Imprimatur Guil. Wigan R. in Ch. P. ac D no D no Humfr. Episc. Lond. Sacellan June 26. 1671. A SERMON Preached in Lent-Assizes Holden for the COVNTY of BVCKS AT ALESBVRY March 8 th 1670 1 being Ash-Wednesday By AD. LITTLETON D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed by J. Macock for R. Davis of Oxon. M DC LXXI To my Honoured Friend and Worthy Parishioner Joseph Alston the elder Esq at Bradwell in the County of Bucks Worthy Sir IN compliance with your Desires which where there is Friendship have the weight of Commands in them though there wanted not Those neither from Mr. High-Sheriff your Son I have at last ventured into the world that Discourse at which in the delivery of it your domestick Grief having indisposed you for the Publick you could not be present It comes forth with this Advantage if this be one that 't is somewhat larger by the Accession of many things which time would not give leave then to Inlarge upon If there be any further benefit or satisfaction may redound to the Reader from it as it now appears which I dare not hope for you have a particular Right to challenge the Acknowledgment this Sermon having bin begotten under your roof conceived and born within your walls and so of Due belonging to you the Old Law both Sacred and Civil having ordered that Children born in the House should be reckoned into the Master's Possession and it being the Vsual Course which the Municipal Law it self prescribes that poor Children and Wanderers be sent back to the place of their Birth to be provided for Sir Having given you some small account of my Obedience I cannot but think my self obliged to acquit my self also in some measure upon the score of Gratitude Thanks is the least Return can be made there will be more the Prayers of our poor drooping Parish-Church which you by your late seasonable Kindness have put Life into For I need not assure you as one that are so well acquainted with the purport of Holy Writ and studied in Gods promises which are to None more Ample then to the liberal and cheerful Giver that as Charity in general is the surest way of putting our Wealth out of the reach of Fortune so particularly Bounties to Pious and Publick Uses have in several regards peculiar and large Retributions ascertained to them both in our Temporal and Eternal concerns If this Freedom of Mentioning what you perhaps wish might have been Concealed offend I must mind you that such Actions as these where the very Example many times is as useful as the Benefacture though they are not to be done to that End yet our Saviour says they must be done in that Manner that men may see our good works and glorifie God Sir this sorry Inscription whatever It is begs your Acceptance as a hearty though a mean Testimony of those Respects that are Due to you from Him who is Sir Your affectionate Servant in Christ our great Lord and Master A. Littleton Chelsey June 24. 1671. ERRATA PAge 5. l. 30. way r. may p. 12. l. 15. Jeshurum r. Jeshurun p. 15. l. 11. ye r. yea p. 24. l. 24. so r. said 1 SAM VII 15.16 And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life And he went from year to year in Circuit to Beth-el and Gilgal and Mizpeh and judged Israel in all those places THE very Notion of Judging implies a Law there being such a mutual connexion and relation betwixt the Judge and the Law that they infer one another and the denyal of one takes away the other also No Law no Judge No Judge no Law For how shall Samuel judge if he have not a Rule laid before him according to which judgment is to be made and that Rule is the Law And on the other side to what purpose serves the Law if there be not some Person authorized who may interpret that Law and apply it to particular cases and see it put in due and orderly execution and that Person is the Judge If then there be a Judge it follows that there is a Law also by which as he is impowered so he is to be directed We have a Reverend Judge before us in the Text on the Seat It will be necessary then in order to their acting to open their Commission first as is usual and to shew the Law by authority whereof Samuel and all his fellow-Judges are to Act. Law is as connatural to Man as his Reason is For what is Reason it self but a Law and Rule of mens actions This is that which constitutes and denominates us Men. For he that doth not govern himself according to the prescript of right Reason lives not the life of Man and consequently doth both transgress the Law and forfeit the Priviledge of his Creation either by sensuality and lust degrading himself into Beast or by envy and malice and spiritual wickedness transforming himself into Devil Hence out of the source of Reason flows the Law of Nature jus non scriptum the unwritten Law or rather as the Apostle terms it the Law written in every Mans heart his conscience accusing or excusing him in every thing he does according as he in his actions thwarts or complies with this Law This is that the great Orator speaks of Lex non posita sed insita non imperata sed innata a Law not speaking to us from without but implanted in the mind of Man and interwoven in his very constitution To this Law belong all those Common Notions by which we are taught to acknowledge the Existence of God and to distinguish what is Honest and Just and Becoming the Nature of Man whether Alone or in Society and what is otherwise And by this very Law we are instructed to order our behaviour as Men in a fair decorum piously towards God soberly towards our selves and justly and modestly and charitably too towards other men for even charity it self is an act of justice so the Hebrew terms it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at least the doing that to others as the Royal Law bids us do which were we in their condition we would have done to our selves To these Heads of Piety to God and Justice to Men a learned Rubbin in his discourse with the King of Cozar reduces all the Laws of Nature grounding them upon those two places of Scripture Deut. 10.12 What does the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear him and to love him and to serve him and Mic. 6.8 What doth the Lord require of thee O man but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And the same Author further tells us that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Statuta Intellectualia so he calls them as things which natural Reason and humane Understanding of it self without any prompting judges fit to be observed I say these laws of Nature are necessarily pre-required as preparatory exercises to the knowledge and performance
in both these capacities here so that he had the people upon a double account obliged to him for the punishment of crimes and the decision of controversies in both Courts Civil and Ecclesiastical according to the sentence in Deut. 17.12 where having sent them to the Priest and the Judge he tells them that He that will do presumptuously and will not harken to the Priest or unto the Judge that does not stand to their award and submit to their judgment even that man should dye Of those who pretend submission to the Judge but have not the same obedience for the Priest and so would own but half a Samuel we have spoken before nor shall we need to repeat any thing here 4. As also we have at large in the very entrance of the discourse treated of the Rule to wit the Law according to which judgment is to be made so that we need not have much more to say The Law then by which the Judge is to be regulated is in the first place the Law of Nature which indeed is no other then the Moral Law and to this all mankind stands obliged and accountable Whence the Apostle tells us that very Heathens by the light of Nature know the judgment of God that they who do such things i. e. such as are forbidden by the Law of Nature are worthy of death Let me only take notice by the way that there are some who acknowledge no such thing as a Law of Nature but that these things we call Laws were invented upon emergent necessities or politick designs and so are only ex instituto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by institution and compact and so are impositions rather of the government or but compositions at best of the Subjects with the government then Laws The Poets and some Ancient Philosophers too who knew not the original of mankind make a pleasant story of it that men were used at first to fall out and quarrel about their Acorns and other such provisions Nature could furnish them with before the invention of Tillage and with fists first and then with clubs disputed their rights till at last the strongest to be sure got the better but then he that was strongest today by ill hap many times meeting with one stronger then he the next was forced to resign the booty of his last conquest By this means being tired with these daily Frays and grown weary of their Club-Law one wiser then the rest perswades them to quietness and tells them if they would agree and live civilly together there would be enough for them all Whereupon the major part of the weak ones out-voting the strong who were but few and would have been apt to fall out among themselves and could not if they had held together made good their smaller party against a multitude in league they were all content and presently Articles were drawn up and Laws made and Rules of society consented to by which all mankind has ever since time out of mind been governed Nor has a late I am sorry I cannot call him Christian Philosopher mended the matter but made it much worse who in his Leviathan sets down that for doctrine which with them past only for fancy or at best but conjecture According to this great Master of corrupt reason every man is free and has a natural right to every thing he can make himself master of only men for fear of disturbances and out of care of self-preservation combin'd into Societies or else over-powerd by force for here lies the Argument with him that the longest sword creates the best Title gave up their Liberty and quitting that right they had by Nature to all things submitted to unequal terms for peace sake chusing rather to sit down by the loss and enjoy a little with quietness then hazard their security by venturing at all Hence sprang Propriety hence Rules of Government and Politick Constitutions which are no longer valid says that Author then they have power to back and justifie them But if it be so that Fear and Force are the principles of Society and the grounds of Subjection then what hinders but when a man can shake off that Force or be rid of his own apprehension he may return to his natural Freedom and re-assume his antient Rights At this rate Wives Monies Estates all properties are exposed as a prey to the bold and the Thief if his design hit has a better claim then the Owner and Rebellion Murder Rapes and Rapines if attended with success prove lawful actions and 't is miscarriage only makes them Crimes And the main reason that Author offers against these practices is not because they are in themselves unlawful but because they are to the designers unsafe These are impious and dangerous Tenets Alas if we hold together upon no better terms then these where are we we lye hourly at the mercy of those that dare be wicked and what incouragement would this be to wickedness if men were perswaded once that as they grow prosperous in villany they cease to be wicked But I have shewed before that there is no such natural Freedom he talks of and that we are born Subjects and consequently that natural Right he speaks of is under restraints and limitations 'T is true God made Man a reasonable Creature and Lord of the rest of the Creatures But how not so as that any one man should ingross the whole to himself and exclude all others his fellow-men from a share in that dominion That were not reasonable that where there is an equal right there should not be an equal share and by cōnsequence not sutable to the nature of Man For he that made Man reasonable made him sociable too He was to Marry to beget Children to maintain and govern a Family to provide for those that belonged to him His Children were to be obedient to him to accept of his provisions to use their own industry and when they came to be Masters of Families themselves to take the like care of them Hence came Proprieties hence Inheritances hence Purchases hence Trades Callings Professions and other honest courses for getting a livelihood Thus we see our first Parent bred up his Children the one to be a Husbandman the other to be a Shepherd Intimating that every one is by Nature to live by his own labour and not by invading anothers right These are the great purposes of Society and all this agreeable to Nature whose grand maxim 't is To do as we would be done by There is then a Meum Tuum founded in Nature There are such things as Vertue Honesty Equity Industry Justice and the like to be practised amongst men even by the Law of Nature and they are to be looked upon as Hostes Humani generis Enemies to Society Enemies to Nature that would perswade the world to the contrary But there are I said besides This of Nature other Positive Laws which oblige the external actions of men and
Chap. all Israel was by Samuel's order summoned to appear and kept a Fast and powr'd out water before the Lord that is tears of repentance as GrotJus understands it and Samuel Judged them here that is punished them for their iniquities and offered up a burnt-offering and then miraculously the Philistines were discomfited There were reasons then sufficient both Politick and Religious for Samuel to make choice of these places that were thus Innobled and Consecrated by such Famous and Sacred actions for his seat of Justice whence the Lxx render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all these holy sanctified places And that we may not pass them without some Observation Our Reverend Judges though they go not the same Stages with Samuel they go upon the same Designs They begin at Bethel the Church the house of God where judgment uses and ought to begin there to enquire of the Lord. They proceed to Gilgal to roll away the reproach of the Countries by punishing malefactors and to Mizpeh to inquire into misdemeanours and see what condition the Publick is in For so they are styled in Law Justitiarii deambulantes perlustrantes Justices that take a walk and make a vJew of the Countries And at this time I may say we are most properly met in Mizpeh upon a day appointed by the Church for Humiliation to pour out our water before the Lord and to bewail our own sins and the sins of the Nation as the Israelites did first and then Samuel judged them II. As to the necessity of this Justice in Circuit though Samuel's may be called an Episcopal Visitation too he being the High-Priest It is that Justice may like the Sun the great Minister of Nature Visit all places and Influence all parts of the Nation with light and heat and vigour it being as impossible the Commonwealth should subsist one day without Justice as the lower world be maintained without the Sun 'T is so here he rode Circuit from year to year but Josephus tells us and I know not whether the Hebrew may not well bear that interpretation that he did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 twice a year as Ours do The Causes of this perambulation I take to be four two in respect of the People and two in respect of the Tryals 1. For the People 'T is for their Ease that they are not put to the trouble and charge of bringing up their causes to Ramah to the higher Tribunal the Kings Bench but have them tryed in propriis comitatibus 2. It throws an Awe upon the Community when they see justice brought home to their own doors DarJus was wont to complain his Empire was like a raw Bull-hide tread it down in one place it would rise up in another but where Justice is sent into all parts of the Land at the same time and judgment is alike administred in every district all is easily kept in order Again as to the Causes to be tryed 1. Some are such as cannot handsomly be judged but upon the place for the convenience of Witnesses the circumstances of the Thing and the judgment of the Voisinage as 't is in the Court of Nisipriu's for matters of Fact 2. Others admit not of delay as great and horrible offences to be inquired into and punished flagrante Crimine out of hand Thus God himself came down to Babel to Sodom and Gomorrha as it were upon a Commission of Oyer and Terminer And this expedition of Justice and ousting of delays is given as the main reason of Itinerant Justice ad celerem justitiam in eâ parte exhibendam I come now to Application and let not Me do 't neither but let Samuel himself yet not as a Judge to give the Charge here but as a Prophet and a Priest in humble manner to address himself First to my Lord the Judge You are now at Bethel in the house of God may God direct you The Judgment is His. Your Persons your Functions are sacred You your selves in Scripture Language are stiled Gods Elohim God standeth in the Congregation of the Gods The Confidence the Law reposes in you is as great as the Trust she hath disposed to you and That 's no less then the Lives and Fortunes of all her Subjects De Fide Officio Judicis non recipitur Quaestio is one of her known Maxims A Judge is viva Lex a living Law and ought to be like the Law Without Passion Without Partiality Next to you the Worshipful the Justices and Gentry of the Country who are intrusted with the Peace and one way or other what by Authority what by Example with the Concerns of the Government that you would make it your business to encourage and cherish Moral Honesty and Truth in dealings among the People and to discover and defeat all knavish and false practices which pervert the purposes of government and cut the very Sinews and Ligaments of Society which consists in a mutual confidence by bringing men into a general distrust and jealousie of one another The Learned Jew I spoke of before in his Book called Cozri ingenuously confesses that it was upon this that God was so highly displeased with the Israelites that they rested themselves upon their Religious Services their Oblations and Sacrifices and other parts and acts of Gods Worship whereas in the mean time they wholly neglected the Laws of Nature and the Rules of Society the neglect whereof does by inevitable consequence tend to the dissolution of the Communities of Men it being a vain pretence any man makes to Religion and the Worship of God who wilfully breaks those Obligations and Ties by which he stands bound to God and Man upon the very account of Nature I wish this were well considered by Those who make a great pudder about Religion and yet are not at all scrupulous of publick danger and I heartily pray that common Honesty and good Morality that Truth and Justice and a due Obedience to Authority which are the best and only preservatives of Kingdom and Religion both may more vigorously and constantly more Conscientiously and Universally be practised amongst us Till this be done we have but small hopes of seeing either Church or State in a flourishing condition To you the Worthy Counsellors and other Practisers of Law You are all in your Spheres under our Reverend Samuels Ministers of State too Your Imployment is Publick your Profession Noble Shall I tell you the end of the Law I need not I cannot do it better then in the words of a Worthy Author of your own in a most excellent Preface he has to Chancellor Ellesmere before his Book of Reports It is he tells you to Comfort such as are Grieved to Counsel such as are Perplexed to Relieve such as are Circumvented to Prevent the Ruin of the Improvident to Save the Innocent to Support the Impotent to Take the Prey out of the mouth of the Oppressor to Protect the Orphan the Widow and the Stranger 'T is sad
of the Divine Law as things without which no Society can subsist insomuch that Rebels and Thieves though they be unjust to others yet are forced upon this principle to practice a kind of justice amongst themselves that they may keep their party together upon fair and equitable terms This is the Law of Nature then and truly would we live up to the direction of That we should not need any other Law But upon the fall of man Nature it self being universally as it was corrupted as well as weakned and the Notions of Original Righteousness through prevailing wickedness which has increased all along proportionably with mankind it self being in a manner wholly defaced and obliterated it was necessary that Law should be recovered and re-imprinted upon the memory of men that even vulgar understandings should have their duties plainly laid out before them and this to be done by Positive Laws which being founded as near as might be upon those of Nature as being the productions of reason and convenience together might accommodate general Rules to particular Instances according to circumstances of time and place and the exigencies of the state of things for the security of government and the safety of the people to be governed This God himself provided for in the Israelitish Common-wealth by prescribing them Rules not only for their Moral behaviour for these were of perpetual universal obligation to all mankind and this was that Law written in the heart before it was engraven upon stone but for their Civil affairs also and even to the very Ceremonies in his publick worship The first of these namely the Moral Law as I said obligeth all men whatsoever and no less if not more now since Christ is come then before but as to the two latter the Judicial and the Ceremonial Laws God has left particular States and Churches to the liberty of their own determinations so to order both Political and Ecclesiastical jurisdiction as may be most expedient provided they command nothing contrary to that law which he himself hath given us I mean the Moral Law To give two or three Instances Theft is forbidden in the eighth precept and by the Judicial Law was to be punished amongst the Jews only with a fourfold restitution of the thing stoln in kind or of the value of it But in most Christian States upon tryal or possibly mistrust that that punishment would not prove a sufficient restraint the penalty is altered and the Thief dies for it nor is any allowed to claim the benefit of the Judicial Law when he breaks the Moral but is justly sentenced by the Law of his own Country that Law having been made only for the Jews and every Nation now being to be governed by Laws of its own Again for the Church The seventh day from the Creation which is commanded in the fourth precept to be kept holy was a thing ceremonial but the keeping of one day in seven or some such proportion of time was perhaps a Moral duty The Christian Church therefore has both laid aside the Ceremony and preserved the Morality by changing the day On the other hand the Worship of God is a duty the very Law of Nature requires of men in Society Now for Forms and Habits and the Ceremonies of Worship since God cannot be woshipt otherwise I mean without some Form and Ceremony or other these are to be ordered by the Churches appointment and every Member of that Church I speak of a National Church is obliged unless he can be sure such appointments are against Gods Law to obey and comply with her Orders But what some say that in Civil concerns indeed we are tied up to the Laws but in Church affairs we are left to our own choice and liberty is no more vain and frivolous than 't is absurd and irrational For a man may upon as good reason demand to fashion the Laws to his own mind by which he means to Live as to shape his Religion to his own fancy and Interest since he is alike accountable to the Government for both and separations in Church may prove of as dangerous a consequence to the Publick as divisions in State For he that has made himself his own God 't is an expression of a late Author against Atheism will by his good will be his own King too And it may very well be suspected that those who grumble at Church-Orders would not if they could help it be very well satisfied with the Civil Laws neither they both having their Rise from the same Authority At this pass were things in Israel when every man did that which was right in his own eyes and then 't is said they did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. And so it was always when there was no King in Israel Wherefore to prevent such disorders and to deliver them from those distresses their disorders brought upon them God often raised them up Judges the last whereof was Samuel here a Priest and a Judge And Samuel judged Israel c. In which words consider we him 1. In his station or Residence as a Judge upon the Bench he judged Israel all the days of his life and that at Ramah where his house was as it follows v. 17. 2. In his Journey and Circuit as a Justice in Eyre he went from year to year in Circuit to Bethel and Gilgal c. Thus like the standing and moving foot of a pair of Compasses his fixed and setled judicature was at Ramah and the occasional exercise of it from year to year at other places also I. As to his constant Residence wherein four things are to be taken notice of 1. His Person Samuel 2. His Office to judge Israel 3. His Patent all the days of his Life 4. His Seat out of the next verse Ramah I. First for the character and qualification of the Person Samuel was Prophet and Priest as well as Judge Right Reverend in all his capacities in all his functions Nor was it any objection against him from the people that he was a Church-man and so unfit to serve his Country in a secular charge Nor was it to him any scruple of Conscience within his own breast that he intangled himself with civil affairs or took upon him more imployments than one man could well go thorough 'T is true he was devoted by his Mother in his long coats to the Churches service I have lent him says she to the Lord as long as he lives Chap. 1. vers 28. and accordingly he after Eli's death succeeded him in the Priesthood Again all Israel the Text tells us from Dan even to Bersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a Prophet of the Lord Chap. 3. vers 20. And not only so a Prophet himself but a trainer up of young Prophets the President of a Colledge at Naioth in Ramah Chap. 19. vers 20. And here 't is said he judged Israel all the days of his life These were three