our so great Unthankfulness which taken away the effect will instantly and of it self cease Now those Causes are especially as I conceive these five viz. 1. Pride and Self-love 2. Envy and Discontentment 3. Riotousness and Epicurism 4. Worldly Carefulness and immoderate desires 5. Carnal Security and foreslowing the time Now then besides the application of that which hath already been spoken in the former Discoveries and Motives for every Discovery of a fault doth virtually contain some means for the correcting of it and every true Motive to a duty doth virtually contain some helps unto the practice of it besides these I say I know not how to prescribe any better remedies against unthankfulness or helps unto thankfulness than faithfully to strive for the casting out of those sins and the subduing of those Corruptions in us which cause the one and hinder the other But because the time and my strength are near spent I am content to ease both my self and you by cutting off so much of my provision as concerneth this Inference for Direction and desire you that it may suffice for the present but thus to have pointed at these Impediments and once more to name them They are Pride Envy Epicurisme Carefulnesse Security I place Pride where it would be the formost because it is of all other the principal impediment of Thankfulness Certainly there is no one thing in the World so much as Pride that maketh men unthankfull He that would be truly thankfull must have his eyes upon both the one eye upon the Gift and the other upon the Giver and this the proud man never hath Either through self-love he is stark-blind and seeth neither or else through Partiality he winketh on one eye and will not look at both Sometimes he seeth the Gift but too much and boasteth of it but then he forgetteth the Giver he boasteth as if he had not received it Sometimes again he over-looketh the Gift as not good enough for him and so repineth at the Giver as if he had not given him according to his worth Either he undervalueth the Gift or else he overvalueth himself as if he were himself the Giver or at least the deserver and is in both unthankfull To remove this Impediment who ever desireth to be thankfull let him humble himself nay empty himself nay deny himself and all his deserts confess himself with Iacob less than the least of Gods mercies and condemn his own heart of much sinfull sacrilege if it dare but think the least thought tending to rob God of the least part of his honour Envy followeth Pride the Daughter the Mother a second great impediment of thankfulness The fault is that men not content only to look upon their own things and the present but comparing these with the things of other men or times instead of giving thanks for what they have repine that others have more or better or for what they now have complain that it is not with them as it hath been These thoughts are Enemies to the tranquillity of the mind breeding many discontents and much unthankfullness whilest our eyes are evill because God is good to others or hath been so to us To remove this impediment who ever desireth to be truly thankfull let him look upon his own things and not on the things of other men and therein consider not so much what he wanteth and fain would have as what he hath and could not well want Let him think that what God hath given him came from his free bounty he owed it not and what he hath denied him he with-holdeth it either in his Iustice for his former sins or in his Mercy for his farther good that God giveth to no man all the desire of his heart in these outward things to teach him not to look for absolute contentment in this life least of all in these things If he will needs look upon other mens things let him compare himself rather with them that have lesse than those that have more and therein withall consider not so much what himself wanteth which some others have as what he hath which many others want If a few that enjoy Gods blessings in these outward things in a greater measure than he be an eye-sore to him let those many others that have a scanter portion make him acknowledge that God hath dealt liberally and bountifully with him We should do well to understand that saying of Christ not barely as a Prediction but as a kind of Promise too as I have partly intimated before The poor you shall alwaies have with you and to think that every Beggar that seeketh to us is sent of God to be as well a Glass wherein to represent Gods bounty to us as an Object whereon for us to exercise ours And as for former times let us not so much think how much better we have been as how well we are that we are not so well now impute it to our former unthankfulness and fear unless we be more thankfull for what we have it will be yet and every day worse and worse with us Counsell very needfull for us in these declining times which are not God knoweth and we all know as the times we have seen the leprous humour of Popery secretly stealing in upon us and as a leprosie spreading apace under the skinne and penury and poverty as an ulcerous sore openly breaking out in the very face of the Land Should we murmure at this or repiningly complain that it is not with us as it hath been God forbid that is the way to have it yet and yet worse Rather let us humble our selves for our former unthankfulnesse whereby we have provoked GOD to with-draw himself in some measure from us and blesse him for his great mercy who yet continueth his goodnesse in a comfortable and gracious measure unto us notwithstanding our so great unworthinesse and unthankfulnesse Thousands of our brethren in the world as good as our selves how glad would they be how thankfull to God how would they rejoyce and sing if they enjoyed but a small part of that peace and prosperity in outward things and of that liberty of treading in Gods Courts and partaking of his ordinances which we make so little account of because it is not every way as we have known it heretofore The third Impediment of Thankfulnesse is Riot and Epicurism that which the Prophet reckoneth in the Catalogue of Sodoms sins Fulnesse of bread and abundance of Idlenesse This is both a Cause and a Sign of much unthankfulnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fulnesse and Forgetfulnesse they are not more near in the sound of the words than they are in the sequel of the things When thou hast eaten and art full Then beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God Deut. 8. It much argueth that we make small account of the good
which was not in that measure afforded them when they were tempted And from whom can we think that restraint to come but from that God who is the Author and the Lord of nature and hath the power and command and rule of nature by whose grace and goodnesse we are whatsoever we are and to whose powerful assistance we owe it if we do any good for it is he that setteth us on and to his powerful restraint if we eschew any evil for it is he that keepeth us off Therefore I also withheld thee from sinning against me And as to the third point in the Observation it is not much lesse evident than the two former namely that this Restraint as it is from God so it is from the Mercy of God Hence it is that Divines usually bestow upon it the name of Grace distinguishing between a twofold Grace a special renewing Grace and a Common restraining Grace The special and renewing Grace is indeed so incomparably more excellent that in comparison thereof the other is not worthy to be called by the name of Grace if we would speak properly and exactly but yet the word Grace may not unfitly be so extended as to reach to every act of Gods providence whereby at any time he restraineth men from doing those evils which otherwise they would do and that in a threefold respect of God of themselves of others First in respect of God every restraint from sin may be called Grace in as much as it proceedeth ex mero motu from the meer good will and pleasure of God without any cause motive or inducement in the man that is so restrained For take a man in the state of corrupt nature and leave him to himself and think how it is possible for him to forbear any sin whereunto he is tempted There is no power in nature to work a restraint nay there is not so much as any pronenesse in nature to desire a restraint much lesse then is there any worth in Nature to deserve a restraint Issuing therefore not at all from the Powers of Nature but from the free pleasure of God as a beam of his merciful providence this Restraint may well be called Grace And so it may be secondly in respect of the Persons themselves because though it be not available to them for their everlasting salvation yet it is some favour to them more than they have deserved that by this means their sins what in number what in weight are so much lesser than otherwise they would have been whereby also their account shall be so much the easier and their stripes so many the fewer Saint Chrysostome often observeth it as an effect of the mercy of God upon them when he cutteth off great offenders betimes with some speedy destruction and he doth it out of this very consideration that they are thereby prevented from committing many sins which if God should have lent them a longer time they would have committed If his observation be sound it may then well passe for a double Mercy of God to a sinner if he both respite his destruction and withall restrain him from sin for by the one he giveth him so much longer time for repentance which is one Mercy and by the other he preventeth so much of the increase of his sin which is another Mercy Thirdly it may be called Grace in respect of other men For in restraining men from doing evil God intendeth as principally his own glory so withall the good of mankinde especially of his Church in the preservation of humane society which could not subsist an hour if every man should be left to the wildenesse of his own nature to do what mischief the Devill and his own heart would put him upon without restraint So that the restraining of mens corrupt purposes and affections proceedeth from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle somewhere calleth it that love of GOD to mankinde whereby he willeth their preservation and might therefore in that respect bear the name of Grace though there should be no good at all intended thereby to the person so restrained Just as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those spiritual gifts which God hath distributed in a wonderful variety for the edifying of his Church though they often-times bring no good to the receiver are yet stiled graces in the Scriptures because the distribution of them proceedeth from the gracious love and favour of God to his Church whose benefit he intendeth therein God here restrained Abimelech as elsewhere he did Laban and Esau and Balaam and others not so much for their own sakes though perhaps sometimes that also as for their sakes whom they should have injured by their sins if they had acted them As here Abimelech for his chosen Abrahams sake and Laban and Esau for his servant Iacobs sake and Balaam for his people Israels sake As it is said in Psal. 105. and that with special reference as I conceive it to this very story of Abraham He suffered no man to do them wrong but reproved even Kings for their sakes saying Touch not mine anointed and do my Prophets no harm He reproved even Kings by restraining their power as here Abimelech but it was for their sakes still that so Sarah his anointed might not be touched nor his Prophet Abraham sustain any harm We see now the Observation proved in all the points of it 1. Men do not alwaies commit those evils they would and might do 2. That they do not it is from Gods restraint who with-holdeth them 3. That restraint is an act of his merciful providence and may therefore bear the name of Grace in respect of God who freely giveth it of them whose sins and stripes are the fewer for it of others who are preserved from harmes the better by it The Inferences we are to raise from the premises for our Christian practise and comfort are of two sorts for so much as they may arise from the consideration of Gods Restraining Grace either as it may lye upon other men or as it may lye upon our selves First from the consideration of Gods restraint upon others the Church and children and servants of God may learn to whom they owe their preservation even to the power and goodnesse of their God in restraining the fury of his and their enemies We live among Scorpions and as sheep in the midst of Wolves and they that hate us without a cause and are mad against us are more in number than the hairs of our heads And yet as many and as malicious as they are by the Mercy of God still we are and we live and we prosper in some measure in despite of them all Is it any thanks to them None at all The seed of the Serpent beareth a natural and an immortal hatred against God and all good men and if they had hornes to their curstnesse and power answerable to their wils we should not breath a minute
discovered Sect. 22 POINT II. The Judge not to receive a false report Sect. 23 A threefold Care requisite thereunto I. in receiving Informations Sect. 24 2. in examining Causes Sect. 25 3. in repressing Contentious Persons and Suits Sect. 26 For which purpose the likeliest Helps are Sect. 27 1. to reject Informations tendered without Oath Sect. 28 2. to temper the Rigour of Iustice with Equity Sect. 29 3. to punish Partiality and Collusion in the Informer Sect. 30 4. to allow the wronged party full satisfaction Sect. 31 5. to restrain abuses in their Servants and Officers Sect. 32 The Conclusion Sermon III. Ad Magistratum on PSAL. CVI. XXX Sect. 1-2 THE Argument and Matter of the Psalm Sect. 3 The Coherence Scope Sect. 4 and Division of the TEXT Sect. 5-6 The History of Balak and Balaams Plot against Israel Sect. 7-8 With the success thereof both in the Sin and Punishment Sect. 9-10 Zimri's Provocation and Execution Sect. 11 The Person of Phinehes considered Sect. 12 OBSERVATION I. The Spiritual Power doth not include Sect. 13 nor yet exclude the Temporal Sect. 14 Phinehes his Fact examined Sect. 15 and justified Sect. 16 17 How far forth it may be imitated Sect. 18 OBSERVATION II. The Zeal of Phinehes Sect. 19 manifested by executing judgment Sect. 20 1. Personally Sect. 21 2. Speedily Sect. 22 3. Resolutely Sect. 23 25 OBSERVATION III. The plague stayed by executing judgment Sect. 26 28 With Application to England Sect. 29 An Exhortation to execute Iudgement Sect. 30 With Particular Application Sect. 31 1. To the Accuser Sect. 32 2. To the Witness Sect. 33 3. To the Jurer Sect. 34 4. To the Pleader Sect. 35 5. To the Officer Sect. 36 6. To the Judge Sermon I. Ad Populum on 1 KING 21.29 Sect. 1. THE Coherence of the TEXT Sect. 2 Argument of the TEXT and Sect. 3 Division of the TEXT Sect. 4 5 From Ahabs Person and Cariage Sect. 6 8 OBSERVATION I. How far an Hypocrite may goe in the performance of holy Duties Sect. 9 Foure Inferences thence I. of Terrour to the Profane Sect. 10 II. Of Exhortation to abound in the fruits of godliness Sect. 11 III. Of Admonition to forbear Judging Sect. 12 IIII. Of Direction for the tryal of Sincerity Sect. 13 by the marks 1. of Integrity and Sect. 14 2. of Constancy Sect. 15 both joyned together Sect. 16 17 OBSERVATION II. Concerning the Power of Gods word Sect. 18 With the Causes thereof in respect 1. of the Instrument Sect. 19 2. of the Object Sect. 20 3. of the fit Application of the one to the other Sect. 21 The Inferences thence against those that despise the Word Sect. 22 23 From the success of Ahabs Humiliation Sect. 24 OBSERVATION III. Concerning the Reward of Common Graces Sect. 25 with sundry Reasons thereof Sect. 26 and Inferences thence Sect. 27 The main Inference To comfort the Godly 1. against temptations from the Prosperity of the wicked Sect. 28 II. against Temporal Afflictions Sect. 29 III. against doubtings of their eteâ—nal Reward Sermon II. Ad Populum on 1 King 21.29 Sect. 1. A Repetition of the Three Observations in the former Sermons Sect. 2 4 OBSERVATION IV. Concerning Gods forbearing of threatned Judgments Sect. 5 Proved 1. from his proneness to Mercy Sect. 6 2. from the end of his Threatnings Sect. 7 8 The Doubt How this may stand with Gods Truth Sect. 9 Resolved by understanding in all his Threatnings Sect. 10 a Clause of Exception Sect. 11 12 though not alwayes expressed Sect. 13 14 Inferences 1. of Comfort to the distressed Sect. 15 2. of Terrour to the Secure Sect. 16 3. of Instruction to All. Sect. 17 Gods Promises how to be understood Sect. 18 and entertained Sect. 19 20 OBSERVATION V. That though it be some grief to foreknow the evils to come Sect. 21 Yet is it some happiness not to live to see them Sect. 22 with the Reason Sect. 23 25 and sundry Uses thereof Sect. 26 The Conclusion Sermon III. Ad Populum on 1 Kings 21.29 Sect. 1 2 THE grand Doubt concerning Gods Iustice proposed Sect. 3 CERTAINTY I. All the ways of God are just Sect. 4 5 II. Temporal Evils not the proper adequate punishments of sin Sect. 6 7 3. All Evils of Pain howsoever considered Sect. 8 are for sin and that Sect. 9 for the sin of the sufferer himself Sect. 10 How the punishing of the Fathers sin upon the Children Sect. 11 can stand with the justice of God Sect. 12 16 CONSIDERATION I. That they are punished with temporal Punishments only not with Spiritual or Eternal Sect. 13 15 An Objection answered Sect. 17 CONSIDERATION II. That such Punishments befall them Either Sect. 18 21 1. As continuing in their Fathers sin Or Sect. 22 2. As possessing something from their Fathers with Gods curse cleaving thereunto Sect. 23 25 CONSIDERATION III. A distinction of Impulsive Causes Sect. 26 explained by a familiar Example Sect. 27 and applyed to the present Argument Sect. 28 Seeming Contradictions of Scripture herein Sect. 29 how to be reconciled Sect. 30 with an Exemplary Instance thereof Sect. 31 32 The Resolution of the main doubt Sect. 33 Three Duties inferred from the Premises 1. To live well as for our own so even for Posteritie's sake also Sect. 34 II. To grieve as for our own so for our Forefathers sins also Sect. 35 III. To endeavour to hinder sin in others Sermon IV. Ad Populum on 1 Cor. 7.24 Sect. 1. THE Occasion and Scope of the TEXT Sect. 2-3 The Pertinency and Importance of the matter to be handled Sect. 4 5 viz. of mens Particular Callings and what is meant thereby Sect. 6 POINT I. The necessity of living in a Calling Sect. 7 Reasons hereof I. in respect of the Ordinance Sect. 8 and Gifts of God Sect. 9 II. in respect of the Person himself Sect. 10 14 III. in respect of others Sect. 15 Inference for reproof of such as live idly without a Calling Sect. 16 17 as viz. 1. Idle Monks and Friars Sect. 18 20 â— 2. Idle Gallants Sect. 21 22 3. Idle Beggars Sect. 23 24 POINT II. Concerning the Choyce of a Calling Sect. 25 That is our proper Calling whereunto God calleth us and Sect. 26 by what enquiries that may be known Sect. 27 ENQUIRY I. concerning the Employment it self 1. Whether it be honest and lawful or no Sect. 28 2. Whether it be fit to be made a Calling or no Sect. 29 3. Whether it tend to common Utility or no Sect. 30 The Usurers Calling examined by these Rules Sect. 32 33 II. Concerning our fitness for that employment Sect. 34 1. in respect of our Education Sect. 35 36 2. in respect of our Abilities Sect. 37 39 3. in respect of our Inclinations Sect. 40 III. Concerning the Providential Opportunities we have thereunto Sect. 41 43 wherein is shewed the great importance of an outward Calling Sect. 44 POINT III. Concerning the Abiding in our Callings Sect. 45 46 1. what is not
through precipitancy prejudice or otherwise is deceived with fallacies instead of substance and mistaketh seeming inferences for necessary and naturall deductions Partly in the Will when men of corrupt minds set themselves purposely against the known truth and out of malicious wilfulnesse against the strong testimony of their own hearts slander it that so they may disgrace it and them that professe it Partly in the Affections when men overcome by carnall affections are content to cheat their own souls by giving such constructions to Gods Truth as will for requitall give largest allowance to their practices and so rather choose to crooken the Rule to their own bent than to levell themselves and their affections and lives according to the Rule Thirdly on Gods part who suffereth his own Truth to be slandered and mistaken Partly in his Iustice as a fearfull judgement upon wicked ones whereby their hard hearts become yet more hardened their most just condemnation yet more just Partly in his goodnesse as a powerfull fiery triall of true Doctors whose constancy and sincerity is the more approved with him and the more eminent with men if they flye not when the Wolf cometh but keep their standing and stoutly maintain Gods truth when it is deepliest slandered and hotliest opposed And partly in his Wisdome as a rich occasion for those whom he hath gifted for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to awaken their zeal to quicken up their industry to muster up their abilities to scour up their spirituall armour which else through dis-use might gather rust for the defence and for the rescue of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that precious truth whereof they are depositaries and wherewith he hath entrusted them These are the Grounds The Uses for instruction briefly are to teach and admonish every one of us that we be not either first so wickedly malicious as without apparent cause to raise any slander or secondly so foolishly credulous as without severe examination to believe any slander or thirdly so basely timorous as to flinch from any part of Gods truth for any slander But I must not insist This from the slander Observe fourthly how peremptorily the Apostle is in his censure against the slanderers or abusers of holy truths Whose damnation is just Some understand it with reference to the Slanderers As we be slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say Whose damnation is just that is their damnation is just who thus unjustly slander us Others understand it with reference to that ungodly resolution Let us do evil that good may come whose damnation is just that is their damnation is just for the evil they do who adventure to do any evil under whatsoever pretence of good to come of it Both expositions are good and I rather embrace both then prefer either I ever held it a kind of honest spiritual thrift where there are two senses given of one place both agreeable to the Analogie of Faith and Manners both so indifferently appliable to the words and scope of the place as that it is hard to say which was rather intended though there was but one intended yet to make use of both And so will we Take it the first way and the slanderer may read his doom in it Here is his wages and his portion and the meed and reward of his slander Damnation And it is a just reward He condemneth Gods truth unjustly God condemneth him justly for it whose damnation is just ◠If we be countable and we are countable at the day of Judgement for every idle word we speak though neither in it self false nor yet hurtful and prejudicial unto others what less than damnation can they expect that with much falshood for the thing it self and infinite prejudice in respect of others blaspheme God and his holy Truth But if it be done of purpose and in malice to despight the Truth and the professors thereof I scarce know whether there be a greater sin or no. Maliciously to oppose the known Truth is by most Divines accounted a principal branch of that great unpardonable sin the sin against the Holy Ghost by some the very sin it self I dare not say it is so nor yet that it is unpardonable or hath finall impenitency necessarily attending it I would be loth to interclude the hope of Repentance from any sinner or to confine Gods Mercy within any bounds Yet thus much I think I may safely say it cometh shrewdly neer the sin against the Holy Ghost and is a fair or rather a foul step toward it and leaveth very little hope of pardon That great sin against the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost it self in the Scriptures chuseth rather than by any other to expresse by this name of Blasphemy Mat. 12. And whereas our Apostle 1 Tim. 1. saith That though he were a Blasphemer yet he obtained mercy because he did it ignorantly in unbelief he leaveth it questionable but withall suspicious whether there may be any hope of Mercy for such as blaspheme maliciously and against knowledge If any mans be certainly such a mans damnation is most just But not all Slanderers of GODS truth are of that deep die not all Slanderers sinners in that high degree GOD forbid they should There are respects which much qualifie and lessen the sin But yet allow it any in the least degree and with the most favourable circumstances still the Apostles sentence standeth good Without Repentance their damnation is just Admit the Truth be dark difficult and so easily to be mistaken admit withall the man be weak and ignorant and so apt to mistake his understanding being neither distinct through incapacity to apprehend and sort things aright nor yet constant to it self through unsetlednesse and levity of judgement Certainly his misprision of the Truth is so much lesser than the others wilfull Calumny as it proceedeth lesse from the irregularity of the Will to the Iudgement And of such a man there is good hope that both in time he may see his errour and repent expresly and particularly for it and that in the mean time he doth repent for it implicitè and inclusively in his generall contrition for and confession of the massie lump of his hidden and secret and unknown sins This Charity bindeth us both to hope for the future and to think for the present and S. Pauls example and words in the place but now alledged are very comfortable to this purpose But yet still thus much is certain He that through ignorance or for want of apprehension or judgement or by reason of whatsoever other defect or motive bringeth a slander upon any divine Truth though never so perplexed with difficulties or open to cavil unless he repent for it either in the particular and that he must do if ever God open his eyes and let him see his fault or at leastwise in the generall it is still a damnable sin in
without Gods mercy the smallest will damne a man too But what will some reply In case two sins be propounded may I not do the lesser to avoid the greater otherwise must I not of necessity do the greater The answer is short and easie If two sins be propounded do neither E malis minimum holdeth as you heard and yet not alwaies neither in evils of Pain But that is no Rule for evils of sin Here the safer Rule is E malis nullum And the reason is sound from the Principle we have in hand If we may not do any evil to procure a positive good certainly much lesse may we do one evil to avoid or prevent another But what if both cannot be avoided but that one must needs be done In such a strait may I not choose the lesser To thee I say again as before Choose neither To the Case I answer It is no Case because as it is put it is a case impossible For Nemo angustiatur ad peccandum the Case cannot be supposed wherein a man should be so straitned as he could not come off fairely without sinning A man by rashness or feare or frailty may foully entangle himself and through the powerfull engagements of sin drive himself into very narrow straits or be so driven by the fault or injury of others yet there cannot be any such straits as should enforce a necessity of sinning but that still there is one path or other out of them without sin The perplexity that seemeth to be in the things is rather in the men who puzzle and lose themselves in the Labyrinths of sin because they care not to heed the clue that would lead them out if it were well followed Say a man through heat of blood make a wicked vow to kill his brother here he hath by his own rashnesse brought himself into a seeming strait that either he must commit a murther or break a vow either of which seemeth to be a great sin the one against the fifth the other against the third commandement But here is in very deed no strait or perplexity at all Here is a fair open course for him without sin He may break his vow and there an end Neither is this the choice of the lesser sinne but onely the loosening of the lesser bond the bond of charity being greater than the bond of a promise and there being good reason that in termes of inconsistencie when both cannot stand the lesser bond should yield to the greater But is it not a sin for a man to break a vow Yes where it may be kept salvis charitate justitia there the breach is a sin but in the case proposed it is no sin As Christ saith in the point of swearing so it may be said in the point of breach of vow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Never was any breach of vow but it was peccatum or ex peccato the breaking is either it self formally a sin or it argueth at least a former sin in the making So as the sin in the case alledged was before in making such an unlawfull vow and for that sin the party must repent but the breaking of it now it is made is no new sin Rather it is a necessary duty and a branch of that repentance which is due for the former rashnesse in making it because a hurtfull vow is and that virtute praecepti rather to be broken then kept The Aegyptian Midwives not by their own fault but by Pharaohs tyrannous command are driven into a narrow strait enforcing a seeming necessity of sin for either they must destroy the Hebrew children and so sin by Murther or else they must devise some hansome shift to carry it cleanly from the Kings knowledg and so sin by lying And so they did they chose rather to lye then to kill as indeed in the comparison it is by much the lesser sinne But the very truth is they should have done neither they should flatly have refused the Kings commandment though with hazard of their lives and have resolved rather to suffer any evil than to do any And so Lot should have done he should rather have adventured his own life and theirs too in protecting the chastity of his Daughters and the safety of his guests then have offered the exposall of his Daughters to the lusts of the beastly Sodomites though it were to redeeme his guests from the abuse of fouler and more abominable filthinesse Absolutely there cannot be a case imagined wherein it should be impossible to avoid one sin unlesse by the committing of another The case which of all other cometh nearest to a Perplexity is that of an erroneous conscience Because of a double bond the bond of Gods Law which to transgress is a sin and the bond of particular conscience which also to transgress is a sin Whereupon there seemeth to follow an inevitable necessity of sinning when Gods Law requireth one thing and particular conscience dictateth the flat contrary for in such a case a man must either obey Gods Law and so sin against his own conscience or obey his own conscience and so sin against Gods Law But neither in this case is there any perplexity at all in the things themselves that which there is is through the default of the man onely whose judgement being erroneous mis-leadeth his conscience and so casteth him upon a necessity of sinning But yet the necessity is no simple and absolute and unavoydable and perpetual necessity for it is onely a necessity ex hypothesi and for a time and continueth but stante tali errore And still there is a way out betwixt those sins and that without a third and that way is deponere erroneam conscientiam He must rectifie his judgement and reform the error of his Conscience and then all is well There is no perplexity no necessity no obligation no expediency which should either enforce or perswade us to any sin The resolution is damnable Let us do evil that good may come I must take leave before I pass from this point to make two instances and to measure out from the Rule of my Text an answer to them both They are such as I would desire you of this place to take due and special consideration of I desire to deal plainly and I hope it shall be by Gods blessing upon it effectually for your good and the Churches peace One instance shall be in a sin of Commission the other in a sin of Omission The sin of Commission wherein I would instance is indeed a sin beyond Commission it is the usurping of the Magistrates Office without a Commission The Question is whether the zealous intention of a good end may not warrant it good or at least excuse it from being evil and a sin I need not frame a Case for the illustration of this instance the inconsiderate forwardness of some hath made it to my hand You may read it
is no lesse good to the poor that whippeth him when he deserveth This is indeed to be good to the poor to give him that almes first which he wanteth most if he be hungry it is almes to feed him but if he be idle and untoward it is almes to whip him This is to be good to the poor But who then are the poor we should be good to as they interpret goodnesse Saint Paul would have Widowes honoured but yet those that are widowes indeed so it is meet the poor should be relieved but yet those that are poor indeed Not every one that begges is poor not every one that wanteth is poor not every one that is poor is poor indeed They are the poor whom we private men in Charity and you that are Magistrates in â—ustice stand bound to relieve who are old or impotent and unable to work or in these hard and depopulating times are willing but cannot be set on work or have a greater charge upon them than can be maintained by their work These and such as these are the poor indeed let us all be good to such as these Be we that are private men as brethren to these poor ones and shew them mercy be you that are Magistrates as Fathers to these poor ones and do them justice But as for those idle stubborn professed wanderers that can and may and will not work and under the name and habit of poverty rob the poor indeed of our almes and their maintenance let us harden our hearts against them and not give them do you execute the severity of the Law upon them and not spare them It is Saint Pauls Order nay it is the Ordinance of the Holy Ghost and we should all put to our helping hands to see it kept He that will not labour let him not eat These Ulcers and Drones of the Common-wealth are ill worthy of any honest mans almes of any good Magistrates protection Hitherto of the Magistrates second Duty with the Reasons and extent thereof I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame I was a Father to the poor Followeth next the third Duty in these words The cause which I knew not I searched out Of which words some frame the Coherence with the former as if Iob had meant to clear his mercy to the poor from suspicion of partiality and injustice and as if he had said I was a Father indeed to the poor pitifull and mercifull to him and ready to shew him any lawfull favour but yet not so as in pity to him to forget or pervert justice I was ever carefull before I would either speak or do for him to be first assured his cause was right and good and for that purpose if it were doubtfull I searched it out and examined it before I would countenance either him or it Certainly thus to do is agreeable to the rule of Iustice yea and of Mercy too for it is one Rule in shewing Mercy that it be ever done salvis pietate justitiâ without prejudice done to piety and justice And as to this particular the commandment of God is expresse for it in Exod. 23. Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause Now if we should thus understand the coherence of the words the speciall duty which Magistrates should hence learn would be indifferency in the administration of Justice not to make difference of rich or poor far or near friend or foe one or other but to consider onely and barely the equity and right of the cause without any respect of persons or partiall inclination this way or that way This is a very necessary duty indeed in a Magistrate of justice and I deny not but it may be gathered without any violence from these very words of my Text though to my apprehension not so much by way of immediate observation from the necessity of any such coherence as by way of consequence from the words themselves otherwise For what need all that care and paines and diligence in searching out the cause if the condition of the person might over-rule the cause after all that search and were not the judgement to be given meerly according to the goodnesse or badnesse of the cause without respect had to the person But the speciall duty which these words seem most naturally and immediately to impose upon the Magistrate and let that be the third observation is diligence and patience and care to hear and examine and enquire into the truth of things and into the equity of mens causes As the Physician before he prescribe receipt or diet to his patient will first feel the pulse and view the urine and observe the temper and changes in the body and be inquisitive how the disease began and when and what fits it hath and where and in what manner it holdeth him and inform himself every other way as fully as he can in the true state of the body that so he may proportion the remedies accordingly without errour so ought every Magistrate in causes of Justice before he pronounce sentence or give his determination whether in matters judiciall or criminall to hear both parties with equall patience to examine witnesses and other evidences advisedly and throughly to consider and wisely lay together all allegations and circumstances to put in quaeres and doubts upon the by and use all possible expedient meanes for the boulting out of the truth that so he may do that which is equall and right without errour A duty not without both Precept and Precedent in holy Scripture Moses prescribeth it in Deut. 17. in the case of Idolatry If there be found among you one that hath done thus or thus c. And it be told thee and thou hast heard of it and inquired diligently and behold it to be true and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in Israel Then thou shalt bring forth that man c. The offender must be stoned to death and no eye pity him but it must be done orderly and in a legall course not upon a bare hear-say but upon diligent examination and inquisition and upon such full evidence given in as may render the fact certain so far as such cases ordinarily are capable of certainty And the like is again ordered in Deut. 19. in the case of false witnesse Both the men between whom the controversie is shall stand before the Iudges and the Iudges shall make diligent inquisition c. And in Iudg. 19. in the wronged Levites case whose Concubine was abused unto death at Gibeah the Tribes of Israel stirred up one another to do justice upon the inhabitants thereof and the method they proposed was this first to consider and consult of it and then to give their opinions But the most famous example in this kinde is that of King Solomon in 3 Kings 3. in the difficult case of the two Mothers
therein In the rest the Psalmist draweth his argument from other considerations in this from the consideration of Gods mercifull removall of those judgements he had in his just wrath brought upon his own people Israel for their sinnes upon their repentance For this purpose there are sundry instances given in the Psalme taken out of the Histories of former times out of which there is framed as it were a Catalogue though not of all yet of sundry the most famous rebellions of that people against their God and of Gods both justice and mercy abundantly manifested in his proceedings with them thereupon In all which we may observe the passages betwixt God and them in the ordinary course of things ever to have stood in this order First he preventeth them with undeserved favours they unmindfull of his benefits provoke him by their rebellions he in his just wrath chastiseth them with heavie plagues they humbled under the rod seeke to him for ease he upon their submission withdraweth his judgements from them The Psalmist hath wtapped all these five together in Vers. 43 44. Many times did he deliver them but they provoked him with their counsels and were brought low for their iniquity the three first Neverthelesse he regarded their affliction when he heard their cry the other two The particular rebellions of the people in this Psalme instanced in are many some before and some after the verse of my Text. For brevity sake those that are in the following verses I wholly omit and but name the rest Which are their wretched infidelity and cowardise upon the first approch of danger at the Red Sea verse 7. Their tempting of God in the desert when lothing Manna they lusted for flesh verse 13. Their seditious conspiracy under Corah and his confederates against Moses verse 16. Their grosse Idolatry at Horeb in making and worshipping the golden Calfe verse 19. Their distrustfull murmuring at their portion in thinking scorn of the promised pleasant Land verse 24. Their fornicating both bodily with the daughters and spiritually with the Idols of Moab and of Midian verse 28. To the prosecution of which last mentioned story the words of my Text do appertain The origine story it self whereto this part of the Psalme referreth is written at full by Moses in Numb 25. and here by David but briefly touched as the present purpose and occasion led him Yet so as that the most observable passages of the History are here remembred in three verses three speciall things The Sin the Plague the Deliverance The Sinne with the Aggravation thereof v. 28. They joyned themselves also unto Baal-Peor and ate the Sacrifices of the dead The Plague with the Efficient cause thereof both Impulsive and Principall verse 29. Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions and the Plague brake in upon them The Deliverance with the speciall meanes and Instrument thereof is this 30. verse Then stood up Phinehes and executed judgement and the plague was stayed In which words are three things especially considerable The Person the Action of that Person and the successe of that Action The Person Phinehes His Action twofold the one preparatory he stood up the other completory he executed judgment The Successe and issue of both the plague was stayed The person holy the action zealous the successe happy Of each of these I shall endeavour to speak something applyably to the present condition of these heavy times and the present occasion of this frequent assembly But because the argument of the whole verse is a Deliverance and that Deliverance supposeth a plague and every plague supposeth a sin I must take leave before I enter upon the Particulars now proposed from the Text first a little to unfold the originall story that so we may have some more distinct knowledge both what Israels sinne was and how they were plagued and upon what occasion and by what means Phinehes wrought their deliverance When Israel travelling from the Land of bondage to the Land of Promise through the wildernesse were now come as far as the plaines of Moab and there encamped Balac the then King of Moab not daring to encounter with that people before whom two of his greatest neighbour Princes had lately fallen consulted with the Midianites his neighbours and allies and after some advice resolved upon this conclusion to hire Balaam a famous Sorcerer in those times and quarters to lend them his assistance plotting with all their might and his art by all possible meanes to withdraw Gods protection from them wherein they thought and they thought right the strength and safety of that people lay But there is no Counsell against the Lord nor inchantment against his people Where he will blesse and he will blesse where he is faithfully obeyed and depended upon neither power nor policy can prevaile for a Curse Balaam the wicked wretch though he loved the wayes of unrighteousnesse with his heart yet God not suffering him he could not pronounce a Curse with his lips against Israel but in stead of cursing them blessed them altogether But angry at Israel whom when faine he would he could not curse yea and angry at God himself who by restraining his tongue had voided his hopes and withheld him from pay and honour the wretched covetous Hypocrite as if he would at once be avenged both of him and them imagineth a mischievous device against them full of cursed villany He giveth the Moabites and the Midianites counsell to smother their hatred with pretensions of peace and by sending the fairest of their daughters among them to enveigle them with their beauty and to entice them first to corporall and after by that to spirituall whoredome That so Israel shrinking frow the Love and Feare and Obedience of their God might forfeit the interest they had in his protection and by sinne bring themselves under that wrath and curse of God which neither those great Princes by their Power nor their wisest Counsellers by their Policy nor Balaam himself by his Sorcery could bring upon them This damned counsell was followed but too soon and prospered but too well The daughters of Moab come into the Tents of Israel and by their blandishments put out the eyes and steal away the hearts of Gods people whom besotted once with lust it was then no hard matter to leade whither they listed and by wanton insinuations to draw them to sit with them in the Temples and to accompany them at the feasts and to eate with them of the sacrifices yea and to bow the knees with them to the honour of their Idols Insomuch as Israel joyned themselves to Baal-peor and ate the sacrifices of that dead and abominable Idol at the least for all Idols are such if not as most have thought a beastly and obscene Idoll withall That was their sin And now may Balak save his
cold to his heart and the Text saith He went away sorrowfull And ever mark it in something or other the Hypocrite bewrayeth himself what he is if not to the observation of others yet at least sufficiently for the conviction of his own heart if he would not be wanting to himself in the due search and triall of his heart A mans bloud riseth when he heareth a stranger swear an Oath but if the same man can hear his prentice lye and equivocate and cosen and never moove at it let him not be too brag of his zeal his coldnesse here discovereth the other to have been but a false fire and a fruit not of true zeal but of Hypocrisie A Iesuite maketh scruple of disclosing an intended treason revealed to him in confession but he maketh no bones of laying a powder-plot or contriving the Murther of an annointed King A Pharisee is very precise in Tithing Mint and Cummin but balketh justice and mercy One straineth at a Gnat and swalloweth a Camel maketh conscience of some petty sinnes neglecting greater Another casteth out a beam but feeleth not a moat maketh conscience of some greater sinnes neglecteth smaller Shame of the world the cry of people maketh him forbear some sins an eye had to his own private and secret ends other some fear of temporal punishment or it may be eternall other some hope of some advantage another way as in his credit profit c. other some the terrours of an affrighted conscience other some but if in the mean time there be no care nor scruple nor forbearance of other sins where there appeareth no hinderance from these or the like respects all is naught all is but counterfeit and damnable hypocrisie The rule never faileth Quicquid propter Deum fit aequaliter fit True obedience as it disputeth not the command but obeyeth cheerfully so neither doth it divide the command but obeyeth equally David had wanted one main assurance of the uprightnesse of his heart if he had not had an equal and universal Respect to all Gods Commandements That is the first note of Sincerity Integrity The other is Constancy continuance or lasting The seeming Graces of Hypocrites may be as forward and impetuous for the time as the true Graces of the sincere believer nay more forward oftentimes as in the stony ground the seed sprang up so much the sooner by how much it had the lesse depth of earth But the very same cause that made it put up so soon made it wither again as soon even because it wanted deepnesse of earth So the Hypocrite when the fit taketh him he is all on the spurre there is no way with him but a new man he will become out of hand yea that he will Momento turbinis But he setteth on too violently to hold out long this reformation ripeneth too fast to be right spiritual fruit As an horse that is good at hand but naught at length so is the Hypocrite free and fiery for a spurt but he jadeth and tyreth in a journey But true grace all to the contrary as it ripeneth for the most part by leisure so it ever lasteth longer as Philosophers say of Habits that as they are gotten hardly so they are not lost easily We heard but now that the Faith Repentance Reformation Obedience Ioy sorrow Zeal and other the graces and affections of Hypocrites had their first motion and issue from false and erroneous grounds as Shame Fear Hope and such respects And it thence cometh to passe that where these respects cease which gave them motion the graces themselves can no more stand than a House can stand when the foundation is taken from under it The Boy that goeth to his book no longer than his Master holdeth the rod over him the Masters back once turned away goeth the Book and he to play and right so is it with the Hypocrite Take away the rod from Pharaoh and he will be old Pharaoh still And Ahab here in this Chap. thus humbled before God at the voice of his Prophet this fit once past we see in the next Chap. regardeth neither God nor Prophet but through unbelief disobeyeth God and imprisoneth the Prophet Now then here is a wide difference between the Hypocrite and the godly man The one doth all by fits and by starts and by sudden motions and flashes whereas the other goeth on fairly and soberly in a setled constant regular course of humiliation and obedience Aristotle hath excellently taught us to distinguish between colours that arise from passion and from complexion The one he saith is scarce worth the name of a Quality or colour because it scarce giveth denomination to the subject wherein it is If Socrates be of a pale or an high-coloured complexion to the question Qualis est Socrates What a like man is Socrates it may be fitly answered saith Aristotle that he is a pale man or that he is an high-coloured man But when a man of another complexion is yet pale for fear or anger or red with blushing we do not use to say neither can we say properly that he is a pale man or a high-coloured man Accordingly we are to pronounce of those good things that sometimes appear in Hypocrites We call them indeed Graces and we do well because they seem to be such and because we in Charity are to hope that they be such as they seem but they are in true judgement nothing lesse than true graces neither should they indeed if we were able to discern the falsenesse of them give denomination to those Hypocrites in whom they are found For why should a man from a sudden and short fit of Repentance or Zeal or Charity or Religion be called a Penitent or a Zealous or a Charitable or a Religious man more than a man for once or twice blushing an high-coloured man Then are Graces true when they are habitual and constant and equal to themselves That is the second Note Constancy I will not trouble you with other Notes besides these Do but lay these two together and they will make a perfect good Rule for us to judge our own hearts by and to make tryall of the sincerity of those good things that seem to be in us Measure them not by the present heat for that may be as much perhaps more in an hypocrite than in a true believer but by their Integrity and Constancy A man of a cold complexion hath as much heat in a sharp fit of an Ague as he that is of a hot constitution and in health and more too his bloud is more enflamed and he burneth more But whether do you think is the more kindly heat that which cometh from the violence of a Fever or that which ariseth from the condition of a mans Temper No man maketh doubt of it but this is the more kindly though that may be more sensible and intense Well then a man
thy tongue the lye and to convince thee to thy face And if thou hast why then doest thou not readily acknowledge the voice of God in it having felt in it that lively power and efficacy which it is not possible any device of the wit of man should have Take heed then how thou doest traduce or despise or but undervalue that upon any seeming pretence whatsoever for which thou hast such a strong witnesse in thine own heart from the experience of the unresisted power of it that it is indeed the word of God and not the breath of sinfull man Felix trembled at it Ahab was humbled by it the one an Atheist the other an Hypocrite thou art worse than either Atheist or Hypocrite if it work not at least as much upon thee Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself at the voice of the Prophet From Ahab's Humiliation and the Occasion thereof passe we now to consider in the last place the Successe of it Ahab is humbled at the Prophets denouncing of judgement against him and God hence taketh occasion to be so gracious to Ahab as though not wholly to remove yet to suspend and adjourn the judgement for a time Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his dayes c. And here must Gods Holinesse be brought unto a tryal before the barr of carnal reason if by any means it can justifie it self God hateth the works of Hypocrites he loatheth even sacrifices without mercy his soul cannot away with the oblations and new-Moons and solemn Feasts of men that have their hands full of bloud no not though they make many prayers and tender them with behaviour of greatest devotion stretching out their hands towards heaven and afflicting their souls with fasting and hanging down their heads as Bulrushes with pensivenesse but even their best sacrifices and confessions and prayers and humiliations are an abomination unto him so far from appeasing his wrath against other sins as that they provoke his yet farther displeasure against themselves Such is the Holinesse of our God such the purity of his nature with which holinesse and purity how can it stand to accept and reward as here he seemeth to do the counterfeit humiliation of such a wretched Hypocrite as we now suppose Ahab to be For the clearing of this difficulty first let it be granted which I take to be a certain truth and for any thing I know never yet gain-said by any that Ahab not only before and after but even in the act and at the instant of this humiliation was an Hypocrite Let it be granted secondly which is the thing urged in the doubt that this humiliation of his being performed but in hypocrisie was not acceptable to God as a good work but abominable before him as a foul sinne But yet withall it must be granted thirdly that although Ahab did not well in not being humbled with an upright heart yet he had done much worse if he had not been humbled at all and that therefore there was though no true spiritual goodnesse yet some outward moral goodnesse in Ahab's humiliation at least so far forth as a thing lesse evil may in comparison of a worser thing be termed good And then are we to know fourthly that it may stand with Gods holinesse as it doth with his goodnesse and justice to reward outward good things with outward good things and moral and temporary graces with worldly and temporal blessings as here he rewardeth Ahab's temporary and external humiliation with an outward temporal favour viz. the adjourning of an outward temporal judgement That which hence we would observe is That God rewardeth sometimes common graces with common favours temporary obedience with temporal beneficence This is proved unto us first from the general course of Gods justice and his promise grounded upon that justice to reward every man according to his works To which justice of his and to which promise of his it is agreeable as to recompence Spiritual good things with Eternal so to recompence Moral good things with temporal rewards 2. From special expresse warrant of Scripture In Mat. 6. Christ saith of Hypocrites more than once that they have their reward As in the doing of their seeming good works they aim especially at the vain praise commendation of men so they have the full reward of those works in the vain praise and commendation of men Though they have no right unto nor reason to look for a reward hereafter in heaven yet they have their reward such as it is and all they are like to have here upon earth 3. From particular examples of such as have been temporally rewarded for temporal graces To omit Heathens as viz. Aristides Cyrus c. for Justice Bias Diogenes c. for contempt of the world Codrus Regulus c. for love of their countrey and zeal to the common good and sundry others for other good things whose moral vertues are herein amply rewarded if there were nothing else but this that their names and memories have been preserved in Histories and renowned throughout the world in all succeeding generations I say to to omit these Heathens we have examples in Scripture of Ahab here of Iehu of the Ninivites of others elsewhere who for their temporary obedience zeal repentance and the like were rewarded partly by temporal blessings upon themselves and their posterity partly by the removal or adjournal of temporal punishments which otherwise had speedily overtaken them Fourthly from the greater to the lesse God sometimes temporally rewardeth the services of such men as are but bruta instrumenta brute instruments of his will and providence such as are imployed by him for the bringing about of his most holy and secret purposes Citra rationem finis aut eorum quae ad finem in the doing of such things as they doe without the least mixture in their own purpose and intent of any respect at all to God or his ends but meerly for the satisfying of their own corrupt lusts and the atchieving of their own private ends A notable example whereof we have in Gods dealing with Nebuchadnezzar in Ezek. 29. where the word of the Lord cometh to Ezekiel saying Sonne of man Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus every head was made bald and every shoulder was peeled yet had he no wages nor his army for Tyrus for the service that he had served against it Therefore thus saith the Lord God behold I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and he shall take her multitude and it shall be wages for his army I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against Tyrus because they wrought for me saith the Lord God In which place we see Egypt is given to Nebuchadnezzar as a
that if we will take any warning he may do better to us than he hath said and not bring upon us what he hath threatned A point very usefull and comfortable if it be not derogatory to Gods truth Let us therefore first clear that and then proceed to the Uses If God thus revoke his threatnings it seemeth he either before meant not what he spake when he threatned or else after when he revoketh repenteth of what he meant either of which to imagine farr be it from every Christian heart since the one maketh God a dissembler the other a changeling the one chargeth him with falshood the other with lightness And yet the Scriptures sometimes speak of God as if he grievedâ—or â—or what he did or repented of what he spake or altered what he had purposed and for the most part such like affections are given him in such places as endeavour to set forth to the most life his great mercy and kindnesse to sinfull mankind We all know we cannot indeed give God any greater glory than the glory of his mercy yet must know withall that God is not so needy of means to work out his own glory as that he should be forced to redeem the glory of his mercy with the forfeiture either of his Truth or Stedfastness We are therefore to lay this as a firm ground and infallible that our God is both truly Vnchangeable and unchangeably True The strength of Israel is not as man that he should he nor as the son of man that he should repent his words are not Yea and Nay neither doth he use lightness But his words are Yea and Amen and himself yesterday and to day and the same for ever Heaven and Earth may passe away yea shall passe away but not the least tittle of Gods words shall passe away unfulfilled They may wax old as a garment and as a vesture shall he change them and they shall be changed but he is the same and his years fail not neither doe his purposes fail nor his promises fail nor his threatnings fail nor any of his words fail Let Heaven and Earth and Hell and Angel and Man and Devil and all change still still Ego Deus non mutor God he is the Lord of all and he changeth not As for those Phrases then of Repenting Griâ—ving c. which are spoken of God in the Scriptures that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof Saint Chrysostom so often speaketh salveth them God speaketh to us and therefore speaketh as we use to speak and frameth his language to our l dulness and teacheth us by our own phrases what he would have us learn as Nurses talk half syllables and lipse out broken language to young children But what is so spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God after the manner of men must yet be understoo◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as befitteth the Majesty and perfection of his divine nature When he repenteth then we are not so to conceive it as if God changed his mind or altered any thing of his everlasting purpose and counsell either in substance or circumstances it only importeth that he now doth not that which so farr as we could reasonably conjecture by his words or works or our deserts or otherwise seemed to us to have been his purpose to have done This for the Phrases but yet the main doubt for the thing it self standeth uncleared Abimelech and Hezekiah shall dye and yet Abimelech and Hezekiah shall not dye Nineveh shall be destroyed and yet Nineveh shall not be destroyed I will bring evil upon Ahab's house and yet I will not bring it is not this Yea and Nay is not this a plain contradiction How is there not here a plain change of Gods will If not for substance because the things were at length performed yet at least in circumstance because they were not performed at those times and in that manner as they were threatned and foretold That wretched miscreant Vorstius instead of untying this knot cutteth it who to maintain Pelagian conclusions from blasphemous Principles trembleth not to affirm In parte aliquà divini decreti fieri aliquam mutationem that there may be some change made in some part of Gods decree An assertion unbeseeming an ingenuous Pagan and to be for ever abhorred and held accursed by every soul that professeth it self Christian. Admit this once and let Man yea and the devil too be true and only God a lyer Leave we him therefore to the judgement of that great God whom he hath blasphemed and seek we better satisfaction That of Aquinas and the Schoolmen is true but subtile that God doth sometimes Velle mutationem though he doth never mutare voluntatem that though he never changeth his will yet he sometimes willeth a change That of Gregory is plainer and no lesse true Mutat Deus sententiam non consiliumâ— God sometimes changeth the sentence which he hath denounced but never the Counsell which he hath decreed Others otherwise diverse men conceiving the same answer for substance in divers and different termes That which is plainest and giveth fullest satisfaction and whereinto the answers of Gregory and Aquinas and the rest as many as have spoken with any truth and pertinency to the point in the last resolution fall is briefly this In the whole course of Scripture Gods threatnings and so his promises too have ever a condition annexed unto them in Gods purpose which though it be not ever indeed but seldome expressed yet is it ever inclucluded and so to be understood All Gods promises how absolutely so ever expressed are made sub conditione Obedientiae and all his threatnings how absolutely so ever expressed sub conditione Impoenitentiae And these Conditions viz. of continuing in Obedience in all Promises and of continuing in Impenitency in all Threatnings are to be understood of course whether they be expressed or not This is plain from those two famous places before cited Ier. 18. and Ezek. 33. When I say to the wicked thou shalt surely dye if the wicked turn from his sinne c. he shall surely live he shall not dye Where Almighty God plainly teacheth us that we ought so to conceive of all his threatnings be they never so peremptorily set down as what more peremptory than this Thou shalt surely dye as that he may reserve to himself a power of revocation in case the parties threatned repent The examples make it plain Abimelech shall dye for taking Sarah understand it unlesse he restore her Forty dayes and Nineveh shall be destroyed understand it with this reservation unlesse they repent And so of all the rest But why is not that clause expressed then may some demand I answer first it needeth not secondly it booteth not First it needeth not For God having in Ierem. 18. and Ezek. 33. and elsewhere instructed us in the general
are to do to turn away Gods wrath from us and to escape the judgements he threatneth against us Even this As in his Comminations he joyneth Mercy and Truth together so are we in our Humiliations to joyn Faith and Repentance together His threatnings are true let us not presume of forbearance but fear since he hath threatned that unless we repent he will strike us Yet his threatnings are but conditional let us not despair of forbearance but hope although he hath threatned that yet if we repent he will spare us That is the course which the godly guided by the direction of his holy Spirit have ever truly and sincerely held and found it ever comfortable to assure them of sound peace and reconciliation with God That is the course which the very Hypocrites from the suggestion of natural Conscience have sometimes offered at as far as Nature enlightned but unrenewed could lead them and found it effectual to procure them at the least some forbearance of threatned judgements or abatement of temporal evils from God Thus have you heard three Uses made of Gods mercy in revoking joyned with his truth in performing what he threatneth One to chear up the distressed that he despair not when God threatneth another to shake up the secure that he despise not when God threatneth a third to quicken up all that they beleeve and repent when God threatneth There is yet another general Vse to be made hereof which though it be not directly proper to the present argument yet I cannot willingly passe without a little touching at it and that is to instruct us for the understanding of Gods promises For contraries as Promises and Threatnings are being of the like kind and reason either with other do mutually give and take light either to and from other Gods threatnings are true and stedfast his Promises are so too Promisit qui non mentitur Deus which God that cannot lie hath promised saith the Apostle in one place and in another All the Promises of God are Yea and Amen and where in a third place he speaketh of Two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie his promise is one of those two The Promises then of God are true as his Threatnings are Now look on those Threatnings again which we have already found to be true but withall conditional and such as must be ever understood with a clause of reservation or exception It is so also in the Promises of God they are true but yet conditional and so they must ever be understood with a conditional clause The exception there to be understood is Repentance the condition here Obedience What God threatneth to do unto us absolutely in words the meaning is he will doe it unlâ—ss we repent and amend and what he promiseth to do for us absolutely in words the meaning is he will do it if we believe and obey And for so much as this clause is to be understood of course in all Gods promises we may not charge him with breach of Promise though after he do not really perform that to us which the letter of his promise did import if we break the condition and obey not Wouldest thou know then how thou art to entertain Gods promises and with what assurance to expect them I answer with a confident and obedient heart Confident because he is true that hath promised Obedient because that is the condition under which he hath promised Here is a curb then for those mens presumption who living in sinne and continuing in disobedience dare yet lay claim to the good Promises of God If such men ever had any seeming interest in Gods Promises the interest they had they had but by contract and covenant and that covenant whether either of the two it was Law or Gospel it was conditional The covenant of the Law wholly and à Priori conditional Hoc fac vives Do this and live and the Covenant of the Gospel too after a sort and à Posteriori Conditional Crede Vives Believe and Live If then they have broken the conditions of both covenants and do neither Believe nor Do what is required they have by their Unbelief and Disobedience forfeited all that seeming interest they had in those Promises Gods promises then though they be the very main supporters of our Christian Faith and Hope to as many of us as whose consciences can witnesse unto us a sincere desire and endeavour of performing that Obedience we have covenanted yet are they to be embraced even by such of us with a reverend fear and trembling at our own unworthinesse But as for the unclean and filthy and polluted those Swine and Dogs that delight in sinne and disobedience and every abomination they may set their hearts at rest for these matters they have neither part nor fellowship in any of the sweet promises of God Let dirty Swine wallow in their own filth these rich pearles are not for them they are too precious let hungry Dogges glut themselves with their own vomit the Childrens bread is not for them it is too delicious Let him that will be filthy be filthy still the promises of God are holy things and belong to none but those that are holy and desire to be holy still For our selves in a word let us hope that a promise being left us if with faith and obedience and patience we wait for it we shall in due time receive it but withall let us fear as the Apostle exhorteth Heb. 4. Lest a promise being left us through disobedience or unbelief any of us should seem to come short of it Thus much of the former thing proposed the magnifying of Gods Mercy and the clearing of his Truth in the revocation and suspension of threatned judgements by occasion of these words I will not bring the Evil. There is yet a Circumstance remaining of this generall part of my Text which would not be forgotten it is the extent of time for the suspending of the judgement I will not bring the Evil in his dayes Something I would speak of it too by your patience it shall not be much because the season is sharp and I have not much sand to spend I will not bring the evil in his dayes The judgement denounced against Ahabs house was in the end executed upon it as appeareth in the sequel of the story and especially from those words of Iehu who was himself the instrument raised up by the Lord and used for that execution in 4 Kings 10. Know that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord which the Lord spake concerning the house of Ahab for the Lord hath done that which he spake by his servant Eliah Which were enough if there were nothing else to be said to justifie Gods Truth in this one particular That which Ahab gained by his humiliation was only the deferring of
it for his time I will not bring the evil in his dayes As if God had said This wretched King hath provoked me and pulled down a curse from me upon his house which it were but just to bring upon him and it without farther delay yet because he made not a scoff at my Prophet but took my words something to heart and was humbled by them he shall not say but I will deal mercifully with him and beyond his merit as ill as he deserveth it I will do him this favour I will not bring the evil that is determined against his house in his dayes The thing I would observe hence is That When God hath determined a judgement upon any people family or place it is his great mercy to us if he do not let us live to see it It cannot but be a great grief I say not now to a religious but even to any soul that hath not quite cast off all natural affection to forethink and foreknow the future calamities of his countrey and kindred Xerxes could not forbear weeping beholding his huge army that followed him onely to think that within some few scores of years so many thousands of proper men would be all dead and rotten and yet that a thing that must needs have happened by the necessity of nature if no sad accident or common calamity should hasten the accomplishment of it The declination of a Common-wealth and the funeral of a Kingdome foreseen in the general corruption of manners and decay of discipline the most certain symtomes of a totering State have fetched teares from the eyes and bloud from the hearts of heathen men zealously affected to their Countrey How much more grief then must it needs be to them that acknowledge the true God not only to foreknow the extraordinary plagues and miseries and calamities which shall befall their posterity but also to fore-read in them Gods fierce wrath and heavy displeasure and bitter vengeance against their own sins and the sins of their posterity Our blessed Saviour though himself without sinne and so no way accessory to the procuring of the evils that should ensue could not yet but Weep over the City of Ierusalem when he beheld the present security and the future ruine thereof A grief it is then to know these things shall happen but some happinesse withall and to be acknowledged as a great favour from God to be assured that we shall never see them It is no small mercy in him it is no small Comfort to us if either he take us away before his judgements come or keep his judgements away till we be gone When God had told Abraham in Gen. 15. that his seed should be a stranger in a land that was not theirs meaning Egypt where they should be kept under and afflicted 400 years lest the good Patriarch should have been swallowed up with grief at it he comfortteth him as with a promise of their glorious deliverance at the last so with a promise also of prosperity to his own person and for his own time But thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace and shalt be buried in a good old age vers 15. In Esay 39. when Hezekiah heard from the mouth of the Prophet Esaiah that all the treasures in the Lords house should be carried into Babylon and that his sonnes whom he should beget should be taken away and made Eunuches in the palace of the King of Babylon he submitted himself as it became him to do to the sentence of God and comforted himself with this that yet there should be peace and truth in his dayes verse 8. In 4 Kings 22. when Huldah had prophesied of the evil that God would bring upon the City of Ierusalem and the whole land of Iudah in the name of the Lord she pronounceth this as a courtesie from the Lord unto good King Iosiah Because thy heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy fathers and thou shalt be gathered unto thy grave in peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place verse last Indeed every man should have and every good man hath an honest care of posterity would rejoyce to see things setled well for them would grieve to see things likely to go ill with them That common speech which was so frequent with Tiberius was monstrous and not favouring of common humanity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When I am gone let Heaven and Earth be jumbled again into their old Chaos but he that mended it with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea saith he whilest I live seemeth to have renounced all that was man in him Aristotle hath taught us better what reason taught him that Res posterorum pertinent ad defunctos the good or evil of those that come after us doth more than nothing concern us when we are dead and gone This is true but yet Proximus egomet mî though it were the speech of a Shark in the Comedy will bear a good construction Every man is neerest to himself and that Charity which looketh abroad and seeketh not only her own yet beginneth at home and seeketh first her own Whence it is that a godly man as he hath just cause to grieve for posterities sake if they must feel Gods judgements so he hath good cause to rejoyce for his own sake if he shall escape them and he is no lesse to take knowledge of Gods Mercy in sparing him than of his Iustice in striking them This point is usefull many ways I will touch but some of them and that very briefly First here is one Comfort among many other against the bitternesse of temporal death If God cut thee off in the middest of thy days and best of thy strength if death turn thee pale before age have turned thee gray if the flower be plucked off before it begin to wither grudge not at thy lot therein but meet Gods Messenger cheerfully and imbrace him thankfully It may be God hath some great work in hand from which he meaneth to save thee It may be he sendeth death to thee as he sent his Angel to Lot to pluck thee out of the middest of a froward and crooked generation and to snatch thee away lest a worse thing than death should happen unto thee Cast not therefore a longing eye back upon Sodome neither desire to linger in the plain it is but a valley of tears and misery but up to the mountain from whence commeth thy salvation lest some evil overtake thee Possibly that which thou thinkest an untimely death may be to thee a double advantage a great advantage in ushering thee so early into GODS glorious presence and some advantage too in plucking thee so seasonably from Gods imminent Iudgements It is a favour to be taken away betimes when evil is determined upon those that are left
is the harmony and conjuncture of the Parts exceeding in goodnesse beauty and perfection yet so as no one part is superfluous or unprofitable or if considered singly and by it self destitute of its proper goodnesse and usefulnesse As in the Natural Body of a Man not the least member or string or sinew but hath his proper office and comelinesse in the body and as in the artificial Body of a Clock or other engine of motion not the least wheel or pinne or notch but hath his proper work and use in the Engine God hath given to every thing he hath made that number weight and measure of perfection and goodnesse which he saw fittest for it unto those ends for which he made it Every Creature of God is good A truth so evident that even those among the Heathen Philosophers who either denied or doubted of the worlds Creation did yet by making Ens and Bonum terms convertible acknowledge the goodnesse of every Creature It were a shame then for us who Through Faith understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God if our assent unto this truth should not be by so much firmer than theirs by how much our evidence for it is stronger than theirs They perceived the thing we the ground also they saw it was so we why it is so Even because it is the work of God A God full of goodnesse a God who is nothing but goodnesse a God essentially and infinitely good yea very Goodnesse it self As is the Workman such is his workmanship Nor for degree that is here impossible but for the truth of the Quality not alike good with him but like to him in being good In every Creature there are certain tracks and footsteps as of Gods Essence whereby it hath its Being so of his goodness too wherby it also is good The Manichees saw the strength of this Inference Who though they were so injurious unto the Creatures as to repute some of them evil yet durst not be so absurd as to charge the true God to be the cause of those they so reputed Common reason taught them that from the good God could not proceed any evil thing no more than Darkness could from the light of the Sun or Cold from the heat of the fire And therefore so to defend their Errour as to avoid this absurdity they were forced to maintain another absurdity indeed a greater though it seemed to them the lesse of the two viz. to say there were two Gods a Good God the Author of all good things and an Evil Good the Author of all evil things If then we acknowledge that there is but one God and that one God good and we doe all so acknowledge unless we will be more absurd than those most absurd Hereticks we must withall acknowledge all the Creatures of that one and good God to be also good He is so the causer of all that is good for Every good gift and every perfect giving descendeth from above from the Father of lights as that he is the causer only of what is good for with him is no variableness neither shadow of turning saith S. Iames. As the Sun who is Pater Luminum the fountain and Father of lights whereunto S. Iames in that passage doth apparently allude giveth light to the Moon and Stars and all the lights of heaven and causeth light wheresoever he shineth but no where causeth darkness So God the Father and fountain of all goodness so communicateth goodness to every thing he produceth as that he cannot produce any thing at all but that which is good Every Creature of God then is good Which being so certainly then first to raise some Inferences from the premisses for our farther instruction and use certainly I say Sin and Death and such things as are evil and not good are not of Gods making they are none of his Creatures for all his Creatures are good Let no man therefore say when he is tempted and overcome of sin I am tempted of God neither let any man say when he hath done evil it was Gods doing God indeed preserveth the Man actuateth the Power and ordereth the Action to the glory of his Mercy or Iustice but he hath no hand at all in the sinfull defect and obliquity of a wicked action There is a natural or rather transcendental Goodnesse Bonitas Entis as they call it in every Action even in that whereto the greatest sin adhereth and that Goodness is from God as that Action is his Creature But the Evil that cleaveth unto it is wholly from the default of the Person that committeth it and not at all from God And as for the Evils of Pain also neither are they of Gods making Deus mortem non fecit saith the Author of the Book of Wisdom God made not death neither doth he take pleasure in the destruction of the living but wicked men by their words and works have brought it upon themselves Perditio tua exte Israel Osea 13. O Israel thy destrâ—ction is from thy self that is both thy sin whereby thou destroyest thy self and thy Misery whereby thou art destroyed is only and wholly from thy self Certainly God is not the Cause of any Evil either of Sin or Punishment Conceive it thus not the Cause of it formally and so farr forth as it is Evil. For otherwise we must know that materially considered all Evils of Punishment are from God for Shall there be evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it Amos 3.6 In Evils of sinne there is no other but only that Natural or Transcendental goodness whereof we spake in the Action which goodness though it be from God yet because the Action is Morally bad God is not said to doe it But in Evils of Punishment there is over and besides that Natural Goodness whereby they exist a kind of Moral Goodness as we may call it after a sort improperly and by way of reduction as they are Instruments of the Iustice of God and whatsoever may be referred to Iustice may so farr forth be called good and for that very goodness God may be said in some sort to be the Author of these evils of punishment though not also of those other evils of Sin In both we must distinguish the Good from the Evil and ascribe all the Good whatsoever it be Transcendental Natural Moral or if there be any other to God alone but by no means any of the Evil. We are unthankfull if we impute any good but to him and we are unjust if we impute to him any thing but good Secondly from the goodness of the least Creature guesse we at the excellent goodness of the great Creator Ex pede Herculem God hath imprinted as before I said some steps and footings of his goodness in the Creatures from which we must take the best scantling we are capable of of those
and dyed in Idolatry and so are damned And if they were saved in their faith why may not the same faith save us and why will not you also be of that religion that brought them to Heaven A motive more plausible than strong the Vanity whereof our present Observation duly considered and rightly applyed fully discovereth We have much reason to conceive good hope of the salvation of many of our Fore-fathers who led away with the common superstitions of those blinde times might yet by those general truths which by the mercy of God were preserved amid the foulest overspreadings of Popery agreeable to the Word of God though clogged with an addition of many superstitions and Antichristian inventions withal be brought to true Faith in the Son of God unfeigned Repentance from dead works and a sincere desire and endeavour of new and holy Obedience This was the Religion that brought them to Heaven even Faith and Repentance and Obedience This is the true and the Old and Catholique Religion and this is our Religion in which we hope to finde salvation and if ever any of you that miscal your selves Catholiques come to Heaven it is this Religion must carry you thither If together with this true Religion of Faith Repentance and Obedience they embraced also your additions as their blinde guides then led them prayed to our Lady kneeled to an Image crept to a Cross flocked to a Mass as you now do these were their spots and their blemishes these were their hay and their stubble these were their Errors and their Ignorances And I doubt not but as S. Paul for his blasphemies and persecutions so they obtained mercy for these sins because they did them ignorantly in misbelief And upon the same ground we have cause also to hope charitably of many thousand poor souls in Italy Spain and other parts of the Christian World at this day that by the same blessed means they may obtain mercy and salvation in the end although in the mean time through ignorance they defile themselves with much foul Idolatry and many gross Superstitions But the Ignorance that excuseth from sin is Ignorantia facti according to that hath been already declared whereas theirs was Ignorantia juris which excuseth not And besides as they lived in the practise of that worship which we call Idolatry so they dyed in the same without repentance and so their case is not the same with Saint Pauls who saw those his sins and sorrowed for them and forsook them But how can Idolaters living and dying so without repentance be saved It is answered that ignorance in point of fact so conditioned as hath been shewed doth so excuse à toto that an Action proceeding thence though it have a material inconformity unto the Law of God is yet not formally a sin But I do not so excuse the Idolatry of our Fore-fathers as if it were not in it self a sin and that without repentance damnable But yet their Ignorance being such as it was nourished by Education Custom Tradition the Tyranny of their leaders the Fashion of the times not without some shew also of Piety and Devotion and themselves withall having such slender means of better knowledge though it cannot wholly excuse them from sin without repentance damnable yet it much lesseneth and qualifieth the sinfulness of their Idolatry arguing that their continuance therein was more from other prejudices than from a wilful contempt of Gods holy Word and Will And as for their Repentance it is as certain that as many of them as are saved did repent of their Idolatries as it is certain no Idolater nor other sinner can be saved without Repentance But then there is a double difference to be observed between Repentance for Ignorances and for known sins The one is that known sins must be confessed and repented of and pardon asked for them in particular every one singly by it self I mean for the kindes though not ever for the individuals every kinde by it self at least where God alloweth time and leisure to the Penitent to call himself to a punctual examination of his life past and doth not by sudden death or by some disease that taketh away the use of reason deprive him of opportunity to do that Whereas for Ignorances it is enough to wrap them up all together in a general and implicite confession and to crave pardon for them by the lump as David doth in the 19. Psalm Who can understand all his Errors Lord cleanse thou me from my secret sins The other difference is that known sins are not truly repented of but where they are forsaken and it is but an hypocritical semblance of penance without the truth of the thing where is no care either endeavour of reformation But ignorances may be faithfully repented of and yet still continued in The reason because they may be repented of in the general and in the lump without special knowledge that they are sins but without such special knowledge they cannot be reformed Some of our fore-fathers then might not only live in Popish Idolatry but even dye in an Idolatrous act breathing out their last with their lips at a Crucifix and an Ave-Mary in their thoughts and yet have truly repented though but in the general and in the croud of their unknown sins even of those very sins and have at the same instant true Faith in Jesus Christ and other Graces accompanying salvation But why then may not I will some Popeling say continue as I am and yet come to heaven as well as they continued what they were and yet went to heaven If I be an Idolater it is out of my Errour and Ignorance and if that general Prayer unto God at the last to forgive me all my Ignorances will serve the turn I may run the same course I do without danger or fear God will be merciful to me for what I do ignorantly Not to preclude all possibility of mercy from thee or from any sinner Consider yet there is a great difference between their state and thine between thine ignorance and theirs They had but a very small enjoyance of the light of Gods Word hid from them under two bushels for sureness under the bushel of a tyrannous Clergy that if any man should be able to understand the books he might not have them and under the bushel of an unknown tongue that if any man should chance to get the books he might not understand them Whereas to thee the light is holden forth and set on a Candlestick the books open the language plain legible and familiar They had eyes but saw not because the light was kept from and the land was dark about them as the darkness of Egypt But thou livest as in a Goshen where the light encompasseth thee in on all sides where there are burning and shining lamps in every corner of the land Yet is thy blindeness greater for who so blinde as he that will
as if he should have said I know my self better than you do and therefore so long as I know nothing by my self of those things wherein you censure me I little reckon what either you or any others shall think or say by me We may by his example make use of this the inward testimony of our hearts being sufficient to justifie us against the accusations of men but we may not rest upon this as if the acquital of our hearts were sufficient to justifie us in the sight of God S. Paul knew it who durst not rest thereupon but therefore addeth in the very next following words Yea I judge not mine own self for I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Our hearts are close and false and nothing so deceitful as they and who can know them perfectly but he that made them and can search into them Other men can know very little of them our selves something more but God alone all If therefore when other men condemn us we finde our selves agrieved we may remove our cause into an Higher Court appeal from them to our own Consciences and be relieved there But that is not the Highest Court of all there lyeth yet an appeal further and higher than it even to the Iudgement-seat or rather to the Mercy-seat of God who both can finde just matter in us to condemn us even in those things wherein our own hearts have acquitted us and yet can withall finde a gracious means to justifie us even from those things wherein our own hearts condemn us Whether therefore our hearts condemn us or condemn us not God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things To conclude all this point and therewithal the first general part of my Text Let no Excusations of our own Consciences on the one side or confidence of any integrity in our selves make us presume we shall be able to stand just in the sight of God if he should enter into Judgement with us but let us rather make suit unto him that since we cannot understand all our own errors he would be pleased to cleanse us from our secret sins And on the other side let no accusations of our own Consciences or guiltiness of our manifold frailties and secret hypocrisies make us despair of obtaining his favour and righteousness if denying our selves and renouncing all integrity in our selves as of our selves we cast our selves wholly at the footstool of his mercy and seek his favour in the face of his only begotten Son Iesus Christ the righteous Of the former branch of Gods reply to Abimelech in those former words of the Text Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart hitherto I now proceed to the latter branch thereof in those remaining words For I also with-held thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word signifieth properly to hold in or to keep back Retinui or Cohibui or as the Latine hath it Custodivi te implying Abimelechs forwardness to that sin certainly he had been gone if God had not kept him in and held him back The Greek rendreth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I spared thee and so the Latine Parcere is sometimes used for impedire or prohibere to hinder or not to suffer as in that of Virgil Parcite oves nimium procedere Or taking parcere in the most usual signification for sparing it may very well stand with the purpose of the place for indeed God spareth us no less indeed he spareth us much more when he maketh us forbear to sin than when having sinned he forbeareth to punish and as much cause have we to acknowledge his mercy and to rejoyce in it when he holdeth our hands that we sin not as when he holdeth his own hands that he strike not For I also with-held thee from sinning against me How Did not Abimelech sin in taking Sarah or was not that as every other sin is a sin against God Certainly if Abimelech had not sinned in so doing and that against God God would not have so plagued him as he did for that deed The meaning then is not that God with-held him wholly from sinning at all therein but that God with-held him from sinning against him in that foul kinde and in that high degree as to defile himself by actual filthiness with Sarah which but for Gods restraint he had done Therefore suffered I thee not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non dimisi te that is I did not let thee go I did not leave thee to thy self or most agreeably to the letter of the Text in the Hebrew Non dedi or non tradidi I did not deliver or give That may be non dedi potestatem I did not give thee leave or power and so giving is sometimes used for suffering as Psal. 16. Non dabis sanctum tuum Thou wilt not suffer c. and elsewhere Or non dedi te tibi I gave thee not to thy self A man cannot be put more desperately into the hands of any enemy than to be left in manu consilii sui delivered into his own hands and given over to the lust of his own heart Or as it is here translated I suffered thee not We should not draw in God as a party when we commit any sin as if he joyned with us in it or lent us his helping hand for it we do it so alone without his help that we never do it but when he letteth us alone and leaveth us destitute of his help For the kinde and manner and measure and circumstances and events and other the appurtenances of sin God ordereth them by his Almighty power and providence so as to become serviceable to his most wise most just most holy purposes but as for the very formality it self of the sin God is to make the most of it but a sufferer Therefore suffered I thee not To touch her Signifying that God had so far restrained Abimelech from the accomplishment of his wicked and unclean purposes that Sarah was preserved free by his good providence not only from actual adultery but from all unchaste and wanton dalliance also with Abimelech It was Gods great mercy to all the three parties that he did not suffer this evil to be done for by this means he graciously preserved Abimelech from the sin Abraham from the wrong and Sarah from both And it is to be acknowledged the great mercy of God when at any time he doth and he doth ever and anon more or less by his gracious and powerful restraint with-hold any man from running into those extremities of sin and mischief whereinto his own corruption would carry him headlong especially when it is set a gog by the cunning perswasions of Satan and the manifold temptations that are in the world through lust
The Points then that arise from this part of my Text are these 1. Men do not always commit those evils their own desires or outward temptations prompt them unto 2. That they do it not it is from Gods restraint 3. That God restraineth them it is of his own gracious goodness and mercy The common subject matter of the whole three points being one viz. Gods restraint of mans sin we will therefore wrap them up all three together and so handle them in this one entire Observation as the total of all three God in his mercy oftentimes restraineth men from committing those evils which if that restraint were not they would otherwise have committed This Restraint whether we consider the Measure or the Means which God useth therein is of great variety For the Measure God sometimes restraineth men à Toto from the whole sin whereunto they are tempted as he with-held Ioseph from consenting to the perswasions of his Mistress sometimes only à Tanto and that more or less as in his infinite wisdom he seeth expedient suffering them perhaps but only to desire the evill perhaps to resolve upon it perhaps to prepare for it perhaps to begin to act it perhaps to proceed far in it and yet keeping them back from falling into the extremity of the sin or accomplishing their whole desire in the full and final consummation thereof as here he dealt with Abimelech Abimelech sinned against the eighth Commandement in taking Sarah injuriously from Abraham say he had been but her brother and he sinned against the seventh Commandement in a foul degree in harbouring such wanton and unchaste thoughts concerning Sarah and making such way as he did by taking her into his house for the satisfying of his lust therein but yet God with-held him from plunging himself into the extremity of those sins not suffering him to fall into the act of uncleanness And as for the Means whereby God with-holdeth men from sinning they are also of wonderful variety Sometimes he taketh them off by diverting the course of the corruption and turning the affections another way Sometimes he awaketh natural Conscience which is a very tender and tickle thing when it is once stirred and will boggle now and then at a very small matter in comparison over it will do at some other times Sometimes he affrighteth them with apprehensions of outward Evils as shame infamy charge envy loss of a friend danger of humane lawes and sundry other such like discouragements Sometimes he cooleth their resolutions by presenting unto their thoughts the terrors of the Law the strictness of the last Account and the endless unsufferable torments of Hell-fire Sometimes when all things are ripe for execution he denyeth them opportunity or casteth in some unexpected impediment in the way that quasheth all Sometimes he disableth them and weakeneth the arm of flesh wherein they trusted so as they want power to their will as here he dealt with Abimelech And sundry other ways he hath more than we are able to search into whereby he layeth a restraint upon men keepeth them back from many sins and mischiefs at least from the extremity of many sins and mischiefs whereunto otherwise Nature and Temptation would carry them with a strong current Not to speak yet of that sweet and of all other the most blessed and powerful restraint which is wrought in us by the Spirit of Sanctification renewing the soul and subduing the corruption that is in the Flesh unto the Obedience of the Spirit at which I shall have fitter occasion to touch anon In the mean time that there is something or other that restraineth men from doing some evils unto which they have not only a natural proneness but perhaps withal an actual desire and purpose might be shewn by a world of instances but because every mans daily experience can abundantly furnish him with some we will therefore content our selves with the fewer Laban meant no good to Iacob when taking his Brethren with him he pursued after him seven days journey in an hostile manner and he had power to his will to have done Iacob a mischief Iacob being but imbellis turba no more but himself his wives and his little ones with his flocks and herds and a few servants to attend them unable to defend themselves much more unmeet to resist a prepared enemy yet for all his power and purpose and preparation Laban when he had overtaken Iacob durst have nothing at all to do with him and he had but very little to say to him neither The worst was but this Thus and thus have you dealt with me And It is in the power of mine hand to do you hurt but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight saying Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad See the story in Gen. 31. The same Iacob had a Brother as unkinde as that Uncle nay much more despightfully bent against him than he for he had vowed his destruction The days of mourning for my Father are at hand and then I will slay my Brother Jacob and although the Mother well hoped that some few days time and absence would appease the fury of Esau and all should be forgotten yet twenty years after the old grudge remained and upon Iacobs approach Esau goeth forth to meet him with 400. men armed as it should seem for his destruction which cast Iacob into a terrible fear and much distressed he was good man and glad to use the best wit he had by dividing his Companies to provide for the safety at least of some part of his charge And yet behold at the encounter no use at all of the 400. men unless to be spectatours and witnesses of the joyful embraces and kinde loving complements that passed between the two brothers in the liberal offers and modest refusals each of others courtesies in the 32. and 33. of Genesis A good Probatum of that Observation of Solomon When a mans ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Balaam the Conjurer when the King Balac had cast the hook before him baited with ample rewards in hand and great promotions in reversion if he would come over to him and curse Israel had both Covetousness and Ambition enough in him to make him bite so that he was not only willing but even desirous to satisfie the King for he loved the wages of unrighteousness with his heart and therefore made tryal till he saw it was all in vain if by any means he could wring a permission from God to do it But when his eyes were opened to behold Israel and his mouth open that he must now pronounce something upon Israel though his eyes were full of Envy and his heart of Cursing yet God put a parable of Blessing into his mouth and he was not able to utter a syllable of any thing other than