefit And blessed be God who hath put it into the heart of our Moses with the consent of the Elders of our Israel by his royall example first and then by his royall command to lay upon us a double necessity of this so religious and profitable a course But as our Saviour told the young man in the Gospel who said he had kept the whole Law Unum tibi deest One thing is wanting so when we have done our best and utmost fasted and wept and prayed as constantly and frequently and fervently as we can unlesse you the Magistrates and Officers of justice be good unto us one thing will be wanting still One maine ingredient of singular vertue without which the whole receipt besides as precious and soveraign as it is may be taken and yet fail the cure And that is the severe and fearelesse and impartiall Execution of judgement Till we see a care in the Gods on earth faithfully to execute theirs our hopes can be but faint that the God of Heaven will in mercy remove his judgements If God send a famine into the land let holy David do what he can otherwise it will continue yeare after yeare so long as judgement is not done upon the bloody house of Saul for his cruelty in slaying the Gibeonites God will not be entreated for the land One known Achan that hath got a wedge of gold by sacriledge or injustice if suffered is able to trouble a whole Israel and the Lord will Not turn from the fiercenesse of his anger till he have deserved judgement done upon him If Israel have joyned himselfe unto Baal-Peor so as the anger of the Lord be kindled against them he will not be appeased by any meanes untill Moses take the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the Sunne If the Land be defiled with blood it is in vain to think of any other course when God himself hath pronounced it impossible that the Land should be Purged from the blood that is shed in it otherwise then by the blood of him that shed it Up then with the zeal of Phinehes up for the love of God and of his people all you that are in place of authority Gird your swords upon your thigh and with your javelins in your hand pursue the Idolater and the Adulterer and the Murtherer and the Oppressour and every known offender into his Tent and naile him to the Earth that he never rise again to do more mischief Let it appeare what love you bear to the State by your hatred to them and shew your pity to us by shewing none to them The destroying Angel of God attendeth upon you for his dispatch if you would but set in stoutly he would soon be gone Why should either sloth or feare or any partiall or corrupt respect whatsoever make you cruell to the good in sparing the bad or why should you suffer your selves for want of courage and zeal to execute judgement to lose either the opportunity or the glory of being the instruments to appease Gods wrath and to stay his plagues But for that matters appertaining to Iustice and Iudgement must passe through many hands before they come to yours and there may bee so much juggling used in conveighing them from hand to hand that they may be represented unto you many times in much different formes from what they were in truth and at the first That your care and zeale to execute Iustice and Iudgement faithfully according to your knowledge may not through the fault and miscarriage of other men faile the blessed end and successe that Phinehes found I desire that every of them also as well as you would receive the word of Exhortation each in his place and office to set himselfe uprightly and unpartially as in the sight of God to advance to the utmost of his power the due course and administration of Iustice. And for this purpose by occasion of this Scripture which pointeth us to the End of these Assemblies I shall crave leave to reflect upon another which giveth us sundry particular directions conducing to that End And it is that Scripture whereinto we made some entrance the last Assizes and would have now proceeded farther had not the heavie hand of God upon us in this his grievous visitation led me to make choice rather of this Text as the more seasonable That other is written in Exodus 23. the three first verses Thou shalt not raise a false report put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witnesse Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evill neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgement Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause Wherein were noted five speciall Rules shared out among five sorts of persons the Accuser the Witnesse the Iurer the Pleader the Officer I will but give each of them some brief intimation of their duty from their severall proper rules and conclude If thou comest hither then as a Plantiffe or other Party in a civil cause or to give voluntary Information upon a Statute or to prosecute against a Malefactor or any way in the nature of an Accuser Let neither the hope of gain or of any other advantage to thy self not secret malice or envie against thine adversary nor thy desire to give satisfaction to any third party sway thee beyond the bounds of truth and equity no not a little either to devise an untruth against thy neighbour of thine own head or by an hard construction to deprave the harmelesse actions or speeches of others or to make them worse than they are by unjust aggravations or to take advantage of letters and syllables to entrap innocency without a fault When thou art to open thy mouth against thy brother set the first Rule of that Text as a watch before the door of thy lips Thou shalt not raise a false report If thou comest hither secondly to be used as a Witnesse perhaps Graecâ fide like a down-right Knight of the post that maketh of an oath a jest and a pastime of a deposition or dealt withall by a bribe or suborned by thy Land-lord or great Neighbour or egged on with
as to the chief agent that imployeth it We have this treasure in earthen vessels saith Saint Paul that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us 2 Cor. 4. We say Words are but wind and indeed the words of the best Minister are no better as they are breathed out and uttered by sinfull mortall man whose breath is in his nostrils but yet this wind as it is breaâ—hed in and inspired by the powerfull eternal Spirit of God is strong enough by his effectuall working with it not only to shake the top-branches but to rend up the very bottom-root of the tallest Cedar in Lebanon Vox Domini confringens Cedros Psal. 29. The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation the voyce of the Lord is a glorious voyce The voyce of the Lord breaketh the Cedars yea the Lord breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon Another Cause is in the Object and that is the force of Natural Conscience which the most presumptuous sinner can never so stifle though he endeavour all he can to do it but that it will be sometimes snubbing and stinging and lashing and vexing him with ougly representations of his past sinnes and terrible suggestions of future vengeance And then of all other times is the force of it most lively when the voyce of God in his word awakeneth it after a long dead sleep Then it riseth and Sampson-like rouseth up it self and bestirreth it self lustily as a Giant refreshed with wine and it putteth the disquieted patient to such unsufferable pain that he runneth up and down like a distracted man and doth he knoweth not what and seeketh for ease he knoweth not where Then he would give all Dives his wealth for A drop of water to cool the heat he feeleth and with Esau part with his birth-right for any thing though it were never so little or mean that would give him but the least present refreshing and preserve him from fainting Then sack-cloth and ashes and fasting and weeping and mourning and renting the garments and tearing the hair and knocking the brest and out-cries to heaven and all those other things which he could not abide to hear of in the time of his former security whilest his conscience lay fast asleep and at rest are now in all haste and greedily entertained and all too little if by any means they can possibly give any ease or asswagement to the present torment he feeleth in his soul. A third Cause is oftentimes in the Application of the Instrument to the Object For although Gods Word in the general be Powerfull and the Conscience of it self be of a stirring Nature yet then ordinarily doth the Word of God work most powerfully upon the Consciences of obstinate sinners when it is throughly and closely applyed to some special corruption whereunto the party cannot plead Not-guilty when the sinne and the judgement are both so driven home that the guilty offender can neither avoid the evidence of the one nor the fear of the other A plain instance whereof we have in this present history of King Ahab When Eliah first came to him in the Vineyard he was pert enough Hast thou found me O mine enemy But by that the Prophet had done with him told him of the sin which was notorious Hast thou killed and taken possession foretold him of the judgement which was heavy I will bring evill upon thee and will take away thy Posterity c. the man was not the man Eliah left him in a farr other tune than he found him in The Prophets words wrought sore upon him and his Conscience wrought sore within him both together wrought him to the humiliation we now speak of It came to passe when he heard these words that he rent his clothes c. If you desire another instance turn to Acts 24.25 where there is a right good one and full to this purpose There we read that Felix the Roman Deputy in Jury Trembled when Paul reasoned of Iustice and of Temperance and of the judgement to come What was that thing may we think in St. Pauls reasoning which especially made Felix to tremble It is commonly taken to be the Doctrine of the last judgement which is indeed a terrible doctrine and able if it be throughly apprehended to make the stoutest of the sons of men to tremble But I take it that is not all The very thing that made Felix tremble seemeth rather to be that Paul's discourse fell upon those special vices wherein he was notably faulty and then clapt in close with judgement upon them For Felix was noted of much cruelty and injustice in the administration of the affairs of Jury howsoever Tertullus like a smooth Orator to curry favour with him and to do Paul a displeasure did flatteringly commend his government and he was noted also of incontinency both otherwise and especially in marrying Drusilla who was another mans wife Tacitus speaking of him in the fifth of his history painteth him out thus Per omnem saevitiam libidinem jus regium servili ingenio exercuit And for such a man as governed with cruelty and rapine and lived in unchaste wedlock to hear one reason powerfully of Iustice and of Chastity for so much the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there used properly importeth and of Iudgement it is no wonder if it make him tremble Do thou consider this and tremble whosoever thou art that in thy thoughts despisest the holy word of God accounting of it but as of some humane invention to keep fools in awe withall and thou also whosoever thou art that undervaluest this precious treasure for the meanness or other infirmities of the earthen vessel wherein it is conveyed Tell me doest thou not herein struggle against the testimony and evidence of thine own heart Doth not thine own Conscience and Experience tell thee that this Sword of the Spirit hath a keen edge and biteth and pierceth where it goeth Hath it not sometimes galled and rubbed and lanced and cut thee to the very bone and entred even to the dividing asunder of the joynts and of the marrow Hath it not sometimes as it were by subtile and serpentine insinuations strangely wound it self through those many crooked and Labyrinthean turnings that are in thine heart into the very in-most corner and center thereof and there ripped up thy bowels and thy reins and raked out the filth and corruption that lurked within thee and set thy secretest thoughts in order before thy face in such sort as that thou hast been strucken with astonishment and horrour at the discovery Though perhaps it have not yet softened and melted thy stony and obdurate heart yet didst thou never perceive it hammering about it with sore strokes and knocks as if it would break and shiver it into a thousand pieces Doubtlesse thou hast and if thou wouldest deny it thy conscience is able to give
posterity together with thy estate the wrath and vengeance and curse of God which is one of those appurtenances Haddest thou not a faithfull Counsellor within thine own brest if thou wouldest but have conferred and advised with him plainly and undissemblingly that could have told thee thou hadst by thy oppression and injustice ipso facto cut off the entail from thy issue even long before thou haddest made it But if thou wouldest leave thy posterity a firm and secure and durable estate doe this rather Purchase for them by thy charitable works the prayers and blessings of the poor settle upon them the fruits of a religious sober and honest education bequeath them the legacie of thy good example in all vertuous and godly living and that portion thou leavest them besides of earthly things be it much or little be sure it be well gotten otherwise never look it should prosper with them A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and sowreth it and a little iâ—l gotten like a gangrene spreadeth through the whole estate and worse than aqua fortis or the poysoned shirt that Deianira gave Hercules cleaveth unto it and feedeth upon it and by little and little gnaweth and fretteth and consumeth it to nothing And surely Gods Iustice hath wonderfully manifested it self unto the world in this kinde sometimes even to the publike astonishment and admiration of all men that men of antient Families and great estates well left by their Ancestors and free from debts legacies or other encombrances not notedly guilty of any expencefull sinne or vanity but wary and husbandly and carefull to thrive in the world not kept under with any great burden of needy friends or charge of children not much hindred by any extraordinary losses or casualties of fire theeves suretiship or sutes that such men I say should yet sink and decay and runne behind hand in the world and their estates crumble and milder away and come to nothing and no man knoweth how No question but they have sinnes enough of their own to deserve all this and ten times more than all this but yet withall who knoweth but that it might nay who knoweth not that sometimes it doth so legible now and then are Gods judgements come upon them for the greediness and avarice and oppression and sacrilege and injustice of their not long foregoing Ancestors You that are parents take heed of these sinnes It may be for some other reasons known best to himself God suffereth you to goe on your own time and suspendeth the judgements your sins have deserved for a space as here he did Ahab's upon his humiliation but be assured sooner or later vengeance will overtake you or yours for it You have Coveted an evil covetousness to your house and there hangeth a judgement over your house for it as rain in the clouds which perhaps in your sons perhaps in your grand-childs daies some time or other will come dashing down upon it and over-whelm it Think not the vision is for many descents to come de male quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres seldom doth the third scarce ever the fourth generation passe before God visit the sinnes of the Fathers upon the Children if he doe not in the very next generation In his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Secondly if not onely our own but our fathers sinnes too may be shall be visited upon us how concerneth it us as to repent for our own so to lament also the sins of our forefathers and in our confessions and supplications to God sometimes to remember them that he may forget them and to set them before his face that he may cast them behind his back We have a good president for it in our publike Letany Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers A good and a profitable and a needfull prayer it is and those men have not done well nor justly that have cavilled at it O that men would be wise according to sobriety and allow but just interpretations to things advisedly established rather than busie themselves nodum in scirpo to pick needlesse quarrels where they should not What unity would it bring to brethren what peace to the Church what joy to all good and wise men As to this particular God requireth of the Israelites in Lev. 26. that they should confesse their iniquity and the iniquity of their Fathers David did so and Ieremy did so and Daniel did so in Psal. 106. in Ierem. 3. in Dan. 9. And if David hought it a fit curse to pronounce against Iudas and such as he was in Psal. 109. Let the wickednesse of his fathers be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord and let not the sinne of his mother be done away why may we not nay how ought we not to pray for the removal of this very curse from us as well as of any other curses The present age is rise of many enormous crying sinnes which call loud for a judgement upon the land and if God should bring upon us a right heavy one whereat all ears should tingle could we say other but that it were most just even for the sinnes of this present generation But if unto our own so many so great God should also adde the sinnes of our forefathers the bloudshed and tyranny and grievous unnatural butcheries in the long times of the Civil warrs and the universal idolatries and superstitions covering the whole land in the longer and darker times of Popery and if as he sometimes threatned to bring upon the Iews of that one generation all the righteous bloud that ever was shed upon the earth from the bloud of the righteous Abel unto the bloud of Zacharias the sonne of Barachias so he should bring the sinnes of our Ancestors for many generations past upon this generation of ours who could be able to abide it Now when the security of the times give us but too much cause to fear it and the regions begin to look white towards the harvest is it not time for us with all humiliation of Soul and Body to cast down our selves and with all contention of voice and spirit to lift up our prayers and to say Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers neither take thou vengeance of our sinnes Spare us good Lord spare the people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious bloud and be not angry with us for ever Spare us good Lord. Thirdly Since not only our fathers sinnes and our own but our Neighbours sinnes too aliquid malum propter vicinum malum but especially the sinnes of Princes and Governours delirant reges plectuntur Achivi may bring judgements upon us and enwrap us in their punishments it should reach every one of us to seek his own private in the common and publike good and to endeavour if but for our own security from
punishment to awaken other from their security in sinne How should we send up Supplications and prayers and intercessions for Kings and for all that are in authority that God would incline their hearts unto righteous courses and open their ears to wholesom counsels and strengthen their hands to just actions when but a sinfull oversight in one of them may prove the overthrow of many thousands of us as David but by once numbring his people in the pride of his heart lessened their number at one clap threescore and ten thousand If Israel turn their backs upon their enemies up Iosuah and make search for the troubler of Israel firret out the thief and doe execution upon him one Achan if but suffered is able to undoe the whole hoast of Israel what mischief might he doe if countenanced if allowed The hour I see hath overtaken me and I must end To wrap up all in a word then and conclude Thou that hast power over others suffer no sin in them by base connivence but punish it thou that hast charge of others suffer no sinne in them by dull silence but rebuke it thou that hast any interest in or dealing with others suffer no sinne upon them by easie allowance but distaste it thou that hast nothing else yet by thy charitable prayers for them and by constant example to them stop the course of sinne in others further the growth of grace in others labour by all means as much as in thee lyeth to draw others unto God lest their sinnes draw Gods judgements upon themselves and thee This that thou mayest doe and that I may doe and that every one of us that feareth God and wisheth well to the Israel of God may do faithfully and discreetly in our several stations and callings let us all humbly beseech the Lord the God of all grace and wisdom for his Son Iesus sake by his holy Spirit to enable us To which blessed Trinity one only wise Immortal Invisible Almighty most gracious and most glorious Lord and God be ascribed by every one of us the kingdom the power and the glory both now and for ever Amen THE FOVRTH SERMON AD POPVLVM In S. Pauls Church London 4 Nov. 1621. 1 Cor. 7.24 Brethren let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God IF flesh and bloud be suffered to make the Glosse it is able to corrupt a right good Text. It easily turneth the doctrine of Gods grace into wantonnesse and as easily the doctrine of Christian liberty into licentiousness These Corinthians being yet but Carnal for the point of Liberberty consulted it seemeth but too much with this cursed glosse Which taught them to interpret their Calling to the Christian Faith as an Exemption from the duties of all other callings as if their spiritual freedom in Christ had cancelled ipso facto all former obligations whether of Nature or Civility The Husband would put away his Wife the Servant disrespect his Master every other man break the bonds of relation to every other man and all under this pretence and upon this ground that Christ hath made them free In this passage of the Chap. the Apostle occasionally correcteth this erour pincipally indeed as the present Argument led him in the particular of Marriage but with a farther and more universal extent to all outward states and conditions of life The sum of his Doctrine this He that is yoaked with a wife must not put her away but count her worthy of all love he that is bound to a Master must not despise him but count him worthy of all honour every other man that is tyed in any relation to any other man must not neglect him but count him worthy of all good offices and civil respects suitable to his place and person though Shee or He or that other be Infidels and Unbeleevers The Christian Calling doth not at all prejudice much less overthrow it rather establisheth and strengtheneth those interests that arise from natural relations or from voluntary contracts either domestical or civil betwixt Man and Man The general rule to this effect he conceiveth in the form of an Exhortation that every man notwithstanding his calling unto liberty in Christ abide in that station wherein God hath placed him contain himself within the bounds thereof and cheerfully and contentedly undergoe the dutiâ—s that belong thereto ver 17. As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one so let him walk And lest this Exhortation as it fareth with most other especially such as come in but upon the by as this doth should bee slenderly regarded the more fully to commend it to their consideration and practice he repeateth it once again verse 20. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called And now again once more in the words of this verse concluding therewith the whole discourse into which he had digressed Brethren let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God From which words I desire it may be no prejudice to my present discourse if I take occasion to entreat at this time of a very needfull argument viz. concerning the Necessity Choice and Use of particular callings Which whilst I doe if any shall blame me for shaking hands with my text let such know First that it will not be very charitably done to passe a hard censure upon anothers labour no nor yet very providently for their own good to slight a profitable truth for some little seeming impertinency Secondly that the points proposed are indeed not impertinent the last of them which supposeth also the other two being the very substance of this Exhortation and all of them such as may without much violence be drawn from the very words themselves at leastwise if we may be allowed the liberty which is but reasonable to take-in also the other two verses the 17. and the 20. in sense and for substance all one with this as anon in the several handling of them will in part appear But howsoever Thirdly which Saint Bernard deemed a sufficient Apology for himself in a case of like nature Noverint me non tam intendisse c. let them know that in my choice of this Scripture my purpose was not so much to bind my self to the strict exposition of the Apostolical Text as to take occasion there-from to deliver what I desired to speak and judged expedient for you to hear concerning 1. the Necessity 2. the Choice and 3. the Use of particular Callings Points if ever needfull to be taught and known certainly in these dayes most Wherein some habituated in idleness will not betake themselves to any Calling like a heavy jade that is good at bit and nought else These would be soundly spurred up and whipped on end Othersome through weakness doe not make a good choice of a fit Calling like a young unbroken thing that hath mettal and is free but is ever wrying the