plagues that shed it because never laid unto their charge it may notwithstanding exempt them and their children from hope of mercy or mitigation of punishments due unto them for other sins Or that such as since his death have pined away in their own sins and the sins of their fathers did therefore perish because he had absolutely decreed not to save them or grant them means of repentance God forbid This were more then to say They stumbled that they should fall And in as much as the riches of the world will be much greater by their fulness then by their Fall or diminution the fault is ours as well as theirs that their Conversion is not accomplished Both we and they are liable to a strict account That we would not be gathered when God would have gathered us CHAP. XLIV 2 KINGS 23. 26 27. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Iudah because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal And the Lord said I will remove Judah also out of my sight as I have removed Israel and will cast off this City Jerusalem which I have chosen and the house of which I have said my Name shall be there 1. THe Points to be discussed are Two First How the Lord might justly punish Iudah for Manasseh's sins and sins committed in His time in the dayes of good Josiah and His Sons Secondly In what manner God proceeded to execute this his fierce wrath denounced against Iudah For your better satisfaction in the Former Point You are to consider the Nature and Tenor of Gods General Covenant with this people The miraculous Blessings and extraordinary Curses proposed unto the two several wayes of Life and Death which Moses first had set before this people are sufficiently known being most expresly set down Levit. 26. and Deut. 28. throughout the whole Chapters The like Covenant was renewed with Davids Line in the same Tenor. Psal 89. 29 c His Seed will I make to endure for ever and his Throne as the dayes of Heaven But if his Children forsake my Law and walk not in my judgments If they break my Statutes and keep not my Commandements Then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes Neverthelesse my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulnesse to fail Or Neither will I falsifie my truth This promise was Absolute for Christ Conditional for the other Sons of David and consists not in their Immunitie from punishments but in the Assurance of their recovery upon their penitencie The Tenor of both Covenants then in brief was Thus. Following the foot-steps of Abraham or David they should be blessed extraordinarily Forsaking their wayes and following the Customs of other Nations they should be punished more severely then other men yet so that if in their distress they did turn again unto the Lord for Abraham's and for David's sake they should be restored to his wonted mercie and favour So saith the Lord Levit. 26. 44 45 And yet for all that he supposeth his plagues denounced had already overtaken them When they be in the land of their enemies I will not cast them away neither will I abhorre them to destroy them utterly and to break my Covenant with them for I am the Lord their God But I will remember them according to the Covenant of old Or I will for their sakes remember the Covenant of their Ancestors whom I brought forth out of the Land of Egypt And in the 42. verse of the same Chapter when they shall confesse their iniquity before him in their distresse He saith He would remember His Covenant with Jacob and also his Covenant with Isaac and with Abraham The same Covenant is more solemnly established at the Dedication of the Temple 2 Chron. 6. by Salomon He supposed this People should be plagued for their sins as others were But yet if they turned to the Lord with all their heart and with all their soul in the Land of their captivity the effect of his Petition is That the Lords eyes should be open and his ears attent unto the prayers which they made towards the Temple which he had built And in this sense is God said to shew mercie unto thousands in such as love Him and keep his Commandements Because for Abraham and for David's sake they still enjoyed the assurance of recovering their ruinate and decayed Estate 2. Yet here we are again to consider that the Covenant was not made In capita as if it were to begin intirely with every particular Man but rather with their whole Successions in their several Generations They stood all joyntly bound to obey the Lord their God So as Posterity must make up the Arrerages of their Fathers ryot by their warie and diligent observance of those Commandements which the other had broken If the Fathers had sinned by Idolatry the Posterity must redeem their sins or break them off by preaching reformation of Religion and restoring the true Worship of God again If the Fathers had caused Gods wrath upon the Land by oppression extortion and cruelty the Children must divert it by mercie bountie and open-handedness towards the Poor and by restitution of goods ill-gotten by their Fathers unto their proper Owners or by restoring goods rightly enjoyed but imployed amiss unto their natural and right use If the Fathers have transgressed all or most of Gods neg Commandments the children are bound to rectifie their errors by practising the affirmative duties of the Law In a word as the Fathers offences have been greater either in multitude magnitude or continuance so must the Vertues and Piety of Posterity abound in Perfection of Parts Intention of Degrees and Duration of time For although it be most true that the Childrens teeth are not set on edge for their Fathers eating sour grapes but the soul that sinneth it shall die Ezek. 18. Yet is not this so to be understood but that the son may be punished for those sins which his Father only did actually commit if so he seek not to rectifie his errors by inclining to the Contrary Duties For not so doing His fathers sins are made his by participation and the Curse becomes hereditary As he that helpeth not when he may doth further or abett the evil done by others and is thereby made Accessary or part-taker of other mens sins So likewise are the Children guilty of their fathers transgressions and liable to Gods wrath caused by them if they seek not to rectifie the same by their zealous prayers speedie repentance and unfeigned turning to the Lord. So is it said Ezek. 18. 14. The Son that seeth all his fathers sins which he hath done and feareth neither doth such like but rather if the father have cruelly oppressed and spoiled his brother by violence he feeds the hungrie and clothes the naked and keeps all Gods Statutes he
ΜΑΡΑΠΑΘΑ OR DOMINVS VENIET COMMENTARIES Upon these ARTICLES of the CREED Never heretofore Printed VIZ. Of Christs Session at the Right Hand of God and Exaltation thereby His being made LORD and Christ Of his Coming to Judge the Quick and the Dead The Resurrection of the Body And Life Everlasting both in Joy and Torments WITH DIVERS SERMONS Proper Attendants upon the Precedent TRACTS AND Befitting These PRESENT TIMES BY That Holy Man and Profound DIVINE Thomas Jackson D. D. President of CORPUS CHRISTI Coll. in OXFORD Inharet in mentibus quasi seculorum augurium quoddam futurorum c. M. T. C. Tusc Quest lib. 1. O praclarum Diem cum ad Divinum illud concilium animorum proficiscar cumque ex hac turba colluvione discedam Idem de Senect LONDON Printed by A. Maxey for Timothy Garthwait at the little North Door of S. Pauls 1657. To the REVERENCE LEARNING and VERTUES of D R SHELDON SIR THis comes not to bespeak you Patron of the Book to which it is prefixed but to acknowledge and to make known unto the world That you have been both a Faithful Friend to the Great Author thereof in Conserving and also a Publick Benefactor in producing the Manuscripts here printed in this and the precedent Volume the Tenth and Eleventh Books of His Commentaries upon the Creed But though I think I have done you some small right in making this Acknowledgment I fear by occasion thereof you may be thought by others to have done the Author and your self no smal wrong The Point wherein your Judgement may suffer will be The Concrediting so Precious Deposita to so mean a Person as my self And yet to vindicate your self and to comfort me The ensuing Narration may give some Arguments of Hope That this was not done sine Numine without the contrivance of Divine Providence first putting together diverse small particulars and then advancing them to the effecting of a Work not small The first stone of this Work was laid some 44 years ago in my School-Acquaintance with a Vertuous and studious young Gentleman Mr. Ro. Nettleton of Yorkshire This Friendship being intermitted by the space of fourteen yeers he going to Oxon and I to Cambridge Anno 1617. was afterwards renewed by meeting and Conference which though Casual and short did soon discover as the Ointment in the right Hand will not long be hid That we had all this while been Disciples to One Man though we had lived so many years without any the least Intelligence or Commerce in Two several Academies After This there followed a second Pause or Cessation of Twelve or fourteen years more Towards the end of which space The Difficulties of the Times brought me to seek retirement in Oxon where by the Mediation of Mr. Benson a very Ingenuous person and Amanuensis to Dr. Jackson I made suit to Dr. Newlin Successor to our Author in the Government of Corpus Christi Colledg to view some Papers for my private Information but could not obtein though upon condition to peruse them only in his own Lodgings So careful and cautelous was that Faithful Man for which I honour and commend him This just and kind denyal sharpned my former desires and made me seek out a Precator a very Grave and Learned Man well known to your self by whose Mediation I might obtein from you or by your help what I could not otherwise get Whereupon you were pleased to give me so fair an Advousion of your Favour as supported my hopes for the space of three yeers more when returning to Oxon and missing your self I made means a second time to Dr. Newlin and got a sight of some of Dr. Jacksons Papers This was in the Year 1646. In the year 1651 Mr. Nettleton being in London and being very disirous of the thing intreated me to expend that small Acquaintance I had with the Learned and Pious Dr. Hammond in obteining of your self and by your Mediation of Dr. Newlin a sight of such Papers as Dr. Jackson left behind him which you granted and effected with so memorable alacritie as did both mcourage Him divers others assisting the design also to contribute towards the reprinting of the first three Books ill printed in Quarto and after that towards the publishing of the Tenth besides some charge in writing out part of this Eleventh Book and obliged me to assist the best I could in doing of them all I have great cause to bless the Almighty for many blessings at all times but signally for Three bestowed upon me in these sad times of publick calamitie 1. That he hath ever fed me with Food convenient for me mine own bread being the Bread of my Desires 2. That he hath repaired my other losses with a great supply of Learned and Pious Acquaintance greater perhaps then the times continuing prosperous would ever have afforded me so true is the Good Word of God Mark 10. 30. Thirdly That though I was forced from My Nest wherein I said I shall dye yet he suffered me not to be utterly deprived of all opportunities to do him service And I think my self bound to profess that in this Price which God by your hand hath put into mine I take most comfort as hoping that my Negotiation therewith by Gods gracious acceptation will abound to mine Account and pass for a supplement or substituted Commutation of such duties as I have otherwise been defective in And I earnestly beseech all such as were ever committed to my Tuition in the University or to my Charge in Cure of Souls in the Countrie to serve themselves of these my endeavors in another mans Labors so as out of them to repair all their dammages sustained by my negligence omissions or deficiencie in duties towards them And now Honoured Sir if I have not wearied you with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is very nauseous to my self I can subjoyn a second Series of Arguments That Gods good hand of Providence was in this Business throughout If I ever made any high menaces or had Projects of doing any thing worthy a Clerk the very thoughts thereof before I die are perisht And I became justly frighted into this humbled despereing Temper partly by conversing with this Great Authors Works published twentie years ago where I read this Passage and I cannot but subscribe to it If the sins of this Land for forty years past were divided into ten parts the sins of the Pulpit and of the Presse would make A Large Tenth Had not this Good Man been taken away from the evil to come but lived to hear the Pulpitings and read the Printings of these last twenty years what would he have said Would not he have reckoned them Nine parts of ten Being then resolved Periturae parcere Chartae never to increase the deplorable Bundels of Supervacuous Books by any composure of mine I acknowledg my self as Caelibes and Improles are in a more especial manner bound
Godly men respects their former good works p. 3568. 29. Three points 1. Eternal Life the most free gift of God both in respect of the Donor and of the Donee 2. Yet doth not the sovereign Freenesse of the Gift exclude all Qualifications in the Donees rather requires better in them then in others which exclude it or themselves from it Whether the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared for All or for a certain number 3. The first Qualification for grace is to become as little children A parallel of the conditions of Infants and of Christians truly humble and meek p. 3578 30. Matth. 25. 34. Then shall the King say to them on his Right hand c. Two General Heads of the Discourse 1 A Sentence 2. The execution thereof Controversies about the sentence Three conclusions in order to the decisions of those Controversies 1. The Sentence of life is awarded Secundum Opera not excluding faith 2. Good Works are necessary to salvation Necessitate Praecepti Medii And to Justification too as some say Quoad praesentiam non quoad Efficientiam The third handled in the next Chapter Good Works though necessary are not Causes of but the Way to the Kingdom Damnation awarded for Omissions Saint Augustines saying Bona Opera sequuntur Justificatum c. expounded Saint James 2. 10. He that keeps the whole Law and yet offends in one point c. expounded Why Christ in the final Doome instances only in Works of Charity not of Piety and Sanctity An Exhortation to do good to the poor and miserable and the rather because some of those duties may be done by the meanest of men p. 3587 31. Jansenius his Observation and Disputation about Merit examined and convinced of Contradiction to it self and to the truth The Definition of Merit The state of the Question concerning Merit Increase of Grace no more meritable then the first Grace A Promise made Ex Mero Motu sine Ratione dati accepti cannot found a Title to Merits Such are all Gods Promises Issues of meer Grace Mercie and Bountie The Romanists of Kin to the Pharisee yet indeed more to be blamed then He. The Objection from the Causal Particle FOR made and answered SECT VI. CHAP. 32. Matth. 7. 12. Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you c. The misery of man of the wisest of men in their pilprimage to be Wanderers too The short way to Happiness The Pearl of the Ocean The Epitome Essence spirits of the Law and the Prophets Do as you would be done unto The Coherence the Method Christ advanceth This Dictate of Nature into an Evangelical Law Fortifies it and gives us proper Motives to practise it Two grounds of Equity in this Law 1. Actual Equality of all men by Nature 2. Possible Equality of all men in condition Exceptions against the Rule Answers to those Exceptions This Rule forbids not to invoke or wage Law so it be done with charity Whether Nature alone bind us to do good to our enemies God has right to command us to love them Plato's good communion The Compendious way to do our selves most good is to do as much good as we can to others The Application 33. Matth. 7. 12. The second General according to the Method proposed Chap. 32. Sect. 5. handled This Precept Do as ye would be done to more then equivalent to that Love thy neighbour as thy self for by good Analogy it is applicable to all the Duties of the first Table which we owe to God for our very being and all his other Blessings in all kinds bestowed on us Our desires to receive good things from God ought to be the measure of our Readiness to return obedience to his will and all other duties of dependance upon his Grace and Goodness God in giving Isaac did what Abraham desired and Abraham in offering Isaac did what God desired Two Objections made and answered 1. That this Rule may seem to establish the old Pythagorean Error of Retaliation and the new one of Parity in Estates 2. That the Magistrate in punishing offendors it seems in some Cases must of necessity either violate this Rule or some other p. 3628 34. The Impediments that obstruct the Practice of this Duty of Doing to others as we would have done to our selves are chiefly two 1 Hopes and Desires of attaining better estates then we at present have 2. Fears of falling into Worse Two readie wayes to the Dutie 1. To wean our souls into an indifferencie or vindicate them into a libertie in respect of all Objects 2 To keep in mind alwayes a perfect character of our owne afflictions and releases or comforts Two Inconveniencies arising from accersite greatness or prosperity 1. It makes men defective in performing the Affirmative part of this Duty 2. It makes them perform some part of the Affirmative with the violation of the Negative part thereof A Fallacy discovered An useful general Rule 3640 35. Jer. 45. 2 3 4 5. Thus saith the Lord unto thee O Baruch c. Little and Great termes of Relation Two Doctrines One Corollary Times and Occasions after the nature of things otherwise lawful Good men should take the help of the Anti-peristasis of bad times to make themselves better Sympathie with others in misery enjoyned in Scripture practised by Heathens Argia and Portia The Corollary proved by Instance and that made the Application of the former Doctrin 3648 36. On Jer. 45. latter part of ver 5. Thy life will I give thee for a prey The second Doctrin handled first in Thesi touching the Natural essence of Life in general 2. In Hypothesi Of the Donative of Life to Baruch as the case then stood That men be not of the same opinion about the Price of life when they be in Heat Action and Prosperity which they be of in dejection of Spirit and Adversity proved by Instances Petrus Strozius Alvares de Sande Gods wrath sharpens the Instruments and increases the terror of death Life was a Blessing to Baruch though it be shewed him all those evils from sight of which God took away good King Josiah in favour to him Baruch as a man did sympathize with the miseries of his people As a Faithful man and a Prophet of the Lord he conformed to the just will of God The Application 3663 37. On Rom. 2. 1. Therefore thou art inexcusable O man c. From what Premises the Apostles Conclusion is inferred The limitation of the Conclusion to the securing the Lawful Magistrate exercising Judicature according to his Commission and in matters belonging to his cognizance David and Abab judging persons by the Prophets Art feigned did really condemn themselves The sense of the Major Proposition improved by vertue of the Grammar Rule concerning Hebrew Participles and by Exposition of the phrase How the later Jewes judging the deeds of their forefathers did condemne themselves 3678 38. Second Sermon on Rom. 2. 1. 3690 39. Third Sermon on Rom. 2. 1. A Romish
God It could not There had been indeed an Exaltation of the bodie so assumed but none of the Nature or Person assuming it How then is the Son of God said now to be Exalted by his bodily Ascension into Heaven or by his Sitting at the Right-hand of the Father in our Nature wherein he was formerly humbled Take the Resolution plainely thus God the Father had remained as glorious as now he is although he had never created the world For the creation gave much even all they had to things created it gave nothing unto God who was in Being infinite yet if God had created nothing the Attribute of Creator could have had no real Ground it had been no real Attribute In like manner Suppose the Son of God had never condescended to take our nature upon him he had remained as Glorious in his Nature and Person as now he is yet not glorified for or by this Title or Attribute of Incarnation Or suppose he had not humbled himself unto death by taking the Form of a Servant upon him he had remained as glorious in his Nature and Person and in the Attribute of Incarnation as now he is but without these glorious Attributes of being our Lord and Redeemer and of being the Fountain of Grace and Salvation unto us All these are Real Attributes and suppose a Real Ground or foundation and that was his humbling himself unto death even unto the death of the Cross Nor are these Attributes only Real but more Glorious both in respect of God the Father who was pleased to give his Only Son for us and in respect of God the Son who was pleased to pay our ransome by his humiliation then the Attribute of Creation is The Son of God then not the Son of David only hath been Exalted since his death to be our Lord by a new and Real Title by the Title of Redemption and Salvation This is the Sum of our Apostles Inference concerning our Saviours Exaltation Phil. 2. 11. That every tongue should confesse that Jesus Christ is The Lord unto the Glorie of God the Father To shut up this Point Though Christ Jesus be both our High-Priest and Lord not only as he is the Son of David but as he is the only begotten Son of God and so begotten from all Eternitie yet was he neither begotten a Priest nor Lord from all Eternitie but made a Priest and made a Lord in time The Word of the Oath saith the Apostle Heb. 7. 28. which was since the Law maketh the Son a Priest who was consecrated for evermore And in the very same Charter wherein this Word of the Oath or uncontrollable Fiat for making the Eternal Word an Everlasting Priest is contained this Peculiar Title of Lord is first inferred For so that 110 th Psalm begins Jehovah said to my Lord Sit thou at my right hand untill I make thine Enemies thy foot-stool Not that Adonai importeth lesse Honour or Majestie then Jehovah doth as the Jews and Arians ignorantly and impiously collect but with purpose to notifie that this Title of Lord or Adonai was to become as peculiar to Jehovah the Son of God as the Title of Cohen or Priest But this Title of Lord as peculiar to Christ will require and doth well deserve a peculiar discourse and the place allotted it is in the beginning of the second Section 5. Now for Use or Application These insuing Meditations and Considerations offer themselves What branch of sorrow of bodily affliction or anguish of soul or Spirit can we imagin incident to any degree condition or sort of men to any son of man at any time unto which the waters of Comfort may not plentifully be derived from this inexhaustible Fountain of Comfort comprised in This Article of Christs Sitting at the Right-hand of God the Father Almighty No man can be of so low dejected or forlorn estate for means or friends re or spe either by birth or by misfortune but may raise his heart with this Consideration that it is no servitude or beggerie but freedom or riches to be truly entitled A Servant to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings to whom Angels and Principalities as Saint Peter speaks even those Angels and Principalities to whom not Kings and Monarchs but even Kingdoms and Monarchies are Pupils are subject and his fellow servants Or in case any poor dejected soul should be surprized with distrust or jealousie lest his Lord in such infinite height of Exaltation and distance should not from heaven take notice of him thrown down to earth let him to his comfort consider That the Son of God and Lord of Glorie to the end he might assure us that he was not a Lord more Great in himself then Gracious and loving unto us was pleased for a long time to become a Servant before he would be made a Lord and a Servant subject to multitudes of publick despights disgraces and contempts from which ordinarie servants or men of forlorn hopes are freed If he willingly became such a Servant for thee to whom he owed nothing wilt not thou resolve to make a vertue of necessitie by patient bearing thy meannesse or misfortunes for his sake to whom even Kings owe themselves their Scepters and all their worldly glorie But though it be a contemplation full of comfort to have him for our Supreme Lord and Protector who sometimes was a Servant cruelly oppressed by the greatest Powers on earth without any power of man to defend or protect him yet the sweet streams of joy and comfort flow more plentifully to all sorts and conditions of men from the Attribute of his Royal Priesthood To be a Priest implies as much as to be a Mediator or Intercessor for averting Gods wrath or an Advocate for procuring his Favours and blessings * And what could Comfort her self wish more for her children suppose she had been our mother then to have Him for our perpetual Advocate and Intercessor at the Right-hand of God who is equal to God in Glorie in Power and Immortalitie and yet was sometimes more then equal unto us in all manner of anguish of grievances and afflictions that either our nature state or casual condition of life can be charged with * Albeit he knew no sin yet never was the heart of any the most grievovs sinner no not whilest it melted with penitent tears and sorrow for misdoings past so deeply touched with the fellow-feeling of his brothers miseries of such miseries as were the proper effects or fruits of sin as the heart of this our High-Priest was touched with every mans miserie and affliction that presented himself with prayers unto him his heart was as fit a Receptacle for others sorrows of all sorts as the eye is of colours Who was weak and he was not weak who was grieved and he burned not who was afflicted and he not tormented 6. There be Two more special and remarkable Maxims of our Apostles for our comfort The One Heb.
Dominion of propertie for the most part respects things corporall Howbeit even men or reasonable creatures are sometimes subject to both Branches of Dominion but in different measure according to the severall rites or customes of diverse ages nations or people Such as the Latins call Servi or Servuli slaves or servants properly so called were in bonis Domini they were the goods or possession of their Masters These bodily Lords had not only Dominion of Jurisdiction over but Dominion of propertie to their persons No law did restrain their Masters from disposing of these servants as they pleased as either to exchange give away or sell them and their children The poor servants did oftentimes mutare dominum non servitutem change their Lords without any exchange or alteration of their slaverie Sometimes the Romans had and some other nations at this day have Dominium vitae necis power or dominion to kill maim or wound their servants without any restraint or controll of law But this absolute power to dispose of their slaves or servants was afterwards by the Romane Law inhibited Lords and Masters of private servants were lyable to the sentence of publick Law if they did use intolerable crueltie or severitie towards their slaves But by the Lawes or most Christian nations this absolute Dominion of Lords over their servants and consequently this kind of subjection and slaverie is taken away For every Christian is an Israelite or Hebrew and somewhat more All are in reputation the Sons of Abraham Now the positive Law of God before our Saviours time did exempt the Sons of Abraham by the free woman from slaverie The Kings of Judah might not make bondmen of their brethren the Sons of Jacob. 3. Albeit we retein the name of Masters and Servants yet neither are the one sort properly called Domini nor the other Servi A master with us is no more then Pater familias amongst the Latines and those whom we call servants are famuli Every Father of a familie hath Dominium Jurisdictionis a right or power of Jurisdiction over his familie but not Dominium proprietatis not right or power of propertie in their persons Howbeit even this power or Dominion of Jurisdiction is limited as well by the Lawes of God as of man No father of his family may correct any of his familie as he pleaseth but in such cases and so far as the Law will permit And according to the different condition of the parties over whom the Father of the familie hath this power of Jurisdiction or correction must the exercise of it be alwayes tempered No husband or Master of a familie may exercise the same power over his wife which he doth over his children No man by the Law of nature ought to use his children as his servants or apprentices unlesse they be such by estate or condition of life Nor can a Master of a familie which is of a more ingenuous or generous profession put his servants or apprentices which are of the same profession upon such services as a Master of some inferiour trade or profession may put his servants to A Merchant may not imploy an apprentice to that profession in such workes and services as are proper to and well befitting a Tinker or Cobler or some other inferiour crafts-man or day labourer Howbeit every Master of an apprentice or hired servant hath a right or power not only of Iurisdiction or of government but of propertie though not over his servants bodie or person yet over his bodily labours or imployments Apprentices or servants which are as free born and of parentage as good perhaps better then their Masters have no power to dispose of their own Labours or imployments but must herein follow their Masters directions and appointment and in case they alienate their industrie from their Masters service though to their owne profit without his leave they are subject to his power or Jurisdiction he may authoritatively admonish chastise or otherwise require satisfaction for wronging him by mis-expense of time or in that power or interest which he hath by Covenant in their labours or imployments Yet may not any master of a familie punish a servant as he pleaseth or as his passion shall suggest but so far only as the Law shall permit For every master of a private familie is under the power or Dominion of the publick Magistrate and subject if he be a Christian to Ecclesiastick Censure in case he transgresse the manner or measure of the punishment which the Law of God or of man doth permit him to excercise only within his familie Nor may any Master exact those services or bodily imployments of his servants or apprentices at all times or upon all dayes which at sometimes or upon most dayes he may If a servant should refuse to labour in his ordinary vocation upon the Lords day though commanded so to do by his Master the Master hath no lawfull power of Iurisdiction over him no power to chastise him for such refusall because the Masters right or power to dispose either of his own or of his servants imployments for that day is inhibited by the Law of God and of his Church which hath Dominion of Iurisdiction in those Cases over Masters 4. The issue of these Generalities concerning Lordship or dominion is this Though there be many which are called Lords and Masters and many there be which really and indeed are such yet is there in truth but One Absolute Lord whether we speak of the Lordship or Dominion of proprietie or of Iurisdiction and that is God For by right or title of Creation he hath more absolute power over all his creatures then any creature then absolute Kings and Monarchs as we call them then any chief Lord hath over his Lands or Goods over any thing which they can call theirs whether by gift purchase or inheritance For whatsoever by these or any other means is theirs as money goods or any other bodily substance they did not make any parcel or matter of the substance of it but only acquired a right or title to it being made As they cannot create or make any thing out of nothing so can they not utterly destroy or annihilate any thing created or made The height of all created Power is only to amend or marre the fashion of things and this is but permitted yea even the permission it self presupposed this power is still subordinate in the exercise of it to an higher power But God doth found his right of Dominion over all things or his power to dispose of them and of their appurtenances in their very radical Being This is his sole Gift Nor is His power or dominion only more Soveraign or intensively greater over the most noble bodily substance that is then any creature can have over the least thing that is but it extends also unto those substances which are not subject to man or any creatures dominion He hath a more Soveraign Title of dominion
to the Jews which had answer'd him rightly that the Messias was to be the Son of David is unanswerable and most satisfactorie If the expected Messias were not to be the Son of God and truly God the supreme Lord as well of the dead as of the living why did David in spirit call him Lord before he was the Son of David It is a point to be observed that the Iews in our Saviours time did not or could not deny that this Psalm was literally meant of their expected Messias albeit the later Iews seek to wrest it but most ridiculously some to Ezekiah some to Abraham But that the word Adonai is of no lesse value or importance then Iehovah but only imports Iehovah or God incarnate or the Messias his Exaltation to be Lord or King may be evinced against the Iew for that the same sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving which One Psalmist solemnly offers unto Iehovah Another Psalmist or perhaps the same doth alike solemnly offer up to Adonai or to the expected Messias in another Psalm As Psal 57. which is a Prophetical Song of David and containes the Exaltation of his God and Lord Exalt thy self O God above the heaven and let thy glory be upon all the earth ver 5 11. This Prophecie was then punctually fulfilled and Davids prayer or request signed by the mouth of God when our Saviour after his Resurrection said All power is given to me in heaven and in earth go therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holie Ghost Mat. 28. 18. Unto this Iehovah or God whose Exaltation he foresaw and heartily prayed for and unto whom he had directed his prayers ver 1. He offers the Sacrifice of praise ver 9. under the title of Adonai I will praise or confesse thee among the people O Lord I will sing unto thee among the Nations The verie self-same sacrifice David offers unto the same God under the title of Iehovah Psal 108. 1 2 3 4 5. O God mine heart is prepared so is my tongue I will sing and give praise Awake Viol and Harp I will awake early I will praise thee O Lord among the people I will sing unto thee among the Nations For thy mercie is great above the heavens and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds Exalt thy self O God above the heavens and let thy glorie be upon all the earth which last words were twice repeated in the 57. Psam 2. These Fundamental Points of Faith are clear from this collation of Scripture First That Adonai or Lord was the known Title of the Messias whom the Jews expected in our Saviours time and this was the reason that the Pharisces had not a word to answer or rejoyn unto our Saviour when he avouched that the Messias was to be The Son of God because David in Spirit called him Adonai Lord Matth. 22. 45. The second That he that was Adonai or the Messias was likewise Jehovah truly God because David did not in spirit onely call him Lord but did in spirit worship him as his Lord and God with the best sacrifice that he could devise as appears from Psalm 57. 8. A great part of the Book of Psalms even all those passages if my observation fail me not without exception which mention the extraordinary manifestation of Gods glory or his exaltation as King run the same way and as it were pay Tribute unto the infinite Ocean of Gods mercy first manifested in our Saviours Exaltation to the right hand of God The more remarkable Passages are these Psal 97. ver 1. Jehovah reigneth let the earth rejoice let the multitude of the Isles be glad Whilest Jehovah was onely known in Jurie the multitude of the Isles or Nations had no special reason to be glad for Iudah was then his Sanctuary and Israel his dominion but after God had given our Saviour Christ the utmost parts of the earth for his possession that is after our Saviours Ascension into Heaven and the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples enabling them to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom unto all Nations the multitude of the Isles the whole Earth had reason to rejoyce Then was that fulfilled which followeth in that Psal ver 6. The Heavens declare his righteousness and all the people saw his Glory That this Psalm is literally meant of Christs Exaltation to be Lord of Lords and of his Inauguration to his everlasting Kingdom The Apostle St. Paul Heb. 1. 6. puts out of question amongst all Christians when he bringeth in his first begotten Son into the world he saith Let all the Angels of God worship him so the Psalmist had said in this 97. Psal ver 7. Confounded be all they that serve graven Images worship Him all ye Gods or as the Septuagint upon which our Apostle often Paraphrased Worship him all ye Angels of God The matter or subject of this Psalm is almost the same with Psal 2. Both of them contain Prophesies concerning the Declaration of Christ to be the Son of God And from this harmonie between this 97. and the second Psalm and from the common Prenotion or Rule of interpreting Scriptures known to the Learned or unpartially observant in those days the Apostle adds that Preface unto his Testimonie when he bringeth in his onely begotten Son into the World He supposeth that the Learned among his Countrie-men should or might have known that both these Prophecies were to be punctually fulfilled upon the Exaltation of the Messias or of those times wherein God should be manifested in the Flesh 3. Yet some conjecture that our Apostle Heb. 1. 6. hath reference rather to Deut. 32. ver 43. in the Greek Translation then unto the 97 Psalm in the Hebrew The words indeed in the Greek or Septuagint are the very same though in the Hebrew not the same by any Equivalencie of the literal sense At nec sic quidem malè There is a varietie of sense yet no discord but rather a full and perfect Consort between the Literal and Grammatical sense of the Hebrew and the mystical and real sense which the Greek or Septuagint in both places expresseth First The 97 Psalm as many others are is a Poetical descant upon Moses his divine Prophetical Song Deut. 32. And the 70 Interpreters whether out of some Prenotion or out of the admirable Concord between that song of Moses and the 97 Psalm or out of a divine Instinct wherewith as St. Augustine is of opinion they were impelled sometimes to intersert a more express meaning of the Holie Ghost then an ordinary Commentator could out of the Hebrew have observed whether this way or that way moved they have given the same Paraphrase upon Deut. 32. ver 43. which our Apostle hath made upon Psal 97. ver 7. which is no other then the Septuagint had made before but literally more consonant to the Hebrew then their Paraphrase upon Deut. 32. is But
Or did he give us as the Church of Rome saith Evangelical Counsels as Additionals unto the Law In no wise Christ taught no other things then his Apostles after his resurrection did preach and his Apostles taught no other things then Moses and the Prophets had taught Acts 26. 22. But these they taught after another maner then the Scribes and Pharisees did then the ordinary Expositors of the Law and the Prophesies had done So that Gods will concerning man was more fully declared by Christ then it was by Moses or by the Prophets the very true meaning of Moses himself and of the Prophets was more fully revealed and clearly manifested unto mankinde in Christ then it was to Moses himself or to the Prophets Unto me saith our Apostle Ephes 3. 8 9 10. who am less then the least of all Saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mysterie which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ To the intent that now unto the Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God And by this more full declaration of Gods Will in Christ we Christians are tyed unto more strict observance of His Will known then men were tyed unto before Christ was declared to be the Lord Admitting the Services to be the very same yet the same services are now due under a double Title They are due to God the Father by right of Creation and due to Christ as he is Lord For God the Father is to be honored not onely in himself but in Christ 6. God when he gave the moral Law to Israel useth this Preface I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt This was his peculiar right or Title unto Israel and the Precept grounded upon this Title follows Thou shalt have no other Gods but me But you may remember how it was foretold by the Prophet Jeremie Jer. 23. 7 8. That it should no more be said the Lord liveth which brought the children of Israel out of Egypt But the Lord liveth which brought up the seed of the house of Israel out of the North Land Or according to the prime Grammatical sense of the word principally intended by the Holie Ghost out of the Land of darkness and This was fulfilled onely in Christ So that He who was the Lord of Israel by right of redemption from Egyptian bondage is now become the Lord of every Language of every Nation and Kindred by a more peculiar Title by right of redemption from the Powers of darkness and from Hell it self Hence saith our Apostle 1. Cor. 8. 5 6. Though there be that are called Gods whether in heaven or in earth as there are Gods many and Lords many But to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him As the Israelites are forbid to have any other God besides the Lord which brought them out of the Land of Egypt so are we Christians forbid to have any Lords or Masters besides Christ So saith our Saviour Matth. 23. 8 9 10. Be not ye called Rabbi for one is your Master even Christ call no man your father upon the Earth for one is your Father which is in heaven And he repeats the former Caveat Neither be ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ He that forbids them to be called Masters over others doth likewise forbid them to be servants to other Masters besides himself And this Duty is more fully exprest by our Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 23. Ye are bought with a price be not ye the servants of men He no way forbids bodily service but rather injoyns such as were servants properly so called that is slaves or bond-men to continue in their calling ver 20 21. as knowing bodily servitude not to be incompatible with Christian liberty no not with the Liberty of the Sons of God He that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lords free-man likewise he that is called being a Free-man is Christs servant What service of men then doth Christ or his Apostles forbid The vassalage of our reason or understanding or the submission of our consciences to the pleasures or services of men or of the corrupt times wherein we live Thus to alienate our service from Christ to any mortal men is whether you list to call it a branch of Sacriledge or Idolatry if not more gross yet certainly more deadly in all such as confess Christ to be their Lord then the worshipping of stocks and stones was either in the Heathen or in the Israelites themselves before Christ was declared to be the Son of God and solemnly proclaimed to be the Lord. To give you another Instance how Gods Will is more exactly done by Real Confession of Christ to be THE LORD 7. This is the will of God saith the Apostle 1 Thess 4. 3. Even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor not in the lust of concupiscence even as the Gentiles which know not God To this duty the Israelites were as truly tyed as we Christians are It was as the Apostle intimates a necessary branch or fruit of the true knowledge of God a service due unto him as he was the Creator But unto this same duty the Israelites were not bound by so many ties as we Christians are It is required of us by a strict peculiar Title not onely by our knowledge of God as our Creator nor by our acknowledgement of Christ to be the Lord as this Title of Lord hath relation onely unto servants he may and doth exact this duty at our hands not onely by right of Redemption or by paying the ransom for our sins upon the Cross but by right of Espousals or by Title of Lord as he is the Head and Husband of his Spouse the Church No motive can be so forcible to deter men from transgressing this negative Commandment or for incouraging them to do Gods Will in the affirmative part of the former Commandment as that of our Apostle 1 Cor. 6. 13. 14 15. Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot God forbid And again ver 20. Ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods 8. It was well observed long ago by Occolampadius that
children were taught amiss to know the nature of God or of his Enemy by vulgar Pictures or Representations For so the fashion was long before and continued till his time to picture God or the blessed Trinity in some fair and beautiful form and to paint the divel in some foul loathsom or ugly shape And this good Writer to correct their error well admonished as well the parents as their children That if they would learn to know what God was they must first be taught to know what Goodness is what Justice is what Mercy is what Bounty or loving kindness is And if they desire to know what maner of creature the divel is who is the chief enemy of God they should first be taught to know what malice is what filthiness is what loathsomness is what villany or treachery is For Satan is but a Compost of these or an extract of all that children or their parents acknowledge for evil Howbeit if either children or parents could be taught to know what Iustice is what Mercy is what loving kindness is or if they could be taught to know that God is what all these are even Iustice it self even mercy it self loving kindness it self wisdom it self or Wisdom Justice Mercy and loving kindness it self truly infinite yet his wisdom his mercy and loving kindness would be to us incomprehensible unapprehensible even in that these Attributes in him are infinite We could have no true or lively apprehension either speculative to inform our understandings what were good and ought to be followed or moral to enable and qualifie our hearts and affections to imitate or express that patern of goodness or so much of it as we apprehend in God if we should look upon these Attributes as they are in God the Father only or in the Divine nature But as he that cannot look upon the Sun in its strength or brightness or at the noon day may take the model of it in the water or in the Moon at full So we that cannot behold the glory of Divine Majesty in the Godhead may safely behold the Map or Model of his incomprehensible Goodness in the Man Christ Iesus All His actions and endeavors were with such wisdom set and bent upon mercy on goodness on loving kindness that every one which saw and duly considered his maner and course of life here on Earth might collect that he truly was as himself avouched more then the Son of man the very Son of God himself who is good and gracious to all For Christ as Man went about doing good to all doing hurt to none Now as the Son of Syrach saith Ecclus. 22. 3. That an evil son is the dishonor of his father So it will follow by the Rule of Contraries That a wise or good son is the honor of his father So Solomon hath said in express terms Prov. 10. 1. A wise son maketh a glad father but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother Now Christ as we know is called The Wisdom of the onely wise immortal God his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased And well pleased with him he is for that he is the honor of his Father And as Christ by confessing God and by real expression of his Goodness in his life and actions did truly glorifie his Father as he himself expresly avoucheth John 17. So all that really confess Christ to be the Lord that is all which throughly express the Map or Model of his Goodness in their lives and conversations do truly glorifie God the Father 9. Briefly then Every tongue truly and rightly confesseth Christ to be the Lord that observes his Commandments or that observes the Commandments of God more strictly and more religiously then others do who although they profess they honor God yet do not honor him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ or do not honor Jesus Christ as his only Son This is that special Will of the Father which is in heaven and that which must be done by all which mean to enter into Heaven that every one which honoreth the Father should also honor the Son Joh. 5. 23. Honor the Son they must not in words or title only but by performance of real Service Every one that thus honoreth the Son doth hereby glorifie God the Father Hence saith our Savior Matth. 5. 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven And again Ioh. 15. 1. Our Savior compares himself to the Vine and his Father unto a Husbandman which expects the fruit of his vineyard So that the end why the Son of God did descend from heaven why he was planted and took root here on earth was that the sons of Adam or Abraham might be ingrafted in him and the End of our ingrafting in him was that we might bring forth fruit unto his Father But What comfort is it to have Christ Our Lord if by Allegeance to him we be more strictly bound to do the will of God then those which do not acknowledge Him their Lord I Answer 1. It is a credit by consent of Nations and repute of men naturally wise if not A Real Comfort to have him Our Lord who governs his people by the most excellent and equitable Laws Such were those which the Son of God gave the Jews What are these now refined in the Gospel All men naturally desire happiness As by those Laws God directed the Jews so by these he disciplines Us for our Good seeking occasion or Title in our obedience to exercise his bounty by rewarding us for doing good to our selves and others at his command He that sins against the laws of Christ doth it in Sui damnum sins against his own soul and by straying from them goes out of that way which only can lead him to the happiness he desireth 2. It is comfort that our Lord rules not with rigor but masters his Dominion with Equity Novit figmentum nostrum having Himself been compassed with the infirmities of mans nature all but such as did proceed from sin or lead unto sin he can by acquaintance and experience of them tell both how willing the spirit and how weak the flesh of miserable Mortals be and ready is he to give allowance accordingly But Thirdly Here is comfort indeed That as JESUS CHRIST the Righteous is our Lord so He is The Lord our Righteousness so is He our Sollicitor our Advocate our most compassionate High-Priest who ex officio negotiates on our behalf by mediation and intercession with the Father for pardon of all our transgressions negligences ignorances both of all sins committed and duties omitted or performed untowardly and amiss He made One Propitiation by his death and he lives for ever to make intercession for us Yea so gracious is This our Lord that he seems in a manner during this Acceptable Day or time of Grace to lay aside The Title
observe did report of Them to the Asiaticks who slandered and persecuted them Take notice saith he of the late and daily Earthquakes compare our estate with theirs They he means Christians have more confidence to God-ward then you have 15. This was The solid Truth whose liveless Lineaments or obscure Picture nature had drawn unto the Heathen in the former indefinite Notions or Suggestions The best fruits of a good conscience the principal end why we are to study and labor for the preservation of our Consciences void of offence towards God and man throughout the whole course of our life is that we may be enabled in that last day to stand without horror or confusion before the Son of Man As peace of conscience breedeth confidence so the onely Fountain whence this peace of conscience can issue must be our reconciliation to that supreme Judge whose doom or Censure the Consciences of meer natural men implicitly or by instinct of Nature dread albeit they cannot apprehend the express manner of the Judgement to come or who it is that shall be Judge Both these and all like points which are necessary unto true Christian Faith must be learned out of the Book of Life Thus much of the First General viz. Heathen Notions of a Judgement to come c. we proceed to the second according to the method proposed in the 9 th Chapter CHAP. XI By what authority of Scripture the Exercise of this Final Judgement is appropriated unto our Lord Jesus Christ 1. THat there was to be a Judgement general to all but most terrible to the wicked and ungodly was a Truth revealed before any part of the sacred Books now extant were written But if it be a Revelation more ancient then the written Canon what warrant can we have to believe it besides Tradition Is then Tradition a sufficient warrant for us to believe unwritten verities or Revelations made to Gods Saints for many thousand years ago It is not unless the Tradition be expresly avouched by some Canonical Writer But then it or rather the Vouchers authority concerning the truth of the Tradition is to be believed So that our Belief in this Point must be resolved into a written verity or a parcel of Canonical Scripture The Revelation concerning the final Judgement whereof we now speak was made to Enoch before the Flood The Avoucher of this Revelation is St. Jude ver 14 15. And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied of these saying Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints To execute Judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Besides the authority of St. Jude which makes this Tradition to be no more a meer Tradition but Canonical Scripture we have other more special Grounds to believe that Enoch did thus Prophesie then we have to believe any other pretended Revelations which are not contained in Scripture The truth and certainty of this Judgment denounced by Enoch was so publickly and notoriously known that the Hebrew Church before our Saviours incarnation did begin the Writ or Instrument of their Great and terrible Excommunication with the first words of Enochs Prophesie Dominus veniet the Lord shall come As if they meant to bind the party whom they excommunicated besides all other punishments or infamies over to this Grand Assize But is there in this Prophecie any particular character of Christ Any pregnant intimation that this Great Judge of the world should be the Second Person in the Trinity rather then The First In the words themselves there is no peculiar Character of Christ save only in The Title LORD which as we said before is peculiar to Christ whether it be in the Original exprest by the word Jehovah or Adonai whensoever Judgment or visible exercise of Jurisdiction Regal is the subject or matter of the prophetical discourse as in this Prophecy of Enoch it is Besides this Character in the words of the prophecie the Prophet himself Enoch was a lively Type of Christ the great Prophet in the very ground of his Title to Lordship and Jurisdiction Enoch was translated that he should not see death but before his translation had this testimony that he Pleased God Hebr. 11. 5. Before his Translation he denounced this Wo or Curse against all that continue in ungodliness fore warning the world withal that the Lord himself whose Embassador he was should come to put his Embassage in execution The congruity of the Fact or Type with the Body fore-shadowed implies that this Propheeie was then to be fulfilled after the Prince of Prophets had been translated as Enoch was from earth but in a higher degree then Enoch was into heaven it self And albeit before his translation he had a more ample Testimony then Enoch had this is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased yet was he not made Lord and King and Judge till after his Resurrection and Translation From that time the Angels and Principalities and Powers even all the Hoast of Heaven intimated by Enoch became by that Title subject unto him That Christ is that very Lord against whom those ungodly men whom Enoch mentions did speak such bitter words our Apostle St. Paul though obscurely yet fully implies in the conclusion of his first Epistle to the Corinthians chapt 16. 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus let him be Anathema 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Let him be accursed or excommunicated with that Great and terrible Excommunication 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Lord shall come for so they call their Excommunication as we do Writs by the first words of the Writ or Instrument and these were the first words of Enochs Prophecie Veniet Dominus The Lord shall come The full meaning or implication of the Apostle is That whosoever doth not love the Lord Jesus shall be liable to all the Iudgments or Woes denounced by Enoch against the hard speeches of ungodly Sinners which they have spoken against their Lord and Iudge 2. That God is Judge of all the Earth that there shall be a final Judgment generally awarded to all the Inhabitants of the Earth by God himself the places of the old Testament are infinite I shall only touch the principal or more pregnant testimonies to this purpose To begin with the First Gen. 18. 22. When the men turned their faces from thence and went towards Sodom Abraham stood yet before The Lord and drawing neer he said wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked ver 23. And again ver 25. To slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be far from thee Shall not The Judge of all the Earth do right Thus he spake in the case of Sodom whose Judgment this Lord and Judge of all the earth was then
ready to put in execution Now this Judgment of Sodom was but as a Private or Particular Sessions to give the world an undoubted pledge of that General and Terrible Judgment which must be given upon all such as they were by the same Lord 's visible appearance before whom Abraham did now appear as Advocate or Intercessor for these men of Sodom So St. Iude instructs us Ver. 6 7. And the Angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the Judgment of the great day Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire There were Three in number which then appeared unto Abraham under the shape and likeness of men yet to his apprehension more then Men Angels of the Lord or the Lord Himself in a Trinity of Angels representing the Blessed Trinity in which as Athanasius tels us there are not three Lords but one Lord Yet though there be but one Lord Iehovah and though the Father Son and Holy Ghost be This One Lord yet as we said Chap. 6. 7. The Son of God is Adonai or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord or Judge by peculiar Title and by such personal Right as God the Father and God the Holy Ghost is not Lord and Judge And for this reason albeit there were Three that appeared to Abraham yet Abraham directs his speech unto One as unto his Lord this Lord did vouchsafe his answer unto Abraham after the men which appeared unto him turned their faces thence and went towards Sodom Other Testimonies to this purpose are most frequent in the book of Psalms Psal 50. 1 2 3. The mighty God even the Lord hath spoken and called the Earth from the rising of the Sun unto the going down of the same Out of Sion the perfection of beauty God hath shined Our God shall come and shall not keep silence a fire shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round about him And ver 6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness for God is Judge himself Psal 93. 1 2. The Lord reigneth he is clothed with Majesty the Lord is cloathed with strength wherewith he hath girded himself The world also is established that it cannot be moved Thy Throne is established of old thou art from everlasting Every Throne or Tribunal is established for execution of Judgment But this Throne though established of old or from Eternity yet was not the Judgment for which this Throne was established executed from eternity or so executed at any time before the Date of this Psalm as the Psalmist expected in due time or at the end of time it would be And the Author of the next Psalm whether the same or some other conceives a solemn prayer for the speedy execution of that Judgment which was to proceed from the former Throne which had been established from everlasting and to be executed by that God to whose honor the former Psalm was consecrated O Lord God saith the Psalmist Psal 94. 1 2 3 4. to whom vengeance belongeth O God to whom vengeance belongeth shew thy self lift up thy self thou Judge of the Earth render a reward to the proud Lord how long shall the wicked how long shall the wicked triumph how long shall they utter and speak hard things and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves To omit other testimonies to the like purpose This one Observation is general to all As the Messias who was first promised and but Promised only to Adam was afterwards Promised by Oath to Abraham and to David and by them to all mankind So this future general Judgement which was first revealed for ought we read to Enoch afterwards known to Abraham and to David and to the Psalmists were they one or more was afterwards confirmed by the Oath of God himself unto the Prophet Esay Cap. 45. ver 22 23. Look unto me and be ye saved all ye ends of the earth for I am God and there is none else I have sworn by my self the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that unto me every knee shall bow every tongue shall swear 3. All these Testimonies are Concludent that God is Judge of all the earth and that there shall be A final Judgment executed by God himself But the Point wherein the Reader as I suppose expects satisfaction is From what authentick Testimony of Scripture it is or may be made as clear and evident that This final Iudgment shall be personally executed by the Son of God or by the Man Christ Jesus As much as to this purpose can be required is avouched by our Apostle St. Paul Rom. 14. 11. It is written as I live saith the Lord Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God The written Testimony which he avoucheth is That before last cited Esay 45. 23. And from this Testimony he infers these Two Conclusions the Former ver 10. which is the same with 2 Cor. 5. 10. We shall all stand before the Iudgment seat of Christ The Later ver 12. So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God The Issue or Corollary of both Conclusions is That Iesus Christ is that Lord and God which had interposed his Oath unto the Prophet Esay that every knee should bow unto him This Issue of both Conclusions Rom. 14. is more fully exprest Phil. 2. 9 10 11. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a Name which is above every name that at the name of JESUS every knee should bow of things in heaven and things on the earth and things under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Iesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father But for more full satisfaction some here may justly Demand Whether St. Paul did make this interpretation of the Prophet Esay by some new Revelation of the Spirit made in particular to him unknown to most others before that time Or whether the interpretation of the Prophet Esay and of other like prophecies which he made were literally and really included in the prophecies themselves and ratified by the General Analogie of Faith or by the Common Rule of interpretation in those times sufficiently known to the learned whose eyes were not blinded with passion nor prejudiced with partiality to their own Sects or Factions To this we Answer that St. Paul's Interpretation of the Prophet was really included in the literal sense of the Prophecie and the literal sense or construction which he made of the fore-cited passage in the Prophet Esay and other Prophets was warrantable by the Common Rule of Interpretation sufficiently known in those times The Rule is General That all those places of the old Testament which
by the Right hand of God only the Power of God be literally meant as many other Protestant Writers take as granted or leave unquestioned then Christ cannot be said to come from the Right hand of God for it is impossible that Christ should come or that there should be any true motion from that which is every where Neither can it be said nor may it so much as be imagined that Christ should depart from the Power of God which wheresoever he be as man doth accompany and guard him But if by the Right hand of God at which Christ sitteth be literally meant A visible and glorious Throne then Christ may be said as truly and locally to come from thence as from heaven to Iudge the Quick and the dead At least His Throne may remove with him Now that by the Right hand of God at which Christ sitteth A Visible or local Throne is meant I will at this time add only one Testimony unto the rest heretofore avouched in the handling of that Article which is more literally concludent then all the rest and it is Heb. 12. 2. He endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Not at the right hand of his own Throne but at the right hand of the Throne of God the Father 2. For perfecting this Map or Survey of Christs coming to Judgment already begun would it not be as pertinent to know The Place unto which he shall come as the Place whence he comes By the Rules of Art or method this last Question would be more pertinent then the former But seeing the Scriptures are not in this Point so express and punctual as in the former we may not so peremptorily determine it or so curiously search into it This is certain That Christ after his descending from heaven shall have his Throne or Seat of Judgment placed between the heaven and the earth in the air over-shadowed with clouds But over what part of the earth his throne shall be thus placed is uncertain or conjectural at the most but probable Many notwithstanding as well Antient as Modern are of Opinion That the Throne or Seat of Iudgment shall be placed over the Mount of Olives from which Christ did ascend and This for ought we have to say against it may be A Third Branch of the fore-mentioned similitude betwixt the manner of Christs ascending up into heaven and of his Coming to Judgment that is As he was received in a cloud into heaven over Mount Olivet so he shall descend in the clouds of heaven to Judge the world in the same place But the Testimony of Scripture which gives the best Ground of probability and a Tincture at least of moral certainty to the former opinion or conjecture is that of Zach. cap. 14. ver 3 4. Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those Nations to wit all those Nations which have been gathered in battel against Ierusalem and these in the verse precedent were all Nations as when he fought in the day of battel And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem on the East and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the East and toward the West and there shall be a very great Valley and half of the Mountain shall remove toward the North and half of it toward the South c. This place albeit perhaps in part it were verified in the destruction of Ierusalem yet may it be also literally meant of the Last General Judgment in which the rest of the prophecie following shall punctually and exactly be fulfilled 3. But to leave these Circumstances of Place from which and unto which Christ shall come and utterly to omit the Circumstance of Time which is more uncertain The most useful branch of the Third General Point proposed is to know or apprehend the Terrible manner of his Coming Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord saith our Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 11. we perswade men His Speech is very Emphatical and Significant an Aphorism of Life unto whose Truth every experienced Physician of the soul will easily subscribe For but a few men there be especially in these later times and these must be more then Men in some good measure Christian Men whom we can hope to perswade unto Godliness by the Love of God in Christ our Lord Albeit we should spend our brains in drawing the picture or proportion of the Love exhibited in Christ or give lustre or colour to the proportion drawn by the Evangelists with our own blood But by the Terror of the Lord or by decyphering of that last and dreadful day we shall perhaps perswade some men to become Christians as well in heart as in profession by taking Christ's Death and their own Lives into serious consideration Now of Terror or dread there be Two Corporeal Senses more apprehensive then the rest which are apt rather to suffer or feel then to Dread the evils which befal them The Two In-lets by which Dread or terror enters into the soul of man are the Eye and the Ear. All the Terrors of that last day may be reduced to these Two Heads To the strange and unusual Sights which shall then be seen and unto the strange and unusual Sounds or Voices which shall then be heard If we would search the Sacred Records from the Fall of our first Parents until our restauration was accomplished by Christ or until the Sacred Canon was compleat The notifications or apprehensions of Gods extraordinary presence whether they were made by voice or spectacle unusual have been fearful and terrible to flesh and blood though much better acquainted with Gods Presence then we are When our first Parents heard but the Voice of the Lord God walk in the garden in the cool of the day they hid themselves from his presence amongst the trees of the Garden Gen. 3. 8 10. When Gideon Judg. 6. 22. perceived that he which had spoken unto him albeit he had spoken nothing but words of comfort and encouragement was the Angel of the Lord Gideon said Alas O Lord God because I have seen an Angel of the Lord face to face The issue of his fear was Death which happily he conceived from Gods word to Moses Exod. 33. 20. Thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see me and live But to assure Gideon that he was not compriz'd under that universal sentence of Death denounced by God himself to all that shall see him face to face the Lord saith unto him ver 23 24. Peace be unto thee fear not thou shalt not die and Gideon for further ratification of this Priviledge or dispensation built an altar unto the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom that is the Lord send peace or the Lord will be a Lord of peace unto his servants Yet could not this assurance made by the Lord himself unto
Gideon exempt his Successors from the like or greater fear upon notice of Gods extraordinary presence For so Manoah Samsons father after long Conference with the Lord after he knew that it was an Angel of the Lord which had brought the Message to him of Samsons birth said unto his Wife Judg. 13. 22. We shall surely die because we have seen God But his Wife said unto him if the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things neither would he at this time have told us such things as these ver 23. So then Gods extraordinary presence is terrible even to his servants to flesh and blood without exception though in the issue it will prove comfortable to such as truly fear him and faithfully rely upon his promises St. Peter long after this time was a man less conscious of many grievous sins then most of us alive this day are yet not upon any sight or spectacle of Gods Extraordinary Presence but only upon an instinct or secret apprehension of his Peculiar Presence in Christ as man notified unto him by the miraculous draught of fishes which he took by his direction and command cries out Lord depart from me for I am a sinful man Luke 5. 8. And St. Paul before his conversion fell to the earth upon a suddain glimpse or representation of that glorious light wherein Christ shall appear at the last day Acts 9. 3 4. And after he had heard A Voyce saying unto him though in no extraordinary manner for terror Saul Saul why persecutest thou me He trembling and astonished at the name of Jesus said Lord what wilt thou have me to do ver 6. No marvel if St. Paul being conscious of persecution intended by him against Christs Church and having by Fact and Resolution declared himself to be Christs Enemy were thus affrighted at the Sight and Voice when as St. Peter St. James and St. John after long and peculiar familiarity with Christ and after many gracious promises made unto them of Gods special protection over them were thrown down to the earth with a more placid and comfortable Voice then that which St. Paul heard The Voice which they heard out of the cloud was this This is my well beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him And when they heard it saith the text Matth. 17. 6. they fell on their faces and were sore afraid until Christ came and touched them and said arise and be not afraid This strange dejection of these three great Apostles at so mild and gentle a Voice yet a Voice uttered from the extraordinary presence of God gives us a Remarkable Document or grounded Observation of the truth of that saying of St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 50. Now this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither doth corruption inherit incorruption Christ had told these Three Matth. 16. 28. that they should see not God but the Son of man coming in his Kingdom Peter had a desire to have inherited that joy wherewith his heart was ravished at the sight of our Saviours Transfiguration which as you heard before was but a representation of his coming in glory to Judge the world and out of this desire he said Lord it is good for us to be here if thou wilt let us make here three Tabernacles one for Thee one for Moses and one for Elias Yet as soon as he heard the Voice the Antipathie between sinful flesh and the fruition of Gods presence or the inheritance of that Kingdom of Christ which was then represented begun to shew it self And what shall We do then which are conscious of more grievous sins then St. Peter S. Iames or S. John then were unto whom both the Spectacle of Christs glorious presence and the Voice or Sound which in that day shall be heard from heaven will be far more terrible then any manifestation of Gods presence whether made by Voice or Sight unto our First Parents unto Gideon unto Manoah or unto any of his Apostles recorded in Scripture 4. Let us now take a view of such representations or descriptions of the Terrible Spectacles which shall be seen and of the Terrible Voices or sounds which in that last day shall be heard as Gods Prophets or Evangelists have framed to us These representations are of Two Sorts either Charactred out unto us in meer Words or in Matters of Fact historically related To begin with the Terrible Spectacles which shall appear before the last day or at the least before the Process or Judgment begin These are most punctually exprest by the Prophet Joel Cap. 2. 30 31. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth blood and fire and pillars of smoak the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord come And Ioel 3. 15 16. The Sun and the Moon shall be darkned and the Stars shall withdraw their shining The Lord also shall roar out of Sion utter his voice out of Jerusalem the heavens the earth shall shake The Terrors here foretold were really represented by the first desolation of Iudah and destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians and Chaldeans whose approach to execute Gods Judgments upon that land and people was prophesied of by this Prophet in the beginning of this Second Chapter yet so foretold by him as the plagues there threatned might by Repentance have been prevented So could not the Terrors foretold in the Second Prophecie at least the Prophet expresseth no means for averting these fearful signs in the heavens and earth This later prophecie is in particular exemplified by our Saviour Matth. 24. 27 29 30. For as the lightning cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West So shall also the coming of the Son of man be Immediately after the tribulation of those dayes shall the Sun be darkned and the Moon shall not give her light and the Stars of heaven shall fall and the Powers of the heavens shall be shaken And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in Heaven and then shall all the Tribes of the Earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory Both the Prophecie of Joel and this prediction of our Savior were in part fulfilled shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus by the burning of the Mount Vesuvius in Campania a Province of Italy the manner and effects whereof how fearful and terrible they were not to Rome onely or Italy but to a great part of Africa to Egypt to Syria and to Constantinople with the Countries adjoyning and how consonant they were unto the Prophet Joels and our Saviors Prediction may be gathered from Dion in his 66. and 68. Books and from other Roman Heathenish
wrath malice blasphemie silthy communication out of your mouth Lie not one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds All of us have put off the old man by profession and Solemn Vow at our Baptism and a double Wo or Curse shall befal us unless we put him off in practise and resolution and labour to put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him The particular Limbs of this New man are set forth unto us by our Apostle verse 13 14. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And above all these things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectnesse The particular Duties required of men and women according to their several conditions or states of life as of Wives to Husbands and of Husbands to Wives as of Children to Parents and of Parents to Children of Servants to Masters and of Masters to Servants are set down by the same Apostle in the verses following unto the end of the Chapter Now we must be altogether as certain that we do truely sincerely and constantly perform these duties which are by our Apostle in this place required whether as General to all Christians or such as concern particular estates of life as we are of This general That whosoever doth truly mortifie the deeds of the body and perform the other duties here required shall be undoubted partaker of the Resurrection unto Glory before we can be certain certitudine fidei by certaintie of faith of our salvation or Resurrection unto glory in particular 12. Doth any amongst us upon the examination required before the receiving of the Sacrament find himself extreamly negligent or generally defective in performance of these duties Let not such a one take his negligence past as any sign or undoubted mark of reprobation yet would I withall advise him not to approach the Lords Table without a wedding garment without a sincere and hearty sorrow for his negligences past without a sincere hearty desire of doing better hereafter If consciousness of former negligence in these duties or of practises contrary unto them be seasoned with sorrow and hearty desire of amendment the point whereon I would advise such a man for the present to pitch his faith shall not be his own Election nor the Certaintie of his present and future estate in Grace or Real and infallible Interest in Christ his Resurrection But upon that Character or description of our Saviour given by the Evangelical Prophet Esay 42. 3. and experienced upon Record by the Evangelist St. Matthew Matth. 12. 20. That he quencheth not smoaking flax that he will not shake the bruised Reed Remember that as the Second Resurrection unto glorie must be wrought by vertue of Christs Resurrection from the dead so the first Resurrection from the dead works of sin unto newness of life must be wrought by the participation of his Body which was given and of his Blood which was shed for us Remember that by his death and passion he became not only the Ransom but the Soveraign Medicine for all our sins A Medicine for our sins of wilfulness and commission to make us more wary not to offend A Medicine for our sins of negligence and omission to make us more diligent in the works of pietie And the time and place appointed for the receiving of the body and blood of Christ is the time and place appointed by Him for our cure Heal us then O Lord and we shall be healed Thou O Lord who hast abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel Enliven and enlighten our hearts by thy Spirit and in them thus enlightned kindle a love of doing thy Will bring good intentions to good desires and good desires to firm resolutions and confirm our Resolutions with constancie and perseverance in thy service Amen ALmighty God which hast given thine only Son to die for our Sins and to rise again for our Justification mercifully grant that we both follow the example of his patience and be made partakers of his Resurrection through the same Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Almighty God give us Grace so to cast away the works of Darknesse and put on the Armour of light now in the Time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humilitie that at the last day when he shall come again in his Glorious Majestie to judge both the Quick and the Dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holie Ghost now and ever Amen The End of the fourth Section SECTION V. Of the Article of Everlasting life A Transition of the Publishers VVE are now by the Good hand of God upon the Work arrived at The fifth Section A very Considerable Part of this Eleventh Book The Subject matter of this Section according to what was cut out by the Method proposed in the oft mentioned Ninth Chapter is The Final Doom Award or Sentence of Life and Death which The King of Glorie our most worthy Judge Eternal shall respectively pronounce and pass upon all at that Dreadful and yet Ioyful Day of Iudgment when he shall deal and distribute Palms and Prizes Crowns and a Kingdom to the little or in Comparison the less Flock or Sheep set at his Right hand for whom such good things were prepared from the Foundation of the world But utter Extermination to the goats on the Left hand whom he will send accursed into Everlasting Prisons there to be tormented in that fire which was first prepared not for them but for their Tempter and tormentors the Divel and his Angels I confess our Great Author closes not with the Point of Everlasting life till he come to the Twentieth Chapter But I thought my self bound here to insert the Three next Chapters viz. the 17 18 and 19 for these reasons following 1. Because they be Three and the First Three of Thirteen Excellent and most Elaborate Tracts all in order composed upon The sixth Chapter to the Romans and pity it was to sever them from the Other with which they so well consort and sure 2. If I had left out These Three I should not onely have done prejudice to the Author and his work but to the Reader and his Content or benefit who will find that these Three Chapters are as comely and as useful Introductions to his Rich Discourses about the Domus Aeternitatis the two several long Homes of all mankind as any Propylaea or Areae can possibly be to any two Houses of this Worlds Building 3. The Doctrine delivered in these Three Next Chapters is so promotive and incentive of Christian Pietie and some of it so Homogeneal to the ensuing Tracts that they could not be more fitly placed then before the Discourses about the Final Award or Sentence 4.
presence is of the two the worse And certain it is that it cannot be less seeing that Everlasting Life which is The Gift of God and Crown of holiness is at the least so much better as the second death or pains of hell are worse then this mortal life But if I mistake not the Members of this Distinction concerning the punishment of losse and the punishment of sense by pain are not altogether Opposite but Co-incident The very conceit or remembrance of this infinite loss and of their folly in procuring it cannot but breed an insufferable measure of grief and sorrow unto the damned which will be fully equivalent to all their bodily pain And this fretting remembrance and perpetual reflection upon the folly of their former wayes is as I take it That Worm of Conscience that never dies But of this hereafter The miserable estate of the damned or such as shall suffer the second death may be reduced to these two Heads to Punishment Essential or to Punishment Accidental or concomitant The Essential Punishment comprehends both Poena damni and Poena sensus The positive pains of that brimstone Lake and the Worm of Conscience which gnaweth upon their souls The Punishment Accidental or concomitant is that Loathsomnesse of the Region or place wherein they are tormented and of their Companions in these torments In this life that Saying is generally true Solamen miseris Socios habuisse doloris it is alwayes some comfort to have Consorts in our pain or distress But this Saying is out of date in the Region of death the more there be that suffer these pains the less comfort there is to every one in particular For there is no concord or consort but perpetual discord which is alwayes so much greater by how much the parties discording are more in number And to live in continual discord though with but some few is a kind of Hell on earth And thus much in brief of the second death wherein it exceeds the First 10. If any one that shall read this should but suspect or fear that God had inevitably ordained him unto this death or created him to no better end then to the day of wrath This very cogitation could not but much abate his love towards God Whom no man can truly love unless he be first perswaded That God is good and loving not towards his Elect only but toward all men towards himself in particular But this opinion of Absolute Reprobation or ordination to the day of wrath I pray may never enter into any mans brains But flesh and blood though not polluted with this Opinion will if not repine and murmur yet perhaps demur a while upon another Point more questionable to wit How it may stand with the Justice of the most righteous Judge to recompence the pleasures of sin in this life which is but short with such exquisite and everlasting torments in the life to come Specially seeing the pleasures of sin are but transient neither enjoyed nor pursued but by interposed Fits whereas the torments of that Lake are uncessantly perpetual and admit no intermission The usual Answer to this Quaere is That every sin deserves a punishment infinite as being committed against an infinite Majestie But seeing this answer hath no Ground or warrant from the Rule of Faith in which neither the Maxim it self is expresly contained nor can it be deduced thence by any good Consequence we may examine it by the Rule of Reason Now by the Rule of Reason and proportion the punishment due to offences as committed against an infinite Majestie should not be punishment infinite for time and duration but infinite for qualitie or extremitie of pain whiles it continues If every minute of sinful pleasures in this world should be recompenced with a thousand years of Hell-pains this might seem rigorous and harsh to be conceived of him that is as infinite in Goodness as in Greatness as full of Mercie as of Majestie But whatsoever our thoughts or wayes be his wayes we know are equal and just most equal not in themselves only but even unto such as in sobrietie of spirit consider them But wherein doth the equalitie of his wayes or justice appear when he recompenceth the momentany pleasures of sin with such unspeakable everlasting torments It appears in this That he sentenceth no creatures unto such endlesse pains but only such as he had first ordained unto an endlesse life so much better at least then this bodily and mortal life as the second death is worse then it Adam had an immortal life as a pledge or earnest of an eternal life in possession and had not lost it either for himself or us if he had not wilfully declined unto the wayes of death of which the righteous Judge had fore-warned him Now when life and death are so set before us as that Hold is given us of life to recompence the wilful choice of death with death it self this is most equal and just And if the righteous Lord had sentenced our first Parents unto the second death immediately upon their first transgression his sentence had been but just and equal their destruction had been from themselves Yet as all this had been no more then just so it had been less then justice moderated or rather over-ruled by mercie Now instead of executing justice upon our first Parents the righteous Lord did immediately promise a gratious redemption and as one of the Antients said Foelix peccatum quod talem meruit Redemptorem it was a happy sin which gave occasion of the promise of such a Redeemer 11. But did this extraordinary mercy promised to Adam extend it self to all or to Adam only or to some few that should proceed from him Our publick Liturgie our Articles of Religion and other Acts of our Church extend it to Adam and to all that came after him But how the Nations whom God as yet hath not called unto the light of his Gospel or whose fore-elders he did not call unto the knowledge of his Laws given unto Israel how either Fathers or Children came to forsake the mercies wherein the whole humane nature in our first Parents was interested is A Secret known to God and not fit to be disputed in particular This we are sure of in the General That God did not forsake them till they had forsaken their own mercies But for our selves All of us have been by Baptism re-ordained unto a better estate then Adam lost Now if upon our first second third or fourth open breach or wilful contempt of our Vow in Baptism the Lord had sentenced us unto everlasting death or given Satan a Commission or warrant to pay us the wages of sin this had been but just and right his wayes in this had been equal because our wayes were so unequal But now he hath so long time spared us and given us so large a time of repentance seeking to win us unto his love by many blessings and
were changeable The life it self and the light of the world was in the Son of God John 13. And now dwelleth bodily in Christ who is God and man and when he shall appear the life which is in him shall be imprinted on us we shall be partakers of the life which is unchangeable And as is life he so is he light it self light unchangeable And when we shall see him as he is our knowledge shall from this vision be as He is without possibilitie of change without decay or diminution God saith the Apostle is Love and when we shall see him as he is we shall become like him in this Attribute also that is as his Love to us was everlasting without beginning so our love to him shall be uncessant unchangeable without ending And what expression of true happiness can be more full then to be everlastingly beloved of him who is Love it self and to love him everlastingly The fruition of all things which we desire or love cannot be so much as the the fruition of him who as he is all things else so is he love it self And as was said before although we have all things else which our hearts desire yet till we enjoy his presence we cannot have our hearts desire we cannot have the accomplishment of our love untill we enjoy his presence who is love it self But some will ask What shall we do that we may enjoy the comfort of his everlasting love and presence The Psalmist hath told us in few words Psal 37. 4. Delight thou in the Lord and he shall give thee thy hearts desire But how shall we delight in him whom we have not seen or how should we love him whom we know not We must take notice of our love to God who is invisible from the experience of our love unto our brethren whom we have seen we cannot assure our selves that we delight in him unlesse we delight in his Saints that are on earth This is the Importance of Saint Johns words He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hoth not seen 12. These are the usual Marks or Tokens whereby we are taught to know the truth of Our love towards God and of Our Allegeance to Christ But many there be who call themselves Brethren which have no other bond of brotherhood then Simeon and Levi had Many there be which boast in the Communion of Saints which have no other Union then such as Corah Dathan and Abiram had an Union in Conspiracie against Moses and Aaron against the visible Church and her Governors The Papists will tell you that the Communion of Saints is amongst them in their Church So will the Brownists and other Separatists So will such as live amongst us and yet complain of the burthen of Ceremonies in our Church And how shall men the unlearned specially know which of all these or whether any of these are the true Brethren of Christ or the Saints in which we are bound to delight This as will be replied you may know by their delight in hearing the word for he that loveth God loveth his word he that delights in God delighteth in his word Yea but many delight in the outward letter of the word only or in the word as it is interpreted by Teachers of their own Faction or after their own Fancie men either not able to discern the Evidence of truth or not willing to have it manifested unto them And how then shall any man know whether he love the Lord whether he delight in the Lord by delighting in any of their Societies which pretend themselves to be Christs Brethren to be Gods Saints Surely there is a better way then all these to delight aright in the Lord and to know that we delight in him and yet a way made known unto us by Gods Word A way A direct and plain way which we can not follow but by sincerely delighting in his Word The Word of God doth tell us and all sorts or Sects of men confess it that God is love that he is righteousnesse that he is holinesse that he is the God of all peace that he is good to all that he is merciful and long-suffering Now he that in these things doth imitate God he that is charitable and loving to all he that is merciful and beneficial to all so farre as his means will suffer him he that deals justly and truly with his neighbor he that doth delight in so doing he doth truly delight in the Lord and the Lord in his good time shall give him his hearts desire As there is a sinceritie of Conversation required towards men so likewise there is a Puritie of heart and Conscience towards God and he that delights in this or seeks after this doth delight in the Lord and he only shall truly know that he delights in the Lord or that his hope is stedfast For every one as Saint John saith that hath this hope to wit of seeing God as he is doth purifie his heart as he is pure And our Saviour saith as a blessing to the pure in heart that they shall see God They shall see him in this Life in his Word and in his works and in the life to come they shall see him as he is and be partakers of everlasting life which is the Crown of puritie and holiness CHAP. XXII ROMANS 6. 22 23. But now ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life The Gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Of the Accidental Joyes of the Life to come A particular Terrar or Map of the Kingdom prepared for the Blessed Ones in a Paraphrase upon the Eight Beatitudes or the Blessedness promised to the Eight Qualifications set down in St. Matthew Chapter 5. Eternal Life the strongest obligation to all Duties Satans Two usual wayes of Tempting us Either Per Blanda or per Aspera 1. BUt if in the next life we enjoy His Presence who is Life it self who is Love it self who is All in All at whose right hand is Fulness of pleasures for evermore What need is there of any Access of Accidental or Concomitant Joyes It is true There is no need of them for so they should not be Accidental Therefore are they called Accidental because such as enjoy Gods Presence might be fully happy without them So God himself is most happy in himself he is Happinesse it self Yet even in this that he is Goodnesse it self that he is Happinesse it self he communicates both Goodness and Happiness to his Creatures so far as they are capable of them not by any Necessitie but Freely And when it is said that when we shall see him as he is we shall be like him part of this likeness doth herein consist that we shall communicate this Goodness and happiness to others so far as they are capable of it So that the Accidental or Concomitant Joyes of the life to come whose Essence
experience of did acknowledge as much as hath been formerly delivered out of Gods word to wit That men are usually misdrawn to do those things in particular which in general they desired not to do and to leave those things undone which in the calm of composed affections they desired to do either by the hope of some bodily pleasures or by fear of some bodily pain And unto this two-fold inconvenience he prescribed this brief Receipt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That men in youth especially should accustome themselves to abstinence and sufferance to abstinence from evil and to sufferance of evil that is unto abstinence from unlawful pleasures which we call Malum culpae or Evil of Sin and to endure with patience malum poenae the evil of pain or of some loss rather then hazard The quiet of Conscience by doing that which is evil or unlawful or by not doing that which is good specially when we are thereto required But this brief receipt or diet of the Soul without some other addition will rather serve to condemn us Christians then enable us to live a true and Christian life The Receipt though is good in the General but defective in these Particulars First Unless he knew more of Gods Will or of the mysteries of Christian Religion then we know any means by which he could possibly know either being an Heathen he was ignorant of many evils from which he was bound to abstain and altogether as ignorant what those good things were for whose love he was to suffer malum poenae the evil of pain loss or grievance rather then disclaim them Secondly Albeit he had known what was to be done what to be left undone yet being ignorant of this main Article of Christianity to wit of A Life everlasting which is the reward of well-doing the Crown of Holiness and of an everlasting Death which is the wages of sin and issue of unlawful pleasures His Receipt of Sustine Abstine was altogether as fruitless and vain as if a Physician should prescribe a Dosis or Recipe to his Patient of such Simples or compounded Medicines as cannot be had in this part of the world but must be sought for at the East or West-Indies or at the Antipodes whence there is no hope they can be brought before the Patient be laid in his Grave The Medicine which he prescribes is no where to be found but in the Word of God The Simples whereof it is compounded can grow from no other root or branch then from The Articles of everlasting Life and everlasting death The Belief of the One is the root of Abstinence from sinful or unlawful Pleasures The Belief of the other is the root of Patience or sufferance of malum Poenae or of sufferance for well-doing Howbeit to speak exactly both parts of his Receipt may be had from the Belief either of Everlasting Life or Everlasting Death but most compleatly from the belief of both The manner how thence they may be gathered is expressed by our Apostle St. Paul Rom. 8. 16. c. The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God And if children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together for I reckon that the suffrings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us c. 2. If all the sufferings of this life be not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed in us as the Rule of Faith teacheth us then conscience and reason it self bindes us to suffer all the Persecutions or Grievances which can be laid upon us rather then hazard our hopes or forfeit our Interests in the Glory that shall be revealed in all such as with patience suffer persecution or other temporal loss or detriment for the truths sake And this hope of Glory is as the Root whence Christian patience or sufferance must grow So is the fear of everlasting Death the root of our abstinence from evil or of repentance for former want of this abstinence This is the same Apostles Doctrine 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men To what doth he perswade men To do those things which are good and which being done shall be rewarded not in Judgement but in mercy and loving kindness Those things by which we shall be reconciled unto God But were not these Corinthians reconciled to God before our Apostle thus perswaded them Yes so saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 18. God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ And when our Apostle and those to whom he wrote were reconciled unto God through Jesus Christ we that are now living were by the same means reconciled unto God For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself Now if the world that is not this or that man not this or that generation of men but all generations the world of mankind were reconciled unto God when our Apostle wrote this Epistle yea when Christ offered himself upon the Crosse what need is there of any further reconciliation For that which God doth he doth most perfectly most compleatly 3. It is true Our reconciliation was most perfectly most compleatly wrought on Gods part by Christs death upon the Crosse he payed the full price of our Redemption of our reconciliation nothing may or can be added thereto Yet A Reconciliation there is to be wrought on our parts though wrought it cannot be but by the spirit of God and wrought it is not ordinarily but by the ministry of men as Gods Deputies or Embassadors So the Apostle adds ver 19. God hath committed to us to wit his Ministers the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though Christ did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God So then God hath reconciled us all unto himself from the hour of Christs death and yet every one of us for his own particular must be reconciled to God by the Ministry of his Embassadors And the efficacy of their Ministry is demonstrated by working true repentance in us The means again by which they work this true repentance must be by representing the Terrour of the Lord or as our Apostle saith Act. 17. 30. by putting them in mind of the last and dreadful day The times of this ignorance to wit of the old world before Christs death God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Thus
Will as his love and zealous Observance of those commandments in whose practise he finds less difficultie increaseth his proneness to transgress the other from whose observance he is by nature or custom more averse will still decrease his Positive diligence or care to practise those duties which are not so contrary to his natural inclinations will alwayes in some proportion or other raise or quicken his weak desires or inclinations to observe those duties which he hath formerly more often and more grievously neglected or opposed 9. But some happily will here demand why our Saviour in this place of St. Matth. 25. 34. c. seeing all Good works are necessarie unto Salvation should instance only in works of one kind that is in works of Charitie towards others and not in works of Pietie and sanctitie as in fasting and praying It is an Excellent observation and so much the more to be esteemed by us in that it was made by Jansenius a learned Bishop not of Reformed but of the Romish Church that However fasting and other exercises of mortification be duties necessary in their time and place yet God is better pleased with us for relieving and comforting others in their affliction be it affliction of body or of soul then for afflicting our own souls and bodies And as for fasting One good Use of it is To learn by our voluntarie want of food truly to pitie and comfort others which want it against their wills we then truly fast or our fast is then truly religious when we fast not for thrift or sparing or for the health of body but that what we spare from our selves we may bestow not sparingly but cheerfully upon our needy brethren So the Prophet instructs us Esai 58. 5 6 7. Is it such a fast that I have chosen a day for a man to afflict his soul is it to bow down his head as a bul-rush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him wilt thou call this a fast an acceptable day to the Lord Is not this the fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house when thou seest the naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh Again Fasting is useful or expedient only at some certain times and seasons These duties here mentioned Mat. 25. 34. c. are at all times necessarie they are never out of season they are upon the respects last mentioned most seasonable when we Fast and yet in some sort more seasonable when we Feast For feasting of our selves or of the Rich being unmindful of the poor and needy is to bring a curse upon our selves and upon our plentie As we see it set forth in the parable of Lazarus and Dives See Pro. 22. 16. Luke 14. 13. St. Austine observes that the duty of praying continually is not literally meant of praying alwayes with our lips nor of multiplying set hours of Devotion but Omne opus bonum Every good work is a Real Prayer specially if we consecrate our selves to it by prayer The continuance of Good works begun and undertaken by prayer is a continuation of our prayers So that by Praying often and doing Good to others continually we may be said to observe or fulfill that precept Pray continually 10. As we cannot more truly imitate or express our Savior's disposition in more solid Characters then by the practise of these duties for he went about doing good healing all that were oppressed so are there no Duties which are so easie for all to imitate him in as these are None can plead exemption for want of means or opportunity to practise them For though some be so needy themselves that they cannot clothe the naked or feed the hungry yet may they visit the sick or resort to such as are in Prison As every one in some kinde or other may be the object of his neighbors charity so may every one be either Instrument or Agent in the doing thereof The rich may stand in need of visitation or of their Neighbors Prayers either for continuance or restauration of health and they cannot want other on whom to exercise their charity For as our Saviour saith Pauperes semper habebitis vobiscum You shall always have the poor amongst you And who knows whether the Lord in mercy hath not suffered the poor in these places to abound that the rich or men of competent means might have continual and daily occasion to practise these Duties here continually injoyned We of this place cannot want soil to sow unto the Lord For as the former Parable imports we shall not want occasion to put out the Talent wherewith God hath blest us to advantage So Solomon saith He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord and look what he layeth out it shall be payed him again Pro. 19. 17. What greater Incouragement can any man either give or require to the performance of this service then that which Our Lord and Master hath given to all which either truly love him or esteem of his love What can the Eloquence of man adde to this Invitation in this place What better Assurance could any man require then the solemn promise of so powerful and gracious a Lord Or what greater Reward or Blessing could any man expect to have assured unto him then that which our Savior here assures us Whatsoever we do to the poor and distressed he will interpret it as done to himself and really so reward it And with Reference to this Last Day of Final Retribution did the Psalmist say Psal 41. Blessed is the man that provideth for the sick and needy the Lord shall deliver him in time of trouble Sickness Death and Judgement are Critical days of Trouble But I know it will be Objected that The greatest part of the poor which dwell and sojourn amongst us are not such Little Ones as our Savior here speaks of that is not his Brethren Men or Children they be which for the most part draw near unto him with their lips when they hope to receive an Alms through his Name but are far from him in their hearts more ready at most times and upon no occasion to abuse his Name with fearful Oathes then to call upon it in Prayer in Reverence and Humility Would God the matter Objected were not too true However The truth of it doth not so much excuse the Contraction as it doth exact the Extension of your bowels of compassion towards them 11. Seeing for them also Christ shed his blood their ignorance of Christ and his goodness should move us all to a deeper touch of Pity and Compassion towards them then sight of their bodily distress of their want or calamity can affect us with And this
Precept of our Saviour binds every man to further his Neighbor or Fellow Creature in all such desires that is Generally in all desires which pertain either unto the necessary supplies or comforts of this life or to the hopes and means of attaining the life to come Unto what part of the Affirmative Precept it is most requisite I should exhort you or from what part of the Negative I should disswade you I cannot tell because I am ignorant in what part of the one you are defective or in what part of the other you most exceed In both no doubt we all offend both In not doing to others in sundry cases as we desire it should be done to us and also in doing that to others which we would not have them do to us Two especial Breaches of this Law of Nature I have observed so farre as my experience reacheth and have heard noted by others to be almost general through out the Land The one in not affording our distressed brethren that comfort for the support of this life which in their case we would desire The other in procuring their undoing or grievous loss by our greedy desires of enlarging our own estates advancing our selves or increasing our wealth and commoditie For the First None of us can be ignorant how in ofttimes Sometimes the Famin oft-times nay alwayes for this seven or eight years past the Plague of Pestilence hath raged one where or other throughout the Land The grievousness of that Maladie albeit we know not fully yet that we know it in some sort and esteem of it as a grievous maladie A Plague indeed sent from God our fear of it when it is near unto us doth sufficiently witness and from the measure of our own fear or care to avoid it we may gather how desirous we would be of any comfort if it should seize upon us Of any comfort I say either bodily to case the pain by Lenitives or to prevent the last danger of it by Physick and good Diet. Or if in these we could have no Hope the less we had in them the more desirous would we be of spiritual comfort under the wings of the Almighty The less help Art or Nature or men themselves could afford us the more earnestly would we desire hearty prayers for succor and comfort from the Almightie It would much strengthen our Faith and Hope to know that others did joyn with us in fervent prayers for mercie and it would much lessen our bodily grief and discontent of mind to know that they did bear a part with us it would abate our sorrow to know that they did abate their wonted mirth and jollitie as in compassion to us The Saying is most true Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris But the solace is most comfortable when men do willingly and not by constraint share with us in our miserie for then they take as it were part of our burthen from us and put it upon their own shoulders So as that which is most heavie and grievous whilst it is only laid upon one or some few becomes very light and easie when it is divided and laid upon many willing to communicate in the burden These and many like but more effectual Arguments all of us could plead for our selves if we were in this or any other kind of miserie But who is he of a thousand that would lay half of this to heart when sorrow lies heaviest upon his poor distressed brethren I know not how men in this place are affected but elsewhere for the most part if they be so mindful of their distressed brethren as to relieve their wants and furnish them with the necessaries of this life they think it almost a work of super-erogation and if they should not be commended for it at first they would be more slack to do the like again But that they should afflict or pinch themselves for others penurie That they should abate their ordinary mirth for others sorrow is an ungrateful Doctrine almost a Point of Puritanism Or if some be thus well minded towards their neighbors or allyes they think they have sufficiently discharged their dutie They think this Precept of our Saviour extends it self no further then the Statutes of the Land binding them to do good such good as they would have done to them only to the men of their own or the next Parish As for the miseries of such as are afarre off the sound of them enters not into their ears their sighs and groans move not their hearts If we should tell the people of one Shire or Countrie That they ought to mourn and lament to fast and pray for the afflictions of others some forty miles off or in the utmost confines of another Countrie in this Realm They would be ready I am afraid to laugh at our folly and count us as uncivil as any voluntary disturbes of their sports But here I trust I may be bold to say as much as the Lord hath said whose word requires at least as much I think much more then I have done 20. Consider I beseech you What was their sin to whom Amos pronounceth the dreadful Wo Amos. 6. 1. Wo to them that are at ease in Sion Why What harm was there in this May not men take their ease Yea when the Times so permit But now their Brethren of Samaria were disquieted by their Enemies ease which before was good was now unseasonable and preposterous because not consorting with their Brethrens Estate They lie upon Beds of Ivorie and stretch themselves upon their Beds and eat the Lambs out of the Flock and Calves out of the Stall What of all this Doth any man keep a Flock and eats not of the milk thereof Doth any man plant a Vineyard and not eat of the Fruit thereof Yea of all or any the increase thereof at his pleasure Yet is not all kind of eating of moderate eating fit for every season There is a Time as well of Fasting as of eating and Feasting Herein then was their sin that they did not sympathize with their brethren who were either pined for hunger or fed with the bread of Affliction They sing saith the Prophet unto the sound of the Viol they invent to themselves Instruments of Musick like David Why Could they have followed a better Example Not if they had followed it aright for Davids Musick was invented to praise the Lord. And Yet as the Sons or Daughters of Sion might have replied partly to delight himself and his friends It may be so Where is the point of difference then There is a Time to be sad saith Solomon and a Time to be merrie a Time to weep and a Time to laugh Every thing hath its appointed Time and every thing out of his Time is preposterous and evil If David did solace himself with pleasant mirth it was because prosperitie flourished in those Times he did not use it when news was brought him of Saul and
servant Mat. 18. 23. We are in many respects bound most strictly to render unto God himself according to his reward It was Hezekiahs sin that he did not so 2 Chro. 32. 24 First because he hath prevented us with his blessings he gave us Being before we could desire it and with it He gave us a desire of continuing it Secondly he gave it Us of his meer freewill and abundant kindness And therefore in all equitie we are bound First to render what possibly we can unto Him and that with greater alacritie and cheerfulness then unto man for his sake as Reason teacheth us to perform our personal duties and services to our Parents Patrons and Benefactors with greater care and forwardness then such offices as for their sakes we owe to their Followers or Favorites Hence may we descry the equitie of those two main Commandments on which the whole Law and Prophets depend Love God above all and thy neighbor as thy self All the services of worship of praise thankfulness or the like which we return immediately to God himself belong unto the First Table All the duties we perform to men either because we have received or could desire like kindness from them or because we expect some greater matters from God belong unto the second Table It remains we see how this Rule doth direct our thoughts for the true practice of every particular Commandment What I omitt your own meditation may easily supply 8. None of us as in charity I presume is so ignorant of God or his Goodness but often prayes that he would continue his blessings of life and health unto us desiring withall that he would do some other good unto us which yet we want Could we in the next place take a perfect measure of our own desires of what we want whilst they are fresh and at the height and withall duly weigh those Blessings of life and health considering the full and sole dependence they have on the good-wil and pleasure of our God the strength of the one and weight of the other could not but impell and sway our minds to performance of such duties towards God as his Law and this Rule of Reason require These are good Beginnings of such performances as this Rule requires But here we usually commit a double oversight First We do not weigh blessings received as duly and truly as we should For who is he that truly considers what life is till he come in danger of death Or how pleasant health is till he be pained with some grievous sickness wound or other maladie Or if we come by such occasions duly to esteem of life and health or other blessings already injoyed or to take a true measure of our desires of what we want whilst they are fresh and at the height yet either we apprehend not or we consider not what absolute and intire dependance the beginning or continuance of benefits received or the compleating of others desired have on the good-will and pleasure of our God We think we are in part beholden to our Parents for our Life to our Physician to our strength of nature or good diet for recovery of health to our own wit or friends for obtaining such things as we desire These or like conceits arising from ignorance of Gods providence or want of faith in his Goodness are as so many props or stayes that hinder the weight of his best Blessings or the strength of our desires of further good to have their full shock upon our souls and minds Otherwise the true consideration or feeling of their dependence on Gods will and pleasure would sway and impel us to do our duty to him with the same alacritie we desire good from him to love him with all our heart with all our souls with all our strength yea we would be as desirous to do his will and pleasure as we are to obtain the things that please us as unwilling any way to displease him as we are to forgo any thing we have from him As willing to consecrate our lives and actions to his service as we are to injoy life and use of limbs If a Land-lord should command his Tenant at will to do him such a business perhaps to go some errand of importance for him or else he should go without his Tenement but promise him a better if he did it faithfully The sweetness as well of what he injoyed as of the Reward he looked for would disperse it self throughout his thoughts and season his labour with chearfulness and make all his very pains sweet unto him But if he had lately received an Estate for Lives and could not hope for any further good shortly to come from him although perhaps he would do what his Lord bad him least he should be upbraided with unthankfulness Yet his service would but be faint and cold in respect of the former like his that wrought as we say for the dead Horse This may serve to set forth the difference betwixt the faithful or true believers and the unfaithful or unbelievers heart in the performance of this great Commandment The unbeliever although he acknowledge in some sort That he received all he hath and must expect all he hopes for from God and in this respect must do what God commands yet if at any time he do his Will it is without all Devotion or Chearfulness partly because he thinks the Blessings he looks for must be gotten by his own indeavor and such as he hath have been improved by his own good husbandrie nor doth he fear that the Lord should dispossess him of life or health but there will be time enough to gain or renue his Favour before his Lease as he takes it of life of health and prosperitie be run out The faithful man stedfastly believes and knows that God is the Lord and giver of life that he kils and makes alive that he wounds and alone makes whole that we have no hold of either but only during the Term of his Will and Pleasure he firmly believes all the threatnings of his Law as that either God will punish sinners with sudden and unexpected death saying unto them as he did unto the rich man in the Gospel Thou Fool this night shall thy soul be taken from thee or else suffers them to injoy life and health and other Blessings to their greater condemnation He believes likewise all his promises to the righteous to such as do his will Whence as well the Goodness of all the Blessings he injoyes life health wealth and estate as of those which he hopes for whether in this life or in the life to come do as it were provoke a desire in him of worshipping God and doing his will equal at least to his desire of either having present blessings continued or greater bestowed upon him His joy in praysing God and keeping his Laws is greater then in the injoying of life of his soul his strength or other endowments His life is
more merciful unto man his fellow-creature but much more unto his brother in Christ most of all to his fellow members in any civil and Christian Societie For all these are included essentially in the Object of this dutie of loving our neighbor as our selves These are nearer bonds of brotherhood and neigborhood and the more such bonds we have the more we are Neighbors 9. The modern Turks are very observant of this Rule of Solomon in one part for no man was ever more merciful to his beast then they are to some domestick creatures but not upon such motives or considerations as are directly contained in the complete Object of true pitie and mercie for they are so folishly affectionate to Doggs that for a small harm done to them they will not stick to kill an honest man such crueltie is in their mercy It may justly be denominated from the Object A dogged pitie These Rules or Caveats Beloved in our Lord First Of respecting the Exigencies of mens lawful desires Secondly Of not doing to some one man as we would have done to us without consideration what may befall another which we would not have befall us This again Of doing according to the Essential grounds or motives of performing this dutie As they concern all for inlarging the affections and directing any Readiness to do good to others so do they most of all concern such as have the oversight of our souls such as are put in trust with the dispensation of the good things belonging thereto amongst such as have a common right to them They especially should have a care that they do not more affect One then another in bestowing of any publick Favours but according to the Exigence of their estates or according to their obedience and performance of the publick constitutions by which they live As this concerns all such Societies so most of all Societies of Students For such as are given to Attick studies are usually subject to Attick affections Qui vult ingenio cedere rarus erit Every excesse of favours in such Cases is a Testimonie of excesse of worth in those things wherein they can hardliest brook comparisons Hence Manet alta mente repostum Judicium Paridis spretaeque injuria formae As the wound is deep and grievous so is it very dangerous in such as live daily together in one house and meet at one dish for living apart the wound might quickly close and heal without a skar whilst the sight of his Aemulus or competitor doth rub and grate upon his sore and causeth such bitter Exulcerations as oft bewray their inward grief or disdaign in outward gestures yea oft-times I am affraid have caused His wounds to bleed a fresh by whose stripes we were healed and by whose blood which was shed for us we hope to be cleansed Those persons who are of this disposiition must needs be intreated to study moderation of Desires and to think of others better then their selves at least of such as are in place before them And you that are in place of Authoritie unto whose care and trust the dispensation of the good things of this place are left let me in the Bowels of Christ Jesus beseech you even as you will answer it at the last day not to have the Faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ in respect of persons I speack chiefly to the sons of Levi Let me beseech you for a Close to remember what was our father Levi his praise or rather what the Commendation of his Function in the Abstract what was the Foundation of his Peace the Ground of Gods Covenant of mercy and long life with him was it not this as Moses tels us Deut. 33. 9. He said unto his father and to his mother I have not seen him neither knew he his brethren nor acknowledged his own children for they observed thy word O Lord and kept thy Covenant They shall teach Jacob thy Judgements and Israel thy Law They shall put incense before thy face and the Burnt-offering upon thine Altar Lord Let thine Urim and thy Thummim be still with thine Holy one Blesse O Lord his substance and accept the work of his hands smite through the Loines of them that rise against him and of them that hate him that they rise not again Amen The Former Sermon upon this Text. CHAP. XXXV JEREM. 45. v. 2. Thus saith the Lord unto thee O Baruch Verse 3. Thou didst say wo is me now for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow I fainted in my sighing and find no rest Verse 4. Thus shalt thou say unto him Behold that which I have built will I break down and that which I have planted will I pluck up even this whole Land Verse 5. And seekest Thou great things for thy self seek them not For behold I will bring evil upon all Flesh saith the Lord But thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest Little and Great Termes of Relation Two Doctrines One Corollarie Times and occasions alter the nature of Things otherwise Lawful Good men should take the help of The Antiperistasis of bad times to make themselves Better Sympathy with others in miserie injoyned in Scripture practised by Heathens Argia and Portia The Corollarie proved by Instance and That made the Application of the Former doctrine 1. IT is as true in matter of desire as in materials subject to sight or other bodily sense Magnum aut parvum non dicitur nisi cum respectu The different bounds of Great and Little cannot be determined but by their References The least body that is is not little in respect of the several parts whereinto it may be divided No Part can be said Great in respect of the whole whence it is taken Of the largest Country in Europe we may say Quota pars terrarum Little England is a competent style for our native Country compared with France Spain or Germanie And yet Armorica with reference to England is truly instiled Little Britain Within the lesse of these two Provinces it would be matter of no long search to find Huge Mole-hils and such petty hils as cannot deserve the name of Mountains And in the Revolutions of times the exigence of some peculiar seasons may truly argue Extraordinary favours in ordinarie Gifts large bounties in small Donatives yea great excess as well in the matter as in the manner of such desires as at other times would come short of mediocritie For a man descended and qualified so well as Baruch to whom this message was here directed to set up his staff at a Levites lodging door resolved to live contented with a poor bed a stool and a Candlestick in a corner of some Country village may with Reference to modern Practises seem to argue rather great moderation of desires then any immoderate desire of great matters But such are the streights whereinto Jerusalem and Juda his native Country now are brought That to use
the whole Latitude of his lawful wonted liberties were to transgress the bounds of Religious discretion yea to outrage in licentiousness So heavie were the burthens which the Lord had laid upon the mothers neck that for her best born sons not to stoop at her dejection bewrayes in them a stubborn spirit of untimely ambition 2. The least quantitie of food that could be assigned was more then this people might lawfully take during the time of their solemn fasts And the meanest external contentments which Baruch at this instant could affect must needs be deemed A great matter because too much in these dayes of publick sorrow and discomfort All he sought for was to be freed from the danger disgrace and scorn of Great Ones in whom he saw matter store of Just reproof but little hope of amendment And who will be forward to procure his own harm by free speeches without probabilitie of doing others good Baruch had once adventured to read all the Woes of this Prophecie in a solemn assembly of all sorts A task which with fair pretence of conscience might easily have been avoided by him If reading the word of God as he found it penned by others might in no Case go for preaching Unless the Lord had hid them he for reading and Jeremy for indicting had been used perhaps as the Roll was wherein this burthen was written Now the Roll Jehoiakim King of Judah did cut with his penknife and after cast it into the fire till it was consumed Jeremie 36. 23. But though the paper were subject to the flame as Christs body to use Theodorets application of this Type was unto death yet the word of the Lord endures for ever And this is the word of the Lord which came to Ieremie and which Baruch was to preach after the King had burnt the Roll and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremie Take again another roll and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll which Iehoiakim the King of Iudah burnt And thou shalt say to Jehoiakim the King of Judah Thus saith the Lord Thou hast burnt this roll saying why hast thou written therein saying that the King of Babel shall certainly come and destroy this land and shall take thence both man and beast c. 3. Baruch's late persecution and hard escape for being the imprisond prophets hand and mouth in notifying the Contents of the former Rolles unto Prince and People might well make him shrink at writing or preaching this latter being purposely replenished with the addition of many like words to the former because more personally directed to Jehoiakim Out of the abundance either of grief and sorrow during the time of his Latitation from the Kings Inquisitors or out of present fear least the Tyrants rage might be inlarged against him for undertaking this second Charge imposed upon him by Jeremy or as it is likely upon both occasions did he utter those Complaints registred in the third verse of this Chapter Wo is me now for the Lord hath laid sorrow unto my sorrow I fainted in my mourning and I can find no rest But why should it grieve him not to find what the Lord had commanded him not to seek for this is the Tenor of the message which Jeremy was to deliver unto him The Lord saith thus Behold that which I have built will I destroy and that which I have planted will I pluck up even this whole Land And seekest thou great things for thy self Seek them not c. 4. The sum of what I principally have or would have observed out of the words of this Text may be comprised in these Two Propositions 1. The desire of a faithful man specially of a publick Minister must alwayes be suited to the condition of the times wherein and of the parties with whom he lives 2. In times of publick calamitie or desolation the bare Donative of life and libertie is a priviledge more to be esteemed then the prerogative of Princes Or in other Terms thus Exemption from general plagues is more then a full recompense for all the grievances which attend our ministerial charge or service in denouncing them Unto the Former the truth of whose Doctrine must be the principal subject of my present meditations I shall add or annex this Useful Corollarie As the intemperate desire of myrth of pleasure or preferment in the dayes of publick Calamitie is in every private man preposterous So where the humor is general it is the usual Symptom of a forlorn or dying state or fearful sign that God hath forsaken the land and people wherein it raigneth Seekest thou great things for thy self Seek them not c. What were the great things which Baruch sought Excessive pleasure wealth or honour Any positive delight more then ordinary or solace greater then could agree with his calling Any exemption from tax or trouble common to all The principal if not the only fault for which he was taxed by the Prophet was his untimely desire of ordinary ease of freedom from extraordinary and thankless pains in service distastful to the present State and therefore dangerous Did ever the austerest Founder of most superstitious strict Orders tie their Followers to a more rigid Rule then Baruch here is bound unto The Predicant or begging Frier may interpret his ministerial Commission in the strictest sense He does not ride but go as bare footed as he was born to Preach the Gospel unto every Creature under heaven unto stocks and stones as St. Francis his Father they say hath fondly taught him But unto which of them was it by Rule of Founder enjoyned Or what monkish Votary did ever voluntarily undertake to proclaim Romes final desolation in St. Peters Church in the year of Jubily Or menace downfal to red Hats and the triple Crown in the Consistory Yet all together such no easier was the task which Jeremy had enjoyned Baruch Was this Injunction then given him by way of Counsel or necessary Precept Did he super-erogate ought in undertaking Or had he not grievously sinned in refusing this necessary but hard and dangerous service Surely a Necessity not from the General Law but from the particular Circumstances of the time was laid upon him and a Woe had followed it if he had not read the Prophet Jeremies Prophecie The Scholar was not greater then his Master nor his liberty more Both their liberties were alike great yet both subordinate both subject to the diversitie of times and seasons Both were free in their persons both free in their actions and choise of life yet both absolutely bound to walk as they were called 5. Had not Jeremy as good authority as Isaiah and his fellow Prophets had to have taken a Wife of the Daughters of his people Doubtless the Law was one to Both and Matrimony alike lawful to Both What then did restrain Jeremy of that liberty which Isaiah used Nothing but instant necessitie
which knows no Law could make the use of the Law unlawful to him because most unexpedient for the present So the Lord had said Jerem. 16. 9. Behold I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes even in your dayes the voice of mirth and the voyce of gladness the voyce of the Bridegroom and the voyce of the Bride And seeing the Lord at this time had determined not to pipe unto this people Ieremy had greatly offended if he had been taken in their marriage Dances He knew Children were an heritage which cometh from the Lord that the fruit of the womb was his reward and that in the multitude of sons was store of blessings Marriage he knew to be honorable amongst all but at this time unseasonable for him Good seed is well sown when it is likely the Crop may stand and prosper He planteth well that plants in hope to reap the fruits of his own Labours But who sowes wheat unto the winter floods or plants a vineyard for his fuel why then should Jeremy at this time become an Husband to beget Sons unto the sword Or take a Wife to bring forth Daughters to destruction To this purpose the Lord had inhibited Jeremy in particular But the Reason of the inhibition in like times is perpetually General Yhou shalt not take thee a VVife nor have Sons nor Daughters in this place For thus saith the Lord concerning the Sons and concerning the Daughters that are born in this place and concerning their Mothers that bear them and concerning their fathers that beget them in this Land They shall die of grievous deathes and diseases they shall not be lamented neither shall they be buried but they shall be as dung upon the earth and they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and for the beasts of the earth Ier. 16. 1. The Prophets and sweet singers of Ierusalem and Iudah had sometimes brought them such joyful Ambassages of their espousals unto their God Their Princes and people had formerly known such happy dayes of joy securitie and peace that for Ieremy and Baruch to have then affected this rigid course of life which now they follow would have been but as the taking up of a sad or doleful Madrigall at a marriage feast or as the acting of some ominous direful Tragedy upon a Coronation day But seeing the glory is now departing from Israel the Bridegroom leaving their coasts their mother whom the Lord had once betrothed unto himself in surest bonds of dearest love stands liable to the sentence of final divorce The Children of the Bride-chamber specially Ieremiah and Baruch must betake themselves to fasting prayer and mourning Now to have used their wonted solace mirth or feasting would have been all one as if the one had piped the other had danced a wanton Jigge or Corranto in the Solemnities of their mothers Funerals or as if they had marcht together in a morisce-dance over their fathers Grave 6. Had that late Fugitive or other his Fellow Postillers learned thus to distinguish times and seasons The supposed difference between Precepts necessary to all and Evangelical Counsels peculiar to such as aim at Extraordinary perfection would clearly appear to be but a Dream or imagination which hath no root but ignorance Their error perhaps may thus be rectified if to discover the Original thereof be enough to rectifie it Many Divine Precepts there be from whose absolute and soveraign Necessitie no powers on earth can plead exemption and yet the practises enjoyned by them are neither necessary to all nor expedient for any at sometimes or in some places Because the Precepts themselves may be Disjunctive or opposite branches of some more General Mandate It will not follow This or That man in former Ages hath done many Good works pleasant and acceptable unto God such as not the godliest man living is bound at this time to do Ergo he did supererogate in doing them that is in plain English he did more then he was bound to do For though rebus sic stantibus no man be bound yet every man say we stands bound by the Eternal and unchangeable Law of God to do the like as often as the same external occasions shall be offered or the like internal suggestions be made unto him by The signes of the Times or disposition of Gods providence But here By the Eternal Law of God we are not bound to understand only the Ten Commandments The Decalogue if without offence Gods Words may be so compared contains only the Praedicamental Rules or Precepts of the eternal Law Other divine precepts there be more Transcendental which have the same Use in matters of Christian practise or true Observation of the ten Commandments as General maxims have in particular Sciences Such a Precept in respect of the second Table is that Love thy neighbor as thy self By this precept every man stands necessarily bound to perform more then ordinary Charitie toward his neighbour as often as his neighbours occasions to use his charitable help are more then ordinary The same Use in respect of both the Tables hath that other Precept Whatsoever ye would have done to you so do ye to others Most General likewise and most indispensable are these Two mandates Let every man walk as he is called Time must be redeemed when dayes are evil And seeing the inhabitants of every Country stand bound Jointly and severally to glorifie God by due observation of his Commandments The more licentiously others violate any one or more negative precepts his Children alwayes know themselves tyed in conscience to so much more strickt observance of the contrary Affirmatives which are alwayes understood in the Negative The measure of their sobrietie and devotion must be taken from others excess in Luxury and prophaneness Briefly the prohibitions or injunctions expresly contained in the Decalogue or others parts of the moral Law describe the General bounds or limits without which we may not within which we must continually walk Our observation of Gods Providence and signes of the times will best direct us to such particulars within those Limits as are most expedient for the present The several exigence of every season and the necessitie and conditions of the parties with whom we live will notifie the definite measure or exact quantitie of such good offices or performances as the eternal Law requireth of us To be well instructed what is most fitting for the season every man must ask counsel of his own heart but after his heart examined by the Rules of the eternal Law hath informed him what is fit and expedient it is no matter of Counsel but of necessary Precept to do it and that in such measure as the Exigence of time of place and persons require Albeit others which have not had the like occasions to consult their own hearts be not bound to do the like And some it may be
in just and full consort to the miserable They did then truely remember the strangers that were within their gates when they sorrowed in the same manner for them as they had done for themselves when the delight and joy that they had taken in their own deliverance from servitude and thraldom was made the measure of their delight and joy in freeing others from the yoke of servitude in relieving the poor distressed stranger that sojourned with them True compassion is but a fellow feeling of others miseries And then only are we truly compassionate when their miseries are made ours when as the Apostle saith we are weakened at their weakness and burn at their offence or grievance Once thus affected in easing them we ease our selves their comfort becomes our comfort whence ariseth our cheerfulness and sinceritie in doing good for now we do unto them as we desire they should do unto us Yea even as we would do unto our selves seeing the only way to case our selves of this present grief which is by Sympathie in us is by curing the Protopathie in them This is equitie and righteousness in the sight of God when we afford comfort unto others according to the same measure we our selves would receive it from others or when we distribute Gods benefits with the like Joy to our fellow servants as we receive them from him Delight in receiving and delight in doing good ought to be so fully reciprocal in nature and quantitie that they should differ but as via Thebis Athenas and Athenis Thebas or as two times three and three times two This is as the wise man speaks truly to keep the heart when we keep it still in this Aequilibrio not more inclined to accept then to afford a blessing not more prone to rejoyce at our own good then to sorrow at others harms Not more apt to be elevated with our own promotion then to be depressed by others undeserved dejection or discomfort And albeit we were able to frame the whole course of our lives fully parallel to this streight Rule yet should we still remain unprofitable servants and altogether unable to supererogate All actual or purposed swerving whether directly or indirectly from this Level is a declining to hypocrisie He that cannot contract his ordinary libertie in the use of things pleasant or profitable for this life according to the Exigence or Aboading of the instant season or doth not labour so to frame and settle the habitual bent of his affections as they may be alike free and apt to be moved with sad occurences as with occasions of joy such a man may happily often joy in his courses but his rejoycing cannot be in the Lord his laughter is madness his choicest recreation folly dissimulation harboureth in his heart mischief is companion of his thoughts the issue of his untimely mirth is grief and sorrow everlasting 9. But here I know it will be replied that this constitution of mind is in these latter times more rare then absolute Complexion in mens bodies or mixture ad pondus in bodies natural The Replication perhaps is true but true especially for this reason that every man seeks great things greater then Baruch here did for himself And hearts stretched by desires unseasonably superfluous or exorbitant to an higher strain then is fitting can hold no consort with their humbled brethrens affections They can neither be brought to any true Consonancie with the times wherein they live nor with their own Callings Howbeit we require not such an exact or absolute temper of mans heart as our Creator framed in our first Parents That was the Patern by which we must direct our practise If our intention to imitate this patern be sincere And our indeavors to accomplish our intentions industrious and entire whatsoever is wanting to our abilitie The super-excellencie of Christs righteousness and merits far exceeding our first Parents worth shall abundantly supplie in us which were first the natural Sons of Adam then degenerate Sons of the living God now regenerate by Grace and adopted Sons in Christ But the experience of others temper in former times though Adams Children as now we are or once were bewrayes the Complexion of our Age to be deeply tainted with hypocrisie For this I have found and every one may find without curious search that the very sight remembrance or rehearsal of others miseries united by the bond of Common dutie hath brought the minds of such as have bent their ears to natures discipline or been well instructed in Civilitie unto a perfect sympathie with as great facilitie as men tune their voices to others pleasant songs or fashion their bodily motions to others musick Apathie or want of Fellow-feeling to speak indifferently is no natural propertie of the meer natural or unregenerate man but rather a symptom of a gracelesse mind obdurate with self-pleasing humors and desires Of hearts truly mollified with a mutual touch though but of moral or civil Love one takes the impression of anothers woe or grief as easily as softened wax does the seal Thus the fresh memory of the Camp the consideration of the Ark of God and Israels and Joabs lying abroad in the fields makes honest Uriah joyned with them in the common link of military life though far dis-joyned in place abjure with double oath the solace of his lawful bed Thus the remembrance of our Saviours humiliation in Ierusalem makes that Noble Duke of Bulloign many hundred years after refuse to wear a golden Crown in that City though but the lawful Guerdon of his Heroick worth an honour well befitting his person but not the place wherein his Lord Redeemer under whose banner he fought had been annointed King with his own blood shed by the impression of a Crown of Thorns Are the true paterns of those practises extant only in the book of Grace Or are the practises recorded only in sacred Story or of Christians or sacred Persons only Or have not Heathen Poets which knew no Law besides the Lawes of Nature and their Rules of Art exactly painted the like paterns Have not heathen Histories whose veracity is no way liable to just suspition related the like real practises of Heathen persons Non haec apta mihi nitidis ornatibus inquit Tempora nec miserae placeant insignia formae Thebaidos Libro 4. It is the Poetical Character or speech of the Noble Princess uttered rather out of fear then certain foresight of the mishap that might befal her Husbâ—d now setting forth unto the Thebane war in hope to recover his supposed right As the Reason of her refusing Harmonia's Chain that was the insignia or ornament offered her by way of gratification for gracing or furthering the present consultation of warre was much what the same with Duke Godfreys refusal of the Golden Crown So the Manner of her abjuring it was not unlike Uriah's Oath Scilicet heu superi cum tu cludare minaci Casside
ferratusque sones Ego divitis Aurum Harmoniae dotale geram It was a dishonour in her esteem to be disclaimed by an Imprecation for a Princes Daughter to adorn her head and neck with costly Jewels like a Bride whilest her Husband was clad in steel and yet so clad every hour in peril of life During the time of this his danger abroad she desires no greater train at home then would suffice to expel Melancholick fear And that artire doth please her best which best suted with her pensive heart most likely to move her Gods to Commiseration of her widdowhood For such costly ornaments as were now profferd she thought a fitter time would be to wear them when her Husband returned in peace with such rich spoiles from the enemies Court And in this Resolution well fitting her present estate she leaves them to the proud upstart insolent baggage whose longing desires after those unseasonable fooleries had inchanted the poor Prophet her husband to Countenance an Ominous unfortunate war the issue whereof was this that after most of the Noble Argives sent thither by the enemies sword the Prophet himself went quick down to hell This Conclusion you will say is false in the litteral sense or rather fained but I would to God the Fiction were not too true an Emblem of the most State-Prophets in later Ages Such as are here represented and no better are the usual fruits of untimely desires or discording appetites of parties united in strict bond of common dutie especially in men consecrated to publick ministerie Alwayes they are displeasing to God in nature preposterous hateful as death to civil and ingenuous minds 10. But herein the Poet as the Philosopher well observes exceeds the Historian for moral instructions He may paint men and women as they should be not as they are whereas the Historian must express them as he finds them Most Women indeed are not for their affections like this Poetical Picture of Argia Yet the Carriage of Portia as the ingenious Historian hath exprest it did farre exceed it When her Husband Brutus had disclosed that inward grief and perplexitie by his ill rest by night which he had purposely concealed from her in his waking thoughts she takes his Concealment as a disparagement to her birth and education and as a tacit impeachment of her honestie Brutus saith she I had Cato to my Father and was matched into thy family not as a whore to be thy Companion only at bed and bord but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be as true a Consort of thy miseries as of thy welfare I had never cause to complain of thy usage no occasion to suspect thy loving affection towards me but what assurance canst thou have of my love to thee If I may not be permitted to sympathize with thee in thy secret greif nor bear a part in those anxieties whose communication might ease thy mind and much set forth my fidelitie I know well the imbecillity of our Sex we need no rack to wrest a secret from us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But know O Brutus that there is a secret vertue in good parentage ingenuous breeding and conversation for setling and strengthening the frame of our affections even where they are by nature brickle and unconstant And this is my portion in these Pre-eminences A woman I am by sex but Cato his Daughter and Brutus his Wife To give him a sure experiment answerable to these Protestations how ready she could be in all misfortunes to take grief and sorrow at as low a Note as for his life he could She had cast her self into a burning Feaver by a grievous wound of her own making before she vented the former complaint which she uttered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the extremity of her Fit or pangs I may truly here apply that verse of old Ennius as the late extinguished Lamp of this University once out of this Lantern in another Case did Vos Juvenes shall I say nay verily Nos viri Patres Fratres animos gerimus muliebres Illaque Virgo viri Was this praeeminency that she was Cato's daughter and Brutus's wife of power sufficient to arm her female heart with man-like resolution and true heroical constancy to bear the yoke of all misfortunes with her Conjugal Mate and is it no Praerogative in Christian men before a Heathen woman that they have God for their father and holy Church for their mother Christ Jesus supream Governour of the world the Lord of life and Conquerour of Death and Hell for their Brother Is Baptisme into his death but a naked name that our professed unitie therein cannot unite our hearts in like affections Is the effusion of Gods spirit but as the sprinkling of Court Holy-water are our dayly Sermons but as so many Bevers of wind whose efficacy vanisheth with the breath that uttereth them or hath the frequent participation of Christ precious body blood no better operation on our harts then the exhalation of sweet odours upon our brains Be they no longer comfortable then whilst they be in taking Are all those glorious similitudes of one head and many members of one Vine and many branches but Hyperbolical Metaphors Is our mystical union only a meer Mathematical imagination are those or the like Praerogatives of our calling but like the Soloecisms of the Romish Church matters of meer title or ceremony without realitie Beloved in Christ if either we actually were or heartily desired or truly meant to be true branches of that Coelestial Vine were it possible the strongest boughes thereof should be so often shaken with dangerous blasts of temptations and we no whit therewith moved could so many flourishing Boughes dayly fade and we hope that our Luxuriant branches should always flourish should their goodly leaves hourly fall and we live still as if we never looked for any winter or should God so often threaten to pluck up the vineyard which his own right hand hath planted and yet the dressers of it still seek after great things for themselves as if they never dreamt of dispossession would the most of us either seek to raise our selves as high as the highest room in the Lords house or make it a chief part of our care how to forecast mispense of time in merriment gameing or other worldly pleasures or contentments whilst sundry of our poor brethren and fellow Prophets perhaps in worth our betters die of discontent whilst others younger run mad after riot abroad least they should be attached by sorrow and grief at home whilst other begin to expect a change and entertain a liking of Romish Proffers Others which have ever hated Rome more then death begin to loath their lives and set their longing on the Grave desirous to give their bodies to be devoured by that earth which hath not ministered necessary sustenance to them as being overcharged with maintaining the unnecessary desires and superfluous pleasures of worse deservers Or would so many were they
true members of Christ suffer that flock which he hath purchased with his precious blood to starve for want of spiritual Food That flock from which they have reap't carnal Commodities in greatest plenty But here I will not dispute whether Non-Residence or Pluralitie be simply unlawful suppose in former times both had been lawful both necessary when the greatest scarcitie was of Scholars sufficiently qualified for the ministry Is it therefore Now as expedient It had been once more lawful for Baruch to have sought the Ease of a retired life then ever it was for any man to trouble himself with joyning house to house Land to Land or Church to Church But now it is unlawful seekest thou great things for thy self Yet what was his seeking to theirs or what are many of their deserts to his Theirs especially who have scarce been so much as scribes to a learned Prophet scarce ever brought up in Jerusalem at any Gamaliels feet but only came to this our Sion as so many spies to find out the weakness of the place to discover by what devices good Statutes might be frustrate and means made for conferring degrees upon Drones And Drones having once gotten A degree or place in this Bee-hive by others perjury will make shift to get spiritual preferment by their own After unto their Titles in the Schools they have gotten an Ite Praedicate from the Generals of our spiritual warfare they make their entrance into the Church of Christ just so as if it were into the Enemies soyl once inabled to compass a convenient Seat they never think they were placed there as labourers in Christs harvest to gather and break the bread of life to his people they only use it as a Fort or Sconce to gather strength in till they can watch an opportunity for expugning a better And advancements into highest Offices in this spiritual Charge go oft not so much by virtues as the golden mean Experiments are so rife and frequent that not the meanest Arcadian Creature but lives in hope to make himself Lord of the greatest dignitie the Land affords if he be once furnished sufficiently for practise of the Macedonian Stratagem This seeking after great things especially in men of so little worth is at all times odious in the sight of God and injurious to men But in these present times fraught either with examples or fearful threatnings of Gods heavie Judgments in these times wherein superstition increaseth as a Plague growing up to quell hypocrisie and licentiousness farre less desires even all unnecessary seekings are preposterous and abominable and yet in all States through the Land very usual and being so They are Ominous Which was the Corollary proposed I must omit discourse and fall to instance 12. One Age may afford sufficient store of Examples A curious Searcher shall not be able to find any disease either more Dangerous or more Genoral then this late specified disease of Baruch in the Christian world at that time when the Lord did so grievously lance the whole body of it with the swords and spears of the Vandals Gothes Hunnes and other Barbarians scarce known before by name The approach of all or most of them was so sudden and unexpected that a man could scarce imagine what other Errand they had to visit these parts of Europe save only to be Gods Chirurgions in cutting of the dead and unrecoverable members of the Church Of what sort or kind soever the sins of any Age or People be when sinners once come to such height or progress in them as the sight of Gods Judgments or experience of his displeasure cannot perswade men to forsake them It is a true Crisis of General plagues or desolations approaching No sign more deadly then intemperate longing after unseasonable mirth or pleasures of what kind soever especially of such as are contrary to that course of life whereunto God for the present cals men For they that seek after such things plainly declare That they say in their hearts VVe shall have Peace albeit we walk according to the stubbornness of our own hearts Deut. 29. 19. At cum dicant Pax tuta omnia tunc repentinum eis imminet Exitium That the General constitution of the Christian World when the Barbarians over-ran it was altogether such as we have said such as this people for the most part is at this day Salvianus A Reverend Bishop of those times hath left recorded The disease of Carthage he thus discribeth Captivus corde sensu nonne er at populus iste qui inter suorum supplicia ridebat qui jugulari se in suorum jugulis non intelligebat qui se in suorum mori mortibus non putabat Fragor ut it a dixerim extra muros intra muros Proeliorum Ludicrorum Confundebatur c. The like stupiditie and intemperance the same Author out of his experience attributes unto one of the Chief Cities of the Galles whose Inhabitants were so besotted with drunkenness that they could not shake it of when they were beset with death Ad hoc postremo rabida vini aviditate Perventum est ut Principes urbis istius ne tunc quidem de conviviis Surgerent cum jam urbem hostis intraret He that made the Sword then to them hath also made the Plague of Pestilence his Messenger unto us both their Commissions are of equal authority both their Summons should be alike dreadful and yet what day did any die in this City by the Arrow of God but as many or more were dead drunk or had surfeited of their beastly banquets Again in Trevers one of the most flourishing Cities of the Galles and as I take it the Reverend Bishops native soyl so intemperately were the Inhabitants set on their wonted delights and vanitites that after their Citie had been three or four times sacked and did not retain so much as the likeness of what it had been yet they are still the same And as if they had never sowen unto the spirit but altogether unto the flesh as if their sportings and pastimes had been the only harvest they cared to reap No sooner was this storm of War and blood broken up And the beams of peace restored again but they errected their stages even in the fresh Sent of deadly vapors exhaling from their murthered Citizens buried in their Cities ashes Pauci nobiles qui excidio super-fuerant quasi pro summo deletae urbis remedio Circenses ab Imperatoribus postulabant And may not we think unless our Magistrates Religious care had been the greater to have prohibited Stage-playes in these dangerous times of visitation that a great many in this City would have adventured to have been in Circo though death had been appointed to keep the Play-house door Should the Stage-player or other instrument of vanitie have visited our Suburbs within two monethes after our fourth or fifth visitation past more of better rank amongst us would have been more
affraid of being censured as Puritanes for speaking against them though out of this place then would have blushed to have been spectators of their lewd unseasonable sportings in places not so well be fitting their Calling I will not take upon me to Censure this or any like Recreation as altogether unlawful But what time hath been for sundry years past would God this present did presage much better to come wherein the use of these or other more unquestionable recreations might not justly be censured for superfluous if not preposterous And with what indignitie that worthy Bishop did prosecute these unseasonable vanities of his Countrymen I refer you to his books De Gubernatione Providentia a fit Manual for the volume but in these times an excellent Cordial for the matter Ludicra ergo publica Trever pet is Art thou an inhabitant of the miserable more then thrice ransacked Tryers and seekest thou after such fruitlesse toyes as playes Ubi quoeso exercendae Where on Gods name wilt thou have them acted an super bustum Cineres super sanguinem ossa mortuorum upon the Graves upon the ashes upon the blood and bones of thy massacred brethren and fellow Citizens The continuance of this vainitie in the living did in his estimation surpass the misery and infelicitie which had befalne the deceased 13. Death and the destroying Angel which by their often soaring hovering over our heads had over-shadowed this Citie and for the solitariness of these and like assembles had somtimes almost turned our day into night have now Gods name be praised for it taken their flight another way Yet shall not these Admonitions seem altogether so unseasonable now as our sportings were then Though secured we be from present dread yet may we without offence as men that had passed great dangers in their night Distempers or sudden affrights look back by day in Calm and sober thoughts upon our former wayes And I beseech you take these following speeches that distilled from that sage and learned Bishops zealous Pen as preservatives against the like dangerous times to come not as censures or invectives of mine to gall any for what is past Suppose this Reverend Bishop had lived amongst us how would he have taxed the unseasonable Luxuries of late times Go to now Oye that are strong to pour in wine or ye that have verified the Proverb by your practise that Mans life is but a stage play wherein you know to act none but the mimickes part ye that make your selves mutual sport by grieving or abusing others Go to now ye that have quite inverted Solomons Counsel ye that have wholly consecrated your selves to the house of mirth and feasting and hold it a hell to be drawn into the house of mourning where do ye mean to celebrate your wonted sports where shall your meriments where shall your pleasant meetings be what in the City which the Lord so often hath smitten which so often hath groaned under his heavie hand what even then when the sore did run amongst your brethren O fools and slow of heart to believe the writings of the Prophets and frequent Admonitions of so many holy and Religious men might not nature which nurtereth the heathen which teacheth the beasts of the field and birds of the air to know their season have also taught you how unseasonable your mirth how prodigious your insolence hath been What foul indignitie had you offered though you had offered it to a private man to revell it in the room wherein his children wherein his wife had laid a dying What humane heart what civil though unregenerate ear could endure to hear of one and the same family some in the midst of bitterest Agonies praying others swearing or blaspheming some panting for faintness or ratling for want of breath others cackling or shrugging at the sight of wanton sporting And dare you account them for whom Christ Jesus shed his blood lesse dear to him then dearest children are to loving Parents or wives to most loving husbands And what is this City in respect of him would God you would permit it so to be But at the best could you imagine it any more then the Chamber of the great King whom neither the heaven nor the heaven of heavens can contain Shall not his ear who filleth all places with his presence be as able to discern each dissonant noise or disagreeing speech or carriage within the wals or suburbs of this City as the most accurate musicians ear is to distinguish contrary Notes or jarring sounds within the compasse of a narrow parlour And what musick think you will it make in his ears or how will it sound to those harmonical spirits which by his appointment Pitch about this place when they shall hear in one corner some in the Agonie of their souls sending out grievious screiks and bitter outcries others out of their abundant heat of mirth and pastimes filling the streets with profuse immoderate clamors Some again praying with deep sighes and grievous groanes others foaming out their shame in drunken scurrilous or lascivious songs some having their hearts ready to break for grief others to burst their lungs with laughter These beloved have been the abuses in former times which any Reverent and zealous spirit that had lived amongst us justly might and questionless would have taxt more sharply And yet of such reproofes the best of us might well in some measure have been sharers But these dangers are gone long since would God the guilt of our sins were as far removed from us If it remain like times may return again What then remains but that we repent of what is past and take heed of what is to come Lord never let the pensive sighs the mournful groanes or grievous out-cryes of dying men be mingled with our lavish mirth and sportings O let not the songs of pleasure and the voice of death ascend the heavens or appear at thy Tribunal seat together least This most unseasonable discord sound still in thy ear until the sound of the Angels Trumpet summon us to that fearful Judgement wherein they may laugh and we may cry wherein their comfortless sighes and dolorous groanes may be changed into everlasting Haleluiahs of joy and peace and all immoderate unlawful mirth all unseasonable and untimely pleasures be terminated with endless grief And as for such as seek to raise the spirit of unhallowed mirth and belch out their scurrilous Jests by powring in wine and strong drink even in the dayes wherein the Lord hath called them to fasting and mourning O that they could consider the time may come wherein they shall wish for one drop of that liquor for a whole day which now they pour in hourly without measure to cool their scorched tongues And yet unto their greater misery shall not be heard in so miserable a wish but in the continual want of this and all other comfort their pleasant songs shall be turned into bitter howlings Their
wanton motions and mimick gestures into wailing and gnashing of teeth And as for you Reverend Fathers or you my much Respected Brethren to whom any charge of others either private or publick is committed Consider I beseech you what places you bear in these Houses of God All of you in your several Charges sustain the place of righteous Job in his Familie for your fatherly care over inferiors Whilest then your Sons thus banquet in their houses every one his day and send and call their friends to eat and drink with them Be you sure the Lord will require at your hands that you be so much more vigilant in your Callings not only in punishing the Chief Offendors in this kind as some of you have begun though this no doubt will be an acceptable sacrifice unto God but even in offering up your evening and morning sacrifice for them according to the number of their transgressions For doubtless your Sons have grievously offended and blasphemed God in their hearts And therefore you must be so much the more diligent to offer up the sweet incense every day For all of us Beloved in our Lord and Saviour see the dayes wherein we live are extraordinary evil and the time must be redeemed by our extraordinary vigilancie sobriety and sanctitie As others double and treble the sins of this present in respect of former times so must we in like proportion increase our industry and diligence fervent prayer good exhortation charitable deeds and sacred functions Thus would you Reverend Fathers go before us in these duties as you do in dignitie God would restore your lost sons to you again and besides Jobs Restitution in this life you shall certainly be partakers of Daniels Blessing in the life to come For thus turning others unto righteousness by your good Examples you shall shine like Starrs for ever God grant you Governors wise hearts thus to rule And all inferiors Grace to follow your good Examples and Advice Amen The Later Sermon upon this Text. CHAP. XXXVI JEREM. 45. v. 5. For Behold I will bring a Plague or evil upon All Flesh saith the Lord but thy life will I give thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest The Second Doctrine propounded Chap. 35. Sect. 4. handled 1. In Thesi Touching the natural esteem of life in general 2. In Hypothesi Of the Donative of Life to Baruch as the Case then stood That men be not of the same Judgment About the price of Life when they be in heat Action and prosperitie which they be of in dejection of spirit and adversitie proved by instances Petrus Strozius Alvarez De Sande Gods wrath sharpens the Instruments and increases the Terror of Death Life was a Blessing to Baruch though it shewed him all those evils from sight of which God took away good King Josiah in favour to him Baruch as man did sympathize with the miseries of his people As a faithful man and a Prophet of the Lord He conformed to the just will of God The Application 1. OF the Two Aphorisms deduced out of the Text The later left before untouched comes now to be handled And it is This. In times of publick Calamitie or desolation the bare Donative of life and liberty is a priviledge more to be esteemed then the Prerogative of Princes Or in other Terms thus Exemption from General Plagues is more then a full recompence for all the Grievances which attend our ministerial charge or service in denouncing them Of this by Gods Assistance I shall treat without further Division or Method more accurate then that Usual One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First Of the Natural Esteem of Life or Exemption from common Plagues in General Secondly Of it as the Case here stands with Baruch Vox populi etiam vox Dei est It is the voice of Nature uttering only what is engraven by the Creators Finger in the heart of man and of creatures otherwise dumb Life is sweet and would be so esteemed of all could we resolve to live at home endeavouring rather to improve those seeds of happiness which grace or Nature have sown in us then to encompass large or vast materials of forreign Contentments But unto men whose desires are once diverted from the true End of life unto the remote Meanes destinated for its procurement unto such men as have set their thoughts such Roving Progresses as Pyrrhus did or with the fool in the Gospel are not able to give their souls their Acquietances until they have enlarged their store-houses and laid up goods for many years the attaining of such particulars as for the present they most seek after doth rather whet then satiate their appetite of the like Hence life attended with mean appurtenances becomes either loathsom or little set by because the provision of necessaries actually enjoyed is as nothing in respect of those impertinencies which they have swallowed in hope or have in continual chase The want of these latter unto men wedded unto vast desires is more irksom then the possession of them can be pleasant so that to live without them seems a kind of loss Me-thinks Plinies Hyperbolical or Fabulous Narration of the greedy wild-goose which plucks so eagerly at the roots of what plants I now remember not but so fixt to the ground that she oft-times leaves her neck behind her may be a true Emblem of such mens intemperate pettish hopes usually so fastened to the matters which they much desire that sooner may their souls be drawn out of their bodies then weaned from these Wounds though deep and grievous are scarce felt to smart whilst the blood is hot or the body in motion No marvel then if in the fervent pursuit of honour gain or pleasure men sometimes suffer their souls to escape out of their prison before the flight be discerned In fine as young Gallants for speedy supplies of luxurious expences usually morgage their Lands ere they know their worth So life it self is oftentimes hazarded upon light termes by such as know not what it is to live We have heard of a Souldier so forward to take the advantage which Chance of War had given that he cried out unto his Captain Follow and we shall have a day of them whereas a perpetual night was taking possession of his eyes his entrals being let out whilst he uttered these words I can more easily believe this of an English spirit though not in print because it is upon Authentick Record that Petrus Strozius a famous Italian Commander being shot with a bullet of a larger size under the left pap fell down dead to the ground leaving these words behind him in the air The French King hath lost a true and faithful servant It seems his heart had been too full fraught with swelling Conceits of his own worth I could instance in many did the time permit which have either encountred death with such und antedness or suffered life to be taken from them with so
the time of his imprisonment in Constantinople This Busbequius the Legate there for Ferdinand being requested by some of Sandeus's quondam followers now his companions in captivity to comfort their master by his letters tels us Ego recusabam quod mihi non ratio non oratio suppetebat quâ hominem tam graviter afflictum consolarer It is a true and lively Symptome of a great spirits temper whom the Lord begins to humble once subject to the Almighties discipline which the same Author hath observed upon this occasion Erat Sandeus ingentis spiritus vir spei abundans timoris nescius sed qui sunt hujusmodi ut omnia quae optant sperant sic post quam cuncta retrò ferri et contra animi sententiam evenire experiuntur Ita plerunque animis concidunt ut non sit facile ad aequitatem eos erigere 4. Pearls are precious and as he sayes cara auro contrà though such simple creatures as Aesops cock value them lower then a grain of barley And life at all times is sweet alwayes more worth then any pleasure wealth or honour unless that honour which cometh from God alone however haughty cock-brains or furious hot-spurs esteem it lighter then a puff of popular fame But besides the untimely losse of life or ordinary dread of violent or bloody death the manner how it is God grant we never know by experience but so assuredly it is That When the wrath of God once throughly kindles against any Land or people it puts an unusual terror upon the countenances of their enemies an unusual edge upon their swords It sharpens the sting of natural death and so envenomes the jawes and teeth of famine and his fellow messengers that the smart of their impressions or the mere terror of their threatnings becomes unsufferably grievous beyond all measure of former experience or precedent cogitation Nothing before hath been held so base whereunto greatest spirits will not then be fain to stoop Nothing so cruel or unnatural unto whose practise the mildest and lovingest natures will not be brought upon Condition yea upon Hope nay upon probable Presumption that they might become but half sharers in the Donative which is here bestowed on Baruch Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest Not the most womanish among the weaker sex in this whole Land but would presume of so much manlike resolution as by one means or other to lay down the wearisome burthen of an irksome life rather then she should be inforced to seek the preservation of it by killing them whom she had lately quickened or devouring their flesh whom she lately brought forth with sorrow and dayly fed with her own substance Suppose we then that those mothers of Jerusalem which re-intombed their sucking infants in their wombs were naturally more cruel and savage than other women ordinarily are No! The Lord himself hath fully acquitted them of this imputation The hands of the pittiful women saith the Prophet Lament 4. 10. have sodden their own children they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people And if women women of pitie in the time of War can thus bestrip themselves of all wonted bowels of compassion towards the tender off-spring of their wombes shall not the strong man put off his valour and the valiant forget to fight shall not flight be far from the swift and wisdom perish from the Politick It is the day of the Lords wrath saith the Prophet and who can stand who can abide it Not such as for any motion of fear have stood more immoveable then a rock whilst the strongest wals of their defence have been terribly shaken with the enemies shot The stronger their wonted confidence had been the greater their horrour and confusion when they shall discern the finger of God beginning once to draw the dismall lines of their disasterous Fates or when with Belshazzar they begin to read their Destinyes in visible but Transient and unknown Characters then feebleness wo and sorrow come upon the mightiest men as upon a woman in her travel breeding a dissolution in the loyns and causing their knees to smite one against another The terrors of War or other affrightments whereunto they have formerly been accustomed though oft-times very great did never appear more then finite because alwayes known in part But of these Panici terrores or Representations which usher Gods wrath in the day of vengeance that is most true which the Philosopher gives as the Reason why uncouth wayes seem alwayes long Ignotum quà ignotum infinitum est And as the the Kingdom of God so his judgements and the terrors which accompany them come not by Observation In respect of this sudden dread or un-observable terror wherewith the Almighty blasts their souls whom he hath signed to fearful destruction They may say of their adversaries most furious assaults as he did of his Antagonists most blustering words Non me tua fervida terrent Dicta ferox Dii me terrent et Iupiter hostis One while they shall seek for death but it will not be found of them Another while death shall present it self to them and they shall make from it and yet it in the very next moment wish they had entertained it And though life abide with them still yet shall it not be as a Prey unto them but as a Clogg their persons being exposed unto their enemies pleasure perpetually tortured either between vain hopes of escape and uncertain expectance of an ignominious doom or between their desires of speedy and gentle death and the lingering grievances of miserable and captived life In all these respects the Prophets Advice is good seek ye the Lord all the meek of the earth which have wrought his judgements seek righteousness seek lowlinesse if so be that you may be hid in the day of the Lords wrath 5. But be it true in Thesi That life in its naked substance is sweet That ingenuous Libertie though mixt with povertie is as a pleasant sauce to make it rellish better yet who shall perswade Baruch as The Case stands with him so to accept it Nay me thinks flesh and blood should regurgitate his former murmurings upon this motion made by Jeremy and interpret the Prorogation of his life as a fresh heap of sorrowes laid unto the burthen of griefs under which he fainted Profers made by earthly Princes must be respected by their followers though worth little in themselves for unto them Court holy-water must seem sweet although it have no smel of gain But shall the The King of Kings obtrude That as an Extraordinary blessing upon his poor distressed servant which had been adjudged as his own word bears Record for a bitter curse or grievious plague from which Two Kings the one of Israel the other of Judah were not exempted but upon great humiliation and penitent tears For was it not The word of the Lord which
extends thus farre Baruch Wouldst thou reap pleasures from a Land overspread with plagues and drowned with sorrow Or seekest thou applause or credit among a people now become an hissing and astonishment to all their neighbors Wouldst thou eat Lambs out of the flock or fat Calves out of the Stall whilest famine devours the men of warre whiles such as have fed delicately languish for hunger in the streets Wouldst thou be clothed with soft rayment or crown thy head with roses whilst such as have been brought up in scarlet embrace the dunghill Is it thy desire to glad thine heart with wine or with oyl to make thee a chearful countenance when as the visage of my Nazarites sometimes purer then snow whiter then milk is become more black then any coal Or dost thou affect to live at ease in Sion to be lull'd asleep with sound of viols whilst the the outcries of the maimed captives or mothers rob'd of their children are ready to wake the dead out of their sepulchres For a voice is taken up throughout all the Cities of Judah and Benjamin a voice of bitter weeping like that of Rachel mourning for her children and refusing comfort because they are not Sooner shal heaven fall to the earth and the whole earth shrink into its Centre then one word my Prophets have spoken shal fall to the ground And now if thou wouldst be instructed those dayes long since foretold by Micah are approaching The dayes Wherein Sion must be plowed as a field Ierusalem become an heap and the mountain of the house like the high places of the Forrest Thou seest whole cities whole Kingdoms subject to mortality and seekest thou to enclose that prosperity which they could not entertain within thy breast Albeit thou couldst hope to live happily in the midst of so great misery as is decreed against thy native Country yet what is or hath been therein what is it thine eyes have seen under the sun whereon thy love and liking could have been more affectionately set then mine have been upon this Land and people For hath it not been sung of old Ierusalem is the vinyard of The Lord of Hosts and the men of Iudah his pleasant plant yet I thou seest must forgo mine own inheritance and be deprived of Ierusalem my wonted joy and art thou so wedded to ought in it that thou canst not leave off to love it and be contented to take thy life with thee for a prey to possess in whatsoever place thou shalt make choice of 10. But is Baruch by this Donative discharged of his former Watchmanship in Jerusalem No! As the proposal of these Calamities ought in reason to wean his soul from wonted delights or seeking after great matters so one special End of his not seeking after these is that he may be more resolute and diligent in denouncing Gods judgements against this people The intimation of the former words may on Gods part be thus continued ¶ However I have determined to destroy this people which have forsaken me Yet do not thou forsake thy former Station repine not at thy wonted charge but execute faithfully with alacritie that service whereto my Prophet shall appoint thee What though thou hast seen no fruit of all thy former labours What though Iehoiakim begin to rage afresh and this people hold on still to rebell against thee Hath not my spirit continually Warred with the uncircumcised hearts of their forefathers Hath not the Great Angel of my Covenant wrastled from time to time with this stubborn and stiff-necked generation What could I have done more to my vine-yard that I have not done unto it Howbeit at every season whilst I looked for grapes it hath brought forth wilde grapes yet hitherto have I not ceased nor do I yet cease to prune and dresse it Have the inhabitants of Ierusalem at any time grieved thee or my Prophets Or do I now send thee with this message unto them and am not with thee Yes in all thy troubles I am troubled And what art thou or who is Ieremy Not against you but against me is the rebellion of my people for they have vexed my holy spirit And doth this complaint well become thee I fainted in my sighing and I find no rest ¶ All these and many like branches which without violence to the meaning of the Spirit might be spread out more at large are virtually enclosed in the Text. The force and efficacie of the perswasion ariseth more particularly from the Reference which these words Seek them not c. have to Baruchs repining at the message enjoyned by Jeremie and to that Reply of the Almighty upon his repining Behold that which I have planted will I pluck up c. Which last words unless I mis-observe the native propriety of the Original implie such an Emphatical Antithesis between the losses which God and Baruch might seem to suffer as that speech of the Apostle 1 Cor. 15. 36. implies betwixt Gods sowing and mans sowing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou Fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die The Implication is Much more shall that which is sowen in corruption by the Almighties immediate hand be raised in glory Our Prophets words are verbatim thus Ejus quod aedificavi destructor Egomet Of what I have built I my self must be the destroyer Ejus quod plantavi evulsor Egomet what was planted by me alone I my self must now pluck up Et tu quaereres grandia tibi As if he had said I may not reap where I have sown nor gather the fruits which I have planted and canst not thou be contented to forgo thy harvest which thou hopest for but diddest not sow To the least grain whereof thou canst have no Title none so just and soveraign as I have to this whole Land to every Soul that lives in Judah and yet the whole and every part of this fair crop must be pluckt up and transplanted 11. But though the Lord at this time had thus threatned and more than half shut the door of Repentance upon this stubborn people yet the Decree did not passe the irrevocable Seal of his absolute and unresistible Will until some fourteen years after as hath been shewed in former meditations out of this place As much as I now affirm is included in Ieremies words to Baruch at the very instant when he repined Jerem. 36. v. 6 7. Therefore go thou and read in the Roll which thou hast written from my mouth the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the Lords House upon the fasting day and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their Cities It may be they will present their supplication before the Lord and will return every one from his evil way for great is the anger and the fury that the Lord hath pronounced against this people Whether they would pray in faith or no was Juris controversi a
Lord to utter these words Or which is all one The fulfilling of his imprecation according to the Mystical sense Third The discussion of such Cases of Conscience or controversed Divinity as are naturally emergent out of the Mystical or Literal sense and are useful for this present or future Ages To begin with the Circumstance of the time wherein they were uttered That apparently was the dayes of King Joash Heir and Successor unto Ahaziah King of Judah who was next Successor save one unto good Jehoshaphat by lineal direct descent but no Successor at all to him in vertue or goodness or happiness of Government For Ahaziah was Pessimi patris haud melier proles a very wicked son of a most wicked father and too hard to say whether he or his Father Jehoram were the worse King or more unfortunate Governour But Joash the Orphan Son of Ahaziah hath the Testimonie of the Spirit of God That he ruled well whilst Jehiiada the High-Priest did live 2 King 12. 2. And his zeal to the House of the Lord recorded at large in this chapter as also in the 2 Kings 12. 4. was so great as more could not be expected or conceived either of Jehoshaphat Hezekiah or good Josiah And thus he continued from the seventh year of his Age until the five or six and thirtieth at the least A competent time a man would think for a full and firm growth in goodness But amongst the Sons and Successors of David we may observe that some begun their Reign very well and ended ill Others being extream bad in their beginning did end better then the other begun So Manasses in the beginning and middle of his Reign filled the City with innocent blood and died a Penitentiary This present King Joash begun and continued his Reign for thirty years or thereabouts in the spirit but ended in the flesh or rather in blood leaving a perpetual stain upon the Throne and Race of David This strange Apostacie or Revolt argues that his fore-mentioned goodness and zeal unto the House of the Lord was Adventitious and not truly rooted in his own brest That the fair Lineaments of a pious man and noble Prince were drawn not by his own skill but by the manuduction of Jehoiada the High-Priest as Children oft-times make fair letters while their Tutors guide their hands but spatter and blot and dash after they be left to their own guidance Jehoiada saith the Text waxed old and was full of dayes an hundred and thirty years old was he when he died and they buried him in the City of David among the Kings because he had done good in Israel both towards God and towards his House The solemnization of his death was a strong Argument of the respect and love which both Prince and People did bear unto him whilst he lived and much happier might both of them have been had they continued the same respect unto his Son and Successor But they buried their love unto Jehoiada and which was worst the zeal which he had taught unto the House of God in his Grave For so it followeth verse 17 18. Now after the death of Jehoiada came the Princes of Iudah and made obeysance to the King Then the King hearkened unto them and he left the House of the Lord God of their Fathers and served Groves and Idols Yet Gods love to them doth not determine with the beginning of their hate unto the House of God and to his faithful Servants For notwithstanding that wrath came upon Iudah and Ierusalem for this their trespasse yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them again to the Lord and they testified against them but they would not give ear And the Spirit of the Lord came upon or cloathed Zechariah the Son of Iehoiada the Priest who stood above the people and said unto them Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Commandement of the Lord that ye cannot prosper Because ye have forsaken the Lord he hath also forsaken you And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the Commandment of the King in the Court of the House of the Lord. Thus Ioash the King remembred not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done unto him but slew his Son and when he dyed he said or inter moriendum dixit The Lord look upon it and require it 3. But did the Lord hearken to him or require his blood at the Kings and Princes hands which slew him Yes that he did oftner then once For it was required of their posterity But for the present he did visit both the King and his Princes most remarkably by an unexpected Army of the Syrians unto whose Idolatrous Rites they had now conformed themselves complying too well with them and with their neighbors the Heathen in all sorts of wickedness But here the Polititian will reply That the Syrians did upon other occasions intend to do some mischeif to the King the Princes and People of Judah For it was never unusual to that Nation to vex or molest Israel or Judah Nunc olim quocunque dabant se tempore vires As often as opportunity served as often as they could spy advantage And to assign the Probable or meritorious Causes of such Plagues as befal any Nation by their inveterate enemies unto the Judgment of God for this or that sin is not safe specially for men not endued with the Spirit of Prophecie In many Causes I confess it is not yet in this particular we need not be afraid to say as much as the Spirit of God or sacred authority of his Word hath taught us We say no more as indeed we need not for the point is so plainly and punctually set down by the pen-man of this Book from verse 23. to the 26. as it needs no Comment no paraphrase or marginal conjecture any of which would rather soyl then clear the meaning of the Text. And it came to passe at the revolution of the year that the hoast of Syria came up against him and they came to Judah and Ierusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people from amongst the people and sent the spoyls of them to Damascus c. 4. The Observations or plain Uses which these Literal Circumstances of this Story afford are many I shall touch upon some principal ones As First To admonish Kings or other supreme Magistrates to reverence and respect their Clergy seeing Ioash did prosper so well while he followed the advice and counsel of the High-Priest Iehoiada but came to this fearful and disastrous end first by contemning the warning of Zechariah the Cheif-Priest and afterward by shedding of the innocent blood of this great Prophet of the Lord. But this will be a common place not so proper to this time and place wherein we live wherein there is such happy accord between the supream Majestie and the Prelacie and Clergie of this Kingdom as no good Patriot can desire more then the continuance of it
Secondly There lies open a spacious field for such as affect to expatiate in Common Places or dilate upon that Old Maxim Laici semper sunt infensi Clericis to tax the inveterate enmity of secular men against the Clergie Whose violent out burstings into Prodigious Outrages did never more clearly appear then in the wicked suggestions of the Princes of Iudah unto infortunate King Joash against this Godly High-Priest Zechariah for his zeal unto the House and service of the God of their Fore-fathers But however the like prodigious cruelty had not been exemplified before this time yet in many later ages the Prelacie or Clergie have not come an inch short of these Lay-Princes in working and animating Kings and supream Magistrates to exercise like tyranny and oppressing cruelty not upon Laicks only but upon their Godly and religious Priests or inferior Clergie The Histories almost of all Ages and Nations since the death of Maurice the Emperor unto this last Generation will be ready to testifie whensoever they shall be heard or read more then I have said against the Romish Hierarchy whose continual practises have been to make Christian Kings the Executioners of their furious spleen against their own Clergie or neighbor Princes or to stirre up the rebellion of Lay-subjects against all such of their Leige-Lords or Soveraigns as would not submit themselves their Crowns and Dignities or which is more their Consciences unto Peters pretended Primacie The sum of all I have to say concerning this Point is This As there seldom have been any very Good Kings or extraordinary happy in their Government whether in the line of David or in Christian Monarchies without advice and assistance of a Learned and Religious Clergie so but a few have proved extremely bad without the suggestions of covetous corrupt or ambitious Priests So that the safest way for chief Governors is to keep as vigilant and strong Guards upon their own brests and consciences as they do about their bodies or palaces Now the special and safe guard which they can entertain for their souls and consciences is to lay to heart the Examples of Gods dealing with former Princes with the Kings of Judah especially according to the esteem or reverence or the dis-esteem which they did bear unto his Laws and Services 5. Another special meanes to secure even Greatest Monarches from falling into Gods wrath or revenging hand is not to hearken unto not to meditate too much upon or at least not to misconstrue a Doctrine very frequent in all Ages to wit That Kings and supreme Magistrates are not subject to the authority of any other men nor to the coercive authoritie of humane Laws The Doctrine I dare not I cannot in conscience deny to be most true and Orthodoxal And for the truth of it I can add one Argument more then usual That Gods judgments in all Ages or Nations have not been more frequently executed by Counter-passion or Retaliation upon any sort or state of men then upon Kings or Princes or greatest Potentates which pollute their Crowns and Dignities with innocent blood as King Joash did or with other like out-crying sins As if the most Just and Righteous Lord by innumerable Examples tending to this purpose would give the world to understand That none are fit to exercise Iurisdiction upon Kings or Princes besides himself and withall to instruct even Greatest Monarchs that their Exemption from all Controulment of humane Laws cannot exempt or priviledge them from the immediate judgement of his own hands or from the contrivance of his just punishments by the hands of others as by his instruments though his Enemies Agents I forbear to produce more instances of Divine Retaliation upon most Soveraign Princes besides this one in my Text which a bundantly justifieth both parts of my last Assertion or Observation Ioash as you heard before and may read when you please did more then permit did authorize or command the Princes of Iudah to murther their High-Priest Zachariah in the Court of the Lords House A prodigious liberty or licence for a King to Grant and more furiously executed by the Princes of Iudah his Patentees or Commissioners for this purpose And yet the most righteous Judge of all the world did neither animate nor authorize the Prophets Priests or Levites or other cheif men in this Kingdom to be the avengers of Blood or to execute judgement upon the King or Princes of Iudah This service in Divine Wisdom and Justice was delegated to the Syrians their neighbor Nation And the Hoast not by their own skill or contrivance but by the disposition of Divine Providence did Geometrically and exactly proportion the execution of vengeance to the quality and manner of the fact The Princes of Iudah who had murthered Zechariah in the Courts of the Temple of the Lords House were all destroyed by the Syrian Hoast in their own Land and the spoil of their Palaces sent unto the King of Damascus And King Ioash by whose authority Zechariah was stoned to death in his Pue or Pulpit after the Syrians had grievously afflicted him was slain in his own Palace upon the bed of his desired or appointed rest by the hands of two of his own servants yet neither of them by birth his native Subject the one the son of an Ammonitess the other of a Moabitess both the illegitimate off-spring of two of the worst sort of aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel In all this appears the special finger of God But though all this were done by Gods appointment yet may we no way justifie the conspiracy of Ioash his own servants against him though both aliens unless we knew what speciall warrant they had for the execution of Gods judgments which are alwayes most just However we have neither warrant nor reason to exclaim against them or their sins so farre or so much as by the warrant of Gods Word we might against the Princes of Iudah for the instigating of their lawful King or liege-Liege-Lord to practice such prodigious cruelty as hath been exprest upon Zechariah the Lords High-Priest or against the disposition of the stiffe-necked Jewish Nation in general most perspicuous for the Crisis at that time 6. But to exclaim against the Princes or People of that Age we need not for their posterity hath amplified the cursed Circumstances of this most horrible Fact and charged these their fore-fathers with such a measure of iniquity as No Orator this day living without their directions or instructions could have done Septies in die cadit justus The just man fals seven times a day was an ancient and an authentick Saying if meant at all by the Author of it of sins and delinquences rather then of crosses and greivances which fall upon them or into which they fall was never meant of Grosser sins or transgressions But of that dayes work wherein Zechariah was slain these later Jews say Septem transgressiones fecit Israel in illo die I shall not over-English their
them ye shall scourge in your Synagogues and persecute them from City to City That upon you may come all the righteous blood that was shee l upon the earth from the blood of the righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias whom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar Verse 36. Verily I say unto you all these things shall come upon this Generation Or as it is in St. Lukes Narration of our Saviours Comment upon this Story taken by himself or by others who heard him in the very same words wherein he uttered it Therefore also saith the Wisdom of God I will send them Prophets and Apostles some of them they shall or will slay persecute That the blood of all the Prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this Generation from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the Altar and the Temple Verily I say unto you it shall be required of this Generation This vehement reiterated Asseveration literally and punctually referrs unto the words of my Text. The Implication or Importance is as much as if he had said Ye Scribes and Pharisees may call to mind that when your Fore-fathers whose murtherous acts ye acknowledge did slay Zacharias the High-Priest he expired with these words in his mouth Lord look upon it and require it His innocent blood was then in part required upon King Ioash upon the Princes of Judah and other chief offenders But shall now again be required in full and exact measure of this present Generation more murtherous and bloody then their idolatrous fore-fathers at any time were 9. What shall we say then That this last Generation was guilty of the murther of Zachariah or to be plagued for their fathers sins in murthering him This Point will come to be discussed in the Third General And however that may be determined This Case is clear that These later Iews did make up the full measure of their fore-fathers iniquity in killing Gods Prophets especially in murthering Zechariah who was the most illustrious Type of Christ the Son of God in the Manner of his death and for the Occasions which these several Generations took respectively to murther them both The special Occasion which their fore-fathers took to kill Zachariah the Son of Iehoiada or Barachias for he bore both names though both in effect the same or one equivalent to the other was because he taxed them for their idolatry and laboured to bring them again to the worship of the true God The only quarel which the malice of the later Jews could pick against our Lord and Saviour was because he taxed their hellish Hypocrisies which their too Curious Reformation of their fore-fathers Idolatry had bred And taught them how to worship God in spirit and truth not in Ceremonies or meer bodily observance Neither Generation were so blind as to persecute men whom they did acknowledge to be immediately sent from God Yet were both furiously prone to persecute such as indeed were sent from God for pretending or promulging their Commission from God or taking the names of Prophets upon them so often as their doctrine did crosse their practises or violent passions This later Generation of Scribes and Pharisees after they had failed in their Proofs of any Capital matter of Fact or point of doctrine delivered by Christ condemned him for answering affirmatively to this Question proposed Tell us art thou the Son of God or as St. Mark more punctually expresseth it Art thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed Mark 14. 61. Zechariah as was now said was Christs true Picture for Quality for Office and for the Relation of Names and kindred For Zechariah was a Prophet and a Priest the Son of Iehoida which signifieth as much as The knowledge of God or as our Saviour expresseth the Reality answering to his name The son of Barachias that is The blessed of God And our Saviour was The Son of the only wise God the wisdom of God and The blessed of God the very God of blessing being the Great Prophet of God and high-Priest of our souls Lastly the Princes of Iudah having by glozing flattery perswaded their King to authorize their projects against Zechariah the High-Priest and Prophet of the Lord put them in execution upon the solemn Feast of Attonement or expiation The Scribes and Pharisees equal or Superior to these Lay-Princes in cruelty importuned Pilate by pretended observance and loyal obedience to the Roman Caesar to sacrifice The Son of the Blessed whom they had unjustly condemned unto their malice at that solemn Feast which was prefigured by the Feast of Expiation the Feast instituted in the memory of their deliverance out of Egypt CHAP. XLII MATTH 23. verse 34 35 36 c. Wherefore behold I send unto you Prophets and Wise men and Scribes and some of them ye shall or will kill and crucifie and some of them shall or will ye scourge in your Synagogues and persecute them from City to City That upon you may come or by which means will come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias whom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar Verily I say unto you all these things shall come upon this Generation 2 Chron. 24. 22. The Lord look upon it and require it Luke 11. 51. Verily I say unto you it shall be required of this Generation THese words were uttered by our blessed Lord and Saviour against the Scribes and Pharisees with their Associates in Blood a little before the Feast of the Passover Whether that Last Passover wherein this Lamb of God prefigured by that Solemn Feast as also by the Death of Abel and his Sacrifice was offered upon the Cross is or may be a Question amongst the learned not at this time to be disputed But rather if occasion serve in the explication of the last verse Verily I say unto you ye shall not see me henceforth till that ye say Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. For gathering the true and full Connexion of this Passage with the former Relations it shall suffice to observe that as our Saviour never spared the Scribes and Pharisees So at this time above others he reproves them most fully and sharply The Matter of this Reproof was their avarice and hypocrisie The End partly to prevent the like desire of vain-glory with other Enormities in his Disciples Partly to cure if it were possible the Scribes and Pharisees of their hereditary disease Hence whereas they most affected Complemental Greetings in publick places or glorious Titles of Rabbies Our Saviour to allay this humour for respectful Salutations presents them Woes instead of glorious Titles he instyles them Hypocrites For striking at seven several Branches of their Hypocrisie he seven times in this Chapter begins his speech in this style Wo
destroy but rather to save and heal you If your impenitencie and perverseness have moved me to speak severely or threaten you it is still for your good Severum medicum ager intemperans facit Your obdurate hearts have caused me oft-times the mildest Physician that ever took cure of the body or soul upon him to use tart speeches unto you yet shall it never provoke me to be cruel in my practice So farre am I from seeking your blood or harm that my blood which you have continually sought whensoever you shed it shall make an Attonement for you shall procure a Free and Gracious General Pardon for all your sins and for all the sins of your fore-fathers in shedding the Blood of Prophets sent unto them But when I have done all when all is done that could be done unto this Vineyard which my Father planted according to the Rules of Equity of mercy and benignity without wrong or prejudice to eternal Iustice Unless by sincere Repentance as well for your own sins as for the sins of your fore-fathers wherein you have been too deep part-takers with them you submit your selves unto my Fathers will and with all humility crave allowance of that most Free and Gracious Pardon which my blood shall purchase for you and for all the world besides The City of Abel's and of Zachariah's blood will at the last prevail against you the blood of both of them and of all the Prophets whom your fore-fathers have slain will be Required of this Generation in fuller measure then it was of those which slew them and this will be a burden too heavy for you to bear much heavier then the punishment of Cain albeit neither my blood nor the blood of any of mine Apostles or Disciples do come at all upon the Score or Reckoning wherewith Moses in whom ye trust and the Prophets whose Tombs and Sepulchres ye build and garnish will be ready to charge you in the day of your Account or Visitation For if the blood of Christ or of his Apostles had been Required at their hands which shed it me thinks this Emphatical Ingemination Verily I say unto you it shall be required c. should not be so needful and weighty as were all the words uttered by Him who spake as never man spake 10. But may we from any or all these Premisses conclude that This present Generation was not punished at all for putting our Saviour to death Or that his death or the indignities done unto His more then sacred Person at or before his death was no Cause at all of those Exemplary Punishments or unparalleld plagues which fell upon Ierusalem and Iudah upon this whole present generation God forbid The Question is not Whether our Saviours death was any Cause at all of the exemplary punishments but What manner of Cause it was or In what sense they may be said to be plagued for wronging him thus We answer that the indignities done unto Him at his death and at his arraignment were such Causes of the ensuing Woes and calamities which came upon this Generation as Absentia Nautae is naufragii The Case or Species facti is thus Suppose a skilful Navigator and experienced Pilot which had long governed some tall and goodly Ship with good success in many difficult voyages should at the length either by the greediness of the Owner be casheerd or inforced to leave his place and a storm upon his departure should arise and through want of good steerage or sounding should run them on ground or dash them against the rocks we may say without Solecisme that the Abandoning or Absence of the former Master or Pilot was the Cause of the shipwrack or the loss of men or goods although he neither were any Cause of raising the storm nor prayed against them as Zacharias did against his persecutors nor gave them any wrong directions before he left them Now the Son of God from the time of his peoples thraldom in Egypt but more especially from the time of their deliverance thence had been in Peculiar manner the King and Governor of the Iews in all their Consultations of Peace or Warre their only Pilot in all their storms And however throughout their several Generations they were often greivously punished yet were they alwayes punished Citra condignum much less then their iniquities had deserved Briefly by His wisdom he preserved them safe in such distresses as without his only skill would utterly have overwhelmed the State and Nation And by his Intercession prevented the Out-bursting or fall of that hideous storm which had been secretly and by degrees more insensible gathering against them then that Cloud which Eliah's servant saw rising out of the Sea even from the death of Zachariah the son of Iehoiada and other Prophets and righteous men whose blood their fore-fathers before and after his had shed But after this last Generation had both by express words and practice verified that saying of God to Samuel They have not cast off thee from being King over them but they have cast off Me. That other prophesie or sweetly mild fore-warning for which they took occasion to stone Zachariah to death in the Courts of the Lords House was exactly fulfilled in upon them This Prophecie or fore-warning we have 2 Chron. 24. verse 20. Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Commandements of the Lord that ye cannot prosper because ye have forsaken the Lord he hath also forsaken you This Prophesie with that other of Samuel was most exactly fulfilled Tam verbis quam factis male ominatis mala ominantibus when they solemnly protested before Pilate that they had no other King but Caesar From this time the hideous storms of Gods wrath and anger against them for their own sins and the sins of their fore-fathers did dayly encrease and at last were poured out in full measure upon them when they had no Prophet nor any man that understood any more no Signs or Tokens but such as were dismal no Pilot or skilful Governor to direct them no pious Priest to make Intercession for them For having thus solemnly abandoned The Son of God their King and Lord who had been their continual Sanctuary the destroying Angels who had long waited their Opportunity to put their Commission in Execution did Arrest their bodies delivering up some to the Famine some to the Sword others to the Fowls of the air and Beasts of the field and did seize upon their Land which God had given to their Fore-fathers for the use of others even for the most wicked of the Heathens first bestowing it upon the Romans afterward upon the Saracens and last of all upon the Barbarous Turk under whose heavy yoke the inheritance and some of the posterity of Iacob have long groaned and still must groan until they confess their own sins and the sins of their fore-fathers and return unto the Allegiance of their Gracious Lord and Sovereign whom their Fore-fathers this
manner of Gods augmenting the punishments or plagues upon succeeding Generations which would not take warning by the punishments of their fore-fathers usually runs by the scale of seven Every man that seeth me saith Cain after the Lord had convented him for killing his brother will kill me whereas there was not a man in the world besides his father and himself But a mans Conscience as we say is a thousand witnesses And his Conscience did sufficiently convict him to have deserved Execution whereas there was neither Witness nor Executioner According to this Sentence engraven in this murtherous heart did God afterwards enjoyn Noah and gave it in express Commandement under his hand to Moses Whosoever doth shed mans blood by man shall his blood be shed If this Law were Just amongst the Israelites why was it not executed upon Cain the first Malefactor in this kind Nay why doth God expresly exempt him from it and punish him with exile only Doubtless this was from His Gracious Universal Goodness which alwayes threats before it strike offereth favour before he proceed to Judgment and mingleth Judgment with Mercie before he proceed in rigor of Justice Now Cain had no former warning how displeasant murther was to God and therefore is not so severely punished as every murtherer after him must be For so it is said Gen. 4. 15. Whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold Yet for any of Seths Posteritie to have killed murtherous Cain had been a sin in its nature farre less then for Cain to murther his righteous brother yet by Rule of divine Justice to be more greivously punished then Cains murther was because in him they had their Warnings 6. The same Proportion God observes in visiting the sins of Fathers upon their Children So in that Great Covenant of Life and Death made with the Israelites Levit. 26. 14 15 16. After promise of extraordinary blessings to the Observers of his Law the Lord thus threatneth the transgressors But if ye will not hearken unto me and will not do all these Commandements And if ye despise my Statutes or if your soul abhor my Judgments so that ye will not do all my Commandements but that ye break my Covenant I also will do this unto you I will even appoint over you terror consumption c. But if for all this they will not yet turn unto him he will plague them still with the pursuit of their enemies Nay it followeth verse 18 And if ye will not hearken unto me then will I punish you seven times more for your sins and if all this will not reclaim them these later plagues shall be seven times multiplied and this third plague three hundred forty three times greater then the first and the fourth Transgression shall likewise be multiplied by seven So that the same Apostasie or rebellion not amended after so many warnings if we may call the literal meaning to strict Arithmetical Account shall in the end be One thousand one hundred ninety seven times more severely punished then the first But it is likely that a Certain Number was put for an uncertain That the visitation of sins of Fathers upon their Children may be continued seventy Generations even from the first giving of the Law by Moses unto the worlds End is apparent from the verses following Levit. 26. 37. unto This Yet will the Lord still remember the Covenant made with Abraham c. For not putting this Rule or Law of confessing their fathers sins in practise the Children of that Generation which put our Lord and Saviour to death are punished this day with greater hardness of heart then the Scribes and Pharisees were For however They were the very Paterns of Hypocrisie yet had they so much sense or feeling of conscience that they did utterly dislike their Fore-fathers Actions and thought to super-erogate for their Fathers transgressions by erecting the Tombs or garnishing the Sepulchres of the Prophets whom their Fathers had murthered or stoned to death But these modern scattered Jews will not to this day confess their fore-fathers sins nor acknowledge that they did ought amiss in putting to death the Prince of Prophets and Lord of Life And their Fathers sins until they confess them are become their sins and shall be visited upon them To confess the sins of their Fathers according to the intendment or purpose of Gods Law implies an hearty Repentance for them and repentance truly hearty implies not only an Abstinence from the same or like transgressions wherewith their Fathers had provoked Gods wrath but a zealous Desire or Endeavour to glorifie God by constant Practise of the Contrary vertues or works of Piety This Doctrinal Conclusion may easily be inferred from the afore-cited 18. of Ezekiel 7. Sin is more catching then the Pestilence and no marvel if the plagues due for it to the Father in the course or doom of Justice seize on the Son seeing the contagion of sin spreads from the unknown Malefactor to his neighbors from the Fields wherein it is by Passengers committed into the bordering Cities or Villages unless the Attonement be made by Sacrifice and such solemn deprecation of guilt as the Law in this Case appoints Deut. 21. 1 2 c. If one be found slain in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possesse it lying in the field and it be not known who hath slain him Then thy Elders and Judges shall come forth and shall measure to the Cities which are round about him that is slain And it shall be that the City which is next unto the slain man even the Elders of that City shall take a Heifer which hath not been wrought with and which hath not drawn the yoak And that City shall bring down the Heifer into a rough valley which is neither cared nor sown and shall strike off the Heifers neck there in the valley And the Priests the sons of Levi shall come neer for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him and to bless in the name of the Lord and by their word shall every controversie and stroke be tryed And all the Elders of that City that are next to the slain man shall wash their hands over the Heiser that is to be beheaded in the valley And they shall answer and say Our hands have not shed this blood neither have our eyes seen it Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whom thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy People of Israels charge and the blood shall be forgiven them So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. The nearer unto us Actual Transgressors be the more they should provoke our zealous endeavors for performance of contrary duties otherwise Gods Justice will in time over-sway his mercie and plagues first procured by some one or few mens sins will diffuse themselves from the
intended by Maldonate and others That the plagues here threatned by our Saviour must wholly be ascribed to the murthering of Him and his Apostles without any Reference to the slaughter of Gods Prophets The Infiniteness of the Person offended makes up but one and not the greatest Dimension in the body of sin the Soliditie or heynousness of it must be derived from another Root And though it be most true that every sin is an offence against an Infinite Majestie yet is He whose Majestie is Infinite in a manner infinitely more offended with some sinnes then with others 2. Ignorance of those great mysteries which we beleive and acknowledge did somewhat mitigate the Iews offences as personal against our Saviour and excuse their Persons a Tanto though not a Toto We speak the Wisdom of God which none of the Princes of this world knew for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory 1 Cor. 2. 7 8. And again They of Jerusalem and their Rulers because they knew him not nor yet the voices of the Prophets they have fulfilled them in condemning him Acts 13. 27. St. Peter hath avouched as much upon his own knowledge as St. Paul did in mitigation of these Jews offence And now brethren I wot that out of ignorance ye did it as did also your Rulers Act. 3. verse 17. Some rigid Accuser of these hateful men would perhaps reply that they were ignorant through their own default All this being granted their fault lies properly in the true and immediate Cause of their Ignorance not in that ignorance which was no otherwise Cause of their actual murther then by not restraining their malice which first brought forth ignorance and then murther What then were the true and proper Causes of their malitious Ignorance Self-conceit of their own righteousness pride ambition covetousness unto all which as also to their obdurateness in all these and like enormities such partial apprehensions of their fathers idolatry and cruelty in killing the Prophets as we have of their hypocrisie and cruelty against Christ did concurre as Accessarie or Causes Collateral Being so much addicted to covetousness to pride and ambition and so self-conceited of their own righteousness in respect of other men it was impossible they should not do as they did These Collections to my apprehension are the same with that of our Saviour He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God And this is their condemnation What That they went about to kill Christ No but that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather then light But why did they so Because their deeds were evil For every one that doth evil hateth the light He that now is otherwise as evil as they were before Christ came would have hated him and his Disciples as much as they did and is as liable as they were to any punishment which they suffered for their trespasses against him Suppose he had come into the world in the dayes of Joash who put Zachariah to death done the same works used the same admonitions and reproofs to have recalled that headstrong generation from Idolatry which he did to reclaim the Scribes and Pharisees from their hypocrisie and malice Gods Prophets which knew their temper would not I am perswaded have been too forward to have been their Bails for much better behaviour towards their Lord and Master then they had shewed towards themselves his servants St. Stephen's Censure of this people from time to time Ye do alwayes resist the holy Ghost As your fathers did so do ye gives us occasion to suspect that they were sometimes afore Christs time so wicked as if he had come in their dayes they would have done as this later generation did But these have killed him De Facto Their sin notwithstanding is not hereby greater then theirs that would have been as forward to kill him if he had given them the like provocation For so his manifestation in the flesh should necessarily have made this later Generation worse then any former had been and God had dealt less graciously with them in presenting his Son unto them then with their wicked fathers which never had seen him But against these and the like necessary Consequences of the former Position our Saviour protests God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved John 3. 17. And this salvation was first out of love no doubt to be tendred unto Ierusalem and her children 3. The Issue of these Deductions in brief is this The Scribes and Pharisees did no way exceed their fathers in wickedness unless perhaps in Hypocrisie or unwillingness to be reclaimed Christ was a better Teacher then the Prophets were and unto us it is manifest that these Scribes and Pharisees which would not learn goodness of him were most wickedly wilful But whether more wicked or wilful then any of their fathers before or others that lived since that time have been is more then man can determine It must be left to his judgment which judgeth not as man doth by the Event but by clear sight of the heart For the same reason it cannot be resolved whether they that put our Saviour to death were greater sinners then King Ioash and his Princes Only this we know and must believe That these later did fill up the measure of their fore-fathers iniquity that the complement of their iniquity being come the vials of Gods wrath were poured more plentifully upon this last Generation then upon any former but should not have been so plentifully poured upon it unless Zacharias and the Prophets had been so desperately slain by their fathers And for any Argument that can be brought to the contrary had Christ been crucified when Zacharias was slain and Zacharias slain when he was crucified all other proper Circumstances of each Fact besides this change of time continuing the same it is probable from my Text That Gods judgments upon this Nation had been less in the former age then they were and more greivous more sudden and terrible in the later then are now recorded Nor can this Consequence be any whit prejudiced albeit we grant the practises of cruelty against our Saviour to have been seven hundred thousand times more heynous in themselves then any could have been attempted against Zacharias The destruction of our Saviours Enemies upon the first Arrest or shameless abuse of His sacred Body in justice might and without his Intercession perhaps would have been more sudden and dreadful then Sodoms was Obdurate pride unrelenting cruelty and general impenitencie for other foul sins as they concerned the Whole Trinity or were matter of sin against the Holy Ghost he could not remit or make intercession for them in the dayes of his flesh but is to call their Authors to strict account as he is the Judge
husbandmen which shall render him the fruits in their season Matth. 21. Luke 20. Most men I doubt not understand the General meaning of the Parable And it is in effect the same with the Prophets Song of his Beloved concerning his vineyard Esay 5. 1. The one is as a Paraphrase upon the other The histories of this Nation from that time to this is as a full and just Commentary upon both The vineyard of the Lord of hoasts saith the Prophet v. 7. is the house of Israel and the men of Judah his pleasant plants And being reasonable plants they were also the husbandmen here meant The fruits looked for were Iudgment and in stead of it behold oppression righteousness and in lieu hereof behold a Cry These were wild grapes If any list to descend to more particulars By the fruitful hill wherein the vineyard was seated he may understand the hill of Sion or Jerusalem by the Tower the Temple By the hedge the fortifications of Hierusalem begun by David without which our Saviour who is the heir meant in the Gospel was crucified being sentenced to execution within the vineyard The judgment which the chief Priest and Elders gave against themselves was by the Prophet referred unto the Inhabitants of Hierusalem and men of Judah The Tenour of it is the same in the Prophet and the Evangelist I will tell you saith the Prophet what I will do to my vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be troden down And I will lay it waste and it shall not be pruned or digged But there shall come up briars and thorns I will also command the Clouds that they rain no rain upon it That is Not whiles it remained in Judah whose mountains are now become like the mountains of Gilboah accursed for the slaughter of the King of Israel The execution of this Sentence was fitted to divers times in different measure according to their unfruitfulness or fertility in bringing forth wild grapes when good grapes were most expected More exactly parallel to the Parable as it is proposed by our Saviour we may besides all other particular diseases or distempers of this flourishing State observe Three principal Climacterical Seasons In the first and second it escapes very hardly and dies in the last The First we take from Zachariah's death a Season wherein God the men or Iudah being Judges might justly expect extraordinary fruit of his vineyard For Jehoiada the High-Priest father in Zachariah had lastly pruned and drest it re-ingrafting Joash as a forlorn Plant into the stock of David from which he had been for a while dis-planted by Athaliah the Queen Regent through whose cruelty all the rest of the Royal Branches utterly perished But instead of grapes the Princes bring forth wild grapes After the death of Jehoiada Came the Princes and made obeysance to the King who hearkened unto them And they left the House of the Lord and served groves So wrath came upon Judah for this trespass Yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord and they testified against them but they would not give ear After all this the Spirit of the Lord came upon Zachariah and he said unto them Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Lords Commandements that ye cannot prosper 2 Chron. 24. 17 22. He said no more then Moses their Law-giver had expressed in that Divine Song Deut. 32. which this people were to teach their children that it might be a witness against them Notwithstanding in despight of Moses Law and the Spirit of the Lord which emboldened Zachariah to preach it they confirm their desperate league with the Prophets blood that did disswade it Of those other Servants of the Lord sent unto them about the same time we may without breach of charity suspect one at least was beaten and another slain Because it is certain that Zachariah whose Father had deserved so well of King Princes and People of Judah was by the Kings appointment stoned to death And besides the Calamities of warre which befell the Land in the end of that year the Temple in which he died was by his dying curse designed to ruine and destruction It could not be purged from guilt of his guiltless blood but by that fire which in the next generation did devour it Yet before the approach of this Second Climacterical Season The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his Messengers rising up betimes and sending because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place But they mocked the Messengers of God despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose till there was no remedy 2 Chron. 36. 15 16 17. 8. This affectionate description of Gods tender care and compassion in sending Prophets to reclaim them argues what Our Saviour expresseth in the Parable That he sent moe then before And in the age following Zachariah's death lived all the Prophets whose Prophecies are extant But unto all those though moe they did as they had done unto the former Isaiah as the Jews confess was slain by Manasses Uriah as you heard before was killed by Jehoiakim and Jeremiah sometimes beaten sometimes imprisoned perpetually abused during the reign of Iehoiakim and Zedekiah And so at length the plagues threatned and in part executed upon this people immediately after Zechariah's death are multiplied upon that wicked generation The Rod of Gods wrath is for fashion the same but now more sharp and terrible Their fathers had slain Zachariah in the Temple And for this sin not expiated but continued and approved at least by like practises of this Generation The Lord brought upon them the King of the Chaldees who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their Sanctuary and had no compassion upon young men or maidens old men or him that stoopeth for age he gave them all into his hand And all the vessels of the House of God great and small and the treasures of the House of the Lord and the treasures of the King and of his Princes all those he brought to Babylon 2 Chron. ch 36. v. 17 18. What are those but meer enlargements of the former calamities which ensued the Butchery of Zacharias which were these It came to pass in the revolution of the year that the hoast of Syria came up against Joash and they came to Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people from among the people and sent all the spoil of them unto the King of Damascus 2 Chron. 24. 23. Some principal particulars of the spoils here intimated are fully expressed 2 Kings 12. where the rest of this story is omitted And Jehoash King of Judah took all the hallowed things and all the gold found in the treasures of the House of the Lord and in the Kings house and sent it to Hazael King
of Syria and he went away from Jerusalem But though the Chaldeans had burnt the House of God and the Palaces of Ierusalem with fire had destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof yet the Lord doth not utterly forsake his vineyard his Church the Quire of Saints still nestles in the branches that are transplanted whose off spring within seventy years is restored unto their native soyl Jerusalem repaired the Temple re-edified and the Land of Iudah sown with the seed of man and beast After this State thus raised again from Civil Death if posterity will not believe nor bring forth better fruits then heretofore their fathers have done neither would they believe though Moses and the Prophets were raised from the dead to exhort them to repentance For this reason after their return from Babylon and re-edification of the Temple God sends no more Prophets save such as they brought with them until the fulness of time or the Third Climacterical Period of this State wherein the disease being become more desperate he sent his only Son the Heir of all things as knowing that if he could not none ever after should be able to recover it This his Son was that Lord which by his peculiar presence had brought this vine out of Egypt but after he had planted it in Iudea and let it out unto these husbandmen went into a farre Country that is he appeared not unto them as he did to Moses to Joshuah c. until in the last dayes he descended from Heaven in the true form and substance of man to receive the fruits He looked at this time especially his vineyard should had brought forth grapes but it brought forth more wild grapes then before He looked for weighty matters of the Law and behold tithing of Mint Annise and Cummin He looked for judgment mercy and faith But behold covetousness extortion pride and cruelty grapes more bitter then the grapes of Sodom Sourness it self the very leaven of Hypocrisie yet upon the first denial of such fruits as he expected he departs not from them he accuseth them not unto his Father But as they had two or three fore-warnings more remarkable then ordinary in several Generations of their Ancestors so he expects a loyal Answer at more times of fruit then one or two presenting himself to them for three years and more together at every several Passover besides other anniversary solemnities And yet at last for constant delivery of that Embassage which he had from his father they caught him and condemned him in the vineyard but carry him out of it to be crucified in Mount Calvarie And thus at length Zachariah's Prophecie against Ioash and his wicked Princes and his Imprecation at his death are fulfilled in this wicked generation they formally forsook their God when they cried We have no King but Caesar and demanding Barabbas a murtherer the son of their father the Divle they destoyed Iesus the Son of God And the Lord hath utterly forsaken them not the Temple and City only but the Inhabitants but the whole race of the Jewish Nation and hath let forth His Vineyard to us Gentiles They were so rich by his bounty that they were ashamed to acknowledge so mean a man as Our Saviour for their Lord and Owner of the Land they inhabited And as the Prophet foretold they hid their faces from him And therefore as Moses testified against them in his dying Song The Lord hides his face from them Darkness did over-spread the Land of Iudah at his Passion and the light of his countenance since that time hath never shined upon that Nation They lost Gods extraordinary Illumination by Urim and Thummim as some hold at Zachariah's death as most agree at the destruction of Salomon's Temple but now are destitute of the light of Scripture without all knowledge of Gods Word since they rejected Him which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world In the very sun-shine of the Gospel they grope like blind men that cannot see a beaten way and must so continue throughout their generations unto the worlds end until they shall unfeignedly confess the iniquity of their fathers and that they have walked contrary unto me And that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies Lev. 26. 40 41. As the sins of those Jews which rejected the Light of the world and solemnly revolted from their King have been thus remarkably visited upon their children that will not confess their sins in so doing nor acknowledge him whom they rejected for their expected Redeemer So were the sins of that generation which slue Zachariah visited upon this which crucified our Saviour because they neither did truly confess them but rather revive and increase them nor finally admit of his Sacrifice which was appointed for the expiation of that Prodigious Fact as of all others wherewith the City and Temple had been polluted Unless God's mercy had warded off the stroke of his justice Ierusalem it self had been made an heap of stones when King Ioash stoned Zachariah to death So had the Temple it self wherein his guiltless blood lay uncovered been covered with Dust The whole Nations plagues in rigour of justice might have been much greater at that time then they have been since Now all the mercie or mitigation of Justice which former Generations found was through the Mediation of the Son of God And seeing these later have been more refractorie to this their Mediator himself then were their fathers to his Prophets seeing they have solemnly disavowed him and bid a defiance to his Embassadors Gods mercies which had daily shrowded Ierusalem from his wrath as the hen doth her young ones from the storm leave it and her children open to his justice For Resolution of the main Point or difficulty proposed The forsaking or putting the Son of God to death is for ought I can gather no direct and positive cause of all the miseries expressed or intimated in my Text Only such a Cause of Ierusalems destruction as the Pilots absence is of shipwrack a Cause of it only in this sense that her inhabitants by forsaking him have exempted themselves from his wonted protection and God's justice which had long watched his departure from the City and Temple as Sergeants do their egress which have taken Sanctuary now attatches them when there is none to become their Surety none to intercede for mitigation of Justice none to hinder why judgments heretofore alwayes abated and oft-times altogether deferred may not be executed upon them in full measure But that their Personal Offences against their Mediator should wholly or specially procure this woful doom or come at all into the Bill of their Indictment is in my Opinion no way probable The character of his own speeches as well in my Text or elsewhere altogether disclaims this Assertion as unconsonant to the form of wholsome doctrine But may we say that albeit his blood did not augment their
shall live Hence it is that this people of God in their distress make The Confession of their fore-fathers sins as Essential an Ingredient or Condition of their prayers as the confession of their own Dan. 9. Ezra 9. Nehem. 9. Psal 106 6 7. For this the Lord himself had expresly taught them Levit. 26. For your transgressions the Land of your enemies shall eat you up And they that are left of you shall pine away for their iniquitie and for the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them also Then they shall confess their iniquity and the wickedness of their fathers Ver. 38. Thus doing I will remember saith the Lord my Covenant with Jacoo and my Covenant also with Isaac and also my Covenant with Abraham will I remember and will remember the Land You see then it is evident that as Adam's-sin remaines in his Posterity until it be taken away in Christ so doth Gods wrath abide upon a Land for the former Inhabitants sins and passeth from the Dead unto the Living unless the Attonement be made by the sweet incense of prayer and fervencie of spirit which is to be in every Christian and spiritual Priests heart as ready upon this occasion as fire from the Altar was in Aarons hand when he stayed the Plague by standing betwixt the dead and them that were alive Numb 16. 46. It is not the sacrifice though of the calves of mens lips without an humbled and contrite spirit and fervent zeal of blessing Gods Name by Contrary good deeds that can stay the plague and divert the wrath gone out from God against a Land for her former Inhabitants their Predecessors sins 3. From these Principles we may easily gather How Gods Mercies may be abridged towards a Land or People less sinful perhaps then others formerly have been for actual transgressions if we consider the sins only of the present time From the same Principles we may likewise clearly discern how the full measure of any Lands or Peoples iniquity may be accomplished then when to mens seeming their out-rages be nothing so greivous as others before them have been or when their Princes or Rulers are more then ordinarily religious First Where the transgressions of Predecessors have been many and greivous and the Reformation of their Successors but slight or imperfect the wrath of God procured by the former may remain still and light heaviest upon the Third Generation following who shall procure it further if they follow their Grandsires sins notwithstanding their immediate Parents or Predecessors did in part repent or in some sort renounce their Fathers wayes For the fruits of such repentance seeing it is not Total and proceeds not from a perfect and unfeigned heart do but as it were for a time put off the Fit or Extremity of Gods wrath they take not away the disease it self which therefore returns to its course again As the Psalmist excellently describes the effects of such repentance When he stew them they sought him and they returned and sought God early And they remembred that God was their strength and the most high God their Redeemer but their heart was not upright with him Neither were they faithful in his Covenant The fruit of this was that oft-times he called back his anger and would not suffer his whole displeasure to arise This stayed the Course or Motion of his wrath It did not minish the Inclination or Propension of the same But when the former sins burst out again either in them or their posterity His judgments drew nearer unto them then before and his vengeance was more fierce and sudden Secondly Where the Reformation of Religion and turning unto the Lord is on the Princes parts perfect and compleat yet the people do not inwardly repent and with a perfect heart abjure their fore-fathers wayes the wrath of God due unto their fathers sins comes upon them and is executed by taking away their good and giving them Princes alike minded to themselves And so by little and little they fulfil the iniquity of their fore-fathers 4. To give you a view of these General undoubted Truths in the succession of this Kingdom Righteous David had left Gods Mercie towards this Land and People so farre over-ballancing his Justice that all the Idolatry which Solomon his son had set up albeit idolatry be a most greivous sin did not any more then bring his Mercie to an Equipoize with it again But Rehoboam following his Fathers footsteps in evil not his religious Grandfathers paths in good puls down Gods judgments upon his head and first bears the rod of his transgression having more then one half of his Kingdom rent from him by his servant Jeroboam and afterwards both he and Judah which had remained with him bear the strokes of their iniquity by the hand of Shishak King of Egypt who forraged the Land and took away the treasures of the Temple of the Lord. But in this God did but shake his sword over their heads These beginnings of plagues and judgments are but the Motions of His wrath which abides not for his Mercie presently retired unto the same Point where it stood at Jeroboams revolt Of an unwise father there sprung up immediately an unrighteous son Abijam who though he had sometimes good success against his enemies yet as the sequel of this Story intimates 1 King 15. 3. he had almost brought Gods fierce wrath upon the Land by following his fathers footsteps but that the Lord as yet drew back his punishing hand for Righteous David his great Grand-fathers sake For David 's sake did the Lord his God give him a light in Jerusalem and set up his son after him and established Jerusalem ver 4. This was Asa in whose dayes the Land had peace for he followed the footsteps of his Father David yet was there no perfect Reformation wrought in his raign for the High places were not taken away And he himself after good success in victory was infected with the Fatal disease of Kings and Princes To begin to trust too much to secular Policie and grew impatient of the Lords Prophets reproof But by his carriage and good example such as it is and the righteous reign of his son Jehosaphat is the Current of the Lords former wrath stopped yet so as it is ready to overflow the Land with greater violence in the next succession wherein the like iniquity as had reigned in former times should burst out afresh again Although Jehoshaphat's heart was upright yet did he work no perfect Reformation For the high places were not taken away And as it is 2 Chron. 20. 23. The people had not yet prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers Neither so penitent as that they could recal Gods wrath or bring his mercie back again unto its former stay Nor yet so extream bad and forward in sin as that the Lord would not spare the Land and be merciful to
them for religious Jehoshaphat and the Righteous sakes that lived in it After Iehoshaphats death Iehoram his son reigns in his stead a successor to the Kings of Israel in all wickedness and Idolatry And as his life was wicked so was his estate unfortunate his end terrible and his death ignominious In his dayes did Edom make his final revolt from Iudah 2 Chron. 21. 10. and Libnah at the same time because he had forsaken the God of his fathers And ver 14. Behold saith Elijah to him by a letter with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people and thy children and thy wives and all thy substance And so Gods judgments came upon him and his Children He himself dies of a lingering loathsom disease without the wonted solemnities of Funerals And Ahaziah his youngest son all the elder being slain by the Arabians 2 Chron. 22. 1. is about a year after killed by Jehu executing judgment upon the house of Ahab After all this were All the Royal Seed of Judah destroyed by Athaliah Ioash son of Ahaziah only excepted whose beginnings were good The reformation of Religion was perfect for the external form so long as Iehoiada the Priest did live but not compleat for the number or quality of such as turned to the Lord their God For the Princes hearts were wholly set upon idolatry And the King himself is drawn upon his own destruction by them after Iehoiada's death As his beginnings were good and godly so were his later dayes idolatrous and cruel and Zachariah's blood was recompensed upon his head and upon the head of Amaziah his son who though he were not like his father guilty as principal of actual murther in putting a Prophet to death yet thus farre by Participation guilty of his fathers sin that he is impatient of the Prophets just reproof As his father killed so he threatens the Prophet for reproving him for his sins for taking the gods of Edom for his gods 2 Chron. 25. 14. Have they made thee the Kings Counsellor Cease thou why should they smite thee And the Prophet ceased but said I know the Lord hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not obeyed my Counsel His doom is read and judgment followes For he is shamefully foyled 2 Chron. 25. 23. by Ioash King of Israel and led captive home to his own good Town of Ierusalem four hundred cubits of whose wals were broke down to make entrance for his triumphant enemies in the sight of his own people And after his freedom bought with his own treasure and with the treasure of the Lords house his own Subjects conspire against him and pursue him unto death where he dies his fathers death by the hands of his Servants 2 Chron. 25. 27. As Amaziah from good beginnings grew idolatrous so Uzziah his son after good success became in his later end sacrilegiously presumptuous For intermedling with the Priests Office he becomes liable to the Priests Tribunal He is judged a Leper and removed from administration of the Kingdom for the leprosie wherewith the Lord had smitten him 2 Chron. 26. 5. Thus in process of time is still the increase of sin either their Kings are wicked as but two from David to Hezekiah's time which continued in good Or if their Kings be vertuous and religious as Iehoshaphat had been and Iotham son to Uzziah now is yet in his dayes again the peoples hearts are not prepared to serve the Lord 2 Kings 15. 35. But the high Places were not put away for the people yet offered and burnt incense in the high places and so kept in the fire of Gods wrath which had been long kindled against Judah but not suffered to burst out into any flame in the dayes of righteous Jotham and such as by his example followed righteousness Nay to encourage others to follow him the Lord gave him victory over the enemies of Judah and He grew mighty because He directed His wayes before the Lord His God 2 Chron. 27 6. 6. But neither did he nor any Prince of Judah since Righteous David so perfectly direct as Ahaz his son did pervert his wayes before the Lord. This is the first that adds stubbornness to infidelity and drunkenness to thirst as the Spirit tels us 2 Chron. 28. 22. In his tribulation did he yet trespass more against the Lord this is King Ahaz saith the Text you must expect a remarkable monster in his dealings For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus which plagued him and he said Because the gods of the Kings of Aram helped them I will sacrifice unto them and they will help me yet they were his ruine and of all Israel ver 23. This people was alwayes prone to wickedness even during the reign of most religious Kings but are now so violently carried to all mischief having got this preposterous Monster for their Governor that as a ship sailing with advantage of wind and tide and help of oares continues motion when sail is stricken and Rowers cease so Jerusalem and Judah after Ahaz their Commander in mischief ceased from his wicked labours held on still their mischievous courses even in good King Hezekiah's dayes 7. Whereas God 's threatnings had been but particular heretofore either to the King alone or to his Line and House or of some momentary desolation upon the Land Now God thunders out a General Deluge of Calamity to the City and Temple by the Prophet Micah Sion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall be an heap and the mountain of the house shall be as the high places of the forrest Here the scattered clouds of Gods judgments which had long soared over Judah are gathered as it were into one shower ready to fall upon her as it were an Hawk stooping to her prey but that good King Hezekiah and the people by his example laid fast hold upon his mercies and averted his fierce wrath from them by hearty and unfeigned prayer They feared the Lord and prayed before him and the Lord repented him of the evil that he had pronounced against them Whiles I behold the Compleat Reformation which Hezekiah wrought and the peoples will to accord with him therein Me thinks I hear the Lord wishing from heaven as he did sometimes to their fathers in the wilderness Deut. 5. 29. Oh that there were such an heart in them to fear me and to keep all my Commandements alway that it might go well with them and with their children for ever But Hezekiah did not render according to the reward bestowed upon him For his heart was lifted up and wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem 2 Chron. 32. v. 25. Not that it did seize upon them but that it was ready to smite For as it follows ver 26. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself after his heart was lift up he and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem and the wrath of the Lord came not upon
in his time yet herein indued with wisdom in an higher rank then the stateliest Potentates are wont to trouble themselves withal in that he could so well foresee There was no counsel against the Lord whose Decrees concerning any Land or People then usually take place when as Posterity seeks earnestly by secular Policie to patch up the rents and breaches of a State decayed ruinate by the heavie burthen of their Predecessors sins Such was the temper of Iosiah's States-men Princes though his heart was of another metal and had been fashioned in another mold Wherefore the Book of the Law which had long laid buried is now risen out of the dust to proclaim Ierusalems downfal and Sions burial in her ashes And this sentence of the Law now found is ratified by the Prophetess Huldahs mouth Gods wrath shall presently be kindled against this place and shall not be quenched But unto good Josiah who sought the Prophetesses and not the Politicians advice is this sole comfort left To the King of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord so shall ye say unto him Because thine heart did melt and thou hast humbled thy self before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake against this place and against the Inhabitants of the same to wit that it should be destroyed and accursed and hast rent thy clothes and wept before me I have also heard it saith the Lord. Behold therefore I will gather thee to thy fathers and thou shalt be put in thy grave in peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place 2 King 22. 18. 8. But should not his righteousness have saved him Or is this to be put in his grave in peace to be slain by his enemies Yes this his burial was in peace in that he was buried in the Sepulchres of his Fathers and mourned for by all his people without the molestation of their enemies This was a blessing of peace which none of his Sons or Successors enjoyed For of them all not one but dies captive in the enemies Land or in their own without the decencie of Princely funerals And who knows Whether Iosiah's violent death was deserved by going to battel without the Lords advice Yea who knows whether the Lord did not thus suddenly take him away partly to prevent the increase of that disease wherewith no Prince of all the stock of Iudah but had been more or less infected and which now as it seemeth was growing on him All of them in their prosperity began to trade in secular Policie whose practise was Jerusalems ruine and Iudahs wreck howsoever right dear in the sight of the Lord was the death of this holy and religious King who if he had lived the longer should have died the oftner His Childrens and peoples sins are now full ripe for the sword and their vengeance hastens on so fast that either he must suddenly die or else see their manifold miseries farre worse then so many several deaths For what pangs would it have caused in his tender heart which melted even whilest the noise of Ierusalems curse did but approach his ears if his eyes should have beheld the flames of Gods fierce wrath devouring her gates and his ears had been filled with her woful out-cries in the dayes of mourning For Ieremie or Baruch two Prophets so poor that their fore-warnings of these miseries could not merit any credit with this politick generation to live and see the event was a blessing of God and bare life given them a bountiful prey But what benefit could so great a Prince have reaped by life What comfort in length of dayes to have seen the children of his loins born unto higher hopes then any Princes of the world besides either led captive into the enemies land or made a prey unto the birds of heaven in their own Much better an enemies arrow stick once for all fast in his side then that the sword should continually pierce thorow his soul whilst he should see his dearest people cut down like grass and Iudah the Lords inclosure laid open like a common field to their bordering enemies spoil and Ierusalem his hearts joy which the Lord had hedged and walled about laid waste like a forlorn vineyard whose grapes were wild and naught Yet such are the dayes which immediately ensue his death The Land is one while ransackt by the Egyptian another while made tributary to the Chaldean another while forraged by the Aramite Ammonite and Moabite until it was utterly laid waste For judgment is here begun already at the house of God and in godly Iosiah's fall might the ungodly Iudah read her Fatal Destiny registred in Characters of blood And doubtlesse at this his sudden unexpected end the execution of Gods fierce and violent wrath did begin Of the successive degrees whereof I shall God willing hereafter speak For the Manner of it I only note thus much now in general That not all the wisdom of their most Politick Enemies albeit the Lord had given them libertie to have plotted this peoples overthrow at their pleasure could have invented so readie and sure a course for their swift destruction as this people themselves in great Policie to their seeming still make choice of Not one project which they can forecast but proves an inevitablegin to intrap themselves and is as a fatal snare unto their owne feet 9. First good Josias without Warrant from God or his Prophets advice thinks it in Policie the safest course to assault the Egyptian in the confines of his Country lest afterwards he should be enforced to defend himselfe upon harder termes nearer to the heart of Judah from his Enemie strengthned with the spoile of her borders so jealous he is of Nechoh's purpose which meant him no harm that his word will not serve him for warrant albeit his words as the Text saith were from the mouth of God The issue of his policie is that he himself is slain and Pharaoh Nechoh by this his unseasonable provocation took a fair pretence of invading the Land after his death and condemns it in an hundred talents of Silver and a talent of gold And for the effecting of this his purpose the people themselves had given occasion for they no doubt out of some politick purpose had preferred the * younger brother Iehoahaz to the Kingdom who poor Caitiff in stead of swaying Davids Scepter in the promised Land is after three months space led Captive in chains like a Bond-slave into Egypt whence the Lord had redeemed the meanest of this peoples forefathers So contrary hath Iudah been in all her courses that all the glorious hopes of Davids Line run backwards So farre is the Calendar of Ierusalems good dayes run out of date such are the revolutions of times that this Light which they had set up for David hath taken darkness for its habitation The Sun of their Comfort is set before it came to the