upon this Christ by way of satisfaction to the Lawyers question demands of the Lawyer whom he took to be neighbour to the wounded Jew whether the Jew who passed by not helping him or the Samaritan who hated the Jew and the Lawyer as convinced in judgement and conscience readily and roundly answered The Samaritan who helped the Jew whom otherwise he hated was neighbour to the Jew and upon that verdict thus given by the Jewish Lawyer Christ inferreth this doctrine by way of exhortation Go and do likewise that is have mercy and love ' thine enemy And what Christ preached here he practised to the full for had Christ any so great enemies unto him as the Jews who notwithstanding all the good works that he did among and for them yet hated and persecuted him to his death and when they cryed loudly to the Judge Crucifie him he more fervently prayes to his Father to forgive them and when they madly wished that his blood might be upon them and their children he mildly pronounced that his blood should be shed for them and their posterity Could there be any greater signs of the Jews enmity to Christ and could there be any greater evidence of Christs love to the Jews and according to his practice he gives his law As I have loved you even so love ye your neighbour though he be your enemy Notwithstanding this so plain and evident truth there have not wanted who have urged reasons against this position as the Rabbies masters or expounders of the Mosaical Law who feign that though the Commandment of loving our neighbour was written by God in the Tables of Stone delivered unto Moses yet it was written in the heart of man to hate his enemy 2. They urge that of our Lord God to Solomon 1 Kings 3.11 saying Because thou hast not asked long life nor riches nor the life of thine enemies I have given thee a wife heart whence they would infer that revenge on our enemies is as justifiably desired as long life 3. They adde that David of whom not onely himself but God pronounced that he had walked according to his Commandments yet David used many and bitter curses and imprecations against his enemies 4. To perswade us that this is natural to man they will tell us that a childe being offended with any will soon be pleased if another will but strike and revenge him upon the person that gave him the offence 5. They urge some passages of ancient Fathers who deem this hate of enemies to have been permitted to the Jews as that of Divorce for the hardness of their hearts To the first argument I may say That such a Tradition as is alleaged by the Rabbies is not to be regarded but to be rejected as frivolous and falfe But if any adde that it should seem by the words of Christ himself that in Moses's time or at least before Christ there was such a Tradition among the the Jews as that it was permitted to them to hate their enemies for Christ saith Ye have heard that it hath been said of old Mat. 5.43 Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemie To this I may answer That the words of Christ It hath been said of old might relate to the perverse interpretation of the Scribes who argued That seeing we are to love our neighbors that is say they our friends therefore we may hate our enemies or because God commanded to make no peace with nor to spare the Canaanites but destroy them therefore we might do the like to all our enemies But to this or that old saying we need say no more then what Christ hath said Ye have heard it said of old V. 44. Thou shalt hate thine enemy but I say unto you Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you But notwithstanding this they urge That by the Law of Moses as much is implyed as the hate of our enemies for it is said Thou shalt not hate thy brother Lev. 19.17 Deut. 15.7 and ver 18. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people from which Texts and the like they would infer That they may hate and avenge themselves on all but their brethren and the children of their own people which were the Jews onely and therefore all the rest they might hate as their accounted enemies But to this we answer That it is an implication of their own making without ground from the Text which may be proved from other Texts which command the love of our enemy and the Spirit of God doth not cannot command contradictions Now God commands If thou meet thine enemies beast straying Exod. 23.4 Prov. 25.21 thou shalt bring it back to him that is to thine enemy and Solomon which words S. Paul Rom. 12.20 urgerh to our Saviours sense If thine enemy be hungry give him bread to eat and if he be thirsty give him to drink and the Lord will reward thee Here is no sign nor tittle of hate or revenge to our enemy but quite contrary to shew him the fruits of our love in doing him good And if to any the hate of our enemies seem natural I must say It must be to such as are of a perverse corrupted Jewish disposition and not to the nature of a true Christian for can any man conceive that God who is love and is most delighted with mercy and love should infuse into the heart of man created after his own image hatred and revenge and that against his neighbour his brother who likewise bears the image of his Maker who is Love That David used imprecations against many is not to be denyed but denyed it must be that it was against them because simply his enemies but rather against them as Gods enemies not his 2. The imprecations were not against their persons directly as to the destruction of their soul or body but against them as they were sinners 3. It was for the conversion of sinners and that Gods glory might appear either by their conversion or destruction and not to the satisfying his own revenge Observe I pray with me That David in his Psalms is often said to hate but what sin not the man for so Psal 101. v. 3. I hate the work of them that turn aside Psal 119. v. 104. I hate every false way Ver. 113. I hate vain thoughts Ver. 163. I hate lying and if once as Psal 139. v. 21. he be found to hate them the persons yet observe v. 22. he is said to hate them with a perfect hatred which hate can onely be such when it is against that which God hates the sin but not the person of the man which is an imperfect hatred and against charity and such an hatred God abhorreth Hear David speak as to his rebellious Son Absolom his treacherous Cousin Joab and foul-mouth'd Shimei Psal 7.4 5. If I have rewarded evil to mine enemy let him persecute
rather a moving trunk of flesh then a living soule and this in part excuseth the words and acts of Lovers as proceeding from men distracted rather then from men in their wits and hereupon the Romans had a law exempting such Lovers from the penalty of death holding them to be no better then mad men This holy phrensie of love hath not escaped the Saints of God on earth S. Paul was neer this when in his extreme love to his Country-men as Moses Exod. 32.32 Rom. 9.3 that wished himself blotted out of the Booke of God so he wished himself accursed from Christ unlesse the Jews his brethren might be pardoned and saved with him so that which is said of Peter ravisht with the glorious apparition on Mount Tabor the like might be spoken of S. Paul in his excessive love to the Jews he knew not what he said or as Felix said unto him Paul thou art surely besides thy self love in stead of learning hath made thee mad And if ever any exceeded in love Joh. 10.20 above all the love that ever was in the world it was Christ who so exceeded herein that the Jews once thought him mad And might not others as well as they have imagined the like of him when in the excesse of his love to his very enemies he would suffer himself to be taken delivered up and shamefully put to death for them Thus far did the love in Christ work him to go or seem to be besides himself and all that he might work us to return to and to look into our selves and up to heaven that as ravisht with the love hereof we might live here in the world as though we were out of the world and that we might so look on these delights below as men blinde and hear of them as deaf and discourse of them as not concerned but as men in part translated to heaven and here become earthly Angels S. Paul made his daily prayers unto the Father of our Lord Christ That he would grant unto the Ephesians the riches of his holy Spirit to be rooted and grounded in love Ephes 3.17 and that they might know the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge where he prayeth for the mutuall love between the head and the members their love to him but his love to them first For without this love of Christ to them they cannot love him He loved his first saith S. John and then without their love to him 1 John 4 1â— they cannot understand the power that love hath ere it is rooted in them For it is able to make things in themselves base and contemptible to be of great price and esteem Might it not seem in our blessed Saviour a blemish and dishonour to his person to be reviled scorned whipt and crucified yet the love of Christ took and accounted all as acts of glory and all that he might prove himself thereby the Saviour of the world It is registred of the wife to the Emperour Theodosius That she as a Nurse-keeper rather than an Empresse attended the sick and weak and made playsters and drest the sores of the poor Hospitallers who when she was by some nice Courtiers gently reproved her answer was That although those offices were below the person of an Empresse yet were they not able to reach and expresse the love which she bore to the poorest members of her Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus who in his unspeakable love did more saith she for me then ever I can in the least deserve or in any measure requite CHAP. IX Love exchangeth and counterchangeth all with its beloved FOr proof of this I could instance in many Lovers Registred in profane Authors as in Pylades and Orestes each of them though but one was guilty took the fact upon himself that he might thereby redeem the life of the other King David when the plague seized on and destroyed the people cries out to the Lord 2 Kings 24.17 It is I Lord that have sinned let me suffer but spare these innocent sheep for what have they done And when the Souldiers came to apprehend Jesus whom they yet knew not and some of his Disciples being present with him he asks Whom seek ye they answered We seek Jesus he roundly and readily answereth I am he And this he did Joh. 18. to the end that he might save his disciples from their arrest and therefore he addeth Ye have me whom you seek therefore let these go their way Reade and consider that of S. Paul Who is weake 1 Cor. 21.29 and I am not weake who is offended and I burn not the troubles infirmities and sufferings of the Corinthians through the Apostles love to them are all become and made his Yea but see a greater power of love manifested in the same Apostle toward the Philippians whom he tells that his death will be gain to him v. 21. Phil. 1. for thereby he shall injoy Christ whereas life to him will prove but labour and pain v. 22. and yet saith he though the difference be so great as is betwixt everlasting joy and glory being with Christ and pain and labour living with you yet my love is such to you more then to my self that I am in a strait not knowing which to choose but concludes Though it be far better for me to die and to be with Christ v. 23. neverthelesse saith he v. 24. to abide in the flesh is more profitable for you and therefore he concludes v. 25. Having this confidence I shall abide and continue with you for your furtherance and joy of faith But S. Paul writing to the Romans seems to go beyond all the bounds of love I and of common reason Rom. 9.8 when he saith I could wish that my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen the Jews Expositors antient and modern generally conclude that this wish or desire of S. Paul was an expression of the most transcendent power of love which might possesse any mortall man but what the full extent and force of the words may be is not so clearly agreed on for some expound the words accursed from Christ wherein all the difficulty lies to intend a temporall affliction or corporall punishment 2. others a spirituall separation or excommumcation from the Church of Christ 3. a third sort will have an eternall separation rejection or casting away from the joyes of heaven to be here understood They who imbrace the first exposition conceive this desire of the Apostle to be like that of Moses saying Lord Exod. 32.32 if thou wilt not forgive the sins of the Israelites in making the golden calf then blot me out of thy book and this blotting out of the book they expound of deposing or casting Moses from his government of that people which was as they would have this in S. Paul to be but a temporall punishment and this they would deduce and inferre from the word accursed which in the
way the like saith our Apostle do riches And yet as if this were not all they do pierce the word imports that they pierce through and all round about leaving the Soul but as one wound and that with sorrowes not ordinary light ones but with such sorrowes as overtake women in the bringing forth children or such as Christ himself suffered in that extreme agonie of his last passion which were paines more then sorrowes Act. 2.24 and yet both unexpressible Will you heare a word more from Job who telling that the covetous man swallowes down riches Job 20. â—5 not that he takes them peece-meal to shew them by little and little leisurely and to digest them but by gobbets he swallows greedily And what is the consequence or fruit 〈…〉 of that follows there in the next words thâ—â— soon as be hath swallowed them he should 〈◊〉 them up again so that they should never nourish or do him reall good But how comes this to passe why that Job omits not to tell us when he saith This meat of riches which he thus gormandiseth and greedily swallows turns to the gall of Aspes within him and no marvail then that they doe him not good for they must needs turn to his poyson Prov. 11.4 Ezek. 7.19 Zeph. 1.18 Riches shall not profit nor deliver in the day of the Lords wrath is expresly set down and confirmed for an undeniable truth by three authentique witnesses Salomon the King and the two Prophets Ezekiel and Zephaniah so that in this they are like the Martyns Swallowes and other such birds which in the summer the time of our jollity build with us and seem to chirp in their tunes but when the winter of adversity and judgement appeareth they leave us with a foul house but to shift for our selves And it were well did they only resemble those summer birds in leaving us helpless and that they were not more like the Screech-owle which at the time of death makes a fearefull hideous noise in our ears to the disquiet of our souls and if this were not so what means the Prophet to denounce a woe to the man that covets to set his nest on high and adds the reason Haba â— 9.11 for the stone out of the wall shall cry and the beame shall answer against him and what means S. James to bid rich men weep and howle but that as follows there James 5.3 their miseries shall come upon them and if you ask what miseries he tells you that the rust of your wealth which should 〈◊〉 been imployed and used for God and his 〈◊〉 â—â—all witness against you and the cryes 〈◊〉 â—â—â—e whom you have defrauded are entered â—â—â—o the eares of the Lord. And if you ask what these will cry or witness why that the Prophets in part have spoken for your injustice your oppression your fraud in getting and your as base and wretched hoarding up and not well imploying the same and as though this were not all our Apostle adds what few think on These riches saith he shall cry against you because you have lived in pleasure on the earth and have for wealth condemned and killed the just and him who doth not resist So that here not only the golden vessells taken out of Gods temple shall witness and cry against Belshazzer though he were but the receiver and detainer and not the immediate sacrilegious theef nor Naboths vineyard against Ahab and Jezebel nor the blood of Ahab and Jezebel though bad Princes against Jehu the trayterous rebell but your fatted fowle your gilded coaches your pampered horses your feastings balls and revellings your vain ridiculous fashions yea your very doggs fed fat while Lazarus wants shall bark and cry aloud against you for living in pleasure on the earth and being wanton Covetousness S. Paul calls idolatry Col. 3.5 1 Tim. â— 10 now these gross idolatrous Israelites having made a calfe of gold they said These â—re thy Gods ô Israel which brought thee out of Aegypt Gold is the rich mans God and this he holds to be his deliverer though indeed it prove as that golden calf did the hazard of their utter destruction and for this many too many have cryed out with the foolish perverse Jews Not Christ but Barabbas Jesus we desire not but Mammon to be delivered to us and so thi◠〈◊〉 have crucifie him And yet all riches at their best are but as 〈◊〉 reed of Aegypt Jonah his gourd Absalons haire or Sampsons lock Is 36.6 â—zek 29 6â— and that reed saith the Prophet shalll go into the hand and pierce it the Apostle as before is touched calls riches piercers with a witness And for their short delight they are but as gourds or mushrums which rise and fall live and dye in a day and besides this great pain and little content they bring us they often prove as Absaloms and Sampsons haire that wherein we most presumed and what we esteemed our best support shall become the occasion of our ruine and utter destruction Remember the first words of Christs Sermon to the people Luk. 12. 15â— Beware of covetousness And this Christ did upon especial reason seeing mans heart above all other things set upon his wealth for ask the husbandman the tradesman the Merchant the Lawyer the Physitian why he laboureth and toyleth in the world and ask the Seaman the Souldier the Digger in the mines why he hazardeth his life yea ask King Salomon why he layes heavy taxes on the people and why Rehoboam doubles them All they must tell you if they will speak truth it is for their wealth This this is the Tradesmans Diana Acts 19.24 the Physitians Galen the Lawyers Littleton and would it were not too true in many that it is the Ministers Bible and therefore S. Paul reckoning up twenty sins to which man is most subject as he makes the first or leading sin self-love 2 Tim. 3.2 so the second to it as on which his love is most set 〈◊〉 placeth covetousness and accordingly in 〈…〉 place he calls it the root of all evill Col. 3.5 〈…〉 â—mong the evils I Shall reckon you but 〈◊〉 or four for they all are too many for one book the grave or hell which the more it hath the more it craves ever crying Give give and is never satisfied though it be full to the brim and running over yea though beasts are then only greedy and ravenous when empty and hungry yet the covetous man desires most when he is full gorged and when both men and beasts have less appetite to what they delight in when they grow old yet this desire of wealth by age waxeth stronger and when man is drawing neer to the earth the grave as though like were delighted with its like it then most desires the goods of the earth and this desire is so rampant in many that I beleeve some there are that so they might have all the world to themselves they would
in ordinary is the utmost and if saith he by reason of strength they live eighty years yet is their strength labour and sorrow and although King David a man of an excellent constitution lived to seventy years as it is computed by the best yet this saith he is but an hand-breadth or indeed as nothing before thee ô Lord Ps 39.5 for would the God think of the everlasting joyes in heaven of the wicked of their never dying torments in hell they both might say that this hand-breadth of time was as nothing We read of a beast called from the continuance of its life the Ephemeris which though it live according to his appellative name but one day yet it falls presently to provide for sustenance as though it might live years Mans life be it at the largest as in ordinary the term of seventy years yet in respect of eternity or indeed of the frailty and uncertainty of the continuance thereof it is in 〈…〉 often called a day and yet man much like that beast labours builds purchaseth as though he were to live for ever and although he be here but a pilgrim a stranger and travailer to another place yet like an unwise factor he stores up all his goods here whence he is as to morrow to depart and never transports them whither he is to go there to give an account of his employment and to enjoy his well spent travailes for ever and such is the folly and most deplorable vanity of man Which error will appear the greater to him that considers the frailty of mans life in respect of the materials whereof mans body consists 2 Of the artifice and curious workmanship whereby it is wrought 3 How it is subject to the power almost of every thing to be broken and dissolved Now the best and strongest materiall of mans body is earth and as Adam was made out of it so he and mankind is called from the earth Adam and homo man so that man much resembles a swallows nest made of straw and dirt such mans bones and clay such his flesh and how frail and easily broken this or that is may appear when we see a little boy with a slick to pull that down in pieces and less then that every nothing of violence to do as much to the body of man for what of earthly vessells account we more britle then a Venice glass yet this kept up and secured from violence or outward force shall outlast two lives of any man a China dish so preserved shall indure twenty mens lives Whereas such is the materials of mans body that let him diet and behave himself according to Galens best rules let him lye warm and enjoy himself a bed without spending his spirits yet even in this diet and enjoyment without any hurt or violence done unto him he shall consume and molder away unto that whence be was taken Now to the weak brittleness of mans materials if you add the curious nice composition and joyning of his parts you may rather wonder how he should live a moneth then to mervaile that he should die so young the Psalmist to the honour of Gods great power and wisdome acknowledged that man is wonderfully made Ps 139.14 and that so much beyond the art and skill of any the best workman in the world that when any piece pin or wheel in the most exquisite work of man may be renewed if broken repaired if worne and put again in its place if out of frame yet to do the like in mans body exceeds the skill of all the best Physitians that ever were for be the heart be the liver be the brain wounded yea be they but pricked with a needle be they putrefied or be they displaced all the work is spoiled and comes to nothing and mans life is lost But if you consider how the least and weakest externall things have power to destroy this body of man can you say less then that he is a frail and brittle piece I will not complain as some have done yet I may tell you that God by his journyman Nature hath sent all other creatures some way or other armed or strengthened into the world against outward force or hurt and man only is put forth naked weak unfenced so that take him at his best growth strength there is no element nor any little part of any element fire aire water or earth though man be made of these but is able to undo him and take away his life Yea a flie a kernell a haire hath done as much to many and not only the living in a corrupt aire may do the like but the sent of a little subtile infection conveyed by a glove a piece of linnen or the like may do the same thing But if to these we add that which both history and philosophy confirme that a man may de dissolved by extreme joy caused by that which is good and harmeless how then may any man deny this certain and known truth that mans life is a frail thing or rather nothing but frailty And not only thus frail but a thing unstable and mutable daily and hourly running on and making way to its corruption and dissolution Therefore when you see and observe the motion and going down of a watch the running of the water in a stream which returnes not the burning of a candle which wasts in giving light of flowers grasse leaves which in the morning are green and flourishing and ere night are cut down and withered or will you think on and consider what is a vapor a shadow a dream or the dream of a shadow Thus know in seeing thinking and considering these all or any of these that you see think and consider the continuall mutability and change of mans life running and flying to its last end Neither may we wisely wonder or justly complain when we consider this that Abel the youngest of all the world dies first or that in the bils of mortality we finde more children die then old men for God in his wonderfull wisdome and goodnesse hath thus provided and ordered it for man that he may hence learn two lessons that it is no argument of Gods disfavour but an evidence of his love to take us early from the worlds miseries and betimes to estate us in eternall felicity and secondly that man considering what a changâ—â—ble thing his life is he may provide against it all he can or may and the best that he may and can is to thinke on and labour for an exchange of this mutable life for an unchangeable to come And to this end God hath so fixed his greater and lesser lights in heaven that looking on them we may daily and hourly consider that although to us they seem not to move yet they are in continuall motion and tending to their journies end and that it is alike in man And further to these heavenly visible lessons he hath joyned his legible instructions in his holy
labours yet at length the day came wherein the rising Sun saw him the second in the Empire and before its setting dragd by a hook through the streets of Rome and thrown from the Gemonies into Tibur his only child ravisht by the hangman and killd his adored statua made vessels for the basest use his friendship esteemed an honour and a crime and his fortune both a blessing and a curse Norcissus the favourite of Claudius slain at the instance of Agrippina Tigellius favourite to Nero Asiaticus to Vitellius and Cleander to Commodus each had their shamefull and ignominious ends The corollary from this consideration of favorites shall be that of King David Put not your trust in Princes Ps 146. 3 no nor in the son of man for it is better Ps 118. 8 9. saith he to trust in the Lord then to put any confidence in man or in Princes and a reason of this again he gives when he saith Ps 107.40 Ps 76.12 Ps 148.8 he powreth contempt upon Princes yea more He cutteth off the spirits of Princes and will bind their Kings with chaines and their nobles with fetters of iron to execute upon them judgement And whether Generalls and Conquerours have proved more happy then favorites see in Abner Generall to King Saul Amasa to Absalom and Joab to King David of which three not one came to his end in peace but had their bloud of war shed in the time of peace Might I not adde to these in holy writ the ends of Abimelech and Olophernes the former of which was brained by a stone cast on him by a certain unknown woman and the latter had his head cut off by a widow So like is victory and conquest to a game at cards where that which is now turned trumpe is at the next dealing cast to the lowest of all or is discarded as of no use Generals and Conquerors remember this when that aire which should be above is thrust into the earth it casts the earth into a quaking and trembling ague but when earthly vapours ascend into the place of the aire above it begets some fiery meteor or a combustion It is fabled that when Perseus went out to fight with Medusa his cause being just and hers wicked each of the Gods assisted and furnisht him with armes and weapons whereby he became the conqueror and cut off the witches head the fable will moralise it self into that which the blessed virgin Mary said he hath put down the mighty the unjustly mighty from their sâ—ats So that if we look for successe in war we must be sure not to enterprise it without these four requisits or conditions 1. that the cause be sincerely just 2. that the means be honest and lawsull 3. that the end be purely good 4. that the authority of the war be rightly vested in him to whom God either immediatly and extraordinarily hath given the sword as he did to the Kings of the Jews or ordinarily mediately by the laws of man in other states and if either of these be wanting it is not victory though ye overcome but treachery nor conquest but tyranny And therefore they who have used it may deservedly expect the fate of those in Israel who by unjust conquest gained the crown the stories at large exprest in the Book of Kings I shall abbreviate Politique Jeroboam who by rebellion robbed Reboboam the King of ten tribes and made himself King of Israel had his debaucht son Nadab rooted out with all his house by Baasha this mans son Elah with all that family was made away by Zimri this Zimri was burnt by Omri Ahab Omries son hath his bloud suckt by dogs Ahaziah son to Ahab dies by a fall Jeheram his brother succeeds him but was flain by Jehu who makes an end of all Ahabs line Jehu imitates Jeroboam as his son Joash imitates his father Shallum makes an end of Jehu's race This Shallum is taken off by Menahem Pekaiah the son of Menahem is outed by Pekah and this Pekah is slain by Hoshea who with the ten tribes is caried captive by Shalmaneser of Assyria which ten tribes never recovered the dispersion but were thought to have peopled Tartary and the west Indies Almost each of these usurpers as he gained the Crown by the sword and slaughter so had each of them the Crown snatcht from his head and his life taken away by the sword yea and Jehu though he were appointed to be King by God yet because he ambitiously and bloudily invaded Ahahs Crown shall find as the Prophet speaks the bloud of Jezreel to be avenged on the house of Jehu Ros 1.4 Who sees not in these passages the justice and revengefull hand of God on such enterprises though he suffered them so long to continue yet at last he recompenseth his long abused patience with the severity of his judgments pointing out by the stroak the concealed crime so that we may truly say with the Prophet Ps 9.16 The Lord is known by the judgment which be executeth the wicked it snared in the work of his own hands the prosperity of begun rebellion incouraging their trembling hearts to proceed and the crowning success exciting others to imitate that treason to the teachers destruction so that each may say verely there is a God that judgeth The kingdome and people of Judah are likewise captived and carried away to Habylon and the temple of Jerusalem destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar but as God by his Prophets foretold after 70 years the people are brought back from Babylon to Jerusalem and the temple is reedified dedicated and the Passover solemnized and in this who sees not Gods mercy to his people who served and called upon him although for their great sins they long suffered under their enemies All which considered there remains little more for us then to beleive the Scriptures to trust in the living God to possess our souls in patience to acknowledge that for our sins we have deserved much more and to call upon him in prayer for a timely deliverance Remember but as yesterday Tomaso Anello the fisherman of Naples who for the ease and relief of the peoples heavy taxes was able on a sudden to raise an Army great enough to subdue all the power of the King yet at last failing to perform what he engaged them for he himself is as suddenly slain by the people as he rose in their defence But to close all in one remember that Andronicus who had formerly taken an oath to be true and faithfull to his Liege Lord the Emperor of Constantinople yet after under colour of religion and pretence of freeing the people from the male-administration of the Emperor through his fair but false words and oaths soon gains so many of the people unto him that he as suddenly vanquished the forces of the Emperor whom he caused by the help of a most ungodly Councell to be sentenced to a most unjust and ignominious death which done he imprisons
full of them in which blessing the woman hath not the least share for she is the quiver which keeps and yeelds the blessing of such arrowes as are children Yea S. Paul saith 1 Tim. 2.15 the woman shall be saved in child-bearing if she continue in faith charity holinesse and sobriety Yet because simply and absolutely all children are not blessings therefore to make them such Ps 128. the Psalmist saith they shall be as Olives now the oyle of Olives is not only good to smooth the countenance but to expell poison or poisonous cares from the heart and such shall the children be of the virtuous wife and the good husband and though these Olives must not hold the like place with the wife to be on the side of the house yet they shall be round about the table there ready to wait and serve both father and mother at their call or need in all faithfulnesse and obedience as they are taught by the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul 1 Pet. 1.14 Tit. 1.6 And yet I cannot promise that this blessing of having children shall overtake all good husbands and wives no nor that all such as have children shall be blessed in them For the Psalmist restrains this blessing of good obedient and faithfull children only to such Parents as fear the Lord Loe thus saith the holy Ghost shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord Ps 128.4 and I cannot but observe that King Davids were good till he became bad but when once he deflowred Bathsheba the wife and murdered Vriah the husband then his children committed uncleanness and rebelled against him The fear of the Lord in the parents begets and preserves the fear of the Lord in the children and this the parents ought to observe and do not only for their childrens good but that their children may be good and a blessing to their parents CHAP. XXXIX Of the mutuall love and duty between Parents and Children ONe especiall end of mariage is the propagation of children and therefore from mariage and the duties thereof we shall proceed to that between parents and children and herein considering whence children come to see the love and duty of parents to their children and the return of honour obedience and other duties of children to their parents The Hebrews say that God keeps the keyes of the womb and of the grave which agrees with that that he kills and he gives life or more neerly as to our purpose children are the gift and heritage of the Lord but by the agency and instrumency of the parents so that they are as slips or ciences taken from them and this makes the relation between them so neer that some have observed that when God said A man shall leave father and mother for his wife yet he saith not he shall forsake children for his wife for though the man and wife are as the Apostle phraseth it joyned or glewed together as made into one flesh yet except Eve no wife is out of or a part of the mans flesh But I speak not this to lessen the relative love between husband and wife so much as to heighten that which is between parents and children And this is so great even in all sensitive Creatures beasts and birds that not only the Lion Dog and Bear but the Doe the Ewe and Hen will oppose the strongest creature and interpose between them and their young hazarding their own lives to preserve that of their young ones And it hath not been less seen among men for so we read that Octavius Albanius keeping a castle beseiged when one cryed out your son without is in danger to be slain he suddenly sallied out for his rescue though with the loss of his own life an other hearing that his son was sentenced to death for a murder he appeared before Charles the great swearing it was he that slew the man and thereupon was put to death thereby to save his sons life and Agrippina mother of Nero being told that it would cost her life to have her son Emperour answered So he may be Emperour let me die and how much short is the affection of Jacob to his children Joseph and Benjamin or that of David to Absalom Gen. 42.38 when Jacob said If mischief shall befall Benjamin it will bring down my gray haires with sorrow to the grave and he hearing that his son Joseph was dead he rent his clothes put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for him many days and would not be comforted saying I will go down into the grave unto my son Gen. 37.35 and how much short of this was Davids expressions for the death of a rebellious son who though he sought his fathers crown and life yet the father thus passionately laments him 2 Sam. 1 33. O my son Absalom my son my son Absalom would God I had dyed for thee O Absalom my son my son It hath been a question whether the love of the father or the mother be the greater to the child and if we answer by the consideration of examples we shall leave the question unresolved For as we found Jacob and David most tenderly loving so the like we shall see in Rachel Ge. 30.1 who sels her husband to Leah for mandrakes whereby she hoped to get children which she so much longed for that she cries out give me children else I dye and having lost them she weeps for them Jer. 31.15 Mat. 1.8 and would not be comforted because they were not But if we consider the mothers pain in breeding danger in bringing forth and her care and trouble in their first training up we may conceive that her love exceeds especially if we add hereunto that which the Prophet saith if a mother he saith not if a father but if a mother can forget the child of her womb which may seem to intimate that a father may sooner forget the son which he got then the mother which bore him in her womb which womb nature as the Anatomists observe hath filled with most tender affectionate baggs membranes veines and sinewes thereby to make her more loving to the child Gen. 29.32 and if to this we add what Leah speaks who having born a son unto Jacob her husband she saith now my husband will love me Then we may conclude that the mother for her own sake loves the child more tenderly or fondly but the father for the childs sake loves him more wisely and strongly or we may say that the man and the woman love their child as Alexander was said to love his two intimate friends Ephestion and Parmenio who loved the former as a fine delicate man and such women delight in but Parmenio he loved as a brave man for action and such a wise father is pleased with And from hence we may assoile an other question why both father and mother oft-times loves one child better then an other as Rebecca did Jacob the younger more
they conceived a vindicative and revengeful soul never acted that which was truly glorious The Almighty God by his Prophets and Apostles is said to be rich in mercy Joel 2. Heb. 2. Neh. 9.16 17. but never in punishing and richer in this then in any thing else that when the Levites had acknowledged what wonderful things God had done for the Israelites and that notwithstanding all his blessings to them they dealt proudly and hardned their necks and obeyed not his Commandments yet for all this they confess of God to his glory That he is a God ready to pardon or a God of pardons and not onely not a punishing God but as it follows there God is gracious merciful slow to anger and of great goodness And indeed go through the whole Book of God and ye shall not finde God so much extolled for any attribute of his Power Wisdome or Justice as for his Mercy in pardoning injuries done unto him Numb 14.17 Accordingly when God was minded to have destroyed the rebellious Israelites Moses findeth no stronger argument to incline him to mercy then by praying Let the power of my Lord be made great according as thou hast spoken Exod. 36.6 saying The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy forgiving iniquity and transgressions Psal 10.3 8. Pardon therefore I beseech hee the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy mercy So that by the greatness and riches of his mercy his Omnipotency is made most glorious And as God is most pleased with this attribute of Merciful as conducing most to his glory so in imitating God herein man most proves himself to be his Fathers own childe for as our Saviour spake of the hard-hearted revengeful Jews Joh. 8.44 Ye are of your father the devil who was a murtherer from the beginning so saith he Love your enemies Mat. 5.45 and do good to them that hate you that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven intimating that by this act and disposition of the heart ye may prove your selves the true born Sons of God your Father And such as cross and oppose this doctrine of our Lord Christ saying in heart or tongue it is baseness and cowardize to put up an affront without taking revenge I must pronounce that man not onely a bastard as S. Paul calls such no son of God but an heretick to Christs doctrine whose precept is Love your enemies We reade that our Saviour told his disciples that for his sake they should suffer and forsake estates wife children and life but never that they should suffer for his name or doctrine any loss of reputation or honour whence it will easily follow that to obey Christs command in pardoning the offences of our neighbour and in loving our enemy we lose not but gain that which indeed with God and good men is truly called and known to be honour To incline mans heart to this duty is the consideration of that trouble and torture which hate and revenge brings into the soul of man This appears by many instances in holy Writ Cain after the murther of his brother became a fugitive in the land of Nod Gen. 4.14 which signifieth disquiet and he is a vagabond not onely to others but to himself wandring with fear and torture of minde as a man distracted and terâ—ified fearing himself or as we say his own shadow and Lamech having as the general opinion is slain his thrice great Grandfather Cain he saith I have slain a man to my wounding Gen. 4.23 though it were done ignorantly and by a misadventure yet that manslaughter was a wound to his own heart Good God what wound must that be then to the heart of him who meditates and useth all the means he can to destroy that image of God which Christ the Son of God so loved that he vouchsafed to dye for it When Abigail laboured to pacifie David 1 Sam. 25.31 incensed and purposed to kill the Churl Nabal though a man of no worth or esteem she useth this argument This shall be no grief nor offence of heart unto my Lord that thou hast not shed blood or that thou hast not avenged thy self and David considering what a corrosive the act if committed would have been to his conscience V. 32 33. saith Blessed be the Lord which sent thee with this counsel and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou which hast kept me from shedding blood It is observed that the Bee having shot her sting and wounded what offended her she either soon after dyes her self or continues but as an half liv'd drone and as despised of others so disconsolate and careless of it self and it can be little other if not worse with that man who seeks revenge on his neighbour for the edge or point of that sword which killed his brother pierceth and woundeth the soul of the slayer and as the wise-man speaks of sorrow and wrath Ecclus. 30.23 so may I of this It shortneth the life and hath killed many Another reason to pardon the injuries done us by our enemy or neighbour is that the stroke comes not so much from our enemy as from God and thereby that we may reap benefit and no hurt if we will our selves Although Joseph had said Ye my brethren sold me to the Egyptians yet in the same verse he addeth God sent me into Egypt Gen. 45.5 His brethren sold him but God sent him And when Shimei cursed David 2 Sam. 16.10 David would not revenge himself on Shimei this had been to have imitated the dog who bites the stone thrown at him but he passeth by the reviler or railer not saying Wherefore hast thou done this and he gives the reason for it for the Lord saith he bade him curse David The King of Assyria is called the rod and the staff of Gods indignation Isa 10â— Psa 37.14 and the Prophet saith The wicked have bent their bow and drawn out their sword to slay the godly what then are the godly to do to draw their swords and kill the wicked which in case of defence and backed by lawful authority is justifiable no but they are to consider what follows in the next verse Psa 17. Their bow shall be broken and their sword shall enter into their own hearts and when or how shall this be see that where it is said â—he wicked and so the sword of the wicked is Gods sword who cannot rise or strike unless God speaks as be doth V. 13. Awake O sword and smite Zech. 13.7 Now thine enemies being Gods rod his staff his sword what man is so mad as to resist this sword or to break this staff and not rather to kiss the rod because it is Gods and that it is not laid on for thy destruction but correction and not to hurt and wound but to chastise thee and make thee better Job the upright and