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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27244	Two sermons preach'd at St. Maries in Bury St. Edmunds, at the assizes the first upon the seventh of April 1698, before the Honourable Sir Thomas Rokeby, Kt. ... : the second upon the 16th of August 1698, before the Right, Honourable Sir Edward Ward, Kt. ... / by William Bedford ...	Bedford, William, b. 1652 or 3.	1698 (1698)	Wing B1671; ESTC R5177	24,433	58

Israelites towards King Solomon recorded in 1 Kings 8.66 with with I shall conclude To Praise God and to Pray daily for the long Life and Grandeur of the King and to return to our Houses joyful and glad of Heart for all the Goodness that the most righteous God hath shewed unto his Anointed and unto us his People The Second Sermon Zechariah 7.9 10. Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts saying Execute true Judgment and shew Mercy and Compassion every Man to his Brother And oppress not the Widow nor the Fatherless the Stranger nor the Poor and let none of you imagine Evil against his Brother in your Heart MY Song shall be now as David's was of Mercy and Judgment Judgment and Mercy are the proper Subjects for this time in which Righteousness and Peace will the most gracefully kiss each other The liberty of the Gospel hath no way abrogated the Morality of the Law for Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil it So that this Precept of executing true Judgment and Merty is not at all excluded from the Doctrine of the Son of God but he ratifies the Commands of his Father saying John 7.24 Judge not according to the Appearance but judge righteous Judgment The Nature of this Judgment is either Political or Moral Political as being proper to a Supreme Governour and his Subordinate Magistrates or Moral as implying an Equity between Private Men whereby every Man is bound both by the Law of God and Nature to shew Mercy and Compassion towards his dejected Brother By the Law of God because he so commands by the Laws of Men because we are all the Sons of Adam Therefore execute true Judgment and shew Mercy It will be a proper Introduction to the rest that I speak generally though briefly of Judgment in a Politick State Jethro the Father-in-Law of Moses sets forth a President of a righteous Judge according to the Qualities which he ought for to be endued with saying Thou shalt provide out of all the People Exod. 18.21 able Men such as fear God Men of Truth hating Covetousness and place such to be Rulers over them Able Men or Men of Courage and Wisdom they must be Industrious able to dispatch and expedite Causes Valentes Ingenio Men of ready Wit and Dexterity Secondly Constancy and Strength are requisite lest they quit a good Cause for fear of the Mighty those that have not an adequate Power derived upon them are dangerously Ambitious of such a Dignity Therefore said the Wise Man Seek not to be a Judge being not able to take away Iniquity lest at any time thou fear the Person of the Mighty and lay a Stumbling-block in the way of thy Vprightness Thirdly They must be Men of Estate as well as of Power of eminent Birth and Estimation therefore Moses in the Fifteenth of Deuteronomy took the chief of the Tribes Wise Men and known and made them Heads over the People Our Modern Polititians therefore affirm Futius divites quam pauperes in Magistratum elegantur And they must be Men fearing God that being the Foundation of all Virtue Besides if Men of Might fear not God when in regard of their great and publick Power they fear not Men they are apt to fall into many Outrages but it behoveth him that judgeth others to have an exact respect unto his Superor Judge to whom he must give an account of all his Acts let them look unto God in whose stead they are They must be Men of Truth both understanding the Truth that they may distinguish right from wrong And also Followers of the Truth in their Will and Practise for there is a Speculative Truth in Discerning and Judging and a Practicable Truth in following a right Judgment They must seek out the Truth by Witnesses Writings and Evidences and having found it out give Judgment accordingly And they must be Constant and not changeable in their Sentences and Decrees and they must hate Covetousness be so far from that meanness of Spirit as to have an Abhorrence of it God who commands others to do Justice is pleased for to shew the highest Example thereof in himself in him there is nothing Unjust or Evil as Coldness hath no place in Fire nor Blackness in Snow nor Obscurity in the Sun no more hath Sin any place in God nor should it have any shelter or countenance from Men. This prescribed Traytor of our Prince This Out-law'd Fugitive of our Sovereign should not be found harboured with them God hath put the Sword into the Magistrates hand to punish and he expects that he should not bear it in vain Execution is the Life of the Law the Execution is as necessary as the Promulgation He that hath Authority and punisheth not Disorders in others is consequentially guilty of them himself But they must not punish more than the Offence that is too much and to punish less makes but Offenders Insolent and Multitudinous Justice is Columna corona reipublicae it is the Cement which holds the general parts of the Body Politick together it is as the Nerves and Sinews thereof and by it the Throne is established Judges are Juris indices they are Jus dicere and Jus dare if they do not then is the Law weakened and perverted and made to patronize Evil and Wickedness is committed under Authority and the Law doth turn its edge against the Innocent and that which should be a Defence becomes a Maze of Briars and Thorns and the Rod of Justice is turned into a Serpent of Subtilty And so it is if the Jurors give not a sound Verdict but make the worst side to seem the best this were to be wise to do Evil and not verum dicere as their Office signifies In Justice we are not to respect Persons though that be commanded otherwhere yet it is forbidden here here the Causes are to be heard more than the Parties observed the Equity of Causes is to be weighed not the Quality of Persons if otherwise it makes the Law but like Spiders Webs in which the small Flies are strangled whilst the great ones escape and break through Hence haughty successful Robbers wear Chains of Gold whilst poor Pilferers are bound with Fetters of Iron The taking of Gifts is a secret Preventer of Justice it makes Men to over-see God's Laws and the King 's undermines and devours the Houses of the poor Widow and the desolate Orphan these blind the Eyes of the Wise and stop the Mouths of the Skillful To some Persons the greatest Evidence is not half so convincing as a secret Gift though where Right is there is the great Point It is no wonder that good Causes fall not out well if many Hands be open to receive Gifts It is no wonder if the Evidence of the Witnesses be strained and diverted but let such consider what measure they meet shall at the last be measured unto them again not only by God's Judgment hereafter but upon the Observance of

Mr. BEDFORD's SERMONS AT THE Two Assizes HELD AT Bury St. Edmund's 1698. TWO SERMONS Preach'd at St. Maries in Bury St. Edmund's AT THE ASSIZES The First Upon the Seventh of April 1698 before the Honourable Sir Thomas Rokeby Kt. one of the Justices of His Majesty's Court of Kings-Bench The Second Upon the 16th of August 1698 before the Right Honourable Sir Edward Ward Kt. Lord Chief Baron of His Majesty's Court of Exchequer By William Bedford Master of Arts Rector of Whitton and Vicar of Stradbrooke and Wing field LONDON Printed for S. Manship at the Ship in Cornhill 1698. To the Right Worshipful John Cornwallis Esquire High-Sheriff And one of the Deputy-Lieutenants OF THE County of SUFFOLK SIR WHEN the Grand-Juries of the County consisting of so many Gentlemen of Honourable and Eminent Qualities Reputation and Estates with the Approbation of my Lord Chief Baron were both pleased unanimously to declare That their Opinions were It would be useful to the Publick that these Discourses should be Printed I thought my self obliged to comply with their Desires And the rather seeing I am neither afraid nor ashamed to give the most publick Testimony of my Fidelity to His Majesty and Stedfastness to the true National Interests and hereby I obtain also this occasion of expressing my Gratitude for your many Years Favours and Civilities being SIR Your most obliged and humble Servant William Bedford Genesis 18.25 That be far from thee to do after this manner to slay the Righteous with the Wicked And that the Righteous should be as the Wicked that be far from thee Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right SO just and laudable as well as convenient and useful is this Practice of Justice traversing of our Counties and Provinces and coming as it were home to our Habitations that one would be apt at the first view to conjecture that this Method had some Divine Original from God's own Example There never was the Invention of any thing publickly beneficial to Mankind but the Ancients ascribed it to some of their Deities as Agriculture to Ceres Physick to Aesculapius and Musick to Apollo Well then may we think the like of this Perambulation of Justice the wholsom Physick of the Body Politick the tuning of the whole Kingdom into the Musical Harmony of Peace and Concord I might say as St. Bernard saith in the like case of the Hierarchy of the Church Nec nilem reputes hanc formam quia in terra est exemplum habet è coelo Neither can I think this Method of administring Justice throughout our Provinces a meer Humane Devise but I perswade my self that the Legislator that first ordained it had seen this Pattern of it in the Mount of God and lo if you desire for to see it I have found the Pattern it self in this Chapter Here is God the great Judge of the whole Earth going his Circuit from Heaven to the Plain of Mamre and from Mamre to Sodom This Judge comes to them to their own home and keep his Assizes and General Goal-delivery in their own City v. 21. Descendam videbo the Cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great I will go down my self to them and see how it stands with them This Judge condemns them not unheard but admits Counsel to plead for and Intercessors to deprecate as Abraham in the Text. So long as there lies a Certierari from an higher Court or an Appeal to an higher Court the Case is not desperate though the Judge should not do right for there is a future Remedy to be hoped for If the whole State were incensed against me yet I can find an escape to another Country If all the World persecute me yet if I be an honest Man I have a Supreme Court in my self and I am at Peace in being acquitted by my own Conscience But God is the unerring Judge of all the Earth of this which I tread upon and this Earth which I carry about me and when he judgeth me my Conscience turns upon his side and confesseth his Judgment to be right And therefore St. Paul's Argument Rom. 3. ratifies and seconds Abraham's Expostulation here Is God unrighteous God forbid How then shall God judge the World A particular Council may err but then a general Council may help to rectifie that particular The King may err but then God in whose Hand the King's Heart is can rectifie him But if God that judgeth all the Earth judge thee there is no Error to be assigned in his Judgment no Appeal from God not throughly informed to God better informed for he always knoweth all Evidence before it is given and therefore the larger the Jurisdiction and higher the Court is the more careful ought the Judge to be against wrong Judgment for Abraham's Expostulation reacheth in a measure to them Shall not the Judge of all or of a great part of the Earth do right This Judge lastly comes not solitary or alone but associated for in the first and third Verses of this Chapter there are three of them three Men stood by Abraham and in the nineteenth Chapter and the first Verse at Sodom it self where the Judgment was executed there are two of them which is the number usual at these times with us There came two Angels to Sodom A Divine Bench an honourable Trial whomsoever we follow of all the Christian Interpreters whether the Father generally as St. Athanasius St. Ambrose and Epiphanius which expound these three to have been the three Persons of the adored Trinity in three Humane Shapes assumed Or whither we follow some latter Expositors as Calvin and others who make them to be the second Person in Trinity and two created Angels attending him For as for Eben Ezra and the rest of the Jews which make all three of them Angels and meer Creatures they are sufficiently confuted by that incommunicable Appellation of the Name Jehovah which Abraham so often in this Chapter useth when he speaks to them Thus Abraham saw the day of Christ and rejoyced as our Lord himself testifieth John 8.56 for so to this very Apparition some good Expositors have referred it He saw his day indeed he saw this day of his he received him into his House he feasted him he brought him on his way he found gracious Audience with him as an Intercessor and Advocate for others and all this even then when Christ was going in his Indignation to judge Sodom And in this Judgment as in a Preludium to shew how he will judge the whole World at the great Sessions of the last day and visit it with the Flames of an universal Combustion We see then the Tribunal and the Judge and the Form of the Proceeding in the course of the whole Chapter Let us come now precisely to observe the Text and hear the Advocate Abraham pleading here for the Righteous that they may not be destroyed with the Wicked his Plea is intended principally for Lot who was his Nephew

his righteous Vicegerents this Retribution will overtake them in this Life to their Shame and Sorrow Let not those therefore that should be the Supporters of others be their Supplanters but let Justice and Equity be so exactly observed that the Voice of Fraud may be no more heard amongst us when the Contentious Violence of Men did overflow the Banks of Right then would God have the Law take strength to it self to curb Mens fiery Passions and Attempts To this end Judges and Officers of the Law were appointed to see the Laws impartially executed without wresting or extorting This is the end of the Law the Office of the Judge and the Occasion of this time The Charge of the Judicial Office is great therefore to him that gives the Charge a Charge is given of God Thou shalt not wrest Judgment thou shalt not respect Persons nor take a Gift for the Judgment is not only before Men but before God also If they that sit in Judgment prospect him that judgeth all the Earth in the exactness of his Judgment and follow it their Integrity will grow Proverbial Like the Judgment of Bochoris or the Sentence of Bias he that thus setteth him before his Eyes shall never fear what Cambyses the Persian made Othones to do Se samnem excoriavit filium ejus Othonem corio insidere coegit For he hath here a great Terror and Restraint he knoweth that God standeth in the Congregation of the Judges But a People so wisely Zealous of their Laws and Liberties as the English will not be easily imposed upon and such Sages of the Laws as we have that administer so exactly need not any such tremendous Memorials As in the Pallace of the Ottoman Emperor four of the most Honourable Bassa's sit in Judgment in the great Hall and the Grand Seignior himself through a secret Window unheard and unseen hears the Complaints of his People and the Sentences of his Judges So is our Great God conscious unto all that Men do here in their Deputations under him they must therefore remember that no Greatness can exempt them from his hi● Censure when they willingly corrupt ●●emselves The Egyptians of old would not suffer the Bodies of their Kings to have Royal Interments till their Lives were scan'd by a severe Examination of their Management of the Regal Scepter whilst they had it and as that was approved their Funeral Honours were augmented or diminished shewing that all Earthly Greatness hath an undoubted account whereunto it is liable and stoopeth after Death And Blessed is he who so judgeth here as that his Judgment may be approved by that Judge there he which putteth so all Injustice far from him and truly distinguisheth between the Righteous and the Wicked shall be absolved by that Great Lord whose Servants he himself absolveth and whose Enemies he condemneth Blessed is this Judge as to himself and Blessed are the People over whom he presideth It is the Judges Business and Profession to do Right therefore the Egyptian Hieroglyphick painted him without Hands with his Eyes almost shut and from his Neck a Saphire hanging down with this word Veritas engraven upon it He must have no Hands for Bribes no Eyes for Sinister Respects or to respect Persons To the same purpose the Image of Jupiter was made in Creta without Ears He must have no Ears to hear Importunity against Justice The Areopagites for the same cause never sate 〈◊〉 Judgment in the Day but in the Night-time alwa●s and by an obscure Light that they might not be moved by Apparel Habits Gestures or Countenances of the Persons summoned before them And surely Injustice though it be a Blemish to any Man yet it is not half so much a Blemish to another Man as to a Judge distastful it is in any but most of all in him And if Right be thus the Pole-star of all Judges in their Judicial Actions we must conceive it to be so too in all others in their Actions Subordinate to Judicial yea we must give it the due Extent of it If the Judge must Decree right the Accuser also must Object right the Witness must Testifie right the Learned Counsellor must Plead right and the Jury must Find right Vltimus finis dat mediis ordinem mensuram all these will be Planetical sometimes and have the proper Motions of their own Sphere the Plaintiff is hot and fiery like Mars the Defendant is Sullen and Froward like Saturn the Advocate is Crafty and Wily like Mercury the Witness is Variable and Changeable like Luna but the Judge like to the highest Orb of the Heavens must over-rule all these inferior Spheres of the Planets and carry them all along in his own diurnal Motion with himself But especially the Advocate must be looked into that he may not too lightly dispense with himself he thinks though others are bound to the Right yet he may Sophisticate and plead wrong but Equity and Right is the Scope that he ought to aim at if he will not give Right an helping hand he should give it none at all The general Calling of a good Christian is presupposed in all particular Callings a Souldier must live by Fighting but not in fighting a wicked Quarrel and he that Pleads should live honourably by it but not in bolstering Oppressions against the Orphan and the Widow St. Tertullian in his Book of Idolatry condemns all those Christians most deeply who being Carvers Painters or Embroiderers would do any Work whatsoever which had the least and remotest Subordination to the decking of an Heathen Idol It were a goodly matter if the Pilot should be bound to arrive at or steer to the right Haven and the Oar-men be permitted to row towards the wrong 'T were a pretty devise if the Captain were tied to lead the Army to the place of right Service and the Sentinels have license to mis inform him And what were it then if the Judge were enjoyned to award the true Sentence and the Advocate be suffered to patronize the false The famous Civilian Papinianus rather than he would defend the Emperor Caracalla's barbarous Murther of his Brother willingly admitted of death under that bloody Tyrant And which you will more wonder at the no less samous Ceselius in his Age he would never be brought by Favour or Fear so much as to draw a Conveiance of any of those Lands which Anthony and his Fellow-Triumvirs had given away in the Oppression of the Roman Liberties Famous may the Memory be of such Spirits and long may the like flourish and deterr or ashame our Advocates from supporting corrupt Causes for large Fees For their Pleadings ought not to be considered as Sophisters Acts tending to the Ostentation and Exercise of Wit but are serious and important Proceedings that ought to aim totally at Equity and Right But the Text seemeth to require me to speak something of the Moral Equity that ought to be betwixt private Persons And that this may be