his people Rev. 3.14 Doctrine VERS VIII But yee are gone out of the way yee have caused many to fall by the Law yee have broken the covenant of Levi saith the Lord of hosts BVt yee are gone out of the way Or Yee have departed from that way The second part of this dissimilitude followes now in this and the next verse which containes their degenerating and so their corruption vers 8. and the iteration of the judgement vers 9. And in the 8. verse there are three corruptions these Priests be chalenged withall wherein they are most unlike to the former Priests You are gone out of that way that is from the piety and faithfulnesse of those Priests who lived in the first age and with whom I made the covenant at first They neither swarved from that rule but you have forsaken and contemned my law and followed your owne devices and sought your selves and the establishing of your dignity more then my glory and have sought how to make a gaine to your selves of my worship You have done this who have the same place enjoy the same priviledges have the same portion of tythes and offerings they had Yee have caused many to fall by the Law The second difference and diffimilitude That whereas the former Priests by their care and diligence in their places recovered and caused many to returne from their sinnes and the breaches of the Law and to walk uprightly by it They on the contrary by their defect and want in teaching and their passing over their sinnes as if they saw them not that they might purchase grace and procure commoditie to themselves As also by their wicked example they were the cause of the fall of many that is that many have sinned and were not punished as the word sometime signifies By the Law is not meant as if they did so teach and temper the Law as sometime the Priests did in giving liberty by it to sinne as to hate their enemies to lust and covet so nothing were outwardly acted but that they caused many to stumble and go contrary to the Law Yee have broken the covenant of Levi. The third difference They kept my covenant and were faithfull and I performed whatsoever I promised to them but you have broken covenant gone cleane contrary to the agreement which passed betwixt me and your predecessours in whose loynes you were and who made the covenant for you and so by your iniquities have caused me not to performe to you peace plenty and prosperity with length of dayes From the generall I observe this Men Doctrine of what sort and condition soever they be ought to imitate and follow the vertue pietie and faith of their predecessours whether they were in place nature or age And on the contrary it is a great wickednesse and shame to degenerate from their pietie and vertue to be unlike unto them Therefore reproves our Prophet these Priests To this purpose is that Heb. 6.12 and 13.7 and 12.1 inferred upon the 11. and Jam. 5.11 Hence was the commendations of Iehosaphat 1 King 22.43 and of Iosiah 2 King 22.2 On the contrary it was reproved in Iehoram 2 Chron. 21.12 and in the Jewes Joh. 8.39 Because God hath therefore written these Reason 1 he hath written not that they should be knowne as matter of story to be made for delight or speech onely but for matter of life and conversation thereby teaching us what to do in others whose memory is new and fresh that God may have his end Because it will not profit them to have descended from Reason 2 or succeeded such for as he said of Nobility what profiteth it a channell or river flowing from a pure and wholesome spring if it be corrupt and defiled Nay it will the more condemne them as we may well gather from that Matth. 12.41.42 Then are they justly reproved Vse 1 who talk of doing as their forefathers have done being neither willing nor able to examine what they did good or evill but is all one to them so they did it before them Such as our ignorant Papists be who imitate not the faith but the infidelity and errours of their fathers not their vertues and pietie but their vices and prophanenesse their liberty and licenciousnesse No man will condemne their following of that is good in them or rather that which had but the shew of goodnesse in them as their workes which were good for the outward act though not otherwise their workes of mercie and liberality their zeale fervencie and diligence in prayer though their prayers not to be imitated as a man may imitate the diligence and watchfulnesse of a thiefe but not his theft the providence of a bad Steward but not his corruption But to imitate any thing they have done without choyce of their good is that which is justly condemned For if the Apostle must not nor will not be otherwise followed then 1 Corinth 11.1 as he followes Christ If the Prophet forbid us to follow our fathers if they are condemned for following their fore-fathers as did all the Kings of Israel If that be the commendations of Iehosaphat 2 Chro. 17.3 that he walked in the first way of his father David and not that he imitated him in all things Is it approveable to follow those who are farre inferiour to him in all things Nay it is that which shall improve their sin and inhance their punishment as Isai 14.21 with 65.7 To provoke us to read the Scriptures Vse 2 where we may see the truth and patience and piety of our most holy predecessors and when wee see them to provoke our selves to imitate them and to uphold our selves in right paths by them Heb. 12.1 But yee are gone out of the way They had erred from the truth and good wayes of their predecessors The Rulers Governours Doctrine and Ministers of the Church may erre both in matter of doctrine and of Gods worship Let us look into the booke of God and we shall finde this true not in some one or two but in the greatest part of them yea all for ought we know First these things were fore-told for though the people bragged Jer. 18.18 The Law should not perish from the Priest nor counsell from the wise God threatned the farre contrary Ezek. 7.26 and Micha 3.6 That the Sunne should go downe over the Priest And see the event of this Isa 56.10 Zephan 3.4 Jerem. 6.13 and 23.13 But this was in Israel onely yea see it in Judah Jerem 23.14.16 and not in Prophets onely but Priests 2 Chron. 36.14 Because their knowledge be it never so great is but in part Reason 1 Vulgare illud maxima pars eorum quae scimus minima pars eorum quae ignoramus and imperfect 1 Cor. 13.9 Now they who are ignorant in part may erre in some things Ignorantia erroris mater Bernard ad â—â—â—t nisi ignorando errare non potest August Enâ—hirid Seeing aâ—â—â—en are in part ignorant then
this Vse 2 and to labour to deale faithfully one with another and to be faithfull and true in promises husband to wife c. Seeing it is cōmended unto us 1. from the example of the Lord himselfe whose fidelity in keeping of his promise is to be imitated of us if we would be reputed his children 2. From the testimony of the holy Ghost where it is made one of the notes of Gods children Psal 15.4.3 The promise of a great blessing Pro. 28.20 And cōmanded to us not amongst matters of small importance but amongst the weightier points of the law Math. 23.23 Not when it is in great matters but in lesse for as all disobedience is more displeasing when the thing commanded is small because the obedience was so easie August So unfaithfulnesse in the smallest things is the most displeasing to God when fidelity was so easie therefore must we be carefull to performe in all things that we promise and therefore be carefull how we promise that it be of things in our owne power or probability like to be in our power In many things whether we will promise or no it is in our power as Acts 5.4 but when it is made we are bound to the performance of it yea though it cannot be performed without great losse and hindrance And breake the covenant of our fathers That is offend against that law which God gave unto our fathers it being usuall in Scripture to call the law by his name and covenant Psal 119. And this is the royall law according to that James 2.8 Why doe we transgresse c. And break the covenant of c. It is therefore accounted a sinne because it breakes the covenant the law which God hath given unto his people Every thing is good Doctrine or evill righteousnes or sin lawfull to be done or unlawfull not as it is profitable or hurtfull not as it may benefit men or may be Gods providence be turned to his glory and make for it but as it is agreeable or repugnant to the law and word of God Thus he reproveth these because they had gone against the law This is manifest by that 1 John 3.4 Whosoever committeth sinne transgresseth also the law for sinne is the transgression of the law And by that Rom. 7.7 Because the Law and Word of God is the perfect rule of all actions Reason 1 and so ordained of God now in an art whatsoever is according to the rule is good but what is different must needes be corrupt so in this Againe the law is Gods will now every thing is as he willeth or nilleth it good or evil for they are not such and then he willeth or nilleth them but his willing or nilling them maketh them such Because whatsoever is just is good Reason 2 what unjust is evill but whatsoever is agreeable to the law of justice is just and è contra Because whatsoever is agreeable to charity Reason 3 which is the sum of the law is good whatsoever repugnant evill This will confute a point of Popery whereby they allow things to be done Vse 1 though contrary to the law so they be done with a good intent or with a good zeal for a good end for so it is in the glosse upon Gratians decrees Malum factum excusatur per bonam intentionem And againe Excusatur malum si sit bono zelo propter bonum And upon this ground they allow murdering of Princes massacring of people treason in subjects treachery in servants disobedience in children that they may dishonour their parents deny them and forsake them so it be bono zelo propter bonum And be lawfull to doe any thing And this must make it good contrary to the apparent word of God here and that Rom. 3.8 so contrary is the spirit of Antichrist to Christs spirit To convince amongst our selves men who allow and maintaine many sins because they are profitable to others not hurtfull to them and therefore they think they may be done though they be contrary to the law One or two instances Many hold an officious lye lawfull because it may stand with charity when it is profitable for their neighbour But if against the law and word of God which forbiddeth lyes how should it not be sinne and unlawfull to be done besides they must understand that charity which is the summe of the law hath reference towards God towards our neighbour towards our selves And so is this against charity though helpfull to thy neighbour in whose favour it is told First because it is repugnant to verity and therefore to charity for God who is Truth hath forbidden all untruth as that which is opposite to him and so cannot stand with the charity and obedience we owe to God Secondly it is to the hurt of the teller because Psal 5.6 The lying mouth destroyeth the soule So it cannot stand with love which a man oweth to himselfe Now then though a man may helpe his brother and neighbour with the losse of his goods and hinderance that way but not necessary with the hazard of his life at all times but never with the hazard of his soule as every lyer shall doe Againe things must first be considered whether lawfull or no whether agreeable to the word and then whether profitable or hurtfull that is a second affection of things and a second consideration They cannot be lawfull but they will be profitable though not in our carnal apprehension nor unlawfull but unprofitable though we alwaies see it not A second instance is for the matter of usury many allow it if it bee moderate and if it be not joyned with the hurt but the profit of the borrower But whereas usury is simply unlawfull and evill I may answer with some of the learned when men make question of moderate usury whether that be lawfull or no Chemnitius they might as well make question whether moderate adultery or moderate lying or moderate theft be lawfull for as they are things in themselves unlawfull so is this Again I answer it is very hurtfull and against charity for though it be not against the profit of the particular yet is it against publique charity for usury is many waies noysome to the common wealth as is easie to be shewed Again it is against charity and our allegeance to God who hath forbidden it denounced his judgements against it made gracious promises to them who will do the contrary Lastly it is against love we owe to our owne soules for whosoever putteth out to usury or taketh increase he shall not live but dye the death Ezek. 18.13 But for the benefit of the borrower if it sometimes so fall out by the providence of God and his paines and hazard that is no thanke to the lender for it is without all question he never intendeth it though he may sometimes pretend it and so though it might make it no sinne in it selfe yet that makes it sinne to him for gaine the
which he ordained Who is the wife of thy youth One whom thou hast had from thy youth who hath beene long delightfull comfortable and amiable unto thee by her beauty helpes and chearefulnesse and other fruits of her youth and of marriage when thou being in thy youth married her a young Virgine And so it is no new reason nor yet any strange and obscure name of your duty mutually to be performed that it may be accounted either a small thing or is to be denyed and lightly regarded but it is most ancient and of long continuance even from your youth neither is there any thing committed by her why thou shouldest violate thy faith and breake thy covenant with her for so that against whom thou hast transgressed Is to be read with whom thou hast dealt unfaithfully breaking thy covenant Those words hath beene witnesse Some understand as if it were meant that he were witnesse of the injuries and indignities done against them And that howsoever some would lessen things yet the Lord tooke notice of them as great injuries yet this meaning the very tenor of the words will not carry it for it is not he is witnesse of you have been unfaithfull to them but between thee her with whom thou hast dealt unfaithfully Others would have it he is witnesse That is he hath contested betwixt thee and her that is hath commanded how thou shouldst carry thy selfe towards thy wife when he said Gen. 2.24 Therefore shall man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh But though some of the learned as Hierom and Cyril incline to this it seemeth to me somewhat violent Yet is she thy companion This is added to amplifie the crime of unfaithfulnesse because she was united to him in nighnesse of blood being flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone and in society of life admitted to a partaking of his government and goods or companion of his bed and government and that by a covenant made betwixt them whereunto he had bound himselfe Yet is she saith the Prophet that is for all that she is thus thou hast dealt thus and so with her Some for all thou hast dealt thus with her yet is she thy companion c. and not that other thou hast taken and put her away or forsaken her company Because the Lord hath been witnesse between thee Gods answer shewing their sinne in a more heynous degree not against their wives and selves but against him They who breake covenant Doctrine and deale unfaithfully with their wives are not onely injurious to their wives but also sinne against God Let the injurie be the maine one here spoken of or let it be lesse wherein the covenant of marriage is broken And now that which is of the husband to her must be understood of the wives to him So the Prophet here condemnes the mans perfidiousnesse as a sin to God And as much Solomon insinuates for the woman Prov. 2.17 Which forsaketh the guide of her youth and forgetteth the Covenant of her God That a leud woman dealing unfaithfully with her husband sinned against God in breaking the Covenant whereof he was Authour This is further proved because their naturall duties are commanded of God as Ephes 5.22.25 Collo 3.18.19 and other places Because whatsoever is against the Commandement and Word of God is a sinne against him though immediately it hurts man Reason 1 Nay indeed it is onely a hurt to man and the sinne against God seeing he is onely the law giver James 4. Now as the tenor of indictments run you did such a thing against the Crown and dignity of the Kings Majesty The hurt is to the private person but the transgression is against the Prince so in this Because God gave him to her and her to him Reason 2 and joyned them together therefore to transgresse one against another is to transgresse against God which I gather by proportion from that of Deut. 22.15 ad 20. where recompence is to bee made to the father for the injury that is done to the daughter for if there be an injury against him that is but in Gods stead and his vicegerent what to himselfe To perswade husbands and wives not to transgresse or injure one another not to deale unfaithfully one with another Vse 1 For besides that it is uncomely and most unnaturall to see that a man should hurt his owne flesh and so a woman That the body should annoy the head and the head the body it is against God therefore as Ioseph disswaded his Mistresse restrained himselfe Gen. 39.9 so should they one with another when occasion and opportunity is given or infirmity is ready to over-sway they should say one to another How can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God The duties of the husband conditioned at the Covenant were to love his wife to be faithfull to her in his body and goods to dwell with her to governe her to instruct her be an example to her give her due benevolence of maintenance and imployment and such like And of the wife to love and be faithfull to him to feare and obey him In any one of these to faile is to transgresse against the Lord. And though sometimes in their corruption they could consent to transgresse one against the other as the husband that his wife should be a harlot and prostrate her for gaine to another or that he might without her reproofe be an adulterer and è contra And so it may seeme to be no injury because of that that volenti non sit injuria yet is it a sinne against God and that which may procure the curse of God upon them to the ruine and destruction of the whole family together with them It is usuall with men that they are carefull not to transgresse one against another in those things especially which are against the law of the Prince therein they will refrain themselves that they trespasse not though they take some liberty in lesser things If married folks can transgresse in any thing which is not against God and his law let them take liberty to themselves but in things that are as what omission of duty or commission of contrary be it lesse or more is not let them refraine themselves and that in the least For though a friend may be a mediator betwixt them and reconcile them soone yet who shall reconcile them to God It was a weighty speech spoken gravely of old Eli to his sonnes if they had had grace to have thought of it 1 Sam. 2.25 If one man sinne against another the Iudge shall judge him but if a man sinne against the Lord who shall intreat for him which may be applied to this To teach man and wife Vse 2 when they have been injurious one unto another one transgressing against the other that it is not enough if upon their second thoughts and after wits upon calme and advised
this for men to be wary how they chuse and women how they are perswaded or give consent seeing it is a knot not to be broken againe for any dislike or discontents whatsoever save onely in the matter of adultery If it were a matter as common bargaines be that a man might lose his earnest if it were with some hazard of his honesty and good report Or if they were taken as some men take prentices upon liking or buy horses to lose so much if they dislike and return them or if Solons law were in force that he who did put away his wife should give her dower and portion with her againe it were the lesse to be thought of but when it is so dissoluble not to be loosed or broken but perpetuall it requires a great care when it is stronger and firmer then the bond betwixt parents and children Therefore should the man take heed how he chuseth for beauty for profit and great portion and not for wisedome and vertue though the other things be not in the like proportion What is more profitable then the Bee saith Saint Chrysost in Psal 50. yet hath it a sting What fairer then a Peacocke but the comelinesse onely is in the feathers not the fruit So many with their great portions and great beauty have often their stings and are not fit helpes that a man had better buy a wife then be bought to her specially when there is no parting And better to have had the contemptible Ant as he speaketh which is the mistrisse of wisedome the meaner and the more huswifely who may soone be worth her portion in good comfort and contentment so the woman how she is wonne or perswaded for the person or riches or kindred of a man because he is able to cloath her in fine apparell to decke her with gold and pearle and many such things having no wisedome to governe or instruct her or to bring up his children in the instruction of the Lord no love but lust for seeing the knot is perpetuall and no cheyce allowed againe she may buy all that deare enough Therefore it is good to be advised in their choyce lest repentance should come too late and be bought too deare and yet make no amends for they cannot be free If the law of polygamy were in force that a man might have two wives the one hated the other beloved or this of divorce he might put her away at his pleasure upon dislike and so è contra the matter were small and men might be as carelesse of this as of the other things but when as he hath made one for one and made the bond so inviolable that there is no parting till one be the others Executor seeing things are thus it is not good not to marry but to be carefull how he or she marrieth Chrysostome perswading men to be carefull of their soules reasoneth thus Omnia nobis duplicia Deus dedit duos oculos duas aures duas manus duos pedes singitur horum alterum laedatur per alterum necessitatem consolamur animam ver ò unam dedit nobis si hane perdiderimus quanam vivemus Vide Chrysost he 12. ad pop Ant. So God hath allowed us two friends or two servants or two houses or two coates one may supply the want of the other but one wife and her for life and the tearme of a mans dayes how ought he to use her well and chuse her carefully and so of a woman I hate putting away Thus he first condemnes this sinne because it is against his will and minde that he dislikes and hates it and by this disswades from it not that we must conceive there is any such passion in God or affection but these things are as August speaketh of anger so of this * Non est perturbatio a nimi ejus sed judicium quo irrogatur poena peccate Aug. It is not any perturbation of his minde but the judgement by which he inflict punishment upon sin And so in the whole he disswades from this because else Gods judgements and punishments will come upon them howsoever they escape mens Now this is not proper to this but common to others whence we have a generall doctrine Men ought to avoyde and eschew unjust divorces Doctrine and every other sinne for feare of the judgements of God and his hatred and punishments which thing is manifest in the law when as every prohibition is not without a threat and a judgement Hence that Deuter. 28.15 And in the particulars through the whole law wheresoever God forbids any sinne usually there is a judgement joyned with it The spirit speaketh not so in vaine but that he would have men to avoyd them for those The point is proved Gen. 17.14 Exod. 22.22.23.24 Isay 1.20 Rom. 6.23 Solomon often threatneth adulterers with shame and poverty and disease to restraine them from it And S. Paul with the judgements to come in the life to come Hebr. 13. Because of their corruptions Reason 1 who as they love not righteousnesse nor desire or hunger after it for righteousnesse sake and in conscience which makes God give them promises and propound rewards unto them to make them obey So they hate not sinne neither flye it because it is sin but as children do Bees not because they are Bees but because they have a sting so they sin because it is hurtfull therefore hath the Lord propounded these not as defirous of their punishment but to have them not to offend as Princes adde penalties to their lawes Because as the malice of Sathan hath feared men Reason 2 from doing well for feare of harmes losses and disgraces which they shall finde in the world and others before them which hath made God ballance them with his promises So his comming tells them that unrighteousnesse hath many pleasures profits preferments and shewes then many that have risen that way and by such meanes therefore God shewes them then the sower of it that for all such things all must come to his judgements Because by them they may subdue and tame their flesh and the corruption of it Reason 3 and make subject to the spirit which alwaies of it selfe rebelleth against the spirit and often ruleth over it to lead it to sinne and disobedience If feare of judgements be a meanes to restraine men from sin Vse 1 it tells us that many men are voide even of this servile feare Vide Mal. 1.6 first effect of servile feare Use 1. To teach every man who would keepe himselfe from it Vse 2 to endeavour and labour for this feare Saith the Lord God of Israel This for confirmation not the Prophet but the Lord the master and not the Minister speakes this which is thus set out to shew the care he had of that people that he had taken the protection and defence of them Now this people being a type of the Church as well as the Church it may teach us this God is the protectour
to take upon them the care of performing obedience to Christ in both be carefull of religion with honesty and of honesty with religion this must be done and the other must be lest undone Hast thou any knowledge of God any love of the truth any care of the Lords day any feare of his great name any love to heare or to pray See thou be carefull of justice chastity sobriety obedience fidelity and true love to men Or else for all that when thou thinkest to have Christ for thy Saviour thou shalt finde him but a swift witnesse and an irefull Judge against thee So on the contrary Many will easily grant me that if a man be never so religious so devout and carefull of the first Table yet if he be unjust an extortioner a murtherer and such like As they Acts 28.5 judged of St. Paul so the Lord will not suffer him to live but his judgements shall be upon him and condemnation in the life to come But if a man be just chast mercifull and such like though he know not religion be without the feare of God and care of his service though a swearer blasphemer a prophaner of the Lords day yet he may do well enough and no fear of perishing or judgement and so will they speake both in life and death which is all one as if they should thinke a man which is guilty of felony murder and such like must needs be judged by the law of the land but if not of these though he be a traytor to the Kings person yet is there no feare But if a traytor shall die though not guilty of felony and a felone though not culpable of treason by the justice of mans law much more they who shall separate these two Tables Therefore must we endeavour to be religiously honest and honestly religious to avoide the transgressions of both Tables and to do the duties of them lest if we separate these we lay our selves open to the judgements of God in this life and separate our selves from the comfortable and happy presence of the Lambe and him that sitteth upon the Throne Against the soothsayers The first particular whom he will judge and under this all of the like kinde Such Deuter. 18.10 11. Let none be found among you that maketh his sonne or daughter go through the fire or that useth witchcraft or a regarder of times or a marker of the flying of foules or a sorcerer or a charmer or that concelleth with spirits or a soothsayer or that asketh counsell at the dead The Lord as he will judge and destroy all other Malefactors Doctrine so will he foothsayers witches inchanters sorcerers Necromancers wizards and all such like so is affirmed here And if we loke to the old Testament and things that are past we shall finde it true Deuter. 18.12 For all that do such things are an abomination to the Lord and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth cast them out before thee 2. Kings 17.17 18. And they made their sounes and their daughters passe through the fire and used witch craft and inchantments yea sold themselves to do evill in the sight of the Lord to anger him therefore the Lord was exceeding wroth with Israel and put them out of his sight and none was left but the tribe of Iudah onely Mich. 5.12 And will cut off thine Inchanters out of thine hand and thou shalt have no more soothsayers In the new Gal. 5.20 21. Revelat. 21.8 Sorcerers shall have their part in the Lake that burnes with fire and brimstone Because they are grosse Idolaters and the art they use Reason 1 is grosse Idolatry for here is ever either the expresse invocating and calling upon the Devil seeking from him knowledge of things secret and to come helpe in trouble deliverance from danger and such like proper unto God or else some secret and covert invocation on him as under the name of the dead or under some barbarous tearmes which have no signification or by some superstitions and arts of slight invented by him Which Tertul. l b. de anima calleth second Idolatry for as in the first he fained himselfe to be a God so here an Angel or one that is dead and such like in both he seeks to be worshipped when as then they are worshippers of the devill taking from the Lord that was his most gratefull and acceptable to him invocation and his worship and giving it to his most deadly and greatest enemy How should he put it up and not be revenged of such a generation Because they bewitch and deceive many Reason 2 and draw them into the same sins and so bring them to destruction as is said of Simon Magus Acts 8.9 When as therefore they so strive against the glory of God and salvation of others no marvell if the Lord will judge and destroy them To stir up the Magistrate to draw forth the sword of justice against these and to cut off all such workers of iniquity Vse 1 from the City of God for they ought to do as the Lord would and will do seeing they have the commandement for it Exod. 22.18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live Levit. 20.27 And if a man or woman have a spirit of divination or soothsaying in them they shall die the death they shall stone them to death their bloud shall be upon them So did Saul while he was assisted of the Lord and Iosias 2. Kings 23.24 And this as well such as hurt as helpe and though they do neither yet if they have familiarity with a spirit as both the law of God and our Land requires And slender it is which is objected to say now there are none when this place speaketh of the time of the Gospell and never would the Apostle have threated any if there had not beene such sinnes and such offendors to have thus fought with a shadow To perswade men to avoide this sin Vse 2 and not to fal into it to become sooth-sayers wizards wisemen c. upon hope of gaine for desire of revenge affecting vaine-glory to know and reveale things to come or for any such cause knowing that though they can escape the law and punishment of man either hurting not or covering their sorcery and witch-craft by medicines and hearbes or deny they consult with any spirit yet shall they not the judgement of Christ who is the witnesse and sees the secret of their compact with Satan beholds their invocation and worshipping of him either in secret place or in secret maner and howsoever it is and will judge them and doth judge them in this life with blindenesse hardnesse of heart oftentimes poverty and such like but sure he shall judge them in the life to come and give them their portion with him who have sought to better their portion by him To disswade men from seeking to sooth-sayers and sorcerers Vse 3 c. or having any commerce or fellowship with them in
not bee neglected Acts. 6.1 A place pertinently observed and used by the Widow of Iohn Knobbarus the Printer in her Epistle Dedicatory to the Bishop of Antwerp before the late Iesuite Bresserus his booke De Concscientia This care was continued by S. Paul 1. Tim. 5.3 and after by many Bishops a T is a Testimony of great honour and a character fit for a Bishop which Mathew of West minster gives to Gilbert Bishop of Chichester in K. Edward the firsts time that he was the Father of Orphans and the comforter of Widowes Yet at the last the Pontifician law grew streight and hard towards them wherein as Greg. Tholosan hath it Syntag. Iuris lib. 9. cap. 26. s 14. It was provided that the mony bequeathed for pious uses to the endowing and marrying of poore Women might in no case be bestowed upon Widowes marrying again though they were poore The fatherlesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Orphan a Pupill destitute of father or helpe See it clearely Lament 5.3 Wee are Iethomim Orphans and without father The Lxx here and constantly translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in one place namely Psal 82.3 they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 poore The fatherlesse and the widow's are frequently joyned together in the same Texts and so they are in Gods care The ancient Church was tender of them thence it was that Brephotrophi as they were called were appointed for the charge of exposed infants whose fathers were not knowne and Orphanotrophi to see to the bringing up of other infants A practise worthily followed and imitated by the rare zeale and charity of our blessed King Edward the Sixth who upon occasion of the Bishop of Londons Sermon besides Bridewell and S. Thomas Hospitall disposed to other charitable uses was the glorious founder of Christs Hospitall for the reliefe of fatherlesse children It were easy to outvie the popish and to parallell the ancient times with examples of charity in this kind since the Reformation Among others that Honorable reverend Prelate D. Andrew's Lord Bishop of Winchester shines not more in his learned writings which yet make him famous in the gates then in his Legacies to the poore among which this was not the least commendable that he gave 5C 1 per Annum to the binding of poore Orphans to be apprentices A man deserving all the honor and right which those honorable and learned personages have done him who have gratified the English Church with the History of his life But I must take my selfe off from this argument remembring that these Excursions will haply be judged by some to bee too frequent and not proper for these short notes I confesse it yet who would not be large upon the least occasion given in the just commendations of those rare examples especially when so many on the contrary doe build up their estates and houses upon the ruines and distresses of Orphans and Pupills committed to their trust The sinne that is here threatned in the text and questionles a great sinne and provided against fully in the ancient law so that in the Institutions of Iustinian we have fourteen titles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 1. Tit. 13 c. And Greg. Tholosan hath found enough to collect to make two bookes in his Syntagma lib. 12. and 13. with whom I leave the Reader Sixthly And against those that turne aside the stranger that is from his right as our last translation supplyes it even in the text The Geneva and Vulg. Against those that oppresse the stranger The Lxx. and the Chalde That pervert the judgement of the stranger See how it is exprest Exod. 23.6 Thou shalt wrest the judgement The stranger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is he that dwells where he was not borne or one that hath dwelt but a while where hee doth and so through want of friends and of acquaintance with the Law is more easy to bee wronged for whose defence therefore God provided by many Lawes See Exod. 22.21 and 23.9 Deut. 10.18.19 Levit. 19.33.34 Ierem 22.3 Ezek. 46.18 Zach. 7.10 Seventhly And against those that feare not me saith the Lord The particulars before mentioned are summed up in this which is the fountaine also and head of other sinnes and that against which the Lord will come neare in judgement As Primus in orbe deos fecit Timor and where the feare of God is it will command the heart and restraine from sinne so the little or no feare of God argues that men cherish little or no beliefe of God when according to the ingenious conceit of Nic. Caussin the Iesuite in his Table or picture of worldly policy Holy Court pt 2. The Statesman sect 2. In a Chamber hideously blacke the study of Lucifer the brave spirits of the time under the regency of Herod and Tiberius doe study to finde out the way How to believe in God no longer The truth is while most men instead of contending for the faith have but wrangled about the differences of Religions they are growne Irreligious and into a disposition unto Atheisme which how it may be discovered cured will bee worthy the labour of all such who are set over men for the cure of their soules Thus wee have seene the judgment threatned and against whom II. Verse 6 The certainty of the judgment verse 6. For I am the Lord I change not therefore yee sonnes of Iacob are not consumed Or as the Vulg. and Montan. and the Geneva read it I change not And yee sonnes of Iacob are not consumed It is the reason of what was before said and threatned you say I regard not to punish or reward but though I deferre a while yet I will come neare to judgement for I constantly love good and hate evill I change not So Cyril Theodor. Remig. Rupert Hugo Lyr. Vatabl c. For the latter clause of this 6th verse I shall with submission take leave to depart from our learned translators and reade not as they Therefore but as Montanus and as it is in the Hebrew And I change not And yee sonnes of Iacob are not consumed And that is And yet Though I threatned you and change not yet my patience is such that yee are spared and not yet consumed But I leave this place to such as can better search the Prophets mind for here I confesse I doe take off my owne unskilfull pen without cleare satisfaction in my selfe about the coherence of this verse especially this latter clause with the verses precedent The Reader may finde it somewhat otherwise exprest in Tarnovius And thus much of the 5th Contestation VI. The sixth Contestation Sixthly Vers 7 he contests with them for their impenitence verse 7. That they had sinned and continued in sin and yet would not be convinced 1. That they had continued in sinning against Gods lawes Even from the dayes of your fathers ye have gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them He exprobrates their old and
The Table of the Lord is polluted and the fruit thereof even his meate is not to be regarded 13 Ye said also Behold it is a wearinesse and ye have snuffed at it saith the Lord of Hostes and ye offered that which was torne and the lame and the sick thus ye offered an offering should I accept this at your hand saith the Lord 14 But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing for I am agreat King saith the Lord of Hostes and my Name is terrible among the Heathen The parts of this Chapter are two 1. A Preface or Inscription 2. The Oracle or Prophecy 1. The Preface in the first verse generall to the whole 2. The Prophecy in the rest 1. An expostulation with the people and Priest for their ingratitude and corrupting of his worship from verse 2. to the 9. 2. A Commination of judgment deserved by it or a Commination of divers judgments from vers 9. to the end In the Preface or Inscription we conceive two things The substance and circumstance of it 1. The substance being the subject or matter of the whole is in that it is called a Burden 2. The Circumstance of the person which is three-fold 1. From whom as the Efficient 2. To whom as the Object 3. By whom as the Instrument VERSE I. The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by the ministery of Malachy THE Burden Here is the matter or subject of this Booke or Prophecy He calleth it a burden usuall with Prophets in their writings all almost in some place or other But Nahum Habakkuk and Malachy thus begin their prophecies It signifies as Hierome a woefull and sorrowfull prophecy full of threats and judgments called therefore a Burden because it presseth those against whom it is spoken the hearts and spirits of them as a burden the body and suffers them not to lift up their heads and themselves as in former times Some thinke it signifies not onely this but also the Commandement of the Lord by which the Prophet was burdened as from the Lord that he should declare it in so many words unto Israel which they thinke follows thence because it is to Israel not against but I feare this is somewhat nice for it was so to them as it was against them for their sinnes and that which is against is as much as a burden to the Prophet but this must be understood Tropicè here being a Synecdoche for the whole Prophecy is not a burden or threatning of punishment but part onely of it and so the whole is denominated of the part The punishment of sinne Doctrine the affliction God inflicts upon men for their sinnes and transgressions is a burden not a light one not such as are the feathers of a bird onus sine onere but as a talent of Lead spoken of Zach. 5.7 heavy and grievous so is it here and in many places of the Prophets as Nah. 1.1 Hab. 1.1 Jerem. 23.33 fine he shewes what is the burden I will cast you off and send you into Babel captives vers 36. that is whosoever shall say The burden he shall for that word beare his burden that is be punished of the Lord it is proved further by Matth. 7.9 Galat. 6.8 Hence is the complaint of David Psal 32.4 Thy hand was heavy upon me Because sinne the deserving and procuring cause Reas 1 is a very grievous burden Psal 38.4 Matth. 27.38 that is to living men and such as have the use of their sences not to dead and benummed men then the punishment is grievous Because the wrath and displeasure of God Reas 2 which is the efficient cause of it is very heavy and grievous The displeasure of a Prince is heavy the Kings wrath is as the roaring of a Lion Prov. 19.12 Now hence are afflictions heavy and burdensome Because none can give ease in it or deliver from it Reas 3 save God onely Hos 1.6 1 Sam. 2.25 2 King 6.26 27. The wound that is had by the biting of a Scorpion is grievous when nothing can cure it but the ashes of that Scorpion much more this This may teach us what to judge of those men who are in some affliction under a judgment and yet finde no burden Vse 1 but goe as light under them as a bird doth under her feathers and sometimes make advantage of them as beggers doe make gaine of their sores they are senselesse they are benummed they are dead men In common sence if any have halfe an hundreth weight laid upon his hand or foot and pressing him sore and he feele it not what judgment is to be given of it but to be a mortified and a dead member so alas how many dead men are in our times and daies The burden not of the Word onely but of the rod of the Lord not threatned but executed hath beene upon our Land and Church by the fearefull Plague now well towards three yeares wee have walked in the land of the dead we have beene in the house of mourning Indeed the living hath laid it to his heart but so few have done it that the dead are more than the living not onely our wanton women and voluptuous men to whom that 1 Tim. 5.6 They are dead while they live but our worldly men our ambitious and others all dead for this they have not felt We sorrowed for fifty odde thousands that dyed in the former yeare we have as much need to sorrow for so many thousands yet living and dead amongst us they never indeed felt nor yet doe feele this burden Their irreligious carriage when it was here amongst us both at home abroad in the City and abroad their small conformity since to the Law of God little reforming of their corruptions nay their monstrous deformity in themselves wives and children perswades my heart as 't is Psal 36.1 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart there is no feare of God before my eyes so that they had no feeling of this at all for they who truely felt it would grow somewhat better if not altogether reformed If an heathenish people who knew not God at the burden of the Word of the Lord did so humble themselves that the Lord said Jonah 8.10 He repented of the evill he said he would doe to you and did it not what shall be thought of Christian men by profession living in the Church of God if at the burden of his Word they repent not nor depart from their evill wayes but Isaiah 8.8 Though they be stricken revolt more and more it is because they are dead men and cannot feele it Oh then weepe not for me but for your selves and children as those not for the departed but for the living dead for if it be true The beginning of the remedy is the sence and acknowledgment of the malady how farre are they from cure that have not yet the feeling
learne that wisdome from the Serpent to cast our poyson before we come to drinke Out of the peoples fault comparing outward things with inward the type with the truth we have gathered that the people that bring offerings to God they who perform any service to him ought to be holy and pure for if their sacrifice much more they Now out of the Priests fault we may gather that if they ought to reject unclean and unfit sacrifices then those also who brought them being unclean yet they ought to put a difference and to distinguish betwixt the clean and unclean to receive the one and refuse the other as Levit 10.10 And so from the proportion we may gather some observation for our times The Ministers of the Gospell and new Testament ought to make difference betwixt the godly and the wicked Doctr. as much as lyeth in them to accept and receive the one and to reject and exclude the other from the publique prayers of the Church and from the sacred Table of Christ Hence is the command to the Church of Corinth and to the Pastor as the principall man 2 Cor. 5.13 Jer. 15.19 the Liturgie of our Church commendeth Ambrose then Bishop of Millaine for dealing so with the Emperour himselfe Theodosius the younger till he shewed himselfe sorry for his sinnes So 1 Tim. 1.20 Because if they under the Law Priests and Prophets ought to doe it Reas 1 much more they in the Gospell For as many things were then tolerable which noware not because saith Augustine Many things are tolerated in the darknesse and dawning which are not in the day when the Sunne is up so must it follow that that which was not tolerable then cannot be now Because by their continuance and suffering them Reas 2 and not censuring them they may by many meanes be hurtfull and infect the cleane and holy these being more capable of the others evill than they are able to communicate their good to them As health is not so communicable as contagion 1 Cor. 5.6 then if they desire to keepe them whole from pollutions they must separate the wicked as Shepherds saith Chrysost separate the infected and scabbed from the whole Christ admitted Judas to the Supper a devill after he knew he had taken money to betray him Object First Answ it is denyed that he was admitted to it but say he did as to the Passeover yet this follows not that a Minister must not as much as in him lyeth exclude the wicked for first this was a hidden sinne not open but smothered and kept close Christ tooke notice of it by his divine power not humane nature Now the exclusion is for knowne sinnes not secret those must be left to Gods judgment and this crosseth not the excluding for known sinnes And it is probable that our Saviour admitted him to the Passeover because his hypocrisie was not yet unmasked whereas after when he had unmasked him by giving the sop to him as St. Hilarie well observeth and so made him knowne what he was to the rest he sent him out of the way while he celebrated the new Passeover This sheweth what manner of men they ought to be Vse 1 who must exclude and shut out others if not without sinne yet without open scandall and blame as St. Hierome Sine crimine non sine peccato Hence was it ordained that whosoever of the Priests or Levites had erred and beene defiled by Idolatry in the time of the Captivity or of any of the Idolatrous Princes and so became a scandall should not serve any more in the Temple Ezek. 44.10 12 13 15. Neither yet the Levites that are gone back from me when Israel went astray which went astray from me after their Idols but they shall beare their iniquity Because they served before thee Idols and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity therefore have I lift up mine hand against them saith the Lord God and they shall beare their iniquity And they shall not come neere unto me to doe the office of the Priest unto me neither shall they come neare unto any of my holy things in the most holy place but they shall beare their shame and their abhominations which they have committed But the Priests of the Levites the sonnes of Zadok that kept the charge of my Sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me they shall come neare me to serve me and they shall stand before me to offer me the fat and the blood saith the Lord God 2 King 23.9 And this the Church after Christ did observe for Cyprian Epist 2.1 mentioneth a Canon made by him and other of the Bishops of Africk that no Bishop or Priest that had beene ordained in the Church and after either had fallen into heresie or beene touched with Idolatry should be received againe upon their repentance otherwise than as lay-men And Epistola 1.7 he chideth Fortunatianus who once was a Bishop and had in the time of persecution burnt incense to Idols and after came home againe to the Church and would have kept his place still Audet sibi sacerdotium quod prodidit vendicare quasi pest aras Diaboli ad altare Dei fas sit accedere c Dares he challenge that Office or Priesthood which he hath betrayed as if it were lawfull after he hath served at the Idoll-stoole of the Devill to draw neere to Gods Altar Novatianus and Novatus made a Schisme from the Church because one Trophimus a Priest with some other were received after they had fallen for feare in those horrible times Cyprian answereth Epist 4.2 * Susceptus est Trophimus sic tamen admissus ut laicus communicet non quasi locum sacerdotis usurpet Cyprian Trophimus is indeed received but admitted onely into the place where Lay-men communicate not into the place of a Priest All teach that such should not be received for what if Peter and Paul the example of the one and the calling of the other extraordinary were received yet the equity is great that those who must judge the leprosie of others should be free from it themselves or if they be not should be expelled as Vzzah when the leprosie once sprung out of his forehead And that the Church should not receive Popish Priests to be Ministers at Gods table besides that it is like to be hurtfull because the mystery of iniquity workes thus cunningly as they Ezra 4.2 They came to Zerubbabel and to the chiefe Fathers and said unto them we will build with you for we seeke the Lord your God as you doe and we have sacrificed unto him since the time of Esar Haddon King of Ashur which brought us up hither To whom answer should be vers 3. Then Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the chiefe of the Fathers of Israel said unto them it is not for you but for us to build the House unto our God for we our selves together will build it unto the Lord God of Israel
as King Cyrus the King of Persia hath commanded us If they have parts of learning it were fit they should bee imployed otherwayes then in the ministry to the scandall and hurt of many To admonish the Ministers of their duty Vse 3 that they would as much as they have any power in their hands reject and exclude the wicked and not receive them as John would not the Pharises and Sadduces till they confesse their sinnes and so give some tesTimony of their repentance But yet this must not be done upon every small infirmity or hidden sinne but for hainous sinnes that are contagious in respect of the quality of them are scandalous in regard of the opennesse of them for hidden sinnes must be left to the judgement of God and infirmities must be otherwise dealt withall mildly with lesse censures Gal. 6.1 3 4. secretsins secretly reproved Math. 18. onely publique sins to be publiquely censured and the offender to be excluded and yet not at first but as in the matter of the Leper so he must not presently expell him the Church but admonish him the first and second time Tit. 3.10 11. and then expell him if he persist obstinatly in it This being the last censure and the greatest As Physitians seek all meanes to cure before they cut off a member For the people to learn to submit themselves to the censure of the Ministers of the Church Vse 3 as Hebr. 13.17 Obey them that have the oversight of you and submit your selves for they watch for your soules as they that must give accounts that they may doe it with joy and not with griefe for that is unprofitable unto you to doe as they say and be ruled by their censure and that first for their own good 1 Cor. 5.5 be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Excommunitio est medicina Eclesiae For even excommunication is the Churches medicine It cast not off from the whole Church but from a particular congregation or one visible Church to keepe him from infecting others and to recover him from his own corruption The not yeelding is the rebelling against Christ who hath so commanded his and not carrying his yoake here is to deprive themselves of the Crowne there yea and when they are cut off from a particular Church to persist and contend it is to cut themselves of from the whole whereas to submit and to seek the effect off it is their good as it was Onesimus his and as a bone that is broken if it be well set groweth stronger againe so is it with them They who have the charge of others Doctrine by God committed unto them are guilty of the offences that are committed by them Ezech. 33.8 if they be not carefull to censure them for them so is it here and vers 9. When I shall say unto the wicked O wicked man thou shalt dye the death if thou doest not speake and admonish the wicked of his way that wicked man shal dy for his iniquity but his blood will I require at thine hand Yea the Magistrates doe sin in not punishing Nehe. 13.17 2 Sam. 3.38 39. and for this is it thought that law was made Num. 35.31 Yee shall take no recompence for the life of the murtherer which is worthy to dy but he shall be put to death For by that he should give others incouragement to kill and make also the sin his own yea and as the peoples sins are the Ministers and Magistrates so the Childrens sinnes are the Parents 1 Sam. 2.29 Wherefore hast thou kicked against my sacrifice and my offering which I commanded in my tabernacle and honourest thy children above mee to make you selves fat with the first fruits of all the offerings of Israel my people said the Lord to Eli when yet his sonnes only were guilty Because every man is commanded to reprove his brother Reas 1 his friend Levit. 19.17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart but thou shalt plainly rebuke thy neighbour and suffer him not to sinne If he may not beare with the faults of his friends lesse of children servants subjects people where not only the generall charge is in the command but a speciall one also and so the twofold cord binds them Because every man is bound to prevent sinne as much as lyes in him specially the sins of his charge but he that reproves not Reas 2 corrects not censures not punisheth not according to his place prevents not sinne Because every one that scapes without these or some of these is hartned and incouraged to commit other sinnes and others of the same condition by him servants subjects c. Because they are made keepers of both tables Reas 3 such as ought to looke that both tables should be kept therefore the command touching them is made the sinew strength of the other that if they be obeyed the other are better kept if they doe their duty the breaches of the other are better withstood and therefore some think the law of the ton Commandements was given to Moses the Magistrate for them all Exod. 19. It shews the wretched estate of Ministers Magistrates Vse 1 Mrs. Parents if they neglect reproving correcting punishing censuring as their place requireth they have their Bill of indictment increased against the great day by the sinnes of other men This teacheth us that those who have charge of others Vse 2 have a farre greater account to make then those who have not for it is enough for those if they keep themselves from their owne wickednesse the other must be carefull to keep others in good course and so from sinne The governours must care for those who live under them the householder for such as are under his roofe the Prince for such as are within his Realm it is not enough they serve God themselves but they must cause others to doe ikewise as Abraham Gen. 18.19 and as Joshua 24.13 the Master must looke his servant keep the Sabbath to him is the command Exod. 20.10 he must come with his traine to the house of God Psal 42.4 he must prepare himselfe for the Sacrament and charge his and sanctifie them Job 1.5 yea he must correct censure and punish unlesse he will have their sinnes fall on him if he thinke he have not personall sins enough of his owne let him be herein carelesse but he that thinks he hath enough and too many of his owne to answer for let him seek to restrain others committed to his charge by his censures and power that he may be free from them which is done two waies and two things are required of him that he keep himself free from others mens sins The first is to pry and enquire into the lives of those that are committed unto him into their carriage and behaviour that he may see what is amisse It is enough for a
quality yea and of a step or a degree higher Hay or stubble or any combustible matter dryed and heated by the Sunne soone takes fire the resisting of humidity is taken away So in this For when temptation is offered to some or other sinne that the conscience shall at first seeme to make nice of the corruption of the heart will be ready to make answer and suggest that he may as well and as safely doe this as the former there is no more danger in the one then in the other and therefore that it is to no end to make dainty of the one seeing he is so farre ingaged in the other Therefore hee that would be free from greater when the lesse hath seased upon him let him haste and by true repentance as by an ejectione firmae cast him out of possession Take the foxes when they are little and if not at first yet as they come in by little and little cast them out by little and little and go back againe by degrees as the sunne went backe in the Diall of Ahaz Vse 3 This may teach every man to account it a mercy and goodnesse of God to him when he gives a meanes to prevent his entrance into a sinne or his continuance in it when he hath slipped aside to any though but a little one St. Aug. saith that Omne peccatum c. Every sinne that God prevented in him and kept him from committing of it he accounted no lesse mercy than if he had pardoned him And doubtlesse in this respect the mercy is more for while that sinne was prevented more and perhaps greater sinnes were prevented in him Men are nothing so sensible in this but it is their corruption as they are not so sensible of the benefit being kept from transgressing the Law as getting a pardon after nor in preventing a disease as in removing it after But the merecy is great whether it be by the voice of a Minister if he open his heart to it or the voyce of a judgment or the voice of his conscience or the voice of the Spirit Es 30.21 It is a benefit when a man is setled or secure in his sinne by any of these meanes to be admonished as David was by Nathan after he had sinned in numbring the people and Peter was by Christ after the third deniall though it had beene greater if the admonition and prevention had beene at the first or second step So should men esteeme it when they are turned or turning to the right hand or to the left by pleasure or profit It is good that God will so admonish them and prevent this by whom or howsoever by publikc or private meanes by good or bad And let them hearken and obey and be thankfull to the Authour and the meanes Nec ullus omnino sermo qui adificat ad pietatem ad virtutes ad mores optimos negligenter est audiendus quoniam illic iter quo ostenditur Salutare De i. Bern. in Cant. serm 57. Si corripuerit me justus in misericordia id ipsum sentiam sciens quia aemulatio justi benevolentia iter faciunt ei qui ascendit super occasum Bonus occasus cum ad correptionem justi stat homo corruit vitium Dominus ascendit super illud conculcans hoc pedibus conteâ—ens ne resurgat Non ergo contemnenda increpatio justi quae ruina peccati cordis sanitas est nec non Dei ad animam via Bern. Ibid. Vnusquisque pro modulo suo audiat sicut sibi conscius fuerit ita vel doleat corrigendus vel gaudeat approbandus Si se deviâsse invenerit redeat ut in via ambulet Si se in via invenerit ambulet ut perveniat Nemo sit superbus extra viam nemo piger in via Aug. in Psal 31. praefat As St. Bernard speakes No word that edifies to godlinesse to vertue and good manners is to be heard negligently because there is the way in which is shewed the salvation of God And a little before in the same Sermon saith he The admonition of the righteous is not to be contemned which is sinnes ruine the hearts health and Gods way to the Soule And as S. Aug. to the same purpose of publick hearing and admonition Let every one heare as he can and as he is conscious to himselfe so let him either grieve being to be corrected or rejoyce being to be approved If he finde that he hath gone astray let him returne that he may walke in the way If he find himselfe in Gods way let him walke on to the end let no man be proud out of the way nor slothfull in it In that you say That is thus thinke in your hearts and this is known to God 'T is not likely they were so impious to utter their prophane conceits of Gods service but as it is Ps 14.1 Psal 30.6 Not onely workes and words Doctrine but even the thoughts are known to God The very hearts of men have eares to heare God and mouths to speake to God Corda Deo aures os gerunt saith St. Aug. As God said to Moses in another case Exod. 14.15 so to the wicked Why cryest thou against me when haply they speak no word but onely blaspheme God in their hearts as it is Psal 10.13 The Table of the Lord is not to be regarded They aske wherein they have despised and polluted God In that they think basely of his service they pollute him in polluting his Altar They who thinke basely of Gods board they contemne and pollute God whose board it is By Table is understood not that of the Shew-bread but the Altar of burnt-offerings And so is Ezek. 41.22 Whatsoever abuse is committed in the worship of God or against the meanes of his worship Doctrine it is held to be done against God himselfe Thus answereth God this people In polluting my Altar you pollute me the meanes of Gods worship with us are the Word Sacraments and Prayer as the Law Sacrifices and Sacrament were with them Now then as the contemning of these were the contemning of him so is it with us It is that which is 1 Cor. 11.27 to be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord that is of a heinous offence committed against his person he is absent so was God from the sacrifices yet he was polluted in them because they were offered unto him So is it in these Sacraments of ours because he offereth them unto us as signes of himselfe Hence it is Luke 10.16 He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me And wherefore they more than other men but for this because they were the Candlesticks that held forth the light they were they who brought the Word to them and that was it not for their persons Because he that denies God all worship and honour must needs contemne and
us then the other though the other dishonour God as much and doe as much hurt These and many such things argue directly the corruptions of men that preferre duties to men before duties to God Thus ought we to labor against this corruption and to strive to feare God Vse 2 to love him above all to make more conscience of dutyes to him then to men to be more grieved with sins that are against him then against others or our selves which will never be unlesse we get our carnall affection changed our carnall understanding reformed our partiall and preposterous judgement altered and get our affection sanctified out understanding enlightned our judgment rectified Then shall wee love him and the things he loves more grieve to offend him then the greatest man in the world to alienate him then the best friend in the world and more sorrow for it then shall we see him that is invisible as the Authour of all our blessings and praise him more than men then shall we measure sinnes not as they are against us but in themselves and against God against whom they are principaly committed and which makes them sinnes Not lae sio nostri but offensa Dei makes them sins therefore we should hate them those especially that least concerne our selves that our zeale may appeare to be a severity rightly grounded and judgment well informed as David Psal 69.9 The zeale of thine house hath eaten me and the rebukes of them that rebuked thee are fallen upon me when for his owne he saith Psal 39.9 I was dumb and opened not my mouth because thou diddest it but Gods wrongs he could not brooke As Moses for himselfe was very meeke Numb 12.2 but Gods dishonour Exod. 32. made him exceeding hot Finally let us not be partiall and expresse it in exacting those duties of man that we are carelesse of performing in regard of God like that people Phil. 2.21 who sought nothing but their owne profit and for their person which overthroweth all both in Church and Common-wealth The thing he reproves them for as contemners of him is that they had offered that to him which they would not doe to man and an inferiour To offer unto God that which man will not accept Doctrine or to serve him as man will not be served and with such service as he would not serve man withall is a sinne and the contempt of him or preferring man and the duties to him before God and the duties to him is a sinne Matth. 15.6 2 Col. 2.20 21 22 23. Not because of the greatnesse of Gods mind Reas 1 who looks for so great things for he will be content even with small matters after a mans ability when there is a willing mind a Cup of cold water or a Widows Myte or a paire of Turtle-doves and yong Pidgeons But because of the basenesse of his conceit who gives and brings such things who having more and being able to bring better things yet brings them not as accounting this good enough Because it comes from the corruption of the heart Reas 2 now such as the root is such fruit it brings forth for as Job 14.4 Who can bring a cleane thing out of filthinesse there is not one So of this and such an egge such a bird Because it is against the royall law Reas 3 Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart c. Now as S. James in another case James 2.8 9. But if ye fulfill the royall law according to the Scripture which saith Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy selfe ye doe well But if you regard the persons you commit sinne and are rebuked of the law as transgressors so in this being against the royall law accepting persons any before God must needs be evill and sinne To teach men to examine their lives and their practices Vse 1 and to search whether this sinne be not in them that though they be carefull of God as they perswade themselves yet they preferre man before him and use him so as they would not use man neither doe and as they know man would not accept To give some particulars they are to carry a Present to keepe or recover the favour of some man will they carry of the worst things they have such as they cannot well bestow otherwise they will not lest they should gaine displeasure rather than favour and yet for God and the uses he hath commanded they will offer that which they have no use for otherwise Are they not then guilty of this Will any man serve all his youth against his Prince as a Rebell and after in old age when he is unfit for service come and proffer him his endeavour and fidelity he will not lest he should be punished by him rather than accepted Or say he called for his service when he was in health and strength and he refused to worke with him will he offer it when he is weake and sick he will not lest he should be rejected and punished and yet his youth will he spend against God in the service of sin and Satan yea his strength and health though God called for it and challenged it and offer himselfe when he is in age weaknesse and sicknesse to doe him service And is he not guilty of this sinne Will a man when he is in a good estate in a flourishing and prosperous condition refuse the friendship and familiarity of another man and thinke when he is in misery to have it and enjoy it to his good and comfort he will not lest he be then scorned and rejected As Judges 11.7 Jephtha then answered the Elders of Gilead Did ye not hate me and expell me out of my fathers house How then come you unto me now in the time of your tribulation And yet many men refuse the friendship and familiarity of God by speaking to him in prayer and hearing him speake to them againe in preaching when they are in health wealth prosperity and flourishing estates and thinke he should not be strange to them when they are in sicknesse and trouble and affliction never searing what is threatned Prov. 1.24 25 26. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out mind hand and none would regard but ye have despised all my counsell and would none of my correction I will also laugh at your destruction and mocke when your feare commeth Are not these then guilty of this sinne And so in many other particulars which men practise may they see themselves if they deceive not their owne hearts that they are guilty even as this people and that God speaks to them also as well as to the Jews He that shall find himselfe guilty of this as who is he that shall bring his heart and life to this Touch-stone that shall not find himselfe exceedingly guilty this way must humble himselfe and repent himselfe for it as for other sinnes which stands not in the sorrowing for and disliking of that which is past but in
doe not we displease if we doe and not as we ought we displease also They had a third way to goe out to the enemies wherein their difficulty was the greatest but we have a third wherein our comfort is the most to doe them as he requireth of us But some will object Object who is sufficient for these things And this is but a cold comfort in a thing that no body can doe and therefore we were as good to doe nothing at all for who can doe things as he requireth I answer Answ we have a mercifull God to deale with who in Jesus Christ accepteth our affections for actions our beginnings for perfections 2 Cor. 8.12 And upon this ground we must doe our endeavours to doe it in the perfectest manner that we may that we may be accepted and not abstaine It is a rule indeed in matters indifferent which are left to our choise to refraine from them because our weaknesse will bring forth some sinne in the doing of them As in exercises and recreations when they cause us to sweare curse fret and lose our time But in other things for which there is a commandement and our own experience teacheth that we cannot doe them without defects and infirmities As we cannot heare the word with that faith we ought but wandring thoughts and sometime envious covetous ambitious desires creep into our hearts yet must we doe and not abstaine our imperfections hinder them from being perfectly good but not from being accepted while we condemne our imperfections and desire to doe better And as the high Priest Exod. 28.38 did beare the iniquity of the holy things so though our holiest offerings and works of righteousnesse have defects wants blemishes and stains of our corruptions our high Priest Christ Jesus will acquit us of them and procure us favour and acceptation in the sight of God I have no pleasure in you The reason of his wish why he could desire they rather should not doe him service then doe it and this carrieth the contrary I dislike you I am angry and displeased with you remaining in your sinnes and corruptions The Lord hath no pleasure in ungodly men Doctr. such as commit and continue in sinne and transgression of his law but he is angry and displeased with them so is it here Psal 5.4 for thou art a God that lovest not wickednesse neither shall evill dwell with thee and Hebr. 10.38 2 Sam. 15.26 hence it is that he is compared to a consuming fire even to his owne Deut. 4.24 Therefore to shew his anger towards those who should transgresse how great it is when he gave the law he descended with fire and the whole mountaine burned about him Because the Lord hates iniquity Psal 45.7 Reas 1 now then as Men who hate any liquor doe dislike the vessell that it is in for it yea sometimes grow to hates and abhorre it so the Lord hating sinne dislikes the sinner yea sometimes growes to hate him Psal 5.5 not the nature he made nor the man but the wicked man because sinne cleaves so fast to him as they cannot be barted As when the sent will not out of the vessell he hates both Deus odit iniquit atem it aque in aliis eam perimit per dawn ationem ut in repnobis in aliis adimit per justificationem ut in electis August ad Simplicianum lib. 7 quaest 2. Col. 6 30. Tom. 4. as Saint Augustine saith God hates iniquity therefore in some he destroyes it by damnation as in reprobates in others he takes it away by justification as in the elect Because as every one delights and takes pleasure in his like Reas 2 which makes the Angels rejoyce at the conversion of a sinners And men rejoyce and account it a glorious thing to have children like themselves and take the more pleasure in them when the succession is like to prove like so God in those that are most like him because saith Cyprian then the divine gentry by their actions and practice may become more famous Then must he be displeased with these because they grow more unlike him and like to Satan his Enemy Anger then simply in it selfe is not a sinne Vse 1 but as it is mixed with other perturbations and vices seeing God is angry As Christ was often and very vehemently John 2.13 14 17. and whensoever he corrected and reproved sinne he shewed himself in his words very angry Mat. 23.13 so hath Moses the Prophets Apostles and all the Saints Therefore Lactan. saith sine irâ peccata corrigi non posse sinne cannot be corrected without anger for the sight of sinne is so horrible in it selfe that he that is a good man cannot but be offended moved and angry with the sight of it And he that is not moved at it either allowes it or doth not much detest it or is willing to avoid trouble in correcting of it hence the repressing of anger is a sinne being a great sinne not to represse and that irefully the sinnes which are under our charge Quasi gladio aciem sic menti nostrae irae acumen imposuit ut eo cū oportet utamur Chry. ho. 6. de laudab Paul as old Ely for God hath given anger to the spirit of man as an edge to a weapon that when 't is needfull we may use it saith Saint Chrysostome This then we ought to doe imitate these examples and be angry with sinnes and correct them to our power but Ephe. 4.26 this place doth not simply forbid anger but corrupt anger by which we offend God Now anger is vicious and corrupt First if a man be angry rashly for no cause or for small cause Math. 5.22 Secondly if a man be angry for private injuries not for them as they are sins offensive to God but injuries to himselfe Thirdly when the anger that should be against the sinne is against the person and turned to his brother and this is that there forbidden and it is thus understood be angry but not without just cause be angry not for private injuries but vices as they are against the law of God Finally be angry not with your brethren but with their corruptions and this is hence warrantable Seeing God will be angry with all Vse 2 both elect and reprobate for their sinnes and most dispeased with them This should perswade us not to be secure but to passe our lives in the feare of the anger of God To this one thing bend wee all our endeavours and powers that we sinne not and so provoke the anger and displeasure of God for of this wee may be sure that Gods word shall be fulfilled Psal 89.31 32. If they break my statutes and keep not my commandements then will I visit their transgression with a rod and their iniquity with stroakes wrath and displeasure followes the sinner as the shaddow the body But if God spare and be not angry that is shew it not Magna est ira non
my body for the sinne of my soule when they could not endure what is told them Verse 8. hee hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee surely to doe justly and to love mercy and to humble thy self to walke with thy God Any thing but that they should doe they pretend to be willing to doe like children who like any manner of education but that their parents would bring them up in If in a trade oh if they might follow their book any thing but that they should and their Parents would have So with these they know not or will not know their owne heart which is naturally irreligious and never will like that is commanded but would goe a whoring with their owne imaginations and ever will like that they may not have or will not be accepted when they contemne that they have and not respecting these they cannot but contemne that is otherwise enjoyned as Luke 16.30 31. he said Nay father Abraham but if one come unto them from the dead they will amend their lives Then he said unto him if they heare not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rise from the dead againe They are like to a woman to whom one making love and desiring her person she disliking his answers him she will give him any thing but her selfe her riches jewels bracelets and such like onely to put him off because she sees he desires her person onely and the other if he would desire she would soone deny him To teach us how wee ought now with all diligence and frequency performe these Vse 3 and offer these sacrifices more than they these were common to us and them they were burdened with others of which we are eased which were chargeable and toylesome Acts 15.10 As 2 Kings 5.13 it was with Namaan his servants came and spake unto him and said Father if the Prophet had commanded thee a great thing wouldest thou not have done it how much rather then when hee saith to thee Wash and be cleane So say I if he had laid that burden also upon us ought we not to have done both how much more when he hath eased our shoulders And if we should not how should we be justly condemned of unthankfulnesse The Wife that newly married had a wise and strait Husband knowing her frailty and infirmities and therefore set a watch over her and appointed servants to observe her till her affection and faith were setled when she ought and did honour and obey and love him If he free her from them and set her at liberty from that grievous bondage and tedious thing will she then honour him the lesse Questionlesse she ought not but if she doe as the corruption of all is to waxe worse by liberty then is she condemned of unthankfulnesse the more So 't is with us Incense The worship prayers and service of the Gentiles is resembled by this not onely familiarly to shew to them of that age but to teach that their service works and worship is acceptable unto God as such things are acceptable to the smell and sences of men for in them God tooke no delight at all neither could doe his nature being spirituall The works of Gods children Doctrine their worship service and spirituall sacrifice is delightfull and acceptable to him as sweet perfumes are to the smell of men And a pure offering It is opposed to the Jewes sinnes who offered unto God polluted and unperfect sacrifices not such as they ought and such as were according to the Law But now their offering shall be pure The works actions Doctrine and worship of such are truely called and converted are holy and pure Thus prophesieth Malachy that the Gentiles converted unto God their workes and worship of him shall be a pure offering Thus St. Paul speakes of the offering of the Romans Chap. 12.1 that it is holy Jude calls their faith most holy vers 20. There were a few in Sardi truely religious and converted their garments were undefiled Revel 3.4 Because they are done according to his Word Reas 1 now they walke by that rule things before they did at randome now they know his Will and after that they doe And it is a rule that worship performed according to the Word in themselves are good and pure as the sacrifices which were according to the Law were pure and cleane for the matter of them Because the parties are holy they are a holy Priesthood Reas 2 1 Pet. 2.5 now a good thing done in matter by holy men must needs be holy But how can they be holy when there is eadem ratio totius partis And the Church for spots is compared to the Moon Object Cant. 6.9 This is answered that he is so because he is in Christ Answ and hath his righteousnesse imputed to him both to his person and his obedience 1 Cor. 1.30 non radiis solaribus sed ipso sole amictus Revel 12.1 as the Church is said to be cloathed with the Sunne Hebr. 13.15 1 Pet. 2.5 Thirdly because of his inward sanctification Reas 3 the ground of it the party being regenerated by the works of the Spirit and so every action is in him part holy and good and well pleasing to God as comming and proceeding from his Spirit though having a tang and tast of his infirmities as water passing through a pipe or channell Rom. 8.26 and 15.16 This teacheth what to judge of the works and worship of all that are uncalled and unconverted Vse 2 not onely of Heathen and Infidels but of unbeleevers in the Church they must needs be impure and unholy else were it nothing that is here affirmed of these after their calling And indeed needs must it be for Tit. 1.15 Vnto them that are defiled and unbeleeving is nothing pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled So farre is it that they should be merita praeparatoria as some Papists speake of them for unholy things cannot please him lesse procure or deserve good things from him though they doe the things for matter good yet a good thing is oftentimes marred in the handling and more when they are done by some men and such men Secondly Vse 2 this proves that mens callings are free without deserts when the things that they doe before even their best are impure and unholy such as God shewed his great patience in that he did not confound them for them and more the riches of his mercy that for all them yet he called them This comforteth every one that is truely converted unto God Vse 3 his works and worship is pure and holy and so accepted of God even then when he carryeth the body of sinne about with him Rom. 7.21 when in himselfe he finds many infirmities yea and when his heart tells him that his best work is not without the taint of his corruption yea and when his heart may misdeeme him as Jacobs did
under poore Christ which they had not under wealthy Satan they are rich in the Church who were beggers in the world And in another Epistle Contrary to all mens opinions they dye very rich who lived under a profession of poverty To overthrow the carnall conceit of naturall men Vse 2 who live in their sinnes in their impenitency and thinke by almes and some such things or outward works to satisfie God for other sinnes and often for those sinnes by which they got them Many men when they spend the whole weeke in sinne thinke to make amends for all by acting some outward worke of his service on the Lords day and thinke that their outward and customable serving of God in the morning and evening pro forma tantùm should satisfie for the sinnes of the rest of the day And many when they have spent all their life in sinne thinke by some doale or some gift to satisfie for all the rest that the Ministers can speak more of their gifts than of their sorrow and repentance As one saith sperans aut placaturum pro peccatis aut placiturum non obstante peccato But to such I say as Prov. 21.27 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind They shall finde they have trusted to a broken reed To teach every man not to let naturall reason deceive him Vse 3 to make him to trust to any such naturall or worldly meanes thereby to reconcile God to him or to appease him these things can no more doe it than oyle will quench the fire such a consuming fire is God that these will rather kindle his wrath And if he be deceived that would thinke to quench fire by that then must he needs be that shall think by this which is matter for the wrath of God he should learne to know that those outward things are not the most acceptable sacrifice to God That which is acceptable is Psal 51.17 The sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit a contrite and a broken heart O God thou wilt not despise He that receiveth this from God may have comfort that God will accept him as a Physitian that directs a man to the onely restorative Daniel 4.24 Object Sol. Redeeme thy sinnes by Almesdeeds It is answered by some that by sinnes is here understood the punishments of sinne and they think that works proceeding from faith prevaile not a little with God to lessen and mitigate temporall punishments But it is not like seeing he spoke to such a King who could not worke any thing by faith at all But the word is not here redeeme but breake off If it were properly so taken then might men not onely redeeme the punishment of their sinne but the sinne it selfe which opinion is not held Againe if it be a redemption it is not to be made before God but in recompence to those whom he hath hindered and the Prophet speaks not here of the forgivenesse of sinnes as the old Latine Forsan ignoscet Deus but of the prolonging of his peace and prosperity as Tremellius hath it Finally the words are breake off turning from wicked wayes and seeking Gods will and whereas thou hast beene an oppressour of the poore and an afflicter of men in misery shew thy repentance by dealing mercifully with the oppressed and having compassion on them as Zacheus Luk. 19.8 VERSE XIIII But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a Male and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing for I am a great King saith the Lord of Hostes and my Name is terrible among the Heathen BVt cursed be the deceiver In this is contained the last judgment against this people and it is positive as before hee had threatned the taking away of their goods so here to inflict some punishment upon them And in this we observe first the judgment secondly the sinne thirdly reasons whereby they may be perswaded the judgment shall come if they repent not themselves of their sinnes and performe their vowes But cursed As woes in the Scripture Matth. 24. and Isaiah 5. and other where are two-fold so are curses First temporall sending of outward evills Deut. 28.15 16 17 20 21 22. or turning of good things to hurt Psal 109.7 and 69.22 Secondly spirituall most fearefull Rom. 1.28 Matth. 27.5 2 Thes 2.10 11. The deceiver The sinne is generall thus expressing the nature of an Hypocrite that he is a deceiver one that carryeth himselfe craftily who casts and fetcheth about in his mind how he may deceive both God and man and who deals craftily with the Lord. Who voweth a Male. The particular sinne vowing and not paying when he is able to performe having a Male that is one without blemish such as the Law required Here is thought to be Epitheti Eclipsis as in Isaiah 1.18 wooll for white wooll But some understand by Male a perfect and absolute offering the use of the word being such in divers Authors Now the vow here spoken of is either the generall vow of their Circumcision or else their particular when willingly they vowed a thing being not tyed unto it by any Law and dealt deceitfully in that which should make it the greater sinne And sacrifice a corrupt thing a weake and feeble so a corrupt thing as it were repenting of their vow they bring unto him a corrupt vitious and unlawfull sacrifice The Lord is able Doctrine and will not onely withdraw good things from men that dishonour him and live profanely and wickedly but will inflict much evill upon them and punish them with all kind and variety of curses As here so 2 Chron. 7.13 Deut. 28.16 60 61. This he shewed in Ely 1 Sam. 2.8 c. and 2.12 13. In David 2 Sam. 7. In Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 4.30 The tryalls of Job shew what he can doe when he will punish Because in blessing he can deale thus Reas 1 not onely take away the evill but showre downe many blessings upon them so in cursing for these are the two armes of God his mercy and justice neither is shorter nor longer than the other unlesse he be unperfect these are his treasures or he hath treasures of both neither fuller nor emptier than the other Because he is a true God Reas 2 and so infinite in all things he is not as the false gods of the Heathen who had little even their great god Jupiter who they thought would be soone drawne dry if he should punish much and many if send abroad apace his revenging arrows his quiver would be empty not so with God whose mercy is a treasure inexhaustible so his justice not as the Sea but as the fire the Sunne Chrysost Because it more manifests his displeasure Reas 3 and men are more sensible of it to be humbled by it either in truth or hypocrisie To stand in awe Vse 1 and feare God to feare to displease or provoke him who cannot onely take from us that we
3 either by some speciall office in the Church or profession of his Word not for that to presume to live in any sin as if that should be his sanctuary for if others have been smiten as it were at the hornes of the Altar why should he thinke to escape nay he shall the lesse escape then an other further from God because he hath these examples and hath not feared 1 Pet. 4.17 And for profession as Salvian of a particular sin yea of all Licet gravè in omnibus praecipuè in t is tamen quae in consimili crimine etiam profâ—ssio sanctitatis accusat nay he ought the rather to labour for more holinesse the neerer he comes to God and to avoyd even the lesse corruptions for the Lord will lesse bear it in them for he will be sanctified in them that draw neer unto him if not by their holinesse yet by his own justice in punishing them more sharply to the end that as the wax the more neerer it approcheth to the fire so much more the heat of the fire approacheth in melting of it so the holinesse of God may better be known in uncasing of such hypocrites or hypocrisie approaching to him and so he may be the more glorified of the people in such judgements And will curse your blessings The first particular curses in cursing their blessings already bestowed on them which is either by taking from them the power they have to nourish and he hath by his ordinance given unto them or else so that they shall not be comfortable unto them or else in making them turn to their hurt Then doth God curse men when they have abundance of outward things Doctrine 1 and have not the comfort by them which happens either by his taking away the staffe from the creature or the strength from the eater Micha 6.14 Thou shalt eate and not be satisfied All creatures have the power to help Doctrine 2 nourish and comfort man and to preserve his life not of themselves but from God and his blessing Meat without him are fitter to choke then feed as clay to put out eyes Joh. 9. rather then to give sight This teacheth why the rich as well as the poore must pray Vse 1 Give us the day c. and those who have abundance as well as those who want Not to trust and rely upon them Vse 2 when we have them and use them for Luke 12.15 A mans life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesseth Not to feare or distrust when our means are never so small nay Vse 3 wanting because he that can by the means can also help without them where he hath himselfe denied them and man not by his fault deprived himselfe of them so much is that of Matth. 4.4.7 There is another remedy in the hand of God who though he give not food can prolong the life of man with his beck and will and word onely he that could make the garments of the Israelites last longer then by reason or in their nature they could can make the life of man which is more excellent to last Yea I have cursed them already An amplification or confirmation by way of correction shewing how they had not profited by his judgements though they were upon them and had been long The judgements of God profit not the wicked Doctrine but rather of themselves make them worse They benefit not by them but grow worse and worse They diminish not their sins but adde to them The experience of all times in the Church sheweth it Isaiah 1.6 Jer. 5.3 Pharaoh and his servants Saul and his court Because they are ignorant and blinde Reason 1 not knowing who smit them nor why neither the authour nor the end nor the cause Like the pur-blinde Philistims 1 Sam. 6.9 who would rather impute it to chance then the hand of God and so think some other cause then their sin and some other end then their forsaking their sin Because they are like to the servant in the Law Reason 2 Exod. 21.5.6 that when he should have gone out free yet so loved his wife and children that he would remaine a servant for ever and with a publicke disgrace So these love their sins that they had rather be servants still and under affliction and judgements then part with their sins which makes them impute that they suffer to any thing rather then their sins finde out some other causes and so blinde themselves Like men when they have surfeited of some meat when the Physitian comes to them had rather hazard their health then tel him what is the cause lest he should forbid it them To put a difference betwixt the good and bad Vse 1 Gods children and the wicked who often happen into the same judgement and affliction together as chaffe and wheat into the same sive gold and drosse into the same fornace yet are they diversly affected in it and by it Gods children are made the better more neere heaven more holy As trees when they are pruned and lopped from their water boughes do grow higher and bring forth fruit more plentifully So he increaseth the more and is more excellent As the Arke of Noah the more the waters of the flood increased the higher it was carried and came neerer to heaven So they But the wicked are more hardened as the Smiths Anvill or Stithie This may teach us that nothing but the Word is able to win men unto God and to bring them out of their sins and corruption Vse 2 the benefites and the blessings God bestoweth upon men and the judgements and curses he layeth upon them may prevaile with a man already converted as he that knows the use and end of all but not before Deut. 32.15 2 Chron. 28.22 They may prepare men for the Word they may open the eare that a man shall attend to the Word Job 33.16 They may as fire make a man pliable for the hammer of the Word that it may work upon them 2 Chron. 33.12.13.18 To teach men not by their affliction Vse 3 but by the fruit of their affliction to discern themselves whether Gods people or no. Isaiah 27.9 And this is all the fruit the taking away of his sin Gods judgements not regarded Doctrine 1 men not profiting by them they are fore-runners of greater warning-pieces of more fearfull plagues Hosea 5.12.13.14 Amos 4.2.11 Isaiah 9.12.13.14 Levit. 26.18.21 Because ye do not consider it in your heart The reason of this curse because they had not applied themselves to the Word and it to them but had rejected it and made light by it When the Word Doctrine 2 and admonitions by the Word are rejected then followeth the rod of God upon their backes Micha 6.9 Heare the rod. VERS III. Behold I will corrupt your seed and cast dung upon your faces even the dung of your solemne Feasts and you shall be like unto it BEhold I will corrupt your seed The future judgements
body and everlasting life Bellarmines first answer is that he is not bound to defend him because he was not certainly and undoubtedly Pope For at that time there were three Popes Greg. 12. Benedict 13. and Iohn 23. and whether was could not be determined they all had many and singular portions A monstrous body which had three heads or no head He answeres secondly that he had no such errour imputed to him for certaine for saith he there were 53. Articles put up against him but all touching his life and manners and were proved by witnesse And other Articles were objected without witnesse whereof this was one Then was he found faultie in his manners in 53. crimes His third answer is that this was onely proved against him by the rumour of the common people who seeing Iohn of so dissolute a life begun to think and to speak it abroad that he beleeved neither eternall life nor the resurrection of the body for it had been unpossible he should have lived so if he had been perswaded of either Now if the head be thus the whole body is sure no better they so depending upon him as they do For to use Pintus similitude in Isaiah one of their owne against themselves As in a fish the head being corrupted and putrified the whole body is corrupted so saith he for a Common-wealth I for their Church when the principall is corrupted the other must needs be and he that would know whether the fish be corrupted must behold the head which is first corrupted So in this To admonish the Ministers Vse 2 that if they would be accepted of God they must walk faithfully before him and with him have their conversations sincere without hypocrisic upright without turning aside after the corruptions of the times They must be as starres fixed in the firmament that though the clouds be carried up and downe with the winde yet the starres being lift above that region should remain fixed seeing God hath taken them into his owne tabernacle of heaven as it were therefore is it not enough for them to exceed others in knowledge but they must also surpasse them in holinesse and pietie They have or ought to have more knowledge after that must be their piety and practise They come neerer to God they should be the liker to him They are the guides of the people they should go before them and be not like to our shepheards which drive their flockes before them but like the shepheards of the Jewes which went before their flocks not like him that said ite but to him who said venite how should they else prevaile with God for his people or with the people for their God when they make themselves unacceptable of God yea hatefull by their sinnes and the offering of God and his service loathsome and to be abhorred of the people for their corruptions The Lord forbad to Aaron and all his for ever strong drinke Levit. 10.9 forbidding by it all excesse which might make them any wayes unfit for the service of God The penalty is death how shall they escape Gods judgements who are drunkards deceivers swearers and such like This commendation given to the Priest may teach also a generall instruction to all Every one that walketh with God cleaveth to him in uprightnesse Doctrine and his worship is acceptable in him Some Papists would hence gather that a man may be perfect in this life For out of this will follow say they that the high Priest was perfect I answer that if either they knew themselves or knew the Scripture they would never gather any such thing for who knowes himsselfe and findes not himselfe at the best estate full of corruption as Saint Paul did Rom. 7. Or who knowes the Scripture and can be ignorant that he was never yet found since the fall of Adam which had not his taint and corruption Not the dearest Saint of God And for the particular Aaron the high Priest had his sin divers times For he yeelded to the people to make a Calfe Exod. 32. He ate not the offering according to the Law Levit. 10. And so transgressed that God threatned and performed it that he should not set foot in the land of Canaan Num. 6.2 If this be so then could he not be perfect But how is it true Object he had no iniquitie in his mouth and Jam. 3.2 for in many things we sin all if any man sin not in word he is a perfect man and able to bridle all the body It is true Answer if he sin not in his tongue at all but no such thing is here given unto him he is made sound in his Doctrine not in his whole speech A man may be perfect in his place but never in his person Again I say as there is a double justice so there is a double perfection one legis which hath all the points and parts of justice and all the perfections of all parts which some call Perfectio gradnum obedientiae which was never in any but Christ and Adam for a while Another Evangelii which hath all the parts of true justice but it wants the perfection of those parts As a childe hath all the parts of a true man in the infancie though it want perfection of stature and tallnesse and strength which is called of some Perfectio partium because all are there in truth which is nothing else but the conversion of a sinner with a purpose will and endevour with integritie and sincerity to please God according to all his commandments And thus was Iob just and perfect Noah Zachary and Elizabeth c. He walked with me in peace and equity Therefore in peace because in equity being upright in his conversation he had peace with God and peace with himselfe They who walke uprightly Doctrine and walke with God in equity and righteousnesse they and they onely walk in peace shall have true inward peace with God and themselves To this purpose is that of Isaiah 54.13 Psal 119.165 Joh. 14.27 and 10.33 Phil. 4.5.6.7 è contra Isai 57.20.21 Because he is justified Reason 1 that his uprightnesse and sanctification sheweth for it proceedeth from justification Bona opera sequuntur justificatum as fruit from the life of a tree Now he that is justified and he onely hath true inward peace Rom. 5.1 He that walkes not uprightly Reason 2 can have no assurance of his justification and so remission of his sinnes and so no peace and quietnesse A sinner is as a debter sued to judgement And did turn many away from iniquity The fourth thing commended in him that he laboured so diligently and so effectually and walked so carefully that many who were borne and bred in sinne and iniquity and continued in it as slaves of Satan were turned from it to God and godlinesse The Minister of God must and ought to turne many from sinne and Satan to God godlinesse that is he ought so to teach Doctrine so to
labour and so to walke that by the blessing of God upon his endeavours many may be gained to God out of the bondage of sin and Satan be called and converted unto God This is given unto the Word Psal 19.7 in the Ministers preaching of it Rom. 10.14 Isai 49.5 Ezek. 3 17 c. and 33.7 c. Matth. 28.19 Acts 18.9.10 2 Tim. 2.24.25.26 Because he shall be free from their bloud and perishing Reason 1 not onely if he convert but if he so labour as they may be converted though they never be for it not being in his power to work upon the heart and to alter it if he do what he can by all meanes to the outward man he is free else he must be culpable and guilty of his perishing If in Ezekiels parable Chap. 33. a watchman set up of themselves shall answer for their bodies if they perish for want of warning what shall he do that is set up of God Because if God do make his labour effectuall Reason 2 his honour shall be the more I cannot say as Chrysost Non minus praemii if hee come without them he shall not lose his labour but lesse sure because of that Dan. 12.3 And they that bee wise shall shine as the brightnesse of the firmament and they that turne many to righteousnesse shall shine as the starres for ever and ever This reproveth and condemneth all Preachers and Ministers Vse 1 who do not labour so in doctrine and live so in practise that men may be converted to God from iniquity but by negligence and corruption suffer men to remaine still in their sinnes yea harden them in their iniquities They are farre from their dutie and farre unlike to these Priests who were thus approved and commended of God To teach all Ministers so to preach Vse 2 and so to live that they may convert men to God and turne them from iniquity They must exhort improve and rebuke with all meeknesse long-suffering constancie and courage that there may be nothing wanting in them why they should not be turned This is his dutie and he that is a Priest and rebukes not delinquents he forsakes the office of a Priest In the doing of it faithfully he may well expect a blessing from God because of that Isaiah 55.10.11 Surely as the raine commeth downe and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it to bring forth and bud that it might give seed to the sower and bread to him that eateth so shal my word be that goeth out of my mouth it shall not returne unto me void but it shall accomplish that which I will and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it And if he doe waste himselfe hazard his life and spend his strength and gain but one or few it will be the recompence of his labour The Captaine that redeems and recovers but one captive whose freedome is desired by his Prince shall not lose his reward though he shall have greater that recovers more So in this Dan. 12.3 And if God do not blesse his labours yet if he be not wanting in his dutie care and endeavour but be found wise and faithfull he shall be rewarded Isai 49.5 And now saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant that I may bring Iacob again to him though Israel be not gathered yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord and my God shall be my strength This may teach us why the Ministery of the Word Vse 3 and the Ministers of it are so harsh and so unacceptable unto most men if they be faithfull and will seeke by all means to convert men to God because they must turne them from their sin separate them and their iniquities which they love so dearly as Micha 6.7 Sin is either naturall or by custome or both naturall diseases are almost incurable and no lesse diseases that grow into a custome which is another nature And the Physitian that should go about to cure these against a mans will should have little thanke for his paines and be not greatly welcome when such things cannot be removed without most sharp and bitter medicines great paine and griefe So in this And here is the cause why many a mans ministery at the first comming to a place is very acceptable for a while because he speakes things good and wholesome but somewhat generally because he knowes not the state of his flocke and people but after he hath lived some yeares and sees their sinnes and begins to speake home unto them then is he unacceptable because he would part them and their sins As that Minister that should perswade a divorce betwixt a man his wife which he loves most dearly should never be welcome to his house or company so in this It may be it is but the same he hath often spoke of before but then it was borne because they probably conjectured he meant not them but when he hath been a while with them that it is like he may know them to be guilty of that sinne though happily and ten to one he did not then is it tolerable because they thinke he would separate them and their beloved sinne their profitable and delightfull sinne All the while he will preach peace and comfortable things to them and bring the word of reconciliation and tell them of Gods love and Gods mercie and that he is sent to wooe them to be married to God all that while he shall be kindly welcome As he that should sue for a Prince to win the love of a woman to him all the while he tells of his honour and riches and beauty and such things he shall be kindly welcome but if he come to tell her that she must separate her selfe from some place and company she loves well and change her manners and forsake her friends and fathers house he shall finde his entertainment both for usage and countenance changed So in this Which makes oftentimes Ministers if they be not the more faithfull grow cold and carelesse and so fall into many grievous sins And turne many from iniquity In themselves and of themselves by nature they were in iniquity carnall and sold under sinne Rom. 7. till the Minister by the word brings them out of it and turnes them to God from sinne and makes them his No man naturally is Gods but a slave to sinne and Satan Doctrine 1 till he be turned and converted by the preaching of the Word and work of the Ministerie Turne from iniquity Their conversion to God Doctrine 2 and their calling is thus noted By turning from iniquitie To note this unto us Those who are truly called and converted are turned from their sinne and corruption that is washed cleansed and purged from them 1 Cor. 6.11 VERS VII For the Priests lips should preserve knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of
oftentimes blinded by one meanes or another they see not what is fit for them and if any thing dislike them not willing to take it to them then had they need of another This will convince of sinne all those who hold either in opinion or practice Vse 1 no such necessity of resorting to the publicke Congregations where the Law is to be had from the mouth of the Ministers for if it be a duty that they should then must it be a sinne to thinke they ought not and to withdraw themselves from it contemning the ministery of the Word being the ordinance of God by which he would teach them the Law Their pretences they hold forth in their defence are vaine First they can read at home and it may be better Sermons then he they should heare can preach any Let me grant them they can yet followes it not they will for he that accounts little of Gods publicke ordinance will hardly performe any such private dutie mans nature being more apt to publicke then private duties But say they can and will and doe it yet is it faultie because it is crosse to Gods commandment who could as well have commanded private at that time as publicke And though it be in it selfe good yet being out of it fit time it is evill It is good and lawfull for a man to follow his calling or to build Churches or to get in his harvest or to recreate himselfe in their times but to do these upon the Lords day is evill As in the body the bloud that is the continent of life is good so it be in the proper vessels the veines but if out it is hurtfull and breeds putrifactions and diseases And as all the members are good in their proper place but one in another is monstrous and hurtfull as the finger upon the hand and in the eye so it is of these things Againe what is this but to crosse the ordinance of God What is it else but to chalenge more wisedome to themselves then God hath who hath commanded it who hath given Pastors and Teachers to the Church who hath bid them preach in season and out of season Secondly they are begotten already therefore they need not heare Nay they are therefore not begotten because they think it needlesse For there cannot be life but ther â—eill be a desire of food They cannot be Gods but they have his Spirit and where his Spirit is there cannot be contempt of his ordinance but it argues they have not his Spirit nor are not begotten Thirdly you cannot prove we ought to heare so often Thou must learne and heare from him the whole Law of God which cannot be heard in a mans life in so seldome hearing as they can bee content onely to hear and much lesse learned If they must heare out of season then oftner then they would or do But shall I tell you the true cause of this refusall It is either pride of heart whereby they are puffed up with their owne knowledge and condition and thinke they know as much and need no more and are as the speech is as well as meat can make them which is plain hypocrisie or it is pride of state when they are puffed up with their wealth and state and thinke it enough for the poore to receive the Gospell and presse upon it It is not for their state and worship to be over attendant to strive and thirst after the Word they come more to honour the Word or to be well thought of by men then for any good they look to receive by it which is a spice of Atheisme or it is because of the guilt of their consciences who finde the galling of the Word who thinke if they should continually heare it they should have no quietnesse in themselves at all when they can hardly quiet themselves that heare so seldome which is carnall security or else he that hath them in a snare at his will is afraid to lose them And when he findes that one Sermon makes Agrippa almost a Christian he is afraid of a constant hearing lest they should become Christians altogether and he be cast out knowing the Preacher is the power of salvation To teach every one to make conscience of this duty Vse 2 to heare and receive the word of God at the mouth of his Ministers in the publicke assemblies it is the commandment of God he that maketh not conscience of this duty maketh not conscience of any For he that maketh no conscience of all knowne duties maketh none of any Therfore should we be glad with David to go into the house of God so shall we subscribe to the wisedome of God who hath so ordained and given men gifts not in vaine not for themselves when as little would save them but as teats to the mother and Art to the Bee to make hony c. so shall we be begotten of God to be sonnes or reformed of God to be holy sonnes or repaired by God who decay in minde as well as in body and had need of continuall instruction as of daily eating For our work is not like others saith Saint Chrysostome who finde it as they left it They should seek the Law This is the commandment touching the people that they must receive the Law from the Ministers mouth and not onely receive it but seeke or require it as it were exact it as men do for their due or as servants require their portion from the Steward when he was slack in giving The people must not onely heare and receive the word of God at the mouth of the Ministers Doctrine but they must seek it and require it seeke it with earnestnesse and servent desire So here and to the same purpose is that when the Spirit speakes of buying the truth Prov. 23.23 and Isaiah 55.1 And hence are the comparisons when it made as milke and men as new borne Babes 1 Pet. 2. when it is compared to gold Rev. 2.18 to a treasure and men to purchasers Matth. 13.44 to pearles and men to Merchants vers 45.46 Because it is that which will make men rich spiritually with riches of faith and pietie Reason 1 and such like which had will enrich men will they seek very earnestly Because here Christ Reason 2 and with him eternall life and all happinesse is to be found and no where else Joh. 5.39 Search the Scriptures for in them ye think to have eternall life and they are they which testifie of me Rom. 10.6.7.8 Hence Joh. 6.67.68 Jesus said to the twelve Will ye also go away Peter answered Lord to whom shall we goe Thou hast the words of eternall life Hence the Gospell is The grace of God bringing salvation Tit. 2.11 Because without this Reason 3 whatsoever a man hath else whatsoever state and condition he is in better or worse health or sicknesse c. he can use no state well for the blessings of God 1 Tim. 4.5 are sanctified by the Word
To convince of sinne all such Vse as though they heare yet seeke not nor desire it have no fervent affection to it The Law That is the simple and plaine words of God not trifles and fables and other vanities of wit but the whole Law whatsoever he is bound to deliver The people ought to heare and receive Doctrine to seeke and desire the Law the pure Law and the whole Law from the Ministers As before the Minister ought to deliver all so here they must affect and receive all So is it here and to the same purpose is that Isai 1.3 For the whole Law is his way This is proved Deut. 5.27 Matth. 28.20 1 Thess 5.20.21 Heb. 6.1.2 This by the contrary Matth. 2.11.2 Tim. 3.4 Because they are his people Reason 1 servants children spouse all which requires they should heare and affect his words his lawes his will and his precepts and them all Because the whole is either concerning God or themselves Reason 2 God as it setteth forth his wisedome power justice mercie and so forth Themselves as it offers mercy or threatneth judgement as it reproveth evill or promiseth good This will serve to reprove many Vse 1 and to convince severall men of severall corruptions some in one sinne and some in another who will heare and seeme to desire the Law out of the Ministers mouth but not the whole There are some who think many things needlesse to be knowne and heard many things not fit to be taught as before v. 6. Besides that was then sayd I say let them see if this be not to check the wisedome of God who hath written both and preserved the whole to the Church and if pride did not transport them beyond themselves it could not be they should be so affected As wisedome would teach them that many things are necessary though not the present profit of them appeare For as in instruments onely the strings sound yet are there other things in the whole body as that whereunto they are tied the bridge the pinnes which help the musicke so in the Prophets though all be not prophesies yet they are things to which these are tied and illustrated Aug de Civ D. lib. 16.2 And sometimes for those things which signifie something are those things which signifie nothing added As the ground is onely plowed and rent up by the plow share yet that this may be other parts of the plow are necessary And humility if they had any would teach to suspect their owne wisedome in not seeing the use and end the profit and fitnesse of things rather then questioning and reasoning against God Others can be content to heare all pleasant things as the promises and mercies of God but judgements and reprooses threats and checks that they cannot brooke like unto those who in medicines affect onely the smell or trimnesse or gaynesse of them as pills rouled in gold but cannot away with the force of purging and preserving And see not that a great company more go to hell by presuming in their lives then by despairing at their deaths Some can willingly heare that which concernes other men and their sinnes their lives and manners but nothing touching themselves at all and their owne sinnes As men can willingly abide to heare of other mens deaths but cannot abide to heare of their owne Oftentimes they will make the Minister to beleeve as they did Jerem. 42.5.6.7 Then they said to Ieremiah The Lord be a witnesse of truth and faith between us if we do not even according to all things for the which the Lord thy God shall send thee to us whether it be good or evill we will obey the voyce of the Lord God to whom we send thee that it may be well with us when we obey the voyce of the Lord our God But when he shall declare unto them the will of God that crosseth their affections they will entertaine him and answer as Chap. 43.2 Thou speakest falsly the Lord hath not sent thee to say thus These and such like are here reproved and convinced of the breach of this duty that they receive not nor desire the Law of God To admonish every one to labour for hearts willing and desirous to receive the whole law and word of God Vse 2 as he shall put it into the mouthes of the Ministers to dispose it unto them whatsoever it may be whether it be pleasant or crossing For if men deale so with their Physitians submit themselves to their prescripts though often they be unpleasant because they are perswaded of their wisedome and that they worke all by Art and yet may they sometimes erre how much more unto all that which God hath spoken and prescribed when they may well know they cannot erre judging of such thoughts as esteemeth any thing superflous or unfit any thing difficult or too deep for them to looke into as suggestions of Satan and their owne corruption and not rising from Gods Spirit condemning in themselves all such thoughts as gain-say the Word and any part of it delivered unto them as unloyall to their Prince and Master Father and Husband yea censuring all such affections as gain-say and repine at the Word which toucheth them to the quicke and their particular sinnes and corruptions as fearfull fore-runners of some dangerous fall and back-sliding specially when in former times they could endure as much as that and happily more to be spoken unto them or were such as condemned other men for spurning when they were touched And indeed it is fearfull for it argues he was either an hypocrite before or else by reason of some security and carelesnesse over his own spirituall estate he is fallen into a spirituall disease and some sins he had not before and refusing the remedies or the bitter potion which should recover him he must needs putrifie more The body that is sicke and the part that is wounded if either the remedy be rejected or the salve be pulled off when it is applied will doubtlesse grow worse As he that is sore sicke and grievously wounded gives hope of his recovery while he will submit himselfe to his Physitian and take whatsoever he prescribes him but he that is but a little ill and refuseth to hearken or receive any thing gives no hope at all though his hurt be the lesse So in this Therefore men who would save themselves must receive the whole They who will shew themselves dutifull and loyall either his spouse or children must be content to be reproved and chid when they have given cause and never love the lesse as well as cherished And it is a good signe of a good heart that likes his Ministery best which will reprove and chide him and not his that will sooth and flatter him For he is the Messenger of the Lord. The reason of the former The Priest is Gods Messenger therefore must he be such and such The Lord he useth the ministery of man in revealing his will to
by covenant is meant the Law of God a thing usuall in the Scriptures and that Law which God gave unto our Fathers that they should not take the daughters of a strange God to wife or of another nation Others thinke the reason stands thus making a third reason of it because God when he made covenant with the Israelites did it not with those more then with these with one more then with another but with all alike so that they who despise others violate the common covenant as if it were onely a covenant made with them The conclusion of all is thus framed If you be all one in body and soule and by Law why do you contemne one another Generally in that he used reason and not the bare authoritie of God which had been that hee well might wee observe this Men who perswade others to good or disswade them from evill Doctrine 1 must use all those reasons that may any way cause it to take hold and put an edge to it Have we not all one Father But in this verse as I said I take not to be reproved any particular sinne but generally their injuring and dealing unequally and unjustly one with another And this the first reason by which it is reproved condemning this because it was against nature they being all of one parent all one flesh Nature it selfe Doctrine 2 and humanity though men have no other bonds to linke them together ought to keepe men from hurting and injuring or transgressing one against another and to binde them to be helpfull and profitable and doe good one to another So reasoneth the Prophet heere And to this I apply that which is Levit. 18. When it is given so often a reason to disswade from injuring as vers 7. for she is thy mother for it is thy fathers shame 10. thy shame 12. she is thy fathers kinsewoman 13. mothers kinswoman To this may that be used Acts 7.26 Hereto that Gen. 50.16.17 and Isai 58.7 Because unreasonable creatures as beasts and birds Reason 1 fishes and fowles love their owne kinde and by nature are taught not to hurt and injure them but to do them good Hence is deemed the reason why those beasts that feed on flesh will not eate the flesh of their owne kinde taught as it were by nature lest they should eare and devoure their owne brood or breeders how much more then unreasonable men Because it is the rule and voice of Nature Reason 2 Quod tibi non vis alteri ne feceris To condemne men not onely as irreligious Vse 1 and voyd of pietie and godlinesse but as beastly and unnaturall men and voyd of humanity who injure and wrong transgresse against others and oppresse them I meane not such as may sometimes doe it carried by passion or affection in ignorance and want of information but I speak of such as live in it and to satisfie their owne lust and desires care not whom they wrong injure they will despise defraud deceive and oppresse any in buying and selling in letting or setting by manifest usury and other oppression All is fish that comes to net with them of such I speake and how rich soever they may grow or be whatsoever otherwise yet are they unnaturall men and void of humanity And may reprove them as the Apostle the Corinthians 1 Cor. 11.14 So doth not nature teach that if any man injure others it is a sinne unto him it is against the very light of nature And though there were no word of God neither Law nor Prophets nothing that might reprove them in the mouth of the Minister which they now spurne against and could be content there were none that they might sinne without controulment yet should they not without condemnation for even that Rom. 2.12 will here have place and shall condemne them by the very light of nature and now double condemne them because the light of the Word hath shined in a darke place and they have loved darknesse more then light To teach every man Vse 2 that if there were nothing else to binde him to do good to others or avoyd the hurting of others yet nature ought and he ought to be thus a law to himselfe though he had no written Word from God Whether he be a husband or parent or master or è contra or a private man nature and humanity ought to keep him from the one and hold him to the other * Omnia animalia naturalibus munimentis providentia coelestis armavit Homo accepit proistis miserationis affectum qui plane vocatur humanitas qua nosmet invicem tueremur Lactant. de falsa â—â—pientia lib. 3. cap. 20. The heavenly providence hath armed all beasts with naturall defences but man in stead of them hath the affection of pitty which is called humanity by which we are defended This very thing ought then to bind men It is hard from many men when they reprove others for transgressing and injuring others It is not for your profession it doth not become a man of that zeale and profession as you doe If they speake it that they are more bound it is true but if to excuse themselves or others as if it were little or no sinne in them then it is their corruption and is false For wherein doth their profession binde them which nature it selfe and humanitie bindes them not to do or from doing Undoubtedly in nothing though it binde more he is as well bound that is bound in a single bond as he who is tied in a double both are bound though not alike Set then religion aside which followes in the next place and even nature it selfe binds every man to these duties and from the contrary and whilst nature lasteth and is undissolved the bond is never cancelled Therefore must every one remember it to doe good and not hurt even all the dayes of his life to those to whom nature hath bound him Contrary to that some performe for a while but as if nature died they living do not continue it as for instance betwixt man and wife many at first doe but continue not betwixt parents and children Hath not one God made us The second reason by which he reproveth their injuring and transgressing against others because they were all of one Church professed one religion and served one God Religion Doctrine when men professe one and the same religion are servants of one and the same God it ought to keep men from transgressing against or injuring one another which as this proves so that Gen. 50.17 Thus shall yee say unto Ioseph Forgive now I pray thee the trespasse of thy brethren and their sinne for they rewarded thee evill And now we pray thee forgive the trespasse of the servants of thy fathers God And Ioseph wept when they spake unto him Manifest further because the foundation of religion which is the word of God commands love to neighbours and so under that title other men Levit. 19.18 Rom.
of heart and security so that they never judge themselves and so neither judged by authority nor by themselves they are judged of the Lord as the contrary proves 1 Cor. 11. For I take it it will hold not onely of those sinnes a man is guilty in foro conscientiae but in foro civili This sheweth the folly of those men Vse 1 who as they make conscience of no sinne and onely care to avoid those sinnes the lawes of men and state will punish them for so when they are fallen into any such offences care onely how to escape the punishment of the law and the hands of the Magistrate which if they can by favour or friendship by bribes or the countenance of others or by dissembling or covering of the fault or howsoever the care is taken and they never feare more This folly appeareth because then the Lord will take them into his owne hands and that saith the Apostle is a fearfull thing And more cause of feare as Christ speaketh Matth. 10.28 What will it profit them then to escape the one and fall into the hands of the other As much as if a murderer should by means and money either get his fact passed over at the Sessions and fall into the hands of the Judges at the Assizes or scape their hands either by corrupting the Judge or the Sheriffe to pack a Jury for his purpose or the fore-man to lead the rest when the next of kindred is ready to enter an appeale to the Kings Bench where there shall be no such packing All he hath got by it is his repriving for a while but to his greater shame and punishment So with these Many a great man lives in oppressing and injuring others his tenants and inferiours and either there is no civill law against him or if there be either his greatnesse or purse will carry it out well enough that no punishment shall come upon him or take hold of him and then hee sleepeth without feare when he is as a man that hath escaped the rage of a foole and is fallen into the power of a Bear robbed of her whelps As Masters if they live in oppression or usury or deceit or drunkennesse or adultery or some such like and can escape the Magistrates hands by the meanes they make feare nothing That is their folly there is more cause of feare God will take them into his hand Many servants when they have injured and dealt deceitfully with their Masters stealing from them or serving them with eye-service mis-spending their goods and not furthering by their endevours their profites if they can escape their masters hands by lying or shifting or dissembling or by his negligence lenity or remisnesse they never feare this is their folly there is now more cause of feare God will take them into his hand to cut them off by the plague or some other judgement Finally let these and all the like see their folly that thinke there is no feare if they can escape the hand and sword of man by such meanes yet there will be no escaping of the hand of God who will as he saith send serpents that will not be charmed Jerem. 8.17 O consider this yee that forget God! as if hee would not judge the earth when men neglect it least hee teare you in pieces The cause why God sendeth generall judgements upon such a City or Land as ours is Vse 2 why he drawes forth his sword or sends famine pestilence plague or such like It is because the Magistrates of that country or towne are remisse and carelesse suffer sinne unpunished and uncensured for some respect or other making either muneraoris or manus or officii For if these did not let them but they would purge the land from the bloud and the adulteries whoredomes thefts oppressions blasphemies and such things wherewith it is defiled there would never come any such generall judgements For if the Justices at the Sessions should reforme throughly and deliver the goale every one to his severall punishment the Judges should have little cause to ride circuit or if they did but to make short ones So if Magistrates God would not punish or if he did yet not so long as three yeares famine and three yeares pestilence So that of all the enemies of a Common-wealth none is so great as remisse carelesse and corrupt Magistrates for they are a cause of Gods generall judgements when as their severity would prevent And none such a fore-runner of some generall judgement as they and their remisnesse and in a Magistrate it is better for the generall good that he be too severe punishing some he ought and might spare then remisse passing by others that deserve it As a Surgeon better too deepe or too nigh then too little in tenting or cutting To teach every inferiour not to seeke and labour to escape the hand and punishing of the Magistrate or his superior who is as a Magistrate unto him his master or parent if he have offended and deserved it specially remaining by that immunity impenitent in his sin for besides that it is sinne to him so to avoyde it it will be but a further meanes to bring him to the hands of God who will punish him more severely and fearefully cut him off from the tents of Iaakob If any say this falls but out seldome here and there one and so no such feare of it I answer with Cyprian l de laps Plectuntur interim quidam quo caeteri corrigantur exempla sunt omnium tormenta paucorum These few should be warning to others lest they also perish Againe are there but few who can remember the many thousands that God hath taken away and cut off by the plague of inferiours and servants and such like whose superiors had beene remisse towards them and yet say this befalleth but to few Or lastly who can think of many thousands who are lying broyling in hell and so cut off from the tents of Iakob by the Lord though man winked at them who happily if they had felt the severity of magistracy might have beene saved and yet say there is but a few And though many yet have escaped and doe or may escape though the plague renew upon us with their adulteries c. because this is but the poore mans plague or the servants yet who sees not that even for the rich and the masters the Lord hath a plague for them as Micha 2.3 and happily will it be for them if 1 Cor. 11. they judge not themselves That doth this or that shall doe this God will not presently smite them though they have committed this offence but he will waite for their returne if they continue to do it then will he cut them off Hence the patience of God to sinners waiting for their conversion vide Revel 3. and Isaiah 30. or rather I observe that though the Lord a long time spare the wicked yet he will visite them and pay them home in
or turning aside form the perfect rule of God and so they sinned or else that which offends God so that it provokes him to punish and in this sense they sinned not God thus remitting the Law Others excuse the Fathers because they did it and God so permitted for the increase of the Church and not for any filthy unclean lust to satisfie it which was true in some though it hold not in others As Solomon and some others who cannot be excused of incontinencie Some excuse from some probable ignorance that either they knew not the Law or they thought not of it and so though not no sinne yet a lesse sinne Some the succeeding ages by their predecessors that though their examples make not sinne to be no sinne yet to be smaller sinnes to offend by their example who were otherwise good and holy men then when any thing is done with a wavering conscience and men are boldly the first that doe it for they are to be judged to sinne by error of judgement then perversity of affection Finally it is probable that God did winke at that in this people and their progenitours for thepropagation of his people and to give passage to the fulfilling of his promise of the increasing of them and though God used that fact of the fathers well yet will it not follow that they sinned not when they turned aside from the word of God but if they sinned in it and so persevered and dyed impenitent what shall we thinke became of them It is probable they never repented either because they thought they sinned not or else because they well discerned not their sinne and yet might be pardoned it and were It is true to have Gods mercy for pardon requires repentance yet is it not necessary that every man should expressely repent himselfe of every particular sinne How many things are done which are not rightly done yet not done wickedly by us but in a conscience not well informed and so knew it not to be sinne And how many which are forgotten that they were done and yet by a mans generall humiliation for all his sinnes and craving pardon of unknowne sinnes Psal 19. pardon is obtained And those fathers often in their lives confessing themselves miserable sinners and humbling themselves no doubt that repentance and faith in Christ to come did save them But 2 Sam. 12.8 David had his masters wives It is answered by some that he did because God remitted his law to him But others it is never read that he took any one of them to wife neither is it said so but though the phrase into thy bosome is commonly understood of marriages yet it signifies there onely power and authority that is I have given thee all thy masters goods and have not excepted his wives that thou maist have them under thy power as other things Tremolius thus i. res personas etiam intimas charissimas eorum qui prius tui er ant domini subjecitibi But Deut. 25.5 the brother was to take the wife of his elder brother deceased It is answered by most that it was an extraordinary example and a speciall thing but no generall rule for else incest might be proved by it if it were generall Others answer that it must be taken and understood if he have not a wife before And so much they thinke those words carry if brethren dwell together And a reason of it is because it is not like that God would have a man to neglect his owne seed and his owne wife to raise up seed to others but onely he would have his brother substituted in his place I omit many more of no great weight though of some shew against all which the truth will stand and prevaile To perswde the men of our age against it Vse 2 for howsoever the forefathers escaped with it God either for the increase of the Church or by reason of their ignorance and rudenesse winked at it yet as in another case Acts 17.30 The time of this ignorance God regarded not but now he admonisheth all men every where to repent So may we say in this specially seeing Christ by himselfe and by others his Apostles hath declared us the law of the creation and brought it to the first institution he beingas Revel 1. Alpha and Omega and as Hierom applies it to this when he found all things at his comming brought to Omega to an extremity and height he reduced them to Alpha to that which was in the beginning And if it were then granted to be no sinne yet will it be now They who excuse the fathers make as of man so of the world foure ages the childhood of it the youth the mans estate and the old age Now many things are fitting for children and may be tolerated in them which may not be in men of riper yeares as S. August saith inold time for men to goe with garments having long sleeves and skirts it was an argument of softnesse and wantonnesse But now if they should weare them with either they should be noted They say againe that that was the time of darkenesse ours of the light for though they were light in respect of the Gentiles they are darkenesse in comparison of us Now many things are tolerable in darkenesse which may not be borne withall in the light Then in this as in many other things we must not study what was done or borne withall but what is lawfull for us to doe and walke not in this and many other things as others have done but as God hath spoken Now wee may adde to the former words and collect out of them that when it is said Did not he make one who is the Author of marriage The first instituter of marriage is God Doctrine the Author of the conjunction that is betwixt man wife as at the first so now is God and he alone Manifest as here So Gen. 2.2 And the rib which the Lord had taken from theman made he a woman and brought her to the man Hence that Prov. 2.17 It is called the Covenant of God called so properly because he is the Author of it Hence Math. 19.6 whom God hath joyned together Because the breach of this ordinance either in man or woman Reason 1 by his law is death when either hath broken he ordained that the nocent party should dye yea hee that abused a woman but betrothed it was death Deut. 22.22.23 Now God for no ordinance of man ever ordained death Because though parents friends Reason 2 and parties themselves take care to provide matches after their humors some one some another yet is it not in the power of them all or any to make liking or knit hearts but only the Lord. To this some apply that Mat. 19.6 whom God hath coupled he working secretly and leading their hearts one to another Hence that Pro. 19.14 House riches are the inheritance of the fathers but a prudent wife commeth of the Lord
that useth it Rom. 6.13 So that it commanding any thing that they all doe more then the Centurions servants Luke 7. Rom. 7.25 Then the flesh and outward parts follow not the minde and the heart Quest There is no opposition there betwixt the inward and outward Answ the heart and the body but betwixt the part regenerate and the unregenerate for by flesh it is usuall with the Apostle not to understand the body but the unregenerate part as in that place Gal. 5.17 not any opposition betwixt soule and body but the fight of the unregenerate with the regenerate and vers 24. not the crucifying of the body but of the unregenerate part For the heart and inward parts as farre as they are unregenerate are flesh also and understood under the outward by the Apostle Then may a man certainly judge a man to have a corrupt heart when hee hath a polluted outward man Vse 1 life and conversation Vide Malach. 1.8 Doctrine 1. Use 2. To reprove such as judge men to have corrupt hearts for the care and uprightnesse of their lives Vse 2 Vide ibid. ex Use 1. To teach men Vse 3 who desire any outward holinesse or to be free from externall corruption or pollution to looke well to the heart to keep sinne or to kill it within for this is the best and the first to purge the heart and the other will be so And let none transgresse The dehortation from the evill and the outward practice of it Of the particular hath been spoken in the former verses yet somwhat hence It may be that some may think this speech hangs that way that it may seem to favour free-will to call upon them to abstaine from evill which if it were not in their power it were in vaine thus to speake to them I answer this is no more then other precepts and exhortations in the word which doe but teach us what we ought to do not what we are able which is but to make us assay and when we finde not power then to seeke it elsewhere Lege opern̄ dicit Deus Jae quod in bee Jege fidci dicitur Deo da quod iubes Aug. de spirit lit In the law of workes God saith to us Do what I command thee In the law of faith wee say to God What thou commandest us inable us to doe God therefore thus speakes to man to make him speake againe to him commanding that he may require and obtaine to doe seeing Phil. 2.13 It is God which worketh in you both the will and the deed even of his good pleasure Bernard in the audience of some commending the grace of God as that which he acknowledged in God did prevent him and he found did make him to profit and he hoped would perfect it in him Bernard de gratia lib. Arbit initie giving all to grace and taking nothing to himselfe One replied what then hast thou done or what reward can thou looke for if God worke all To whom he answered What counsell then doest thou give me or how wouldst thou advise me Give glory saith he to God who hath prevented thee excited thee and begun this good in thee and for that is to come live worthily that thou mayest approve thy selfe not unthankfull for those thou hast received and fit to receive more Bernard replies You give good counsell but that is but if you could make me able to obey and doe it For it is not so easie a thing to doe as to know what ought to be done for these are divers things to lead a blinde man and to give strength to the weary * Nec quivis doctor statim dator erit boni quodcunque docuerit Duo mihs sunt necessaria doceri juvari Tu quidem homo rectè consulis ignorantiae sed si verum sentit Apostolus spiritus adjuv at infirmitatem nostram Rom. 8. Inso vero qui mihi per os tuum ministrat consilium ipse mihi necesse est ministrat per spiritum tuum adjut erium quo valeant implere quod consulis Ecce enim ex ejus munere velle adjacet mihi perficere autem non invenio nisi qui dedit velle det perficere pro bena voluntate For whosoever is a teacher whatsoever he teacheth cannot bestow goodnesse Two things are needfull to me to be taught and to be helpt thou being a man doest well instruct my ignorance but the spirit helps our infirmities Rom. 8. yea he that gave me counsell by thy mouth must also send me helpe by his owne spirit that I may be able to doe what thou advisest by his grace I am willing but cannot performe unlesse he that wrought the will doe also worke the deed of his good pleasure And when to this he replied * Vbi ergo sunt merita nostra an t ubi est spes nostra Where then are our rewards or where is our hope He answereth with that Tit. 3.5 Not by the workes of righteousnesse which we had done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the holy Ghost Hence I gather and upon this inferre that God that calls upon us by his word to do must give us also power to do then therefore he calleth because he would have us cry to him for helpe And as S. Augustine O man acknowledge in every precept * O home in praeceptione cognosce quid debeas habere in cerreptione tuo te vitio non habere in oratione unde accipias quid vis habere De corrept gratia c. 3. what strength thou shouldest have in every reproofe what strength by thy own fault thou wantest in every prayer whence thou mayest have what thou wantest The hands must be purged as well as the heart the outward man as the inward VERS XVI If thou hatest her put her away saith the Lord God of Israel yet he covereth the injury under his garment saith the Lord of bostes therefore keep your selves in your spirit and transgresse not I Hate putting away saith the Lord God of Israel In this verse the Prophet proceeded to the third maine sinne here reproved in this people Divorces not simply condemning divorce as if in no case it were lawfull but for every vaine cause and light dislike when they hated or disliked them for that to put them away is that he reproves In the verse we observe two things First the reproofe of this sinne secondly an admonition generall including the particular In the first which is the sinne we observe the amplifications of it which is first from Gods hatred Secondly from an effect of those husbands who used and practised divorces that they made the law of God a covert to cover with it that violent injury and indignity they did to their wives as men cover the body and defaults of it with their garment If thou hatest her put her away Some thinke this dependeth
so long for we use to weigh more those things we write then those we speake Secondly that if he put her away he was not allowed atall to take her againe and therefore to make him not to doe it but advisedly when happily upon second thoughts he would not doe it Thirdly if he gave her a bill of divorce it must expresse the cause why he did it clearing her that it was not for adultery and accusing himselfe that it was for some other slight cause which he ought and would if there had been any love in him at all have covered All which sheweth that God did it for their infirmities and would have restrained them from it by this meanes and that he granted unto them was onely judiciall that is so much as might free them from the hand of the Magistrate that they were not punishable by him but not that which made it no sinne against the law morrall and before him they were onely freed in fore civili non conscientiae It is like to our law of usury which frees men from punishment of the law if they take not above such a summe but frees them not from sin before God providing for the good of the borrower both that they might borrow and when they did not be too much oppressed but so he that lends is an usurer and so a thiefe before God So in this For the Lord as a wise law-giver in his judiciall lawes permitted in a civill respect some things evill in themselves for the avoiding of a greater mischiefe not to allow or justifie the same from the guilt of sinne as before him in the court of conscience but to exempt the same from civil punishment in the external court before the Magistrate such is this we speake of Hence it is that we read not in the Scripture of any man of note for piety and holinesse which ever used this or ever gave any wife a bill of divorce For whereas Abraham put away Hagar and Ismael it is not against this for as he did it by the counsell of the wife so by the commandement of God Gen. 21.12 And none that were godly using or practising it once though they were subject to the same inconveniences that others were and so shewes that they held it not simply and in conscience lawfull Againe they say that 1 Cor. 7. the Apostle allowes divorce for another cause It is answered that the Apostle speaketh not of a divorce but of a disertion not of putting away the wife for any fault of hers but when she forsakes the husband for the faith and piety that is in him and so è contra for the Apostle onely saith if the unbeleeving depart let him depart But allowes not the beleever in any sort to put away the unbeleever nay commands him to live with her if she will abide with him And so onely enjoyneth him to suffer a disertion not to make a divorce And so this establisheth no other cause Againe they say if for adultery then much more for crimes greater then it and so there are more causes of divorce This will be answered out of the former for if the Apostle allow not for infidelity then not for greater for that is sure farre greater and if their reason were good then would this follow infidelity is a greater sinne then adultery therefore ought a man to be put to death for that becauses for this he owes to dye by Gods law Againe adultery doth not make the divorce because of the greatnesse of the sin but because of the opposition of it to marriage it is far more contrary to it The reason is because in marriage man and wife ought to be one flesh Now adultery is that which doth divide them and make not one but two And so doth neither infidelity blasphemy idolatry neither any such sin For these and the like sins are more repugnant to God and separate men from him more then adultery but it is more opposite to Matrimony which is manifest because amongst infidells idolaters and blasphemers marriage is good and lawfull though not holy Other things they object as coldnesse and inability of some incurable disease if the one goe about to kill or poyson the other if the civill lawes allow it But they are answered that some of these may hinder a marriage it be not not breake it when it is In others the Magistrate is to be looked to for helpe The lawes of Magistrates causing divorce for other things if they be capitall they ought put them to death and so end the controversie If criminall of lesse force their law is against the law of God and not tolerable To reprove and condemne all those who practise contrary Vse 2 who though the law allow not other divorces but for adultery yet they upon dislike they take at their wives or liking of others make nothing to send them home to their friends and live separated from them and onely for their lusts sake beare more indignity and discontent from a harlot in a yeare then they had from their lawfull wives in many yeares before hearkening to such bad counsellors as Memucan was to the King Ahashuerosh Ester 16.19 perswading him to put away Vashti for one disobedience and for some miscarriage to send her away and take another in her place forgetting as S. August speaketh to Polletius that they are Christians and therefore that they ought to be prone and inclinable to mercy and indulgence and not be so hard and cruell not remembring the example of Christ who pardoned the adultresse Joh. 8. shewing how full of love and compassion husbands should be towards their penitent wives if in adultery much more in lesse things and offences but these are like those who August speakes of who because of their bitternesse to their wives that they might doe it with lesse reproofe have razed out that Chapter or that story at least out of it so they could be content to raze this out but heaven and earth shall passe when this shall stand and they who feare not to offend against it shall feele the weight of Gods anger hereafter for his anger and hatred will be punishment and judgement Not as the Disciples inferred upon it Vse 3 Mat. 19.10 If the matter be so between man and wife it is not good to marry For they are well and with good reason checked by him seeing verse 11.12 as he said unto them All men cannot receive this thing save they to whom it is given for there are some chaste who were so born of their mothers belly and there be some chaste which be made chaste by men and there be some chaste which have made themselves chaste for the kingdome of heaven He that is able to receive this let him receive it For to some who cannot abstaine marriage is as necessary as meat drinke and sleepe as Luther said sometimes foollishly cavelled at by our Papists That is then not the use of it but
and defender of his Church and children Doctrine hee that doth keepe preserve and defend it Vide Revelation 2.1 Christ walketh in the middest of the golden Candlesticke Yet he covereth the injury under his garment The amplisying of their sin that they pretended the law of God as a cover of it that it might be no sinne unto them It is a thing which makes their sinnes the greater Doctrine who pretend the law for a cover of their sinne and iniquities of cruelty or oppression unfaithfulnesse or whatsoever other corruption such was these mens dealing such was that of Iezabell 1 Kings 21.13 of them Joh. 19.7 the Jewes answered him we have alaw and by our law he ought to dye because he made himselfe the sonne of God And James 2.8.9 Because the law was given either for a light and lanthorne to keepe men they should not sinne or transgresse Reason 1 or after a glosse to let them see their sinnes James 1. Or as a Cocke to Peter Now to pervert it to the contrary is to abuse the law and so to adde to their former sin this second and to increase both To make that which is good cause of sinne Because this argues that the sinne is not in infirmity Reason 2 but obstinacy when men any wayes defend and excuse it more when they excuse it by that which doth accuse it and busie their heads to wrest it to bolster out their sinne when they do as Hierom Oceano of some who non voluntatem legi sed legem jungunt voluntati frame the law to their wills and not their wills and wayes to the law To condemne and convince of greater sinne all such sinners as doe not simply sinne Vse 1 but would sinne with warrant from that which is the onely opposite to all sinne whatsoever and make this as some men doe Christs sufferings the pack-horse of all their sinne so this the patron and defence first here are condemned all heretiques who doe not onely erre but defend it with colour of the Scripture for never any heretique hath beene who did not pretend the Word for their heresies The Scriptures they oftentimes contemne because they finde them little to favour them yet use they them as Merchants doe their Counters sometime they stand with them for hundreds and thousands and sometime for cyphers when the letter helpes they urge with full mouth but when the spirit hurts and crosseth them they appeale to others Make them as Aug. of the Donat. Accipientes ergo perverso corde-Scripturas non cas faciunt obesse nobis sed sibi Cont. lit par l. 2. c. 1. Non periclitor docere ipsas quoque script sic esse ex Dei voluntate dispositas ut haereticis materiam subministrat cum legam oportere haereses esse quae sine Scripturis esse non possunt Tertull. praescript advers haeret and either Fathers or Councels or the Pope must impose a sense upon them not draw it out of them and so have no error but either by the letter or the inforced sense they will maintain as by these words he that takes not up his crosse and followeth me certain Monkes made them crosses of wood and carried upon their shoulders Cassianus Colla 8. Cap. 3. By those words Here are two swords the Popes temporall and spirituall jurisdiction By those The Lord made two great lights the Sunne the greater therefore the Pope is greater then the Emperour By those They that walke in the flesh cannot please God Innocent condemned marriages and stablished single life and many such things Like unto these are many other who search the Scripture for no other purposes Affectus locutus est non intellectus Bernar. sup Cirat ser 87. A. but to see if they can finde any thing in it which will defend them in their sinne Therefore we shall finde a voluptuous man who hath no knowledge in the Scripture for to further his salvation hath that to uphold uncleannesse Acts 15.29 words without sense The wanton for her painting That oyle makes a cheerfull countenance The drunkard that Wine was given to make the heart cheerfull The covetous that he who provides not for his owne as worse then an Infidell The Usurer hath his distinctions of biting and multiplying usurie of lending to the poore and stranger and to rich and brother of putting money into the banke and such like To teach every man to take heed how he goes about to cover any sinne he hath committed Vse 2 by the word of God for as he cannot doe it without injuring of the Word which is most pure and holy so that injury will by the Word redound to God himselfe who hath given and written that Word for if it favour any sin he must needs doe the same when He and his Word are one Now it would be monstrous impietie that any one should make God the patron of his sinne As if a man should make the Prince the cause of his treason it were without excuse and hope of pardon But this is done when the Word is made a covert and so a mans sinne is increased as Adams was who accused both Eve and God The woman thou gavest me the word thou gavest me But to avoid this we must endevour to read the word without prejudice or being fore-possessed with opinion Many men make the Scriptures favour their errors because they read them with resolute mindes to hold that they have and so seeke but to confirme themselves out of that they read and apply it to their errors and not their mindes to it and sometimes sticke upon the letter and sometime make it speake that it never thought knowing not that it is like to a fertile field which bringeth forth many things which nourish the life of man without any seething or roasting by the heat of the fire Some things that are hurtfull unlesse they be boyled Some things unboyled offend not and yet having felt the heat of the fire are more wholesome Some that are in their kindes profitable for beasts though not for men So the Scripture hath some things literally understood which profit and help as Heare O Israel c. Others unlesse they be mitigated by the heat of the spirituall fire and be spiritually understood hurt more then profit as that Sell thy coat and buy a sword If he strike thee on the right cheeke turne to him the left Take up his crosse and follow me and such like Therefore at all times it is not good to take the words but labour for the sence specially not in those places where they seeme to favour any thing condemned in plaine words in another for there saith Augustine is certainly a figure VERS XVII Yee have wearied the Lord with your words yet ye say Wherein have we wearied him When yee say Every one that doth evill is good in the sight of the Lord and be delighteth in them Or where is the God of judgement YE have wearied the
are some civil hypocrites as well as religious hypocrites but the cōtrary cōsequent is good And oftentimes the issue of things proves not to be good for though they hold out a while in such profession yet at length they fall away either when some trouble comes for it that they may enjoy their lives and liberties and so their sinnes And so as Inst Martyr Apol. Ret. Christian made his reason that they were not as they were accused voluptuous intemperate and such like because they so willingly embraced death for their professions sake for then they would have renounced that and deceived Princes to have enjoyed these So on the contray Or else they after twice or thrice standing are deprived of all that as Sampson was of his strength by Dalilah To teach every man that would either preserve himselfe from irreligion or approve that to others that he seemeth to have Vse 3 to keepe himselfe from or to put from him all injustice dishonesty unfaithfulnesse towards men For else this will abandon religion out of his heart and devour up all true profession as Pharoahs leane kine devoured his fat this wil make men judge as wel they may and with warrant that there is no truth of religion in all that shew I deny not but a man may have the truth of religion and should have wrong done him if he be otherwise judged of and yet lye in some sinne against the second table either because he knew it not or the strength of the temptation hath blinded him or the blow he had by it hath for a while stammered him as did David But if they be once convinced of it and wakened as David If Nathan have reproved them plainely yet not so particular yet so as they knew they were the men if they hold on in that sinne it will soon make them irreligious for it will make them out of love with the word and Ministery and then he that judgeth shall have his sentence sealed up by God And Christ shall make it good with that Luke 13.27 I tell you I know ye not whence ye are depart from me all ye workers of iniquity Ye have wearied the Lord with your words Their words were against God they spake wickedly and blasphemy against him To blaspheme God Doctrine to speake impiously of him of his providence power governement and such like is a fearefull sinne James 2.7 If this be such a sinne Vse 1 and God have an action against this people for it how justly may he nay hath he taken a controversie against us and our City when our words are still against him for how is every place defiled with blasphemies and oathes the streets and houses tavernes and mens private families shops and offices who is free from it neither master nor servant husband nor wife parents nor children old nor young buyer nor seller magistrate nor subject If the law for blasphemers were in force that they should be stoned what a cry would be in our City more then when the first borne was slaine in Egypt for old and young should be taken away but if onely the guiltlesse must cast stones at them scarce one of twenty would be found to accuse or execute others This sinne begunne in a swaggerer a stabber and if it had continued there it had beene well but to cease upon a civill City and civill people that there should be as many oathes sworne within a small compasse in it as in a great band of such desperate ruffians it is most fearefull and if God devour them with the sword for such blasphemies why not us with the plague I say nothing of other blasphemies of accusing the providence power and government of God To teach us to resist and reforme this vice Vse 2 every man in himselfe and in his and labour to feare the great and fearefull name of God and use it with reverence and speak of him and his providence and workes with all humility and honour Give him as much honour as to our garments which are more pretious then others for how is it not most absurd that a man having one garment more excellent then others cannot indure it continually to be abused and yet rashly and upon every occasion abuse the name of God Let us not thinke those excuses of necessity and we cannot be beleeved will goe for currant before God or he provoked me for so the first blasphemer could have said for himselfe But as no man will drinke poyson willingly or upon any necessity so should he not take an oath De probo dicturo dicimus o◠tuum ablue ita commemora nunc verò nomen super omne nomen venerandum in omni terrâ admirabile quod audientes Daemones horrent temu arie circumferemus O consuetudinem Chrysost ho. 26. ad pop Ant. And to make a more speedy reformation write upon the walls of thy house and of thy heart that same flying booke Zac. 5.2.3 And thinke this is flying to judgement and so fly thou as fast from thine oathes And as the Egyptians thrust Israel out of Egypt because for them the first borne of the King and peasant was slaine so doe with your oathes Ye have wearied the Lord with your words The Prophet saith not barely your words are against the Lord As Isa 3.8 but the Lord is wearied and vexed with them speaking after the manner of men who are vexed with things that displease them and so noting how greatly God was displeased with these sinnes how they offend him The blasphemies Doctrine and other sinnes of men doe marvelously offend and vehemently displease the Lord which as it is affirmed here and the like Isaiah 43.24 So as many threates and menaces so many judgements executed sometimes upon the whole world sometimes upon generall Cities sometimes upon particulars persons through the holy story doth manifest no lesse because when men doe lay about them and smite and punish Ira in deo non est affectie sea poena in nos ea vocabulo noms natur Chrysost it argues they are offended and displeased hereto belongs these and the like Psal 106.29 Thus they provoked him to anger with their owne inventions and the plague brake in upon them Isaiah 63.10 but they rebelled and vexed his holy spirit therefore was he turned to be their enemy and he fought against them Ephes 4.30 Grieve not the holy spirit of God Because it is the transgression of his law Joh. 3.4 Reason 1 Now he gave his law to have obedience which is delightfull unto him 1 Sam. 15.22 He takes pleasure in obedience then disobedience and transgression must needs displease him Because he is most holy just and good yea goodnesse justice Reason 2 and holinesse it selfe Now as every man is more good so is he least suspicious of evill in another but when it is apparent he is most displeased with it for as things rejoyce and delight in their like so are they distasted and displeased with
take the name of the Lord thy God in vaine For the Lord will not hold him guiltlesse that taketh his name in vaine Not guiltlesse but under that bitter curse of condemnation Deut. 27.26 Zach. 5.2.3.4 James 5.12 But before all things my brethren sweare not neither by heaven nor by earth nor by any other oath but let your yea be yea and your nay be nay lest ye fall into condemnation Because he hates such oathes Reason 1 Zach. 8.17 And let none of you imagine evill in his heart against his neighbour and love no false eath for all these are the things that I hate saith the Lord now hating these he must needes for them hate those that love and practise them and hatred will procure judgement wrath and destruction Because swearing by others they are idolaters Reason 2 for whereas an oath is not onely God ordinance but a speciall part of his worship both because there is invocation and because it is in the first table commanded and of the solemne forme of imposing an oath which was this give glory to God Josh 7.19 And the solemne rite of taking an oath among the Jewes which was to stand before the Altar 1 Kings 8.31 and was a custome among the Athenians and Romanes Then to give Gods worship to another is idolatry and idolaters must be judged and condemned Because if rashly by him Reason 3 the name of God so deare unto him he dishonouring and vilifying it by such usual rash swearing he wil revenge it If seriously yet not in truth for things past or to come knowing them to be false intending not to do them he cals God as a witnesse of his false-hood and a revenger of it and so must he come upon him for this he tempteth God desperately and dareth him as it were to his face to execute his vengeance upon him This may shew us the fearefull estate not of a few but of a multitude and whole troopes of men and women Vse 1 being common and usuall false swearers who can neither buy nor sell meet nor depart neither speake seriously nor in jest neither perswade nor promise neither intreat nor threaten neither relate things past nor draw men to the expectation of things to come without swearing and many oathes oftentimes by those which are no Gods committing idolatry usually rashly and unadvisedly and not seldome wickedly falsly and deceitfully In this sin are wrapped both parents and children masters and servants rich and poore high and low noble and base Minister and people If the Lord that threatneth to be a swift witnesse against such and a severe Judges should now come to destroy and cast to hell all such how fearefull then would we thinke and account their condition to be Verily how nigh that day of Assize and of his glorious appearing is no body can tell few suspect it to bee so nigh as it is but say it be as farre off as they suppose yet doth he judge them every day It is a judgement and a fearefull one that they sinne every day and sweare every houre and see it not to leave and forsake it but the morning swearing is punished with the afternoone this day with to morrow c. And for all these the plague of God and his judgements ready to breake in at the doores though he see it not yet others may see it manifestly Tell me what wouldest thou thinke his state and condition to be that had a bal of fire hanging over his house ready to fal upon him to consume him his wife and children servants and all that he hath in a moment and yet he and they all within doores give themselves to chamberings and wantonnesse to drunkennesse and gluttony to whoredome and uncleanenesse by that meanes to drawe and hasten this to fall upon him and consume him wouldest thou not thinke him in a fearefull condition such is the state of every swearer the plague of God tends upon their house the volume of curses is hovering and flying about their houses and this fire hanging over them and still by their oathes as the Faulconer by his Lure and hallow calling this to fall upon him and their case the more fearefull because custome hath made them when they sweare they deny they did and if they be evicted for it they account it as nothing no more then an ordinary speech As Saint Chrysost ho. ad Baptiz si quis jurantem increpaverit risus movet jocos narrare putatur But the same day or the day after that Lots sonnes in law mocked and despised their fathers admonitions the fire of God devoured them and their City Gen. 19. So may it upon them pitty then their fearefull conditions and feare and flye their society their fellowship their families for though thou hast escaped hitherto yet when the flying book enters in at their doores and windowes thou maiest happily be there then and partake in their plague but in truth thou hast not escaped but as they by the custome of their owne sinne are growne sencelesse so thou by theirs art grown lesse to fear an oath then thou didst before and so hast got more hurt to thy soule then ever they shall be able to doe thee good to thy body and state howsoever thou promise thy selfe great things by them This may serve for secure men Vse 2 who lye in this sinne to hate swearing or are ready to fall into it to perswade them as Zach. 8.17 And let none of you imagine evill in his heart against his neighbour and love no false oath for all these are the things that I hate saith the Lord. If not for the haynousnesse of the sinne yet for the punishment If not in a state where there is little law against it yet in a Church where the King of it is both a swift Witnesse and a severe Judge and will both judge and condemne every false swearer S. Chrysostome disswading from this sinne and perswading little at length breakes forth into this * Vtinam mihi liceret frequenter jurantium animas exuere ipsorum oculis subjicere vulnera cicatrices quas quotidie capiunt a juramentis nec admonitionis nec concilii indigeremus quoniam vnlneram aspectus omni sermone potentius Hom. 14. ad pop Antioch I would I might uncover and lay open the soules of ordinarie swearers naked and set their wounds and skarres before their eyes which they daily receive by oathes then there would be no need of admonition or counsell because the sight of their wounds would more prevaile then all my words This would I wish to give them the sight of their sin and the guilt of it but if it prevaile not I would I could give them the sence of it that I could make them see and beleeve the judgements and punishments which belong to it that the flying booke full of curses is long since come abroad and is ready to seize upon their houses and persons That Christ
first hath the reproofe in generall for committing evill and omission of doing things commanded and a denyall of it by the people The second hath an exhortation to repentance with the promise of a gracious acceptance From the daies of your fathers c. The generall reproofe or in particular for committing things forbidden and omitting things commanded but in these first words their sinnes are amplified from the time and continuance in them i. It is not yesterday or a few dayes since you transgressed against me your sinnes are not of short time and small continuance but you have beene long rebellious against me even since the dayes of your fathers so long have I beene patient towards you so much are you the more hardened in your sinnes and have the lesse to say for your selves and I may the more justly punish you The exhortation to repentance is pressed and urged with the benefit that will follow it God will returne to them and by this promise would he intice and provoke them meaning he would declare and make manifest he was appeased towards them mitigating and lessening their punishments and calamities and restoring many blessings unto them This of Gods returning is figurative for he properly cannot be said to change either place or minde Cujus est deomnibus omnino rebus tam fixa sententia quam certa praesentia Vide August de Civ D. l. 15. Cap. 25. But ye say wherein shall we returne The Propher returns to his expostulation with the people about their sins and here reproves them for their impudent hypocrisie and pride that they said they needed no repentance or returning to God being guilty unto themselves of no sinne no transgression or falling away from God i. What have we committed or when did we fall from the Lord Thou calst us to returne They had so long accustomed themselves and not to restore and pay unto the Lord that was his that now they say they ought no such thing now these words containe the continuance of their rebellion or obstinacy When men once give way unto sin entertaine it Doctrine they are often and easily drawne on to continue it from time to time day to day and to grow aged and ancient in sin especially if the Lord punish them not for it so much is here and in the old world and in Sodom c. Isaiah 65.2 and Hosea 10.9 Ob Israel thou hast sinned from the daies of Gibeah That is either from the time of the Iudges when they made war against the Benjamites touching the Levites wife from which time they continued Idolatry or as some from the times of Saul or Salomon example of Davids sinne for many months for not repenting he continued it but Solomon many years Because the preserver of men from sinne is the grace of God Reason 1 either generall as in Abimelech Gen. 20. or particular as Isaiah 30.21 restraining or sanctifying grace now this the Apostle calls fire 1. Thessal 5.19 or compares it to it that as fire by withdrawing of matter oile from lamp or fuell from fire or by adding contrary as water so the spirit is quenched or forced to recoile by sinnes no marvaile then when the resister is gone or grieved if there be long continuance Because custome is another nature and things by custome Reason 2 are in us as if they were bred Now naturall things are hardly changed the continuance easie a man can hardly forget his mothers tongue hardly a speech he hath been accustomed to so in this Because the custome of sinning takes away the sence of sinne Reason 3 even a little custome and giving way to it Now when a man is without the sence of sinne hardly seeing and knowing of it Consuetudo peceandi tollit sensum peccati lest feeling how it woundeth and pierceth him but finding for the present sin pleasant or profitable no marvaile if he continue it and say Prov. 23.35 They have stricken me but I was not sicke they have beaten me but I know not when I awoke therefore will I sccke it yet still To teach men to take heed how they give way to sin Vse 1 but if sinne enter upon them as who sinneth not then with speed to part with it and shake it off lest custome and continuance follow So that when he hath a will he shall have no power to rise out he will be so intangled as with him that taketh up money for necessity he shall easily finde that he may continue it and be in the usurers bonds upon good security but when he would out of them the longer he hath continued the lesse he will finde himselfe able and so be desirous to continue it till he have stript himselfe out of all so in this then must he labour to rise out of them and give no place nor way to them Then it is a goodnesse Vse 2 and mercy of God to a man when he gives a means to him either to keep him for giving way to sin or for sitting downe in sin which of himselfe he will soone do Vide Mal. 1.7 doctr 1. Now in that they had continued thus long and were not consumed it commends another doctrine The Lord is long suffering Doctrine and patient towards such as sinne and provoke him Rev. 3.20 Gone away from mine ordinances Reprooving them for their sinnes he tells them that is sin which is disagreeing to his laws and ordinances to his word That is evill and sin Doctrine and unlawfull to be done which is repugnant to the law of God or a departing from it may it seem to be never so profitable to man or bring glory to God as on the contrary that is good and righteousnesse which is agreeable to the law and word of God seem it never so unprofitable to men or not behoofull for Gods glory Vide Cap 2.10 Doctr. ulti And have not kept them They are accused not only because they committed things contrary to the law but because they did not things agreeable to it not onely committed the forbidden but omitted the commanded They do not onely sinne Doctrine who offend against the law doing the things forbidden by it but those who do not observe and do the things commanded by it but leave them undone manifest by that as a breach of the first Table and Precept Jer. 10.25 Powre out thy fury upon the families that have not called upon thy name Dent. 28.58.59 and 27.26 Matth. 25. Because the law is affirmative Reason 1 and commanding as well as negative and forbidding and though the precepts and commandments run most negatively save only the fourth and fifth yet they all carry the affirmative as the Prophets their Interpreters shew and as those two affirmatives carry their negative so the eight negatives carry the affirmatives so that an omission is as well a transgression as a commission and so a sin Because they go against love Reason 2 and charity and therefore sinne for charity to God
who never have the right end may attaine the end to save others Gods end as the builders of the Arke who never intended Gods glory or the salvation of Noah and his family So it is in this therefore maintenance must be proposed and if it faile the worke failes This noteth unto us the vile impiety of the man of sinne the Pope of Rome Vse 1 who in nothing more hath sought to undermine the Church and overthrow the worship of God then in robbing and bereaving it of the goods that belonged unto it by impropriations donatives and such like And to make way for this hee deprived the people of the worship of God and turned the exercise of religion into a dumbe and ridiculous spectacle which done it was thought convenient that to be a Priest required no gifts but that every common man might easily undergoe the burthen of it for if the gifts of learning had still remained as necessary the maintenane that belongeth unto them could under no colour have beene taken away but when every one that was able to read his Portuise was thought sufficiently frunished to that office it easily followed that the living given to the Church for the edification thereof was thought too much for so meane a man in so base a labour And another way or colour for this was that though they were taken from the Ministery yet they were not alienated from the Church because they were not appropriated to lay men but Abbeyes Fryers Monasteries and other Cloysters which vermine beganne then to multiply as Grashoppers on the face of the earth and to devour all things that were before them And in the meane time the worship of God decayed for those who had the spoile made an endowment of the Vicurage at so low a rate by composition namely ten or twenty Nobles that no man of parts and gifts was able to live of it but one that had some other trade to live by which he followed closely or no other meanes and so he made this his last refuge and by this meanes they did more overthrow the worship of God and his Church then by all the persecutions they used or can which they learned from their Grandsire Apostata Iulian who by this meanes is noted more to have overthrowne the Church then all the persecuting Emperors before him Because they tooke away Presbyters and their martyrs blood was the seede of the Church but he tooke away Presbyterium the Ministery in withdrawing the maintenance from the Church and so overthrew the worship of God In the same steps hath this his sonne Apostata and others his slaves followed by which they have made more decay of the worship of God then by any meanes whatsoever This teacheth us the cause why in many places the worship and service of God is not performed or carelessely and slubberd over Vse 2 as men that worke by great doe their worke because the maintenance being taken away by Popery hath not yet beene restored unto Gods house againe and for his worship whereby they who hold them are not onely guilty of sacriledge as before nor of theft taking that which is proper to others for no man hath right in tithes but they who can give and doe give spirituall things as Damasus Deut. 3. * With what face Quâ fronte quâ conscien tiâ c. Damasus Deut. 3. with what conscience can ye receive oblations who can scarce for your selves much lesse for others make prayers unto God speaking to lay men but they are guilty of the hindering and overthrow of his worship and that not onely of the present hindering of it but leaving things still alienated to their posterity and keeping the Church without hope of having them restored they are guilty of the overthrow of the worship of God after them so that when they are dead yet their sinnes shall live To teach men willingly and cheerefully to give to the Churh that which is in law and conscience due unto it Vse 3 seeing by it the worship of God is maintained and without it it must needes decay What ought to be more deare unto men and wherein ought they and should more labour to shew themselves more cheerefull and forward then in the erecting and maintenance of the worship of God and his service whether they consider the greatnesse of his Majesty in himselfe or what he is in respect of them when it is so small a thing he requires of men but the tenth who might require all having as much right to them as to the tenth when he then requires so little is it a great thing if it be given him of them whose goods onely ought not to be deare unto them but not their lives that they might honour him And prove me herewith Make triall of mee of my goodnesse and bountifulnesse in giving and faithfulnesse in keeping my promise The doe men make trial of the goodnesse Doctrine bounty and faithfulnesse of God in keeping promises when they doe the things that he requires of them and doe looke for in them and by them the things he hath promised They who doe otherwise doe but tempt him that is who doe thinke to obtaine his goodnesse though they never performe any such thing as he required So much is implyed here and in that Deuteronom 6.17.18 Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God as ye did tempt him in Massah but ye shall keepe diligently the commandements of the Lord your God and his testimonies his ordinances which he hath commanded thee And thou shalt doe that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord that thou maiest prosper and that thou maiest gee in and possesse that good land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers And by that Matth. 4.6.7 for if it be tempting of him to seeke and to looke for his promise and faithfulnesse in things not commanded either omitting the commanded then è contra Hag. 2.18.19 I smot you with blasting and with mildew and with hailean all the labours of your hands yet you turned not to me saith the Lord Consider I pray you in your mindes from this day and afore from the foure and twenteeth day of the ninth month even from the day that the foundation of the Lords Temple was laid consider it in your minds That is because they had begunne to build the Temple het would blesse them by that they should try his goodnesse Isaiah 1.18 If you will repent and doe as you ought then shall you see and try how good I will be and Isai 7.11.12 Because it is no unfaithfulnesse of od Reason 1 nor want of goodnesse and bounty not to give or not to performe things he hath promised if men doe not the things he hath commanded in as much as he otherwise did not binde himselfe he hath made himselfe a debtor by his promise but so as the condition upon which hee promised be performed But this not performed no man can expect that
palpable yet they spare not these speeches you may see what comes of this professing of all their piety and godlinesse And this they whisper every where like the ten spies of the holy and promised Land and bring up an evill report of it Num. 13.33 and a slander upon it Num. 14.37 But let them know that upon those ten spies upon all who beleeved them the judgements of God befell and they fell in the wildernesse and never came to set foote in the Land of Canaan Such recompence let these expect from the Lord not to come into the promised Land when as those they said should bee a prey If we may allude to Numb 17.31 they shall not lose their recompence To teach men when they see those who professe the feate of God and piety Vse 2 not to grow in the world or to decay not to be in so prosperous estate as others are not to accuse their profession and piety lest they be found upon the returne of their triall guilty of blasphemy against God denying his faithfulnesse dishonouring him as suffering his followers to be without reward and recompence for their service And of two evills it is lesse and the better to accuse man of hypocrise in his service and of some secret sinne which lying hid hinders his encreasing as Iron in a wound hinders the curing of it Or safer it is to apprehend here the wisedome of God who dealing like a wise Physitian and seeing a full dyet hinders the health of his Patient he for the time forbids him many things as possessed with a fever forbids him strong wines and drinkes and hard meates of digestion and such like So God Or were it not safer and the best course to impute it to his particular profession that it is not so gainefull or his want of skill he cannot make it or his want of providence in disposing of businesse or to imagine the truth that the prosperous estate of Gods stands not so much in riches as in graces not so much in that they must leave behinde them as that they must carry with them as the wealth of pilgrimes and strangers standeth more in their Jewells and gold things light of carriage and well portable then in house and land To instruct men who do professe the feare and service of God to walke carefully and prudently in their callings Vse 3 that they may increase in an outward estate to prevent the blasphemies and slanders of the wicked who will sooner blaspheme God for their poverty then glorifie him for their piety which exhortation is necessary for some who thinke it enough to professe and excuse their poverty by the condition of Gods Saints when the neglected lawfull meanes by which they might have encreased and beene able to give rather then receive which is a more blessed thing and whereby they might have more honoured God and therein the more culpable that they make this a cover of their idlenesse and happily injustice for which God curseth them adding this sinne to the other that they dishonour God But if any man shall upon this or the like pretence neglect the best things the onely thing necessary and growing in spirituall graces when God and his owne heart can tell him it is but upon a covetous and amibitious humour that man shall beare his iniquity But if for conscience as to be able to discharge the necessity of nature person or place so the rather to glorifie God and to stop the mouthes of such as would reproach their profession he first seeking Gods Kingdome shall have these things cast to him here and so in all things he seeking the glory of God in the kingdome of grace shall find glory and happinesse in the kingdome of glory What profit is it that we have kept his commandments Doctr. 1 These wicked men doe chalenge unto themselves righteousnesse and obedience and upon that accuse God of injustice for their want and affliction whence we may observe That hypocrites and wicked men chalenge to themselves righteousnesse and obedience in the pride of their heart when they have no such thing verse 7. Wherein shall we returne It is the property of Hypocrites and wicked men Doctr. 2 when they are in Gods judgements in misery and affliction to justifie themselves as not having deserved any such thing to accuse God of injustice as an angry God that hath causlesly afflicted them So did these and those Isaiah 58.2.3 And Iehoram 2. Kings 3.13 And Elisha said unto the King of Israel What have I to do with thee Get thee to the Prophets of thy father and to the Prophets of thy mother And the King of Israel said unto him nay for the Lord hath called these three Kings to give them into the hand of Moab i. it is but your spleene against me to upbraide me with any such things because I favour them more then you but if it were a finne yet is not that the cause seeing these two Kings are in the like misery with me So far were they Jer. 44.17.18 from acknowledging their sinnes the cause of any misery either present or falling upon them that they thought it came because they had not gone forwards in them This is the cause why the Prophets when the people were in any judgement did still put them in minde of their sins and cleared the Lord and put the people often to accuse God if they could Mich. 6.3 And when they threatned any to come they ever produced and alleadged their sins Because being ignorant and blind men Reason 1 without the Law and knowledge of it their sin is dead as Paul Rom. 7.8 they seem to be living Peccatum mortuum quod non agnosceretur Chrysost And so it doth not accuse them which makes them not accuse themselves but God rather Because if by the preaching of the Minister Reason 2 when he shall Isaiah 58.1 lift up his voice like a trumpet and tell the people of their sins and by the comming of the Law Rom. 7.9 They find themselves to be dead yet they love their sinnes so dearly that they are very loth to part with them now if they should once confesse it and accuse themselves either they must part with it or else looke that Gods hand should be more sharply upon them Vse 1 This may direct men in their judgement both themselves and others when the hand and judgement is upon them to discerne so far as such a thing can manifest a mans condition whether Gods or no or but hypocrites and wicked carnall men they are pressed with Gods hand his rod is upon their back do they ingeniously and freely confesse their sinnes and accuse themselves and give glory unto God as bringing that justly upon them and not only so but confessing that it is his mercy that they are not consumed As Lame n. 3.22 their sinnes deserve so much more then they feele or beare It is a good probable note that they
are Gods not certaine because men may doe it in hypocrisie being wrung from them by their extremities and do it in some sinister respect as did Indas and Pharaoh But on the contrary do men justifie themselves or extenuate their sinnes I say not only to men or to an enemy when it may be lawfull for a man to stand on his integrity and ever to cover his infirmities but to God to his Ministers as these here And as many men lie sicke and for ought they know upon their death beds and the Minister shall presse them with their former lives and their sinfulnesse and not their friends only seek to lessen them and speake of their orderly and good cariage and shew themselves to be discontented they should be disquieted with any such thing it is a very fearfull thing being a signe that in themselves they justifie themselves and thinke God deals but hardly with them and they have deserved no such thing but to these we may say as Christ to the Pharisees Luke 16.15 Ye are they which justifie your selves before men but God knoweth your hearts for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God This may let us see the necessity of the word of God as at all times Vse 2 so especially in time of affliction and judgements when men in their hypocrisie are naturally prone to justifie themselves because their sinne is dead and their conscience laid asleep But when the Law commeth it is quickned Rom. 7.9 Yea and not onely made living but strengthened 1. Cor. 15.56 So that it not only accuseth him in his conscience but presseth him amaine to accuse himself before Gods judgement seat whereas without it they will be so far from humbling themselves that they still will justifie themselves till they be consumed as drosse in the fire and with their drosse their sinne Therefore was it not for nothing that it was said Psal 94.12 Blessed is the man whom thou chastisest O Lord and teachest him in thy Law Because of verse 13. They shall escape when the other who want it shall perish And so the best time for Ministers to worke and the best opportunity is when the affliction is upon them Job 33.16 Then he openeth the cares of men even by their corrections which he hath sealed and they being as mettall heated and softened the hammer will best worke upon them and then may they be best bended and applied to good VERS XV. Therefore we count the proud blessed even they that work wickednesse are set up and they that tempt God yea they are delivered THerefore we accounted the proud blessed These had denied the providence of God and his government of the world by the small profit that came to such as had care to keepe his commandments and walke in his waies now they assay to deny it by the prosperity of such as transgresse and contemne him yea by this they would not onely disgrace piety but prefer iniquity before it For now they make the study and indeavour in impiety to be honest and profitable when of piety it was unfruitfull for the one neither brought honour nor profit to them who imbraced it the other brought both Therefore we account As some and now we or we also i. out of our owne experience we who have been diligent in our duties forward in piety followers of modesty imbracers of temperance and al other vertues have only got this by it that we cannot without envie speak of the happinesse and prosperity of those who have taken a cleane contrary course for our obediencè piety and humility hath made us but base and contemptible in the eies of men whereas others by their pride and arrogancy have gotten a name and renowne unto themselves Even they that work wickednesse are set up or are built up The meaning is they are increased in wealth and abundance They who had nothing while they lived in upright and just courses and could get nothing by plaine and honest dealing now that they are growne corrupt and fallen into wicked lewd courses and used cunning and deceit they have gained unspeakable wealth and from nothing are so risen that they are equall to any in wealth and dignity for this sense is by the phrase of the Scripture to be built up Psal 127.1 And they who tempt God they are delivered Not onely they who injure and oppresse men and commit wickednesse by fraud and deceit and such like but they who contemne God also are happy such as set light by his power and judgements and of set purpose committed and undertooke heinous sinnes to trie whether he was so just and severe a Judge and revenger as he was accounted to be and yet for all this boldnesse and contempt we see they go free without any punishment which if God were such a one as he is accounted a severe Judge and revenger of the injuries against men and indignities against himselfe he ought not to have overpast but to have shewed it in this And thus these wicked men thinke they have sufficiently proved that God hath not a care of the things done upon the earth Their second ground on which they deny Gods providence is the prosperity of the wicked or making him to love them Vide doctr 2. in verse ult C. 2. They that work wickednesse are set up Many wicked men prosper and increase in the world these men speak so here out of their observation as a truth though it be evilly applied and used against God as Iobs friends wrested many generall things against him which were true in the generall but corrupted in the application Oftentimes it falls out Doctrine that wicked men do increase and grow great in the world by their wicked means and impious crafts which is not true onely because these have said it but that it is so shewed us by others Psal 73.12 Loe these are the wicked yet prosper they alway and increase in riches Job 21.7 Wherefore do the wicked wax old and grow in wealth Jer. 12.1.2 O Lord if I dispute with thee thou art righteous yet let me talke with thee of thy judgements Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Why are all they in wealth that rebelliously transgresse Thou hast planted them and they have taken roote they grow and bring forth fruit Thou art neer in their mouth and far from their reines Psal 17.14 Men of this world who have their portion in this life whose bellies thou fillest with thine hid treasure their children have enough and leave the rest of their substance for their children Because God doth use them to punish and correct his Reason 1 * Vtitur in salut em suorum irrationali insensibili c. Bern. degr lib. arbit for the good safety of his people he useth the irrationall and insensible creature as a labouring beast or an instrument which when the worke is done is of no further use he useth
a common phrase in Scripture when Gods wrath and mans power to resist are compared Gods wrath is as fire which consumes any dry matter it lights upon for so it followes All the proud yea and all that do wickedly shall be as slubble Which words answer their blasphemy Cap. 3.15 shewing they were in a grosse error to call the proud happy and God will spare them but the event should shew the contrary The day that commeth shall burne them up i. The time that I have appointed in whose power all times and seasons are not when men shall think fit or prescribe mee And shall leave them neither root nor branch An expression noting their utter destruction The Lord will destroy and burn up all proud and wicked men Doctr. 1 As the Lord will destroy all wicked men Doctr. 2 so specially such as the world takes notice of for jolly and happy fellowes such as grow and increase by their wickednesse and unjust dealing It is Davids observation Psal 37.35.36 and Iob's Iob 24.23.24 and Solomons Pro. 3.35 Because this will more magnifie both his justice and power that he respects not persons in judgement Reason 1 and that he is able to abase every one that is lifted up Because this will make him more generally and throughly feared then if he smote others Reason 2 upon whom there is lesse observation Because it will more plainely prove his providence and government Reason 3 when as in those from whose prosperous estate then made a reason to deny he manifesteth his providence So men come to change their judgement as Act. 28.4.6 This may instruct us when we see wicked men to grow great in wealth and honor by iniquity yet not to envie them Vse 1 for God will destroy them and the rather because they are great We can pitty poor snakes in misery and poverty when they have no knowledge nor feare of God because they must go out of one misery to a greater yet we are ready to envie the prosperity of others as wicked as they who sure have as much need of our pitty as the other being rather nearer and surer of punishment and of sorer as a rebel or traytor the greater his wealth and advancement hath been the greater is his fact and shall be his punishment To admonish the rich and renowned among men Vse 2 that they make not those things they injoy an occasion to harden or harten them in sin if they love their owne safety the higher they are the more holy they ought to be It were a madnes in men who have wealth therefore to presume to transgres the law without feare when as that may sooner bring their lives and states in question So it is in this case The proud shall be Stuble Wicked men whatsoever they be great honorable rich powerfull Doctr. 3 yet have no power to resist Gods So much this similitude sheweth which is more full in Esa 27.4 Who would set the briers and thornes against me in battell I would goe through them I would burne them together See also Psal 37.20 Es 1.31 Nah. 1.10 We have many examples of this in Pharaoh Ahab Sennacherab Herod and notably in him that was both an example of the point and one that taught it namely Nebuchadnezar Dan. 4.30.32 Because God is most powerfull the Lord of hosts Reason 1 and hath all Creatures at command to doe with them as he list Because all men are weake compared with him they are but gras-hoppers Es 40.22 and reputed as nothing Dan. 4.35 Reason 2 To teach great men not to sin and promise safety to themselves for their greatnesse Esa 9.14 Vse 1 To admonish the meaner sort to take heed of provoking God Vse 2 for if the other cannot resist him how shall they escape As he feares not the others power he will not pittie the meannesse of these The firre tree must howle if the Ceader be fallen if the mighty or the Gallants as the word is be spoyled Zach. 11.2 Then as the third Captaine who was of equall strength with the other two when he saw them perish entreated humbly for his life 2. Kin. 1.13 How much more are such to entreat the Lord who see him abasing more mighty then themselves To instruct meane men Vse 3 retainers and followers of others not to commit evill at their command not to be their bauds and pandars their instruments for blood and uncleannes for though they may bearethem out sometime against the law of man and the execution of humane justice yet not against God They cannot defend themselves how should they defend them If they command as Absolon did his servants to kill Ammon upon the confidence of his greatnesse 2. Sam. 13.28 Yet consider Absolon could not save himselfe but was hanged and striken through with darts VERS II. But unto you that feare my Name shall the sunne of righteousnes arise and health shall be under his wings and ye shall goe forth and grow up as fat calves BVt unto you that feare my Name shall the sunne of righteousnes arise Here is a second prediction or prophecie which is touching the godly and of good things of a spirituall nature And to them doth he turne his speech that he did not denounce this terrible day to afflict the minds of the good but to terrifie the wicked who shall perish being contemners of God but when that shall come you that feare God lift up your heads in peace and hope for to you shall arise The sunne of righteousnes Thus the Prophet calls Christ after the manner of the Prophets who in diverse places have given him this name Esa 60.1.2.19 Ioh. 8.12 Luc. 1.78 And he is sayd to arise unto them because he doth enlighten them by his word and spirit And he is called the Sun of righteousnes being so himselfe and making them so regenerating purging them from their corruptions renewing in them the image of God which things are more particularly expressed by that which follows With healing in his wings Keeping the same metaphor he calleth the sunne beames wings that as by the beames of the sun the aire is purged and health procured to men so Christ should by his grace and spirit purge them whom he enlightens And you shall goe forth That is be set at liberty from bondage and slavery from sin the divel and death And grow up as the calves of the stall That is you shall have an encrease and augmentation of grace and of the spirit more and more as fat calves an homely similitude to make it clearer Some reade you shall leape but this other the words will well beare and is as fit All men are in themselves darknesse and have no light Doctrine 1 that is the estate of every man by nature The point is only implied Christ is risen a sunne to as many as are truly called Doctr. 2 and they have light and not darknesse they have the knowledge of God and of his will
they inabled to repell him and resist his forces for they prove like a City that hath beene once besieged but not sacked ever after it will be better able to resist the like forces yea greater because they will fortifie the walls and breaches and encrease their munition and strength It falls out with men that enjoy their lands in peace and security they looke not into their evidences only keepe them in a box or chest but if any man lay claime to the least part and would wrest it from them then will they with diligence seeke them forth and looke them over and consult with Lawyers whereby they are able to answer the plea of the adversaries So it is with the spirituall estate Satan as Chrysostome speakes when he sees he can doe nothing either presently desists fearing lest he become a cause of more glory to us or if he do continue it is but to be revenged of them by troubling and vexing them whom he cannot overcome So that his assaults prove that they are freed from him as Pharoahs pursuing of Israel shewed they had escaped These still dye how are they then freed from it Object Answer They neither are nor can be free because the sentence is unchangeable Heb. 9.27 but they are freed from the dominion and tyranny of death yea from the hurt and evill that comes by it nay it is made to bring them many benefits It frees them from First the afflictions and miseries of this life yea though it seeme to come unto them somewhat untimely The righteous is taken away from the evill to come he shall enter into peace they shall rest in their beds Isai 57.1.2 1 Kings 14.13 Secondly from the fellowship of wicked men who vex their soules as the Sodomites did righteous Lots Thirdly they are freed by it from sinne Death is found to be profitable to the faithfull because it frees a man from the danger of sinning and puts him into a security of not sinning saith S. August So that in bringing death is by death destroyed as the viper of her brood Death had never entred but by sin and sin had never ended but by death Fourthly they are freed from the assaults of Satan and the world for they by it doe not only flie into the wildernesse to be free for many daies as the Church Rev. 12.6 but as the words are in the fifth verse they are caught up unto God and to his throne and so as favourites pursued are safe when they are in the Court specially in the presence chamber So much more here Besides these freedomes it brings great benefits First it is their passage into the presence of God where is fulnesse of joy an unpleasant gate but to a Princely Pallace Secondly it is an herald that fetches them to their glory and crowning from these earthly cottages 2 Cor. 5.1 Thirdly it restores our bodies more holy and pure unto us At length then what is death T is no more then to put off ones coate the body is as a garment and we lay it off but for a while by death to put it on againe a fresh It is comfort to as many as finde and feele the assaults of Satan and sinne Vse tempting and fighting and rebelling in him but not raigning or ruling in him or though sometime foiling him yet not leading him captive Rom. 6.12.13 Such may have comfort that they are redeemed by Christ Free indeed because the sonne hath made them free John 8.36 They must not measure their freedome and so their comforts by feeling no assaults For as Hierom to Heliodorus Then thou art most dangerously assaulted when thou knowest not that thou art assaulted We have to fight saith Saint Cyprian de mortalit with covetousnesse with unchastity with wrathfulnesse with ambition with carnall vices and with the enticements of the world Hereupon saith Saint August lib. 2. contr Iulian. God forbid that we should thinke holy Cyprian to have beene covetous because he fought with covetousnesse or wrathfull or ambitious or carnall or a lover of this world because he fought with them nay therefore was he none of these because he fought and strongly resisted these evill motions Healing under his wings It implies sickenesse among men Every man naturally of himselfe Doctrine and by himselfe is sicke full of diseases and sores that is of sinnes and corruptions and of all spirituall diseases Psal 51.5 Ezek. 16. Rom. 3.10 c. Ephes 2.3 And of every person may that be spoken which is spoken of the whole people Esay 1.6 From the sole of the foote to the head there is no soundnesse but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores Because of naturall parents who communicate their sinne and nature Reason 1 and beget in their owne likenesse Gen. 5.3 and so That that is borne of flesh is flesh John 3.6 T is propagated more then any naturall disease and outgrowes nature for we finde children sinning before they can either goe or speake Because they are without Christ who is life Reason 2 as the body without the soule so is the soule without Christ The soule departed the body is possessed of stinke corruption rottennesse wormes horror and becomes detestable so without without Christ the soule is full of the stench of guilt the corruption and rottennesse of sinne the worme of conscience the horror of infidelity So Chrysologus Because they are not regenerate then that is true Rom. 7.18 Reason 3 In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing And if no good then much evil for there is no medium twixt these which are more opposite then health and sickenesse To let every man see what he is by nature Vse 1 as blinde and darkenesse so unholy and sickenesse full of corruption and uncleanenesse This may teach us why men can so hardly endure the Ministry of the word specially that which reproves and threatens Vse 2 why they account the Ministers grievous and offensive to them and their enemies rather then friends which labour to reforme them t is because sinne and corruption is naturall to them and men can hardly endure to have a naturall sore defect or infirmity pointed at or noted much lesse to be dealt withall when it is not to be cured or removed without force without sharpe medicines cutting or searing or the like Is it any wonder it should be so here when to deale with sinne is like pulling out a right eye or cutting of an arme specially when custome is added to nature and pleasure and profit to both This makes them when they heare of sinne not to entertaine it as an admonition but to shunne it as a reproach and receive such not as Physitians that would cure them but as enemies that would kill them The reason why they account the Law and Commandements of God such a burden and the obedience of them so tedious is Vse 3 because they are sicke men and want health and we know small things are burdensome to the
appeares by the next member The Priests duty is to be both furnished and to bring out of his treasure things new and old To be much in preaching to the people Accordingly 'tis thought that some of the Christian Fathers preached every day However it was provided for by Canons that they should preach frequently Such a Canon wee have in the Excerptions of Egbert Archbishop of Yorke Anne 750. Vt emnibus festis et diebus Dominicis Vnusquisque Sacerdos Evangelium Christi praedicet populo That every Priest preach the Gospell of Christ unto the people upon all holy dayes and the Lords dayes And especially for the Lords day in the Canons under King Edgar Anno. 967. Docemus etiam ut Sacerdotes in qualibet die solis populo praedicent Wee require also that the Priests preach unto the people every sunday Since the reformation men have beene frequent in this duty many Bishops being also exemplary to their Clergy The publishers of the lives of D. Iewell sometimes Lord Bishop of Sarum and of the late reverend and godly Bishop of Bath and Wells have made it one of the heades of their Commendation their assiduity in preaching But especially the care of the ancients was much for Catechizing Of Saint Markes Catechizing at Alexandria and then Clements and after him Origens the histories are knowne We have Cyrill of Hierusalem's Catechisms and the Catecheses Mystagogicae which are printed with them which if they were not his are yet of some ancient author We have a Tract of Saint Augustin's de Catechizandis rudibus and another De Symbolo ad Catechumenos And beside the practise of the fathers many Councells ordaining it But the care of no Church hath beene greater then that of ours even in ancient times In a councell held at Clyffe Anno. 747. It was provided that every Priest should instruct his people in the Lords Prayer the Creed and the Sacraments in the English tongue Can. 10. see S. H. Spelmans margin ad locum this Canon is inserted afterward by Egbert into his Excerp 6. See also the Ecclesiasticall lawes of Canutus cap. 22. apud Spelman page 549. an excellent and serious exhortation to this purpose but too long here to transcribe And the Canon 23. of AElfric pag. 578. Yea it seemes by the Capitula incertae editionis which by Sr. H. Spelmans placeing of them should bee about Anno. 1050 cap. 28. to have beene the custome of our Bishops here when they met in their Synods with their Clergy to examine them in the manner of their teaching and how they profited their people After these times Catechising was not much heard of till after Luthers preaching when perceiving that the Protestant Churches wanne much ground by this kinde of diligence the practise was renued by a decree of the Councell of Trent in the Romish Church For our part what ground we got by Catechising wee are most likely to keepe and hold it by the same course and to lose it all againe by the neglect which was the observation of our judicious King Iames That the cause why so many fell to popery and other errors was their ungroundednesse in points of Catechisme Upon such a reason as this it was that an elder Article of a former Synod was renewed in the Synod at Dort That all pastors should Catechise in the afternoone on the Lords day Act a Synodi sess 14 15. The very same with his Majesties Injunctions to the Clergy of England and which is provided for by Canon and enquired into by the Articles of Visitations but on all hands too too much neglected which hath given mee occasion to transgresse my purpose in these shorter notes and to enlarge this discourse which yet I cannot leave till I have noted that observeable passage of the present Reverend Bishop of Exeter in his Preface to his Old Religion That there is nothing whereof hee repents so much as that hee had not bestowed more houres in publique Catechising And That in regard hereof hee could quarrell his very sermons And his sermons are excellent ones as all know that know them to two of them namely his Columba Noae preached to the English Clergy in their Convocation here in England and to another upon Eccles 7.16 preached to the Divines at Dort at their 16th Session I refer the Reader where hee shall finde an eloquent and zealous exhortation in this matter But of this point enough I returne to the Text. And they should seeke the law at his mouth Here the Vulg. reades as before as if it were a promise or their infallibility But it is onely an intimation of the peoples duty and the reason followes For hee is the messenger of the Lord of hosts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lxx and the Vulg. reade The Angell The Priest is called so 1. Because hee ministers to God as the Angels doe before him who stand before him and prayse him but 2. specially and here because hee is Gods messenger to men from God and from men to God Accordingly the Tigurine here Hee is Gods Legat or Embassadour And that learned Knight in his Glossary or Archaeolog hath observed to us out of Ekkehard that the name hath been given even to the Embassrdors of Kings Cedamus Angelo Imper i. We have seen how the former Priests caried themselves The next is III. The degenerating of these Priests from the practise of their fathers in regard of their covenant verse 8. Vers 8 In three particulars First that they were gone from their piety But yee are departed out of the way or out of that way as the Article is in the Hebr. that is either out of my way or out of that way in which your fathers walked You have diverted or turned out or as the Lxx 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Declined Your course is opposite to that of your fathers They caused many to returne to me you are returned and gon from me But this opposition is more direct in the next member Secondly that they caused many to fall by their example partly and partly by their corrupt glosses Yee have caused many to stumble at the law Or To fall in the law The Geneva reades it By the law The Vulg. Yee have scandalized many Montanus Yee were a stumbling block or an offence Others yee have caused that men should stumble at the law or goe against the law and so fall into sinne and consequently into calamities So Piscator Lxx. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yee have weakned many in the law yee have offended snared caused to strike or dash or stumble for all these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will beare Thirdly that they had in summe broken the covenant Yee have corrupted the covenant of Levi saith the Lord of hosts Geneva yee have broken Vulg. yee have made void The Lxx reade as we doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corrupted The covenant of Levi that is the covenant made with Levi. A metonymy of the efficient Thus we have seene the
upon thee the garment taken for the man Thou shalt be openly punished Thus he from others for the Vulg. of which translation Steph. Menochius a latter Iesuite gives another sense The Iewes excuse themselves Why doe you reprehend us seeing the law permits us to put away our Wives If thou hate her put her away But which he makes the Prophets answer your iniquity shall thereby so abound and swell that no garment will be able to cover it The Law permitting it onely for the hardnesse of your hearts but not freeing you from sinne if rashly and without cause you put them away A better sense then that of A lapide but for which he is faine to take his farewell of the authorized Vulgar translation If thou put her away give her some part of thy garments to cover her something to live on So Luther occasionally expounds it which sense Osiander followes give her a good dowry that if she be put away shee may marry another Let him put her away for while hee keepes her he covers his injury and makes as if he loved her so the Geneva and Winkleman Much like to the Chalde paraphrase Put her away and cover not thy hatred with a pretense that thou lovest her and keepest her and makest her a drudge Vatablus is singular as if their fault were that they put away their Wives and covered their iniquity under a garment that is discovered not their fault as the Law required they should and so wanting a formall bill of divorce they were made uncapable of a second marriage and so they added to the injury Some take it for an Ironic Put her away doe so but thy sinne shall overtake thee All these mistake the sense I rest in that above The Lord hates needlesse divorces and the more when the Law is pretended for one that is the man that doth this doth but daube and colour and cloake his sin His iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oppression or injury or wrong So Genes 16.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My wrong be upon thee 2. The dehortation is againe repeated Therefore take heed to your spirit that yee deale not treacherously of which before And thus much of the 4th Contestation V. The fifth Contestation Fiftly hee contests with them for their contumelie and blasphemy against God and his providence as if God were not just or tooke no notice of the affaires of men verse 17. to ver 7. of cap. 3. where observe 1. Their blasphemy ver 17. 2. The answer that is made unto it chap. 3. verse 12 3 4 5 6. First Vers 17 their blasphemy and unworthy contumelies against God verse 17. Yee have wearied the Lord with your words yet yee say wherein have wee wearied him When yee say every one that doth evill is good in the sight of the Lord and hee delighteth in him or Where is the God of Iudgment you have added this sinne to the rest that by your Atheisticall conceits and blasphemous speeches ye have wearied and vexed me saith the Lord in that you call in question my being and my justice and my providence Yee have wearied the Lord Lxx provoked Chald. Molested or cumbred The Tigur and Arias wearied and toyled Vatabl. Troubled Wee have the same word Esay 43.24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities Which is further set out in the words next before Thou hast made mee to serve with thy sins So here yee have wearied and toyld mee that I am weary I cannot beare your words Yee say he that doth evill is good in the sight of the Lord that is accepted and approved of him An usuall phrase among the Hebrews which is cleare by the next And he delighteth in him An high accusation of God for injustice that hee should justifie the wicked nay more take pleasure in him Or where c. Or is either a new accusation of God yee say thus he delights in the wicked or yee say thus where is the God c. Or else it is their proofe that they bring of their former accusation of Gods Justice he delights in the wicked or else where is the God of judgement or as the French Otherwise where is the God of judgment If hee did not delight in him he would punish him Where is the God of judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demonstrative hath great Emphasis where is the God of that 1 of that great exact free just precise impartiall judgment which respects neither persons nor gifts but onely justice as his Character is usually given by the Prophets where is he Lxx the God of righteousnesse Chald. The God who doth judgment This was their sin their blasphemy against God We have in the next Chapter Secondly the answer that is made unto their blasphemy Vers 1 Chap. 3. ver 1. to the 7th Yee say where is the God of judgemēt It shal appeare sayth the Lord that I am the God of judgment when the Messiah shall come into the World as he shall come shortly who shall dispense mercy and comfort to the godly but judgment and evill to evillmen S. Hierom also and Theodoret allow of this context and resolution Wee have this layd downe in a prophecy of Christ and his Fore-runner the comming of them both 1. The comming of the Fore-runner the Baptist 2. The comming of the Messia I. The cōming of the Fore-runner Part of the 1. ver where 1. His comming 2. His worke 1. His comming Behold I will send my Messenger Behold to the question which it appeares by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the demonstrative they would have to bee taken notice of they receive an answer which carries with it a note of Pregnancy used by the Prophets concerning things eminent and certaine to make men attent I will send It may bee taken to bee the speach of Christ himselfe according to that of Luc. 1.76 Where Iohn Baptist is called his Prophet or the speech of God as it is Mat. 11 10. My messenger or Angel for so it is in the He. of which see before Ch. 1.1 Ch. 2.7 See also Dan. Heinsius his Exercit. Sacrae lib. 5. Cap. 4. in Act. 7.53 in which place and Gal. 3.19 and Heb. 2.2 by Angels hee understands the Prophets as hee doth also 1 Tim. 3.16 exercit lib. 14. cap. 3. To me I confesse a new exposition of those places having sometime heretofore In a briefe comment on some part to the Galatians given an other interpretation which the Reader if hee please may there see though I have there also noted that the exposition which is now offered by that most learned Heinsius was anciently St. Ambros his If any shall vouchsafe to see my reasons for interpreting the word Angels properly in that place of Gal. 3.19 Let him please also to correct an error in the same page 163. where whether it were through the mistake of the Printer or the transcriber of my Copy
12 13. ad 20. See also many things to the purpose of this place in Gabr. Pennot Propugnac hum libert lib. 10. Ioh Wolphius in Addit ad Pet. Mart. 2. in Reg. 21. pag. 404. and in Weems Degen sonnes The Magitian Secondly and against the Adulterer The Lxx translate it into the feminine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adulteresses 'T is the Mascul in the Hebr. Under this head also may bee referred all the sinnes usually treated of by Divines and Casuists under the 7th Commandement A sinne sentenced and severely punished by the Lawes of Nations even the very heathen for the Athenians Lacedemonians Romans See Plutarch in Parall passim For other Nations Alex. ab Alex. Genial Dier lib. 4. cap. 1. and Rhodigin lect Antiqu. lib. 21. c. 45.47 For the old French it is a notable story which is related by Ioh. Tritenhemius de Orig. Francorum pag. 304 in the first Tome of the Opus Historicum at Basil collected by Simon Schardius as is thought and conjectured by the Printer of Basan the King and highpriest of the Sicambri who were ancestors to the French that as his Lawes were severe against adultery and other like crimes so hee also was so strict in the execution of them that hee caused a sword and an halter to bee caried before him whithersoever he went and finding an accusation to bee true against his owne sonne Sedanus that hee had committed adultery he judged him to death and when his Nobles entreated him to reverse his sentence he said Strive not against justice you may sooner restraine the wind from blowing in the ayre then turne Basanus mind aside from the law And turning to his sonne hee said I kill thee not my sonne but the law which thou hast broken And therewithall in zeale to justice hee slew him with his owne hand This was about 280 yeares before Christ But especially for our owne ancestors the old Saxons it is an observable testimony which Corn. Tacitus Descr Germ. gives of their severity against this sinne upon which place Andr. Althanner and Jodocus Vuillichius in their commentaries upon Tacitus doe take occasion and justly too in my opinion to condemne the Remissenes of this age in punishing more sharpely what those times of ignorance did abhorre But I would rather in this point commend unto the Reader that zealous and effectuall Epistle of our country man Boniface Arch Bishop of Mentz unto Aethelbald King of the Mercians here in England where he relates that severity of the Saxons and urgeth much against this sinne The Epistle is in the Magdenburg Centur. Cent. 8. cap. 9. and from them in Mt. Fox Martyrol And it seemes there was much need of sharpe writing at that time when the people generally by the Kings example were given unto this sinne and like fed Horses neighing after their neighbours wives as appeares by another Epistle from the said Boniface to Heresfrid a godly Priest who as it seemes was sometimes called to preach in the Court of Aethelbald and might worke upon him Thirdly And against false Swearers Lxx that sweare by my Name upon a lye Pagnin that sweare lyingly Vulg. perjurers What the sinne is and how great see the Casuists and others on the third Commandement And how God hath punished it if there were no other example the lamentable issue of the battell at Varus where Vladistans the King of Hungary and Iulian the Cardinall were miserably defeated by the Turke will bee a sufficient monument to all succeeding times We have also two pregnant instances in Eadmerus his Historia Novorum published by the learned Selden lib. 1. pag. 5 6 lib. 5. page 124 125. But the sinne here is not onely Perjury when an oath taken is not kept but the very taking of a false oath So Piscator according to the Hebr. That sweare unto a false thing It may bee rendred adverbially That sweare falsely and to that sense our translation A sinne it is of an high nature for first there is a lie and then an oth made upon a lye Fourthly And against those that oppresse or defraud the hireling in his wages The Geneva That wrongfully keepe back the heirelings wages The Vulg. Who make cavills to detaine wages The Chald. and Lxx Who take away wages by violence and so Pagn The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will beare all these It is to defraud by calumny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by guile or by force This was Labans sinne Iacob complaines of him that he dealt hardly with him and deceived him and changed his wages ten times Genes 31.7.41 He changed his wages ten times that is often as the phrase is taken Numb 14.22 Iob. 19.3 Or it may bee he did indeed ten times in Iacobs sixe yeares service change his wages which by agreement was to arise from the Lambes that were yeaned which in Mesopotamia which was the Country where Iacob kept Labans flock yeaned twice a yeere but Laban partly thorough covetousnesse and partly through envy at Iacobs thriving might haply every half yeare be altering the agreement which was S. Augustines conjecture and is followed by Iunius and Pareus though they followed not his mistake occasioned by the Septuagint in reading the place Thou hast deceived me of my wages in ten lambs Of which see Sixt. Amama in his Antibarb Biblic pag. 427 428 who censures both the reading and the interpretation But to mee what ever becomes of the Reading yet it seemes the interpretation may stand good This sinne cryes in the eares of God Iam. 5.4 and hath a woe against it Ierem. 22.13 and was specially provided against in the law under Moses Deut. 24.14 15. The wages of the labourer must be payed as soon as hee hath done his worke because hee setteth his heart upon or lifteth his soule unto it that is he hath no other liveliehood nothing else whereby to maintaine his life or to trust unto Fifthly And against those that oppresse the widow the fatherles So I reade it with this supply though the verb bee not againe repeated but is to be repeated from the former member to make the sense cleare The Lxx Against them who oppresse widdowes by their power and strike or beate the fatherlesse The Widow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The solitary or silent or forsaken as Ierem. 51.5 Israel hath not been Hebr. widdowed forsaken and Esa 13.22 Desolate houses are called in Heb. Widowes See the metaphor Lament 1.1 which is like unto that of Virgil Aeneid 8. tam multis viduasset civibus urbem See Genes 38.11.14.2 Sam. 20.3 Esay 47.8 or the Widow in the Hebr. is called Silent because her husband being dead shee cannot so well speake in her owne cause or for her owne defence Therefore Gods care of Widowes was alwayes great Exod. 22.22 Deut. 10.18 and 24 17. Psal 49.9 and 68.5 Ierom. 49.11 And in the Christian Church the Apostles tooke care of them and specially for their sakes ordained Deacons who might see that they should
marvell when most parents care onely for their owne bodies and not for their soules How should they care for the soules of their children seeing charity ever begins at home To them the Prophet speaketh at least by way of allusion as it is applyed by some of the learned Haggai 1.2.4 They say it is not yet time to looke to Gods house and his worke that when they are old they are afraid to be young Saints they or theirs they let Gods house lye waste and his field grow over with weeds the soules of themselves and their children If they would consider their wayes in their hearts they should finde God plagues us for this sinne as for others verse 6.7 If any man should hang thy house and adorne it with cloath of gold and hanging of Arras and should compell thee to sit naked in ashes wouldst thou take it well thou wouldst not Now not another but thou thy selfe adornest the house of thy soule with gold and pearles and suffers thy soule to sit in filthinesse and corruption so of thy children How shall God take it at thy hands Knowest thou not that the Prince of the Citie ought to be magnifically deckt Chrysost de diversis hom 70. Let every man then remit off his care for the one and increase it for the other And let it not be true in this that the Kings work and the Church worke is most negligently looked to But as Kish Sauls father ceased earing for the Asses and cared for Saul who must be King so for the soule seeke to have it nourished and decked and adorned And wherefore one Because he sought a godly seed The end of marriage noted and the reason why still God appoints but one for one and hath not allowed Bygamy or Polygamy but codemnes it Of which then first Polygamy is simply wicked impious and unlawfull this is Doctrine for a man to have two or moe wives or one woman two or moe husbands The learned make two kinds of Polygamy first when a man hath two wives but successively one after the death of the other touching which now there is no controversie neither ever was it sinne in the Court of Conscience how heretically soever Tertullian after his fall disputeth against it or how hotly soever Hierom opposeth it under the name of Bygamy against Iovinian and others Secondly when one man hath two or many wives and è contra of which is here spoken and condemned Further it is condemned by the Scripture Gen. 2.24 Cleave to his wife not wives Hier they one flesh one cannot be so with many And if any except that two is not there expressed he may finde it Matth. 19.5 Further vers 9. And if he that puts her away may not doe it what he that keeps her If adultery in the one how not in the other Prov. 5.18.19 None of which can be if many wives be taken 1 Cor. 7.2 To avoid fornication let every man have his wife and let every woman have her owne husband His wife saith the Apostle not wives and her owne or proper husband not such an one as is common to her and another Ephes 5.25 Christ had and hath but one Church So Ierome reasoneth against Iovinian inveighing against Lamech the first Polygamist who as he saith had divided one rib into two Reasons against this besides that the Spirit of God hath here set downe we adde these First no man may take that which is anothers and give it to another without the knowledge and consent of him that is owner of it Now the man hath not power over his owne body but his wife 1 Cor. 7.4 And if it may be supposed she may remit her right besides that she hath no power to it for God gave it her but for herselfe and not to translate it whither she will In God himselfe remaines the full right who will not remit it if she will Secondly they must not defraud one another of their company fellowship and due benevolence 1 Cor. 7. But this they must needs doe if they have many So we may see it Gen. 30.15 Thirdly because the love betwixt them ought to be in the highest degree being one flesh and one bone In respect of her he ought to love none else Now friendship and love in the highest degree saith S. Augustine by the light of reason cannot be betwixt many for the more it is extended to many there must needs be remission of it towards every one And in Polygamy it is manifest that for the love of one the rest are contemned and made as hand-maids to her and she onely ruleth Fourthly because heathen men by the light of nature have condemned it though some of them did practise it as Laban Gen. 31.50 If thou shalt vex my daughters or shalt take wives besides my daughters there is no man with us behold God is witnesse between thee and me Also the Roman Emperours Dioclesian and Maximian decreed that none under the power of the Romanes should have two wives seeing that in the edict of the Pretor such a man is to be accounted infamous Divers such lawes there are so that Arcadius and Honorius would not permit the Jewes their Polygamy Socrat. hist lib. 4. cap. 26. edit Christopher p. 672. onely Socrates reporteth in his Eccles hist lib. 4.31 that Valentinian having Severa married Iustina And to cover his filthinesse made an Act that it might be lawfull for a man to have two wives but that law was rejected and condemned afterwards and that very shortly This being a truth Vse 1 serves to confute all of the contrary minde as sometime was that Apostata Bernard Ochin who hath written certaine dialogues and laboured to establish this against the word of God Infinite it were to trouble you with all yet some The greatest is the examples of many of the holy Fathers as recorded in the Scripture who had many wives and are no where reproved I answer First it followes not Their reproofe is not set downe therefore it was not for seeing the Prophet Malachy reproves it why may it not be supposed others did so Besides many things were done that we never finde reproved which argues not the lawfulnesse of them The incest of Iacob and Lot Davids judgement against Mephibosheth and with Siba and such like Thirdly if it were not yet we live by precept not example Fourthly the multitude nor the greatnesse of offenders will excuse neither can antiquity prescribe against the word of God But as for the Fathers it is answered by the learned First that God remitted his law to them which appeares say they because he neither reproved it by his Prophets neither did he at the publishing of the Law expressely condemne it as he did some others as incest Levit. 19. before they thinke Iacobs marriage of two sisters was lawfull therefore he remitted his law yet so as they were not without all sinne in it For sinne they consider either as an aberration
inveterate trade of sinning From mine Ordinances Vulg. A legitimis meis that is as they tell us who being bound to receive the vulgar Latine as Authentick doe study to make the best sense of it a legibus meis You are gon from my lawes The Tigur My Statutes Pagn My institutes The things which I have described drawne out constituted of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. That they would not yet bee convinced which is urged I. By a declaration of Gods Grace in exhorting them and encouraging them to Repentance 1. Exhorting them Returne unto me saith the Lord that is by Repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among many other uses that it is put unto signifies to repent as Deut. 30.2 1 Kings 8.33.35 Lam. 3.40 Hos 7.16 and in many Texts God though he might consume them offers them mercy and shewes them a meanes to prevent his wrath II. Encouraging them And I will returne unto you saith the Lord that is I will shew you favour This is another use and signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it is applyed unto God So Zach. 1.3 2. By their stiffenesse and difficulty to be convinced But yee say wherein shall we returne As if they were righteous and needed no repentance This is the nature of man to make contradiction to Gods grace and resistance to the motions of Gods Spirit either convincing the world of sinne or perswading to obedience And this people did alwayes so as Saint Stephen testifies of them Act. 7.51 and the Apostle Rom. 10.21 To Israel he saith all day long I have stretched forth my hands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the disobedient or unperswadeable and againsaying people So the translation of the Septuagint whom Saint Paul followed did with severall words expresse that which in the Hebrew text Esa 65.2 is delivered in one A rebellious people But thus much of the sixth Contestation VII The seventh Contestation Seventhly hee contests with them for their Sacriledge vers 8 9 10 11 12. both I. Arguing against their sinne vers 8. and 2. Expostulating with them that it were better for them yea even in their outward estates to deale righteously with God vers 9 10 11 12. I. He argues against their sinne vers Verse 8 8. 1. From a ground of equitie 2. By an application of their fact unto the ground 1. He argues from a generall ground of right and equitie Will a man rob God Yet ye have robbed mee Will fraile weake man Adam doe violence unto or defraud Elohim the great and mighty God Yet you have done so Robbe The French Pillage Geneva Spoile will a man spoile God So also Pagn and Vatab. Crucifie wound or pierce so the Vulgar and the Tigurine and that is indeed the first signification of the originall word So the Translator of the New Test into the Syriack useth the word Coloss 2.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And nayled or pierced it unto his Crosse But by a Metaphor it signifies to Oppresse or To rob or To spoile as Prov. 22.53 The Lxx. here taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a Metathesis for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is To supplant or Deceive reade Will a man supplant his God But in the sense there is an agreement Will a man or is it fit that a man should grieve defraud pierce or spoile his God as you doe who rob his Priests and Ministers of their maintenance whereby you undermine and overthrow even Religion it selfe and Gods worship When the portions of the Levites were not given them the Levites and Singers that did the worke of Gods house fled every one to his field and so Gods work that is his worship was left undone as Nehemiah observed Neh. 13.10 The truth is When the Ministers of God are kept under the burden of Poverty The Lords work is either not done or done deceitfully when the Priests are forced to comply with their humors from whom they expect their maintenance and so serve not God but them flattering them that feed them as it is Micah 3.5 They bite with their teeth and cry peace which I interpret according to the Chalde Paraphrase He that maketh them a feast of flesh to him they preach peace But hee that putteth not into their mouths they even prepare war against him And so they make the people to erre And it cannot bee otherwise whiles as it is in the eleventh verse of that chapter The Priests teach for hire and the Prophets divine for money that is are faine to maintaine themselves with sordid and unworthy flatteries To prevent which it was a most pious and commendable care in King Hezekiah which is recorded 2. Chron. 31.4 He commanded the people that dwelt in Ierusalem to give the portion of the Priests and Levites that they might attend upon the Law of the Lord so the Vulg. That they might confirme themselves in executing the Law of the Lord. So Tremel but as we reade that they might be encouraged in the Law of the Lord. Dependancie and expectation of arbitrary maintenance is a great Alay to the purer temper and spirit and zeale that ought to be in them that serve at the Lords Altar in whom according to the usuall Apothegme of a reverend Divine of ours Innocencie and Independencie breeds the best courage And by such is God best served The scandals that are given by Ministers doe much diminish the reputation of Religion and undermine it but Scandalous livings are a great cause of Scandalous Ministers Which was the observation of a learned Gentleman and worthy member of the House of Commons in the Parliament Anno 1628. who also promised that he would never give over solliciting the cure and remedie of this while Parliaments and he should live together And well may he or some other effectually pursue it especially having so much encouragement in it by the pietie and tendernesse of our present Religious and most gracious Soveraigne who according to the example of his Royall Father for planting a setled competencie for the Churches throughout Scotland hath shewed so much readinesse and gracious disposition this way that as he deserves it I doubt not but such as shall deliver his reigne hereafter to posterity will among his other vertues give him this Title The Patron and Father of his poore and injuried Clergie and will mention that great Councellour of his in Ecclesiasticall matters with his due honour for promoving it in him with so much zeale to the welfare of this Church But of this obitèr and Currente calame 2. He argues against their sin by an application of their fact unto that ground of generall right Yet yee have robbed mee But yee say Wherein have we robbed thee In Tythes and in Offerings They deny the Assumption and he proves it That they robbed him because they dealt deceitfully about the portion of his Priests The Tythes he had of old assigned unto them There were three sorts of Tythes The first were given to the