light of natural reason or at leastwise from some Conclusions properly directly and evidently deduced therefrom If we condemn it before this be done our judgment therein is rash and unrighteous 15. Nor is that all I told you besides the unrighteousness of it in it self that it is also of very noisom and perilous consequence many ways Sundry the evil and pernicious effects whereof I desire you to take notice of being many I shall do little more than name them howbeit they well deserve a larger discovery And first it produceth much Uncharitableness For although difference of judgment should not alienate our affections one from another yet daily experience sheweth it doth By reason of that self-love and envy and other corruptions that abound in us it is rarely seen that those men are of one heart that are of two minds St. Paul found it so with the Romans in his time whilest some condemned that as unlawful which others practised as lawful they judged one another and despised one another perpetually And I doubt not but any of us that is any-whit-like acquainted with the wretched deceitfulness of mans heart may easily conclude how hard a thing it is if at all possible not to think somewhat hardly of those men that take the liberty to do such things as we judge unlawful As for example If we shall judg all walking into the fields discoursing occasionally on the occurrency of the times dressing of meat for dinner or supper or even moderate recreations on the Lords day to be greivous prophanations of the Sabbath how can we chuse but judg those men that use them to be grievous prophaners of Gods Sabbath And if such our judgment concerning the things should after prove to be erroneous then can it not be avoided but that such our judgment also concerning the persons must needs be uncharitable 16. Secondly this mis-judging of things filleth the world with endless niceties and disputes to the great disturbance of the Churches peace which to every good man ought to be precious The multiplying of Books and Writings pro and con and pursuing of Arguments with heat and opposition doth rather lengthen than decide Controversies and instead of destroying the old begetteth new ones whiles they that are in the wrong out of obstinacy will not and they that stand for the truth out of conscience dare not may not yield and so still the War goeth on 17. And as to the publick peace of the Church so is there also thirdly by this means great prejudice done to the peace and tranquility of private mens consciences when by the peremptory Dostrines of some strict and rigid Masters the souls of many a well-meaning man are miserably disquieted with a thousand unnecessary scruples and driven sometimes into very woful perplexities Surely it can be no light matter thus to lay heavy burdens upon other mens shoulders and to cast a snare upon their consciences by making the narrow way to heaven narrower than ever God meant it 18. Fourthly hereby Christian Governours come to be robbed of a great part of that honour that is due unto them from their people both in their Affections and Subjection For when they shall see cause to exercise over us that power that God hath left them in indifferent things by commanding such or such things to be done as namely wearing of a Surplice kneeling at the Communion and the like if now we in our own thoughts have already prejudged any of the things so commanded to be unlawful it cannot be but our hearts will be sowred towards our Superiours in whom we ought to rejoyce and instead of blessing God for them as we are bound to do and that with hearty chearfulness we shall be ready to speak evil of them even with open mouth so far as we dare for fear of being shent Or if out of that fear we do it but indirectly and obliquely yet we will be sure to do it in such a manner as if we were willing to be understood with as much reflection upon authority as may be But then as for our Obedience we think our selves clearly discharged of that it being granted on all hands as it ought that Superiours commanding unlawful things are not therein to be obeyed 19. And then as ever one evil bringeth on another since it is against all reason that our Error should deprive our Superiours of that right they have to our obedience for why should any man reap or challenge benefit from his own act we do by this means fifthly exasperate those that are in authority and make the spirit of the Ruler rise against us which may hap to fall right heavy on us in the end All power we know whether Natural or Civil striveth to maintain it self at the height for the better preserving of it self the Natural from decay and the Civil from contempt When we therefore withdraw from the higher powers our due obedience what do we other than pull upon our selves their just displeasure and put into their hands the opportunity if they shall but be as ready to take it as we are to give it rather to extend their power Whereby if we suffer in the conclusion as not unlike we may a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom may we thank for it but our selves 20. Sixthly by this means we cast our selves upon such sufferings as the cause being naught we can have no sound comfort in Causa non passio we know it is the cause maketh a true Martyr or Confessor and not barely the suffering He that suffereth for the Truth and a good cause suffereth as a Christian and he need not be ashamed but may exult in the midst of his greatest sufferings chearing up his own heart and glorifying God on that behalf But he that suffereth for his Error or Disobedience or other rashness buildeth his comfort upon a sandy foundation and cannot better glorifie God and discharge a good conscience than by being ashamed of his fault and retracting it 21. Seventhly hereby we expose not our selves only which yet is something but sometimes also which is a far greater matter the whole Reformed Religion by our default to the insolent jeers of Atheists and Papists and other prophane and scornful spirits For men that have Wit enough and to spare but no more Religion than will serve to keep them out of the reach of the Laws when they see such men as pretend most to holiness to run into such extravagant opinions and practices as in the judgment of any understanding man are manifestly ridiculous they cannot hold but their Wits will be working and whilst they play upon them and make themselves sport enough therewithal it shall go hard but they will have one fling among even at the power of Religion too Even as the Stoicks of old though they stood mainly for vertue yet because they did it in such an uncouth and rigid way as seemed to be repugnant not
Promises of God they are true but yet conditional and so they must ever be understood with a conditional clause The exception there to be understood is Repentance and the Condition here Obedience What God threatneth to do unto us absolutely in words the meaning is he will do it unless we repent and amend and what he promiseth to do for us absolutely in words the meaning is he will do it if we believe and obey And for so much as this Clause is to be understood of course in all God's Promises we may not charge him with breach of Promise though after he do not really perform that to us which the letter of his Promise did import if we break the condition and obey not Wouldst thou know then how thou art to entertain God's Promises and with what assurance to expect them I answer With a confident and obedient heart Confident because he is true that hath promised Obedient because that is the condition under which he hath promised Here is a curb then for those mens Presumption who living in sin and continuing in disobedience dare yet lay claim to the good Promises of God If such men ever had any seeming interest in Gods Promises the interest they had they had but by Contract and Covenant and that Covenant whether either of the two it was Law or Gospel it was conditional The Covenant of the Law wholly and à priori conditional Hoc fac vives Do this and live and the Covenant of the Gospel too after a sort and à posteriori Conditional Crede vives believe and live If then they have broken the Conditions of both Covenants and do neither Believe nor Do what is required they have by their Unbelief and Disobedience forfeited all that seeming interest they had in those Promises God's Promises then though they be the very main supporters of our Christian Faith and Hope to as many of us as whose Consciences can witness unto us a sincere desire and endeavour of performing that Obedience we have covenanted yet are they to be embraced even by such of us with a reverend fear and trembling at our own unworthiness But as for the unclean and filthy and polluted those Swine and Dogs that delight in sin and disobedience and every abomination they may set their hearts at rest for these matters they have neither part nor fellowship in any of the sweet Promises of God Let dirty Swine wallow in their own filth these rich Pearls are not for them they are too precious let hungry Dogs glut themselves with their own vomit the Childrens bread is not for them it is too delicious Let him that will be filthy be filthy still the Promises of God are holy things and belong to none but those that are holy and desire to be holy still For our selves in a word let us hope that a Promise being left us if with Faith and Obedience and Patience we wait for it we shall in due time receive it but withal let us fear as the Apostle exhorteth Heb. 4. lest a Promise being left us through disobedience or unbelief any of us should seem to come short of it Thus much of the former thing proposed the magnifying of God's Mercy and the clearing of his Truth in the revocation and suspension of threatned Iudgments by occasion of these words I will not bring the evil There is yet a Circumstance remaining of this general part of my Text which would not be forgotten it is the extent of time for the suspending of the Judgment I will not bring the evil in his days Something I would speak of it too by your patience it shall not be much because the season is sharp and I have not much sand to spend I will not bring the evil in his days The Judgment denounced against Ahab's house was in the end executed upon it as appeareth in the sequel of the story and especially from those words of Iehu who was himself the Instrument raised up by the Lord and used for that Execution in 4 King 10. Know that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord which the Lord spake concerning the house of Ahab for the Lord hath done that which he spake by his servant Elijah which were enough if there were nothing else to be said to justifie God's truth in this one particular That which Ahab gained by his humiliation was only the deferring of it for this time I will not bring the evil in his days As if God had said This wretched King hath provoked me and pulled down a Curse from me upon his house which it were but just to bring upon him and it without farther delay yet because he made not a scoff at my Prophet but took my words something to heart and was humbled by them he shall not say but I will deal mercifully with him and beyond his merit as ill as he deserveth it I will do him this favour I will not bring the Evil that is determined against his house in his days The thing I would observe hence is That when God hath determined a Iudgment upon any People Family or Place it is his great mercy to us if he do not let us live to see it It cannot but be a great grief I say not now to a religious but even to any soul that hath not quite cast off all natural affection to fore-think and fore-know the future Calamities of his Country and Kindred Xerxes could not forbear weeping beholding his huge Army that followed him only to think that within some few scores of years so many thousands of proper men would be all dead and rotten and yet that a thing that must needs have happened by the necessity of Nature if no sad Accident or common Calamity should hasten the Accomplishment of it The Declination of a Common-wealth and the Funeral of a Kingdom foreseen in the general corruption of manners and Decay of Discipline the most certain Symptoms of a tottering State have fetched Tears from the Eyes and Blood from the Hearts of heathen Men zealously affected to their Country How much more grief then must it needs be to them that acknowledge the true God not only to foreknow the extraordinary Plagues and Miseries and Calamities which shall befal their Posterity but also to fore-read in them God's fierce wrath and heavy displeasure and bitter vengeance against their own sins and the sins of their Posterity Our blessed Saviour though himself without Sin and so no way accessary to the procuring of the evils that should ensue could not yet but weep over the City of Ierusalem when he beheld the present security and the future ruine thereof A Grief it is then to know these things shall happen but some Happiness withal and to be acknowledged as a great Favour from God to be assured that we shall never see them It is no small Mercy in
him it is no small Comfort to us if either he take us away before his Judgments come or keep his Judgments away till we be gone When God had told Abraham in Gen. 15. that his Seed should be a Stranger in a Land that was not theirs meaning Egypt where they should be kept under and afflicted 400 years lest the good Patriarch should have been swallowed up with grief at it he comforteth him as with a Promise of a glorious deliverance at the last so with a Promise also of Prosperity to his own person and for his own time But thou shalt go to thy Fathers in peace and shalt be buried in a good old age vers 15. In Esay 39. when Hezekiah heard from the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah that all the treasures in the Lord's house should be carried into Babylon and that his Sons whom he should beget should be taken away and made Eunuchs in the Palace of the King of Babylon he submitted himself as it became him to do to the sentence of God and comforted himself with this that yet there should be Peace and Truth in his days vers 8. In 4 Kings 22. when Huldah had prophesied of the evil that God would bring upon the City of Ierusalem and the whole Land of Iudah in the Name of the Lord she pronounceth this as a Courtesie from the Lord unto good King Iosiah Because they Heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy Fathers and thou shalt be gathered unto thy Grave in Peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place verse last Indeed every man should have and every good man hath an honest care of Posterity would rejoice to see things setled well for them would grieve to see things likely to go ill with them That common speech which was so frequent with Tiberius was monstrous and not savouring of common humanity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When I am gone let Heaven and Earth be jumbled again into their old Chaos but he that mended it with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea saith he whilst I live seemeth to have renounced all that was man in him Aristotle hath taught us better what reason taught him that res posterorum pertinent ad defunctos the good or evil of those that come after us doth more than nothing concern us when we are dead and gone This is true but yet proximus egomet mi though it were the speech of a Shark in the Comedy will bear a good Construction Every man is nearest to himself and that Charity which looketh abroad and seeketh not only her own yet beginneth at home and seeketh first her own Whence it is that a godly man as he hath just cause to grieve for Posterities sake if they must feel God's Judgments so he hath good cause to rejoice for his own sake if he shall escape them and he is no less to take knowledge of God's Mercy in sparing him than of his Iustice in striking them This Point is useful many ways I will touch but some of them and that very briefly First here is one Comfort among many other against the bitterness of temporal Death If God cut thee off in the midst of thy days and best of thy strength if Death turn thee pale before Age have turned thee gray if the flower be plucked off before it begin to wither grudge not at thy Lot therein but meet God's Messenger chearfully and imbrace him thankfully it may be God hath some great work in hand from which he meaneth to save thee It may be he sendeth death to thee as he sent his Angel to Lot to pluck thee out of the midst of a froward and crooked generation and so to snatch thee away left a worse thing than death should happen unto thee Cast not therefore a lodning eye back upon Sodom neither desire to linger in the plain it is but a valley of tears and misery but upto the mountain from whence cometh thy salvation lest some evil overtake thee Possibly that which thou thinkest an untimely death may be to thee a double advantage a great advantage in ushering thee so early into God's glorious presence and some advantage too in plucking thee so seasonably from God's imminent Iudgments It is a favour to be taken away betimes when evil is determined upon those that are left Secondly here is a Warning for us to take Consideration of the loss of good or useful Men and to fear when they are going from us that some evil is coming towards us The Prophet complaineth of the too great and general neglect hereof in histime The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Esa. 57. When God sendeth his Angel to pluck out his righteous Lots what may Sodom expect but fire and brimstone to be rained down upon them When he plucketh up the fairest and choicest flowers in his garden and croppeth off the tops of the goodliest Poppies who can think other than that he meaneth to lay his Garden waste and to turn it into a wild Wilderness when he undermineth the main Pillars of the House taketh away the very Props and Butteresses of Church and Common-weal sweepeth away religious Princes wise Senators zealous Magistrates painful Ministers men of eminent Ranks Gifts or Example Who can be secure that either Church or Common-weal shall stand up long and not totter at least if not fall God in Mercy taketh such away from the evil to come we in wisdom should look for evil to come when God taketh such away Thirdly here is Instruction for Worldlings to make much of those few godly ones that live among them for they are the very Pawns of their Peace and the Pledges of their security Think not ye filthy Sodomites it is for your own sakes that ye have been spared so long know to whom you are beholden This Fellow that came in to sojourn among you this Stranger this Lot whom you so hate and malign and disquiet he it is that hath bailed you hitherto and given you Protection Despise not God's Patience and Long suffering ye prophane ones neither bless your selves in your ungodly ways neither say We prosper though we walk in the Lusts of our Hearts This and thus we have done and nothing have been done to us God holdeth his hand and holdeth his Tongue at us surely he is such a one as our selves Learn O ye Despisers that if God thus forbear you it is not at all for your own sakes or because he careth not to punish evil doers no he hath a little remnant a little flock a little handful of his own among you a few names that have given themselves unto him and call upon him
accountable to God at the day of Judgment Immoderate Care and Sollicitude for outward things is another impediment of Thankfulness Under which Title I comprehend Covetousness especially but not only Ambition also and Voluptuousness and every other Vice that consisteth in a desire and expectation of something for the future Which desire and expectation if inordinate must needs in the end determine in unthankfulness For the very true Reason why we desire things inordinately is because we promise to our selves more comfort and content from them than they are able to give us this being ever our Error when we have any thing in chase to sever the Good which we hope from it from the Inconveniencies that go therewith and looking only upon that never so much as to think of these But having obtained the thing we desired we find the one as well as the other and then the Inconveniences we never thought of before abateth much of the weight and the price we formerly set thereupon and taketh off so much from the estimation we had of the good whereby it cometh to pass that by how much we over-valued it in the pursuit by so much we undervalue it in the possession And so instead of giving thanks to God for the Good we have received we complain of the Inconveniences that adhere thereunto and so much underprize it as it falleth short of our expectation and look how far we do underprize it so far are we unthankful for it To remove this Impediment whoever would be thankful let him moderate his desires after these outward things fore-cast as well the inconveniences that follow them as the Commodities they bring with them lay the one against the other and prepare as well to disgest the one as to enjoy the other The last Impediment of Thankfulness is Carnal Security joined ever with Delays and Procrastinations When we receive any thing from God we know we should give him Thanks for it and it may be we think of doing such a thing but we think withal another day will serve the turn and so we put it off for the present and so forwards from time to time till in the end we have quite forgotten both his benefit and our own Duty and never perform any thing at all My Text doth after a sort meet with this corruption for here the Apostle saith the Creature should be received with thanksgiving as if the thanks should go with the receipt the receipt and the thanks both together To remove this Impediment consider how in every thing Delays are hurtful and dangerous how our Affections are best and hottest at the first and do in process of time insensibly deaden and at last die if we do not take the opportunity and strike as we say whilest the Iron is hot how that if pretensions of other businesses or occasions may serve the turn to put off the tendering of our devotions and rendering of our thanks to God the Devil will be sure to suggest enow of these pretensions into our heads and to prompt us continually with such Allegations that we shall seldom or never be at leisure to serve God and to give him thanks Let us remember these five impediments and beware of them Pride Envy Epicurism Wordly Carefulness and Delay All which are best remedied by their contraries Good helps therefore unto thankfulness are 1. Humility and Self denial 2. Contentedness and Self-sufficiency 3. Painfulness and Sobriety 4. The Moderation of our desires after earthly things 5. Speed and Maturity And so much for this third Inference of Direction I should also have desired if the time would have permitted although my Text speaketh of our Thanksgiving unto God precisely as it respecteth the Creature yet to have improved it a little farther by a fourth Inference that if we be thus bound to give God thanks for these outward blessings how much more ought we then to abound in all thankfulness unto him for his manifold Spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ for Grace and Election for Mercy and Redemption for Faith and Justification for Obedience and Sanctification for Hope and Glorification If we ought to pray for and to give thanks for our daily bread which nourisheth but our bodies and then is cast into the draught and both it and our bodies perish how much more for that Bread of life which came down from heaven and feedeth our Souls unto eternal life and neither they nor it can perish If we must say for that Give us this day our daily bread shall we not much more say for this Lord evermore give us this bread But I have done Beseech we now Almighty God to guide us all with such holy discretion and wisdom in the free use of his good Creatures that keeping our selves within the due bounds of Sobriety Charity and civil Duty we may in all things glorifie God and above all things and for all things give thanks always unto God and the Father in the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ. To which our Lord Jesus Christ the blessed Son of God together with the Father and the Holy Spirit three Persons and one only wise gracious and everlasting God be ascribed as is most due by us and his whole Church all the Kingdom the Power and the Glory both now and for evermore Amen Amen AD POPULUM The Sixth Sermon At St. Paul's Cross London April 15. 1627 Gen. XX. 6. And God said unto him in a dream Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart For I also withheld thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her FOR our more profitable understanding of which words it is needful we should have in remembrance the whole story of this present Chapter of which story these words are a part And thus it was Abraham cometh with Sarah his Wife and their Family as a Stranger to sojourn among the Philistines in Gerar covenanteth with her before-hand thinking thereby to provide for his own safety because she was beautiful that they should not be to know that they were any more than Brother and Sister Abimelech King of the place heareth of their coming and of her beauty sendeth for them both enquireth whence and who they were heareth no more from them but that she was his Sister dismisseth him taketh her into his house Hereupon God plagueth him and his House with a strange Visitation threatneth him also with Death giveth him to understand that all this was for taking another Mans Wife He answereth for himself God replieth The Answer is in the two next former Verses The Reply in this and the next following Verse His Answer is by way of Apology he pleadeth first Ignorance and then and thence his Innocence And he said Lord wilt thou slay also a righteous Nation Said not he unto me She is my Sister And she even she her self said He is
but reason they should be mightily humbled when they do repent 29. After repentance also Presumptuous sins for the most part have their uncomfortable Effects Very seldom hath any man taken the liberty to sin presumptuously but he hath after met with that which hath been grievous to him either in outward things or in his good name or in his soul in some or other of these if not in all even after the renewing of himself by repentance and the sealing of his pardon from God Like a grievous wound or sore that is not only of a hard cure but leaveth also some remembrance behind it some scar in the flesh after it is cured 30. First a Presumptuous sinner rarely escapeth without some notable outward Affliction Not properly as a debt payable to the Justice of God by way of satisfaction for there is no proportion between the one and the other But partly as an evidence of Gods high displeasure against such a high provocation and partly as a fit chastisement wherewith he is pleased in mercy to correct his servants when they have demeaned themselves so presumptuously that both they and others may be admonished by that example to do so no more Be David the instance What a world of mischief and misery did he create unto himself by that one presumptuous fact in the matter of Uriah almost all the days of his life after The Prophet Nathan at the very same time when he delivered him Gods royal and gracious pardon for it under seal Transtulit peccatum the Lord hath put away thy sin yet did he withal read him the bitter consequents of it as you have them set down 2 Sam. 12. And as he foretold him accordingly it fell out with him His daughter defiled by her brother that brother slain by another brother a strong conspiracy raised against him by his own Son his Concubines openly defiled by the same Son himself afflicted with the untimely and uncomfortable death of that Son who was his darling reviled and cursed to his face by a base unworthy Companion besides many other affronts troubles and vexations continually He had few quiet hours all his life long and even upon his death-bed not a little disquieted with tidings of his two Sons almost up in arms about the Succession We use to say The wilful man never wanteth woe and truly David felt it by sad experience what woe his wilfulness wrought him 31. Secondly Presumptuous sins are often Scandalous leaving an indelible stain and blot upon the name and memory of the guilty offender not to be wholly wiped off so long as that name and memory lasteth David must be our instance here too who sinned many other times and ways besides that in the matter of Uriah It can be little pleasure to us to rake into the infirmities of Gods Servants and bring them upon the Stage it would perhaps become our charity better to cast a Mantle over their nakedness where the fact will with any tolerable construction bear an excuse Yet sith all things that are written are written for our learning and that it pleased the wisdom of God for that end to leave so many of their failings upon record as glasses to represent unto us our common frailties and as monuments and marks to mind us of those rocks whereat others have been shipwrackt it cannot be blamed in us to take notice of them and to make the best use we can of them for our own spiritual advantage His diffidence then and anxiety lest he should perish one day by the hands of Saul when he had Gods promise that he should out-live him His deep dissimulation with and before Achis especially when he tendred his service to him in the Wars His rash cholerick vow to destroy Nabal and all that belonged to him who had indeed played the churl and the wretch with him as covetous and unthankful men sometimes will do but yet in rigore had done him no wrong His double injustice to his loyal Subject Mephibosheth and therein also his forgetfulness of his old and trusty friend Ionathan first in giving away all his Lands upon â—he bare suggestion of a servant and that to the false Informer himself and that without any examination at all of the matter and then in restoring him but half again when he knew the suggestion to be false His fond affection to his ungracious Son Absolom in tendring his life before his own safety and the publick good and in taking his death with so much unmanly impatience His lenity and indulgence to his other Son Adonijah who was no better than he should be neither to whom he never said so much at any time as Eli did to his Sons Why hast thou done so His carnal confidence in the multitude of his Subjects when he caused them to be numbred by the Poll. These and perhaps some other sinful oversights which do not presently occur to my memory are registred of David as well as the murther of Uriah Yet as if all these were nothing in comparison of that one that one alone is put in by the Holy Ghost by way of exception and so inserted as an exception in that glorious testimony which we find given of him 1 King 15. 5. David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite That is he turned not aside so foully and so contemptuously so presumptuously and so provokingly in any other thing as he did in that business of Uriah All his Ignorances and Negligences and Inconsiderations and Infirmities are passed over in silence only this great Presumptuous sin standeth up as a Pillar or Monument erected ad perpetuam rei memoriam to his perpetual shame in that particular for all succeeding generations to take warning and example by 32. Yet were this more tolerable if besides a Stain in the Name these Pre sumptuous sins did not also leave a Sting in the Conscience of the sinner which abideth in him many times a long while after the sin is repented of and pardoned ready upon every occasion to smite him and to gall him with some touch and remorse of his old presumption Like as a man that having gotten some sore bruise in his youth and by the help of Surgery and the strength of youth over-worn it may yet carry a grudging of it in his bonos or joynts by fits perhaps to his dying day And as for the most part such grudgings of an old bruise are aptest to recur upon some new distemper of body or upon change of weather so the grief of an old presumptuous sin is commonly most felt upon the committing of some new sin or the approach of some new affliction Do you think David had not in all those afflictions that after befel him and at the apprehension of every sinful oversight
to confirm it with his royal assent all our labour is but lost As he is the Alpha so is he to be the Omega too and therefore we must set him at both ends And as we were to begin with him so we are to conclude with him Pray first pray last Pray before all that we may have grace to do our Endeavours Pray after all that he would give a blessing to our endeavours That so when Satan the World and our own Flesh shall all conspire against us to drive us forward to the works of sin we may by his grace and blessing he kept back therefrom and enabled to persevere in true faith and holiness all the days of our lives Which God our heavenly Father grant us for his mercies sake and for the merits of Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord to whom both with the Holy Ghost c AD AULAM. The Fifth Sermon GREENWICH JULY 1637. Philip. 4. 11. Not that I speak in respect of want for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content 1. SAint Paul found much kindness from these Philippians and took much comfort in it And because it was more than ordinary and beyond the kindness of other Churches he doth therefore sometimes remember it with much thankfulness both to God and them Even in the beginning of the Gospel that is presently after his first preaching it among them the story whereof is laid down Acts 16. when having passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia he came and preached at Thessalonica which was another principal City of Macedonia these Philippians hearing belike that the Apostle had little other means for his maintenance there than what he got by his hand-labour wherein both for Examples sake and because he would not be chargeable to the Thessalonians he employed himself disigently both day and night they sent over and so did no other Church but they and that once and again to supply his necessities there 2. And as they began it seemeth they continued to shew forth the truth of their Faith and to adorn their Christian Profession by their chearfulness and liberality in contributing to the necessities of their brethren upon every good occasion For at Corinth also the year following where for the space of a year and half together he did for good considerations forbear as he had before done at Thessalonica to challenge that Maintenance from the people which by Gods Ordinance he had a right unto the supplies he had he acknowledgeth to have come from the brethren of Macedonia As if he had even robbed the Philippians it is his own word in taking wages of them for the service done to other Churches 3. Not to speak of their great bounty some three or four years after that towards the relief of the poor brethren that dwelt in Iudea wherein the were willing of themselves without any great solicitation and liberal not only to the utmost of but even somewhat beyond their power Now also again after some three or four years more St. Paul being at durance in Rome their former charitable care over him which had not of a good while shewn it self forth for lack of opportunity began to re-flourish and to put forth with a fresh Verdure as a Tree doth at the approach of Summer For they sent him a large benevolence to Rome by Epaphroditus of the receipt whereof he now certifieth them by the same Epaphroditus at his return expressing the great joy and comfort he took in those gracious Evidences of their pious Affections to the Gospel first and then to him He highly commendeth their Charity in it and he earnestly beseecheth God to reward them for it 4. Yet lest this just commendation of their beneficence should through any mans uncharitableness whereunto corrupt Nature is too prone raise an unjust opinion of him as if he sought theirs more than them or being crafty had caught them with guile to make a Prey or a Gain of them so sinisterly interpreting his extolling of their Charity for the time past as if it were but an artificial kind of begging for the time to come He thought it needful for him by way of Prolepsis to prevent whatsoever might be surmised in that kind which he beginneth to do in the words of the Text to this effect 5. True it is nor will I dissemble it when I received from Epaphroditus the things that were sent from you it was no small rejoycing to my heart to see your care of me after some years intermission to flourish again And I cannot but give an Euge to your Charity for truly you have done well to communicate with my Afflictions Yea I should derogate from the Grace of God which he hath bestowed upon you and worketh in you if I should not both acknowledg your free benevolence towards me and approve it as an odour of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing to God Which I speak not out of a greedy mind to make a gain of you nor for a cloak of covetousness God is my witness nor any other way so much in reference to my own private interest as for the glory of God and to the comfort of your consciences In as much as this fruit of your Faith thus working by Love doth redound to the honour of the Gospel in the mean time and shall in the end abound to your account in the day of the Lord Iesus Otherwise as to my own particular although my wants were supplied and my bowels refreshed through your liberality which in the condition I was in was some comfort to me yet if that had been all I had looked after the want of the things you sent me could not have much afflicted me The Lord whom I serve is God All-sufficient and his Grace had been sufficient for me though your supplies had never come He that enableth me howsoever of my self unable to do anything yet to do all things through Christ that strengthneth me hath framed my heart by his Holy Spirit and trained me up hereunto in the School of Experience and Afflictions to rest my self contented with his allotment whatsoever it be and to have a sufficiency within my self though in never so great a deficiency of outward things Not that I speak in respect of want for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content 6. The words contain a Protestation and the Reason of it First because his commendation of their Charity to him might be obnoxious to mis-construction as if he had some low covetous end therein to prevent all evil suspicion that way he disavoweth it utterly by protesting the contrary in the former part of the Verse Not that I speak in respect of want And then to make that Protestation the more credible he assigneth as the Reason thereof the contentedness of his mind For I have learned saith he in whatsoever state I am therewith to
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
justified in thy sight These latter Corrections also or chastenings of our heavenly Father are called Iudgments too When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord but in a quite different notion Because God proceedeth therein not with Violence and Fury as men that are in passion use to do but coolly and advisedly and with judgment And therefore whereas David deprecated Gods judgment as we heard in that former notion and as judgment is opposed to Favour Ieremy on the other side desireth Gods judgment in this latter notion and as it is opposed to Fury Correct me O Lord yet in thy judgment not in thy fury Jer. 10. 6. Now we see the several sorts of Gods judgments which of all these may we think is here meant If we should take them all in the Conclusion would hold them and hold true too Iudicia Oris and judicia Operis publick and private judgments those Plagues wherewith in fury he punisheth his Enemies and those rods wherewith in mercy he correcteth his children most certain it is they are all right But yet I conceive those judicia oris not to be so properly meant in this place for the Exegesis in the latter part of the verse wherein what are here called judgments are there expounded by troubles seemeth to exclude them and to confine the Text in the proper intent thereof to these judicia operis only but yet to all them of what sort soever publick or private Plagues or Corrections Of all which he pronounceth that they are right which is the Predicate of the Conclusion and cometh next to be considered I know O Lord that thy judgments are right 7. And we may know it too if we will but care to know either God or Our selves First for God though we be not able to comprehend the reasons of his dispensations the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the judgments are right it may satisfie us if we do but know that they are his Tua will infer recta strongly enough for the Lord who is righteous in all his ways must needs be so in the way of his judgments too 1. Mens judgments are sometimes not right through misinformations and sundry other mistakings and defects for which the Laws therefore allow Writs of Errour Appeals and other remedies But as for God he not only spieth out the goings but also searcheth into the hearts of all men he pondereth their spirits and by him all their actions are weighed 2. Mens judgments are sometimes not right because themselves are partial and unjust awed with Fear blinded with Gifts transported with Passion carried away with Favour or Dis affection or wearied with Importunity But as for God with him is no respect of Persons nor possibility of being corrupted Abraham took that for granted that the judge of all the world must needs do right Gen. 18. And the Apostle rejecteth all suspicion to the contrary with an Absit What shall we say then Is there unrighteousness with God God forbid Rom. 9. 3. Mens judgments are sometimes not right merely for want of zeal to justice They lay not the causes of poor men to heart nor are willing to put themselves to the pains or trouble of sifting a cause to the bottom nor care much which way it go so as they may but be at rest and enjoy their ease But as for God he is zealous of doing justice he loveth it himself he requireth it in others punishing the neglect of it and rewarding the administration of it in them to whom it belongeth The righteous Lord loveth righteousness Psal. 11. 8. And then secondly in our selves we may find if we will but look enough to satisfie us even for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too so far as is meet for us to expect satisfaction The judgments of God indeed are Abyssus multa his ways are in the Sea and his paths are in the deep waters and his footsteps are not known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soon may we lose our selves in the search but never find them out Yet even there where the judgments of God are like a great deep unfathomable by any finite understanding his righteousness yet standeth like the high mountains as it is in Psal. 36. visible to every eye If any of us shall search well into his own heart and weigh his own carriage and deservings if he shall not then find enough in himself to justifie God in all his proceedings I forbid him not to say which yet I tremble but to rehearse that God is unrighteous 9. The holy Saints of God therefore have ever acquitted him by condemning themselves The Prophet Ieremy in the behalf of himself and the whole Church of God The Lord is righteous for I have rebelled against his Commandments Lam. 1. So did Daniel in that his solemn Confession when he set his face to seek the Lord God by prayer and supplications with fasting and sack-cloth and ashes Dan. 9. O Lord righteousness belongeth unto thee but unto us confusion of face as it is this day to our Kings to our Princes and to our Fathers because we have sinned against thee ver 7. and again after at verse 14. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil and brought it upon us for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doth for we obeyed not his Voice Yea so illustrious many times is the righteousness of God in his judicial proceedings that it hath extorted an acknowledgment from men obstinately wicked Pharaoh who sometimes in the pride of his heart had said Who is the Lord was afterwards by the evidence of the fact it self forced to this confession I have sinned the Lord is righteous but I and my people are wicked Exod. 9. 10. They are then at least in that respect worse than wicked Pharaoh that to justifie themselves will not stick to repine either at God himself or his judgments as if he were cruel and they unrighteous like the slothful Servant in the Parable that did his Master no service at all and yet as lazy as he was could blame his Master for being an hard man Cain when he had slain his righteous brother and God had laid a judgment upon him for it complained of the burden of it as if the Lord had dealt hardly with him in laying more upon him than he was able to bear never considering the weight of the sin which God in justice could not bear Solomon noteth it as a fault common among men when by their own sinful folly they have pulled misery upon themselves then to murmur against God and complain of his providence The folly of a man perverteth his ways and his heart fretteth against the Lord Prov. 19. As the Israelites in their passage through the Wilderness were ever and anon murmuring and complaining at somewhat or other either against God or which cometh much to one against
a fitter similitude whereby to express the miseries of the hell within us that of an evil conscience or of the hell without us that of eternal torments than by inner and outer darkness But light is a most glorious creature than which none fitter to express to our capacities either the infinite incomprehensible Glory and Majesty of God He clotheth himself with light as with a garment and dwelleth in the light that no man can approach unto or that endless glory and happiness which the holy Angels do now and all the Saints in their due time shall enjoy in heaven Who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1. 14. In these respects he that hath the honour to be stiled a Christian in any degree hath also a title so far forth to be stiled a child of light Whether it be by the outward profession of the Christian faith only or by the inward sanctification of the Spirit also Those are nomine tenus Christiani Christians but in name and shew equivocal Christians these only are Christians indeed and in truth Of these is made up the Church of Gods Elect otherwise called the invisible Church of Christ and not unfitly because the persons appertaining to that Church as members thereof are not distinguishable from others by any outward infallible Character visible to us but by such secret and inward impresses as come not within the cognizance of any creature nor can be known by any creature otherwise than conjecturally only without special revelation from God The foundation of God standeth firm having this seal Dominus novit The Lord knoweth who are his Should we take these here meant the opposition between the children of this world and the children of light would be most perfect Those who remain in the state of depraved nature and so under the dominion of Sin and Satan being the children of this world in the strictest notion and those whom God hath called out of darkness into his marvellous light that is brought out of the state of Nature into the state of Grace and translated into the Kingdom of his Son Iesus Christ being the children of light in the stricter notion also 15. But forasmuch as we who cannot look beyond the outside are no competent judges of such matters It will best become us to make use of that judgment which alone God hath allowed us I mean that of Charity And then it will be no hard business for us to pronounce determinately applying the sentence even to particular persons who are to be esteemed the children of light Even all those that by outwardly professing the name and faith of Christ are within the pale of the visible Church of Christ. The holy Apostle so pronounceth of them all 1 Thes. 5. Ye are all the Children of the light and of the day And Eph. 5. Yea were sometimes darkness but now are light in the Lord. Our very Baptism entitleth is hereunto which is the Sacrament of our initiation whereby we put on Christ and are made members of Christ and Children of God Whence it is that in the Greek Fathers Baptism is usually called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is an enlightening and persons newly baptised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Officer in the Greek Church to whom it belonged to hear the confessions of the Catechumeni and after they were approved to present them to Baptism with many other phrases and expressions borrowed from the same metaphor of light and applied in like manner to Baptism 16. Now to bring all this long and as I fear tedious discourse home to the Text the question here resolved seemeth in the right stating thereof to come to this issue whether natural and worldly men in the managery of their worldly affairs to the best temporal advantage or they that profess themselves Christians in the business of their souls and pursuit of everlasting salvation do proceed the more rationally and prudentially in their several ways towards the attainment of their several ends How the question is resolved we shall consider by and by In the mean time from this very consideration alone that the children of light and the children of this world stand in mutual opposition one to the other we may learn something that may be of use to us We would all be thought what I hope most of us are not nomine tenus only by outward profession and at large but in very deed and truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good Christians and children of light in the stricter and nobler notion Yet were it but the other only our very Baptism and profession of Christianity would oblige us to a holy walking sutable to our holy calling and Profession and to the solemn vow we took upon us at our Baptism It were a base yea a very absurd thing for us to jumble and confound what we find here not only distinguished from but even opposed against the one the other Children of God and of the Church by profession and yet children of Satan and of the world in our conversation Children of light and yet hold fellowship with and take delight in the unfruitful works of darkness Quae communio saith St. Paul It astonisht him that any man could think to bring things so contrary as Light and Darkness to any good accord or but tolerable compliance When we were the children of this world and such we were as soon as we were born into the world by taking Christendom upon us at our Baptism we did ipso facto renounce the world with all the sinful pomps and vanities thereof and profess our selves children of the God of light If now being made the children of God and of the light we shall again cast back a longing eye after the world as Lots wife did after Sodom or Demas-like embrace this present world clasping our hearts and our affections about it how do we not ipso facto renounce our very Christendom with all the blessed comforts and benefits thereof return with the dog to lick up our old vomit and reduce our selves to that our former wretched condition of darkness from which we had so happily escaped Can any of us be so silly as to think the Father of lights will own him for his child and reserve for him an inheritance in light who flieth out from under his wing and quite forsaketh him to run after the Prince of darkness The Apostles motion seemeth very reasonable Eph. 5. that whereas whilst we were darkness we walked as children of darkness now we are become light in the Lord we should walk as children of the light The children of the world perfectly hate the light why should not the children of light as perfectly scorn the world We have not so much spirit in us as we should have if we do not nor so much wisdom neither as we should have if we do not no nor
so many Mock-Graces and specious counter feits that carry a semblance of spiritual fruit but are not the things they seem to be And on the other side inordinate love of our selves partly and partly want of Charity towards our brethren have so disposed us to a capacity of being deceived that it is no wonder if in passing our judgments especially where our selves are concerned we be very much and very often mistaken It might rather be a wonder if we should not be sometimes mistaken 44. As most Errors claim to be a little akin to some Truths so most Vices challenge a kind of affinity to some Vertue Not so much from any proper intrinsecal true resemblance they have with such vertues as by reason of the common opposition they both have to one and the same contrary Vice As Prodigality hath some overly likeness with Liberality and so may hap to be mistaken for it for no other cause but this only that they are both contrary to Covetousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle truly fallacy and deception for the most part arise from the appearance of some likeness oâ— similitude when things that are like but not the same are taken to be the same because they are like They that have given us marks of sincerity for the trial of our Graces have not been able to give us any certain Rules or infallible Characters whereby to try the sincerity of those Marks so as to remove all doubtings and possibility of erring 45. Whence I supose I may safely infer that the certainty of a Man's present standing in grace but much more then of his eternal future salvation although I doubt not but by the mercy of God it may be attainable in this life and that without extraordinary revelation in such a measure as may sustain the soul of an honest Christian with comfort is not yet either so absolutely necessary nor so void of fears and doubtings as some perhaps have imagined 46. Not so necessary but that a Man may be saved without it Many a good soul no doubt there is in the world that out of the experience of the falseness of his own heart and the fear of self-deceit and the sense of his own unworthiness could never yet attain to be so well persuaded of the sincerity of his own Repentance Faith and Obedience as to think that God would approve of it and accept it The censure were very hard and a great violation it would be of Charity I am sure and I think of Truth also to pronounce such a Man to be out of the State of Salvation or to call such his dis-persuasion by the name of Despair and under that name to condemn it There is a common but a great mistake in this matter Despair is far another manner of thing than many take it for When a Man thinketh himself so incapable of God's pardon that he groweth thereupon regardless of all duties and neither careth what he doth nor what shall become of him when he is once come to this resolution Over shoes over boots I know God will never forgive me and therefore I will never trouble my self to seek his favour in vain this is to run a deseperate course indeed this is properly the sin of Despair But when the fear that God hath not yet pardoned him prompteth him to better resolutions and exciteth him to a greater care of repentance and newness of life and maketh him more diligent in the performance of all holy duties that so he may be the more capable of pardon it is so far from being any way prejudical to his eternal salvation that it is the readiest way to secure it 47. But where the greatest certainty is that can be attained to in this life by ordinary means it is not ordinarily unless perhaps to some few persons at the very hour of death so perfect as to exclude all doubtings The fruits of the Spirit where they are true and sincere being but imperfect in this life and the truth and sincerity of them being not always so manifest but that a Man may sometimes be deceived in his judgment concerning the same it can hardly be what between the one and the other the imperfection of the thing and the difficulty of judging but that the Assurance which is wholly grounded thereupon and can therefore have no more strength than they can give it must be subject to Fears Iealonsies and Doubtings 48. I speak not this to shake any Man's comfort God forbid but to stir up every Man's care to abound and increase so much the more in all godliness and in the fruits of the Spirit by giving all diligence by walking in the Spirit and subduing the Lusts of the Flesh to make his Calling and Election sure Sure in it self that he fail not of Salvation in the end and sure to him also as far as he can that his comfort may be the greater and sounder in the mean time Now the God of all Grace and Glory send the Spirit of his Son plentifully into our Hearts that we may abound in the Fruits of godly living to the praise of his Grace our present comfort in this Life and the eternal salvation of our Souls in the Day of our Lord Iesus Christ. AD MAGISTRATUM The First Sermon At the Assizes at Lincoln in the Year 1690 at the Request of Sir DANIEL Dâ—IGNâ— Knight then High Sheriff of that Coâ—â—â—y Prov. 24. 10 12. 10. If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be sâ—ain 12. If thou sayest Behold we know it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every man according to his works 1. AS in most other things so in the performance of that duty which this Text aimeth at we are neither careful before-hand such is the uncharitableness of our incompassionate hearts to do well nor yet willing afterwards through the pride of our Spirits to acknowledg we have done ill The holy Spirit of God therefore hath directed Solomon in this Scripture wherein he would incite us to the performance of the duty to frame his words in such sort as to meet with us in both these corruptions and to let us see that as the duty is necessary and may not be neglected so the neglect is damnable and cannot be excused In the handling whereof I shall not need to bestow much labour either in searching into the contexture of the words or examining the differences of translations Because the sentence as in the rest of this Book for the most part hath a compleat sence within it self without any necessary either dependence upon any thing going before or reference to any thing coming after and the differences that are in the translations are neither many in number nor