Philistim and yet these were they that they never suspected till the battle was lost wherein 30000 were slaine their Priests were gone Eli his necke broken and which was worste of all the Arke of God was taken Then they began in their calamitie to call a new quest of inquirie to make a new search and to find out this execrable thing namely their sin 1. Sam. 7. â— for the which as it is said all the hoast of Israel lamented before the Lord. The like neglect wee may behold in the people of Israel going against Beniamin The first day they lost 22000 they lament indeed and looke about them what should be the matter but they go the wrong way they fall to doubt of their commission as though there had been some fault in that they supposed they could not prosper because they had lift up their hand against their brethren although God had bid them doe it but there was another matter in it that they were not a ware of that was their sin which questionlesse God did punish by those two overthrows First they were altogether become corrupt and abhominable in their courses worship of God insomuch that as the Lord speaketh every man did what seemed good in his owne eyes It is true when they heard of the beastly and abhominable act of killing of the Levits wife under their filthy lust their hearts rose against it they would be avenged on all the whole tribe if the transgressors were not delivered This was all well but this was not all they should haue begune at home and purged themselues of spirituall uncleannesse and other sinnes that doe accompany that and then they had been fit to haue punished the beastlinesse of the Beniamits Againe for number they were so many and the other not a gleaning to them that they made no question of the victory so that they thought it needlesse to seeke to God by humbling of themselues for a good successe But God for those met with them and set them in the right way ere he had done with them for when after the second defeate they got sight of their sin and humbled themselues for it by fasting and praying they received a better answere with assurance of the victory Now give me leaue to applie and that in all humilitie Application The ground of your enterprise was good the commission faultlesse and the end for any thing I know upright yea and the enemie Gods enemie yet for all this thus far they haue prevayled and doe prevaile the cause I feare is want of reformation at home and it may be too much presuming of worldly forces and friendship which the Lord would haue to prove no better then a broken reede If the commission be good and the parties disable themselues from the execution of it what fault is in it or in him that gaue it out As it is far from me to charge any thing upon any mans conscience so I intreate every man to charge his owne conscience as David did and say I am the man A generall view or search will not serue for so long as men keepe themselues at generals they never find out that in themselues which most displeaseth God but often mistake that to be no sin which is sinne or that to be sin which is no sin Men must not stay themselues in the Procatartick or remote causes but they must dive unto the Proegumene conjunct or essential imediate cause Empyrickes mistaking symptomes for the sicknesse it selfe are fayrer to kill then to cure so in finding out some petty sinnes some never look at the main sinnes like those that lop off branches of the tree but never strike at the roote and as by this pruning the trees grow bigger so by daliance in search all growes worse and worse therefore to the bosome sin the darling-sin the seed-sinne that is deer as hand and foot cut it off and cast it away Let every man be severest with himselfe and favour himselfe not in the least sin that sin that hee least lookes after and will not acknowledge to be sin is commonly the capital sinne as taking liberty to profane the Sabboth going to stage-plaies scoffing precisenesse pettie oathes abuse of the creatures usury these be Nationall sins and set ope the gate to all other sins and consequently to judgment On the first my heart giues me to dwell if it were my place and the Treatise would permit for as it is the sin of Nations so it is the capitall sin though least thought on the threatnings against the breach of this commandement the promise annexed to the keeping of it the backing of it with reasons and fore-fronting of it with a remember Zacor doe necessarily imply all these lessons as first the antiquity of it and the continuance of it that as it was from the beginning so it should be remembred to the end Gen. 2.3 secondly it discovers the propensity of man to the light esteem of it and to the breaking of it thirdly it shews the greatnesse of the sin Ezech. 20.12.22 fourthly Gods great desire to haue it kept calling it the holy honourable day yea and the delight of the Lord Es 58.13 All these cords will pull down inevitable judgements upon all the palpable profaners of this day by their pleasures or ordinary imployments except they repent This sin cryes in England and roares in Holland where by open shops and other works of their calling they proclaim with open mouth their little regard of God or his Sabboth Iudgement likewise hangs over the head of all halvers of the Lords day making it neither Gods nor theirs but divide it All Iewish translators of the Sabboth all toleration from higher powers to profane it at which we may lay our hands upon our mouths But I hope the Parliament will redresse it likewise on all that dare proclaime it from Pulpit to bee onely a Ceremoniall Law and that the rest now injoyned is a meer Civill Ordinance The Papists presse this as a meer humane Institution in religious Worship Spalato a little before his departure told a man in dispute with him that that Commandement was done away Many Libertine Ministers and Prelats in England maintain the same in effect and the worst of the Ministers of the Vnited Provinces concur with them in this point for though some presse the keeping of it yet they urge it not as a divine Precept but as a time appointed by a meer positiue law for the worship of God but this crosseth the nature of the commandement being Morall given from the beginning before the Ceremoniall Law written by Gods own finger proclaimed to all the people to continue to the end It substracts from the number of the Precepts being ten Exod. 34.18 Deut. 10.4 it oppugneth the practise of God which is for a president to us It is against naturall reason and divine prerogatiue that God should not haue a solemn time appointed for
people how they should loath them and account them as a menstruous clout and that they should hold them unworthy of presence should say unto them get you hence Let them plead for Baal that are of Baal Hold never that to be clean in Gods worship that the Pope or Pagan hath once polluted being mans invention No it is unpossible that it should be cleansed With â—he sound of the Trumpet awake the Kings Maiesty awake the Prince the Parliament the Councell the Nobles Gentry and Commons that we may meet our God in sackcloth and ashes for great is the controversie that he hath wâ—th us all You are the Physitians content not your selues with the bare theoricke or generall rules but apply your rules and pick out particular mediâ—ines for particular diseases in particular subjects for Chronical pandemical or Epidemical diseases Haue your specifick rules and receits discover the darke day and the devouring people wherewith wee are threatned Ioel 2 v. 2.3.11 the day of the Lord is great and very terrible who can abide it As for your Majestie on the knees of my soule with all humble duety I doe intreat you as you haue begun in the spirit you would not end in the flesh but that you would beat down that Altar of Damascus bray the golden Calfe to powder crush the brazen Serpent to peeces and break off those bonds of superstition Ease Sion of her burthen under which she groaneth help not those that hate God and hate not those that loue God Let not God be robbed of his Sabboath nor his name be torn in peeces by bloudy oathes for these and the like are like to make your Dominions mourn Yea if your Highnesse loue the Lord your soule your life your Crown your people look to it Aegipt is deceitfull Nilus is ranke Poyson mixture of his worship is a mockery and no worship and God hath said he He will not be mocked For the Lords sake down with Balaam Balaamites and all their pedlery ware giue the Lord all or nothing for he is a jealous God In a word Dread Soveraigne remember I beseech you by how many mercies God hath ingaged you to be zealous of his house and that of all sins he cannot endure back-sliding As for you Gracious Prince If you desire to present your selfe to God as a member of his unspotted Spouse in Christ be not unequally yoked away with that Lincie-wolsie Match with reverence be it spoken it is a beastly greasie and a lowsie-wearing unbefitting your Grace Scripture will apologie my termes which speaking of spirituall whoredome giveth it alwaies the vilest termes Then good Sir curtall Baals Messengers by the middle to their shame Cast out of Gods house all the garish attire of the Whore and bring not an Athaliah what soever she be into your bosome who will adorn Balaams house with the riches of your God Let it never enter into your Princely heart that Dagon and the Ark can stand together for Christ and Belial hath no communion Let no profane person nor Popishly affected like briars and brainbles pester your house nor choake both life and practise of holy disties in you Keep good and plain dealing Physitians for your soule chear the hearts of Gods people with the loue of your countenance and in so doing you may bee assured the Lord will make you a sure house And you right Honourable and most Worthy of the High Court of Parliament together with his Majesties Councell Vse the counsell of a great King to his councell He would alwaies haue them to leaue two things without Simulation and dissimulation be either first for God and the reforming of his house or otherwise you can bring no honour to your selues nor good to your Country You illustrious Princes Nobles and Favorites of the King serue not the times nor your own turnes Ezr. 3.5 with the neglect or opposition of Gods cause withdraw not your neckes from the work of the Lord with the Tekoites nor break not the yoke of Gods obedience by impiety profanenesse and superstition as those Princes did in whom Ieremiah sought some good but found none Ier. 3.5 be not like those Princes of Iuda that with their false flatteries fayned curtesies and fleshly reasons 2 Chro. 24.17 made Ioash cast down all with his heele that he had set up with his hand but let Nehemiah his care Daniels zeale the three Childrens resolution Gid on s valour and Obadiahs loue possesse your soules for the purity of Gods worship with a loathing hatred of all superstition And to you great Prelates or sprightfull Lords the very hearth that keeps in the fire of all this superstition and the Ensigne staffe that fixeth those strange colours in our Camp If I could perswade you let your train fall Away with the little beast with the two hornes Rob not the Nobility and Magistracie of their Titles and places no more then they should usurp the office of the Ministerie Lord it not over the Stewards of Gods house and let not him finde you beating his servants when hee cals you to a reckoning in a word lest Pashur his case proue yours if danger come Let Christ raign in his Ordinances and let that maxime once be made good in a good sense no ceremony no Bishop Lastly to you people which be of two sorts carnall and called of the Lord to the former Thinke not the rotten walls of your profanenesse or meer Civilisme shall still be daubed over with the stinking morter of Romish superstition the durt whereof you cast in the faces of Gods faithfull Ministers if they touch your galled sores away with those fig-leaues and leprous clouts and let the Word haue its course with you To you the latter sort that with some lazie wishes are content to haue it so as the Prophet speaketh giue me leav out of my very loue to tell you that Isâ—char his caraiage or bowing down like an Asse between two burthens will not serue but you must hate the garment spotted with the flesh and say to the Idols Get you hence what haue we to doe with you Lastly to conclude the point to you all I say again from the highest to the lowest with my duety to all in lawfull place reserved if admonition will not work let terrour of iudgement prevaeile Levit. 10. the strange fire in Gods worship was punished with the fire of Gods wrath from heaven God proportions iudgement to the sin we haue ever kept in and pleaded for the excommunicate thing for the which the Lord may plague us we haue like fooles reserved the seedricks of superstition therfore the Lord is like to giue us enough of it Hos 8.11 we haue made many Altars to sin and they may be unto us for sin let King and Prince and Nobles and Ministers 2 Chron. 25 14 c. and people look to it King Amasiah setting up the gods of Seir by the God of Israel
Speculum Belli sacri OR THE LOOKINGGLASSE OF THE HOLY WAR Wherein is discovered The Evill of War The Good of Warr The Guide of War IN THE LAST OF THESE I GIVE A SCANTLING OF THE CHRISTIAN Tackticks from the levying of the Souldier to the sounding of the Renaiâ— together with a modell of the carryage both of Conquerour and conquered I haue applyed the generall rules warranted by the Word to the particular necessity of our present times GALLAT 6.16 As many as walk according to this rule peace be upon them DEVT. 29.9 When the Hoast goeth against the enemies then keep thee from every wicked thing 1 SAM 17.47 And all the Assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not vvith sword for the battell is the Lords and he will giue you into our hands Qui presumit de viribus suis antequam pugnet prosternitur Aug. Printed Anno 1624. TO THE MOST ILLVSTIOVS PRINCE FREDERICK KING OF Bohemia Count Palatine of the Rhine c. As also to the most vertuous Lady ELIZABETH Queen of Bohemia and onely daughter to the great and mighty King of Great Brittain THE life of man most illustrious Prince and Princesse is said by God himselfe to be full of trouble yea Iob 14.2 the Humanists term it and that truely rather a trouble then a life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vt sâ—evis projectas ab undis jacet infans indigus omni vitali auxiâ—â—o Lucr lib 6. Diog. Laert lib 9 in vita ipsius This needeth no other proofe then woefull experience through all the parts of mans life The Poet pretily Emblemes our infancy with a ship broken Marriner cast naked hurt and helplesse from the waues upon the shore bewraying with woefull cryes the rest of the passages answerable to the beginning If the consideration hereof made that great Philosopher Democritus weep continually what heart of flesh and eye of pittie can from the promontorie of our present security without a floud of teares behold the wether-beaten Barke of Gods Church over which to use the phrase of the Psalmist all the waues Psâ—l 42.8 and billows of the Lord doe passe yea one deep so calleth for another that if God himselfe were not the Ararat to rest upon it should be split in peeces upon the rockes of Shittim Quorum pars magna fui A great part of this distresse your Graces are therefore for mine own part I could wish with Ieremy That my head were full of water Jer. 9.1 and mine eyes were a fountain of teares Jn the Christall nature wherof while I looked for the cause of this evill that memorable passage of defeated Pompey did offer it selfe to my meditation An approved Author telleth us that Pompey being defeated in the Pharsalick battell as he fled to Aegypt hee took off tht way to visit the Philosopher Cratippus whom curiously he questioned whether at all there were any divine Providence or Moderation of humane things or not For his own part he could hardly be perswaded that God regarded those sublunary things because he had the worse in the better cause The Philosopher answered that there was a full period appointed to Kingdoms beyond which they could not passe The answer and the question now I passe because I shall haue occasion in the Treatise further to explane them But may it please your Highnesse to obserue thus much that if flesh and bloud or meere philosophy be guide in this inquisition a good man may loose himselfe for not onely doth the Athiest from the adversity of the godly and prosperity of the wicked peremptorily conclude Mal. 3.14 that it is in vain to serue God but even the Saints of God forgetting their Logick haue stumbled upon the like Paralogism Ps 63.4.5.6 c. Witnesse the Prophet David in that psalm where he compareth the peace plenty and prosperity of the wicked with the adverse and contrary things which doe befall the people of God Waters saith he of a full cup are wrung out to them Where both the quality and quantity of affliction is laid open Vpon this the people of God are said to turn in that is David and others namely to the thoughts following Is it thus with us Hence they gather this false conclusion How doth God know c. Surely in vain I haue cleansed my heart c. But this they doe in their phrensie a sympton of the fever of their affliction which David acknowledgeth with censuring of himselfe in the same psalm v. 15.21.22 If your Majesties heart hath been levened for so the word doth signifie v. 21. with any such temptation be not discouraged there hath no temptation taken you but such as hath befallen the servants of God Goe with David to the sanctuary and there you shall see the cause of your affliction and your enemies successe for a time namely to work Your tryall their destruction In the mean time renowmed Princes the Lord biddeth you goe on Speak unto the children of Israel that they goe forward Ex 14.15 As we cease not to our power to fill the golden censor with odors Rev. 8. that it may be filled againe with fire and cast upon the earth that is Gods and your enimies Cicero de crator Hutarch in Hannib 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so I haue presumed though the least of all to present your Highnesse with a model or draught of the holy Warre indeed with an earnest intreatie not to faint or giue over till God giue the victory If an experienced Souldier shall censure this Frame as Hamball did Phormio for his lecture of Militarie Discipline with the livery of a fool or as Archidamus did Periander who of a good Phisitian made himselfe by his evill favored Verses an extreme evill Poet let him obserue well and I hope hee shall finde no wrong offered to his Element As for the meannesse of the Frame your gracious acceptance as a stately Roofe shall cover all the deformitie Jn great things it is enough to will as Princes are Gods so in this they resemble him to respect the good will more then the work If I can bring but Goats haire to couer the outside of the Tabernacle or wield but a sling against the Goliah of Babylon or bring but some odors to the Censor of your annoynted selues and yours it shall comfort me and happily encourage others to shew the way more fully at the which I haue pointed Whatsoever it is I am bold to present it to your Highnesses joynt protection You are together the subject of calamity yea the But and point blanke whereat they aim You are joyntly together prayed for that the Lord would plant you as hee hath plucked you up and giue you double joy for your sorrow and glory for your confusion yea that you may not onely be built up but that you may joyntly build up Jerusalem which is the praise of the world In the mean time gracious Princes possesse your soules
both by Counsel and Armes the land became a counsell of war and an army of valorous counsellors Fourthly the successe of the war doth often follow the vertue of the commander To omit other examples witnes the Kings of Iudah While they were good they pevayled against their enemies as David Ezekiah c. 2. King 16 but by the contrary against the bad Kings the enemies prevailed instance Achas branded by the Lord for a bad one this is that Achas 2. Chron 28 and he had as bad successe For evidence whereof reade the places quoted It is often noted of that King and great Commander Moses that he was the servant of God Deut. 34.5 Rev. 15.3 and that not onely for his authoritie and fidelitie in his place but also for his pietie And this indeed is the greatest honour that any Commander can attaine to to be Gods servant So did David esteeme it It is said of Cornelius the Centurion that he was a devout man fearing God Thus you see then that it is not enough for a man to haue a good cause authoritie in his hand but if he will thriue and haue the same to prosper Application he must be good himselfe It then condemneth to hell from whence it came that hellish principle of Matchiavell that a Prince or great One should endeavor rather to be esteemed religious 2. part mâ—x 1. then to be so indeed He hath to many apt Schollers in this especially but is not this to extinguish the light of nature to mocke God and to play the damnable hypocrite What gaines he by this First that which is not in graine cannot hold Secondly when once he commeth to dance in a nett and the colour is cast to the eyes of all men then he turnes from hypocrisie to open impietie he takes on the Lyons skin when the foxes will not serve which is a mayne instance of this Matchiavillian rule and he maintayneth that with open tyranny which he could not cover with hypocrisie Lastly when the Lord hath made him thus vile Pompon 〈◊〉 Lae. t in Iul he makes his grave in a field of shame All these may be instanced in Iulian a grand hypocrite while his uncle Constantine lived but as great in Aposiate and as cunning an Atheist after his death But his end was answereable to his courses Such ends made Gaius Caligula that errant Atheist and Herod Agrippa that truell murtherer yet the one dissembled paynim devotion and the other the profession of true religion as might appeare by his solliciting Tiberius for the Iewes when he was incenst against them Let Christian Princes then follow Abraham walke with God and be upright and in peace and warre God shall blesse them Now as the CommaÌ„der must be such such also should the souldiers be as Cornelius was a devout man himselfe so he called unto him with his two servants a devout souldier also God himselfe in Deuteromy Act. 10.7 giues lawes concerning the puritie of a Campe when the Campe goeth forth against thine enemies Deut. 23.9.10 Numb 5.23 then keepe thee from every evill thing which after he calls uncleannes because sin defileth He here forbiddeth all morall civill legall uncleannes the former two concerne all campes So in Numbers the leper and uncleane were put out of the Campe. Of all Iepers the sinner is the foulest and of all sinners the wicked souldier is the greatest One Achan made the whole army fare the worse Ios 7. Vnholy Armies although they be for a good cause and war under lawfull authoritie yet through their exorbitant courses they incourage the hearts and inarmes the hands of the enemies I will produce but one instance because I must labour to abridge my self The Turkes advantage by our sinnes having many things to goe through Aventinus relateth how they of Rhodes wrote to Frederick the third the Princes Electors how the great Turke being disswaded by his Nobles from making war against the Christians especially against the Germans his answere was as he feared no Christians so least of all the Germans and that for 4 reasons First their disagreement amongst themselves like the five fingers of a mans hand which seldome come together Secondly they are dissolute in their lives by whooring drinking and all manner of riot delighting more in great plumes of fethers then martiall armes Thirdly they are disorderly in their proceedings Fourthly they neglect all laws of government not punishing the bad or rewarding the good As the Turke putteth these imputations upon a natioÌ„ once second to none as they gaue good proofe to Caesar so I wish that they all Europes armies could quit themselves of these better then indeed they can for howsoever the envious Turke with Lamia his eyes seeth much abroad and nothing at home yet our home bred evils which he thus taxeth are more hurtful to us then all his forces De sacro foedere l. 5. as witnesseth Folieta in a speech to the same effect upon that victory obtained by the Christians in a Sea-fight against Assanus Bassa where he observerh that they stand not so much by their own forces as by our sloth negligence and discord Oh then that vvee vvould make a holy Warre indeed that is to be holy in our selues and then neither Gog nor Magog should prevaile against us To this end the Lord biddeth us sanctifie a war By which phrase hee vvills Jer. 6.4 that all that vvill vvar for him should be holy As this serveth to direct us what manner of souldiers in a just warre are required so it discovers the blasphemy of that Matchiavillian principle of Atheism wherein with open mouth Machiavils blasphemy he preferreth Paganism in souldiers to true Religion because Religion saith he makes men humble pusillanimious or weak-minded and more apt to receiue injurie then to repell it Before I come to the answer let me say thus much of him once for all if that Atheistly burn paper and blinde bayard had lived amongst the Heathens and had dealt with their feyned gods as he hath dealt with the true God they vvould haue made him an example to the world and would haue burned his blasphemous papers in the fire but as they humored exceedingly his lewd Countrimen so they flew over the Alpes yea and the Seas also infecting France and all the rest of Christendome Insomuch as the Sybillin oracles were the refuge of the Painims for their direction so most Princes and their affaires now are guided by Matchiavel Are not men now of divilish pates and deep reaches to the evill and such as are acquainted with the depth of Satans policie the onely men of service as they call them Yea say they be but very beetles and block-heads yet if their brains vvill serue to hatch toades they will serue the turn as well as can be if he can swear horribly and blaspheme fearfully vvith termes not to be named if he can roare
to the Kings Majestie at Chatton That it stood him upon it to looke to his Ordinance for they were his walles of brasse I would I could ring a peal of complaint that might make all your ears tingle A peal to the Patliament by rubbing up your memories It is not unknown how Gondomar that craftie Marchant who lay here to buy and sell our State did by the grand Papists his factors get up about some 400 chests of Ordinance which he sent away in a fortnight This he did when he lay in Barbican in the year of our Lord 1618. Add to these the 500 Truncks heavie laden sent from the Embassadors house the many brasse peeces of Ordinance the 30000 Muskets conveyed to Rome What meant the Archduke when a little before the Gun-powder Treason by his forces at Dover he bought up all the gun powder in Kent Yea what shall I say of our home bred Harpies who haue got the most part of our Armes into their hands that therby they might serue the enemy and undoe us What meant he that some two moneths before the powder-plot did beg of his Majestie all the refuse Armour and Artilery as he called it in the Tower which vvould haue served to haue inarmed some 16 or 17 thousand men I verily beleeue that the devill might haue had it for money That Marshall or rather Marre-all that sent away two ships laden with Artillary vvas passed over with a little imprisonment or why did you so my son If this vvill not awake you I fear the clattering of your own Armes shall awake you Besides the danger I appeal to your conscience if the like was ever suffered in any Nation that meant not to play the Sybarits vvherein the crowing of a Cock much lesse the sound of a trumpet might not be heard But the Lord in mercy awake you CHAP. XI Gods presence first of all to be sought THVS as you haue heard being fitted with men and means as they can they are to proceed to the war be it defensiue or offensiue but observing this in the first place Take God with you if you mean to prosper that if they mean to prosper they must take God vvith them and that not barely by his Generall Providence as he is vvith all both good and bad but also by his particular presence which Moses the great Commander of Israel aboue all things desired yea nothing vvill content him but this as appeareth by that expostulation that he makes with God If they presence goe not with us carry us not up hence Exo. 33.15 Where he intreateth God that hee would not onely goe before them by the presence of his power as he did to the Heathen when he imployed them in his service Esa 45.1.2 as of Cyrus I will goe before thee and make the crooked straight But that he would be with them by the loue of his countenance or otherwise it would be better for them to remiane subject to the greatest danger then to go on without this presence The truth of this bers 17. Non solum praeibo sed vobiscum Ero. Galat. plainely appeareth from Gods answere I will doe this also which thou hast said That is I will not onely goe before you but with you also Moses had and all others haue great reason for this First he teacheth his the true Art of war Reasons and instructeth them how to fight he teacheth my hands to war saith the Prophet David 2 Sam. 22.35 so that a Bow of steele is broken by my Armes Where one observeth well that the art of war is commendable els God would never teach it So he taught Iosuah Iobosaphat what to doe with their enemies Secondly God fighteth for his and giueth them victory The Lord your God saith Moses that goeth before you shall fight for you And so he did for them Deut. 1.30 2 Sam. 22.36 as for David others Thou hast giuen me the shield of salvation By which he meaneth good successe For these and other respects as I shewed God is called an Excellent warriour Thirdly without Gods presence nothing goeth well yea victory where this is wanting is no better them the foyle Numb 14.14 because it is in judgement The Israelites went up against the Amalekits but how The Lord was not amongst them and they prospered accordingly But by the contrary Gods presence was the strong rocke of Abiahs confidence against Ieroboam and his great forces In reckoning up the mercies of God towards them in his ordinances his priests and true worship of the true God all which Ieroboam wanted he bindeth up all with this 2. Cron. 12.12 and behold saith he God himselfe is with us for our Captaine Where observe the note doth denotate the excellencie of this that it is all in all to haue God to be their Leader I presse this point the rather Application because it is the center from whence all the lines of warres prosperitie haue their beginning A truth acknowledged by the most but by the most litle regarded For by some it is altogether neglected and others by their carriage declare that in shew onely they seeme to respect it The Matchiavillian-blush-coulour of the times hath put the desire of Gods presence so far on t of request that it is a counted a coulour scarce worthy of a great souldier Doth Liola his brood set God before their eyes in their warres or doe they not rather fight against God If things goe crosse they are ready with Iulius the second their father blasphemously to cast of God by way of contempt In the battle of Ravenna on Easter day betweene him and the French as he sate by the fire reading of his prayers Sit ergo Gallus in no mine diabolorum Ex Annalibus Galli and having newes of the defeate hee flung away the booke saying that which I am afraid to relate Iudge how much this monster did esteeme Gods presence I wish of God that the mayntainers of the Lords Battels would esteeme it more then they doe for then it should goe better with them then it doth They may say and that truely with Abijah against Ieroboam they haue Gods owne ordinances the true Ministers of God the true worship of God yea and Gods owne cause in their hand Why then as Rebecca said is it so What want they for victorie surely an earnest desire vvith an ansvverable courage that God himselfe would be vvith us for our Captaine Our failing in this maketh him often forsake his ovvne cause which if he should not respect he might quite leaue us I presume to speake freely yet friendly Infensibile incurabile Ex. 33.3.4 The evill must be felt before it be removed The Israelites did so forfeit this presence that he absolutely denyed to let them haue it any further I will not goe up in the middest of thee One reason because they vvere a stiffnecked people But hovv vvere they
Defendere pro arcere lâ—tinissime dicitur doth not barely signifie to resist but also to abandon the enemy by all meanes they can from further assayling So Vegetius Caesar Tully and others useth the word So from this signification the armed horse were called Cataphracti equites defensores not onely for defending of the rest but also for breaking of the enemies forces Virgil useth the vvord in the same sense Solsticium pecori defeÌ„dite id est depellite though in another case Yo driue away or to put farre off He that would defend well at home must learn to offend abroad A good Warriour in this kind must be like the Amphibena having a head on each side 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for devising as well how to offend as defend and with every part of his body on the right hand and on the left he must lay about him to make good his designes Lastly that iâ— hath been the constant practise of the best and skilfull est souldiers it is undenyable Abraham did not onely reskue his Nephew and his neighbours vvith their goods and children but also pursued the Kings and smote them and took the spoyl vvhich the Lord did vvell approue on Gen. 14 1â— as appeareth by the vvords of Melchizedeck in the blessing of him I might cite the examples of Moses Ioshua and the rest of the Iudges and of the Israelites war against their enemies but this vvere to light a candle at noon-day to men of learning and experience For it is more then manifest that this hath been the design and practise of all the worlds great Generals As for the diverting of the enemies forces obserue that example of Scipio vvhose counsell prevailed vvith the Romanes against Cato to send forces into Aphrick vvhich proved exceedingly to the Romans good for hereby the Carthaginians vvere forced to call back Hannibal out of Italy and of an offensiue vvar to make a defensiue As this principle is vvell known ApplicatioÌ„ so I vvould our vvorthy Warriours in the beginning of these Christian vvarres had answered their knowledge vvith their practise For the Lord made the hearts of their enemies to melt and their soules to faint at the hearing of them but perceiving they kept their right hand in the bosom and held onely forth the left they took them time for mature deliberation in the vvhich they got up forces and courage regether knowing vvell that the bucklars in their enemies left hands might vvell receiue blowes for a time but they could giue none This vvas the very beginning of our evill Hinc origo mali our of vvhich much dishonour to God trouble to his Church and perill to his Saints hath risen Of vvhom this left-handed-counsell came I leaue to those that know it but this we all know it proved a left-handed-counsell God giue us grace hereby to proue Epimethei if vve could not proue Promethei CHAP. XIIII Of the safe leading of the Forces BVT to proceed vvith the rest of the warlike proceedings As Generals must leade on their forces at their appointed times for their service so they must look vvell to the safety of the vvaies by the vvhich they leade them The learned and experienced in Arms doe vvell obserue Plura in itineribus quaÌ„ in ipsa acie pericula that there be more dangers in the vvaies through vvhich they March then in the very front of the battle The same Author quoted giues a reason While they are in conflict they are fitly armed prepared and appointed to fight they see their enemies before them but in the way they are subiect to the con-contrary of all these Therefore the Romans besides their Geographicall tables Perlustratores they had their Viewers and Tryers of the waies which went before to cleare all the passages that by the enemies they might not at unawares be surprized Iulius Caesar would never lead his forces nor suffer them to be led through any dangerous waies Sueton. without exact discovery of the danger Livius Florus The neglect of this gaue Sp. Posthumius the Consul with all his forces an ignonimious foil by the Caudini CHAP. XV. The manner of safe Incamping AS the waies for safe passage are to be secured so a care must be had of incamping the forces The Camp is the Citie of the souldier be he never so great The Israelits being numbred had their charge to incamp about the Sanctuary that is to place themselues in a warlike order and government Numb 2.2 The sonnes of Israel shall incamp every man by his standard c. The Israelites had indeed two sorts of Camps one for the managing of their warres and another when they pitched about the Arke The forme of the former was â—ound as appeareth by the phrase of speech expressing Davids comming up to the Camp of the Israelites ready to joyn battell with the Philistims 1 Sam. 17.20 Mabagalah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word by divers is diversly taken yet amongst all it doth properly signifie the round compasse or circuit invironed with the carts and carriage And so the Septuaginta in another place doe well expresse it by a word that signifieth rotunditie called by some pilata acies Within the compasse wherof the King in the middle of his Host did lie for his better security The form of the latter was foure square as you may see by the description of it in the second of Numbers but in both they were placed in a military order And it is likewise cleer that both the Generall and the Souldiers kept the Camp Saul was alwaies in the Camp and so was Moses and Iosuah and the rest of Israels Generals Epaminondas that great Captain is much magnified by Aemilius Probus for that speech to the Ephori worthy of a noble Generall indeed If you will be Princes of Greece indeed Si principes Graecie esse vultis castris est vobis utenduÌ„ non palaestra you must be in your Camps and not seeing sports and recreation All should be of this mind that warre for the Lord of Hosts The Campe is the fittest place the safest place and the place of greatest honour Vriah rendreth this reason to David of his not going home to his own house That Ioab his Lord Generall was in the field with the Hoast of Israel 2 Sam. 11.11 and the Ark of God and shall I then goe to mine house to eat drink c. No as thou livest and as thy soule liveth I will not doe this thing All this he might haue done but in regard of the common danger it was more time to think on God and his service then to take his ease and liberty in things otherwise lawfull It had also been better for David himselfe to haue been there then upon the top of his house for thereby hee might haue been preserved from a multitude of sinnes saved a multitude of soules from death and Gods name from a
the honour of his Majestie to take the power into his own hand and to quit himselfe of that yong fellow Zacharie who would be as saucily peremptory as his father As for the people it would be meat and drink to them to haue their Groues and Gods in pomp and his Majestie should finde more obedience from them and more loue amongst themselues then ever he found under all Iehoiada his preaching as for a few precise fellows that would grumble at it that would be but for a time an act of Parliament would fright them and make them as mute as fishes Lastly their conformity with israels worship and others might gain their loue and good liking yea who knows but it might bring again the ten Tribes To these or the like speeches of the corrupt Courtiers the unhappy King is said to hearken with whom presently the case is altered he becommeth an apostata from God a plague to his people and that deservedly both in their bodyes and soules an ungtate full and a cruell tyrant in murthering of the priests But marke what was the end even such as the proceedings The wrath of the Lord came upon him and his and a small company of the Assirians routed their great hoast he spoyled the land in giving all to the enemies The Lord smote his heart which cowardyse and his body with diseases his servants conspiring against him slew him he wanted the honour of a kingly buryall 2. Chro 24. The speciall cause of his death is set downe to be the shedding of the innocent bloud of Iehoiadaes sonne The like example wee haue in Rehoboam who forsaking the good counsell of the vvise and ancient and following the counsell of young and heady Courtiers set himselfe besides the throne Not to take up time with instances I will but touch some of our owne nation Sigibert King of the West Saxons hated good counsell so much that he killed Combranus his faithfull Concellor the rest taking indignation at that conspired against him thrust him from the throne who seeking shelter in a wood was found by Combranus his swineheard who killed him because he slevv his Master Edward the second not hearkening to the counsell of his dying Father Pâ—hil lib. 4. namely that he should take heede of loose counsell but following the Counsell of the Spensers and Gaveston lost his Crovvn and his life So Richard the second rejecting the counsell of the three noble Dukes as I shevved you and follovving the vvill of the tvvo Earle Marshalls one after another brought not onely himselfe to disgrace and ruin but also by his fall that fire of civill war was kindled which was not quenched but by an ocean of English bloud One instance more in Iames the third King of Scottes who being of an ingenuous disposition and a Prince of much hope yet through custome and euill counsell being corrupted became a very unhappy Prince for casting of his Nobilitie and addicting himselfe to the beastly humors of a few base fellowes as Preston Cocheran English Roger Andrew a Phisitian he spared not his owne bloud So he runne from one evill to another till in the midway that overtook him Vt Leo a catulis extingueretur which Magitians told him he feared for he was much addicted to divination namely that the Lyon should be torne of his owne whelps One reason more which might make Princes to be choyse in their counsel may be this In my reading I haue observed great ones miscarryed by corrupt counsellours to haue cryed out when it was too late An example wee haue in Theodorick Marquies of Brandenburgh who being of a haughtie spirit not hearkening to the counsell of the wise but to the counsell of the vitious and proud he ran unto all kind of tiranny and insolency At last abusing one Mistovius a Vandalian king provoked him by his rayling speeches to forsake Christianitie for he was christened and marryed to the Duke of Sax his sister Theoderick rashly adventured with his owne forces to giue him fight who being defeated was banished from his dominions for ever hated of all forsaken of his friends and lived extremely poore in Madburgh upon the Almes of the Monkes Being thus brought low with many teares he confest his outrages in particular and that by them he had justly provoked the wrath of God against him Excitavi ego iram Dei adversus me George Sabin in vita Theodor This he regrated much that he could never endure sound counsell but followed such wicked and corrupt counsellers as soothed his humor and were bellowes to all his bloudy designes So you see how mislead Princes in the midst of their misery can see the evill of evill counsell I could bring more examples but let this suffice Notwithstanding of all these waighty reasons Elige tibi conciliarios Deum timentes veritatem amantes sepe enim adulatores blanda facie decipiunt animas audientiuÌ„ intcrimunt Epist ad Iulian. Comitem this rule is not regarded Augustine giveth excellent counsell if Princes and Generalls would hearken to it Choose to thy selfe saith he councellors fearing God loving the truth for flatterers with a faire shew deceive and kill the soules of those that hearken to them But alas few or none looke to this A forme changing Proâ—eus a treacherous Seianus a time-serving Abiathar a statiâ—ing Architophel a calumniating Doeg are the onely counâ—ellers Is not civill honestie the most that by most is â—â—oked for who looketh for religious pietie or truth of reâ—igion †Qui suo numini fidi non sunt nec mihi Euseb lib. 1. cap. 11. de vita CoÌ„stant Constantine tryed his courtyers fidelitie to him â—y their pietie towards God but now a man truely religious 〈◊〉 thought unfittest of all for State affaires They cannot say it may be but that he is an honest man but with this conâ—itionall if he were not a ranck Puritane ‘ Bonus vir G. Sejus sed in hoc tantuÌ„ malus quia Christianus Tertull. lib. 3. Apolog. Tu haec pateris tu hoc times ignoras te Caesarem esse teque illorum potestatem habere non illâ—s tuis Xiphilim in Nerone Men shew what they are by their practice Many Councellers of this age are like those of Cesars They make Kings beleeve what they list and doe what themselves list Nero was bade â—â—ough of himselfe yet wicked counsellours made him worse They were alwayes buzzing in his eare What Sir will â—ou suffer this what neede you to feare know you not that you are â—esar and that you haue power over all but none hath power over â—ou I will conclude this point with that speech of Comineus 〈◊〉 man of much experience out of which all Princes peoâ—le may pick a lesson Where wise counsell is rejected and novists â—nd noddies and arrant assentators are set up in their place the â—uine of that realme and Prince is nigh at hand Thus
against God God calleth not every man to this he gaue some to be Pastors and some to be Teachers not all Thirdly great are the enormites that doe accompany warre as I haue shewed both in Commanders and in ordinary souldiers Bello nulla salus and therefore they had neede to be hedged in by the Lords husbandmen with the pale of the word Fourthly from their excellency they are the greatest gift saue Christ that ever was giuen to man A Prophet will I rayse up from among their bretheren Dâ—ut 18.18 like unto thee In which words though Christ be especially meant as S. Luke applyeth them Acts 3.22.23 Yet they necessarily imply the giving of others though Christ be the chiefe God by the Prophet Ieremie speaking of the desolation of his people whereunto they were fallen by their owne sinnes and wickednes of their for-lorn Priests telleth them of a great blessing Jerem. 23.4 That he will set up sheepheards over them that shall feede them Such are called Gods in the booke of God I haue made thee a God to Pharao Exod. 7.1 saith the Lord of Moses namely in bringing judgements and removing of them They are said by God himselfe in Ieremie to stand in his counsell Ier. 23. And for their service with God pietie and holines towards him they are called Angells Fifthly for their industry fidelitie they are called Seers Watchmen Elisha kept Centinall against the King of Aram over the King of Israel when he slept So the men of God in the armies of God whether they sleep or wake they are alwayes at Centinall For though they sleepe as Salomon saith yet the heart is awake In this respect Ministers may well be called the foure beasts full of eyes before and behind Rev. 4. being round about the throne to watch and discover As for their industrie and watchfulnes they are the surest guard so for their fidelitie and plainnesse they are the safest counsell Kings with Antigonus and warriours with Severus may all in those dayes goe out of the Court out of the Counsell and out of the Camp to seeke truth because they cannot find it but they shall find it with the watchmen of Israel There were never indeed more vile and wicked flatterers both in Courts and Camps for as flesh-flies and other Vermin are bred out of the putrifaction of some humid matter by unnaturall heat so this kind of vile vermin is bred and fed out of the corruption of the times What a swarme of Munkies and Marmozets and Ianglers and Gnatoes are every whereâ—â— It is not my purpose to particularize their differences but this may be said of them all they are the corrupters and ruine of Kingâ— and Kingdoms To busie the reader with instances of this nature were but to prove that which no body denyeth for Dioclesian one of the worst men that ever was was so pestered with those flyes that from an Emperour he turned a Gardener hauing observed as Flavius Vopiscus observeth of him all their villainies he concludeth thus A good wise and vertuous Prince is bought and sold by this people 2. Sam. 15. Yea David a man after Gods owne heart holding out against the cursing of Shemei was overcome with the flattery of Zyba Yet this one thing is no lesse lamentable then remarkcable that though they be such ravenous vipers and haue eate out the bellies of so many great Ones yet still they creepe into their bosomes and are nourished by the selfe same heat which they doe extinguish Yea they cast King and Court and good counsell and State first in a Marasmos or deadly Hectick and then out at dores yet for all this who but they Comineus giveth one cause of this because such doe best please the humours of Princes Princes love better those that are of Placentia then those that are of Verona They love the things that please better then those that profit â—â—b 1. c. 21 Plutarch rendereth another cause namely they are often touching that string that Princes much affect namely their owne prayses in things many times not praiseable which flatterers can cunningly effect by palliating their vices with the seeming vicinity of some vertues As the despising of his people they wil term it a Princely inawing of them the imposing of what he pleaseth upon them an improuement of his prerogatiue Royall the doing of all out of his own devise the singularity of wit or quintessence of policy Secondly they vvill make them beleeue they are affected and praised of others and then it is as wel as can be when indeed there is nothing lesse But to leaue their shifts and the great Ones evils that accreweth upon them my purpose is to point out the remedy and the Physitian namely that plain-dealing Word from the mouth of the man of God against the venome of those Aspes and the poyson of all the sinnes which they loue to palliate I know no better Physitian then a good Minister That saying of Gordianus is most true and worthy the memory That miserably is that Prince from whom the truth is concealed And Lewis the 11 complained that this one thing wanted in his Court Yea sundry great Princes haue gone in private manner amongst their subjects to un-boult the truth But this is the way for Court and Camp to haue the Trumpet of truth in it that dare not nor will not lye or flatter This impartiall dealing and plain course is set forth at large in Deuteronomy where Moses by the spirit of prophesie declareth the excellency of the Tribes and the blessings that should be upon them upon Levi as he sheweth should be Vrim and Thummim yea he should say of his father and his mother I respect him not Ch. 33.1.9.10 and his brethren he acknowledgeth not and his sonnes he knoweth not Where as there is an allusion both to the commandement Lev. 21.11.12 and to the execution of the idolaters Exod. 32 so the morality of it is his that Gods Ministers gifted with light and perfection shall giue every one his portion from the Word without partiality yea neither Highnesse nor nighnesse shall make him play the Huckster with the word Papinian the Lawyer was never so plaine with Caracalla nor Ephestion so free with Alexander nor Mecenas so faithful to Augustus as Eliah was plaine with Ahab Iohn Eaptist free with Herod and Nathan faithfull to David One instance amongst many is worth the noting When the Gospel of God in the Northern parts of this Iland began to be set on foot the devill bestirred him exceedingly in the enemies of the Gospel Queen mother of the house of Guies with the Scottish Papists and her French Forces did so overtop the Lords and others of the Congregation that with griefe enough they were compelled to quit Edenburgh and to goe to Sterueling where a man of God made a worthy Sermon in his application much lamenting the confusion that was come upon them
but more their sinnes vvhich were the cause And as he had the Duke and other Nobles for his Hearers so he gaue him and all the rest their portion shewing their particular faylings in that businesse which they all intertained as from God and acknowledging their sinns they were mightily encouraged and began to wax strong so that by Gods mercy in the end they prevailed as hereafter you shall hear Last of all the necessity of such doth appear in the happy successe of such Warres as haue made use of them Was not Elisha better to the King of Israelâ— then all his strength and counsel beside Eleazar was joyned with Ioshua the Priests bare the Arke and blew the Trumpets in the Lords warre for that was the Lords appointment Numb 1.10 31.6 One instance may serue for many namely of that great battel betwixt Abijah King of Iudah and Ieroboam King of Israel Where Ieroboam had the oddes in forces to the number of three hundred thousand men yet Abijah by his oration sheweth that he was confident he had the better And why 2 Chro. 13.12 Because saith he God is with us for our Captaine and his Priests with sounding Trumpets to cry alarum against you Where you see that Abijah conceived and that truely â—â—at he had great oddes of Ieroboam even in this particular â—at he had the Priests of the Lord and they the Priests of â—ols We may see how much the Priests and Prophets are â—steemed in warre even of the wicked by Balaâ—ms desiring â—f Balak to come and curse the people of God The hoâ—ourable esteem that Balaâ—m had of Baâ—aâ—k Num. 22.36 appeareâ—h in this â—at he went out to meet him Yea the Iewes in their rebelliâ—n against Adrian the Emperour had their Bar Cochab that 〈◊〉 the son of the Starre And so hath the Romish Iebusites And as to the Iewes finall undoing he proved Bar Cozibae the â—nne of falshood so shall the Iesuites proue in the end when â—heir seduced Crue shall see themselues deceived Who â—ught Ioash the King of Israel to smite his enemies but â—e Prophet Elisha 2 King 13.14 I will add but one instance more very memorable and admirable In the warres 〈◊〉 Scotland for the establishing of the Gospel the Protesâ—nt Army being nigh S. Andrews resolved upon â—eliberation not to goe thither by reason of the Queens â—reat forces in and about it that godly Minister spoken of â—efore being with them in all their troubles told the Arâ—â—y that he was resolved to preach there the next day being â—e Lords day According to which resolution he taketh his â—ible and goeth on When he came to the Citie the Queen â—nd her forces were fled for fear That night and the next â—ay he taught laying open the haynonsnesse of the sin of â—dolatry pressing the Magistrates with the ejecting of it â—d erecting of Gods true vvorship which so wrought upâ—n their hearts that the effect followed Yea that very act by Gods blessing was the very break-neck of Babel in those â—arts Thus you see the grounds cleared for the necessity of such â—cred Councellours in Gods Warres wherein I haue been â—â—e larger because howsoever this is universally slighted â—ver as a matter of least moment yet if it be judiciously and religiously weighed it shall proue a point of 〈◊〉 greatest importance Doth reason direct men to provide good souldiers a goâ— Generall good Officers a good Phisitian a good Chiâ—gian and shall they neglect the providing of a good Minister of whom I may say truely that in an Army he is boâ— Fabius and Marcellus a sword and a bucklar But by how much the necessity of such is the greater Application 〈◊〉 much the more is the neglect and contempt of such to bâ— regrated Neither in peace nor warr are the Watchmen 〈◊〉 God in their deserved esteem The counsell and commaâ— of such by men of all sorts as it is from God should bâ— obeyed and followed God commandeth us to obey sâ—â— as haue the oversight of us and to haue them in singular esteeâ— for the works sake They that murmur against such theâ— murmur against God and they that reject such they rejeâ—â— God If Eliah be found out he is charged to be the enâ—my of the State because he speaketh the truth They thâ—â— be indeed the troublers of Israel doe falsly charge it upoâ— the Watchmen of Israel Time-serving Amaziah will conjuâ— Amos from the Court and the Kings Chappell Lyiâ— Hananiah will not stand to contest against God himseâ—â— speaking by Ieremiah If Micaiah will not sooth with a hâ— to destruction hee must be hated and beaten for thâ— truth Zedekiah giveth him a bok on the ear and 〈◊〉 ther setteth him packing or fast by the heeles In a word if the man of God with the Apostle Paul deâ—ver painefully faithfully and freely the whole counsell of God he 〈◊〉 presently charged with conspiracie against the State the land cannot beare the words of such an one God indeeâ— hath given such counsellers but the rebellious of this time cannot brooke them eyther they choake them or chop them on the cheeke Our case and Israells is much alike I raysed up your sonnes for prophets saith God by Amos you â—ong men for Nazarits but how doe they use them They gaue their Nazarites wine to drinke Amos 2.11 and commanded their Prâ—â—bets saying prophesie not It is holden a great policie now for Micaiah that his word be like one of the rest and that he speake â—ood whatsoever come of it but a Micaiah indeed dare not â—ally for a world but whatsoever the Lord saith that he will beake Men had best looke to it for whosoever he be that â—eepeth backe one iote of Gods counsell for feare of the â—ce of a mortall man shall never be able with Paul to make a â—omfortable account of his Embassye to God which is far â—etter for a Minister then life it selfe Yea this huckstering of Gods counsell is the very way to bring the Minister to a â—earfull visible and exemplarie confusion The speech of God to Ieremie should be the word in the Ministers Banner â—ird up thy loines and arise speake unto them all that I command â—ee be not dismayed at their faces lest I consume thee before them Ier. 1.17 Indeed the faces of Kings and great Ones especially Generals in a field are full of feare and terrour to weake â—llie men that carry no Armes but the Word To this purâ—ose the Sermon of one Gregory Preacher to Fredericke Duke â—f Saxon a man much approved by Luther is not unworthie your view This man dealing roundly in the Dukes â—udience against the sinnes of the time being somewhat â—fraid to smite at the Princes sinnes in a publique place he â—ame home to him very handsomely with this similitude A Preacher saith he is not unlike to one that uncaseth a Hare it is an easie matter to uncase or take the skin of all the
heaven Tripartit hist lib. 12. cap. 1. help thou me to root 〈◊〉 them and I shall help thee to overcome thine enemies For thâ—â— hee was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fling-fire in French Bon te feu Iust so the frogges of the bottomlesse pâ— doe croak and call together the Kings of the eariâ— to the battle of Armageddon with this incouragement Root out those pestilent Heretickes quit your Dominions of them and besides the peace and prosperity with plenty and obedience from your loyall Catholike subjects you shall haue heaven hereafter as sure as the Pope himselfe who hath the disposing of it But how they haue sped and prospered that haue followed their counsell I shall haue occasion to shew hereafter And as they are of their father the Devill and with lying words deceiue men so 〈◊〉 will assure you upon the word of God who cannot lie that if you will procure such Ministers as are of God warranting their Call by their life and doctrine and hearken to such and obey them as from the Lord the Lord hath said it Deut. 28.7 He shall curse thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face they shall come against thee one way Esa 1.19 and flee seven waies before thee If you will be willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the land Where obserue especially that there must be a willing obedience otherwise both the Minister and the meanes can doe no good It is a vain thing and the grossest point of Popery to presume upon the ordinances Obadiah 1. or the work done This is to make the Nest in the Clift of the rock out of which the Lord will bring every one down that so doth for God thereby is robbed of his glory and the soule cozened when it commeth to reckon The Trojans trusted foolishly to their Paâ—â—adium the Asiatickes to their Pessimuntius the Romanes to their Ancilia the Papists to the Crosse and holy-water and the Israel of God to the Arke of God As the idolatrous Papist in any common calamity cals for the pax and the host so the Israelites caused bring the Arke and putting carnall confidence in that without any counsell asked of Samuel or commandment from the Lord it must be carryed out to battell They were no better here then the uncircumcised Philistim or rather worse for they feared the Arke more then God and his people trusted to the Arke more then to God but the Arke was so far from saving them that God gaue both them and it into the hands of the enemies Yea for their wickednesse and vain confidence the Lord so abhorred his own Ordinances that he suffered them to be polluted with the foule hand of the uncircumcised Philistim who had nothing to doe with them In the very same predicament be our carnall Gospellers who being confident upon the profession of the outward badges of Christian profession as the Word and Sacraments thinke all shall be well enough they are baptized they haue the Word and receiue the Sacraments and they haue an excellent Teacher and they frequent the house of God and sit before the preacher and commend both him and the Sermon the Word is as a louely song and they shew much loue to him with their mouthes Ezech. 33.31 c. but there is one thing wanting which marreth all They heare the words saith God but they will not doe them If the distressed people in the Palatinate Bohemia and Switzerland examine the cause of their captivity in their own land I beleeue they shall finde their presuming on the meanes with unanswerable walking to haue deprived them of the means and made Ashur to lie heavy upon them their exemplary punishment giues an alarum from the Lord to England and Holland who presuming on some Watchmen upon the walls and some manna about their tents thinkes the Lord will never come against them nor remoue the Candlestick but let them know that except the deadnesse of Sardis and the lukewarmnesse of Laodicea be really repented of the Lord will pull them out of the 〈◊〉 of that rock Yea and rather pollute his own Ordinances then indure their mockerie The Provinces may happiâ—â— presume upon some purer reformation and expulsion 〈◊〉 the Antichristian Hierarchie but I protest upon my knowledge from the griefe of my soule that they carry a name that they liue but they are dead both to the power of the the Word and Discipline for besides the infection of all plaguie heresies that they keep warm amongâ— them where is the power of the Word in Saboath keeping family duties gracious words and holy walking Where is the Pastor that can say here am I and they whoâ— God hath given me Where is the power of the Ministery in shaking of the hearts of great Ones Who will not like the Nobles of the Tekoits Nâ—b 3.5 put their neckes to the work of the Lord Yea their great ones in a manner overtop both Word and Ministery and as their enemies speak like 〈◊〉 many petty Popes they make the power of both swords serue onely humane policy which as it is a justling out of Gods honour in putting the Cart before the Horse so it is a thing that God cannot bear for hee is very jealous of his glory and of the Scepter of his Kingdom If the calamity of the aforesaid people cannot work let them and us take a veiw of Scotland the very paragon of true reformation where there was not so much as one hoofe of the beast left yea where their tallest Cedars were made to stoup at the foot of Gods Ordinances yet for want of fruits worthy of so great a mercie the Lord cast them in the furnace of affliction as famine sicknesse dearth and death yea which is worst of all he hath suffered the stinking carkasse of the interred whore to be raked out of the graue and the froggs of Aegipt to swarm in Goshen which is a great and fearfull wonder What think you Is Israel a servant Is he a home-born slaue Why is he spoyled Ier. 2.14 c. Hast not thou procured or deserved the like unto thy selfe v. 17. My counsell is that Princes States and people both with us and them might be humbled for this particular for God doth threaten us if we doe not Ier. 2.37 that wee shall goe forth from him with our hands upon our head yea he will reject our confidences and we shall not prosper in them The injoying of the meanes without the holy use of them maketh men but the more lyable to the wrath of God The word and works that were taught and wrought in Bethsaida made their case more woefull then the case of Tyrus and Sydon By how much higher Capernaaum was lifted up to heaven in the plenty of the meanes by so much lower was it prest down to hell in the abuse of the meanes Take notice then it is not the Temple of the Lord
It shall then be the part of euery wise warriour to looke well to his counsell and whom he maketh his counsellours Counsell concealed can doe no hurt buâ— once revealed it cannot be called backe againe I haue reaâ— of a man that was in the mouthes of many and of excellent parts if he could haue used them He had cunned by heart the lesson of Q. Metellus and had it often in his mouth That if his shirt were privy to his counsell and could speake he would burne it But like a bad hearer he said and did not for had his practice answered his theorick he might happily as yet haue knowen where to haue found his head all the cunning of the proiecting Spaniard had not served to picke the Elixir out of it It shall not be amisse for Gods people to learne this of their enemies Simeon and Levi diggs deeply and closely through the wall into whose secrets the soule of Israel doth not enter To these secret and deepe diggers that Hierogliph of counsell set out by the learned doth very well agree They picture Pluto with an helmet on his head and Proscerpiâ—na ravishing By which they would signifie the subterraneaâ— secrecie of counsel so their deep counsels are hellish indeed closely covered hauing Pluto and Proserpina for their President Yea the Cabala is kept no closer by the Iewes nor the Sibills by the Romans nor the Druides verses by the ancient Gaules then they keepe their secrets It is good to cast a counter-Mine against this counsell and though you worke not on the like subiect but rather on the contrarie yet labour to keepe as close as they doe When God will giue his people into the hands of their enemies he either taketh away the spirit of councell as he did from Israel when they grieved him or he discovereth it to the enemie as he did the counsell of the King of Siria Therefore as I haue shewed let his people consult with God and let him be president over all their counsels against whom there is no counsell and let them looke likewise to the sealing of their counsell that their enemies might not reade it Take heed of the Babylonish Spyes that convey themselues into your Courts Camps and Chambers in strange habits under the colour of travell traffique profession of Sciences or any such like These be the Hyenaes that lye by the walles with mens voyces but wolues hearts ready to discover every one that looketh out at dores These be like to that dissembling Romish hypocrite Aenobarbus with a brazen face indeed and a leaden heart These are trayned up and taught the Art of discovery so that all Cyphers and Hyerogliphs are familiar to them but if they be caught it is good to make them pay for their learning But to come neerer home into the inward society of secrets Kings and Generals in these daies especially had need not with Osiris King of Egipt to haue an eye onely in the top of the Scepter or Sword but they must haue their eyes in their own heads yea in their hearts ad discernenda regia pericula opus est oculo animi To discover the danger of great ones they had need of the eye of the minde As Achitophel is without giving counsell against David so Doeg is standing before the Lord when David asketh counsel of Achimelech whereof Saul being by him informed it costs the Priests their liues You see this hel-bound came to the place of Gods service as some it may be with us come to the Church to blow up the Church and made likewise a shew of Gods service 1 Sam. 21.7 an Edomite by Nation and Condition yet an Israelite by outward profession This shew without doubt made the Priests not mistrust him but like a bloudie Edomite or Esauite he seeks their bloud and hath it His heart was dyed in bloud for there he conceiveth the murther his tongue dipped in bloud he maketh the matter worse by relating his hand bathed in bloud with that he executeth the malice of his heart Secrecie if God had so so ordained might haue saved all this Such be the kanker wormes and fretting moaths that cat out the heart of good counsell ere ever it come to light Such be the picklocks of the Cabinat of counsell Yea such and so many close deceivers now there be of all sorts Quos fugiamus sei mus quibus credemus nesctmus Cic. ad Atti. Micah 7.5.6.7 that it may be too truely said as Tully said in another case Whom to shun wee know but whom to beleeue we know not Yea the book of God maketh it good of these evill daies Trust yee not in a friend put no confidence in a guide c. He sheweth a reason The son dishonoureth the father c. In a word a mans enemies are thâ— of his own house If Sampson be deceived by his own Heifer and Noah dishonoured by his own son Isaak mocked by his own brother and David finde no place to rest in for his own father-in-law Psal 12. what shall a man say then Surely this is his best refuge Help Iehovah for the gracious Saint is ended and the faithfull diminished from the sonnes of Adam And for the present till the world mend it shall not be amisse to follow the counsell of Epicharmus Sis prudeÌ„s memento diffidere Be wise remember to distrust But since counsell must be used quest and some must be trusted with counsell here a question may be moved what should be done in this I answer answ doe as Constantine did with his servants first try and then trust Yea here ariseth another question how should they be tryed To which I answer First just as he tryed his servants as I shewed in the qualification of a good Counsellour For he that consulteth with God can both giue counsell and keep counsell He that keepeth with God will keep with man but because these are very rare birds as I haue shewed you and one of these is as a Lilie amongst thorns For the tryall of meer civill men let the practise of some great Warriours be insteed of a rule Rules of tryall They would first try their fidelity with things of seeming importance but in themselues of no moment Dionysius going by Sea to besiege a Citie gaue a sealed commission in shew to every ship-master but never a word written in it Withall he commanded so soon as ever a signe was given from a ship thereunto appointed they should open their Commissions and make their course whether they should direct them Withall he ships himselfe presently in one of the best Saylors and comming about before the sign was given he demandeth of every man his Commission those that had opened their Commission against the charge he executed as Traytors to the rest who had obeyed he gaue commission indeed whether to direct their course By which means he both discovered the perfidious from the faithfull Polyaen li. 5 and by
of the Macedonians with their hands bound as though they had been captiues who fitting themselues of Arms out of the Castle brought in Lycimachus who possessed the Town When the Ephori commanded Agis to take the yong men with him and to goe with one there present Plut. in Lacon who had promised to deliver them up a Castle How shall I Lords saith he trust him with these yong men who hath betrayed his owne country giving thereby to understand that nothing can be safely committeâ— to them that will betray their country It is to be feared Application that wee haue too few Setons too many Stanleyes the treasure cannot be safe when the thief is in the house Besides the dissembling Giliadits who may passe the watch without inquirie for the word there be the craftie Balamits there is the double hearted Semiiah eyther to curse or to cog it over for the enemies ends WheÌ„ Tobiah Samballat wil seeme to build Nec familiaritate nec intinctione buccellae c. Hier. Epist ad ruse take heed of Gods house One observeth well of Iâ—das his treason that no bond could tye up his wicked heaâ—â— from that monstrous act neyther the common graces which he had nor his familiaritie with Christ nor the giving of the sop nor the knowing of him to be the son of God when men are sold to worke wickednesse they will sell their country that for â—â—gaine I read of Clearchus the Tyrant of Heraclea that taking anâ— indignation against his owne people could find neyther cause nor occasion to plague them at last he calleth out all the special youth in the very heat of the caniculer dayes to besiege a town in Thracia he incamps them in a marrish ground and commandeth them there to stay taking the higher ground himselfe with his mercenaries where there was plentie oâ— fresh springs he caused them stay so long that through extreame heat Polien corrupt water they lost all their lives which was the thing he desired Was not this to betray the lives of his people and that without any hope of gaine The more eminent the person the more odious the treason All circumstances considered could there be a more odious treason then that of Barnevelts who was advanced by the State to what honour wealth and esteeme that the common wealth could afford him of whom at any time could a State deserve better Should a piller of the State subvert the State his Excellencie gaue him no just matter of envy foâ— though he sate at the sterne yet many a waue went over hiâ— head that never touched Barnevelt What would nothing serve but Spaine must haue all What wanted he that Spain could haue giuen him nothing but a traytors reward and that he had in the end I would all of his cut were as openly knowen and as closely followed but God will unmaske them to their eternall shame It shall fall out with all grand traytors as it fell out with the Duke of Venice namely Falarius who beside the condigne punishment that he suffered for conspiring against his country lyeth under an hierogliphe of infamous memorie to this day for where as the statues of all the Dukes from the beginning of the State to this day are erected in the Senate house insteed of the statue of Martin Falarius that pernitious Prince there is seâ— an empty chary of State covered with a blacke vayle intimating thereby that traiterous Princes to the state deserve the obliteration of their names with a monument of perpetuall hatred As there is no punishment greater then publique hatred so â—here is no sin better deserveth it then the betraying of the country Had the danger of these bin well pondered the nests of such well searched and all that were found foule in the gun-powder Treason duely punished the lowing of the oxeÌ„ and the bleating of the Sheep had not this day beene so loud in our eares As Sertorius in Spaine dispersed his forces for his greater advantage which being recollected did more annoy their enemies so since that time their dispersed forces are hugely increased Our slighting over of that unparelelled attempt what will it not incourage traytors to doe our lopping of some superfluous branches maketh the tree more fruitfull the casting a litle water upon a hot fire maketh it burne so much the hotter The not casting out of those whom God would haue cast out may cause them doe to us as wee should haue done to them I come to the last which is Constancie in holding out Constancie in holding out As he is a pusillanimions assaylant that rayseth siege upon the first repulse so he is a faint defendant that gives ouer at the first assault The enemies semblance or resolution of continuance should not daunt a whit or discourage the besieged How bravely did Constantinople hold out against the Saracen where besides those that were slaine there dyed with famin and cold 300000 and so they desisted Likewise hot and furious were the assaults that Soliman made upon the same citie in Anno 1529. His army consisted of 144000 but Frederick count Elector Generall of the Imperiall forces did man the Towne exceedingly well three dayes before the Turkes approching Philip Count Palatine shewed himselfe a braue souldier in that siege by whose meanes under Gods favour the Towne was safely defended the Turkish tyrant with shame and loose repulsed and set a packing He lost as it is reported 80000 besides those that perished by famine cold in the way Harlem maintayned their siege for 10 moneths to the very last pinch Ostend held out against all the Spanish force and Italian cunning for three yeares and three moneths and gaue it over at last on honorable termes There be manie reasons to bind the defendants to all possible preseverance Reasons First there is nothing more dishonorable then to quit a place in all apparence defensible for he that is not a man in a Hould will never be a man in the field Secondly while men put on noble resolution and quit themselves like men the Lord in straits doth send them admirable deliverances In that lamentable miserie of the siege of Samaria beset by Benhadad King of Siria you may see how they bought eate asses flesh doues dung yea their childrens flesh yet holding out against hope aboue hope the Lord was seene in the mount the Lord made the hoast of Syria to hear a noyse of chariots horses 2. Kings chap. â— v 7. of a great hoast saying one to another the King of Israel hath hired the neighbour Kings to come against us wherefore they fled in the twilight left their tents their horses all the campe as it was furnished with all plentie So that Israel was not onely delivered but also had their wants supplyed When Duke de Alva with all his forces after the taking of Harlem had ingaged Leyden that they could neyther sallie
wee not prosper in any thing whither soever wee goe as Iosuah did euen because wee doe not as Iosuah did Wee walke not according to all the law of God which he hath commanded and yet for all this if we would turne to the Lord wee need not to feare the increase of their forces It is true that they doe increase and must once make a head that in great number for as the great Whore sitteth upon many waters that is as the spirit expoundeth to be the inhabitants Kings of the earth so the three uncleane spirits come out of the mouth of the DragoÌ„ of the beast of the false Prophet to gather the Kings of the earth of the whole world to the battle of Harmagiddon that they may the more prevayle they come with lying miracles in iudgment to those whom they doe deceive You see their number must be great for they must be many Kings yea of the whole world in account theÌ„ there must needs be many people to maintayne the tottring Kingdom of the devill wheÌ„ it is euen at the downefull Yet for all these hands they shall haue enough to doe The Angell that powreth out the seventh violl saith it is done Rev. 16. yea the cup of the wine of the fiercenes of Gods wrath shal be giueÌ„ her by the hand of Gods litle flocke The multitude shal neyther maintayne her nor themselves but all shall perish together Avoide superstition The seventh thing to be looked to is that superstition be avoyded whereunto as corrupt nature is very subject In Moral so most of all in extremitie A superstitious man as Plutarch well observeth feareth every thing except that which he should feare Foure especiall wayes doe men in this particular commit superstition by consulting with sorcerers or southsayers How many waies superstition is coÌ„mitted by taking some casualties as ominous by observing of dayes and by seeking to Idols To the first Gaius Marius had a Witch out of Scythia with whom he alwaies consulted of the event of warr Front lib. 1 Cap. 11. before he undertooke it Did not Saul in the like case seeke to the Witch at Endor They who forsake God and whom God hath forsaken may run to the devil for counsell for that is all their refuge yea when men take that course it is a shrewd evidence that they are forsaken of God As he would not answere God with any kindly obedience so God would not answere him by any manner of manifestation not by a dreame for he had no temper of the spirit not by the Vrim or Priest for he had killed the faithfull ones and so in his greatest necessitie he wanted the comfort of them not by a Prophet for he despised the spirit he runneth therefore to the devills dame for so the word doth signifie or the mother of a familiar â—al alah obâ— 1. Sam. 28. and she must tell him what shall be the event of the battel When God leaveth men to themselues they know not what to doe all his wit and policie and all the cunning of his courtiers could not helpe him out with this lurch This amongst the rest made way for Pompeys overthrow for he consulted with a woeman of Thessaly who brought him a souldier as he thought from the dead Luc. lib. 6. declaring to him the bad successe of the Pharsalian battel Iulian after his apostacie betooke him wholy to Sorcerers and Conjurers Richard the third made this a speciall part of his counsel Iames the third of Scotland was much corrupted with this kind of vermin and so much was the more pittie for he was a Prince of excellent parts but he plagued himselfe with two sorts of euill beasts namely superstitious figure-flingers and cater-piller favorits whereby he brought desolation upon the land and himselfe to an untimely end Considering Gods hatred against the sin and the euill end of all such as haue taken this course it is a wonder especially that men illuminated should looke this way but whom God will destroy he giueth them up to corruption of judgement and madnesse of mind as Austin well observeth of Saul being become a reprobate he could not haue a good understanding Mox reprâ—bus factus non potuit habere bonuÌ„ intellectum As for the Papists conjuring and consultation it is a main part of their Leiturgie Yea they haue one tricke more of this kind namely to giue Amulets to souldiers going to fight whereby they assure them of securitie from all hurt A worthy Historiam giueth an instance of this The French under the conduct of Charles Alobroge going against Geneva in the yeare of our Lord 1502 had Amulets from their charming fathers to hang about their necks wherein were ingraven crosses with the beginning of S. Iohns Gospell the name of Mary Iesus of the Trinitie with many odd Characters inscriptioÌ„s promising to all those that should wear them that they should not perish that day by earth water nor the sword But the devill was cunning enough to cozen theÌ„ Salustius Pharamumdus de adventu Alobrogum in Genevam for though they scaped those particulars yet they perished another way In the night their Characters were taken from them they were strangled and blowne in the ayre Iesuits know it is foule play to wear amulets in fight and against the lawes of Armes and yet they will be doing Let such as loue soule or life beware of these for such things haue neyther hid force nor elementary qualitie to saue or preserve Austin of such hath a very good speech with a counsell subioyned Many saith he being driven to a strayt seeke helpe of the devill in the persons of Charmers or Enchaunters and in the supposed force of Amulets what is this but to goe to our invisible enemies who kill the soule perswading us that there is no helpe with God The eares of such saith he are shut at the voice of God saying In Psalm 34. the Lord is my salvation but let us saith the father inquire of God and not of any other for our deliverance is of God howsoever he worke it by lawfull secundary meanes which wee may use but all the meanes of charming wee must hate as the devill from whence they are The second thing to be avoided is an ominous construction of casualties When Scipio transported his souldiers out of Italie unto Africa as he went a shore his foot slip and he fell on his face whereat his souldiers being astonished conconceiving it as a token of evill successe Scipio with a braue courage making a better construction Goe sport your selues said he my souldiers for I haue already taken possession of Affrica It is fit for avoyding this that a wise Generall be seen in some measure in the causes of naturall things which seeming to the ignorant prodigious they may therin giue them satisfaction Lucius Sulpicius Gallus foretold to his souldiers the Eclips of the
caused the wrath of the Lord to be kindled against him which never slaked till it consumed him for he ran from one evill to another while his own conspired against him and slew him Shebnah that great rich Treasurer who was hewing out his Sepulcher and scorned the Lords call to humiliation for idolatry and other sinns Esa 22.15 he is tossed by the Lord like a ball in a strange Countrey where he dyeth so that the chariot of his glory becoÌ„meth the shame of his Lords house If Diotrephes will not leaue his Lording it over Gods house and beating his servants till he cast them out of their own houses and Gods house forbidding others to receiv them 3 Ioh. 9. Wil not the Lord remember their deeds If the luke-warme Angell with people of this loathsome quality will not grow zealous and mend Will not the Lord spue them both out of his mouth In a word Rev. 3 16. if we doe not as one man humble our selues for partaking with Idols and suffering of Idols and every man in his place put to his hand to bring Iezabel from the window we may justly feare that neither peace nor warre nor Parliament nor Plantation nor Traffique shall prosper with us Yea to shut up the point if we will neither hearken to counsell nor threatning we may feare that be made good upon us which the Prophet threatned against Amaziah that God hath determined to destroy us 2 Chr. 25 1â— because we haue done evill and will not hearken to the counsell of God I hope I am no enemy because I tell you the truth the Lord in mercy make us hear the sound of the Trumpet that we may stand up in the breach and liue As all these things aforesaid are duely to be considered so in the eight place followeth a thing not immateriall to be thought on and very often helpfull to the victory being thought on namely that souldiers wearyed with a long March Multum virium labore itineris pugnaturus amittit lib. 3. cap. 11. Livi. lib. 2. should not imediatly or if they can that day ioyne battel Vegetius giveth a reason by a great March the souldier weakeneth his spirits and looseth his strength Instance of this may begiuen in the Volscians fighting against the RomaÌ„s after too great a March much crying they ioyned in fight and at the very first encounter were defeated and abandoned their Campes Sergius Galba with his wearyed souldiers set upon the Portugalls and routed them at the first and pursuing them unadvisedly with his over wearyed souldiers the Barbarians with their recollected forces returned upon them and slew 7000 Romans very able souldiers The neglect of this observation did the Aâ—ch-Duke no good at the battle of Newport Appianus de bello Hispan who after a long March as I am informed gaue battle to his adversary and that upon a sandy ground Had Spinola with an easie march brought his forces fresh before Bergan-up-Soom presently giuen an assault he had hazarded the taking of the Towne but with over marching they were so wearyed and weakened that fiue dayes past before they were able to assault by this they lost their best opportunitie He laid the blame on Velasco but it was well howsoever The ninth and the last thing to be remembred but not the least The necessitie of fervent prayer yea the chiefest thing of all is devout and servent prayer unto God for the victory If an eloquent and pithy speech from the mouth of a natural man prevail much as I shewed in provoking them to courage how much more couragioâ— shall these men be whose hearts God doth touch and whose hands God doth strengthen for the day of battel Now â—hese by prayer are obâ—ayned of God witnesse that instance of Moses praying and the people of God fighting when Moses held up his hand that is was strong in prayer then Israel prevayled and when he let downe his hand that is when his spirit failed 〈◊〉 17.1 Amalec prevayled A man may thinke that Moses should rather haue gone into the field being the Lords Generall then got him up to the mountaine to pray but Moses knew well enough what he had to doe he appoints a man sufficient for the place he knew wherein the strength of Israel lay namely in their God and what would most prevaile with God namely fervent proyer One good man praying is worth an Army of men fighting and therefore Moses the man of God guided by the spirit tooke this as the best course for obtayning of the victory The prayer of the righteous saith S. Iames avayleth much if it be fervent Iam. 5.16 This is the key that openeth heauen and the steps of the ladder whereby we ascend This maketh the Lord to bow the heavenâ— and come downe By this wee wrastle with God that he may giue us strength to wrastle with the enemie This strengthneth the feeble knees and hanging downe hands of those that fight Gods battels Finally this blunteth the forces of the enemie and overturneth the horse and the rider Origen on that practize of Moses maketh this application lift thou up thy hands to heaven Eleva tu manus in coelum c. Homil. 11. in Fxod as Moses did and obey the Apostle his precept pray without intermisssion for Gods people did not so much fight with hand and weapon as they did with voyce and prayer This time of battle is the very pinch of extremitie and therefore the best opportunitie for prayer Deut. 33.7 Moses ioyneth these two together in the blessing of Iuda heare oh Lord the voice of Iudah or as the Chaldee well traÌ„slateth the prayer of Iuda when he goeth forth to war If wee be commanded to call on the Lord in the day of our trouble what greater trouble then this when the enemy is ready to devour us and to reproch the name of our God This you may see to be the ordinary practize of Gods people in the fighting of his battels Iudah cryed unto the Lord. 2. Chron. 13 14. Chap. 14.12 Notable is that prayer of Asa going against the Ethiopians he cryed unto the Lord. Heâ—pe us oh Lord our God for we rest on thee and in thy name wee goe against this multitude So that of Iehosaphat going against the Ammonites is a president at large for all Gods people how to behaue themselues in this particular First 2. Chron. 20 that good King discovereth the strayt wherein they were wee know not what to doe vers 12. Secondly his refuge but our eyes are up towards the ibidem Thirdly his pressing God with petition oh our God wilt thou not judge them ibidem Fourthly the arguments whereby he would moue God to heare his petition from the 6 vers to the 13. Fifâ—ly there is the preparation to this duetie that it may be the more effectuall and Iehosaphat feared the Lord and set himselfe to seeke the Lord proclaymed
a fast through all Iudah vers 3. I shew the scantling of the place the rather 2. Chron. 32 20.21.22 because I know no place in all the booke of God fitter for this purpose Other instances there be as that prayer of Hezekiah against the Asstrians The like course tooke the Israelits being to ioyne battle with the Philistins So Iacob looking for nothing but for battle from his brother he prepareth himselfe by prayer So did Ezra I urge the more places the rather because I would inforce the necessitie of the duetie and manifest the good effect of the same being performed and justly to tax our selues to our humiliation for the neglect or uniound performance of this duetie To the first you may see by this cloud of witnesses how strict Gods people haue beene in this duetie To the second it is likewise cleare that good successe hath followed the duetie in all the quoted testimonies Ezra relating how he had commended the cause to God wheÌ„ they stood in feare of their enemies sheweth us what was the issue of this their holy practize Ezra 8.23 So wee fasted and besought our God for this and he was intreated of us And for the last namely our neglect would to God our mourning for the sin were as manifest as the sin it selfe looke but on the successe of our battles that argueth our neglect God is one the same God the cause is likewise Gods but God is not sought unto he is not importuned Wee are like to the Israelits going against Beniamin who inquired of the Lord whether they should goe up against them or no and what tribe should lead them and hauing their direction in both these they set themselues in order Heare they make the cause sure and for avoyding contention about the leading they haue the bravest Leaders allotted them Iudges 20. and for their forces they were eyther enough or too many yea of the choyce souldiers and very well ordered but how sped they But very meanly as you may see in the text they were twice foyled and lost to the number of 40000 men But what was wanting heare I answere even the selfe same things that are wanting in us Search of sin and seeking to God Wee doe not read in all the text that they did eyther of these till they were beaten to it And what needed they in their owne conceit They had a just cause and the Lord his owne warrant and braue Commanders and for multitude they might haue eaten them up and why should they goe to God for the victory they doubted not of that but as they looked least to the matter of greatest waight so they were plagued in that which they least feared to teach them and others to take their whole errand with them God gaue them twice into the hand of their enemies and then they saw their ouersight and went up to the Lord and wept and fasted Vers 26. and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord then by the Lords direction they went up and prospered So wee may lay our hands upon our mouthes in this case and proclaim our selues to be faulty for wee haue presumued much upon a good cause and secundary meanes but wee haue not wrastled with God for the victory The Pagans and Papists doe condemne us in this who toyle themselues with their idols babling out many blasphemons prayers and that for the most part for the prosperous successe of wicked designes Lib. de bello punico Appianus telleth us that before the Romans ioyned battel they sacrificed to Audaciâ—ie and Feare Plutarch Satim ante acient immolato equâ— concepere votum Florus telleth us that the Lacedemonians before the fight sacrificed to the Muses The MysiaÌ„s before they fought did sacrifice a horse To what a number of Saints doe the Papists sacrifice when they goe to fight how doe they ply the idoll of the Masse in which they put their considence The Iesuits indeed the Popes bloud-hounds trust more to the prey then to their prayers They much resemble as one saith well the Vultures whose nests as Aristotle saith cannot be found yet they will leave all games to follow an Army because they delight to feed upon carryon neyther will they be wanting with their prayers such as they are for the successe of the great Cracke and blacke day as they call it wherin these harpies thought to haue made but a breakfast of us all they erected a new Psalter for the good successe of a wicked counter parliament the depth of whose consultation was fiery meteors the proiect whereof was the rending of mountaines and tearing of rockes with an earthquake of firie exhalations to consume and swallow up both hils and valleys and to increase the iniquitie with wicked Iesabel they would colour it with a fast and with blasphemous and lying Rabshakah they would beare the world in hand by this their Psalter that they came not up against us without the Lord 1. Reg. 25. and the Lord had bidden them doe it Their develish dittie consisteth of a seven-fold psalmody which secretly they passed from hand to hand set with tunes to be sung for the cheering up of their wicked hearts with an expectation as they called it of their day of Iubilie The matter consisteth of rayling upon King Edward and Elizabeth and our Soveraigne that now is of perition imprecation prophesie and prayse for successe I will set downe some of these because the Psalter it selfe is rare or not to be had For they are taken up by the Papists as other books be that discover their shame Prayer Psalme 1. Confirme say they the heart of those thy laborours endue them with strength from aboue and giue successe unto their endeavours Embolden our hearts with courage to concur with them freely in the furthering of thy service Confirme your hearts with hope Prophesie Psal 2. for your redemption is not far off The yeare of visitation draweth to an end and jubilation is at hand The memorie of novelties shall perish with a cracke as a ruinous house falling to the ground he will come as a flame that bursteth out beyond the fornace His fury shall fly forth as thunder and pich on their tops that maligne him Howsoever God in mercie disappointed them yet by these you may see as by so many ignivomus eruptions of the helfiry-zeale of Aetna what their diligent endevour was for they would be wanting in nothing The necessitie therfore of the duetie the good successe of it the sinister zeale of idolatrie in this point according to their kind and the danger of the neglect of it may provoke us if wee be not void of sense to set upon the duetie If idolaters who by their prayers and sacrifice bringing nothing but sorrow upon themselues doe so bestir themselves what fooles are wee in slighting off so excellent a duetie wherein the Lord hath promised to be with us yea
are the very first in front so I wish and pray that all that put their hand to the worke and fight those battels would take courage to them I would that speech of God by Moses unto the people might prevaile with them Heare oh Israel you approch this day to battle against your enemies let not your heart be soft feare not and hasten not away neyther be you terrified because of them The Lord addeth a reason for Iehovah your God is he that goeth with you to fight for you against your enemies to saue you Euen so would he be with us if we would be with him if you will fight for God as David did that blessing that was pronounced upon David by Abigail shall be upon you and yours the Lord would certainly make you a sure house and honour you and your children for ever because you fight the battels of the Lord 1. Sam. 2â— 28 and he would bind up your soules in the bundle of life I will not herein play the Pope to assure life and reliefe of friends out of purgatorie for fighting of the Lords battles No if such a fight would serve the turne in vain did Christ fight that great battle on the crosse but thus much I will assure them that they that fight these battles they fight the battels of the Lord for the maintenance of which the Lord hath given his promise and surely such as dye in these they dye for the Lord and thrice happie they if they dye in the Lord. As for their enemies fighting against the Lord they haue none of this assurance and howsoever it goe with them they can haue no sound comfort One thing more in the fight to be observed is that beaten rule of much use and practize not onely to let the enemy fly but to make way for him to fly if he be so disposed for this there be both lawes and a multitude of examples Poâ—aen lib. 1. Licurgus gaue a written law to the Lacones not to stop the enemies flight It was the saying of Scipio Africanus that he would not onely giue way but he would also make way for his enemy to fly A number of examples you haue in Frontine Caesar having inclosed the Germans standing to it desperatly made way for them to fly Haniball did so with the Romans at the battle of Thrasimena opening his orders he let them fly so defeated them So did Camillus with the Gauls The Grecians having got the victory at Salamis Polyaen lib. 1. they determined to cut the bridge over Hellespont to stop Xerxes his passage but Themistocles that old beaten souldier with danger counselled to let him passe for it stood with greater wit to rid the land of him then to force him to fight The reasons of this rule be two the first given by Vegetius necessitie is a desperat vertue which will effect as Themistecles well observeth that which neyther valour nor magnanimitie durst adventure to doe Secondly by this the victory is more easily obtayned they may kill and take at their pleasure routed forces without the losse of themselves Desperatio magnum est ad honeste moriendum incitamentuÌ„ Curtius lib. 9. where as by keeping them to it they may buy the victory to deare Despaire will incite some to dye with honour if dye they must that it may be never meant it G. Maulius the Roman Consull keeping the Hetruscians too strayt lost his life and had lost the field if his Legats had not opened their orders and let them passe and so they had them at their pleasure Yea this sometimes hath lost the victory witnesse King Iohn of France invironing Edward the blacke Prince not suffering him upon any conditions to passe put him and his handfull so to it that the French had shame and repentance for their paines To conclude the point I will shut it up with the saying of Count Poetiline If mine enemie saith he would fly I would make him a bridg of gold to fly upon yet all this must be taken with a graine of salt Not so to let the enemie fly as to loose the occasion of the victory or for feare to hold backe the sword from bloud that were to incourage the enemie to redintegrate the fight That wise speech of Kings Agis is worthy of observation who in the pursuit of his flying enemies Plutarch in Apotheg being counselled to make way for them answered thus If wee be not able to overcome our flying enemies how should wee overcome our fighting enemies intimating thereby that no occasion against the enemie should be lost CHAP. XXXVII Of the Issue of the hattle in Generall NOw I come to the Issue of the battle which giueth the one partie the victory and the other the overthrow for seldome they part on an even hand It is true indeed that the victory is so deare bought many times that as the Learned observe it scarse deserveth the name of victory Victoria magâ—o empta non est victoria sed calamitas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of that deare bought victory the Grecians haue a pretâ—ie proverbe The conqueror cryeth and the conquered is undonel Pyrrhus that Mirror of Generalls made this good out of his owne experience who having twice defeated the Romans but at so deare a rate that he was forced to say such another victory would undo us Yet since there is alwayes a better and a worse my taske putteâ—h me to it to discover as briefly perspicuously as I can how both the conquerour and he conquered should carry themselues Seneca layeth downe the generall Noscere hoc primum decet Quid facere victor debeat victus pati It first becomes the conqueror to know what he should doe the conquered also what he should suffer CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Carriage of the Conquerour TO begin then first with the victor Victoria est semper insolens for as Tully observeth victory is alwayes rash and insolent For the ordering of victory there be two sorts of directions the former for making of it up the latter for the right usage of it when it is fully aâ—â—ained In the former there be these two observatioÌ„s Be carefull to make up the victory First the conquerour must take heed of the rash and disordered pursuite of the enemie To this effect serveth well that counsell of Iphicrates ioyned with his practize This Commander following his flying enemie at his leasure in good order gaue order to his souldiers in the pursuite that they should beware of ambushment and that they should not follow too hard Lib. 3. nor neere to the Wals or forts planted with munition giving a good reason as Polyaenus well observeth that many by doing so haue lost the victory that they had obtayned Vegetius telleth us Frequenter jam fusi aeies disâ—ersoâ— ac passim sequentes reparatis viribus interimit lib. 3. cap. 25. that it often so falleth out that forces put to flight recollecting
themselues against the disordered pursuers doth alter the case and killeth them right downe as conquered that ere while were the conquerors This change of fight by way of a proverbiall speech is called osculana pugna or a battle wherein they which before had the victory are now overcome as though victory with a kisse had saluted them and so forsaken them So it fell out with Pirrhus who having in a manner overcome Valerius Laevinus the Roman Commander was by him in the same battle by the recollection of forces overcome A notable instance of this Historians give in Q. Fulvius that noble Roman Commander who being overcome by Carus Generall of the Segadans and hauing lost six thowsand he observed the disordered pursute of the enemy out of his too too much pride and confidence as though there had bene no danger of re-encounter whereupon he commanded some troupes of Horse being laid to keepe the strayts to charge the disorderly purfuying enemie who presently-unhorsed killed the Generall Carus Appienus de bello Hispanie being in the front of the followers besides him they slew 6000 and pursued the victory till night Yet with this caution another extreme is to be avoided namely the slacking so of the pursuite that they loose more which they might haue then that which they obtayne is worth This neglect of Hanibal at the battle of Cannas lost Rome which would haue been the crowne indeed of the Charthaginian war had he according to the counsell of his friends flowne to the marke that is pursued the defeated and routed Romanes into the cittie he might haue taken the prey of which againe he had never so faire an offer neither doe I thinke though otherwise a great Commander that he could giue any good account of his neglect oâ—â—ely this generall might excuse him no man is wise at all times Nemâ— omnâ—â—â—s boris sapit Vincere scis Hâ—mbâ—l victorâ—a utinesâ—â— For this Barchab the Carthaginian gaue him this Motto to his ever lasting blemish thou canst overcome Haniball but thou canst not use the victory to thy best advantage The second observation is that they abstayne from spoyle till â—hey haue fully secured themselues Aviâ—itate praeâ—ae saepe exercuus victoriam camiserunt Hantbal Scotus Placentinus from any further re-attempt of the enemie some snatching at the prey before the victory insured haue often lost both prey victory Tacitus giveth an instance in the Germanes who onely out of their greedines of the prey were overthrowne by the Romanes at the battle of ‘ Lib. 1. Aunal Horminius Therefore Saxo Gramaticus giveth a good rule for this with †Auro spreto anrâ— dâ—mâ—nos in sequiminâ— contempt of gold it self pursue the pâ—ssessors of the gold Many examples there be of this kind let this one more suffice The Germans at the battle of Erlam in Hungarie Anno 1596 having thrice defeated the Turkes yet through untimely falling on the spoile were themselues defeated And so much for the insuring of the victory CHAP. XXXIX Of the true Vsofe Victory THus having shewed you as well as I can Fiue things to be observed in the true used of victory Acknowledge victory to be of God be thankfull for the sâ—me how to secure the victory I come now â—o the true use of the victory being thus secured The true use or good carriage of the victory consisteth in these fiue particulers Thankfulnesse to God moderation of themselues Câ—emencie toward the conquered Lawfull usage of the creatures and due respect to their owne souldiers Now to the first wherein there be two things to be noted First an acknowledgment of the victory to come of God and next to be thankfull to God for it For both those there be plentie of testimonies both in Goods booke and other writers the former of these two all men will easily acknowledge in word except they be Atheists but the neglect of the latter sheweth the former in the most to be but verbal for if men would acknowledge that victory were from God indeed they would never carry themselues so insolently in their victories against God as they doe But to come to some proofs First that all victories are of God Samuel speaking of the victories that David and his worthies obtayned 2. Sam. 23.10 Gen. 14.20 Iosuab 11.6 Exod. 15. Iudg. 5. and the Lord wrought a great victory that day God is said to giue AbrahaÌ„ the victory ouer his enemies So to giue Iosua his enemies into his hands So you may see in that song of Moses and in the song of Deborah As victory is of God so all the Saints of God haue attributed their victories to God thanked God for them as may appeare at large in the aforesaid songs Blessed be the most high God saith Melchizedeck to Ahraham which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand Moses after the victory obtayned over the Amalekits in token of his thankfullnes erecteth an Altar to the Lord which he calleth by the name of Iehovah is my banner Iâ—hovab Nissi Exo. 17.5 The Prophet David at Gods commandement having smitten the Philistins attributed all the power unto God for the victory giveth him all the prayse The Lord hath broken forth saith he upon mine enemies as the breach of many waters therefore he called the name of the place Baal Perazin where observe how he asâ—ribeth the victory wholly to the power of God and in token of his thankfulnes for the same obtayned he leaveth a monument thereof in the name of the place calling it Baal Perazin or the plain of division or broken assunder because he brake in upon them by the power of God like the inundation of waters To this purpose the 22 of the second of Sam is worth your reading The very heathens who were ignorant of the true God yet did acknowledge their victories to be of God and therefore laboured to intice from their enemies their tutelar gods to get them on their side that they might the easier ouercome them Of that mind were the Philistims in that battle against the Israelites when they perceived that the Ark of God was come into the Campe though he were not there himselfe yet were they exceedingly afraid and said God is come into the Camp and they said woe unto us 1 Sam. 4.6.7 who shall deliver us out of the hand of those mighty Gods c. They spake not this out of any true fear or yet out of any true knowledge that they had of God but onely they feared that the Gods of Israel for so they called the Ordinances would plague them as the Aegiptians were plagued by them but God in just wrath gaue his people into their hands which victory they attributed to their god Dagon and in token of their thankfulnesse they sacrificed the best of their spoiles to him namely the Arke of God which they had taken from the Israelites The Thracians though a warlike people yet
the most barbarous of all Nations Marcellinus lib. 27. doe challenge Mars for their Country-man and so make him their God to whom they bow before they goe to battle and to whom they sacrifice the best of their captiues after their victory Where by the way in exercise of Armes to offer a laurell bough to a fayned Mars is more Thracian-like then Christian-like For in jest or in earnest wee should not attribute or make any shew of attributing victory to any other God Aedes victoâ—iae Alex. ab Alex. lib. â— cap. 11. but to Iehovah The Romanes likewise had their Temples consecrated to Victory And to put the Romish Philistims in the bushell with them as they duely deserue they sacrifice the prayse of their victory to Iack in the box or other Idols But all these may tax a great many that goe under the name of Christians They know that victory and deliverance are from God yet when it commeth to the acknowledgement and tendering to God his due honour they say little lesse in their actions then Pharoah said in plain termes Who is the Lord that I should obey his voyce Exod. 5. â— I know not the Lord. That which is related of Tamerlan called the Securg of God for tyrannie may make many blush at their unthankfulnesse to God Having taken Baiazet the great Turke at the battle of Stella montis or Cassona as the Turks cal it he weâ— out on foot to meet him brought him into his Tent sâ— him on the same Carpetâ— aâ— meat with himselfe and did hiâ— all the honour that possible he could he began to recouâ— how much they were both bounden to giue thanks unâ— God for the great things he had bestowed on them 〈◊〉 for bringing himselfe being a poore lame man to command from the borders of India to the gates of â—â—vastâ— from the which he had given Baiazet to command to thâ— borders of Hungarie insomuch saith he if God haâ— vouchsafed to haue given me a share in the whole world whaâ— could such a crooked thing as I desire more Anâ— are we not bound saith he to giue him many thankes This is more I am sure then a great many haue thought on in any serious manner but they are liker to Baiazer indeed whom Tamerlane questioned wheâ—her ever he had giveâ— thankes to God or no for making him so great an Emperour who confessed ingenuously that whereof many be guilty though they are ashamed to confesse it that he had never so much as thought upon giving thankes to God To whom Tâ—merlane replyed that iâ— was no wonder that so ungratefull a man should be made a spectacle of misery For you saith he being blind of one eye and I lame of a leg was there any worth in us why God should seâ— us over two great Empires Haec Lâ—onclavius in editione sua Annael Turcar. of Turkes and Tartars to command many more worthy then our selues I would haue many to obserue this and if neither Gods workes for them nor his Word to them nor their professing that they know him will serue to work their hearts to thankfulnesse yet let them for shame pick a pattern out of one of the worst men that ever we reade of and let them blush at the drowning of many great deliverances in oblivion as though God had been bound to them Are not some from their cradle to this day ingaged to the purity of Religion by their continuall preservation and admirable deliveries from the designes of their enemies yet how haue they requit religion and her followers in plain termes with the devill to their thanks Yea let those to whom God in fighting of his battles hath given any victory be humbled for their great neglect of this I speak in particular to the Hollander whose deliverances hath been admirable and whose maintenance is from the very finger of God against the whole forces of Babel but I fear their forgetfulnesse wil make God weary of them and we may well take them by the hand for we haue not yet so much as reckoned with God for the debt of 88 and the Powder-plot deliverance As we haue joyned in this so sacrilegious a sin of unthankefulnesse so God giue us to joyne both in reckoning and restitution It is a thing incident to Gods children to be too too faulty in this very particular if they looke not to it Witnesse good Hezekiah who had more minde to shew his pompe and bravery to the Babylonish Embassadours then to giue thankes to God for his deliverance from Senacherib and therefore the Lord met with him In time to come upon any opportunity forget not to offer sacrifice of praise be the victory never so little David in the very same case Psa 116.12 doth modell with himselfe what to render unto God What shall I render to Iehovah for all his bounty toward me The returne of thankes in any true manner and measure maketh an increase of the stock To these two former a third may be added respecting God that if any place contended for Purge out idolatry come under the conquerors government that he purge it from idolatrie and all salse worship so much as in him lyeth A mixture of religion or a linsie woolsie worship the Lord will not tollerate and what man dare take upon him then to doe it The suppressing of all false worship may be pressed upon Kings and Magistrates Reasons for suppresing falso worship wheresoever they haue right to command by these fiue reasons from Gods strict commandement in that behalfe from the nature of God to be worshipped from the office of the Magistrate from the practize of Idolaters and lastly from the evill that ensueth upon idolatrous worship Then to the first for in every particular I would be briefe God plyeth this point againe and againe upon his people and the rulers thereof namely that they should breake downe their images Exo. 23.24 32. that they should make no covenaÌ„t with them nor with their gods that they should not suffer them to dwell in thâ— land Deu. 12.13 they should make no mention of the names of their gods thaâ— they should destroy their places wherein they served their gods yeâ— the graven images Deut. 7.3 Againe thou shalt not stricke any convent with them What can be more more plainely said against tolleration for herein is forbidden as one saith well not onely their grosse idolls Tota eorum conversatio prohibita est or superstitious rites and ceremonies in the true worship of God but generally all conversation is forbiddeâ— with them as naught If any plead against this that the charge concerned the Iewes against the Canaanits in particular I answere observâ— but the reason of the charge and it will tell you that it concerneth all Gods people in the case of idolatrie or superstitious worship the rule must neede be as generall as the reason of the rule Exe. 23.23 but
is the friut of D. Hall his correspondencie with poperie for which he pleadeth in his treatise of travells and urged hard for conformitie with popish ceremonies by Heylin in his Geography As for the Papists applauding of our leiturgie as he speaketh there it is but a sorry prayse to it when they reckon with him they will pay him for this as they doe in the Epistle to Spalatoes recantation where belying him falsly with the name of an unlearned Minister they flout him for his bragge In the honour of the maried clergie pag. 55. that the English Church was honoured with a Dalmatian pall put upon a Bandogg indeed I know the Doctor knoweth them well enough and that there is no peace with Rome who haue sworne themselues deadly enemies to the gospel and the Professors thereof It is the oath of the Kinghts of the holy Ghost ordeyned by Henry the third of France Anno 1570. that they should persecute the Hugonits Now I come to the last argument which is the evill ensuyng upon the toleration of any false religion The Lord telleth the Israelits that if they destroy not all the idols of the Canaanits that his angershould be kindled against them Deut. 7.4 and he would destroy them suddenly How angry was God with Iehosaphat for hauing any thing to doe with idolatrous Achab therefore he rebuketh him sharply threatneth him fearfully by the mouth of Hanani the Seer 2. Chron. 19 2. shouldest thou helpe the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. And falling in the same fault againe in ioyning with wicked Ahaziah King of Israel he telleth him by the mouth of Eliezer because thou hast joyned they selfe with Ahazia the Lord hath broken thy workes 2. Chron. 20 37. If the Lord were thus angry for joyning in civill affaires how angry would he haue been if he had admitted their idolatry or matched with them The most part of the Kings and great ones Applicatiō they eyther forget God altogether or they thinke he is not the same God I would therefore haue them to cast but their eyes upon examples of later times and see how the Lord hath met with tolerators of false religion Henry the fourth of France begun well but he held not out whose tolerating of others though upon extremitie and imbracing of popery for a kingdom though from the teeth outward caused the Lord as one said well to him to smite first at his tongue wherewith he had denyed him and at last to smite at his heart by one of the furies of the same hellish religion which for the world he was content for a time to tollerate How did Q. Mary pay Cranmer and Ridley for pleading so hard to the King that she might haue a Masse Men must not thinke first to serve their owne turnes and then to serve Gods turne to goe on with policie making religion dance attēdance to it which indeed should serve religion is to set the Asse upon Christ and not Christ upon the Asse The disturbance and distraction of the Germanes which weakeneth them exceedingly against the common enemie ariseth especially from the toleration of diversitie of religion No thing as one saith well doth more combine the minds of men together then unitie of religion and nothing more dis-ioyneth them then diversitie of religion And it were good me thinke for the united Provinces to make up their union with unitie of religion And I may say boldly upon my former grounds made good by instances that they indanger themselues most by toleration of diversitie of religion Besides the multitude of idols in their houses whereof they make no bones though thereby they keep life in Poperie what a confused chaos of heresies what a State renting breach of Schismaticall divisions with a hotch-potch of opinions are to be found with them wherin to their blemishes they are holden the Antesignans or ring-Leaders through the world so that it is growne to a proverbe If a man had lost his religion he might find it at Amsterdam Which proverb I think may rather be inverted thus If a man bring any religion to Amsterdam he had best take heed he loose it not for reason and experience makes this position good that a place of opposition is not so dangerous to Religion as that place where for Religion every man may doe what he list They must not think that their manner of government or necessitie of trading or any other thing will serue to tolerate this toleration against the Law of God and nature the office of the Magistrate the example of the enemy and the evill ensuing on it I wish they may obserue and ponder together with the aim of their cruel enemy who looketh for more advantage out of this evill then out of any other thing Where there be many Apes there be but a few men Many weeds a little corn So a small deale of true religion where is so much diversity of religion Where there is a Cachexia or evill habite of humours there is but a little good bloud so an evill habit of corruption taketh away the life of true Religion in which indeed consisteth the life of true policy I pray God they may look to it and that he would open our hearts from the head to the foot to look to it at home where Popery is as freely practised as if it had publique toleration and that by connivency which God will not winke at And because matching with Idolaters setteth up the greatest gate to idolatry and by consequence layeth us open to Gods heavy wrath as God himselfe doth witnesse Deut. 7.4 They will turne away thy sonn◠from following me that they may serue other gods so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and destroy you suddenly We must shut that floud-gate if we will not haue the plague come in and consume us I wonder how men can hold up their faces to speak for such Matches They are first flatly against the Word 2 Cor. 6.12 be not unequally yoked which the Doctors of Doway quote in their Marginall note upon Levit. 19 to condemn all matches with schismaticks and hereticks For confirmation whereof they cite Theodoret. Secondly the Lord taxeth such Matches as a high measure of sin instance in Ahab of whom it is said as if it had been a light thing to haue walked in the waies of his father 1 King 16.31 hee took to wife Iezabel who served Baal Thirdly of the evill effects of these Matches we need not goe no further then our own Nation It is reported in our Histories of Vortigern who Anno 450 at the perswasion of Hengist brought in a multitude of Saxons and marryed Rowen daughter to Hengist Intravit Satanas in cor eius Math. Westmonasteriens pa. 156. of whom it is said that the devill entred into his heart because being a Christian by profession he matched with
instance you haue in Moses who according to Gods commandement divided the spoile of the Madianites on whom the Lord had avenged himselfe amongst the souldiers and the people Numb 31.27 This continued as a Law 2 Mach. 8 28. and was observed by the Macchabees when they got any spoyle So that you see it is the Lords own Ordinance besides reason and equity doth inforce it Amongst many other reasons for this enduring ordinance David giveth a speciall one which I would haue Commanders to obserue namely that the spoyle is of the Lords giving 3 Sam. 30.23 You shall not doe so my brethren with that which the Lord giveth us Obserue here that David the Generall saith not giveth me but giveth us Should one man or a few take that to themselues that God giveth to all No surely David out of doubt as many braue Generals had wont kept little or nothing to himselfe Alexander the Great reserved onely hope and our braue Generall Norice was like that Bishop of Lincolne a black Swan now Quod nondum dede rat se nondum credit habere that never thought he had that thing which he did not giue The defrauding of souldiers of their shares of the spoyle was severely punished amongst the Romans Marcus Salinator a man of Consular dignity was condemned by the people for unequall division of the prey to the Souldiers Front l. 4. cap. 1. The wrong in this done to the souldiers when service is performed maketh souldiers so loose in the performance of their service where if they had but hopes of better respect and assurance of place and recompence upon their desert it would incourage them many times to stand to it brauely to death when they mind nothing indeed but shifting for their life That speech which I related of Charles the Great to his souldiers the warre being ended together with his bounty towards them shewed him truely to be great Those that will haue all to themselues must fight all by themselues Souldiers are out of request when their service is done It was a pretty saying and very true of Generall Vere to the King of Denmarke that Kings cared not for Souldiers untill such time as their Crowns hung on the one side of their head It was the sad complaint of Georgius Fronsbergius a braue Captaine and one who had well deserved both under Maximilian the 1 â—nd Charles the 5 and yet being much neglected and forgotâ—en Three things said he did terrifie a man from a military life the spoyling of harmlesse men the godlesse and dissolute life of the souldier and the neglect of those who had well deserved The times are partly come and are yet to come that a good souldier will be worth the making on Yea let those who looke to liue in safety and to die with honour make 〈◊〉 of them There be such an Antipathie betwixt some and Armes that the very sight of a souldier the ordering of Armes the sound of a Trumpet or beating of a drum are as terrible to them as thunder was to Caligula others againe loues Souldiers but onely to make use of them In the most of this unhappy age the esteem of Souldiers be they never so worthy dies and liues with the necessitie of their service the causes whereof are under-valewing of merit and unthankfulnesse But States must beware if they will be safe not to use their souldiers as the Athenians used Themistocles of whom he said wittily Illos non laudo homines qui eodem vase pro calice matula utuntur Aelian l. 13 de varr Hist That they used him like the Plantan tree of which they made both their drinking cup and their chamberâ—pot they shook him off and fet him on at their pleasure when they stood in need of him But he told them at last that he could not like those men that would first drink out of a vessell and then make their water in it My counsell is to the Vnited Provinces that they would cast back their eye upon the pit out of which their life wealth and dignity are digged which is not the depths nor hell as that Popish pamphletter suggesteth but the bloud of the valourous Brittains for the which the Nation should be precious in their eyes if Xerxes held Themistocles on bare hopes of service to be his rarest Iewell how should they esteem of Brittain which to them hath been a field of precious and profitable Iewels whose worth they can never valew Therefore as I would haue them not to slight the Nation so I wish they may abandon all neglect and dis-esteeme of the souldier For generous spirits looks for answerable respect yea they who sow in bloud looks to reap at least in honour and account Aâ—â— Themistocles left Greece at length upon continuance of bad usage So I hope they will take heed that no such usage from them shall provoke their best friends to forsake them And so much for the carriage of the Conquerour CHAP. XLI The carriage of the conquered in Generall NOW I come to treat of the behaviour of the conquered to whom I must confesse it is easier to giue counsell then to undergoe the burthen and rules of directions are sooner given in this case Vincitur ars vento nec jam moderator babenis utitur Obid lib. 3. Festor Phillip 1.29 then taken A tempestuous storme as the Poet saith may countermand the Art of the best Navigator and put the stoutest Master from the Helm Yet for all this in this greatest evill there is matter to manifest the greatest magnanimity there is more worth and valour in suffering then in doing Vnto you saith the Apostle it is given not onely to beleeue in him but also to suffer for his sake Were not our glorious Martyrs the greatest Conquerours It is a great grace for a conquerour to carry even the cup of victory but a greater glory for the conquered to drinke the dregs of Martiall displeasure or of his enemies triumph with undaunted magnanimity Victis solatio est virtute praestantis viri cadere It is some solace as the saying is to be brought under by him who is worthy to command And this gaue some ease to the heart of Mithridates who after 50 yeares standing out with the glory of many victories at length was forced to yeeld himselfe and his to the mercy of Pompey the great Non est turpe ab eo vinci quem vincere esset nefas Veleius Paterculus yet contenting himselfe with this faire overture that it was no shame to be overcome of him whom to overcome it was impossible But as it is not in a mans choyce whether he will be conquered or no so likewise it is not in his choyce by whom he will be conquered and therfore he must fit himselfe to carry it well whosoever lay it on whether the enemy be like Pirrhus contending onely with the Roman who should command or like the Samnite contending
meet with them in the crossing of a way they will grumble against God as though he had done them wrong or as though there were not in them for the which the Lord might not onely cross them but crush them but let them know if they change not their note the Lord will note them for his enemies and thurst them out for wranglers CHAP. XLV Of humiliation for sin and forsaking of it FOurthly as the conquered seeth sin to be the cause of his euill and therein cleareth the justice of God so he must be humbled for sin and so forsake it that God reconciled to him may be on his side It shall nothing prevayle men to see sinne as Pharao did and never to mourne for it or to mourne for it as Achab did and not to forsake it Israel after their second defeat humbled themselues and mourned exceedingly So Iosua when the people that went up to take A◠fled before their enemies and were smitten to the number but of 30 persons fell on his face mourned and cryed unto the Lord but what meant Iosua might some say was this the courage of so great a Generall thus to be daunted for the losse of 30 men was that such a matter might it not be a chance of war no there was another matter in it It was not the 30 men nor 3000 that would haue so much dismayed Iosuah he wisely fore-saw that all was not well at home and therefore he would not on againe till the matter was cleared the execrable thing was found out To be briefe the Israelits under the yoke of the Philistims found out their sin mourned for it It is said in their humiliation that they drew water and powred it out before the Lord that is they shed teares abundantly before the Lord. 1. Sam. 7.7 The roring Goliahs of our age scorne a stone out of this running brook to beat the brains out of their roaring sins oh mourne and cry Applicatiō that is womanish Well I am sure there was more true worth and valour in in one litle David then in all the roarers in Ram-alley or milford-lane and yet he mourned wept and cryed and roared for griefe of sin but not as they doe Foure motives of mourning in Gods people defeated For four things the people of God are to mourne being defeated for their sin because they grieved God by it for the want of Gods presence for making him depart from his inheritance for the defacing of Gods glory by the wicked in their ruffe For the first many will mourne but rather for the punishment of sin then for the sin it selfe whē the worm of conscience begins to knaw the terrours of hell present themselues to them then they cry and roare as though hell roard for them but they are just like Mariners when the storme is ouer or like fellous they cry rather for the sentence giuen against them then for the felony committed And some will cry for their sin but rather because it is hurtfull and shamefull then for grieving of God by it as if a man by his lewdnes cast into some loathsome disease regrateth the sin for the disease it hath brought upon him and not because thereby he hath offended God but David cryeth out on himselfe and his sin especially for the offence done to God by it against thee against thee onely haue I sinned Psal 51. and haue done that which is evill in thine eyes As for the want of Gods presence so other things goe well with them it is the thing that the most least regard but for the godly they make more of it then of all the things in the world yea nothing without this will suffice the godly giue them this with whatsoever they can be content the good things or hid treasure of this life will serve the wicked well enough without this many say who will shew us any good that is for the belly backe possession or height of ambition but lift thou up over us the light of thy face Iehovah for that is more joy to me then all the riches of the world wherein worldlings most delight And herein is a main difference betweene the child of God and the wicked let Ismael live and be great and let Isaack be the heire with all the troubles that belong to the executorship let Esau haue pottage and let the blessing goe where it will let Saul be honored before the people and let him be an off-cast from the Lord but let all this be put together it is but trash in the eyes of the godly in comparison of his face Observe their desire in the burthen of the 80 Psal where in their captivitie still they desire oh God returne us and cause thy face to shine and wee shall be saved their deliverance and all the happines that may follow it will not be worth any thing to them without the amiable looks of Gods countenance So that as Absalon seemed rather to make choyce of death then not to see the Kings face so Gods people had rather die or endure any sorrow or calamitie under the countenance of a reconciled God then liue Methusalahs age and inioy what the world could afford under the frowning lookes of a displeased God Yea there is no temptation so sharpe no plight so dolorous no fright so fearfull nor agony so in expugnable as the angry countenance of a forsaking God for this maketh a man apprehend and conceive of God as a God inarmed against him for his destruction This the people of God conceive of their state as it appeareth by that patheticall expostulation in the aforesaid Psalme how long wilt thou smoake or shew the tokens of an angry countenance against the prayer of thy people vers 6. What maketh the wound of cōscience so unsupportable but that the Chirurgion denyeth to looke at it he letteth it ranckle and fester till who can beare it yea if the spirit of God should not support his owne by the finger of the spirit though unsensiblie the best should be at their wits end and Sauls impatiencie should drive them to desperate courses But in this he differenceth his owne from the damned that as his one hand is over them so his other hand is under them he supporteth them wonderfully when they conceive nothing lesse and by a secret instinct extorts prayer from them even in the fearfull agony of their soules distresse whē their prayers seeme to be rejected of him but it is nothing so with the wicked in their distresses from God his justly conceived wrath for eyther they seek not at all for the appeasing of Gods angry countenance or with lost labour they leaue presently of and run to the devill directly or indirectly for the alaying of the same I touch these things but briefly leaving the further enucleation to accurat theologs and sound soule-phisitians Lastly for the glory of God trampled under the foote of pride wee should be
most moved of all since wee provoke him by our sinnes to forsake his owne inheritance and to leaue his owne cause to his owne dishonour unmaintained This lay heavy upon Eli who when he heard of the loosing of the day the slaughter of the people and the death of his sonnes could sit still and beare it out but when he heard of the taking of the Arke he could sit no longer So Phineas his wife made more of the losse of the Arke then of all the rest then of the people of her father in-law then of her husband or whatsoever yea her reioycing for the sonne she had gayned was swallowed up in sorrow so that shee left a character of her killing griefe in the name of her sonne calling him Ichabod where is the glory or there is no glory It is the speciall matter of the complaint of Gods people in their greatest desolation that the heathen in an insulting braverie did dishonor their God upon the seeming denyall of his presence and providence over his owne people yea many speeches in the Psalmes hath reference to the thoughts of the wicked concerning God Psal 79.10 Retsach Murther for a murthering weapon why shall the heathen say where is their God yea David sheweth how he was affected in this case that the reprochfull words of the adversary were as a dagger thrust into this bones with a murthering weapon in my bones Psal 42.11 my distressors doe reproch me when they say unto me all the day long where is thy God When Hezechiah heard how cursed Rabshakah had blasphemed reproched the Holy One of Israel 2. King 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hipp. Aphoris how grieved was he in heart he got him to the house of the Lord spread the letter before him humbled himselfe in prayer It is a principall in phisicke that when two evills or sicknesses concurre together the greater taketh away the senoe of the lesser Experience did instance this in a man so oppressed and pained with the gout that he could neither stir foote nor hand but feared the very touch of a fether but being taken with a cruell fit of the stone he forgat the gout and run and stampt in the chamber as though he would haue beaten it downe To an honest servant dishonour done to his Master goeth neerer to his heart then the cut of a sword the true child of a father had rather loose his life then suffer his father to be dishonored This then ApplicatioÌ„ by it selfe were matter enough of humiliation why should the brats of Bable say where is the God of the Calvinists as they call them No should not this pierce our hearts while thus they say of our God but doth not all or the most lay this especially to their heels that all should lay to their heart witness the securitie of all the avarice oppression ambition and time-ferving humor of some the epicurish beastly life of others giue the men of this world gain honor office yvorie beds wine in bowles lascivious Musick joviall companie and beastly songs lordly prelacies and fat livings Let Ioseph carrie his afflictions as well as he can and let the Lords honor lie unlamented in the dust but woe be to them that are at ease in Zion Amos 6.1 the Lord suffereth sometimes himself to take wrong to see how men will take it but when he sees that none regards it he will quit himself by the power of his own Arme and when he rekoneth with the coward and the carelesse he will pittie them as little as they did pittie him Yea what reckoning can our State make who helps to deface the honour of God by suffering our people to serue Gods enemies against those that fight the battles of the Lord in this is a greater masse of mischiefes then we are aware of for beside the setting subject against subject bloud against bloud yea brother against brother which is worse then toleration of duels it smites at Gods cause it makes his honour bleed it heartens and hardens Gods enemies it grievs the heart and weakens the hand of Gods forces it proclaims that we are not Gods friends indeed what show soever we make and it threatneth the wrath of God against us I cannot but with griefe and fear make use again of Gods anger threatned against Iehoshaphats sin of this kind Shouldst thou help the ungodly c. therfore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Let us humble then our selues unfaynedly let us afflict our selues and powre out our hearts before our God and doe no more so Let us sow in teares for this especially if ever we mean to reap in joy Gods honour in the dust and all the rest of the former motiues cals us to mourning and baldnesse and girding with sack-cloth If we will not seek God with sorrow in affliction we will never seek him It is no time to hang our hearts upon the merry pin when we should hang up our harpes upon the willow trees if we doe the Lord hath threatned us as I haue formerly shewed not to purge this iniquitie till we die Let us doe as the Israelites did when the Lord did rebuke them by his Angel for not overthrowing of the Canaanits altars and that therefore he would not cast out the Canaanits but they should be as thornes in their sides Iudg. 2.2 and their gods should be snares to them all the people upon this lift up their voyce and wept and from their weeping called the name of the place Bochin so let us weep much for weâ— haue much matter of weeping but we must not onely weep bitterly for sinne but we must abandon sin there must be a totall change of the inward and outward man wee must cease to doe evill and learne to doe well the golden Calfe must be beaten to powder yea and the powder must be drunk as Moses made the Israelites to doe with thâ— golden Calfe Divers reasons whereof are given by the Fathers partly to put away all impressions and reliques of idolatry partly to shew the vile and base esteem that weâ— should haue of Idols as of things to be carryed into the draught and by the bitternesse of the water they might partly be admonished of the bitter curse whereunto all by nature without Christ are subject and partly how sin by the bitternesse of repentance must be done away I will not with some of the learned Chymists take this act of Moses as an instance of Chymicall projection but I am sure that out of it we may pick the true projection of repentance Ezekiah must break the brazen Serpent into peeces Iosua must find out the excommunicate thing and consume it with fire for so long as it is with us God will not be with us Non unum tantum vitulum sed multos habemus As Ferus did wish for the Romish Synagogue I woâ—ld we had some Moses saith he to take away
the evils for we haue not one golden Calfe but many so would to God every one of Gods people would reforme one and that Moses and Aaron the Magistrate and Minister would both reforme themselues and others by the due and holy imployment of their severall powers in their places and every one in the so doing must cast out his beloved sinne Samuel shewing the Israelites the way how to return layeth down a good and perfect rule in this case 1 Sam. 7.4 which will never deceiue us If you will return to the Lord with all your hearts then put away the strange gods and Ashteroth from among you What was not Ashteroth a strange god Yes and the greatest Idoll Why is it singled out then Because it was their beloved Idol So every one hath his Ashteroth his beloved sin which though it seem a little one to himselfe like Zohar yet it is the greatest of all Ashterah it may seem an Ashterah a sheep but it is indeed a wolfe in sheeps clothing At this then must we strike and neither at great nor small so much as at this He that conquereth this overcommeth 〈◊〉 but where this beareth sway no sin is truely overcome And so much Samuel intimateth by the speech as if he should explane himselfe further You say well you will return to God you will amend what is amisse if you will doe it indeed this is the right way to work put away Ashteroth and so must we doe if we mean that God shall heare us and help us The cause of Nehemiahs diligence in reforming of the Sabboth after the return from the captivity was not onely conscience of obedience or because the sincere keeping of the rest of the commandements dependeth much upon the keeping of this but also as it is plainly in the Text expressed because it was Israels speciall sinne and the ground of other sinnes for the which especially the Lord had plagued them Did not your fathers thus saith he and did not our God bring all this evill upon us and upon the Citie Nebem 13.18 yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabboth I wish to God that the Vnited Provinces and all other that professe the Gospell would looke to this The Pharisaicall Papist being zealous of his Idoll-daies making the Lords day being his own commandement of none effect doth much insult over us that we hold it a morall commandement and yet do yeeld so little obedience to it together with this that we retain some of their devised holydaies The like amendment I might presse of many other sinnes though I cannot touch all in particular The Lord touch our hearts with the sense of every particular That Cardiack life of swilling sweating and swearing Bibere sudare est vita Cardiaci must be done away David and all his must not onely turn away his eyes from beholding the vanity of Stage-plaies and other idlements but he must whip out with Augustus that counterfeiting rabble that God never made The abhorring or liking of Stage-plaies was holden amongst the Romans for a note of a bade or a good Emperour I will not trouble this Treatise with the discovery of these hypocrites onely hear a little of that which one once much affected with them soundeth out against them in a retreat for so the Treatise is called he professeth on his knowledge that he found Theaters to be the very hatchers of all wickednesse as brothels of baudry the black blasphemy of the Gospell the Sabboths contempt the seat of scorning yea even of God himselfe the danger of the soule the disorder and cankar of the Common-wealth He instanceth in his own knowledg Citizens wiues confessing on their death-beds that they were so impoysoned at Stage-plaies that they brought much dishonour to God Pag. 43. wrong to their husbands and marriage bed weakenesse to their wretched bodies and woe to their undone soules Bodin the Civilian calleth them the schooles of filthinesse Turpitudinis scholae vitioraÌ„â—eâ—tinae and sinks of sinne insomuch that they are not worthy of a chaste eare nor of an honest mans presence But I hope in a Treatise onely of that subject more fully to discover the sin and to set them forth in their colours wherein I shall be able to proue that the Stage-player and Stagehunter breaketh all the ten commandements in an eminent manner The Stage is one of the Iesuits schooles from which these vile Varlets haue cast so much dirt upon the face of the King of Brittain and of his children with their Issue that I think they should be as hatefull to them in a manner as calumnious devils for they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or devils indeed As for the counter-railing of that prostituted Crue it stands neither with grace nor wit to make devils on our side Antagonists to other Devils it is also a bad requitall by the States of all Gods mercies to grieue his spirit by those plaguie plaies yea it is fearfull on the Lords day to make them a part of princely intertainment It was the observation of an ancient Hollander in Leyden upon the insurrection of the Armenians that hee feared God would being some great evill upon them for the Stage-plaies that did so abound for he remembred that before that firebrand Duke de Alva was flung amongst them that this plague was begun amongst them The Lord giue them and others to rid the land of them The Lord threatneth to be gone and hee will be gone indeed both from Camp and Cittie except we put away these evils from before his eyes But to conclude this point up and doe as you haue heard and the Lord no doubt will be with you and delight to doe you good in your deliverance I will not as some doe pawn my soule for assurance because it is not mine to pawn but I will assure you on a better pawn namely the promise and practise of God whose promises are all Yea and Amen and his practise like himselfe unchangeable for ever The booke of God is so large in this that I need not be any thing large in the proofe of it take but that one place of Samuel mentioned where after that Israel had humbled themselues and got their peace made with God and Samuel to cry mightily to God for them the Lord taketh the work of their hands he incountreth with the enemy by thundering from heaven upon them 1 Sam. 7. the earth trembled under them the lightning blasted them all wrought for his people against them Our God is the very selfe same God and they our enemies be the Philistims Would we become such as this people all the creatures of God should be inarmed in zeale to take vengeance on our enemies Yea I am perswaded that if the enemy should see us take such courses it would daunt 〈◊〉 more then thefeare of any forces that we can make if they should see us taking up the controversie
of your hope is from the enemie with whom you haue to deale namely the beast the Dragon and the false Prophet whose ruine the Lord of hoasts hath vowed and determined It is a great advantage to know our enemies but a greater incouragment to know that our enemies are Gods enemies and God their enemie so that they cannot stand What your enemies are and what attempts they shall make and how certainely and suddenly they shall fall it is cleare in the Revelations It is true indeed you haue monstrous enemies unparaleld by any other Sagitta disbolt Hon. 3. in Psal 38. Imo peior Diabolo Hom. 8. in Esech namely the devill the Imperiall force giving the devill or Dragon for his Armes and the Pope or Anti-Christ whom Origen termeth truely the arrow of the devill yea and worse in a manner then the devill himselfe whose chiefe instruments be these hellsh furies the Iesuits these shall gather together all the waters of the whore on which shee sitteth but the Sun-shine of the Lords wrath shall dry them up her flesh shall be given to be eaten and shee shall be made naked her wound shall not be cured shee shall be burned with fire shee goeth to utter destruction And for the more certainty hereof it is set downe as though it were already done Rev. 16.17 18. cap. It is done it is fallen it is fallen Babilon that great cittie I might bring a world of proofes both from the ancient fathers from the Sybills from their owne Prophets and others that fearfull and finall shall be the fall of Rome That Roma as the Sybills say shal be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ruin indeed but the thing is so cleere to those that haue read any thing whose eyes God hath not blinded that to deny it is both to contradict God and man It hath beene often to me matter of wonder above all all other their oppositions of the truth how they could deny this but I am perswaded the learned of them withhold the trueth of God in vnrighteousnesse Otto Frisingensis an ancient Author who lived 1161 speaking of the ruine of Rome as it hath been the head of all both for dominion and sin so in Gods just judgment it shal be measured to as it hath measured to others I could cite Hildegard Abbas Ioachimus Chrisostom Bernard and others but I rather reserve the larger handling of it to another treatise Beda hath a prettie verse to his purpose Regna ruent Romae ferro flammaque fameque Romes Kingdome falls by famine fire and sword Which to referre to the Gothes and Vandalls were impudencie since that was long before To apply it Applicatiin lovers of Rome and lookers toward Rome and all that loue to be peddling with it and under-propping it secretly looke to it for the day shall come that they shall cry alas for it and shall perish with it As for those that set their heart and hand against it by prayer or sword and hate all communion with it yea every patch of it or garment spotted with the flesh let them go on and prosper howsoever it may be nay it must be through fire and water yet the day shal be theirs There is a Spanishfied popish pamphleter endeavouring to maligne the State of the Vnited Provinces erected maintayned by the finger of God who disswadeth all men from the maintenance protection and partaking of and with the Hollanders and that by sundrie calumnious idlements rather then arguments He draweth one from the fatall end of all such as haue undertaken that businesse beginning with Monsieur de Lemmay and ending with the late Queene Elizabeth of happy memory aspersing like a blacke mouthed Cur as much he can the life and death of a famous nursing mother of vertue and religion giving up also his virulent gorge upon that rightlie renoumed Prince of Orange To which I answer First that as unnaturall and violent death doth not alwayes argue an evill life so it doth not prejudice the goodnes of the action in hand and therefore he is a greater calumniator then argumentator againe if this without further limitation be a good argument then all men haue reason to forsake the maintenance of Babel whereof he is a brat for who haue led such monstrous lives and made such prodigious ends as the maintayners thereof yea I shall be able to prove punctually that never a man that hath put his hand to the maintenance of that Babilonish altar carry it as cleanly as he could but the Lord set Ieroboams marke upon him in one kind or other but that I refer to another treatise To the partie himselfe I will say no more now but that by way of retortion which he putteth upon Sir Ralfe Winwod namely if he had been as good an Englishman as a Hollander the Cautionarie Townes had not been released so had he been as good an Englishman as he is an arrant traytor The affaires of Holland pag. 71. and a spaniolized sycophant he had never profaned with aspertion the ashes of his native Soveraigne nor presumed to suggest false matter of iealousie against the King of Bohemia The last ground of hope or rather the first though I put it in the last place is the love of God in Christ Iesus This is the procatartick cause of hope Spes bona praestat opē this is the ground wheron the Anchor is cast where this is there must be hope and where hope is there is both helpe and assured good successe Rom. 5.5 Hope maketh not ashamed saith the Apostle because the loue of God is shed abroad in our hearts This is a good ground indeed this will never let the Anchor come home all the other grounds are made good to your Majesties your faith and the spirit must make good this to your soules which is the ground of grounds Without this all the other are nothing as the Apostle saith neyther circumcision Gal. 5.6 nor uncircumcision prevayleth any thing but the new creature in Christ Iesus so neyther a good cause nor the nature of hope nor experience of helpe nor the wickednesse of their enemie will doe any good without this main good the assurance of Gods love So long as men walk saith the Prophet Ieremy after their own devices and doe the imagination of their evill hearts so long they say and can say no other that there is no hope Ier. 18.12 What hope can these men haue of good successe to their courses or to see the face of God with comfort that crosseth God and themselues and his people in all their courses God showes what came of Zedechiah his hopes Shall he scape saith the Lord that doth such things Ezech. 17 1◠Or shall he break the covenant and be delivered All Gods people this Summer haue refreshed themselues with the hope of the English Parliament but except they make sure Gods favour by the zeale of his glory the amendment of life
This is Princely indeed for as we are all born as Tully saith to doe so they especially who are of high place and authority To say much and doe nothing doth not rellish of the English wit nor worth whose noble ancestours for doing haue been too plaguie fellowes and enemies of State terrible as an Army of Banners It hath often been to me a matter of wonder how our Ancestors with so little or no light at all dispatched more work in a week then we in a year of which I conceiue with submission of my iudgement these to bee the reasons They presumed of the work done and made the honour of their house and the glory of their name the height of their ambition but we in greater light know that the work done wilnot serv and as for the assurance of Gods loue which should put confidence in our hearts and courage in our actions but a few labour for it and this is the death of action and they with whom Gods honour is not in the highest esteem never make a true account of their own honour Besides this our ancestors had not such hellish pates and hollow hearts to deale with as our Senate hath I wish they may work while they haue light for when the night commeth they cannot work if they would as I haue often shewed occasion to be the soule of action so when action looseth breath the soule departs and returns no more They want no lawes for their warrant nor patterns for their practise nor wit to apply them Let them up then and doe it and God will be with them Shall the fear of Forraigns freeze the waters of our counsell and never a fire of zeale nor even-down rain of courage to thaw or dissolue them Shall the prophane oppose piety and maintain ungodlinesse and never a Nehemiah to take an order with them Shall Snakes eate out the belly of the Common-wealth and still be kept aliue in our bosoms Shall the eye of our high and honourable Senate be dimmed or dazeled with a white Rochet Shall by him the Scepter of Christ be trampled under foot to the casting away of soules and his soule not pay for it Let me speak freely let them take heed how they let Benhadad that is men committed to their keeping goe lest the liues of them and us goe for their liues whom the Lord hath appointed either to destroy us or to be destroyed Shall a two faced Ianus or a man with a heart and a heart dance in a net or goe masked and no body see him nor unmaske him I hope they will pardon my freedom of speech for my boldnesse is no more then my fidelity loue and service bindes me to The fire of sinne flames through all the land and the fire of judgement is kindled in every corner except some bestir themselues to quench it we shall all be consumed The Lord giue resolution and action to those that are in place to arise for Sion for be they sure if they sit still deliverance shall come to Zion another way but they and theirs shal pay for it As for the Hollander I hope he will be still in action but I would haue him to do as much for God as he doth for himselfe and as much against sin as he doth against the enemy for that is the way to undoe the enemy It were better for them to be cast in the mould by a plaine and round dealing ministery then to be battered by the Popes foure corned Canoniers or the Arminians sacred minions the Prelates These be Hawkes of prey wherewith the Princesse of Parma and Granvil thought to haue seazed upon them in the beginning of their troubles and they haue ever and anone been threatned with them since Let them leaue off provoking God lest they be plagued with them as others of their neighbours be and let them take heed of that Romish Dictatorship of constant Moderation which is the next step to Imperious Hierarchy CHAP. XLIX Of the end of Warre NOW I come to the very last point concerning the end of war which I haue reserved to the end of the Treatise and will shut it up in a word or two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For a great book is called a great evill The end of it is Gods glory peace and publique good Evill ends may undoe good causes annihilate good means and frustrate the most probable expectations Iehu had a good cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maius bonum est sinis quam quod non est finis Arist lib. Rhet. cap. â— Horat. in Arte. and used lawfull means but his end was naught and that marred all to him It is true the worke of the Lord was done but no thanks to him who in seeking of his own ends made his own work the main work and the Lords the by-work The end as the Philosopher saith is the speciall good of a thing Private ends in warre are the greatest enemies of the publique good fuit haec sapientia quondam Publica privatis secernere sacra profanis It was the wisedome once for to perferre Publique to private sacred to profane Si stâ—dium pecuniae suftuleris aut quo ad res feret minueris Orat. 2 de Ordin Reip. Salust hath a pretty rule for the ordering of mens affections in military courses Thou maist bring a great deale of good saith he to the Country to the State to thy selfe and family to all those that haue any correspondency with thee if thou remoue desire of money or at least let is not haue dominion over thee I am here occasioned to direct my speech once more to the Lords of the Vnited Provinces that as publique good is the end of their war maintained so in raising means for the maintenance of warre they would prefer the publick good to the private which is not observed as I think in the still increasing of excize upon victuals for this course injureth a many as Commons Tradesmen Travellers yea and the souldiers whose bloud maintains the war and the private profite redoundeth to a handfull so great ones saving their purses by this disproportionable dealing they who haue least and labour most they haue often the most eaters and payes most Methinkes a Geometricall proportion were a great deale juster then an Arithmeticall and that the strongest horse should carry the heaviest load I speake plainly and out of loue to the State which many waies may be hurt by this inequality By-respect and sinister intent is like a strange fire which blows up the work and brings vengeance on the Workman it a close kind of hypocrisie and therefore the Lord will certainly plague it instance that requitall of Iehu his pretended zeal in the destroying of the house of Ahab First it was the Lords own work and Iehu had his warrant for it in the 2 of the Kings ch 9. v. 7. Thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master c. In the second place obserue
his great show of zeal and ostentation of uprightnesse of heart in the execution of it Come see saith he to Iehonadab my zeale for the Lord but selfe-respect marred all for he wrought for himselfe and not for God he looked more at the Kingdom then Gods command and therfore he who saw the thoughts and hollownesse of his heart requites him in his kind Hee avenged the bloud of â—ezrel upon the house of Iehu Hos 1.4 They who now and then can affoord their hand and tongue to lend Gods cause a lift for their own advantage will discover themselues when their own ends are served yea God will uncase them walk as closely as they can As I often cast mine eyes upon the over-clowded estate or defaced beauty of the Scottish Church I was occasioned to call to mind the prompt indeavour of the great Ones to ruin Babel and to rear up Ierusalem It was a good work indeed if it were well done but as they made the Ministers coat too short their own too side so I fear that the sweetness that they found in Gods bread as one called it and Babels spoyles made them stand so stoutly to it but these being raked out of their budgets by the long-necked-crains that are come from the Egiptian-lake the most of them looks upon the cause now as though they had lost their purses And last of all to giue a touch upon our English Plantators in Virginia I advise them especially to examine the ends and the means for all knows the issue is worse and worse and like to proue starke naughts therfore both the end and the means stands need of rectifying The Lord himselfe giveth a good direction to this same effect that such as had planted vinyards and maried wiues they should not goe to War the reason is given because the thougths and cares of these things should not intangle them and hinder them from fighting of the Lords battells in the field by leaving their hearts at home 2 Tim. 2.4 No man that warreth intangleth himselfe with the affaires of this life that he may please him who hath chosen him for a souldier As the speciall end of War is peace Bellum ita sustipiatur ut nihil aliud nisi pax quaesita videatur l. 1. Offi. Deâ—ertanduÌ„ manu est Ibid. so as Tully saith War must be so taken in hand that it may appeare that nothing is so much sought for as peace It is true as the same Author hath it when necessitie requireth as I said that men must fight and prefer death it selfe to slavery or basenesse And this was the end and ayme I am perswaded of his Majestie to preserve in peace the people of God and the practise of religion as appeareth both by his declaration and his omitting to take his enemies at advantage in the beginning for which they haue given him a cruell requitall yet as his ground was good so his end was good Let them talk of peace what they will they haue no such end except they giue all the conditions and then that peace is no better then slavery Look but to the Spanish practise Is he not like a Moule once in never out if he can chuse And if the fox be unkennelled he leaveth ever an evill smell behind him yea and litters of cobs that pesters the Nation or he is like the winding-Ivye which sheweth a naturall appetite to help it selfe by cleaving to other things but it undoes all other things wherunto it cleaveth Great Brittain had best look to her Vine Private gain and by-respect was one of the three Romish plagues I pray God rid our land of it Thus far I haue ingaged my poor labours in the troublesome warr of this present time desiring God who sitteth aboue as Iudge and Moderator of all mens actions and seeth and heares the teares and prayers of his distressed people that he would awake us all to repentance finish the afflictions of his children and fling the rod in the fire AMEN Errata LET me intreat thee â—ourreous Reader to bear with errours from the presse as some literall faults defects of Accents or Points misplacing or wanting of a word Three Greek words in the Margine hath likewise faults in them In the Epistle to the Reader pag. 2. line 1. for treatise reade this treatise Pag. 49 Marg. for alumoniam reade alimoniam Ibid. for virtus reade victus pag. 87 l. ult for that like r. that it is like pag. 159 l. 13 for ebary r. chair pag. 186. l 20 for for r. far Ibid. l. 32 for 1180 r. 11800 pag. 208. l. 18 for the better r. to the better FINIS