his observation be sound it may then well pass for a double mercy of God to a sinner if he both respite his destruction and withal restrain him from sin for by the one he giveth him so much longer time for repentance which is one Mercy and by the other he preventeth so much of the increase of his sin which is another Mercy Thirdly it may be called Grace in respect of other men For in restraining men from doing evil God intendeth as principally his own glory so withal the good of mankind especially of his Church in the preservation of humane society which could not subsist an hour if every man should be left to the wildness of his own nature to do what mischief the Devil and his own heart would put him upon without restraint So that the restraining of mens corrupt purposes and affections proceedeth from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle somewhere calleth it that love of God to mankind whereby he willeth their preservation and might therefore in that respect bear the name of grace though there should be no good at all intended thereby to the Persons so restrained Just as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those spiritual gifts which God hath distributed in a wonderful variety for the edifying of his Church though they oftentimes bring no good to the receiver are yet stiled graces in the Scriptures because the distribution of them proceedeth from the gracious love and favour of God to his Church whose benefit he intended therein God here restrained Abimelech as elsewhere he did Laban and Esau and Balaam and others not so much for their own sakes though perhaps sometimes that also as for their sakes whom they should have injured by their sins if they had acted them As here Abimelech for his chosen Abraham's sake and Laban and Esau for his servant Iacob's sake and Balaam for his people Israel's sake As it is said in Psal. 105. and that with special reference as I conceive it to this very story of Abraham He suffered no man to do them wrong but reproved even Kings for their sakes saying Touch not mine anointed and do my Prophets no harm He reproved even Kings by restraining their power as here Abimelech but it was for their sakes still that so Sarah his anointed might not be touched nor his Prophet Abraham sustain any harm We see now the Observation proved in all the points of it 1. Men do not always commit those evils they would and might do 2. That they do not it is from Gods restraint who with-holdeth them 3. That restraint is an act of his merciful providence and may therefore bear the name of Grace in respect of God who freely giveth it of them whose sins and stripes are the fewer for it of others who are preserved from harm the better by it The Inferences we are to raise from the Premisses for our Christian Practice and comfort are of two sorts for so much as they may arise from the consideration of Gods Restraining Grace either as it may lye upon other men or as it may lye upon our selves First From the consideration of Gods restraint upon others the Church and Children and servants of God may learn to whom they owe their preservation even to the power and goodness of their God in restraining the fury of his and their enemies We live among Scorpions and as sheep in the midst of Wolves and they that hate us without a cause and are mad against us are more in number than the hairs of our heads And yet as many and as malicious as they are by the mercy of God still we are and we live and we prosper in some measure in despight of them all Is it any thanks to them None at all The seed of the Serpent beareth a natural and an immortal hatred against God and all good men and if they had horns to their curstness and power answerable to their wills we should not breath a minute Is it any thanks to our selves Not that neither we have neither number to match them nor policy to defeat them nor strength to resist them weak silly little flock as we are But to whom then is it thanks As if a little flock of sheep escape when a multitude of ravening Wolves watch to devour them it cannot be ascribed either in whole or in part either to the sheep in whom thereis no help or to the Wolf in whom there is no mercy but it must be imputed all and wholly to the good care of the shepherd in safe-guarding his sheep in keeping off the Wolf so for our safety and preservation in the midst and in the spight of so many Enemies Not unto us O Lord not unto us whose greatest strength is but weakness much less unto them whose tendrest mercies are cruel but unto thy Name be the Glory O thou Shepherd of Israel who out of thine abundant love to us who are the flock of thy Pasture and the sheep of thy hands hast made thy power glorious in curbing and restraining their malice against us Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness and declare the wonders that he doth for the children of men Wonders we may well call them indeed they are Miracles if things strange and above and against the ordinary course of Nature may be called Miracles When we read the stories in the Scripture of Daniel cast into the Den among the Lions and not touched of the three Children walking in the midst of the fiery furnace and not scorched of a viper fastning upon Pauls hand and no harm following we are stricken with some amazement at the consideration of these strange and supernatural accidents and these we all confess to be miraculous escapes Yet such Miracles as these and such escapes God worketh daily in our preservation notwithstanding we live encompassed with so many fire-brands of hell such herds of ravening Wolves and Lions and Tygers and such numerous generations of vipers I mean wicked and ungodly men the spawn of the old Serpent who have it by kind from their father to thirst after the destruction of the Saints and servants of God and to whom it is as natural so to do as for the fire to burn or a Viper to bite or a Lion to devour O that men would therefore praise the Lord for this his goodness and daily declare these his grea◠wonders which he daily doth for the children of men Secondly since this restraint of wicked men is so only from God as that nothing either they or we or any Creature in the world can do can with-hold them from doing us mischief unless God lay his restraint upon them it should teach us so much wisdom as to take heed how we trust them It is best and safest for us as in all other things so in this to keep the golden mean that we be
of both Laws Civil and Canon with the vast Tomes of Glosses Repertories Responses and Commentaries thereon and take in the Reports and year-books of our Common-Law to boot for Divinity get through a course of Councils Fathers School men Casuists Expositors Controversers of all sorts and Sects When all is done after much weariness to the flesh and in comparison thereof little satisfaction to the mind for the more knowledge we gain by all this travel the more we discern our own Ignorance and thereby but encrease our own sorrow the short of all is this and when I have said it I have done You shall evermore find try it when you will Temperance the best Physick Patience the best Law and A good Conscience the best Divinity I have done Now to God c. AD AULAM. The Tenth Sermon WHITE-HALL at a publick Fast JULY 8. 1640. Psal. 119. 75. I know O Lord that thy Iudgments are right and that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled 1. IN which words the holy Prophet in two several Conclusions giveth unto God the Glory of those two his great Attributes that shine forth with so much lustre in all the Works of his Providence his Iustice and his Mercy The glory of his Iustice in the former conclusion I know O Lord that thy judgments are right the glory of his Mercy in the latter And that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled And to secure us the better of the truth of both Conclusions because flesh and blood will be ready to stumble at both We have his Scio prefixed expresly to the former only but the speech being copulative intended to both I know O Lord that thy judgments are right and I know also that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled Our order must be to begin with the Conclusions first as they lie in the Text and after that to proceed to David's knowledg of them although that stand first in the order of the words In the former Conclusion we have to consider of Two things First what these judgments of God are that David here speaketh of as the Subject and then of the righteousness thereof as the Praedicate I know O Lord that thy judgments are right 2. What Iudgments first There are judicia oris and there are judici◠operis the judgments of Gods mouth and the judgments of Gods hands Of the former there is mention at Verse 13. With my lips have I been telling of all the judgments of thy mouth And by these Iudgments are meant nothing else but the holy Law of God and his whole written Word which every where in this Psalm are indifferently called his Statutes his Commandments his Precepts his Testimonies his Iudgments And the Laws of God are therefore amongst other reasons called by the name of Iudgments because by them we come to have a right judgment whereby to discern between Good and Evil. We could not otherwise with any certainty judg what was meet for us to do and what was needful for us to shun A lege tuâ intellexi at verse 104. By thy Law have I gotten understanding St. Paul confesseth Rom. 7. that he had never rightly known what sin was if it had not been for the Law and he instanceth in that of lust which he had not known to be a sin if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet And no question but these judgments these judicia oris are all right too for it were unreasonable to think that God should make that a rule of right to us which were it self not right We have both the name that of judgments and the thing too that they are right in the 19th Psalm Where having highly commended the Law of God under the several appellations of Law Testimonies Statutes and Commandments ver 7 and 8. the Prophet then concludeth under this name of Iudgments ver 9. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether 3. Besides these Iudicia Oris which are Gods judgments of directions there are also Iudicia Operis which are his judgments for correction And these do ever include aliquid poenale something inflicted upon us by Almighty God as it were by way of punishment something that breedeth us Trouble or Grief The Apostle saith Heb. 12. that every chastening is grievous and so it is more or less or else it could be to us no punishment And these again are of two sorts yet not distinguished so much by the things themselves that are inflicted as by the condition of the persons on whom they are inflicted and especially by the Affection and Intention of God that inflicteth them For all whether publick calamities that light upon whole Nations Cities or other greater or lesser Societies of men such as are Pestilences Famine War Inundations unseasonable Weather and the like or private Afflictions that light upon particular Families or Persons as sickness poverty disgraces injuries death of friends and the like All these and whatsoever other of either kind may undergo a two-fold consideration in either of both which they may not unfitly be termed the Iudgments of God though in different respects 4. For either these things are sent by Almighty God in his heavy displeasure as Plagues upon his Enemies intending therein their destruction Such as were those publick judgments upon the Old World swept away with the flood upon Sodom and the other Cities consumed with fire from Heaven upon Pharaoh and his Host over-whelmed in the Red Sea upon the Canaanites spewed out of the Land for their abominations upon Ierusalem at the final destruction thereof by the Romans And those private judgments also that befel sundry particular persons as Cain Absolon Senacherib Herod and others Or else they are laid by Almighty God as gentle Corrections upon his own Children in his Fatherly love towards them and for their good to chastise them for their strayings to bring them to repentance for their sins to make them more observant and careful of their duty thence-forward to exercise their Faith and Patience and other Graces and the like Such as were those distresses that befel the whole people of Israel sundry times under Moses and in the days of their Iudges and Kings and those particular Trials and Afflictions wherewith Abraham and Ioseph and Iob and David and Paul and other the holy Saints and Servants of God were exercised in their times 5. Both the one sort and the other are called Iudgments but as I said in different respects and for different reasons Those former Plagues are called Gods Iudgments because they come from God not as a loving and merciful Father but as a just and severe Iudg who proceeding according to course of Law giveth sentence against a malefactor to cut him off And therefore this kind of judgment David earnestly deprecateth Psal. 143. Enter not into judgment with thy servant for then neither can I nor any flesh living be
glorifie God And then two Amplifications thereof the one respecting the person whom they were to glorifie thus described God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ the other respecting the manner how or the means whereby they were to glorifie him with one mind and with one mouth Of which in their order the End first and then the Amplifications 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That ye may glorifie God We must a little search into the words that we may the more fully understand them The first word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though but a Particle hath its use It pointeth us out to some end or final cause Would St. Paul have so bestirred himself as he doth spent so much breath so much oratory so many arguments been so copious and so earnest as he is by his best both persuasions and prayers to draw all parts to unity if he had not conceived it conducible to some good end He that doth not propose to himself some main end in all his Actions especially those that are of moment and such as he will make a business of is not like either to go on with any good certainty or to come off with any sound comfort There would be ever some fixt end or other thought of in all our undertakings and endeavours 4. And so there is most an end Nature it self prompting us thereunto but for the most part our Nature being so foully depraved a wrong one Omnes quae sua he speaketh of it complainingly as of an error that is common among men and in a manner universal All seek their own seldom look beyond themselves but make their own profit their own pleasure their own glory their own safety or other their own personal contentment the utmost end of all their thoughts Which upon the point is no better than very Atheism or at the best and that but a very little better Idolatry He that doth all for himself and hath no farther End make an Idol of himself and hath no other God The ungodly is so proud that he careth not for God neither is God in all his thoughts Psal. 10. He is so full of himself his thoughts are so wholly taken up with himself that there is no room there for God or any thing else but himself But this self-seeking St. Paul every where disclaimeth Not seeking his own profit 1 Cor. 10. Nor counting his life dear unto himself so as he might do God and his Church any acceptable service either with it or without it Act. 20. If he had looked but at himself and his own things what need the dissention of the Romans have troubled him any thing at all If they be so minded let them go to it hardly judge on and despise on tug it out among themselves as well as they can bite and devour one another till they had wearied and worried one another what is that to him It would be much more for his ease and possibly he should have as much thanks from them too for to part a fray is most what a thankless office to sit him down let them alone and say nothing This is all true and this he knew well enough too But there was a farther matter in it he saw his Lord and Master had had an Interest his honour suffered in their dissentions and then he could not hold off 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his Phrase is twice in one Chapter he could not for his life forbear but he must put in for the love of Christ constrained him We are by his example to make God our chiefest good and the utmost end of all our actions and intentions Not meerly seeking our own credit or profit or ease or advancement nor determining our aims in our selves or in any other Creature But raising our thoughts to an higher pitch to look beyond all these at God as the chief delight of our hearts and scope of our desires That we may be able to say with David Psal. 16. I have set the Lord alway before me That is a second Point 5. And if we do so the third will fall in of it self to wit his Glory for he and it are inseparable The greatest glory on earth is that of a mighty King when he appeareth in state his robes glorious his attendants glorious every thing about him ordered to be as glorious as may be Solomon in all his glory Mat. 6. There is I grant no proportion here finiti ad infinitum But because we are acquainted with no higher it is the best resemblance we have whereby to take some scantling of the infinite glory of our heavenly King And therefore the Scriptures fitted to our capacity speak of it to us mostly in that key The Lord is King and hath put on glorious apparel Psal. 93. O Lord my God thou art become exceeding glorious thou art cloathed with Majesty and honour Psal. 104. But as I said before it holdeth no proportion So that we may not unfitly take up our Apostles words elsewhere though spoken to another purpose Even that which is most glorious here hath no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth 2 Cor. 3. 10. And the force of the Argument he useth at the next verse there holdeth full out as strongly here For saith he if that which is done away be glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious The glory of the greatest Monarch in the world when it is at the fullest is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word fitteth the thing very well a matter rather of shew and opinion than of substance and hath in it more of fancy than reality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is St. Luke's expression Acts 25. Yet as emptie a thing as it is if it were of any permanency it were worthy the better regard But that that maketh it the verier vanity is that it is a thing so transitory it shall and must be done away But the glory of the great King of Heaven remaineth and shall not cannot be done away for ever The glorious Majesty of the Lord endureth for ever Psal. 104. If then that be glorious much more this but how much more is more than any tongue can utter or heart conceive So that if we look at God we cannot leave out Glory 6. Neither if we speak of Glory may we leave out God and that is a fourth Point For as no other thing belongeth so properly to God as Glory so neither doth Glory belong so properly to any other person as to God The holy Martyr St. Stephen therefore calleth him The God of Glory And the holy Apostles when they speak of giving him glory do it sometimes with the exclusive Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the only wise God or as the words will equally bear it only to the wise God be Glory to him and only to him Yea and the holy Angels in that Anthem they sang upon our
Saviours birth when they shared heaven and earth their several portions alloted us our part in peace and the good will of God but with reservation of the whole glory to him Glory be to God on high and in earth peace and towards men good will It is well and happy for us if we may enjoy our own peace and his good will full little have we deserved either of both but much rather the contrary but we were best take heed how we meddle with his glory All other things he giveth us richly to enjoy many a good gift and perfect giving He hath not with-held from us any thing that was his and useful for us no not his only begotten Son excepted the best gift that ever was given and a pledge of all the rest Yea and he will give us a kind of glory too the Lord will give grace and glory Psal. 84. and that not a light one neither nor fading away but such as neither eye nor ear nor heart of man can comprehend so massie and so durable an eternal and exceeding weight of glory But that divine infinite incomprehensible glory that belongeth to him as supream King of kings as his peculiar Prerogative and the choicest flower in his Crown of that he is most jealous in that he will brook no sharer And he hath made known to us his royal pleasure in that point Isa. 42. My glory will I not give to another 7. He will part with none you see it seemeth rather fifthly by the form of the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he looketh for some from us For what else is it to glorifie but to make one glorious by conferring some glory upon him which he had not or not in that degree before And to God how can that be done whose glory is perfect essential and infinite and to what is perfect much less to what is infinite can nothing be added What a great admirer of Virgil said of him tanta Maronis gloria ut nullius laudibus crescat nullius vituperatione minuatur was but a flaunting hyperbole far beyond the merit of the party he meant it to But the like speech would be most exquisitely true of him of whom we now speak indeed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather than an hyperbole Whose Glory is truly such as all the creatures in the world should they joyn their whole forces together to do it could not make it either more or less than it is 8. We must therefore of necessity forsake the proper signification of the word Glorifie which is to add some glory to another either in specie or in gradu which before he had not and understand it in such a sence as that the thing meant thereby may be feasible And so to glorifie God is no more than to shew forth his glory and to manifest to our own consciences and to the world how highly we praise and esteem his glory and how earnestly we desire and as much as in us lieth endeavour it that all other men would also with us acknowledge and admire the same Sing praise to the honour of his name make his praise glorious Psal. 66. Not make his essence to be more glorious than it is in it self but make his praise to be more and more glorious in the eye and esteem of men That so his power his glory and mightiness of his Kingdom might be known unto men and that men might ascribe unto the Lord the honour due unto his name and that men might sing in the way of the Lord that great is the glory of the Lord. To endeavour by our thanksgivings confessions faith charity obedience goodworks and perseverance in all these to bring Gods true Religion and Worship into request to win a due reverence to his holy name and word to beget in others more high and honourable thoughts concerning God in all those his most eminent Attributes of Wisdom Power Iustice Mercy and the rest that is in Scripture language to glorifie God 9. One thing more from the Person of the Verb and then you have all It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God may be glorified and so leave it indefinite and uncertain by whom it should be done but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye may glorifie him The thing to be done and they to do it One would think the glorious Angels and Saints in heaven were fitter instruments for such an employment than we poor sinful worms upon earth Very true they in heaven are fitter to do it and it is best done there but there is more need of it upon earth and if it be done here in truth and singleness of heart it is very well accepted Poor things God knoweth our best services are if God should value them but according to their weight and worth But in his mercy and that through Christ he graciously accepteth our unfeigned desires and faithful endeavours according to that truth we have be it never so little and not according to that perfection we want be it never so much Alas what is the tinkling of two little bells in a Country-steeple or the peoples running to the Towns end and crying God save the King to add any honour or greatness to the Majesty of a Potent Monarch Yet will a gracious Prince take those mean expressions of his subjects love as an honour done him because he readeth therein their hearty affections towards him and he knoweth that if they knew how to express themselves better they would So it is here It is not the thing done that is looked at so much as the heart Set that right first and then be the performance what it can be God is both pleased and honoured therewithal Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me Psal. 50. That is so he intendeth it and so I accept it 10. You have now all I would say by way of explication from these words The particulars are six First we should propose to our selves some end Therein Secondly look at God Thirdly that God may have glory and that he alone may have it Fourthly Fifthly that something be done for the advancement of his glory and Lastly that it be done by us The result from the whole six taken together is That the Glory of God ought to be the chiefest end and main scope of all our desires and endeavours In whatever we think say do or suffer in the whole course of our Lives and Actions we should refer all to this look at this as the main Whatsoever become of us and our affairs that yet God may be glorified Whether ye eat or drink saith St. Paul or whatsoever else ye do let all be done to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10. He would have us not only in the performance of good works and of necessary duties to intend the Glory of God according to that of our Saviour Let your light so shine before men that they way see your good
into some such irregularity as made him conscious he had transgressed his Statutes did therefore apprehend the Proctor's invitation as an introduction to punishment the fear of which made his Bed restless that night but at their meeting the next morning that fear vanish'd immediately by the Proctor's chearful countenance and the freedom of their discourse of Friends And let me tell my Reader that this first meeting prov'd the begining of as spiritual a friendship as humane nature is capable of of a friendship free from all self-ends and it continued to be so till death forc'd a separation of it on earth but 't is now reunited in Heaven And now having given this account of his behaviour and the considerable accidents in his Proctorship I proceed to tell my Reader that this busie employment being ended he preach'd his Sermon for his degree of Batchelor in Divinity in as eligant Latin and as remarkable for the method and matter as hath been preached in that University since that day And having well performed his other Exercises for that degree he took it the nine and twentieth of May following having been ordained Deacon and Priest in the year 1611. by Iohn King then Bishop of London who had not long before been Dean of Christ-Church and then knew him so well that he own'd it at his Ordination and became his more affectionate Friend And in this year being then about the 29th of his Age he took from the University a Licence to preach In the year 1618. he was by Sir Nicholas Sanderson Lord Viscount Castleton presented to the Rectory of Wibberton not far from Boston in the County of Lincoln a Living of very good value but it lay in so low and wet a part of that Countrey as was inconsistent with his health And health being next to a good Conscience the greatest of God's blessings in this life and requiring therefore of every man a care and diligence to preserve it and he apprehending a danger of losing it if he continued at Wibberton a second Winter did therefore resign it back into the hands of his worthy Kinsman and Patron about one year after his donation of it to him And about this time of his resignation he was presented to the Rectory of Boothby Pannel in the same County of Lincoln a Town which has been made famous and must continue to be famous because Dr. Sanderson the humble and learned Dr. Sanderson was more than forty years Parson of Boothby Pannel and from thence dated all or most of his matchless Writings To this Living which was of less value but a purer Air then Wibberton he was presented by Thomas Harrington of the same County and Parish Esq a Gentleman of a very ancient Family and of great use and esteem in his Country during his whole life And in this Boothby Pannel the meek and charitable Dr. Sanderson and his Patron liv'd with an endearing mutual and comfortable friendship till the death of the last put a period to it About the time that he was made Parson of Boothby Pannel he resign'd his Fellowship of Lincoln Colledge unto the then Rector and Fellows And his resignation is recorded in these words Ego Robertus Sanderson per c. I Robert Sanderson Fellow of the Colledge of St. Maries and All-Saints commonly call'd Lincoln Colledge in the University of Oxford do freely and willingly resign into the hands of the Rector and Fellows all the Right and Title that I have in the said Colledge wishing to them and their Successors all peace and piety and happiness in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen May 6. 1619. Robert Sanderson And not long after this Resignation he was by the then Bishop of York or the King Sede vacante made Prebend of the Collegiate Church of Southwell in that Diocess and shortly after of Lincoln by the Bishop of that See And being now resolv'd to set down his rest in a quiet privacy at Boothby Pannel and looking back with some sadness upon his removal from his general and chearful Acquaintance left in Oxford and the peculiar pleasures of a University life he could not but think the want of Society would render this of a Country Parson still more uncomfortable by reason of that want of conversation and therefore he did put on some faint purposes to marry For he had considered that though marriage be cumbred with more worldly care than a single life yet a complying and prudent Wife changes those very cares into so mutual Joys as makes them become like the Sufferings of St. Paul which he would not have wanted because they occasion'd his rejoycing in them And he having well considered this and observ'd the secret unutterable joys that Children beget in Parents and the mutual pleasures and contented trouble of their daily care and constant endeavours to bring up those little Images of themselves so as to make them as happy as all those cares and endeavours can make them He having considered all this the hopes of such happiness turn'd his faint purpose into a positive resolution to marry And he was so happy as to obtain Anne the Daughter of Henry Nelson Batchelor in Divinity then Rector of Haugham in the County of Lincoln a man of noted worth and learning And the giver of all good things was so good to him as to give him such a Wife as was sutable to his own desires a Wife that made his life happy by being always content when he was chearful that was always chearful when he was content that divided her joys with him and abated of his sorrow by bearing a part of that burthen a Wife that demonstrated her affection by a chearful obedience to all his desires during the whole course of his life and at his death too for she out-liv'd him And in this Boothby Pannel he either found or made his Parishoners peaceable and complying with him in the constant decent and regular service of God And thus his Parish his Patron and he liv'd together in a religious love and a contented quietness He not troubling their thoughts by preaching high and useless notions but such and only such plain truths as were necessary to be known believed and practised in order to the honour of God and their own salvation And their assent to what he taught was testified by such a conformity to his Doctrine as declared they believed and loved him For it may be noted he would often say That without the last the most evident truths heard as from an Enemy or an evil liver either are not or are at least the less effectual and usually rather harden than convince the hearer And this excellent man did not think his Duty discharged by only reading the Church-Prayers Catechizing Preaching and administring the Sacraments seasonably but thought if the Law or the Canons may seem to injoyn no more yet that God would require more than the defective Laws of man's
office is a certain evidence and manifestation of a Spirit of life within and that maketh it a living Organical body So those active gifts and graces and abilities which are to be found in the members of the mystical body of Christ I know not whether of greater variety or use are a strong manifestation that there is a powerful Spirit of God within that knitteth the whole body together and worketh all in all and all in every part of the body Secondly though we have just cause to lay it to heart when men of eminent gifts and place in the Church are taken from us and to lament in theirs our own and the Churches loss yet we should possess our Souls in patience and sustain our selves with this comfort that it is the same God that still hath care over his Church and it is the same Head Iesus Christ that still hath influence into his members and it is the same blessed Spirit of God and of Christ that still actuateth and animateth this great mystical Body And therefore we may not doubt but this Spirit as he hath hitherto done from the beginning so will still manifest himself from time to time unto the end of the world in raising up instruments for the service of his Church and furnishing them with gifts in some good measure meet for the same more or less according as he shall see it expedient for her in her several different estates and conditions giving some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all meet in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He hath promised long since who was never yet touched with breach of promise that he would be with his Apostles and their successors always unto the end of the World Thirdly where the Spirit of God hath manifested it self to any man by the distribution of gifts it is but reason that man should manifest the Spirit that is in him by exercising those gifts in some lawful Calling And so this manifestation of the Spirit in my Text imposeth upon every man the Necessity of a Calling Our Apostle in the seventh of this Epistle joineth these two together a Gift and a Calling as things that may not be severed As God hath dictributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one Where the end of a thing is the use there the difference cannot be great whether we abuse it or but conceal it The unprofitable Servant that wrapped up his Masters Talent in a napkin could not have received a much heavier doom had he mis-spent it O then up and be doing Why stand ye all the day Idle Do not say because you heard no voice that therefore no man hath called you those very gifts you have received are a Real Call pursuing you with continual restless importunity till you have disposed your selves in some honest course of life or other wherein you may be profitable to humane society by the exercising of some or other of those gifts All the members of the body have their proper and distinct offices according as they have their proper and distinct faculties and from those offices they have also their proper and distinct names As then in the body that is indeed no member which cannot call it self by any other name than by the common name of a member so in the Church he that cannot style himself by any other name than a Christian doth indeed but usurp that too If thou sayest thou art of the body I demand then What is thy office in the Body If thou hast no office in the Body then thou art at the best but Tumor praeter naturam as Physicians call them a Scab or Botch or Wenne or some other monstrous and unnatural excresâ—ency upon the body but certainly thou art no true part and member of the body And if thou art no part of the body how darest thou make challenge to the head by mis-calling thy self Christian If thou hast a Gift get a Calling Fourthly We of the Clergy though we may not ingross the Spirit unto our selves as if none were spiritual persons but our selves yet the voice of the World hath long given us the Name of Spiritualty after a peculiar sort as if we were spiritual persons in some different singular respect from other men And that not altogether without ground both for the name and thing The very name seemeth to be thus used by S. Paul in the 14. Chapter following where at ver 37. he maketh a Prophet and a Spiritual man all one and by Prophesying in that whole Chapter he most what meaneth Preaching If any man think himself to be a Prophet either spiritual let him acknowledge c. But howsoever it be for the Title the thing it self hath very sufficient ground from that form of speech which was used by our blessed Saviour when he conferred the ministerial power upon his Disciples and is still used in our Church at the collation of Holy Orders Accipite Spiritum Sanctum Receive the holy Ghost Since then at our admission into holy Orders we receive a spiritual power by the imposition of hands which others have not we may thenceforth be justly styled Spiritual persons The thing for which I note it is that we should therefore endeavour our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so to stir up those spiritual gifts that are in us as that by the eminency thereof above that which is in ordinary temporal men we may shew our selves to be in deed what we are in name Spiritual persons If we be of the Spiritualty there should be in us anothergates manifestation of the Spirit than is ordinarily to be found in the Temporalty God forbid I should censure all them for intruders into the Ministry that are not gifted for the Pulpit The severest censurers of Non-preaching Ministers if they had livd in the beginning of the Reformation must have been content as the times then stood to have admitted of some thousands of Non-preaching Ministers or else have denied many Parishes and Congregations in England the benefit of so much as bare reading And I take this to be a safe Rule Whatsoever thing the help of any circumstances can make lawful at any time that thing may not be condemned as universally and de toto genere unlawful I judge no mans conscience then or calling who is in the Ministry be his gifts never so slender I dare not deny him the benefit of his Clergy if he can but read if his own heart condemn him not neither do I. But yet this I say As the times now are wherein learning aboundeth even unto wantonness and wherein the world is full of questions and controversies
error and retracting it that you may build better then let it lie on still till a sorer fire catch it Better for any of us all whether in respect of our errours or sins to prevent the Lords judging of us by timely judging our selves than to slack the time till his judgment overtake us 27. The Second Use should be an Admonition to all my Brethren of the Ministry for the time to come and that in the Apostles words 1 Cor. 3. 10. Let every man take heed what he buildeth St. Paul himself was very careful this way not to deliver any thing to the People but what he had received from the Lord. The Prophets of the Lord still delivered their Messages with this Preface Haec dicit Dominus Yea that wretched Balaam though a false Prophet and covetous enough professed yet that if Balak would give him his house full of Silver and Gold he neither durst nor would go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more There is a great proneness in us all to Idolize our own inventions Besides much Ignorance Hypocrisie and Partiality any of which may byass us awry Our Educations may lay such early anticipations upon our judgments or our Teachers or the Books we read or the Society we converse withal may leave such impressions therein as may fill them with prejudice not easily to be removed The golden mean is a hard thing to hit upon almost in any thing without some warping toward one of the extremes either on the right hand or on the left and without a great deal of wisdom and care seldom shall we seek to shun one extreme and not run a little too far towards the other if not quite into it In all which and sundry other respects we may soon fall into gross mistakes and errors if we do not take the more heed whilst we suspect no such thing by our selves but verily believe that all we do is out of pure zeal for Gods Glory and the love of his truth We had need of all the piety and learning and discretion and pains and prayers we have and all little enough without Gods blessing too yea and our own greater care too to keep us from running into Errors and from teaching for doctrines the commandments of men 28. The Third Use should be for Admonition also to all the people of God that they be not hasty to believe every Spirit but to try the Spirits especially when they see the spirits to disagree and clash one with another or find otherwise just cause of suspicion and that as the Beraeans did by the Scriptures Using withal all good subsidiary helps for the better understanding thereof especially those two as the principal the Rule of Right Reason and the known constant judgment and practice of the Universal Church That so they may fan away the Chaff from the Wheat and letting go the refuse hold fast that which is good To this end every man should especially beware that he do not suffer himself to be carried away with names nor to have any mans person either in hatred or admiration but embrace what is consonant to truth and reason though Iudas himself should preach it and reject what even an Angel from Heaven should teach if he have no other reason to induce him to believe it than that he teacheth it 29. The Fourth Use should be for Exhortation to the learneder sort of my Brethren to shew their faithfulness duty and true hearty affection to God and his Truth and Church by maintaining the simplicity of the Christian Faith and asserting the Doctrine of Christian Liberty against all corrupt mixtures of mens inventions and against all unlawful impositions of mens Commandments in any kind whatsoever If other men be zealous to set up their own errors shall we be remiss to hold up Gods Truth God having deposited it with us and committed it to our special trust how shall we be able to answer it to God and the World if we suffer it to be stollen out of the hearts of our people by our silence or neglect Like enough you shall incurr blame and censure enough for so doing as if you sought but your selves in it by seeking to please those that are in authority in hope to get preferment thereby But let none of these things discourage you if you shall not be able by the grace of God in some measure to despise the censures of rash and uncharitable men so long as you can approve your hearts and actions in the sight of God and to break through if need be far greater tryals and discouragements than these you are not worthy to be called the servants of Christ. 30. The last Use should be an humble Supplication to those that have in their hands the ordering of the great affairs of Church and State that they would in their goodness and wisdoms make some speedy and effectual provision to repress the exorbitant licenciousness of these times in Printing and Preaching every man what he list to the great dishonour of God scandal of the Reformed Religion fomenting of Superstition and Error and disturbance of the peace both of Church and Common-wealth Lest if way be still given thereunto those evil Spirits that this late connivence hath raised grow so fierce within a while that it will trouble all the power and wisdom of the Kingdom to conjure them handsomly down again But certainly since we find by late experience what wildness in some of the Lay-people what petulancy in some of the inferior Clergy what insolency in some both of the Laity and Clergy our Land is grown into since the reins of the Ecclesiastical Government have lain a little slack we cannot but see what need we have to desire and pray that the Ecclesiastical Government and Power may be timely setled in some such moderate and effectual way as that it may not be either too much abused by them that are to exercise it nor too much despised by those that must live under it In the mean time so long as things hang thus loose and unsetled I know not better how to represent unto you the present face of the times in some respects than in the words of the Prophet Ieremy The Prophets prophesie lies and the Priests get power into their hands by their means and my people love to have it so And what will you do in the end thereof 31. What the end of these insolencies will be God alone knoweth The increase of Profaneness Riot Oppression and all manner of wickedness on the one side and the growth of Error Novelty and Superstition on the other side are no good signs onward The Lord of his great mercy grant a better end thereunto than either these beginnings or proceedings hitherto portend or our sins deserve And the same Lord of his infinite goodness vouchsafe to dispel from us by the light of his Holy Spirit all blindness and hardness of
to be a certain truth and for any thing I know never gain-said by any that Ahab not only before and after but even in the act and at the instant of this humiliation was an hypocrite Let it be granted secondly which is the thing urged in the doubt that this humiliation of his being performed but in hypocrisie was not acceptable to God as a good work but abominable before him as a foul sin But yet withal it must be granted thirdly that although Ahab did not well in not being humbled with an upright heart yet he had done much worse if he had not been humbled at all And that therefore there was though no true spiritual goodness yet some outward moral goodness in Ahab's humiliation at least so far forth as a thing less evil may in comparison of a worse thing be termed good And then are we to know fourthly that it may stand with Gods holiness as it doth with his goodness and justice to reward outward good things with outward good things and moral and temporary graces with worldly and temporal blessings as here he rewardeth Ahab's temporary and external humiliation with an outward temporal favour viz. the adjourning of an outward temporal judgment That which hence we would observe is That God rewardeth sometimes common graces with common favours temporary obedience with temporal beneficence This is proved unto us first from the general course of Gods justice and his promise grounded upon that justice to reward every man according to his works To which justice of his and to which promise of his it is agreeable as to recompense Spiritual good things with Eternal so to recompense Moral good thing with Temporal rewards 2. From special express warrant of Scripture In Matth. 6. Christ saith of Hypocrites more than once that they have their reward As in the doing of their seeming good works they aim especially at the vain praise and commendation of men so they have the full reward of those works in the vain praise and commendation of men Though they have no right unto nor reason to look for a reward hereafter in heaven yet they have their reward such as it is and all they are like to have here upon earth 3. From particular examples of such as have been temporally rewarded for temporal graces To omit Heathens as Aristides Cyrus c. for Iustice Bias Diogenes c. for contempt of the world Codrus Regulus c. for love of their Country and zeal to the common good and sundry others for other good things whose moral vertues are herein amply rewarded if there were nothing else but this that their names and memories have been preserved in Histories and renowned throughout the world in all succeeding generations I say to omit these Heathens we have examples in Scripture of Ahab here Iehu of the Ninevites of others elsewhere who for their temporary obedience zeal repentance and the like were rewarded partly by temporal blessings upon themselves and their posterity partly by the removal or adjournal of temporal punishments which otherwise had speedily overtaken them Fourthly from the greater to the less God sometimes temporally rewardeth the services of such men as are but bruta instrumenta brute instruments of his will and providence such as are employed by him for the bringing about of his most holy and secret purposes Citra rationem finis aut eorum quae ad finem in the doing of such things as they do without the least mixture in their own purpose and intent of any respect at all to God or his ends but meerly for the satisfying of their own corrupt lusts and the atchieving of their own private ends A notable example whereof we have in Gods dealing with Nebuchadnezzar in Ezek. 29 where the word of the Lord cometh to Ezekiel saying Son of man Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon caused his Army to serve a great service against Tyrus every head was made bald and every shoulder was peeled yet had he no wages nor his Army for Tyrus for the service that he had served against it Therefore thus saith the Lord God behold I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon and he shall take her multitude and it shall be wages for his Army I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against Tyrus beccause they wrought for me saith the Lord God In which place we see Egypt is given to Nebuchadnezzar as a reward for the service he did against Tyrus because therein though he neither intended any such thing nor so much as knew it yet he was the instrument to work Gods purpose upon and against Tyrus And then how much more will God reward temporally the service and obedience of such as purposely and knowingly endeavour an outward conformity unto the holy will and pleasure of God though with strong and predominant mixture of their own corrupt appetites and ends therewith Now the Reasons why God should thus outwardly reward the outward works of Hypocrites are First the manifestation of his own Goodness that we might know how willing he is to cherish the least spark of any goodness in any man be it natural or moral or whatever other goodness it be that he might thereby encourage us so to labour the improvement of those good things in us as to make our selves capable of greater rewards Secondly his Iustice and equity in measuring unto sinners and hypocrites exactly according to the measure they mete unto him They serve him with graces which are not true graces indeed he rewardeth them with blessings which are not indeed true blessings Somewhat they must do to God and therefore they afford him a little temporary obedience and there is all the service he shall have from them Somewhat God will do for them and in requital alloweth them a little temporary favour and there is all the reward they must look for from him Here is Quid pro Quo. They give God the outward work but without any hearty affection to him God giveth them the outward benefit but without any hearty affection to them For want of which hearty affection on both sides it cometh to pass that neither is the outward work truly acceptable to him nor the outward benefit truly profitable to them A third reason of Gods thus graciously dealing even with Hypocrites may be assigned with reference to his own dear Children and chosen for whose good especially next under his own glory all the passages of his divine providence both upon them and others are disposed in such sort as they are as for whose comfort this manner of proceeding maketh very much and sundry ways as I shall by and by touch in the Inferences from this Observation whereunto I now come because it is time I should draw towards a Conclusion And first by what hath been already said a way is opened
on Here is all the choice that is left thee either Repent or Suffer There is a generation of men that as Moses complaineth When they hear the words of Gods curse bless themselves in their hearts and say they shall have peace though they walk in the imagination of their own hearts that as Saint Paul complaineth Despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering not taking knowledge that the goodness of God would lead them to repentance that as Saint Peter complaineth Walk after their own lusts and scoffingly just at Gods judgments saying Where is the promise of his coming But let such secure and carnal scoffers be assured that howsoever others speed they shall never go unpunished Whatsoever becometh of God's Threatnings against others certainly they shall fall heavy upon them They that have taught us their conditions Moses and Paul and Peter have taught us also their punishments Moses telleth such a one however others are dealt with that yet the Lord will not spare him but the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoke against that man and all the Curses that are written in God's Book shall light upon him and the Lord shall blot out his Name from under heaven St. Paul telleth such men That by despising the riches of his goodness and forbearance they do but treasure up unto themselves wrath against the great day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Saint Peter telleth them howsoever they not only sleep but snort in deep security That yet p their judgment of long time sleepeth not and their damnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not so much as slumbreth Do thou then take heed whoever thou art and whatsoever thou dost that thou abuse not the Mercy of God and to divorce it from his Truth is to abuse it If when God threatneth thou layest aside his Truth and presumest on his bare Mercy when he punisheth take heed he do not cry quittance with thee by laying aside his Mercy and manifesting his bare Truth God is patient and merciful Patience will bear much Mercy forbear much but being scorned provoked and dared Patience it self turneth furious and Mercy it self cruel It is Mercy that threatneth it is Iustice that punisheth Mercy hath the first turn and if by Faith and Repentance we lay timely hold of it we may keep it for ever and revenging Iustice shall have nothing to do with us But if careless and secure we slip the opportunity and neglect the time of Mercy the next turn belongeth to Iustice which will render Iudgment without Mercy to them that forgat God and despised his Mercy That for the Secure Now thirdly and generally for All. What God hath joyned together let no man put asunder God hath purposely in his threats joyned and tempered Mercy and Truth together that we might take them together and profit by them together Dividat haec si quis faciunt discreta venenum Antidotum sumet qui sociata bibet as he spake of the two poisons Either of these single though not through any malignant quality in themselves God forbid we should think so yet through the corrupt temperature of our Souls becometh rank and deadly Poison to us Take Mercy without Truth as a cold Poison it benummeth us and maketh us stupid with careless security Take Truth without Mercy as a hot Poison it scaldeth us and scorcheth us in the flames of restless Despair Take both together and mix them well as hot and cold Poisons fitly tempered by the skill of the Apothecary become medicinable so are God's Mercy and Truth restorative to the Soul The consideration of his Truth humbleth us without it we would be fearless the consideration of his Mercy supporteth us without it we would be hopeless Truth begetteth Fear and Repentance Mercy Faith and Hope and these two Faith and Repentance keep the soul even and upright and steddy as the ballast and sail do the ship that for all the rough waves and weather that encountereth her in the troublesom sea of this World she miscarrieth not but arriveth safe and joyful in the Haven where she would be Faith without Repentance is not Faith but Presumption like a Ship all Sail and no ballast that tippeth over with every blast and Repentance without Faith is not Repentance but Despair like a Ship all ballast and no Sail which sinketh with her own weight What is it then we are to do to turn away God's Wrath from us and to escape the Iudgments he threatneth against us even this As in his Comminations he joyneth Mercy and Truth together so are we in our Humiliations to joyn Faith and Repentance together His threatnings are true let us not presume of forbearance but fear since he hath threatned that unless we repent he will strike us Yet his threatnings are but conditional let us not despair of forbearance but hope although he hath threatened that yet if we repent he will spare us That is the course which the godly guided by the direction of his holy Spirit have ever truly and sincerely held and found it ever comfortable to assure them of sound peace and reconciliation with God That is the course which the very Hypocrites from the suggestion of natural Conscience have sometimes offered at as far as Nature enlightened but unrenewed could lead them and found it effectual to procure them at the least some forbearance of threatned Judgments or abatement of temporal evils from God Thus have you heard three Uses made of God's mercy in revoking joyned with his truth in performing what he threatneth One to chear up the distressed that he despair not when God threatneth another to shake up the secure that he dispise not when God threatneth a third to quicken up all that they believe and repent when God threatneth There is yet another general Use to be made hereof which though it be not directly proper to the present Argument yet I cannot willingly pass without a little touching at it and that is to instruct us for the understanding of God's Promises For contraries as Promises and Threatnings are being of the like kind and reason either with other do mutually give and take light either to and from other God's Threatnings are true and stedfast his Promises are so too promisit qui non mentitur Deus which God that cannot lye hath promised saith the Apostle in one place and in another All the Promises of God are Yea and Amen and where in a third place he speaketh of two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lye his Promise is one of those two The Promises then of God are true as his Threatnings are Now look on those Threatnings again which we have already found to be true but withal conditional and such as must be ever understood with a clause of reservation or exception It is so also in the
we are able to search into whereby he layeth a restraint upon men and keepeth them back from many sins and mischiefs at least from the extremity of many sins and mischiefs whereunto otherwise Nature and Temptation would carry them with a strong current Not to speak yet of that sweet and of all other the most blessed and powerful restraint which is wrought in us by the Spirit of Sanctification renewing the soul and subduing the corruption that is in the flesh unto the obedience of the Spirit at which I shall have fitter occasion to touch anon In the mean time that there is something or other that restraineth men from doing some evils unto which they have not only a natural proneness but perhaps withal an actual desire and purpose might be shewn by a world of instances but because every mans daily experience can abundantly furnish him with some we will therefore content our selves with the fewer Laban meant no good to Iacob when taking his Brethren with him he pursued after him seven days journey in an hostile manner and he had power to his will to have done Iacob a mischief Iacob being but imbellis turba no more but himself his wives and his little ones with his flocks and herds and a few servants to attend them unable to defend themselves much more unmeet to resist a prepared enemy yet for all his power and purpose and preparation Laban when he had overtaken Iacob durst have nothing at all to do with him and he had but very little to say to him neither The worst was but this Thus and thus have you dealt with me And It is in the power of mine hand to do you hurt but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight saying Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad See the story in Gen. 31. The same Iacob had a Brother as unkind as that Uncle nay much more despitefully bent against him than he for he had vowed his destruction The days of mourning for my father are at hand and then I will slay my Brother Jacob and although the Mother well hoped that some few days time and absence would appease the fury of Esau and all should be forgotten yet twenty years after the old grudge remained and upon Iacob's approach Esau goeth forth to meet him with 400 men armed as it should seem for his destruction which cast Iacob into a terrible fear and much distressed he was good man and glad to use the best wit he had by dividing his Companies to provide for the safety at least of some part of his charge And yet behold at the encounter no use at all of the 400 men unless to be spectators and witnesses of the joyful embraces and kind loving complements that passed between the two brothers in the liberal offers and modest refusals each of others courtesies in the 32 and 33 of Genesis A good Probatum of that Observation of Solomon When a mans ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Balaam the Conjurer when the king Balak had cast the hook before him baited with ample rewards in hand and great promotions in reversion if he would come over to him and curse Israel had both Covetousness and Ambition enough in him to make him bite so that he was not only willing but even desirous to satisfie the King for he loved the wages of unrighteousness with his heart and therefore made trial till he saw it was all in vain if by any means he could wring a permission from God to do it But when his eyes were opened to behold Israel and his mouth open that he must now pronounce something upon Israel though his eyes were full of Envy and his heart of Cursing yet God put a parable of Blessing into his mouth and he was not able to utter a syllable of any thing other than good concerning Israel in 22 and 24 of Numbers In all which and sundry other instances wherein when there was intended before-hand so much evil to be done and there was withal in the parties such a forward desire and such a solemn preparation to have it done and yet when all came to all so little or nothing was done of what was intended but rather the contrary it cannot first be imagined that such a stop should be made but by the powerful restraint of some superiour and over-ruling hand neither may we doubt in the second place that every such restraint by what second and subordinate means soever it be furthered is yet the proper work of God as proceeding from and guided by his Almighty and irresistible providence And as for that which hapned to Balaam that it was Gods doing the evidence is clear we have it from the mouth of two or three witnesses The Wizard himself confesseth it The Lord will not suffer me to go with you Num. 22. The King that set him on work upbraideth him with it I thought indeed to promote thee to great honour but lo the Lord hath kept thee back from honour Num. 24. And Moses would have Israel take knowledge of it The Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing because the Lord thy God loved thee Deut. 23. It was God then that turned Balaam's curse into a blessing and it was the same God that turned Laban's revengeful thoughts into a friendly Expostulation and it was the same God that turned Esau's inveterate malice into a kind brotherly congratulation He that hath set bounds to the Sea which though the waves thereof rage horribly they cannot pass Hitherto shalt thou go and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves and did command the waters of the Red Sea to stay their course and stand up as on heaps and by his power could enforce the waters of the River Iordan to run quite against the Current up the Channel he hath in his hands and at his command the hearts of all the sons of men yea though they be the greatest Kings and Monarchs in the world as the Rivers of waters and can wind and turn them at his pleasure inclining them which way soever he will The fierceness of man shall turn to thy praise saith David in Psal. 76. 10. and the fierceness of them shalt thou retain the latter clause of the verse is very significant in the Original and cometh home to our purpose as if we should translate it Thou shalt gird the remainder of their wrath or of their fierceness The meaning is this Suppose a mans heart be never so full fraught with envy hatred malice wrath and revenge let him be as fierce and furious as is possible God may indeed suffer him and he will suffer him to exercise so much of his corruption and proceed so far in his fierceness as he
not to part with a jot of that liberty wherewith Christ hath entrusted us by making our selves the servants of men Especially since we cannot so do Secondly without manifest wrong to Christ nor thirdly without great dishonour to God Not without wrong to Christ. St. Paul therefore disputeth it as upon a ground of right 1 Cor. 7. Ye are bought with a price saith he be ye not the servants of men and in the next Chapter before that ye are not your own for you are bought with a price As if he had said Though it were a great weakness in you to put your selves out of your own power into the power of others by making your selves their servants yet if you were your own there should be no injury done thereby to any third person but unto whosoever should complain as if he were wronged you might return this reasonable answer Friend I do thee no wrong Is it not lawful for me to do as I will with mine own But saith he this is not your case you are not your own but Christs He hath bought you with his most precious blood he hath payed a valuable rather an invaluable price for you and having bought you and payed for you you are now his and you cannot dispose your selves in any other service without apparent wrong to him Neither only do we injure Christ by making our selves the servants of men but we dishonour God also which is a third reason For to whom we make our selves servants him we make our Lord and God The covetous worldling therefore by serving Mammon maketh Mammon his God which made St. Paul two several times to set the brand of Idolatry upon covetousness the covetous man which is an Idolater Eph. 5. and covetousness which is Idolatry Col. 3. And the voluptuous Epicure is therefore said to make his belly his God Phil. 3. because he serveth his own belly as the phrase is Rom. 16. Neither can I imagine upon what other ground the Devil should be called the God of this world than this that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the men of this evil world by doing him service do so make a God of him For Service is a principal part of that honour that belongeth to God alone and whereof in his jealousie he will not endure that any part should be given away from him to another Ipsi soli servies thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve We cannot serve any other but to his great dishonour Yea and our own too which may stand for a fourth reason Ye see your calling brethren saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 1. 26. He would have men take notice of their Christian Calling it is a holy and a high calling that so they might walk worthy of it and carry themselves in every respect answerably thereunto Now by our Calling we are Free-men for Brethren you have been called unto liberty Gal. 5. or which is all one to the service of God And being so we infinitely abase our selves and disparage our Calling when of free-men we become slaves and make our selves of Gods mens servants incomparably more to our own dishonour than if one that is free of a rich Company and hath born Office in it should for base respects bind himself Apprentice again with a Master of poor condition in some pedling Trade It is diminutio capitis as the Civilians call it for a man to descend from a higher to a lower condition of the three degrees whereof that is esteemed the greatest maxima diminutio capitis which is with loss of liberty Leo the Emperour therefore by special and severe constitution as you may see it in The Novels forbad all Freemen within the Empire the sale of their liberties calling it facinus in those that were so presumptuous as to buy them and no less than folly yea madness dementia and vesania in those that were so base as to sell them not without some indignation at the former Laws for suffering such an indignity to be so long practised without either chastisement or restraint And if he justly censured them as men of abject minds that would for any consideration in the world willingly forego their civil and Roman liberty what flatness of spirit possesseth us if we wilfully betray our Christian and spiritual liberty Whereby besides the dishonour we do also which is the fifth Reason and whereunto I will add no more with our own hands pull upon our own heads a great deal of unnecessary cumber For whereas we might draw an easie yoke carry a light burden observe commandments that are not grievous and so live at much hearts-ease in the service of God and of Christ by putting our selves into the service of men we thrust our necks into a hard yoke of bondage such as neither we nor any of our fathers were ever able to bear we lay upon our own shoulders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heavy and importable burdens and subject our selves to Ordinances which are both grievous and unprofitable and such are so far from preserving those that use them from perishing that themselves perish in the using Now against this liberty which if we will answer the trust reposed in us and neither wrong Christ nor dishonour God nor yet debase and encumber our selves where we should not we must with our utmost power maintain The Offenders are of two sorts to wit such as either injuriously encroach upon the liberty of others or else unworthily betray away their own The most notorious of the former sort are the Bishops of Rome whose usurpations upon the Consciences of men shew them to be true successors of the Scribes and Pharisees in laying heavy burdens upon mens shoulders which they ought not and in rejecting the Word of God to establish their own Traditions rather than the Successors of St. Peter who forbiddeth dominatum in Cleris in the last Chapter of this Epistle at Vers. 3 To teach their own judgments to be infallible to make their definitions an universal and unerring Rule of Faith to stile their Decrees and Constitutions Oracles to assume to themselves all power in Heaven and Earth to require subjection both to their Laws and Persons as of necessity unto salvation to suffer themselves to be called by their Parasites Dominus Deus noster Papa and Optimum maximum supremum in terris numen all which and much more is done and taught and professed by the Popes and in their behalf if all this will not reach to St. Paul's exaltari supra omne quod vocatur Deus yet certainly and no modest man can deny it it will amount to as much as St. Peter's dominari in Cleris even to the exercising of such a Lordship over the Lords Heritage the Christian Church as will become none but the Lord himself whose Heritage
to our best services by a threefold title like a treble cord which Satan and all the powers of darkness cannot break or untwine A right of Creation Remember O Iacob thou art my servant I have formed thee thou art my servant O Israel Isa. 44. Princes and the great ones of the world expect from those that are their Creatures rather that are called so because they raised them but in truth are not so for they never made them yet they expect much service from them that they should be forward instruments to execute their pleasures and to advance their intentions how much more may the Lord justly expect from us who are every way his Creatures for he raised us out of the dust nay he made us of nothing that we should be his servants to do his will and instruments to promote his glory Besides this Ius creationis he hath yet two other Titles to our services Ius redemptionis and Ius liberationis He hath bought us out of the hands of our enemies and so we are his by purchase and he hath won us out of the hands of our enemies and so we are his by conquest We read often in the Law of servants bought with money 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it is but reason he that hath payed a valuable consideration for a man's service should have it Now God hath bought us and redeemed us not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with his own most procious blood And being bought with such a price we are not our own to serve the lusts of our own flesh nor any man 's else that we should be the servants of men but his only that hath bought us and paid for us to glorifie him both in our bodies and souls for they are his jure redemptionis by the right of Purchase and Redemption Again when we were mancipia peccati diaboli The Devils Captives and Slaves to every ungodly lust in which condition if we had lived and died after a hard and toilsom service in the mean time our wages in the end should have been eternal death God by sending his Son to live and die for us hath conquered sin and Satan and freed us from that wretched thraldom to this end That being delivered out of the hands of our enemies we might serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our lives I am thy Servant I am thy servant and the Son of thine handmaid thou hast broken my bondsin sunder Psal. 116. That is jus liberationis the right of conquest and deliverance Having so many and so strong titles thereunto with what justice can we hold back our services from him It is the first and most proper act of Justice jus suum cuique to render to all their dues and to let every one have that which of right appertaineth unto him And if we may not deny unto Caesar the things that are Caesars it is but right we should also give unto God the things that are Gods by so many and just Titles Especially since there are reasons of Equity on our part in this behalf as well as there is title of right on his part You know the rule of Equity what it is even to do to others as we would be done to See then 1. how we deal with those that are under our command We are rigid and importunate exactors of service from them we take on unreasonably and lay on unmercifully and bewray much impatience and distemper if they at any time slack their services towards us how should this our strictness in exacting services from those that are under us add to our care and conscience in performing our bounden services to our Lord and Master that is over us But as it is with some unconscionable dealers in the world that neither have any pity to forbear their debtors nor any care to satisfie their creditors and as we use to say of our great ones and that but too truly of too many of them that they will neither do right nor take wrong such is our disposition We are neither content to forego any part of that service which we take to be due to us nor willing to perform any part of that service which we know to be due to God See secondly how we have dealt even with God himself It is the masters part to command not to serve yet have we against all reason and good order done our endeavour to make him who is our Master become our slave Himself complaineth of it by his Prophet I have not caused thee to serve with an offering and wearied thee with incense but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins and wearied me with thine iniquities Isa. 43. Now what can be imagined more preposterous and unequal than for a servant to make his master do him service and himself the while resolve to do his master none See thirdly what Christ hath done for us though he were the Eternal Son of the Eternal God no way inferior to the Father no way bound to us yet out of his free love to us and for our good he took upon him the form of a servant and was among us as one that ministreth That love of his should in all equity and thankfulness yet further bind us to answer his so great love by making our selves servants unto him who thus made himself a servant for us Thus both in point of right and equity the service of God is a just service It is secondly the most necessary service Necessity first because we are servi nati of a servile condition born to serve We have not the liberty to chuse whether we will serve or no all the liberty we have is to chuse our Master as Ioshua said to the people Chuse you whom you will serve Since then there lieth upon us a necessity of serving it should be our wisdom to make a vertue of that necessity by making choice of a good master with his resolution there I and my house will serve the Lord. It is necessary secondly for our safety and security lest if we withdraw our service from him we perish justly in our rebellion according to that in the Prophet The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish It is necessary thirdly by our own voluntary act when we bound our selves by solemn vow and promise in the face of the open Congregation at our Baptism to continue Christs faithful souldiers and servants unto our lives end Now the word is gone out of our lips we may not alter it nor after we have made a vow enquire what we have to do Thus the service of God is a necessary service It is thirdly which at the first hearing may seem a Paradox yet will appear upon farther consideration to be a most certain truth of all
the Lord for he is our God Josh. 24. But beloved let us take heed we do not gloze with him as we do one with another we are deceived if we think God will be mocked with hollow and empty protestations We live in a wondrous complemental age wherein scarce any other word is so ready in every mouth as your servant and at your service when all is but mere form without any purpose or many times but so much as single thought of doing any serviceable office to those men to whom we profess so much service However we are one towards another yet with the Lord there is no dallying it behoveth us there to be real If we profess our selves to be or desire to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the servants of God we must have a care to demean our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all respects as becometh the servants of God To which purpose when I shall have given you those few directions I spake of I shall have done Servants owe many duties to their earthly Masters in the particulars but three generals comprehend them all Reverence Obedience Faithfulness Whereof the first respecteth the Masters person the second his pleasure the third his business And he that will be Gods servant in truth and not only in title must perform all these to his heavenly Master Reverence is the first which ever ariseth from a deliberate apprehension of some worthiness in another more than in a mans self and is ever accompanied with a fear to offend and a care to please the person reverenced and so it hath three branches whereof the first is Humility It is not possible that that servant who thinketh himself the wiser or any way the better man of the two should truly reverence his Master in his heart St. Paul therefore would have servants to count their own Masters worthy of all honour 1 Tim. 6. 1. he knew well they could not else reverence them as they ought Non decet superbum esse hominem servum could he say in the Comedy A man that thinketh goodly of himself cannot make a good servant either to God or man Then are we meetly prepared for his service and not before when truly apprehending our own vileness and unworthiness both in our nature and by reason of sin and duly acknowledging the infinite greatness and goodness of our Master we unfeignedly account our selves altogether unworthy to be called his servants Another branch of the servants reverence is fear to offend his Master This fear is a disposition well becoming a servant and therefore God as our Master and by that name of Master challengeth it Mal. 1. If I be a Father where is my honour And if I be a Master where is my fear saith the Lord of Hosts Fear and reverence are often joyned together and so joyntly required of the Lords servants Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce to him with reverence Psal. 2. and the Apostles would have us furnished with grace whereby to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12. From which fear of offending a care and desire of pleasing cannot be severed which is the third branch of the servants Reverence to his Master St. Paul biddeth Titus exhort servants to please their Masters well in all things So must Gods servant do he must study to walk worthy of him unto all pleasing not much regarding how others interpret his doings or what offence they take at him so long as his Master accepteth his services and taketh his endeavours in good part Whoso is not thus resolved to please his Master although he should thereby incur the displeasure of the whole world besides is not worthy to be called the servant of such a Master If I yet sought to please men I should not be the servant of Christ Gal. 1. And all this belongeth to Reverence Obedience is the next general duty Servants be obedient to your Masters Eph. 6. Know you not whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey Rom. 6. As if there could be no better proof of service than obedience and that is two-fold Active and Passive For Obedience consisteth in the subjecting of a mans own will to the will of another which subjection if it be in something to be done maketh an Active if in something to be suffered a Passive Obedience Our Active Obedience to God is the keeping his Commandments and the doing of his will as the people said Iosh. 24. The Lord our God will we serve and his voice will we obey And this must be done in auditu auris upon the bare signification of his pleasure without disputing or debating the matter as the Centurions servant if his Master did but say Do this without any more ado did it So Abraham the servant of the Lord when he was called to go out into a place which he should receive for an inheritance obeyed and went out though he knew not whither Nor only so but in the greatest trial of Obedience that ever we read any man any mere man to have been put unto being commanded to sacrifice his only begotten Son of whom it was said That in Isaac shall thy Seed be called he never stumbled as not at the promise through unbelief so neither at the command through disobedience but speedily went about it and had not failed to have done all that was commanded him had not the Lord himself when he was come even to the last act inhibited him by his countermand If mortal and wicked men look to be obeyed by their servants upon the warrant of their bare command in evil and unrighteous acts When I say unto you Smite Amnon then kill him fear not have not I commanded you saith Absalom to his servants 2 Sam. 13. Ought not the express command of God much more to be a sufficient warrant for us to do as we are bidden none of whose commands can be other than holy and just That is our Active obedience We must give proof of our Passive obedience also both in contenting our selves with his allowances and in submitting our selves to his corrections He that is but a servant in the house may not think to command whatsoever the house affordeth at his own pleasure that is the Masters prerogative alone but he must content himself with what his Master is content to allow him and take his portion of meat drink livery lodging and every other thing at the discretion and appointment of his Master Neither may the servant of God look to be his own carver in any thing neither ought he to mutter against his Master with that ungracious servant in the Parable complaining of his hardness and austerity if his allowances in some things fall short of his desire but having food and rayment be it never so little never so
of Iupiter and the other Gods wings both at his hands and feet to intimate thereby what great speed and diligence was requisite to be used by those that should be imployed in the service of Princes for the managing of their weighty affairs of State Surely no less diligence is needful in the service of God but rather much more by how much both the Master is of greater Majesty and the service of greater importance Not slothful in business fervent in spirit serving the Lord saith St. Paul Let all those that trifle away their precious time in unconcerning things or put off the repentance of their sins and the reformation of their lives till another age or any other way slack their bounden service unto God either in the common-duties of their general or in the proper works of their particular calling tremble to think what shall become of them when all they shall be cursed that have done the Lords work in what kind soever negligently We see now what we are to do if we will approve our selves and our services unto the Lord our heavenly Master What remaineth but that we be willing to do it and for that end pray to the same our Master who alone can work in us both the will and the deed that he would be pleased of his great goodness to give to every one of us courage to maintain our Christian liberty inviolate as those that are free wisdom to use it right and not for a cloak of maliciousness and grace at all times and in all places to behave our selves as the servants of God with such holy reverence of his Majesty obedience to his will faithfulness in his employments as may both procure to us and our services in the mean time gracious acceptance in his sight and in the end a glorious reward in his presence even for Jesus Christ his sake his only Son and our alone Saviour FINIS A Table of the Places of Scripture to which some light more or less is given in the fore-going Fourteen Sermons Chap. Ver. Page Gen. III. 4-5 122 15 206.290 16 206 19 206 iv 2 206 vi 6 172 ix 25 190 xv 15 180 xviii 20 127 32 182 xix 8 33 9 182 16 181 xx vi 269 c. xxiv 12 c. 112 xxxi 23 c. 286 xxxii 6 287 xxxiii 4 c. 287 Exod. II. 14 8 x 26 303 xi 5-6 193 xiv 4 155 xx 5 193. 198. 201. xxiii s i ii-iii 117 c. Lev. 26. 21 324 23 324 26 c. 266. 208 Num. 22. 27 238 xxiii 19 172 xxv 5 139 Deut. 8. 3 251 14 255 17 255 18 263 xv 4 213 xvii 2 105 xxxii 15 258 Iosh. 24. 15 320 24 323 Iudg. 3. 9-10 139 v 7 139 xix 30 105 1 Sam. 2. 30 321 iv 18 138 xii 24 325 xv 15 308 1 Sam. 13. 28 324 xv 4 110 xxi 14 146 3 King 3. 9 99 x 20 107 xxi 13 308 s xxix 151 c. 4 King 2. 9 51 vi 25-26 196 viii 27 195 x 10 179 30 191 xxii 20 180 1 Chro. 26. 29-31 138 2 Chro. 19. 6 108 xxiv 22 258 Nehem. 5. 15 131 Iob 1. 3 98 5 8 20 193 ix 33 2 xiii 7 62 xxii 30 182 xxix 9 98 s 14-17 c. 95 c. Psalm 2. 11 323 iii 7 107 iv 6-7 252 xiv 4 106 xviii 44 323 xix 12 272. 278. 13 296. xxxv 11 284 xxxvi 3 279 6 186 xxxvii 1 167 xxxix 11 189 xlv 6-7 99 l 22 183 li 6 325 12 301 lii 2-4 122 lvii 4 106 lviii 4 279 6 107 lxxiii 2-3 188 17 188 lxxv 2-4 108. 149 lxxvi 10 288 12 288 lxxxi 12 297 lxxxii 6 102. 108. ciii 1-2 249 cv 14 290 cvi 6 201 sxxx 133 c. 31 139 cvii 8 290 cix 14 101 16 98 cxvi 12 250 16 320 cxix 6 159 94 322 141 3 cxliii 12 322 cxlv 8 177 16 208 cxlvii 1 260 cxlix 8 293 Prov. 1. 13 125 iii 3 103 xii 13 143 xiv 21 5 xv 8 164 17 252 xvi 12 149 xvii 16 221 xviii 7 125 9 208 13 105 17 126 xx 25 321 xxi 1 287 xxiv 26 99 xxv 2 105 xxvi 13 143 25 292 xxviii 13 278 xxix 7 127 12 130 xxx 1 5 33 121 xxxi 21 208 Eccles. 1. 4 191 18 280 viii 11 143 ix 1 156 x 4 229 10 54 xi 4 142 xii 9 56 Isaiah 1 24 171 iii 9 308 15 106 18-23 311 v 20 305 viii 20 140 xxvi 12 321 xxviii 21 311 xxxvii 35 191 xxxix 8 180 xliii 23-24 320 xliv 21 319 lii 11 176 lv 8-9 186 lvii 1 181 lx 12 320 lxv 13-14 322 Ierem. 3. 15 201 v 1 282 viii 6 288 xvii 9 223 xviii 7-8 172. 174. 18 122 xxiii 29 161 xlviii 10 326 Lam. 5. 7 198 Ezek. 22. 9 123 xxix 20 165 xxxiii 11-14 171. 174 Dan. 3. 16 71 18 306 vi 3-5 124 ix 5 201 Hos. 2. 8 258 iv 1 279 xi 8 171 xiii 9 236 Amos 3. 6 196. 236 vi 4-6 311 Ion. 3. 9 174 Micah 6. 8 299 Zach. 5. 4 195 Mal. 1. 6 323 Chap. Ver. Page Matth. 3. 7 195 iv 10 303 v 15 56 16 44. 156 17 310 29-30 244 37 32 vi 2 c. 165 24 321 vii 12 123 ix 13 29 xi 19 156 30 304. 321 xii 31-32 26 36 25 xiii 5 6 154. 159 20-21 154 xviii 7 246 10 36 xix 21-22 158 xxiii 4 312 8 301 10 301 13 309 14 308 23 99 35-36 201 xxiv 45 324 51 156 xxv 21 324 26 325 28 55 xxvi 11 213. 257 xxvii 25 190 xxviii 20 46 Mark 4. 16-17 154 x 18 237 Luke 3. 14 125 vi 25 311 viii 6 154 ix 50 70 x 28 179 xii 14 8 48 279 xv 17 168 xvi 2 127 9 209 19 311 25 167 xvii 13 262 xviii 11 4. 295 xix 8 121. 130 41 164 53 35 xxi 15 57 26 137 xxiii 2 24 11 4 Iohn 20 22 47 iii 36 66 ix 2-3 189 x 12 25. 107 xv 22 308 xvi 26 310 xix 12 24 xx 22 47. 229 Acts 4. 19 306 viii 22 309 x 28 215 45-46 43 xiv 12 66 15 306 17 252 xv 9 253 28-29 273 xvii 11 307 28 260 xxiii 1 282 xxiv 25 163 xxvi 9 68 Rom. 1. 16 156 19-20 223 ii 5-6 188 14 282. 283 15 63 22 34 iii viii 21 c. 31 310 iv 13 252 20 323 vi 14 310 16 323 21-22 322 23 187 vii 4 310 6 310 x 4 310 xi 35 262 xii 7 100 11 326 xiii 1 110 1. 6 318 4 102. 108. 118. 144 6 102 xiv 2 66 iii 1 c. 4 9 5 69 6 249 10 9 13 8 14 29. 70. 15 312 20-21 29 22 71 s xxiii 59 c. xv 1-2 312 14 125 xvi 18 306 1 Cor. 1. 13 307 26 291 iii 4-5 307 21 168 22-23 240. 252 iv 3 284 4 284 5 9. 142 7 49. 255. 295 v 8 309 vi 12 243.
the same ways will not please all we ought not to be careful to satisfie others in their unreasonable Expectances much less our selves in our own inordinate Appetites but disregarding both our selves and them bend all our studies and endeavours to this one point how we may approve our hearts and our ways unto the Lord that is to God the only Lord and our Lord Iesus Christ. God and Christ must be in the final resolution the sole Object of our pleasing Which is the substance of the whole words of the Antecedent laid together which we have hitherto considered apart and cometh now to be handled The handling whereof we shall dispatch in three Enquiries whereof two concern the Endeavour and one the Event For it may be demanded first what necessity of pleasing God And if it be needful then secondly how and by what means it may be done And both these belong to the Endeavour and then it may be demanded thirdly concerning the Event upon what ground it is that any of our endeavours should please God Of which in their order 7. First That we should endeavour so to walk as to please God The Apostle needed not to have prayed so earnestly as he doth Col. 1. and that without ceasing neither to have adjured us so deeply as he doth 1 Thess. 4. even by the Lord Iesus if it did not both well become us in point of Duty and also much concern us in point of Wisdom so to do First It is a Duty whereunto we stand bound by many Obligations He is our Master our Captain our Father our King Every of which respects layeth a several necessity upon us of doing our endeavour to please him if at least there be in us any care to discharge with faithfulness and as we ought the parts of Servants of Souldiers of Sons of Subjects 8. First He is our Master Ye call me Lord and Master and ye say well for so I am and we are his servants O Lord I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thy Handmaid And he is no honest servant that will not strive to please his Master Exhort servants to obey their own Masters and to please them well in all things Tit. 2. Next he is our Captain It became him to make the Captain of their salvation perfect and we are his Souldiers Thou therefore endure hardness as a good Souldier of Iesus Christ saith Saint Paul to Timothy We received our Prest money and book'd our Names to serve in his Wars when we bound our selves by Solemn Vow and took the Sacrament upon it in our Baptism manfully to fight under his Banner against Sin the World and the Devil and to continue his faithful Souldiers unto our lives end And he is no generous Souldier that will not strive to please his General No man that warreth entangleth himself in the Affairs of this life that he may please him that hath chosen him to be a Souldier 2 Tim. 2. Thirdly He is our Father and we his Children I will be a Father to you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty and when we would have any thing of him we readily bespeak him by the name of Father and that by his own direction saying Our Father which art in Heaven And that Son hath neither grace nor good nature in him that will not strive to please his Father It is noted as one of Esau's Impieties whom the Scripture hath branded as a Profane Person that he grieved and displeased his parents in the choice of his Wives If I be a Father where is mine honour Mal. 1. Lastly He is our King The Lord is a great God and a great King above all Gods and we are his Subjects his people and the Sheep of his Pasture and he is no Loyal Subject that will not strive to please his Lawful Sovereign That form of speech if it please the King so frequent in the mouth of Nehemiah was no affected strain of Courtship but a just expression of Duty otherwise that religious man would never have used it 9. And yet there may be a time wherein all those Obligations may cease of pleasing our earthly Masters or Captains or Parents or Princes If it be their pleasure we should do something that lawfully we may not we must disobey though we displease Only be we sure that to colour an evil disobedience we do not pretend an unlawfulness where there is none But we can have no colour of plea for refusing to do the pleasure of our heavenly Lord and Master in any thing whatsoever inasmuch as we are sure nothing will please him but what is just and right With what a forehead then can any of us challenge from him either Wages as Servants or Stipends as Souldiers or Provision as Sons or Protection as Subjects if we be not careful in every respect to frame our selves in such sort as to please him You see it is our Duty so to do 10. Yea and our Wisdom too in respect of the great benefits we shall reap thereby There is one great benefit expressed in the Text If we please the Lord He will make our Enemies to be at peace with us of which more anon The Scriptures mention many other out of which number I propose but these three First if we please him he will preserve us from sinful temptations Solomon Eccl. 7. speaking of the strange woman whose heart is as Nets and Snares and her hands as bands saith that whoso pleaseth the Lord shall escape from her but the sinner shall be taken by her He that displeaseth God by walking in the by-paths of sin God shall withhold his grace from him and he shall be tempted and foyled but whoso pleaseth God by walking in his holy ways God shall so assist him with his grace that when he is tempted he shall escape And that is a very great benefit Secondly If we please him he will hear our Prayers and grant our Petitions in whatsoever we ask if what we ask be agreeable to his will and expedient for our good whatsoever we ask we know we receive of him because we keep his Commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight And that is another very great benefit Thirdly If we please him in the mean time he will in the end translate us into his heavenly Kingdom whereof he hath given us assurance in the person of Enoch Whom God translated that he should not see death because before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God And this is the greatest benefit that can be imagined 11. Go then wretched man that hast not cared to displease the immortal God for the pleasing of thy self or of some other mortal man cast up thy Bills examine thy Accounts and see what thou hast gained 1. By displeasing God thou hast
poorest beggar within his Realm as to protect him from violence and to require an account of his blood though it should be spilt by the hand of a Lord. 17. And yet behold a greater than Iob although I take it he was a King too within his own Territories a greater than any of the great Kings of the earth ready to teach us this duty by his example even our Lord Iesus Christ and the same mind should be in us that was in him And what was that He was pleased so far to honour us base sinful unworthy Creatures as we were as for our sakes to lay aside his own greatness emptying and divesting himself of glory and Majesty making himself of no reputation and taking upon him the form of a Servant Ill do they follow either his Example or his Apostles Doctrine here who think themselves too good to condescend to men of low estate by doing them any office of service or respect though they need it never so much crave it never so oft deserve it never so well And they who look another way in the day of their brothers distress as the Priest and Levite passed by the wounded man in the Parable without regard And not to multiply particulars all they who having power and opportunity thereunto neglect either to reward those that have worth in them according to their merit or to protect those that are wronged according to their innocency or to relieve those that are in want according to their necessity 18. There are a third sort that corrupt a good Text with an ill gloss by putting in a conditional limitation like the botching in of a course shred into a finâ— garment as thus The Magistrate shall have his Tribute the Minister his Tythâ— and so every other man his due honour if so be he carry himself worthily and as he ought to do in his place and so as to deserve it In good time But I pray you then first to argue the case a little with thee whoever thou art that thus glossest Who must judge of his carriage and whether he deserve such honour yea or no Why that thou hopest thou art well enough able to do thy self Sure we cannot but expect good justice where he that is a party will allow no other to be judge but himself Where the debtor must arbitrate what is due to the creditor things are like to come a fair reckoning 19. But secondly how durst thou distinguish where the Law distinguishes not Where God commandeth he looketh to be answered with obedience and dost thou think to come off with subtilties and distinctions The Precept here in the Text is plain and peremptory admitteth no Equivocation Exception or Reservation suggesteth nothing that should make it reasonable to restrain the Universality expressed therein by any such limitation and therefore will not endure to be eluded with any forced Gloss. 20. Least of all thirdly with such a Gloss as the Apostle hath already precluded by his own comment in the next verse where he biddeth servants to be subject to their Masters not only to the good and gentle but to the froward also and such as would be ready to buffet them when they had done no fault Such Masters sure could challenge no great honour from their servants titulo mâ—ritâ— and as by way of desert But yet there belonged to them jâ—â— dominii and by vertue of their Mastership the honour of Obedience and Subjection Which honour due unto them by that right they had a good title to and it might not be detained from them either in part or in whole by cavilling at their desert 21. But tell me fourthly in good earnest dost thou believe that another mans neglect of his duty can discharge thee from the obligation of thine dic Quintiliane colorem Canst thou produce any publick Law or private Contract or sound Reason whereon to ground or but handsom Colour wherewith to varnish such an imagination Fac quodtuum est do thou thy part therefore and honour him according to his place howsoever He shall answer and not thou for his unworthiness if he deserve it not but thou alone shalt answer for the neglect of thine own duty if thou performest it not 22. Lastly ex ore tuo When thou sayest thou wilt honour him according to his place if he deserve it dost thou not observe that thou art still unjust by thy own confession For where place and merit concur there is a double honour due The Elders that rule well are worthy of double honour 1 Tim. 5. There is one honour due to the place and another to merit He that is in the place though without desert is yet worthy of a single honour for his place sake and justice requireth he should have it But if he deserve well in his place by rightly discharging his duty therein he is then worthy of a double honour and justice requireth he should have that too Consider now how unjust thou art If he deserve well sayest thou he shall have the honour due to his place otherwise not Thou mightest as well say in plain terms If he be worthy of double honour I can be content to afford the single otherwise be must be content to go without any Now what justice what conscience in this dealing where two parts are due to allow but one and where one is due to allow just none 23. But I proceed no further in this argument having purposely omitted sundry things that occurred to my meditations herein and contracted the rest that I might have time to speak something to the latter Precept also Love the brotherhood To which I now pass hoping to dispatch it with convenient brevity observing the same method as before Quid nominis Quid juris Quid facti What we are to do and Why and How we perform it 24. First then for the meaning of the words we must know that as Adam and Christ are the two roots of mankind Adam as in a state of Nature and Christ as in a state of Grace so there is a twofold brotherhood amongst men correspondent thereunto First a Brotherhood of Nature by propagation from the loins of Adam as we are men and secondly a Brotherhood of Grace by profession of the faith of Christ as we are Christian men As men we are members of that great body the World and so all men that live within the compass of the World are Brethren by a more general communion of Nature As Christians we are members of that mystical body the Church and so all Christian men that live within the compass of the Church are Brethren by a more peculiar Communion of Faith And as the Moral Law bindeth us to love all men as our Brethren and partakers with us of the same common Nature in Adam so the Evangelical Law bindeth to love all Christians as our Brethren and partakers with us of the same common faith in
was it a sin properly of Infirmity and so capable of that extenuating circumstance of being done in the heat of Anger as his uncleanness with Bathsheba was in the heat of Lust although that extenuation will not be allowed to pass for an excuse there unless in tanto only and as it standeth in comparison with this fouler crime But having time and leisure enough to bethink himself what he was about he doth it in cool blood and with much advised deliberation plotting and contriving this way and that way to perfect his design He was resolved whatsoever should become of it to have it done in regard of which setled resolution of his Will this sin of David was therefore a high presumptuous sin 19. By the light of these Examples we may reasonably discover what a Presumptuous sin is and how it is distinguished from those of Ignorance and Infirmity Take the sum of all thus When a man sufficiently convinced in his understanding that the thing he would do is unlawful and displeasing unto God or at least hath sufficient means so to convince him if he be not willingly wanting to himself in the use thereof so as he cannot justly plead Non putâram And then besides hath time and leisure to advise with himself to examine the case and every circumstance of it and to apply the light that is in his understanding thereunto And yet when all is done resolveth contrary to the dictates of his own reason and the checks of his own Conscience to go on to put his wicked intentions into act and to fulfil his own will the apparent inconformity thereof unto the will of God notwithstanding this is a wilful and a fearful Presumption Her speech in the Poet expresseth it in part Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor I see I should do that and I know I should do better to do that but I have a mind rather to this and therefore I will do this When we advance our own Wills not only against the express will of our great God but even against the clear light of our own Consciences and are not able nor indeed careful to give any other reason why we will do this or that but only because we will pro ratione voluntas so making our own will a piece of no good Logick both the Medium and the Conclusion we do then rush headlong into those sins from which David here prayeth so earnestly to be with-held Keep back thy Servant O Lord from Presumptuous Sins 20. Now see we what Presumptuous sins are we are to consider next how great and mischievous they are Certainly if there were not something in them more than in ordinary sins David would not pray against them in such a special manner as here we see he doth and that in four particulars 21. First because those other sins are quotidianae subreptionis such as the servant of God though he walk neverso warily may yetbe and often is overtaken with through incogitancy and the frequency of such temptations as lie so thick in our way every where that the most watchful eye cannot alwaies be aware of them all his Prayer therefore concerning them is that as he is ever and anon gathering soyl by them so God would be ever and anon cleansing him from them O cleanse thou me from my secret faults But as for these greater and presumptuous sins he desireth the powerful aidance of Gods holy Spirit to withhold him wholly from them and to keep him back from ever approaching too near unto them Keep back thy Servant from presumptuous sins As a Traveller in a deep rode will be choice of his way throughout to keep himself as clean as he can from bespotting even with mire and dirt but if he spie a rotten bog or a deep precipice just before him he will make a sudden stop hold back and cast about for a safer way he will be sure for fear of lying fast or venturing a joynt to keep out of that howsoever So David here Cleanse me from those but keep me back from these 22. Secondly in his Petition he maketh mention of his service and dependance He often professeth himself the servant of God Truly I am thy servant I am thy servant and the Son of thy handmaid And he often remembreth it to good purpose and presseth it for his advantage upon sundry occasions in this book of Psalms as he doth here very seasonably and pertinently keep back thy Servant Implying that these Presumptuous sins are more unbecoming the servant of God and more unpardonable in him than those other faults are As a discreet Master will pass by many oversights in his servant if sometimes for want of wit and some negligences too if haply for want of care he do now and then otherwise than he would have him But it would exceedingly provoke the spirit of the most suffering Master to see his servant though but once to do that which he knew would offend him in a kind of bravery and out of a sawcy and self-willed Presumption as who say I know it will anger my Master but all is one for that I will do it tho no Patience would endure this So the servant of God by one presumptuous sin doth more grieve and exasperate the holy Spirit of his gracious Master and more highly provoke his just indignation than by many Ignorances or Negligences 23. Thirdly he speaketh here of Dominion Let them not have Dominion over me Any small sin may get the upper hand of the sinner and bring him under in time and after that is once habituated by long custome so as he cannot easily shake off the yoke neither redeem himself from under the tyranny thereof We see the experiment of it but too often and too evidently in our common Swearers and Drunkards Yet do such kind of sins for the most part grow on by little and little steal into the throne insensibly and do not exercise Dominion over the enslaved soul till they have got strength by many and multiplied Acts. But a Presumptuous sin worketh a great alteration in the state of the soul at once and by one single act advanceth marvellously weakning the spirit and giving a mighty advantage to the flesh even to the hazard of a compleat Conquest 24. Lastly he speaketh of the great offence Total and final Apostasie which some understand to be the very sin against the Holy Ghost which cutteth off from the offender all possibility of pardon and reconcilement because it is supposed to be attended with final impenitency and without penance there is no hope of reconcilement or place for pardon David petitioneth to be kept back from these Presumptuous sins and free from their Dominion that so he might be upright and innocent from the great transgression As if these Presumptuous sins did make some nearer approaches to that great transgression and as if no man could well secure himself against the danger of
final impenitency but by keeping out of the reach of these Presumptuous sins 25. From all these intimations in the Text we may conclude there is something more in Presumptuous sins than in sins of Ignorance and Infirmity the Obliquity greater and the Danger greater Which we are now a little farther to discover that so our care to avoid them may be the greater Their Obliquity is best seen in the Cause their Danger in the Effects It hath been cleared already that Presumptuous sins spring from the perversness of the will as the most proper and Immediate cause and it is the will that hath the chief stroke in all moral actions torender them good or bad better or worse It is a Maxime amongst the Cafuists Involuntarium minuit de ratione peccati and Voluntas distinguit maleficia say the Lawyers So that albeit there be many circumstances as of Time Place Persons c. and sundry other respects especially those of the Matter and of the End very considerable for the aggravating extenuating and comparing of sins one with another yet the consent of the Will is of so much greater importance than all the rest that all other considerations laid aside every sin is absolutely by so much greater or lesser by how much it is more or less voluntary Sithence therefore in sins of Ignorance and Infirmity there is less Wilfulness the Will being misled in the one by an Error in the Judgment and in the other transported by the violence of some Passion and in sins of Presumption there is a greater wilfulness wherein the Will wanting either information or leisure to resolve better doth yet knowingly and advisedly resolve to do ill it will necessarily follow that Presumptuous sins are therefore far greater sins than either of the other are The Will being abundantly and beyond measure wilful maketh the sin to be abundantly and beyond measure sinful Doubtless far greater was Davids sin in murthering though but his servant than either Peters in denying his Master or Sauls in blaspheming and persecuting his Saviour 26. Nor only do Presumptuous sins spring from a worse Cause than the other and thence are more Sinful but do also produce worse Effects than they and so are more dangerous whether we look at them before or at the time of Repentance or after Before Repentance they harden the heart wonderfully hey wast the conscience in a fearful manner and bring such a callous crust upon the tnner man that it will be a long and a hard work so to supple soften and iintender the heart again as to make it capable of the impressions of Repentance For alas what hope to do good upon a wilful man The most grave admonitions the most seasonable reproofs the most powerful exhortations the most convincing Reasons that can be used to such a man are but Tabula coeco as a curious Picture to a blind man for who so blind as he that will not see and Fabula surdo a pleasant tale to a deaf man for who so deaf as he that will not hear 27. Thus it is with wicked men and cast-aways whose brawny hearts are by these wilful rebellions fitted for and fatted up unto destruction And verily not much better than thus is it with Gods faithful servants for the time if at any time they hap to fall into any presumptuous sin In what a sad condition may we think poor David was after he had lain with the Wife and slain the Husband What musick could he now trow ye find in his own Anthems With what comfort could he say his Prayers Did not his tongue think ye cleave to the roof of his mouth And had not his right hand well-nigh forgot her cunning To the judgment of man no difference for some months together during his unrepentance betwixt holy David the man after Gods own heart and a profane scorner that had no fear of God before his eyes Such wast and havock had that great sin made and such spoil of the graces and pledges of Gods holy Spirit in his soul. Look how a sober wise man who when he is himself is able to order his words and affairs with excellent discretion when in a sharp burning-â—ever his blood is inflamed and his brains distempered will rave and talk at random and fling stones and dirt at all about him and every other way in his speeches and motions behave himself like a fool or mad-man so is the servant of God lying under the guilt of a Presumptuous sin before Repentance 28. And then when he doth come to repent Lord what a do there is with him before that great stomach of his will come down and his Masterful spirit be soundly subdued And yet down it must subdued it must be or he getteth no pardon What shrinking and drawing back when the wound cometh to be searcht And yet searcht it must be and probed to the bottom or there will be no perfect recovery Presumptuous sins being so grievous hath been shewed let no man think they will be removed with mean and ordinary Humiliations The Remedy must be proportioned both for strength and quantity Ingredients and Dose to the Quality and Malignity of the distemper or it will never do the cure As stains of a deep dye will not out of the cloth with such ordinary washings as will fetch out lighter spots so to cleanse the heart defiled with these deeper pollutions these crimson and scarlet sins and to restore it pure white as snow or wooll a more solemn and lasting course is requisite than for lesser transgressions It will ask more sighs more tears more Indignation more revenge a stronger infusion of all those soveraign ingredients prescribed by St. Paul 2 Cor. 7. before there can be any comfortable hope that it is pardoned The will of man is a sowre and stubborn piece of clay that will not frame to any serviceable use without much working A soft and tender heart indeed is soon rent in pieces like a silken garment if it do but catch upon any little nail But a heart hardned with long custom of sinning especially if it be with one of these presumptuous sins is like the knotty root-end of an old Oak that hath lain long a drying in the Sun It must be a hard wedge that will enter and it must be handled with some skill too to make it do that and when the wedge is entred it will endure many a hard knock before it will yield to the Cleaver and fall in sunder And indeed it is a blessed thing and to be acknowledged a gracious evidence of Gods unspeakable mercy to those that have wilfully suffered such an unclean spirit to enter in and to take possession of their souls if they shall ever be enabled to out him again though with never so much fasting and Prayer Potentes Potenter they that have mightily offended shall be sure to be mightily tormented if they repent not and therefore it is
first of the Limitation in respect of the person that a man rest satisfied with his own estate 15. The very thing to my seeming principally intended in the last Commandment of the Decalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which forbiddeth expresly the coveting of our Neighbours House his Wife his Cattel and proportionably the coveting of his Farm his Office his Honour his Kingdom and generally the coveting of any thing that is anothers Which is as much in effect as to require every man to rest fully satisfied with that portion of outward things which God hath been pleased by fair and justifiable ways in his good providence to derive upon him without a greedy desire of that which is anothers They who conceit the thing in that Commandment properly forbidden to be the Primi motus those first motions or stirrings of sin which we call Concupiscence arising in the sensual Appetite corrupted through Adam's fall as all other faculties of the soul are before any actual deliberation of the understanding thereabout or actual consent of the Will thereunto I must confess do not satisfie me For those motions or stirrings supposing them sinful are according to their several objects so far as they can be supposed sinful forbidden in every of the Ten Commandments respectively even as the Acts are to which they refer and from which they differ not so much in kind as in degree I much rather incline to their judgment who think the thing properly and principally there forbidden to be an inordinate desire after that which by right or property is Anothers and not Ours 16. And then these words of the Apostle Heb. 13. may serve for a short but full Commentary upon that last Commandment both in the Negative and in the Affirmative part thereof Let your Conversation be without Covetousness the Negative and be content with such things as ye have the Affirmative When we endeavour or desire to get from another that which is his by any fraudulent oppressive or other unjust course we are then within the compass of the Eighth Commandment Thou shalt not steal as is evident from the Analogy of our Saviours Expositions upon the other Commandments wherein Murther and Adultery are forbidden Mat. 5. But the last Commandment Thou shalt not Covet cometh more within us condemning every inordinate desire of what is not ours albeit we have no actual intention to make it ours by any unlawful either violent or fraudulent means The bare wishing in our hearts that what is our Neighbours were Ours his Wife House Servant Beast or his any thing Ours without considering whether he be willing to part with it or no or whether it be meet for him so to do or no is a cursed fruit of corrupt self-love a direct breach of the holy Law of God in that last Commandment and flatly opposite to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-sufficiency wherein true contentment consisteth 17. Ahabs sin was this when first his teeth began to water after Naboth's Vinâ—â—ard He went indeed afterwards a great deal farther He brake the Eighth Commandment Thou shalt not steal and he brake the Sixth Commandment also Thou shalt not kill when he took Naboth's both Life and Vineyard from him by a most unjust and cruel oppression All this came on afterwards But his first sin was meerly against the last Commandment in that he could not rest himself satisfied with all his own Abundance but his mind was set on Naboth's plat and unless he might have that too lying so conveniently for him to lay to his demesnes he could not be at quiet He had not as yet for any thing appeareth in the Story any setled purpose any resolved design to wrest it from the owner by Violence or to weary him out of it with injust Vexations So he might but have it upon any fair terms either by way of Sale he would give him full as much for it as it could be worth of any mans money or by way of Exchange he would give him for it a better plat of ground than it was either way should serve his turn Naboth should but speak his own Conditions and they should be performed Many a petty Lord of a Hamlet with us would think himself disparaged in a Treaty of Enclosure to descend to such low Capitulations with one of his poor Neighbours as the great King of Israel then did with one of his Subjects and to sin but as modestly as Ahab yet did Here was neither Fraud nor Violence nor so much as Threatning used but the whole carriage outwardly square enough and the proposals not unreasonable All the fault as yet was within The thing that made Ahab even then guilty in the sight of God was the inordinacy of his desire after that Vineyard being not his own which Inordinacy upon Naboth's refusal of the offered Conditions he farther bewrayed by many signs the effects of a discontented mind For in he cometh heavy and displeased taketh pet and his bed looketh at no body and out of sullenness forsaketh his meat Had he well learned this piece of the lesson in the Text to have contented himself with his own both his body had been in better temper and his mind at better quiet and his conscience at better peace than now they were 18. Abraham it seemeth had learnt it Who was so far from all base desire of enriching himself with the King of Sodom's Goods that he utterly refused them when he might have taken them and held them without any injustice at all He had or might have had a double Title to them They were his Iure belli by the Law of Arms and of Nations having won them in the field and in a just war and they might have been his jure donationis by the Kings free donation Give me the Persons take the Goods to thy self if he had been minded to accept the offer But Abraham would none contenting himself with what the Lord had blessed him withal he did not desire neither would he take from a thread or a shooe-latchet of any thing that appertained to the King of Sodom 19. But what need we seek any other indeed where can we find a better Example to instance in as to the matter we now treat of than this our Apostle if we do but recall to mind that Protestation of his once before mentioned made before the Clergy of Asia in his Visitation at Miletum Acts 20. I have coveted no mans Silver or Gold or Apparel Brave and noble was the challenge that Samuel made in a full Assembly of the whole people of Israel Behold here I am witness against me before the Lord and before his Anointed Whose Oxe have I taken or whose Ass have I taken Or whom have I defrauded Whom have I oppressed Or of whose hands have I received a Bribe Possibly there are Iudges and Officers in the World that would be loth to make so bold a Challenge and venture
rather have it fairly if it might be but if it will not come so yet would I have it howsoever my desire becometh an unjust and inordinate desire Such was Ahabs still his example you see furnisheth us at every turn He must have the Vineyard yea that he must Cujus si dominus pretio non vincitur ullo c. If money will fetch it Naboth shall have his own asking But if that will not do the deed something else must Letters shall be written Witnesses suborned Iudges awed Iustice perverted and an innocent person If the situation if his Vineyard had not made him guilty in a goodly formal pageant of a legal proceeding with much base hypocrisie and in a most undue unworthy manner accused condemned executed Quid non mortalia pectora cogis Stand amazed and consider what a mass of sin and mischief the least indulgence to a vicious inordinate desire may lead you to at the last more than perhaps you could at the first suspect your self capable to fall into 32. What should I say then Brethren Even what our Lord hath said before me Take heed and beware of Covetousness Look upon all the frauds that are practised every where among the sons of men take a survey of all the oppressions the greater and lesser oppressions that are done under the Sun you shall find the most of them to owe both their first-birth and after-growth to this cursed root of Covetousness Extortion Bribery Flattery Calumny Perjury Simony Sacriledge unjust Wars and Suits Do they not all come from hence False weights and measures in the Markets false lights and wares in the Shops false Pleas and Oaths in the Courts exhaunsing of Fees trucking for Expedition racking of Rents cracking of Bankrupts depopulating of Towns projecting of Monopolies and God knoweth how many more my breath would fail me and the time but to name them are they not all from hence And doth not the riseness of them abroad in the World unanswerably convince the men of this Generation of much injustice and uncharitableness in coveting other mens goods and not being content with their own 33. Upon this first point I have stood the longer being the Principal of the three and the foundation of the other two That now setled we shall be like to come off with quicker dispatch in the rest The object of Contentment as it is limited in respect of the Person It must be a mans own estate of which hitherto so is it limited in respect of the Time It must be a mans present Estate of which next The Text hath not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the preter In what state I have been nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the future In what state I shall be but in the present 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In whatsoever state I am Look what God who is Lord of all and dispenseth to every man severally as he will disposeth upon him for the present although perhaps far short of what he may have had in some times heretofore or of what he may probably have in possibilities and reversions hereafter he that hath a contented mind doth not afflict himself either with pensive thoughts at the remembrance of what he hath been or with suspenceful thoughts in forecasting both his hopes and fears what he may be But he giveth himself up to the Lords present disposal and resteth satisfied with the portion that is before him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle expresly Heb. 13. being content with the present things and elsewhere Having food and Rayment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present tense still let us be therewith content 34. Grant but the former part already made good That we are to be content with our own and this will follow of it self That we are to be content with the present because nothing can be truly said to be our own but the present What is past and gone perhaps it was ours but we cannot say It is ours now and what is future and to come perhaps it may be ours and perhaps it may not too but we cannot say It is ours yet Panem nostrum quotidianum our daily bread or as some translate it hodiernum our this days bread so we are taught to stile it when we beg it Nostrum and Hodiernum may be well put together for it is only this days bread that is our bread Another days bread may be another mans bread for ought we know Nam propriae telluris herum natura nec illum Nec me nec quenquam fecit All these things pass to and fro in the world from one hand to another and so to another and another ever and anon uponsome casualty or other many times in a moment shifting Masters and seldom stay long in a place When one would think we had them fast either they take them wings and flye away and leave us behind or our thread is cut and we drop away and leave them behind And how suddenly this may be done who knoweth Perhaps before to morrow stulte hac nocte and then what was ours goeth another way who knoweth whither Perhaps to a meer stranger cujus erunt Thou fool this night thy Soul shall be required of thee then whose shall these things be thou now callest thine Nothing is certainly ours but the present and of that we have no farther certainty than the present So that unless we can frame our minds to be content with the present we shall never be able to find any certainty whereon to rest 35. Add hereunto secondly that all solicitous looking forward and beyond the present doth ipso facto and of it self take off so much from our content It raiseth up many foggy mists of hopes and fears and other perturbations that disquiet the mind wonderfully and torture it with suspencefulness and anxiety Spemque metumque inter dubii Whilst men through the desire of having hang in suspence betwixt the hope of getting and the fear of missing they cannot chuse but pierce themselves through with many sorrows and create themselves much unrest Laetus in praesens animus quod ultra est Oderet curare And again Dona praesentis cape laetus horoe Linque futura These and sundry other like passages we meet with in the Poets together with those phrases so usual with them In diem vivere c. would be good meditations for us if we should understand them in that Christian sence whereto we now apply them and which the words themselves will bea◠and not in the Epicures sence wherein for the most part they that used them meant them But I rather give it you in our Saviours words Take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of it self sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof Mat. 6. 36. A third consideration there is nothing less available than either of the former but rather much more
to judge of his dealings by thine and to think him altogether such a one as thy self so false so fickle so uncertain as thou art Far be all such Thoughts from every one of us Though we deny him yet he abideth faithful and will not cannot deny himself We are fleeting and mutable off and on to day not the same we were yesterday and to morrow perhaps like neither of the former days yet Ego Deus non mutor he continueth yesterday to day and the same for ever Roll thy self then upon his providence and repose thy self with assured confidence upon his Promises and Contentment will follow ' ' Upon this base the Apostle hath bottomed Contentation Heb. 13. Be content with such things as ye have for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee 25. The next thing we are to look after in this business is Humility and Poverty of Spirit It is our pride most that undoeth us much of our discontent springeth from it We think highly of our selves thence our Envy fretting and pining away when we see others who we think deserve not much better than we do to have yet much more than we have Wealth Honour Power Ease Reputation any thing Pride and Beggary for t ill together even in our own judgments so hateful a thing is a proud beggar in the Opinion of the World that Proverbs have grown from it We think he better deserveth the Stocks or the Whip than an Alms that beggeth at our doors and yet taketh scornfully what is given him if it be not of the best in the house Can we hate this in others towards our selves and yet be so blinded with Pride and Self-love as not to discern the same hateful disposition in our selves towards our good God Extremely beggarly we are Annon mendicus qui panem petis Are we not very beggars that came naked into the world and must go naked out of it That brought nothing along with us at our coming and it is certain we shall carry nothing away with us at our departure Are we not errant beggars that must beg and that daily for our daily bread And yet are we also extremely Proud and take the Alms that God thinketh fit to bestow upon us in great snuff if it be not every way to our liking Alas what could we look for if God should give us but what we deserve Did we but well consider our own unworthiness it would enforce an acknowledgment from us like that of Iacob That we are far less than the least of his mercies c. We are not worthy so much as to gather the crums under his Table as our dogs do under ours who far better deserve it at our hands than we do at his Our hands did not make them nor fashion them yet they love us and follow us and guard our Houses and do us pleasures and services many other ways But we although we are his creatures and the workmanship of his hands yet do nothing as of our selves but hate him and dishonour him and rebel against him and by most unworthy provocations daily and minutely tempt his patience And what good thing then can we deserve at his hands Rather what evil thing do we not deserve if he should render to us according as we deal with him Why should we then be displeased with any of his dispensations Having deserved nothing we may very well hold our selves content with any thing 26. A Third help unto Contentation is to set a just Valuation upon the things we have We commonly have our Eye upon those things which we desire and set so great a price upon them that the over-valuing of what we have in chase and expectation maketh us as much under-value what we have in present possession An Infirmity to which the best of the faithful the Father of the faithful not excepted are subject It was the speech of no worse a man than Abraham O Lord saith he what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless As if he had said All this great increase of Cattel and abundance of Treasure which thou hast given me avail me nothing so long as I have never a Child to leave it to It differeth not much you see from the speech of discontented Haman All this availeth me nothing so long as I see Mordecai c. save that Abraham's speech proceeded from the weakness of his Faith at that time and under that temptation and Haman's from habitual infidelity and a heart totally carnal It is the admirable goodness of a gracious God that he accepteth the faith of his poor servants be it never so small and passeth by the defects thereof be they never so great Only it should be our care not to flatter our selves so far as to cherish those infirmities or allow our selves therein but rather to strive against them with our utmost strength that we may overcome the Temptation And that is best done by casting our Eye as well upon what we have and could not well be without as upon what we fain would have but might want The things the Lord hath already lent thee consider how useful they are to thee how beneficial how comfortable how ill thou couldst spare them how much worse thou shouldst be than now thou art without them how many men in the world that want what thou enjoyest would be glad with all their hearts to exchange for it that which thou so much desirest And let these Considerations prevail with thee both to be thankful for what God hath been pleased already to give thee and to be content to want what it is his pleasure yet to with-hold from thee 27. Another help for the same purpose fourthly is to compare our selves and our Estates rather with those that are below us than with those that are above us We love Comparisons but too well unless we could make better use of them We run over all our Neighbours in our Thoughts and when we have so done we make our Comparisons so untowardly that there is no Neighbour we have but as we handle the matter we are the worse for him We find in him something or other that serveth as fewel either to our Pride or Uncharitableness or other corrupt lusts We look at our poorer Neighbour and because we are richer than he we cast a scornful Eye upon him and in the pride of our hearts despise him We look at our richer Neighbour and because we are not so full as he we cast an Envious Eye at him and out of the uncharitableness of our hearts malice him Thus unhappily do we misplace our Thoughts or misapply them and whatsoever the promises are draw wretched conclusions from them as the Spider is said to suck poyson out of every flower Whereas sanctified wisdom if it might be heard would rather teach us to make a holy advantage of such like comparisons for the increase of some precious Graces in us
Rebel or Enemy for the passing over the said House or Fort into his hands Who would not condemn such a person for such an act of ingratitude injustice and presumption in the highest degree Yet is our injustice ingratitude and presumption by so much more infinitely heinous than his in selling our selves from God our Lord and Master into the hands of Satan a Rebel and an Enemy to God and all goodness By how much the disparity is infinitely more betwixt the eternal God and the greatest of the Sons of Men than betwixt the highest Monarch in the world and the lowest of his Subjects 7. So much for the Act the other particulars belong to it as circumstances thereof To a Sale they say three things are required Res Pretium and Consensus a Commodity to be sold a Price to be paid and Consent of Parties Here they are all And whereas I told you in the beginning that in this Sale was represented to us Mans inexcusable baseness and folly You shall now plainly see each Particle thereof made good in the three several circumstances In the Commodity our Baseness that we should sell away our very selves in the Price our folly that we should do it for a thing of nought in the consent our inexcusableness in both that an act so base and foolish should yet be our own voluntary act and deed And first for the Commodity you have sold your selves 8. Lands Houses Cattel and other like possessions made for mans use are the proper subject-matter of trade and commerce and so are fit to pass from man to man by Sales and other Contracts But that Man a Creature of such excellency stamped with the Image of God endowed with a reasonable Soul made capable of Grace and Glory should prostare in foro become merchantable ware and be chaffered in the Markets and Fairs I suppose had been a thing never heard of in the World to this hour had not the overflowings of Pride and Cruelty and Covetousness washed out of the hearts of Men the very impressions both of Religion and Humanity It is well and we are to bless God and under God to thank our Christian Religion and pious Governours for it that in these times and parts of the world we scarce know what it meaneth But that it was generally practised all the world over in some former ages and is at this day in use among Turks and Pagans to sell men ancient Histories and modern Relations will not suffer us to be ignorant We have mention of such Sales even in Scripture where we read of some that sold their own brother as Iacobs Sons did Ioseph and of one that sold his own Master as the Traitor Iudas did Christ. Basely and wretchedly both Envy made them base and Covetousness him Only in some cases of Necessity as for the preservation of Life or of liberty o◠Conscience when other means fail God permitted to his own people to sell themselves or Children into perpetual Bondage and Moses from him gave Laws and Ordinances touching that Matter Lev. 25. 9. But between the Sale in the Text and all those other there are two main differences Both which doth exceedingly aggravate our baseness The first that no man could honestly sell another nor would any man willingly sell himself unless enforced thereunto by some urgent necessity But what necessity I pray you that we should sell our selves out of Gods and out of our own hands into the hands of Sin and Satan Were we not well enough before Full enough and safe enough Was our Masters service so hard that it might not be abiden Might we not have lived Lived Yea and that happily and freely and plentifully and that for ever in his service What was it then Even as it is with many fickle servants abroad in the World that being in a good service cannot tell when they are well but must be ever and anon flitting though many times they change for the worse so it was only our Pride and Folly and a fond conceit we had of bettering our condition thereby that made us not only without any apparent necessity but even against all good reason and duty thus basely to desert our first service and to sell our selves for bond-slaves to Sin and Satan 10. The other difference maketh the matter yet a great deal worse on our side For in selling of slaves for so much as bodily service was the thing chiefly looked after therefore as the body in respect of strength health age and other abilities was deemed more or less fit for service the price was commonly proportioned thereafter Hence by a customary speech among the Graecians slaves were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is bodies and they that traded in that kind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you would say merchants of bodies And so the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred Rev. 18. Mancipia or slaves Epiphanius giveth us the reason of that use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he c. because all the command that a man can exercise over his slaves is terminated to the body and cannot reach the soul. And the soul is the better part of man and that by so many degrees better that in comparison thereof the body hath been scarce accounted a considerable part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could the Greek Philosopher say and the Latine Orator Mens cujusque is est quisque The soul is in effect the whole man The body but the shell of him the body but the Casket the soul the Jewel It is observable that whereas we read Mat. 16. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole World and lose his own soul instead thereof we have it Luk. 9. thus if he gain the whole world and lose himself So that every mans soul is himself and the body but an appurtenance of him Yet such is our baseness that we have thus trucked away our selves with the appurtenances that is both our souls and our bodies We detest Witches and Conjurers and that worthily as wicked and base People because we suppose them to have made either an express or at least-wise an implicite contract with the Devil Yet have our rebellions against God put us in the same predicament with them Verily Rebellion is as witchcraft 1 Sam. 15. Ours is so since by it we have made a Contract with the Devil and sold our selves to him souls and all 11. Yet are base-minded people most an end covetous enough they will hardly part with any thing but they will know for what Ecquid erit pretii What will you give me is a ready Question in every mans mouth that offers to sell. Iosephs Brethren though they were desirous to be rid of him yet would have somewhat for him and Iudas would not be a Traytor for nought They got twenty pieces of silver for their Brother and he thirty for his Master And those oppressors
understanding can fathom Sic Deus dilexit So God loved the world But how much that so containeth no tongue or wit of man can reach Nothing expresseth it better to the life than the work it self doth That the Word should be made Flesh that the holy One of God should be made sin that God blessed for ever should be made a curse that the Lord of life and glory should suffer an inglorious death and pour out his own most precious blood to ransome such worthless thankless graceless Traitors as we were that had so desperately made our selves away and that into the hands of his deadliest enemy and that upon such poor and unworthy conditions O altitudo Love incomprehensible It swalloweth up the sense and understanding of Men and Angels fitter to be admired and adored with silence than blemished with any our weak Expressions 29. I leave it therefore and go on to the next his Right When de facto we sold our selves to Satan we had de jure no power or right at all so to do being we were not our own and so in truth the title is naught and the sale void Yet it is good against us however we may not plead the invalidity of it forsomuch as in reason no man ought to make advantage of his own act Our act then barreth us But yet it cannot bar the right owner from challenging his own wheresoever he find it And therefore we may be well assured God will not suffer the Devil who is but malae fidei possessor an intruder and a cheater quietly to enjoy what is Gods and not his but he will eject him we have that word Ioh. 12. 21. Ejicietur now is the Prince of this world cast out and recover out of his possession that which he hath no right at all to hold 30. Sundry inferences we might raise hence if we had time I may not insist yet I cannot but touch at three duties which we owe to God for this Redemption because they answer so fitly to these three last mentioned assurances We owe him Affiance in respect of his Power in requital of his Love Thankfulness and in regard of his Right Service First the consideration of his Power in our Redemption may put a great deal of comfort and confidence into us that having now redeemed us if we do but cleave fast to him and revolt not again he will protect us from Sin and Satan and all other enemies and pretenders whatsoever O Israel fear not for I have redeemed thee Isa. 43. If then the Devil shall seek by any of his wiles or suggestions at any time to get us over to him again as he is an unwearied sollicitor and will not lose his claim by discontinuance Let us then look to that Cornu salutis that horn of salvation that God hath raised up for us in Christ our Redeemer and flie thither for succour as to the horns of the Altar saying with David Psalm 119. I am thine oh save me and we shall be safe In all inward temptations in all outward distresses at the hour of death and in the day of judgement we may with great security commit the keeping our souls to him both as a faithful Creator and as a powerful Redeemer saying once more with David into thy hands I commend my spirit for thou hast redeemed me O Lord thou God of truth Psal. 31. 6. 31. Secondly The consideration of his love in our Redemption should quicken us to a thankful acknowledgment of his great and undeserved goodness towards us Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from the hands of the enemy Psal. 107. Let all men let all creatures do it but let them especially If the blessings of corn and wine and oyl of health and peace and plenty of deliverance from sicknesses pestilences famines and other calamities can so affect us as to provoke at least some overly and superficial forms of thanksgiving from us how carnal are our minds and our thoughts earthly if the contemplation of the depth of the riches of God mercy poured our upon us in this great work of our Redemption do not even ravish our hearts with an ardent desire to pour them out unto him again in Hymns and Psalms and Songs of Thanksgiving with a Benedictus in our mouths Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people 32. Thirdly The consideration of his Right should bind us to do him service We were his before for he made us and we ought him service for that But now we are his more than before and by a new title for he hath bought us and paid for us and we owe him more service for that The Apostle therefore urgeth it as a matter of great equity you are not your own but his therefore you are not to satisfie your selves by doing your own lusts but to glorifie him by doing his will When Christ redeemed us by his blood his purpose was to redeem us unto God Rev. 5. 9. and not to our selves and to redeem us from our vain conversation 1 Pet. 1. 18. and not to it And he therefore delivered us out of the hands of our enemies that we might the more freely and securely and without fear serve him in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our lives Luke 1. which being both our bounden duty and the thing withal so very reasonable we have the more to answer for i◠we do not make a conscience of it to perform it accordingly He hath done his part and that which he was no way bound unto in redeeming us and he hath done it to purpose done it effectually Let it be our care to do our part for which their lye so many obligations upon us in serving him and let us also do it to purpose do it really and throughly and constantly 33. Thus is our Redemption done effectually it is also done freely which is the only point now remaining Not for price nor reward Isa. 45. 13. but freely and without money here in the Text. Nor need we here fear another contradiction For the meaning is not that there was no price paid at all but that there was none paid by us we laid out nothing towards this great Purchase there went none of our money to it But otherwise that there was a price paid the Scriptures are clear You are bought with a price saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 6. and he saith it over again Chap. 7. He that paid it calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransom that is as much as to say a price of Redemption and his Apostle somewhat more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which implieth a just and satisfactory price full as much as the thing can be worth Yet not paid to Satan in whose possession we were for we have found already that he was but an Usurper and his title naught He had but bought of us
and we by our sale could convey unto him no more right than we had our selves which was just none at all Our Redeemer therefore would not enter into any capitulation with him or offer to him any Terms of composition But thought good rather in pursuance of his own right to use his power And so he vindicated us from him by main strength with his own right hand and with his holy arm he got himself the victory and us liberty without any price or ransom paid him 34. But then unto Almighty God his Father and our Lord under whose heavy Curse we lay and whose just vengeance would not be appeased towards us for our grievous presumption without a condign satisfaction to him I say there was a price paid by our Redeemer and that the greatest that ever was paid for any purchase since the world began Not silver and gold saith St. Peter which being corruptible things are not valuable against our immortal and incorruptible souls But even himself in whom are absconditi thesauri amassed and hidden all the treasures of the wisdom of God and even the whole riches of his grace treasure enough to redeem a whole world of sinners Take it collectively or distributively singula generum or genera singulorum this way or that way or which way you will in Christ there is copiosa redemptio redemption plenty and enough for all if they will but accept it Take all mankind singly one by one He gave himself for me saith St. Paul in one place Take them altogether in the lump He gave himself a ransom for all in another 35. Now for a man to give himself what is it else but to give his soul for that is himself as we heard before and his life for vita in anim◠the life is in the soul and these he gave He gave up his soul when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin Isa. 53. 10. and he laid down his life the Son of man came to give his life a ransom for many Mat. 10. More than this in love he could not give for what greater love than to lay down ones life And less than this in justice he might not give for Death by the Law being the wages of sin there could be no Redemption from death so as to satisfie the Law without the death of the Redeemer 36. Yea and it must be a bloody death too for anima in sanguine the life is in the blood and without shedding of blood there can be no remission no redemption All those bloody sacrifices of Bulls and Goats and Lambs in the Old Testament all those frequent sprinklings of blood upon the door posts upon the book upon the people upon the tabernacle and upon all the vessels of ministry and all those legal purifications in which blood was used as almost all things are by the Law purged with blood Heb. 9. they were all but so many types and shadows prefiguring this blood of springling which speaketh so many good things for us pacifieth the fierce anger of God towards us purgeth us from all sins and redeemeth us from hell and damnation I mean the meritorious blood of the Cross the most precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish 1 Pet. 1. 18. 37. But can there be worth enough may some say in the blood of a Lamb of one single Lamb to be a valuable compensation for the sins of the whole world First this was agnus singularis a Lamb of special note not such another in the whole flock All we like sheep have gone astray but so did this Lamb never All of us like the encrease of Labans flock speckled or ring-streaked but this Lamb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if Momus himself were set to search he could not yet find the least spot or blemish A cunninger searcher than he hath pried narrowly into every corner of his life who if there had been any thing amiss would have been sure to have spied it and proclaimed it but could find nothing The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me That is something his Innocency But if that be not enough for the Angels are also innocent behold then more He is secondly Agnus Dei the Lamb of God that is the Lamb which God hath appointed and set a-part for this service by special designation so as either this party must do it or none There is no other name given under heaven no nor in heaven neither nor above by which we can be redeemed Him and him alone hath God the Father sealed and by vertue of that Seal authorized and enabled to undertake this great work Or if you have not yet enough for it may be said what if it had been the pleasure of God to have sealed one of the Angels Behold then thirdly that which is beyond all exception and leaveth no place for cavil or scruple He is Agnus Deus The Lamb is God the Son of God very God of very God and so the blood of this Lamb is the very blood of God Act. 20. And it is this dignity of his Nature especially and not his innocency only no nor yet his deputation too without this that setteth such a huge value upon his blood that it is an infinite price of infinite merit able to satisfie an infinite justice and to appease an infinite wrath 31. You will now confess I doubt not that this Redemption was not gratis came not for nothing in respect of him it cost him full dear even his dearest lifes-blood But then in respect of us it was a most free and gracious Redemption It was no charge at all to us we disburs'd not a mite not a doyt towards it Which is the very true reason why it is said in the Text Ye shall be redeemed without money This work then is meerly an act of grace not a fruit of merit of grace abundant grace on his part no merit not the least merit at all on ours And well it is for us that we have to do with so gracious a God Go to an officer and who can promise to himself any ordinary favour from him without a fee Go into the shops and what can ye take up without either money credit or security for it Si nihil attuleris bring nothing and have nothing Only when we have to do with God Poverty is no impediment but rather an advantage to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Gospel belongeth to none but the poor only The tidings of a Redeemer most blessed and welcome news to those that are sensible of their own poverty and take it as of Grace But whoso thinketh his own penny good silver and will be putting in and bidding for it will stand upon his terms as David did with Araunah and will pay for it or he will not have it Let that man beware lest his money and he perish
when our souls shall stand most of all in need of comfort The Consolations of God are first Pure they run clear without mud or mixture secondly Full satiating the appetites of the soul and leaving no Vacuities thirdly Permanent such as unless by our default no Creature in the world can hinder or deprive us of In every of which three respects all wordly comforts as they come but from the Creatures fall infinitely short as might easily be shewn had we but time to compare them 16. It is hard to say the whiles whether is greater our Misery or Madness who forsake the Lord the clear fountain of living waters to dig to our selves broken pits that hold no water in the mean time but puddle and but a very little of that neither and yet cannot hold that long neither What fondness is in us to lay out our money for that which is not bread and our labour for that which satisfieth not To wear out our bodies with travel and torture our souls with Cares in the pursuit of these muddy narrow and fleeting Comforts When we may have Nectar and Ambrosia the delicacies of the bread of life and of the water of life gratis and without price Only if we will but open our mouths to crave it and open our hands to receive it from him who is so well stored of it and is withal so willing to impart it with all freedom and bounty even the Father of Mercies and the God of Consolation 17. Thus far of the two Titles severally let us now put them together and see what we can make out of them The God of Patience and Consolation Where every mans first demand will be why the Apostle should chuse to enstile Almighty God from these Two of Patience and of Consolation rather than from some other of those Attributes which occur perhaps more frequently in holy Writ as God of Wisdom of Power of Mercy of Peace of Hope c. Whatever other Inducements the Apostle might have for so doing Two are apparent and let them satisfie us The one the late mentioning of these two things in the next former Verse That we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope Having once named them both together there it was neither incongruous nor inelegant to repeat them again both together here 2. The other the fitness of these Titles and their sutableness unto the matter of the Prayer For the most part you shall find in those forms of prayer that are left us registred in the Book of God such Titles and Attributes given to God in the prefaces of those prayers as do best sort with the principle matter contained therein Which course the Church also hath observed in her Liturgies The Apostle then being to pray for Unity might well make mention of Patience and Consolation of Patience as a special Help thereunto and of Consolation as a special Fruit and Effect thereof As if he had said If you could have Patience you would soon grow to be of one mind and if you were once come to that you would find a great deal of comfort in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The God therefore of Patience and Consolation grant it may be so with you 18. First Patience is a special help to Unity For what is it but the pride and heat of mens spirits that both setteth contentions a-foot at the first and afterwards keepeth them a-foot Only by pride cometh contention said Solomon Prov. 13. So long as men are impatient of the least Contradiction cannot brook to have their Opinions gain-said their Advices rejected their apparent Excesses reproved will not pass by the smallest frailties in their brother without some clamour to scorn or censure but rather break out upon every slight occasion into Words or Actions of fury and distemper it cannot be hoped there should be that blessed Unity among brethren which our Apostle here wisheth for and every good man heartily desireth No! Patience is the true Peace-maker It is the soft Answer that breaketh wrath cross and thwarting language rather strengtheneth it As a flint is sooner broken with a gentle stroke upon a Feather-bed than strucken with all the might against a hard coggle Better is the end of a thing Solomon again than the beginning and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit The proud in spirit belike he is the bouteâ—eu he is the man that beginneth the fray but the patient in spirit is the man that must end it if ever it be well ended and that sure is the better work and the greater honour to him that doth it 19. And as Patience is a special help to Unity so is Comfort a special fruit and Effect thereof St. Paul therefore conjureth the Philippians by all the hope they had of comfort in God to be at one among themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love Fulfil ye my joy that ye be like-minded c. Ecce quà m bonum David in Psalm 133. Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is brethren to dwell together in unity Utile Dulci in saying both he saith all Good and pleasant that is both profitable like the dew upon â—he mountains that maketh the grassspring and comfortable as the smell of a precious Oyntment And what can the heart of man desire more That for the Choice 20. For the Conjunction then it may be demanded secondly why the Apostle should joyn these two together Patience and Consolation there seeming to be no great affinity between them They are things that differ toto genere for Patience is a Grace or Vertue and Consolation a Blessing or reward Is it not think you to instruct us that true Patience shall never go without Consolation He that will have Patience onward shall be sure to have comfort at the last God will crown the grace of Patience with the blessing of Consolation The patient abiding of the meek shall not perish for ever Psal. 9. St. Iames would have us set before our eyes the Prophets and Saints for a general example of suffering afflictions and of Patience and he commendeth to us one particular Example there as by way of instance namely that of Iob. You have heard saith he of the patience of Iob and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is pitiful and of tender mercy Iob held out in his patience under great trials unto the last and God out of pity and in his tender mercy towards him heaped Comforts upon him at the last in great abundance It would be well worthy our most serious meditation to consider both what by Gods grace he did and how by Gods mercy he sped His Example in the one would be a good Pattern for us of Patience and his Reward in the other a good Encouragement for Consolation This we may bide upon as a most certain truth
path of Truth and Godliness The word of Christ is the word of truth and the mystery of Christ the mystery of Godliness Whatsoever therefore is contrary to either of these Truth or Godliness cannot be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to Christ but rather altogether against him Here then we have our bounds set us our Ne plus ultrà beyond which if we pass we transgress and are exorbitant Alas for us the while when even our good desires may deceive us if they be inordinate and the love of so lovely a thing as Peace is mis-lead us The more need have we to look narrowly to our treadings lest the Tempter should have laid a snare for us in a way wherein we suspected it not and so surprise us ere we be aware Usque ad aras The Altar-stone that is the meer-stone All bonds of friendship all offices of neighbourhood must give way when the honour of God and his truth lie at the stake If peace will be had upon fair terms or indeed upon any terms salvis veritate pietate without impeachment of either of these it ought to be embraced But if it will not come but upon harder conditions better let it go A man may buy Gold too dear Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. The gender of the article there sheweth the meaning not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without which peace but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without which holiness no man shall see the Lord. Without peace some man may having faithfully endeavoured it though he cannot obtain it that is not his fault but without holiness which if any man want it is through his own fault only no man shall see the Lord. Our like-mindedness then must be according to Christ Iesus in this first sence that is so far forth as may stand with Christian truth and godliness 41. But very many Expositors do rather understand the phrase in another sence According to Christ that is according to the example of Christ which seemeth to have been the judgment of our last Translators who have therefore so put it into the margent of our Bibles His Example the Apostle had reserved unto the last place as one of the weightiest and most effectual arguments in this business producing it a little before the Text and repeating it again a little after the Text. So as this prayer may seem according to this interpretation to be an illustration of that argument which was drawn from Christs Example as if he had said Christ sought not himself but us He laid aside his own glory devested himself of Majesty and Excellency that he might condescend to our baseness and bear our infirmities he did not despise us but received us with all meekness and compassion Let not us therefore seek every man to please himself in going his own way and setting up his own will neither let us despise any mans weakness but rather treading in the steps of our blessed Lord Iesus let every one of us strive to please his neighbour for his good unto edification bearing with the infirmities of our weaker brethren and receiving one another into our inwardest bosoms and bowels even as Christ also received us to the Glory of God 42. If the examples of the servants of Christ ought not to be lightly set by how much more ought the Example of the Master himself to sway with every Good Christian In 1 Cor. 10. St. Paul having delivered an exhortation in general the same in effect with that we are now in hand withal ver 24. Let no man seek his own but every man anothers wealth he doth after propose to their imitation in that point his own particular practice and example in the last verse of the Chapter Even as I please all men in all things saith he not seeking mine own profit but the profit of many that they might be saved But then lest he might be thought to cry up himself and that he might know how unsafe a thing it were to rest barely upon his or any other mans example in the very next following words the first words of the next Chapter He leadeth them higher and to a more perject example even that of Christ Be ye followers of me saith he as I also am of Christ. As if he had said Although my example who am as nothing be little considerable in it self yet wherein my example is guided by the example of Christ you may not despise it The original record only is authentical and not the transcript yet may a transcript be creditable when it is signed and attested with a Concordat cum originali under the hand of a publick Notary or other sworn Officer I do not therefore lay mine own example upon you as a Rule I only set it before you as a help or Encouragement that you may the more chearfully follow the Example of Christ when you shall see men subject to the same sinful infirmities with your selves by the grace of God to have done the same before you My example only sheweth the thing to be feasible it is Christs Example only that can render it warrantable Be ye therefore followers of me even as I also am of Christ. 43. Here just occasion is offered me but I may not take it because of the time first and more generally of a very profitable Enquiry in what things and how far forth we are astricted to follow the Example of Christ. And then secondly and more particularly what especial directions to take from his Example for the ordering of our carriage towards our brethren in order to the more ready attaining to this Christian unanimity and like-mindedness one towards another of which we have hitherto spoken But I remit you over for both to what our Apostle hath written Phil. 2. in the whole fore-part of the Chapter The whole passage is very well worthy the pondering and his discourse therein may serve as a Commentary upon a good part of this Text. I therefore commend it to your private meditation and you and what you have heard to the good blessing of Almighty God and that with St. Pauls votive prayer or benediction here for I know not where to fetch a better Now the God of Patience and Consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Iesus That you may with one mind and one mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. To whom c. AD AULAM. The Ninth Sermon BERWICK JULY 16. 1639. 1 Tim. 3. 16. And without all Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness 1. THe Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons being one of the principal acts of the Episcopal power our Apostle therefore instructeth Timothy whom he had ordained Bishop of Ephesus the famous Metropolis of that part of Asia somewhat fully what he was to do in that so weighty an affair What manner of persons and
Moses and Aaron and that upon every occasion and for every trifle so do we Every small Disgrace Injury Affront or Loss that happeneth to us from the forwardnesâ— of our Betters the unkindness of our Neighbours the undutifulness of our Children the unfaithfulness of our Servants the unsuccessfulness of our Attempts or by any other means whatsoever any sorry thing will serve to put us quite out of patience as Ionas took pet at the withering of the Gourd And as he was ready to justifie his impatience even to God himself Dost thou well to be angry Ionas Yea marry do I I do well to be angry even to the death so are we ready in all our murmurings against the Lords corrections to flatter our selves as if we did not complain without cause especially where we are able to charge those men that trouble us with unrighteous dealing 11. This is I confess a strong temptation to flesh and blood and many of Gods holy Servants have had much ado to overcome it whilest they looked a little too much outward But yet we have by the help of God a very present remeâ—â—y there-against if blind Self-love will but suffer us to be so wise as to make use oâ— it and that is no more but this to turn our eye inward and to examine our 〈…〉 not how well we have dealt with other men who now requite us so ill 〈◊〉 we our selves have requited God who hath dealt so graciously and â—â—â—â—â—tifully with us If we thus look back into our selves and sins we shall soon perceive that God is just even in those things wherein men are unjust and that we most righteously deserved at his hands to suffer all those things which yet we have no ways deserved at their hands by whom we suffer It will well become us therefore whatsoever judgments God shall please at any time to lay upon us or to threaten us withal either publick or private either by his own immediate hand or by such instruments as he shall employ without all murmurings or disputings to submit to his good will and pleasure and to accept the punishment of our iniquity as the Phrase is Lev. 26. by humbling our selves and confessing that the Lord is righteous as Rehoboam and the Princes of Iudah did 2 Chron. 12. The sense of our own wickedness in rebelling and the acknowledgment of Gods justice in punishing which are the very first acts of true humiliation and the first steps unto true repentance we shall find by the mercy of God to be of great efficacy not only for the averting of Gods judgments after they are come but also if used timely enough and throughly enough for the preventing thereof before they become For if we would judge our selves we should not be judged of the Lord 1 Cor. 11. But because we neglect it and yet it is a thing that must be done or we are undone God in great love and mercy towards us setteth in for our good and doth it himself rather than it should be left undone and we perish even as it there followeth When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with â—he world And it is that faithfulness of God which David acknowledgeth in the latter Conclusion whereunto I now pass 12. And that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled In which words we have these three points First David was troubled Next God caused him to be so troubled Last and God did so out of very faithfulness No great news when we hear of David to hear of trouble withal Lord remember David and all his troubles Psal. 132. Consider him which way you will in his condition natural spiritual or civil that is either as a man or as a godly man or as a King and he had his portion of troubles in every of those conditions First troubles he must have as a man Haeâ— est conditio nascendi Every mothers child that cometh into the world hath a childs part of those troubles the world affordeth Man that is born of a woman those few days that he hath to live he shall be sure to have them full of trouble howsoever In mundo pressuram saith our Saviour In the world ye shall have tribulation Never think it can be otherwise so long as you live here below in the vale of misery where at every turn you shall meet with nothing but very vanity and vexation of spirit 13. Then he was a Godly man and his troubles were somewhat the more for that too For all that will live godly must suffer persecution and however it is with other men certainly many are the troubles of the righteous It is the common lot of the true Children of God because they have many out-flyings wherewith their holy Father is not well-pleased to come under the scourge oftner than the Bastards do If they do amiss and amiss they do they must smart for it either here or hereafter Now God meaneth them no condemnation hereafter and therefore he giveth them the more chastening here 14. But was not David a King And would not that exempt him from troubles He was so indeed but I ween his troubles were neither the fewer nor the lesser for that There are sundry passages in this Psalm that induce me to believe with great probability that David made it while he lived a young man in the Court of Saul long before his coming to the Crown But yet he was even then unct us in Regem anointed and designed for the Kingdom and he met even then with many troubles the more for that very respect And after he came to enjoy the Crown if God had not been the joy and crown of his heart he should have had little joy of it so full of trouble and unrest was the greatest part of his Reign I noteit not with a purpose to enter into a set discourse how many and great the troubles are that attend the Crown and Scepters of Princes which I easily believe to be far both more and greater than we that stand below are capable to imagine but for two other reasons a great deal more useful and therefore so much the more needful to be thought on both by them and us It should first wâ—rk in all them that sit aloft and so are exposed to more and stronger blasts the grâ—ater care to provide a safe resting place for their souls that whensoever they â—hall meet with trouble and sorrow in the flesh and that they shall be sure to do oftner than they look for they may retire thither there to repose and solace themselves in the goodness of their God saying eftsoons with our Prophet Return unto thy rest O my soul. It was well for him that he had such a a rest for his soul for he had rest little enough otherwise from continual troubles and cares in his civil affairs
Incompassion Our brethren that are in distress though they be our fellow-members yet have we little fellow-feeling of their griefs but either we insult over them or censure them or at best neglect them especially when our selves are at ease When we stretch our selves upon Ivory beds eat the fat and drink the sweet and chaunt it to the Viols live merry and full it is great odds the afflictions of Ioseph will be but slenderly remembred no more than Lazarus was at the rich mans gates where he found no pity but what the dogs shewed him But then when it cometh to be our own case when we fall into sicknesses disgraces or other distresses our selves Non ignara mali Then do our bowels which before were crusted up begin to relent a little towards our poorer brethren and our own misery maketh us the more charitable Then we remember those that are in bonds whom we forgat before as Pharaohs Butler forgat Ioseph when we our selves are bound with them and those that are in adversity when we find and feel that we our selves are but flesh Thus God out of very faithfulness causeth us to be troubled as for our good many other ways so particularly in purging out thereby some of that Pride and Security and Worlidiness and Incompassion besides sundry other Corruptions that abound in us 31. That for the End Next God manifesteth his faithfulness to his servants in their troubles by the proportion he holdeth therein whether we compare therewith their deservings their strength or their comforts very measurably in all First our sufferings are far short of our deservings He doth ever chasten us citra condignum He dealeth not with us after our sins neither rewardeth us after our iniquities Psal. 103. After what then Even after his own loving kindness and fatherly affection towards us Even as a father pitieth his own children as it there followeth And how that is every father can tell you Pro magnâ culpâ parum supplicii satis est patri When we for drinking in iniquity like water had deserved to drink off the cup of fury to the bottom dregs and all he maketh us but sip a little overly of the very brim And when he might in justice lash us with Scorpions he doth but scourge us with rushes The Lord promised his people Ier. 30. that though he could not in justice nor would leave them altogether unpunished yet he would correct them in measure and not make a full end of them And he did indeed according to his promise they found his faithfulness therein and acknowledged it seeing that our God hath punished less than our iniquities deserve Ezra 9. Iacob confessed that he was less than the least of Gods mercies and we must confess that we are more than the greatest of his corrections 32. Secondly he proportioneth our sufferings to our strength As a discreet Physician considereth as well as the malignity of the disease the strength of the Patient and prescribeth for him accordingly both for the ingredients and dose Abraham and Iob and David and St. Paul the Lord put them to great Trials because he had endowed them with great strength But as for most of us God is careful to lay but common troubles upon us because we have no more but common strength as Iacob had a good care not to over-drive the weaker cattel If he shall hereafter think good to send such a messenger of Satan against us as shall buffet us with stronger blows doubtless if we be his friends and do but seek to him for it he will give us such an addition of strength and grace as shall be sufficient for our safety The Apostle both observeth God's thus dealing with us and imputeth it also to his faithfulness 1 Cor. 10. God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able Either Cain said not truly or if he did the fault was in himself not in God when he complained that his punishment was greater than he could bear God is not so hard a Master to us for all we are so slack and untoward in our service as either to require that of us which he will not enable us to do or lay that upon us which he will not enable us to bear if we will but lay our hands and our shoulders thereunto and put out our strength and endeavours to the utmost 33. Thirdly he proportioneth us out also comforts sutable to our afflictions every whit as large as they and more effectual to preserve us from drooping and to sustain our souls in the midst of our greatest sufferings For as the smallest temptation would foil us if God should with-hold his grace from us but if he vouchsafe us the assistance of that we are able to withstand the greatest so the least afflictions would over-whelm our spirits if he should with-hold his comforts from us but if he afford us them we are able to bear up under the greatest And God doth afford unto his children in all their distresses though not perhaps always such comforts as they desire yet ever such as he knoweth and they find to be both meet and sufficient Spiritual comforts first and they are the chiefest the testimony of a good Conscience from within and the light of God's favourable Countenance from above These put more true joy into the heart than the want of Corn or Wine or Oyl or any outward thing can sorrow And by these our inner man is so renewed and strengthened that yet we faint not whatsoever becometh of our outward man no not though it should perish David had troubles multitude of troubles troubles that touched him at the very heart but the comforts of God in his soul gave him more refreshing than all those troubles could work him vexation Psal. 94. And St. Paul found that still as his sufferings encreased his comforts had withal such a proportionable rise that where those abounded these did rather superabound 2 Cor. 1. 34. These inward comforts are sufficient even alone Yet God knoweth our frame so well and so far tendereth our weakness that he doth also afford us such outward comforts as he seeth convenient for us A small matter perhaps in bulk and to the eye but yet such as by his mercy giveth us mighty refreshing For as any little affliction scarce considerable in it self is yet able to work us much sorrow if God mean to make a rod of it so any otherwise inconsiderable accident when God is pleased to make a comfort of it is able to chear us up beyond belief The coming of Titus out of Achaia into Macedonia seemed to be a matter of no great consequence yet coming at such a time and in the nick as it were St. Paul remembreth it as a great mercy from God and a great comfort to him in 2 Cor. 7. He was much distressed it seemeth at that time with fightings without
eaten or not for neither if we eat nor if we eat not are we much either the better or the worse for that But the Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost It consisteth in the exercise of holy graces and the conscionble performance of unquestioned duties Sincere confession of sin proceeding from an humble and contrite heart constancy in professing the true faith of Christ patience in suffering adversity exemplary obedience to the holy Laws of God fruitfulness in good works these these are things wherein God expecteth to be glorified by us But as for meats and drinks and all other indifferent things inasmuch as they have no intrinsecal moral either good or evil in them but are good or evil only according as they are used well or ill the glory of God is not at all concerned in the using or not using of them otherwise than as our Faith or Temperance or Obedience or Charity or other like Christian grace or vertue is exercised or evidenced thereby 23. I have now done with the first thing and of the most important consideration proposed from the Text to wit the end it self the Glory of God The Amplifications follow the former whereof containeth a description of the party to be glorified That ye may glorifie God If it be demanded Which God For there be Gods many and Lords many It is answered in the Text God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Of which Title there may be sundry reasons given some more general why it is used at all some more special why it should be used here First this is Stilo novo never found in the Old Testament but very often in the New For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Eph. 3. The God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ knoweth that I lie not 2 Cor. 11. Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. As the Old Covenant ceased upon the bringing in of a new and better Covenant so there was cessation of the old Style upon the bringing in of this new and better Style The old ran thus The God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob proclaimed by God himself when he was about to deliver the posterity of those three godly Patriarchs from the Bondage of Aegypt But having now vouchsafed unto his people a far more glorious deliverance than that from a far more grievious Bondage than that from under Sin Satan Death Hell and the Law whereof that of Aegypt was but a shadow and type he hath quitted that Style and now expecteth to be glorified by this most sweet and blessed Name The Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Exchanging the name of God a name of greater distance and terror into the Name of Father a name of more nearness and indulgence And taking the additional title or denomination not from the parties delivered as before who were his faithful servants indeed yet but servants but from the person delivering his only begotten and only beloved Son It is first the evangelical Style 24. Secondly this Style putteth a difference between the true God of Heaven and Earth whom only we are to glorifie and all other false and imaginary titular Gods to whom we owe nothing but scorn and detestation The Pagans had scores hundreds some have reckoned thousands of Gods all of their own making Every Nation every City yea almost every House had their several Gods or Godlings Deos topicos Gods many and Lords many But to us saith our Apostle to us Christians there is but one God the Father and one Lord Iesus Christ his Son This is Deus Christianorum If either you hope as Christians to receive grace from that God that alone can give it or mean as Christians to give glory to that God that alone ought to have it this this is he and none other God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. It is a Style of distinction 25. These two Reasons are general There are two other more special for the use of it here in respect of some congruity it hath with the matter or method of the Apostles present discourse For First it might be done with reverence to that Argument which he had so lately pressed and whereof also he had given a touch immediately before in the next former verse and which he also resumed again in the next following verse drawn from the example of Christ. That since Christ in receiving us and condescending to our weaknesses did aim at his Fathers glory so we also should aim at the same end by treading in the same steps We cannot better glorifie God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ than by receiving one another into our charity care and mutual support as Iesus Christ also received us to the glory of his heavenly Father 26. Secondly since we cannot rightly glorifie God unless we so conceive him as our Father If I be a Father where is mine honour Mal. 1. That they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven Mat. 5. it may be the Apostle would have us take knowledge how we came to have a right to our Son-ship and for that end might use the title here given to intimate to us upon what ground it is that we have leave to make so bold with our great Lord and Master as to call him our Father even no other but this because he is the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only Son of God by nature and generation and through him only it is that we are made the Sons of God by grace and adoption As many as received him to them he gave power to be made the Sons of God Joh. 1. If we be the Sons of God we are made so but he is the Son of God not made nor created but begotten I go to my Father and to your Father saith he himself Ioh. 20. mine first and then and therefore yours also He is medium unionis like the corner stone wherein both sides of the building unite or like the ladder whereon Iacob saw Angels ascending and descending All intercourse 'twixt Heaven and Earth God and Man is in and through him If any grace come from God to us it is by Christ If any glory come from us to God it is by Christ too Unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Iesus Eph. 3. And this shall suffice to have spoken concerning the former Amplification briefly because it seemeth not to conduce so much nor so nearly to the Apostles main scope here as doth that other which now followeth respecting the manner with one mind and with one mouth 27. Wherein omitting for brevities sake such advantages as from the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be raised for farther enlargement observe first that whereas he nameth two
and by what evidence you must approve your selves to be Gods Defend the poor and fatherless saith he in that Psalm See that such as be in need and necessity have right Deliver the out-cast and poor Save them from the hand of the ungodly This premised it then followeth one verse only interseâ—â—ed I have said Ye are Gods As if he had said So do and then you are Gods indeed but without this care you are Idols and not Gods Much like the Idol-Gods of the Heathen that have eyes and see not ears and hear not mouths and speak â—â—ot that have a great deal of worship from the people and much reverence but are good for nothing By this very Argument in Baruc 6. are such Idols disproved to be Gods They can save no Man from death neither deliver the weak from the mighty They cannot restore a blind Man to his sight nor help any Man in his distress They can shew no mercy to the widow nor do good to the fatherless How should a Man then think and say that they are Gods 11. I hope the greatest upon earth need think it no disparagement to their greatness to look down upon the afflictions of their meanest brethren and to stoop to their necessities when the great God of Heaven and Earth who hath his dwelling so high yet humbleth himself to behold the simple that lie as low as the dust and to liâ—t up the poor that sticketh fast in the mire The Lord looketh down from his Sanctuary from the Heaven did the Lord behold the Earth That he might hear the mournings of such as be in captivity and deliver the children appointed unto death So then for the performance of this duty thou hast God's Commandment upon thee and thou hast God's Example before thee If there be in thee any true fear of God thou wilt obey his Command and if any true hope in God follow his Example 12. If from God we look downward in the next place upon our selves and duly consider either what power we have or what need we may have from both considerations we may discover yet farther the necessity of this duty And first from our Power There is no power but of God and God bestoweth no power upon Man nor indeed upon any Creature whatsoever to no purpose The natural powers and faculties as well of our reasonable souls as of our organical bodies they have all of them their several uses and operations unto which they are designed And by the Principles of all good Philosophy we cannot conceive of Power but in order and with reference to Act. Look then what power God hath put into any of our hands in any kind and in any measure it lieth us upon to employ it to the best advantage we can for the good of our brethren for to this very end God hath given us that power whatever it be that we might do good therewithal The Lord hath in his wise providence so disposed the things of this World that there should ever be some rich to relieve the necessities of the poor and some poor to exercise the charity of the rich So likewise he hath laid distresses upon some that they might be succoured by the power of others and lent power to some that they might be able to succour the distresses of others Now as God himself to whom all power properly and originally belongeth delighteth to manifest his power rather in shewing mercy than in works of destruction God spake once Twice have I heard the same that power belongeth unto God and that thou Lord art merciful Psal. 62. O let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before thee according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die Psal. 79. So all those upon whom God hath derived any part of that power should consider that God gave it them for edification not for destruction to do good withal and to help the distressed and to save the innocent not to trample upon the poor and oppress those that are unable to resist Pestifera vis est valere ad nocendum It is in truth a great weakness in any Man rather than a demonstration of power to stretch his power for the doing of mischief An evident Argument whereof is that observation of Solomon in Prov. 28. confirmed also by daily experience that a poor Man that oppresseth the poor is ever the most merciless oppressor It is in matter of Power many times as it is in matter of Learning They that have but a smattering in Scholarship you shall ever observe to be the forwardest to make ostentation of those few ends they have because they fear there would be little notice taken of their Learning if they should not now shew it when they can And yet you may observe that withal it oftentimes falleth out very unluckily with them that when they think most of all to shew their Scholarship they then most of all by some gross mistake or other betray their Ignorance It is even so in this case Men of base spirit and condition when they have gotten the advantage of a little power conceive that the World would not know what goodly Men they are if they should not do some Act or other whereby to shew forth their power to the World And then their minds being too narrow to comprehend any brave and generous way whereby to do it they cannot frame to do it any other way than by trampling upon those that are below them and that they do beyond all reason and without all mercy 13. This Argument taken from the end of that power that God giveth us was wisely and to good purpose pressed by Mordecai Esth. 1. to Queen Esther when she made difficulty to go into the Presence to intercede for the people of the Iews after that Haman had plotted their destruction Who knoweth saith he there whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this As if he had said Consider the marvellous and gracious providence of God in raising thee who wert of a despised nation and kindred to be partaker with the most potent Monarch in the World in the Royal Grown and Bed Think not but the Lord therein certainly intended some great work to be done by thy hand and power for his poor distressed Church Now the hour is come now if ever will it be seasonable for thee to make use of those great fortunes God hath advanced thee to and to try how far by that power and interest thou hast in the King's favour thou canst prevail for the reversing of Haman's bloody Decree and the preserving our whole Nation from utter destruction And of this Argument there seemeth to be some intimation in the very Text as those words in the 12th verse may and that not unfitly be understood He that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it that is He that hath preserved
farther direction from the Lord Samuel condescendeth to them and dismisseth them with a promise that it should be done to them as they desired and a King they should have ere it were long 3. And within a while he made good his promise The Lord had designed Saul to be their King and had secretly revealed the same to Samuel Who did also by God's appointment first anoint him very privately no Man being by but they two alone and after in a full Assembly of the people at Mispeth evidenced him to be the Man whom God had chosen by the determination of a Lot Whereupon the most part of the people accepted Saul for their King elect testifying their acceptance by their joyful acclamations and by sending him Presents Yet did not Saul then immediatly enter upon his full Regalities whether by reason of some contradiction made to his Election or for whatsoever other cause but that Samuel still continued in the Government till upon occasion of the Ammonites invading the Land and laying siege against Iabesh Gilead Saul made such proof of his valour by relieving the Town and destroying the enemy that no Man had the forehead to oppose against him any more Samuel therefore took the hint of that Victory to establish Saul compleatly in the Kingdom by calling the people to Gilgal where the Tabernacle then was where he once more anointed Saul before the Lord and in a full Congregation investing him into the Kingdom with great solemnity Sacrifices of Peace-offerings and all manner of rejoycings 4. Now had the people according to their desire a King and now was Samuel who had long governed in chief again become a private Man Yet was he still the Lord's Prophet and by virtue of that Calling took himself bound to make the people sensible of the greatness of their sin in being so forward to ask a King before they had first asked to know the Lord's pleasure therein And this is in a manner the business of the whole Chapter Yet before he begin to fall upon them he doth wisely first to clear himself and for the purpose he challengeth all and every of them if they could accuse him of any injustice or corruption in the whole time of his Government then and there to speak it out and they should receive satisfaction or else for ever after to hold their tongues in the three first verses of this Chapter but especially in this third verse Behold here I am witness against me before the Lord c. 5. In which words are observable both the Matter and Form of Samuel's Challenge The Matter of it to wit the thing whereof he would clear himself is set down first in general terms that he had not wrongfully taken to himself that which was anothers Whose Oxe have I taken or whose Ass have I taken And then more particularly by a perfect enumeration of the several species or kinds thereof which being but three in all are all expressed in this Challenge All wrongful taking of any thing from another Man is done either with or without the parties consent If without the parties consent then either by cunning or violence fraud or oppression over-reaching another by wit or over-bearing him by might If with the parties consent then it is by contracting with him for some Fee Reward or Gratification Samuel here disclaimeth them all Whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received a bribe to blind mine eyes therewith That is the matter of the Challenge 6. In the form we may observe concerning Samuel three other things First his great forwardness in the business in putting himself upon the trial by his own voluntary offer before he was called thereunto by others Behold here I am Secondly his great Confidence upon the conscience of his own integrity in that he durst put himself upon his trial before God and the World Witness against me before the Lord and before his Anointed Thirdly his great Equity in offering to make real satisfaction to the full in case any thing should be justly proved against him in any of the premisses Whose Oxe or whose Ass c. and I will restore it you 7. The particulars are many and I may not take time to give them all their due enlargements We will therefore pass through them lightly insisting perhaps somewhat more upon those things that shall seem more material or useful for this Assembly than upon some of the rest yet not much upon any Neither do I mean in the handling thereof to tie my self precisely to the method of my former division but following the course of the Text to take the words in the same order as I find them here laid to my hand Behold here I am witness against me c. 8. Behold here I am More haste than needeth may some say It savoureth not well that Samuel is so forward to justify himself before any Man accuse him Voluntary purgations commonly carry with them strong suspicions of guilt We presume there is a fault when a Man sweareth to put off a crime before it be laid to his charge True and well we may presume it where there appeareth not some reasonable cause otherwise for so doing But there occur sundry reasons some apparent and the rest at least probable why Samuel should here do as he did 9. First He was presently to convince the people of their great sin in asking a King and to chastise them for it with a severe reprehension It might therefore seem to him expedient before he did charge them with innovating the Government to discharge himself first from having abused it He that is either to rebuke or to punish others for their faults had need stand clear both in his own conscience and in the eye of the World of those faults he should censure and of all other crimes as foul as they lest he be choaked with that bitter Proverb retorted upon him to his great reproach Physician heal thy self Vitia ultima fictos contemnunt Scauros castigata remordent How unequal a thing is it and incongruous that he who wanteth no ill conditions himself should bind his neighbour to the good behaviour That a sacrilegious Church-robber should make a Mittimus for a poor Sheep-stealer Or as he complained of old that great Thieves should hang up little ones How canst thou say to thy brother Brother let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye when behold there is a beam in thine own eye That is with what conscience nay with what face canst thou offer it Turpe est doctori every School-boy can tell you See to it all you who by the condition of your Callings are bound to take notice of the actions aud demeanors of others and to censure them that you walk orderly and unreproveably your selves It is only the sincerity and unblameableness of your conversations that will best add weight to your words win
they found them Hoc olim factitavit Pyrrhus seemed to him plea enough in the Comedy It so much the more concerneth every good and wise Man especially those that are in place of Authority whose actions are most looked upon and soonest drawn into Example so to order themselves in their whole conversations that such as come after them may be rather provoked by their good example to do well than encouraged by their evil example to do amiss If at any time hereafter Saul should take any Man's Ox or Ass from him by any manner of fraud oppression or bribery the constant practice of his immediate Predecessor for sundry Years together shall stand up and give evidence against him and cast him Samuel's integrity shall condemn him both at the Bar of his own Conscience and in the mouths of all Men at leastwise he shall have no cause to vouch Samuel for his Precedent no colour to shroud his miscarriages under the authority of Samuel's Example 14. We cannot now marvel that Samuel should thus offer himself to the trial when as no Man urged him to it sith there may be rendred so many congruous reasons for it Especially being withal so conscious to himself of having dealt uprightly that he knew all the World could not touch him with any wilful violation of justice He doth not therefore decline the trial but seek it and putteth himself upon it with marvellous confidence challenging all Comers and craving no favour Behold here I am witness against me before the Lord and before his Anointed Here is no excepting against any Witness nor refusal of any Iudg either God or Man He had a good cause and therefore he had also a good heart All Vertues are connext among the rest so are Iustice and Fortitude The righteous are bold as a Lion The Merchant that knoweth his Wares to be faulty is glad of the dark Shop and false Light whereas he that will uphold them right and good willeth his Customers to view them in the open Sun Qui malè agit odit lucem He that doth evil loveth to skulk in the dark and will not abide the light which is to him as the terrors of the shadow of death lest his evil deeds should be found out and laid open to his shame Even as Adam hid his head in a bush when he heard the Voice of God because his Conscience told him he had transgressed 15. A corrupt Magistrate or Officer may sometimes set a face upon it and in a kind of bravery bid defiance to all the World but it is then when he is sure he hath power on his side to bear him out when he is so backt with his great friends that no Man dare mutire contra once open his lips against him for fear of being shent Even as a rank Coward may take up the Bucklers and brave it like a stout Champion when he is sure the Coast is clear and no body near to enter the Lists with him And yet all this but a meer flourish a faint and feign'd bravado his heart the while in the midst of his belly is as cold as lead and he meaneth nothing less than what he makes shew of If the offer should be indeed accepted and that his actions were like to be brought upon the publick stage there to receive a due and impartial hearing and doom how would he then shrink and hold off trow ye then what crouching and fawning and bribing and dawbing to have the matter taken up in a private Chamber and the wound of his credit a little overly-salved tho upon never so hard and base conditions His best wits shall be tried and his best friends to the utmost if it be possible by any means to decline a publick trial 16. Be just then Fathers and Brethren and ye may be bold So long as you stand right you stand upon your own legs and not at the mercy of others But turn aside once to defrauding oppressing or receiving rewards and you make your selves slaves for ever Intus pugnae foris timores Horrors and gripes within because you have knowingly done what you ought not Terrors and fears within lest your wicked dealings should come to light whereby you might receive the due shame and punishment thereof Possibly you may bear up if the times favour you and by your greatness out-face your Crimes for a while but that is not a thing to trust to O trust not in wrong and robbery saith David Psal. 62. The wind and the tide may turn against you when you little think it and when once you begin to go down the wind every base and busy Companion will have one puff at you to drive you the faster and farther down 17. Yet mistake not as if I did exact from Magistrates an absolute immunity from those common frailties and infirmities whereunto the whole race of mankind is subject The imposition were unreasonable It is one of the unhappinesses that attends both your Calling and ours Magistracy and Ministry that every ignorant Artisan that perhaps knoweth little and practiseth less of his own duty can yet instruct us in ours and upon every small oversight make grievous out-cries by objecting to you your place to us our cloath a Man of his place a Man of his cloath to do thus or thus As if any Christian Man of what place or of what cloath soever had the liberty to do otherwise than well or as if either we or you were in truth that in respect of our natures which in respect of our Offices we are sometimes called we Angels and you Gods Truly however it pleaseth the Lord for our greater honour thus to stile us yet we find it in our selves but too well and we make it seen by us alas but too often that we are Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to the like passions ignorances and sinful aberrations that other Men are And I doubt not but Samuel notwithstanding all this great confidence in his own integrity had yet among so many causes as in so many years space had gone through his hands sundry times erred in judgment either in the substance of the sentence or at least in some circumstances of the proceedings By mis-informations or mis-apprehensions or by other passions or prejudices no doubt but he might be carried and like enough sometimes was to shew either more lenity or more rigour than was in every respect expedient 18. But this is the thing that made him stand so clear both in his own Conscience and in the sight of God and the World that he had not wittingly and purposely perverted judgment nor done wrong to any Man with an evil or corrupt intention but had used all faithfulness and good Conscience in those things he did rightly apprehend and all requisite care and diligence so far as humane frailty would suffer to find out the truth and the right in those things whereof he could
of it as a hard imposition when he is required to restore to the right owner that which he hath unjustly taken from him that Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there needeth no other testimony nor evidence against him than his own Conscience to condemn him Nay I may say yet more There needeth not so much as that his own mouth will do it Ex ore tuo thou unjust Man I bid thee not answer me do but answer thy self this one question and it shall suffice If it go hard with thee to restore it back to him that hath a true right in it did it not go as hard thinkest thou with him to part with it before to thee who hadst not the same right thereunto that he had I say no more consider it well and then remember the grand Rule never to be forgotten Do as you would be done to 45. Concerning the manner of Restitution and the measure the time place persons and other circumstances thereunto belonging many things there are of considerable moment and very needful to be understood of all Men that love to deal justly which I may not now enter into Whole Volumes have bin written of this Subject and the Casuists are large in their discourses thereof But for the thing it self in general thus much is clear from the Iudicial Law of God given by Moses to the people of Israel from the Letter whereof tho Christians be free positive Laws binding none but those to whom they were given yet the Equity thereof still bindeth us as a branch of the unchangeable Law of Nature That whosoever shall have wronged his Neighbour in any thing committed to his custody or in fellowship or in any thing taken away by violence or by fraud or in detaining any found thing or the like is bound to restore it and that in integrum to the utmost farthing of what he hath taken if he be able Nor so only but beside the Principal to offer some little overplus also by way of compensation for the damage if at least the wronged party have sustained any damage thereby and unless he shall be willing freely to remit it Moses his Law speaketh of a fifth part more as if he had wronged his Neighbour to the value of twenty sheckels the restitution was to be after the rate of four and twenty See the 6th of Leviticus in the beginning of the Chapter The assignment of that proportion belonged to the Iewish people and the obligation thereof therefore expired together with that policy but yet still reason and equity require that something be done The Lord give us all hearts to do that which is equal and right and in all our dealings with others to have evermore the fear of God before our eyes knowing that of the Lord the righteous Iudg we shall in our souls receive at the last great Assize according to that we have done in our bodies here whether it be good or evil Now to God the Father c. AD POPULUM The Eighth Sermon Prov. 19. 21. There are many devices in a Man's heart nevertheless the counsel of the Lord that shall stand 1. IT being impossible for us to know God absolutely and as he is his essence being infinite and so altogether incomprehensible by any but himself the highest degree of knowledg◠we can hope to attain unto at least in this life is by way of comparison with our selves and other Creatures Whereby it is possible for us making the comparison right and remembring ever the infinite disproportion of the things compared to come to some little kind of glimmering guess what he is by finding and well considering what he is not 2. But even in this way of Learning we are oftentimes very much at a loss Because we fall for the most part either short or over in that from which we are to take our first rise towards the right knowledg of God to wit the right knowledg of our selves We do not only see very imperfectly at the best because we see but in a glass as saith the Apostle but we mistake also most an end very grosly because we are apt to make use of a false glass We think foolishly yea and wickedly too sometimes as it is Psal. 50. that God is even such an one as our selves and yet God knoweth little do we know what our selves are There is so much deceitfulness in our hearts so much vanity in our thoughts so much pride in our spirits that tho we hear daily with our ears that Man is like a thing of nought that he is altogether vanity yea lighter than vanity it self and see daily before our eyes experiments enow to convince us that all this is true yet we are willing to betray our selves into a belief that sure we are something when indeed we are nothing and to please our selves but too much in our own ways and imaginations 3. To rectify this so absurd and dangerous an Error in us absurd in the ground and dangerous in the consequents and withal to bring us by a righter understanding of our selves to a better knowledg of God useful amongst other things it is to consider the wide difference that is betwixt God's ways and ours betwixt our purposes and his For my thoughts are not your thoughts saith the Lord by the Prophet neither are your ways my ways For as the heavens are higher than the Earth so but much more than so too are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts Weigh them the one against the other in the ballance of the Sanctuary or but even by the beam of your own reason and experience so it be done impartially and you will easily acknowledg both the vanity and uncertainty of ours and the certainty and stability of his thoughts and purposes 4. We have a Proverb common amongst us that yieldeth the conclusion Man purposeth but God disposeth And this Proverb of Solomon in the Text discovereth ground enough whereform to infer that conclusion There are many devices in a Man's heart nevertheless the counsel of the Lord that shall stand And that in three remarkable differences between the one and the other therein expressed First In the different names of the things Ours are but Devices his is Counsel Secondly In their different Number Ours are Devices in the plural Number and with the express addition of multiplicity also Many Devices His but one Counsel in the Singular Thirdly In their different manner of Existing Ours are but conceived in the heart we have not strength enough to bring them forth or to give them a being ad extra many devices in a Man's heart But he is able to give his a real subsistency and to make them stand fast and firm in despight of all opposition and endeavours to the contrary The counsel of the Lord that shall stand 5. The whole amounts to these two points First When we have tossed many and various thoughts
will think you Surely not thousands have resisted and daily do resist that will the Will and the Commandments of God But he meaneth it of his secret will the will of his everlasting Counsels and purposes and that too of an effectual resistance such a resistance as shall hinder the accomplishment of that Will For otherwise there are thousands that offer resistance to that also if their resistance could prevail But all resistance as well of the one sort as of the other is in vain as to that end Though hand joyn in hand it will be to no purpose the right hand of the Lord will have the preeminence when all is done Associate your selves O ye people and ye shall be broken in pieces gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces Take counsel together and it shall come to nought speak the word and it shall not stand Isa 8. 9 10. But the Counsel of the Lord that shall stand and none shall be able to hinder it 31. Lay all these together the Soveraignty the Eternity the Wisdom and the Power of God and in all these God will be glorified and you will see great reason why the Lord should so often blast mens devices bring all their counsels and contrivances to nought and take the wise in their own craftiness Even to let men see in their disappointment the vanity as all humane devices that they might learn not to glory in or trust to their own wisdom or strength or any thing else in themselves or in any creature but that he that glorieth might glory in the Lord only 32. Let every one of us therefore learn that I may now proceed to the Inferences from the consideration of what we have heard First of all not to trust too much to our own wit neither to lean to our own understanding Nor please our selves over-much in the vain devices imaginations fancies or dreams of our own hearts Tho our Purposes should be honest and not any ways sinful either in Matter End Means or other Circumstance yet if we should be over-confident of their success rest too much upon our own skill contrivances or any worldly help like enough they may deceive us It may please God to suffer those that have worse purposes propose to themselves baser ends or make use of more unwarrantable means to prosper to our grief and loss yea possibly to our destruction if it be but for this only to chastise us for resting too much upon outward helps and making flesh our arm and not relying ourselves intirely upon him and his salvation 33. Who knoweth but Iudgment may nay who knoweth not that Iudgment must saith the Apostle that is in the ordinary course of God's providence usually doth begin at the house of God Who out of his tender care of their well-doing will sooner punish temporally I mean his own children when they take pride in their own inventions and sooth themselves in the devices of their own hearts than he will his professed enemies that stand at defiance with him and openly fight against him These he suffereth many times to go on in their impieties and to climb up to the height of their ambitious desires that in the mean time he may make use of their injustice and oppression for the scourging of those of his own houshold and in the end get himself the more glory by their destruction 34. But then secondly howsoever Judgment may begin at the house of God most certain it is it shall not end there but the hand of God and his revenging justice shall at last reach the house of the wicked oppressor also And that not with temporary punishments only as he did correct his own but without repentance evil shall hunt them to their everlasting destruction that despise his known Counsels to follow the cursed devices and imaginations of their own naughty hearts The Persecutors of God in his servants of Christ in his members that say in the pride of their hearts with our tongues with our wits with our arms and armies we will prevail We are they that ought to speak and to rule Who is Lord our us We have Counsel and strength for war c. what do they but even kick against the pricks as the phrase is Act. 9. which pierce into the heels of the kicker and work him much anguish but themselves remain as they were before without any alteration or abatement of their sharpness God delighteth to get himself honour and to shew the strength of his arm by scattering such proud Pharaohs in the imaginations of their hearts and that especially when they are arrived and not ordinarily till then almost at the very highest pitch of their designs When they are in the top of their jollity and gotten to the uppermost roundle of the ladder then doth he put to his hand tumble them down headlong at once and then how suddenly do they consume perish and come to a fearful end Then shall they find but too late what their pride would not before suffer them to believe to be a terrible truth that all their devices were but folly and that the counsel of the Lord must stand 35. A terrible truth indeed to them But Thirdly Of most comfortable consideration to all those that with patience and chearfulness suffer for the testimony of God or a good conscience and in a good cause under the insolencies of proud and powerful persecutors When their enemies have bent all the strength of their wits and power to work their destruction God can and as he seeth it instrumental to his everlasting counsels will infatuate all their counsels elude all their devices and stratagems bring all their preparations enterprises to nought and turn them all to their destruction his own glory and the welfare of his servants 1. Either by turning their counsels into folly as he did Achitophel's 2. Or by diversion finding them work else where as Saul was fain to leave the pursuit of David when he and his Men had compassed him about and were ready to take him upon a message then brought him of an invasion of the Land by the Philistines And as he sent a blast upon Senacherib by a rumour that he heard of the King of Aethiopia's coming forth to war against him which caused him to desert his intended siege of Ierusalem 3. Or by putting a Blessing into the mouth of their enemies instead of a curse as he guided the mouth of Balaâ—m contrary to his intendment and desire 4. Or he can melt the hearts of his enemies into a kind of compassion or cause them to relent so as to be at peace with them when they meet tho they came out against them with minds and preparations of hostility as he did Lâ—ban's first and Esau's afterwards against Iacob 36. Howsoever some way or other he can curb and restrain either their malice or
power or both that when they have devised devices against them as they did against Ieremiah they shall not be able to put them in execution As a cunning rider that suffereth a wild untamed horse to fling and fly out under him but with the bridle in his jaws can give him a sudden stop at his pleasure even in the midst of his fullest career Or as a skilful fisher when some great fish hath caught the bait letteth it tumble and play upon the line a while and beat it self upon the water or against the bank and at last when he spieth his time striketh the hook into him and draweth him to the Land So can the Lord deal and often doth with the great Beâ—emoths and Leviathans of the World he letteth them go on in the pleasing devices of their own seduced hearts and suffereth them to prosper in their mischievous imaginations according to the old or as the new Translation rendreth it Psal. 140. in their wicked devices till they be even covered over with pride and violence But when the time is come which he in his eternal Counsel hath appointed he putteth his hook into their noses and his bridle into their lips they are both his own expressions by the Prophet in the case of Hezekiah and Senacherib and so defeateth all their malicious purposes for the future And though they fret and rage for anger and are as impatient as a wild Bull in a net which is another of the Prophets expressions elsewere yet is it to no purpose though they gnasâ— with their teeth through indignation and envy yet will they nill they they shall melt away and their desires shall perish Whereof besides sundry examples in Scripture God hath given us of this Nation some remarkable experiments especially in two never to be forgotten defeats the one of the invincible Armado in eighty eight the other of the Gunpowder Treason since 37. The mediation of which both examples and experiments would be as a soveraign Cordial to relieve our spirits and sustain our souls with comfort against those deliquia animae those fainting-fits that sometimes come upon us when we are either over-burdened under the pressures of our own sufferings or over-grieved at the prosperous successes of our cruel enemies The comfort is that neither they nor their devices can prevail against us any farther than God will give them leave and we know that if we cleave stedfastly to him he will not give them leave to prevail any farther than shall be for our good He that by his power stilleth the raging of the Sea and hath set it its certain bounds which it may not pass and by his peremptory decree hath said unto it Hitherto shalt thou go and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves by the same power also can still at his pleasure the madness and the tumult of the people Pilate that condemned Christ could have had no power so to do if it had not been given him from above And Iudas that betrayed him and the Iews that crucified him did no more than what God in his determinate counsel had fore-appointed to be done But not Pilate nor Iudas nor the Iews could hinder him from rising again from the dead The reason was because in the eternal Counsel of God Christ was to die and rise again therefore God suffer'd them to have power to procure his Death but they had no power at all to hinder his Resurrection 38. And therefore also fourthly it will well become us nay it is our bounden duty to submit to such sufferings as God shall call us to and to take up our cross when he shall think fit to lay it upon us with all willingness When we have to do with Satan and his temptations resistance may be of good use to us Resist the Devil and he will flie from you but when we have to do with God and his Chastisements it is in vain to oppose His hand is too mighty for us there is no way but to submit and to humble our selves thereunder by acknowledging our weakness and resigning our wills and desires to his wisdom and goodness It is the fondest thing in the world to think to redeem our selves out of troubles by our own wit or power alone without his leave Our own devices can no more help us if in his eternal Counsel he hath determined to afflict us than other mens devices can harm us if he have determined to protect us But how to behave our selves when any trouble is upon us or danger towards us the Apostle hath given us an excellent Rule and our Saviour an excellent Example The Rule is Phil. 4. 6. Be careful for nothing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God As if he had said Acquaint him with your griefs what it is that troubleth you and with your desires what it is you would have commend all to his good pleasure and wisdom by your humble and hearty prayers and then take no further anxious care about it your heavenly father will take care of it who knoweth better than you do what is fittest to be done in it The Example is our Saviour's prayer in his agony Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done He maketh his request known unto God in the former clause and then submitteth all to his will in the later 39. But you will say Must we sit still when trouble is upon us Suffer all and do nothing May we not cast and devise how to free our selves therefrom and use our best endeavours to effect it Doubtless you may There is nothing meant in what hath been hitherto said to exclude either prudent counsels or honest endeavours God forbid He taketh no pleasure either in fools or sluggards But here is the danger lest we should rest in our own counsels without asking counsel at his mouth or trust in our own endeavours without seeking help at his hand We are to use both Counsels and Endeavours provided ever that they be honest and lawful but there is something to be done besides both before and after Before we use them we must pray unto God that he would direct us in our Counsels and bless us in our endeavours and when we have used them we must by our prayers again commend the success of both to him who is able to save us and submit it wholly to his wisdom and goodness at what times and by what means and in what measure it will please him to save us For so it must be even as he will and no otherwise when all is done His counsel shall stand but so shall no device of Man that agreeth not thereunto 40. That therefore we may give unto our purposes as great a certainty of good success as such uncertain things are capable of it should be
Factum hac pertinet illa ad jus ad illam Peritia opus est ad hanc Prudentia l Jer. 17. 9. I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the LORD 1 Cor. 4 4. If our heart condemn us GOD is greater than our heart and knoweth all things 1 John 3. 21. Latet me facultas mea quae in me est ut animus meus de viribus suis ipse se interrogans non facilè sibi credendum existimet quia quod inest plerumque occultâ—m est Aug. lib. 10. Confess c. 32. 14. 2. m Heb. 12. 9. n Psal. 79. 26. 2. Jer. 11. 20. and 17. 10. 20. 12. Rev. 2. 23. o Heb. 4. 13. p 1 Cor. 4. 5. q Temeritas est damnare quod nescias Sen. Epist. 91. Sâ—nt quaedam facta media quae ignoramus quo animo fiunt quia bono malo fieri possunt de quibus temerarium est judicare August l. 2. de Serm. Dom. in monte cap. 18. 15. 3. r In rerum judicio debet aliquis niti ad hoc ut interpretetur unumquodque secundum quod est in judicio autem personarum ut interpretetur in melius Aquin. 2. 0. qu. 60. art 4. ad 3. and he giveth a substantial reason for it ib. in resp id 2. s Glossa Ord. in hunc loc Theologi passim Semper quicquid dubium est humanitas incliâ—at in melius Sen. ep 81. s Error Charitatis salutaris errâ—r t Melius est quod aliquis frequenter fallatur habens bonam opinionem de malo homine quà m quòd rarius fallatur habens malam opinionem de bono homine quia ex hoc sit injuria alicui non autem ex primo Aq. 2. a. qu. 60. Art 2. ad 1. u Aequum licet statuerit haud aequus fuit Sen. in Med. Act. 2. x 1 Cor. 13. 5. y Si suspiciones vitare non possumus quia homines sumus judicia tamen id est definitivas firmasque sententias continere debemus Glos. Ordin in 1 Cor. 4. z 1 Cor. 4. 3. 16. 17. 18. 1. 2. 3. 4. 19. 1. a Article 20. agreeable to the confessions of other Protestant Churches b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 14. 20. c Constit. Canon 30. 20. d Ex 1 Cor. 7. 35. e Lincolnsh Abridg. p. 34. f Mat. 7 8 c. g In Spiritum Sanctum blasphemant qui sacros Canones violant 25 qu. 1. Violatores h Constit. c. can 74. aâ—t 20. Act for Uniformity and Treat of ceremonies prefixed to the Book of Common-Prayer i Without prejudice to the liberty of other Churches See Pref. to communion Book k The Church ought not to enforce any thing besides the holy Writ to be believed for necessity of salvation Artic. 20. l See Conference at Ham. Court pag. 70 71. m In rebus mediis lex posita est obedientiâ— Bern. Epist. 7. n De hujusmodi quippe nec praeceptor expectandus nec prohibitor auscultandus est Ber. de prec dispensat See Agel 2. Noct. Artic. 7. Ber. Ep. 7. o See Sa. Collins Sermon on 1 Tim. 6. 3. pag. 44. c. 2. * Artic. 34. p See Calvin lib. 4. Instir. c. 10. scâ—â— 27. q Quot capita tot Schismata Hieronym 3. r Like that Col. 2. 21. Touch not taste not handle not 21. 1. 2. s Pro inficiatione pontificatûs foeminei Aquipont in resp ad Sohn de Antichristo Thes. 15. speaking of the Priests executed in the Reign of Qu. Elizabeth t See Donnes Pseudo-Martyr per totum especially c. 5. c. u The practice of our Church sufficiently confirmeth this which censureth no man for the bare omission of some kind of Rites and Ceremonies now and then where it may be presumed by the parties chearful and general conformity otherwise that such omission proceedeth not either from an opinionative dislike of the Ceremony imposed or from a timorous and obsequious humouring of such as dislike it Whosoever willingly and purposely doth openly break c. Artic. 34. x In minimis quoque mandatis culpam facit non minimam convertit in crimen gravis rebellionis naevum satis levem simplicis transgressionis Bern. de prec dispens 22. 1. 2. 3. 4. 23. y 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13. 5. z Not only for wrath but also for conscience sake Ibid. a Meditations on the Lord's Prayer pag. 12. in the Margent 24. 25. 26. b All benefit of Law being denied them and they debarred of other means by conference or writing for their defence Def. of Ministers reasons part 1. pref to the Reader We do accuse the Reverend Bishops in the sight of God and Man for their hard and extreme dealing toward us Removal of Imputations p. 40. 17. c Many by their factious behaviour were driven to be Papists The King 's Ma. in Confer at Hamp p. 68. 28 b Witness the learned Books of divers reverend Prelates Iohn Whitgift Iohn Buckeridge Tho. Morton c. 29. c Sancti stante charitate possunt errare etiam contra Catholicam veritatem Occh. Dial. part 1. â— 2. c. 4. d So Pelagius from whose root Popery in that Branch sprouted was a man as strict for life as most Catholicks yet a most dangerous and pestilent Heretick Pelagii viri ut audio Sanct non parvo profectu Christiani Aug. 3. de pec merit rem 1. Istum sicut eum qui noverunt loquuntur bonum ac praedicandum virumâ— Ib. c. 3. d Non enim in cujusquam persona praetermittendum est quod institutis generalibus continetur Leo. Dist. 61. Miramur 30. e I refer the Reader for more particular satisfaction to Fr. Mason's Serm. on 1 Cor. 14. 40. pag. 30. Sam. Collins Serm. on 1 Tim. 6. 3. pa. 21 22 and others but especially to their own Writings f Brightman in Apoc. cap. 3. 31. g This Simile was first used by a very Reverend grave and worthy Dean who hath many ways deserved well of our whole Church Alexander Noel Dean of Pauls in a Sermon before Queen Elizabeth and modestly and moderately urged not at all against the Ceremonies which by his practice he did allow but for the further restraint of Popish Priests and Jesuites who lay thick in Ireland and the Western Coasts of England and Wales as heaps of dust and dirt behind the doors Yet I here ascribed it to the Puritans who though they father it upon that good Man must own it as their own Brat because by mis applying it to the Ceremonies they have made it their own Malè dum recitas incipit esse tâ—un h Meditations on the Lords Prayer page 21 c. primae edit 1619. See Hooker's Preface Sect. 8. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 1. i Eadem velle eos cognosces da posse quantum volunt Sen. Ep. 42. 2. k Matth. 10. 27. 3. l Gal. 2. 14. utique conversationis fuit vitium