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
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
thine owne spleene or malice to sweare and forsweare as these shall prompt thee or to enterchange deposition with thy friend as they used to doe in Greece Hodie mihi cras tibi sweare thou for me to day I le sweare for thee to morrow or tempted with any corrupt respect whatsoever by thy word or oath to strengthen a false and unrighteous report When thou comest to lay thy hand upon the booke lay the second Rule in that Text to thy heart Put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witnesse Though hand joyne in hand The false witnesse shall not be unpunished If thou comest hither thirdly to serve for the King upon the Grand Inquest or between party and party in any cause whatsoever like those selecti judices among the Romans whom the Praetor for the yeare being was to nominate and that upon oath out of the most able and serviceable men in his judgement both for estate understanding and integrity or to serve upon the Tales perhaps at thine own suit to get something toward bearing charges for thy journey or yoaked with a crafty or a wilfull foreman that is made before-hand and a messe of tame after-men withall that dare not thinke of being wiser than their leader or unwilling to stickle against a major part whether they goe right or wrong or resolved already upon the Verdict no matter what the Evidence be Consider what is the weight and religion of an Oath Remember that he sinneth not lesse that sinneth with company Whatsover the rest doe resolve thou to doe no otherwise then as God shall put into thy heart and as the evidence shall leade thee The third Rule in that Text must be thy rule Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evill They are silly that in point either of Religion or Iustice would teach us to measure either Truth or Right by multitudes If thou comest hither fourthly as to thine harvest to reape some fruit of thy long and expencefull study in the Lawes and to assist thy Client and his cause with thy Counsell Learning and Eloquence thinke not because thou speakest for thy Fee that therefore thy tongue is not thine owne but thou must speake what thy Client will have thee speake be it true or false neither thinke because thou hast the liberty of the Court and perhaps the favour of the Iudge that therefore thy tongue is thine owne and thou mayest speake thy pleasure to the prejudice of the Adversaries person or cause Seeke not preposterously to win the name of a good Lawyer by wresting and perverting good Lawes or the opinion of the best Counsellour by giving the worst and the shrewdest Counsell Count it not as Protagoras did the glory of thy profession by subtilty of wit and volubility of tongue to make the worse cause the better but like a good man as well as good Oratour use the power of thy tongue and wit to shame impudence and protect innocency to crush oppressours and succour the afflicted to advance Justice and Equity and to help them to right that suffer wrong Let it be as a ruled case to thee in all thy pleadings not to speak in any cause to wrest judgement If lastly thou art in any place or office of service or trust or command or attendance about the Courts rejoyce not as if it were now in thy power to doe a friend a courtesie or a foe a spite Doe not shew a cast of thy office for the promise or hope of a reward in helping a great offender out of the Bryars Compell not men that have been long weather-beaten in the Maine and are now arrived at the Haven of their businesse to wither for their pasports untill they have offered some sacrifice to that great Diana Expedition Let no feare or hope or bribe or letter or envie or favour no not charity it self and compassion to the poverty or distressednesse of any make you partiall for the Person to disregard the Cause If you would be charitable to the poore give them from your owne but doe not carve them from anothers trencher To relieve a poor man in his wants is the proper office of Charity but Iustice must have no eyes to see nor bowells to yearne at the wants of any man Be he rich or poore that bringeth his cause hither Currat lex Let him finde such as he bringeth Let him have as his cause deserveth The last of those Rules must be thine Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause If any of these to whom I have now spoken Accusers Witnesses Iurers Pleaders Officers shall transgresse these rules to the perverting of Iustice our refuge must be next under God to you that are the Magistrates of Justice and sit upon the Bench of Judicature At your gravity and authority we must take sanctuary against them that pursue us wrongfully as at the hornes of the Altar It is your Duty or if it be as to most men it is a more pleasing thing to be remembred of their Power ' thâ—â— of their Duty it is in your power if not to reforme all the abuses and corruptions of these persons yet to curbe their open insolencies and to contain them at least within modest bounds Nay since I have begun to magnifie your power let me speak it with all the due reverence to God and the King there is no power so great over which in a qualified sense you have not a greater power It is in your power to beare up the pillars of the State when the land is even dissolved and the pillars thereof grown weake for that is done by judging the Congregation according to right Psal. 75. In yours to make this yet flourishing Country and Kingdome glorious or despicable for righteousnesse exalteth a Nation but sinne is a reproch to any people Prov. 14. In yours to settle the Throne upon the King and to entaile it by a kinde of perpetuity unto the right heire for many succeeding generations for The Throne is established by justice Prov. 16. In yours to discharge Gods punishing Angel who now destroyeth us with a grievous destruction and by unsheathing your Sword to make him sheath his as here in my Text Phinehes stood up and executed judgement and the plague ceased In yours though you be but Gods on Earth and in these Courts mortall and petty Gods yet to send prohibitions into the Court of Heaven and there to stop the judgements of the great and Eternall GOD before they come forth yea and when the decree is gone forth to stay execution In a word as it was said to Ieremy but in another sense you are Set over Nations and over Kingdomes to root out and to destroy to build and to plant Onely then be intreated to use that power God hath given you unto edification and not unto destruction And now I have done my
reward for the service he did against Tyrus because therein though he neither intended any such thing nor so much as knew it he yet was the instrument to work Gods purpose upon and against Tyrus And then how much more will God reward temporally the service and obedience of such as purposely and knowingly endeavour an outward conformity unto the holy will and pleasure of God though with strong and predominant mixture of their owne corrupt appetites and ends therewithall Now the Reasons why God should thus outwardly reward the outward works of Hypocrites are First the manifestation of his own Goodnesse that we might know how willing he is to cherish the least spark of any goodness in any man be it natural or moral or whatever other goodnesse it be that he might thereby encourage us so to labour the improvement of those good things in us as to make our selves capable of greater rewards Secondly his Iustice and equity in measuring unto Sinners and Hypocrites exactly according to the measure they mete unto him They serve him with graces which are not true graces indeed he rewardeth them with blessings which are not indeed true blessings Somewhat they must do to God and therefore they affoord him a little temporary obedience and there is all the service he shall have from them Somewhat God will do for them and in requitall alloweth them a little temporary favour and there is all the reward they must look for from him Here is Quid pro Quo. They give God the outward work but without any hearty affection to him God giveth them the outward benefit but without any hearty affection to them For want of which hearty affection on both sides it cometh to passe that neither is the outward work truly acceptable to him nor the outward benefit truly profitable to them A third reason of Gods thus graciously dealing even with Hypocrites may be assigned with reference to his own dear Children and chosen for whose good especially next under his own glory all the passages of his divine providence both upon them and others are disposed in such sort as they are as for whose comfort this manner of proceeding maketh very much and sundry wayes as I shall by and by touch in the Inferences from this Observation whereunto I now come because it is time I should draw towards a Conclusion And first by what hath been already said a way is opened for the clearing of Gods Holinesse in these his proceedings If sometimes he temporally reward Hypocrites is it not either for their own or for their works sake as if he either accepted their Persons or approved their Obedience No it is but Lex Talionis he dealeth with them as they deal with him They do him but eye-service and he giveth them but eye-wages Indeed God can neither be deceived nor deceive yet as they would deceive God in their service with such obedience as falleth short of true obedience so they are deceived in their pay from him with such blessings as fall short of true blessings And all this may well stand with Gods both Iustice and Holinesse Secondly it appeareth from the premises that Gods thus dealing with wicked and unsanctified men in thus rewarding their outward good things giveth no warrant nor strength at all either to that Popish corrupt doctrine of Meritum congrui in deserving the first grace by the right use of Naturals or to that rotten principle and foundation of the whole frame of Pelagianisme Facienti quod in se est Deus non potest non debet denegare gratiam We know God rewards his own true and spirituall graces in us with increase of those graces here and with glory hereafter we see God rewardeth even false and outward and seeming graces natural and moral good things with outward and temporal favours And all this is most agreeable to his infinite both Iustice and Mercy and may stand with the infinite Purity and Holinesse of his nature But this were rather to make God an unjust and unholy God to bind him to reward the outward and sinfull works of Hypocrites for the best natural or moral works without grace are but such with true saving grace and inward sanctification Other Inferences and uses more might be added as viz. Thirdly for our Imitation by Gods example to take knowledge of and to commend and to cherish even in wicked men those natural or moral parts that are eminent in them and whatsoever good thing they do in outward actual conformity to the revealed will and law of God And fourthly for Exhortation to such as do not yet find any comfortable assurance that their obedience and good works are true and sincere yet to go on and not to grow weary of well doing knowing that their labour is not altogether in vain in as much as their works though perhaps done in Hypocrisie shall procure them temporal blessings here and some abatement withall I adde that by the way of stripes and everlasting punishment hereafter But I passe by all these and the like Uses and commend but one more unto you and that is it which I named before as one Reason of the point observed viz. the Comfort of Gods dear Children and Servants and that sundry wayes First here is comfort for them against a Temptation which often assaulteth them and that with much violence and danger arising from the sense and observation of the prosperity and flourishing estate of the wicked in this world We may see in the Psalmes and elsewhere how frequently and strongly David Iob and Ieremy and other godly ones were assailed with this temptation For thy instruction then and to arm thee against this so common and universal a temptation if thou shalt see fooles on horseback ungodly ones laden with wealth with honour with ease Hypocrites blessed with the fat of the earth and the due of heaven and abundance of all the comforts of this life yet be not thou discomforted at it or disquieted with it Do not fret thy self because of the ungodly neither be thou envious at evil doers Thou expectest for thine inward obedience an unproportionable reward in the life to come do not therefore grudge their outward obedience a proportionable reward in this life Some good things or other thou mayest think there are in them for which God bestoweth those outward blessings upon them But consider withall that as they have their reward here so they have all their reward here and whatsoever their present prosperity be yet the time will come and that ere long be when The hope of the Hypocrite shall wither and The end of the wicked shall be cut off Again here is a second Comfort for the godly against temporal afflictions and it ariseth thus As Gods love and favour goeth not alwayes with those temporal benefits he bestoweth so on the other side Gods wrath and displeasure goeth not alwayes with
those temporal afflictions he inflicteth For as he rewardeth those few good things that are in evil men with these temporall benefits for whom yet in his Iustice he reserveth eternall damnation as the due wages by that Iustice of their grace-lesse impenitency so he punisheth those remnants of sin that are in Godly men with these temporal afflictions for whom yet in his mercy he reserveth Eternall salvation as the due wages yet by that mercy only of their Faith and repentance and holy obedience As Abraham said to the rich glutton in the Parable Luke 16. Son remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented As if he had said If thou hadst any thing good in thee remember thou hast had thy reward in earth already and now there remaineth for thee nothing but the full punishment of thine ungodlinesse there in Hell but as for Lazarus he hath had the chastisement of his infirmities on earth already and now remaineth for him nothing but the full reward of his godlinesse here in Heaven Thus the meditation of this Doctrine yieldeth good Comfort against temporal afflictions Here is yet a third Comfort and that of the three the greatest unto the godly in the firm assurance of their Eternal reward It is one of the Reasons why God temporally rewardeth the unsound obedience of natural carnal and unregenerate men even to give his faithfull servants undoubted assurance that he will in no wise forget their true and sound and sincere obedience Doth God reward Ahabs temporary Humiliation and will he not much more reward thy hearty and unfeined repentance Have the Hypocrites their reward and canst thou doubt of thine This was the very ground of all that comfort wherewith the Prodigal sonne sustained his heart and hope when he thus discoursed to his own soul If all the hired servants which are in my Fathers house have bread enough and to spare surely my Father will never be so unmindfull of me who am his Son though too too unworthy of that name as to let me perish for hunger Every temporal blessing bestowed upon the wicked ought to be of the child of God entertained as a fresh assurance given him of his everlasting reward hereafter Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his Concubines and sent them away but his onely son Isaac he kept with him and gave him all that he had Right so God giveth temporal gifts to Hypocrites and Cast-awayes who are bastards and not sonnes not sonnes of the free woman not sons of promise not born after the spirit and that is their portion when they have gotten that they have gotten all they are like to have there is no more to be looked for at his hands But as for the inheritance he reserveth that for his dear Children the godly who are Born after the spirit and Heires according unto promise on these he bestoweth all that ever he hath all things are theirs for on them he bestoweth his Son the heir of all things in whom are hid all the treasures of all good things and together with whom all other things are conveyed and made over unto them as accessories and appurtenances of him and on them he bestoweth Himself who is All in all In whose presence is fulnesse of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore To which joy unspeakable and glorious O thou the Father of mercies who hast promised it unto us bring us in the end for thy dear Sonnes sake Jesus Christ who hath purchased it for us and given into our hearts the earnest of his and thy holy Spirit to seal it unto us To which blessed Son and holy Spirit together with thee O Father three persons and one only wise gracious glorious Almighty and eternal Lord God be ascribed by us and all thy faithfull people throughout the world the whole kingdome power and glory for ever and ever Amen Amen THE SECOND SERMON AD POPVLVM At Grantham L inc Febr. 27. 1620 3. Kings 21.29 because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his dayes I Will not so farr either distrust your memories or straiten my self of time for the delivery of what I am now purposed to speak as to make any large repetition of the particulars which were observed the last time from the consideration of Ahabs person and condition who was but an Hypocrite taken joyntly with his present carriage together with the occasion and successe thereof He was humbled It was the voyce of God by his Prophet that humbled him Upon his humbling God adjourneth his punishment From all which was noted 1. that there might be even in Hypocrites an outward formal humiliation 2. the power and efficacy of the word of God able to humble an oppressing Ahab 3. the boundlesse mercy of God in not suffering the outward formal humiliation of an ungodly Hypocrite to passe altogether unrewarded All this the last time by occasion of those first clauses in the verse Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not We are now next to consider of the great Favour which it pleased God to shew to Ahab upon his humiliation what it was and wherein it consisted It was the Removal at least for a time that is the suspension of an heavy judgement denounced against Ahab and his house most deservedly for his bloody and execrable oppression Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days The Evil which God now promiseth he will not bring I will not bring the evil in his days is that which in verse 21. he hath threatned he would bring upon Ahab and upon his house Behold I will bring evil upon thee and will take away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and will make thy house like the house of Ieroboam the son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha the son of Abijah for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger and made Israel to sin A great judgement and an heavy but the greater the judgement is when it is deserved and threatned the greater the mercy is if it be afterwards forborn as some of this was But whatsoever becommeth of the judgement here we see is mercy good store God who is rich in mercy and delighted to be stiled the God of mercies and the Father of mercies abundantly manifesteth his mercy in dealing thus graciously with one that deserved it so little Here is mercy in but threatning the punishment when he might have inflicted it and more mercy in not inflicting the punishment when he had threatned it Here is mercy first in suspending the Punishment I will not bring
they of his own house Let not any man then that hath either Religion or Honesty have any thing to do with that man at least let him not trust him more than needs he must that is an Enemy either to Religion or Honesty So far as common Humanity and the necessities of our lawful Occasions and Callings do require we may have to do with them and rest upon the good providence of God for the success of our affairs even in their hands not doubting but that God will both restrain them from doing us harm and dispose them to do us good so far as he shall see expedient for us but then this is not to trust them but to trust God with them But for us to put our selves needlesly into their hands and to hazard our safety upon their faithfulness by way of trust there is neither wisdom in it nor warrant for it Although God may do it yet we have no reason to presume that he will restrain them for our sakes when we might have prevented it our selves and would not and this we are sure of that nothing in the world can preserve us from receiving mischief from them unless God do restrain them Therefore trust them not Thirdly if at any time we see wickedness set aloft bad men grow to be great or great men shew themselves bad sinning with an high hand and an arm stretched out and God seemeth to strengthen their hand by adding to their greatness and encreasing their power if we see the wicked devouring the man that is more righteous than he and God hold his tongue the whilest if we see the ungodly course it up and down at pleasure which way soever the lust of their corrupt heart carryeth them without controul like a wilde untamed Colt in a spacious field God as it were laying the rains in the neck and letting them run in a word when we see the whole world out of frame and order we may yet frame our selves to a godly patience and sustain our hearts amid all these evils with this comfort and consideration that still God keepeth the rains in his own hands and when he seeth his time and so far as he seeth it good he both can and will check and controul and restrain them at his pleasure as the cunning Rider sometimes giveth a fiery horse head and letteth him fling and run as if he were mad he knoweth he can give him the stop when he list The great Leviathans that take their pastime in the Sea and with a little stirring of themselves can make the deep to boyl like a pot and cause a path to shine after them as they go he can play with them as children do with a bird he suffereth them to swallow his hook and to play upon the line and to roll and tumble them in the waters but anon he striketh the hook through their noses and fetcheth them up and layeth them upon the shore there to beat themselves without help or remedy exposed to nothing but shame and contempt What then if God suffer those that hate him to prosper for the time and in their prosperity to Lord it over his heritage What if Princes should sit and speak against us without a cause as it was sometimes Davids case Let us not free at the injuries nor envy at the greatness of any let us rather betake us to Davids refuge to be occupied in the statutes and to meditate in the holy Word of God In that holy Word we are taught that the hearts even of Kings how much more then of inferiour persons are in his rule and governance and that he doth dispose and turn them as seemeth best to his godly wisdom that he can refrain the spirit of Princes binde Kings in chains and Nobles in links of Iron and though they rage furiously at it and lay their heads together in consultation how to break his bands and cast away his cords from theÌ„ yet they imagin but a vain thing whilst they strive against him on earth he laugheth them to scorn in heaven and maugre all opposition will establish the Kingdom of his Christ and protect his people Say then the great ones of the world exercise their power over us and lay what restraints they can upon us our comfort is they have not greater power over us than God hath over them nor can they so much restrain the meanest of us but God can restrain the greatest of them much more Say our enemies curse us with Bell Book and Candle our comfort is God is able to return the curse upon their own heads and in despight of them too turn it into a blessing upon us Say they make warlike preparations against us to invade us our comfort is God can break the Ships of Tarshish and scatter the most invincible Armadoes Say they that hate us be more in number than the hairs of our head our comfort is the very hairs of our head are numbred with him and without his sufferance not the least hair of our heads shall perish Say to imagine the worst that our Enemies should prevail against us and they that hate us should be Lords over us for the time our comfort is â—e that loveth us is Lord over them and can bring them under us again when he seeth time In all our fears in all our dangers in all our distresses our comfort is that God can do all this for us our care should be by our holy obedience to strengthen our interest in his protection and not to make him a stranger from us yea an enemy unto us by our sins and impenitency that so we may have yet more comfort in a cheerful confidence that God will do all this for us The Assyrian whose ambition it was to be the Catholick King and universal Monarch of the world stiling himself the Great King thus saith the Great King the King of Assyria when he had sent messengers to revile Israel and an Army to besiege and destroy Ierusalem yet for all his rage he could do them no harm the Lord brought down the stout heart of the King of Assyria put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips and made him return back by the way by which he came without taking the City or so much as casting a bank or shooting an arrow against it Nay he that is indeed the great King over all the children of pride and hath better title to the stile of most Catholick King than any that ever yet bare it whose Territories are large as the Earth and spacious as the Air I mean the Devil the Prince of this world he is so fettered with the chain of Gods power and providence that he is not able with all his might and malice no not though he raise his whole forces and muster up all the powers of darkness and
liberty we have in Christ and of the respects we owe unto men we must evermore remember our selves to be and accordingly behave our selves as those that are Gods servants but as the servants of God The sum of the whole three points in brief this We must be careful without either infringing or abusing our liberty at all times and in all things to serve God Now then to the several points in that order as I have proposed them and as they lye in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As free Which words have manifest reference to the exhortation deliâ—vered three verses before the text as declaring the manner how the duty there exhorted unto ought to be performed yet so as that the force of them stretcheth to the exhortations also contained in the verses next after the text Submit your selves to publick governours both supreme and subordinate be subject to your own particular masters honour all men with those proper respects that belong to them in their several stations But look you do all this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as slaves but as free doe it without impeachment of the liberty you have in Christ. Of which liberty it would be a profitable labour but that I should then be forced to omit sundry other things which I deem needful to be spoken and more neerly pertinent to the points proposed to discover at large the nature and parts and causes and effects and adjuncts that we might the better understand the amplitude of that dower which Christ hath setled upon his Church and thence learn to be the more careful to preserve it But I may not have time so to do it shall therefore suffice us to know that as the other branches of our liberty whether of glory or grace whether from the guilt of sin in our justification or from the dominion of sin in our sanctification with the several appendices and appurtenances to any of them so this branch of it also which respects the use of indifferent things First is purchased for us by the bloud of Christ and is therefore usually called by the name of Christian liberty Secondly is revealed unto us outwardly in the preaching of the Gospel of God and of Christ which is therefore called the law of liberty And thirdly is conveighed unto us inwardly and effectually by the operation of the Spirit of God and of Christ which is therefore called a free spirit O stablish thou me with thy free spirit because where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 Now this liberty so dearly purchased so clearly revealed so firmly conveyed it is our duty to maintain with our utmost strength in all the parts and branches of it and as the Apostle exhorteth to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and not to suffer our selves either by the devises of other men or by our own sloth and wilful default to be intangled again with the yoak of bondage And namely in this particular branch whereof we now speak whatsoever serviceable offices we do to any of our brethren especially to those that are in authority we must perform our duty therein with all cheerfulness of spirit and for Conscience sake but still with freedom of spirit with liberty of Conscience as being servants to God alone and not to men We finde therefore in the Scriptures a peremptory charge both ways that we neither usurp mastership nor undergo servitude A charge given by our Saviour Christ to his Disciples in the former behalf that they should not be called Rabbi neither Masters Matth. 23. and a charge given by the Apostle Paul to all believers in the latter behalf that they should not be servants of men 1 Cor. 7. God forbid any man of us possessed with an Anabaptistical spirit or rather frenzy should understand either of those passages or any other of like sound as if Christ or his Apostle had had any purpose therein to slacken those sinews and ligaments and to dissolve those joynts and contignations which tye into one body and claspe into one structure those many little members and parts whereof all humane societies consist that is to say to forbid all those mutual relations of superiority and subjection which are in the world and so to turn all into a vast Chaos of Anarchy and Confusion For such a meaning is contrarious to the express determination of Christ and to the constant doctrine of S. Paul in other places and we ought so to interpret the Scriptures as that one place may consist with another without clashing or contradiction The true and plain meaning is this that we must not acknowledge any our supreme Master nor yeeld our selves to be wholly and absolutely ruled by the will of any nor enthral our Iudgements and Consciences to the sentences or laws of any man or Angel but only Christ our Lord and Master in Heaven And this interpretation is very consonant to the Analogy of Scripture in sundry places In Ephes. 6. to omit other places there are two distinctions implyed the one in the 5. the other in the 7. verses both of right good use for the reconciling of sundry texts that seem to contradict one another and for the clearing of sundry difficulties in the present argument Servants saith S. Paul there be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh Which limitation affordeth us the distinction of Masters according to the flesh only and of Masters after the spirit also Intimating that we may have other Masters of our flesh to whom we may and must give due reverence so far as concerneth the flesh that is so far as appertaineth to the outward man and all outward things But of our spirits and souls and consciences as we can have no fathers so we may have no Masters upon earth but only our Master and our Father which is in heaven And therefore in Mat. 23. Christ forbiddeth the calling of any man upon earth Father as well as he doth the calling of any man Master And both the prohibitions are to be understood alike and as hath been now declared Again saith S. Paul there with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men which opposition importeth a second distinction and that is of Masters into supreme and subordinate those are subordinate Masters to whom we do service in ordine ad alium and as under another Those are supreme Masters in whom our obedience resteth in the final resolution of it without looking farther or higher Men may be our Masters and we their servants the first way with subordination to God and for his sake And we must do them service and that with good will but with reservation ever of our bounden service to him as our only supreme soveraign and absolute Master But the later way it is high sacriledge in any man to challenge and it is high
Peter and Iohn rejoycing when they suffered for the name of Jesus and Saint Paul so farr from fearing that he longed after his dissolution and the blessed Martyrs running to a faggot as to a feast Verily Gods children see great good in these things which others account evils and therefore they take them not as bare punishments sent to afflict them but as glorious tryals to exercise them as gracious corrections to humble them as precious receipts to purge and recover and restore and strengthen them So that it is not any of the temporal evils of this life but much rather the everlasting pains of hell wherein the just reward and punishment of sinne properly and especially consisteth The wages of sinne is death the proper wages of sinne eternal death For so the Antithesis in that place giveth it to be understood viz. of such a death as is opposed to Eternal Life and that is Eternal Death The wages of sinne is death but the gift of God is Eternal life Rom. 6. By the distribution of those Eternal punishments then we are rather to judge of GODS righteousness in recompensing sinners than by the dispensation of these temporal evils It was a stumbling block to the heathen to see good men oppressed and vice prosper it made them doubt some whether there were a God or no others nothing better whether a providence or no. But what marvel if they stumbled who had no right knowledge either of God or of his providence when Iob and David and other the dear children of God have been much puzzled with it David confesseth in Psal. 73. that His feet had welnigh slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked and certainly down he had been had he not happily stepped Into the Sanctuary of God and there understood the end of these men Temporal evils though they be sometimes punishments of sinne yet they are not ever sent as punishments because sometimes they have other ends and uses and are ordinabilia in melius and secondly they are never the only punishments of sinne because there are greater and more lasting punishments reserved for sinners after this life of which there is no other use or end but to punish since they are not ordinabilia in melius If we will make these temporal evils the measure whereby to judge of the Iustice of God we cannot secure our selves from erring dangerously Gods purposes in the dispensation of these unto particular men being unsearchable But those everlasting punishments are they wherein Gods Iustice shall be manifested to every eye in due time at that last day which is therefore called by Saint Paul Rom. 2. The day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgement of God Implying that howsoever God is just in all his judgements and acts of providence even upon earth yet the Counsels and Purposes of God in these things are often secret and past finding out but at the last great day when He shall render to every man according to his works his everlasting recompence then his vengeance shall manifest his wrath and the righteousness of his judgement shall be revealed to every eye in the condign punishment of unreconciled sinners That is the second Certainty Temporal evils are not alwayes nor simply nor properly the punishments for sinne If any man shall be yet unsatisfied and desire to have Gods justice somewhat farther cleared even in the disposing of these temporal things although it be neither safe nor possible for us to search farr into particulars yet some general satisfaction we may have from a third Certainty and that is this Every evil of pain whatsoever it be or howsoever considered which is brought upon any man is brought upon him evermore for sinne yea and that also for his own personal sinne Every branch of this assertion would be well marked I say first Every evil of pain whatsoever it be whether natural defects and infirmities in soul or body or outward afflictions in goods friends or good name whether inward distresses of an afflicted or terrours of an affrighted conscience whether temporal or eternal Death whether evils of this life or after it or whatsoever other evil it be that is any way grievous to any man every such evil is for sinne I say secondly every evil of pain howsoever considered whether formally and sub ratione poenae as the proper effect of Gods vengeance and wrath against sinne or as a fatherly correction and chastisement to nurture us from some past sinne or as a medicinal preservative to strengthen us against some future sinne or as a clogging chain to keep under and disable us from some outward work of sinne or as a fit matter and object whereon to exercise our Christian graces of faith charity patience humility and the rest or as an occasion given and taken by Almighty God for the greater manifestation of the glory of his Wisdom and Power and Goodness in the removal of it or as an act of Exemplary justice for the admonition and terrour of others or for whatsoever other end purpose or respect it be inflicted I say thirdly Every such evil of pain is brought upon us for sinne There may be other ends there may be other occasions there may be other uses of such Evils but still the original Cause of them all is sinne When thou with rebukes doest chasten man for sinne It was not for any extraordinary notorious sinnes either of the blind man himself or of his parents above other men that he was born blind Our Saviour Christ acquitteth them of that Iohn 9. in answer to his Disciples who were but too forward as God knoweth most men are to judge the worst Our Saviours answer there never intended other but that still the true cause deserving that blindnesse was his and his parents sinne but his purpose was to instruct his Disciples that that infirmity was not layd upon him rather than upon another man meerly for that reason because he or his parents had deserved it more than other men but for some farther ends which God had in it in his secret and everlasting purpose and namely this among the rest that the works of God might be manifest in him and the Godhead of the Sonne made glorious in his miraculous cure As in Nature the intention of the End doth not overthrow but rather suppose the necessity of the Matter so is it in the works of God and the dispensations of his wonderfull providence It is from Gods mercy ordering them to those Ends he hath purposed that his punishments are good but it is withall from our sinnes deserving them as the cause that they are just Even as the rain that falleth upon the earth whether it moysten it kindly and make it fruitfull or whether it choak and slocken and drown it yet still had its beginning from the vapours which the earth it self sent up All those Evils
which fall so daily and thick upon us from Heaven whether to warn us or to plague us are but arrows which our selves first shot up against heaven and now drop down again with doubled force upon our heads Omnis poena propter culpam all evils of pain are for the evils of sinne I say fourthly All such evils are for our own sinnes The Scriptures are plain God judgeth every man according to his own works Every man shall bear his own burden c. God hath enjoyned it as a Law for Magistrates wherein they have also his example to lead them that not the fathers for the children nor the children for the fathers but every man should be put to death for his own sinne Deuteron 24. If Israel take up a Proverb of their own heads The fathers have eaten sowr grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge they doe it without cause and they are checked for it The soul that sinneth it shall dye and if any man eat sowr grapes his own teeth and not anothers for him shall be set on edge thereby For indeed how can it be otherwise or who can reasonably think that our most gracious God who is so ready to take from us the guilt of our own should yet lay upon us the guilt of other mens sins The only exception to be made in this kind is that alone satisfactory punishment of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ not at all for his own sins far be the impiety from us so to imagine for He did no sin neither was there any guilt found in his mouth but for ours He payed that which he never took it was For our transgressions that he was wounded and the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him Yet even those meritorious sufferings of his may be said in a qualified sense to have been for his own sins although in my judgement it be far better to abstain from such like speeches as are of ill and suspicious sound though they may be in some sort defended But how for his own sins his own by Commission by no means God forbid any man should teach any man should conceive so the least thought of this were blaspemy but his own by Imputation Not that he had sinned and so desâ—rved punishment but that he had taken upon him our sins which deserved that punishment As he that undertaketh for another mans debt maketh it his own and standeth chargeable with it as if it were his own personal debt so Christ becomming surety for our sins made them his own and so was punishable for them as if they had been his own personal sins Who his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the tree 1 Pet. 2 That he was punished for us who himself deserved no punishment it was because He was made sin for us who himself knew no sin So that I say in some sense the assertion may be defended universally and without exception but yet I desire rather it might be thus Christs only excepted all the Pains and Evils of men are brought upon them for their own sins These three points then are certain and it is needfull they should be well understood and remembred because nothing can be objected against Gods Iustice in the punishing of sin which may not be easily removed if we have recourse to some one or other of these three Certainties and rightly apply them All the three doubts proposed in the beginning have one and the same resolution answer one and answer all Ahab here sinneth by Oppression and yet the evil must light though not all of it for some part of it fell and was performed upon Ahab himself yet the main of it upon his son Iehoram I will will not bring the evil in his days but in his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house It is not Iehorams case alone it is a thing that often hath and dayly doth befall many others In Genesis 9. when Noahs ungracious son Ham had discovered his Fathers nakedness the old man no doubt by Gods special inspiration layeth the curse not upon Ham himself but upon his son Canaan Cursed be Canaan c. And God ratified the curse by rooting out the posterity of Canaan first out of the pleasant Land wherein they were seated and then afterwards from the face of the whole earth Ieroboams Idolatry cut off his posterity from the Kingdom and the wickedness of Eli his sons theirs from the Priesthood of Israel Gehasi with the bribe he took purchased a leprosie in fee-simple to him and his heirs for ever The Iewes for stoning the Prophets of God but most of all for crucifying the Son of God brought blood-guiltinesse not only upon themselves but upon their children also His blood be upon us and upon our Children The wrath of God therefore comming upon them to the utmost and the curse of God abiding upon their posterity even unto this day wherein they still remain and God knoweth how long they shall a base and despised people scattered almost every where and every where hated Instances might be endless both in private persons and families and in whole Kingdoms and Countries But it is a needlesse labour to multiply instances in so confessed a point especially God Almighty having thus far declared himself and his pleasure herein in the second commandement of the Law that he will not spare in his Iealousie sometimes to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation There is no question then de facto but so it is the sins of the Fathers are visited upon the Children but de jure with what right and equity it is so it is as Saint Chrysostome speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a question famous and much debated The considerations which I find given in for the resolution of this question by those that have purposely handled it are very many But multitude breedeth confusion and therefore I propose no more but two only unto which so many of the rest as are material may be reduced and those two grounded upon the certainties already declared The former concerneth the Nature of those Punishments which are inflicted upon the Children for the fathers sins the later the Condition of those Children upon whom such punishments are inflicted As to the first The punishments which GOD bringeth usually upon the Children for the fathers sins are only temporal and outward punishments Some have been plagued with infectious diseases as Gehazies posterity and Ioabs also if that curse which David pronounced against him took effect as it is like it did Some have come to untimely and uncomfortable ends as Davids children Amnon and Absalon and the little ones of Dathan and Abiram and others Some have had losses and reproaches and manifold other distresses and