our consciences approve for good If thy enemie be of that strange temper above described and one that would scorn to be beholden to thee steal thy good in upon him and do him good so as that he shall not know from whom it came Thou art bound to minister comfort to him as a compassionate and cunning Physician doth Physick to a melancholick or distempered patient But thou wilt say so I shall lose all my thanks for all my pains and cost I answer by asking Thee is the honour or thanks that cometh from God alone of no value The Heathen could say to his friend We are each to other Theatrum satis amplum a Theater sufficiently large for matter of content and contemplation By doing So thou shalt be sure to gain The Testimonie of a good Conscience And herein thou maist justly triumph over thine enemie in that thou art better aminded towards him then thou couldst expect that he would be towards thee These are the best terms of comparison that thou canst stand upon with thine enemy if thou canst truly say That thou art A better man then he and if the mind be the man then he is truly and properly said to be The better man that is better aminded towards all men in as much as they are men This is the perfection and goodness of men as they are Civil and natural men and this is that Law of nature which St. Paul saith Rom. 2. 14. 15. was written in the Gentiles hearts For when the Gentiles which have not the law that is not the written Law of God do by nature the things of the law or contained in the Law these having not the Law are a law unto themselves which shew the effects of the Law written in their hearts their consciences alwayes bearing witness and their thoughts accusing one another or else excusing 13. But however the Heathen had this Fundamental Law of nature This Root of Righteousness as without offence I hope I may term it because it was a Relique of Gods image in them with many branches of it ingrafted in their hearts yet as their consciences might acquit them for performing many particular duties which it injoyned so might they accuse them for negligence in more For neither did they practise so much as they knew to be good nor did they know all that to be good which This Rule might have taught them to be such And albeit the better sort of them will rise up in Judgement against us and may condemn even the best sort of Christians as the world counts them now living Yet most of them we may suppose especially in later times were as negligent hearers of natures Lore as we are of the Doctrine of Grace God as the Apostle saith Rom. 1. had given some of them over to a Reprobate sense That seeing they would not practise what they knew for good they should not know Good from Bad. And as the learned observe when mankind had like Retchless unthrifts corrupted their wayes and like ungratefull Tenants to their Landlord Or undutiful subjects to their Prince had cancelled the Original instruments of their inheritance Or copie of that Law by which they were to be tried dayly defacing and blotting it by their foul transgressions and stain of sins it pleased The Lord in mercie to renew it once again in visible and material Characters ingraven in stone adding to it the commentaries of Prophets and other Holy men that so his people might once again copie out that Covenant whose Original they had lost the written law being but as the sampler or drawn work which was to have been wrought out by the law of nature and imprint it again in their harts by meditation and practise Yet once again the people of the Jewes unto whom this written Law was committed did by their false interpretations and Hypocritical glosses corrupt the true sence and meaning of Gods Law as the nations before had defaced the Law of nature by their foolish imaginations and conceited self-love Nevertheless as sin did abound in man so did Gods grace and favour superabound For when hoth the Law of nature was almost wholly lost among the Gentiles drown'd in Gentilisme as the Latin tongue is in the Italian and the Jews who should have allured others by their good example and continual prosperitic had they continued faithful in observing it to observe the written Law of God had quite corrupted it God sent his Only Son in the nature of man and Form of a Servant by infusion of Grace into mens hearts to revive the dead Root of Natures Law when it was almost perished and also to purifie and cleanse Gods written Law from the false interpretations of the Scribes and Pharisees which he performs in this seventh Chapter and in the two precedent So our Saviour saith Chap. 5. v. 17. Think not that I am come to destroy or dissolve the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy them but to fulfil them But how did Christ come to fulfil the Law Only by his own Righteousness and example No not so only but by proposing unto us the true sense and meaning of the moral Law which all that were to be his followers were to fulfil in a more spiritual and better manner then either the best of the Heathens or the most strict Sect of the Jews of that time did For they had abrogated the force and sense of sundry Commandements and stood more upon the letter then the meaning of the Law Wherefore he adds verse 20. I say unto you except your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It is evident then from our Saviours words that both the righteousnesse commanded in the moral Law and in the Prophets must be fulfilled in better measure by Christians then it was either by the Scribes or the Pharisees and that the best and most easie way of fulfilling both the Law and the Prophets is the practising of this Rule Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye so unto them For this is the Law and the Prophets 14. Let us see then what we have more from His Doctrine then from Nature for the Right Practise of this Royallest Rule By Christs Doctrine we have both the Grounds of the former Precept which Nature afforded us better fortified and confirmed unto us And also have Motives or inducements which may sway Reason against Passion to the practise of the same Rule more certain and infinitely greater then the Heathen or meer natural man had any I must request you to call to mind what was said before That the Ground of this Precept was The Equalitie of all men by nature The Heathen knew this full well That all men were of one kind all mortal all capable of Reason and consequently of right and wrong And from this knowledge even such among them as held no Creation
died for All albeit the Pardon General be proclaimed to all The best Cause or Reason I could render would be This Because All that profess they believe in Christ do not truly believe in Him For if they did They would be careful to maintain Good Works and glorifie God by being Fruitful in them The End of the Fifth Section The sixth SECTION A Transition of the Publishers WE have by Gods Good Blessing dispatched The main of this Book the Five first Sections so many Commentaries or Expositions of such Points or Articles of Christian Faith as are most proper by way of Dread and Terror to awake the Conscience and stirre the Affections To perswade men to reflect seriously upon all their Actions or Omissions Failings or Atchievements and to prepare themselves for that Account which must shortly be Rendred To God the Judge of All who will respect no Persons nor endure Pretences If these have their kindly perfect work They will Produce Judging our selves to prevent the Judgement of the Lord Repentance and Restitution of all things Circumspect walking for the Future and passing the Remnant of our Pilgrimage here in Fear To inrich the volume and to benefit the Reader I have thought good to annex this sixth Section which is A Collection of such Sermons of this Authors as I conceive likely to prove most effectual to the ends above mentioned and be most proper not only for this Place in the Body of His works but for these Times also which may perhaps be startled to see their present sins so flagrantly reproved many years ago by one who knew not any of their persons that commit them Our great Author had in his Eighth Book and third Chapter sadly complained of some that made this Great Rule of Charitie Equitie and Justice Do as you would be done unto This Law of nature and Precept of our Law-giver A nose of wax A verie Lesbian Leaden Rule He had more sadly complained in his Tenth Book Chapter 23. That not only the Practise of this Transcendent Rule was extinct amongst men But that the very Sense of it was if not utterly lost among the Learned Casuists or Expositors yet most shamefully decocted and Piteously shrunk up for want of improving and deducing it into several pipes and Branches of Good Life Lastly in the 29 Chapter of this Book amongst other useful things concerning this Rule He told us That God would Judge the world by it So then This next Discourse I mean the three Sermons upon this Text Comes not in unseasonably And I hope the next but One will follow this as sutably as a silver Thred can follow a needle of Gold And I shall endeavour to pick chuse and so place the rest that the Reader shall not deny their Consequencie to the five precedent Sections treating Of Christs Power to raise the Dead to judge the quick and dead and finally to sentence Both according to the things done in the Body be they Good or Bad. At which day God send this present sinful Generation and amongst them my Soul A Good deliverance and in order thereto a Timely unfeigned Repentance especially of their applauded and avowed transgressions This for Jesus sake who is our Ransom would be our Peace and shall be our Judge Amen The First Sermon upon this Text. CHAP. XXXII MATTH 7. 12. All things Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye unto them For this is the Law and the Prophets Prov. xx 22. Say not thou I will recompence Evil Wait on the Lord and He shall save thee Prov. 24. 29. Say not I will do to him as he hath done to me I will render to the man according to his work The miserie of man of the wisest of men in their Pilgrimage to be wanderers too The short way to Happiness The pearl of the Ocean The Epitome Essence Spirits of the Law and Prophets Do as you would be done unto The Cohaerence The Method Christ advanceth This dictate of nature into an Evangelical Law Fortifies it and gives us proper motives to practise it Two grounds of Equitie in this Law 1. Actual equalitie of all men by nature 2. Possible equalitie of all men in Condition Exceptions against the Rule Answers to those Exceptions This Rule forbids not to wage or invoke Law so it be done with Charitie Whether nature alone bind us to do good to our enemies God has right to command us to love them Plato 's Good Communion The compendious way to do our selves most Good is to do as much good as we can to others The Application IT is whether you list to term it A follie or A Calamitie incident to all sorts of men that when they take a perfect Survey of all their former courses they find their wandrings and digressions far larger then their direct proceedings The more excellent the End is whereat we aim the greater commonly is our Error the more our By-paths from the right way that leads unto it Because The greatest Good is alwayes hardest to come by Thus such as hunt most eagerly after the knowledge of Best matters seeing the Best are worst to find after natures Glass is almost run out and most of their spirits spent whilst they look back upon their former labors like weary Passingers that have wandred up and down in unknown coasts without a Guide desirous to see the way they missed in a Map when they come to their Journeys end begin to discern what Toyl and pains they might have saved had they been acquainted with such good Rules directions at the first as now they know Nor have we so great cause to be ashamed of our folly as to bewail The common miserie of our nature seeing the wisest among the sons of men either for Civil knowledge or speculative learning Solomon himself had almost lost himself in this Maze never finding any other issue of his Tedious course but only this All is vanitie and vexition of Spirit Untill he had almost come to the End of his dayes Then he found out That short compendious way of godly Life Eccles 12. 13. Let us hear the End of all Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole dutie of man In this is contained all we seek 2. Had Solomon in his yonger dayes fixed his eyes upon this Rule which he hath left us as the Mariner doth his upon the Pole or other Celestial sign he might have arrived in half that Time at that Haven which He hardly reached in his old Age after continual danger of Shipwrack by his wandring to and Fro. But how-so-ever This fear of God and our observation of his Commandments be the Readiest the safest and the shortest Cut that Solomon knew unto that True Happiness which all men seek but most seek amiss yet these Commandments cannot be kept unless they be known And known they cannot be without good studie and industrie either in reading or
quivis Speret idem sudet multum frustraque laboret Ausus idem Hor. De Arte. P. This as the Great Rhetorician saith is the surest token of a perfect Orator 6. For this Reason He that knew what was in man better then man did what was in himself He that spake as never man spake and taught as never man taught doth ground his Doctrine of good Life and Manners upon such Evident Principles as his very Adversaries could not deny whereunto any civil natural man would assent albeit he could not have found them out and illustrates it by such plain and natural Similitudes as every man of ordinary capacitie might conceive As here in this place This Rule it self Whatsoever ye would c. is a Principle of nature at least the Negative of it Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris is so The Use or Consequence of the Rule though That to observe this should be the fulfilling of the Law and the Prophets none could have drawn unless our Saviour had first told us so And yet the Deduction or derivation of all moral Precepts as I hope will appear is easie to find since he hath taught us to seek it Seeing then He that spake as never man spake and taught as never man taught doth ground his Doctrine upon such Principles as were in us by nature I shall take leave to imitate Him quantum Deum mortalis possum and to shew the Equitie and Truth of this Precept First as it binds us by Nature and Secondly as it binds us in Christianitie Or First as far as the equitie of it may be gathered by natural Reason Then Secondly as it is set down in holy Scripture 7. That This is a Dictate of the Law of Nature is evident from the confession of the Heathen and meer natural men Severus the Emperor albeit no Christian yet as some report of him did like best of the Christians for their good Life because they most practised this Rule And the Negative of it VVhat you would not have others do unto you do not you to them seemed such an excellent Ground of Civil Justice and honest dealing that he caused it to be written in the places of Civil Justice or Courts of Judgment as we do the Sentences of the Law or Commandments in our Churches which he would not have done or should have done to small purpose unless he had known the Rule had been written before in every mans heart so men would look into them And such amongst us I am perswaded as know not whether this sentence be in the Law of God or in the Gospel of Christ or no or such as little think whether it be there or no if they see one insult over another in distress deal hardly with a stranger or laugh at anothers miserie or the like will naturally use this or the like Reason to disswade him If you were in their case you would not be well pleased with this Usage Do in Gods name as you would be done unto The force of which and other like Reasons is grounded upon this Rule or Principle of Nature Nor is there any man that hath as we say any good nature in him albeit ignorant in most points of Religion but will in his sober mood be much moved with such Reproofs and however he may seem little to be affected with them whilst he is in the heat of passion yet his own Conscience after his passion ceaseth will secretly condemn him for so doing 8. The Grounds of Equitie in this Rule are two though the one be subordinate to the other First The Actual aequality of Nature in all men For though there be difference or distinction of men by place pre-eminence or dignitie yet in Nature all men are equal all alike subject to corruption and Calamitie Secondly The possible equalitie of condition amongst all men For seeing the Best men are but men what is one mans Case may be anothers because his Nature much more his Estate or Condition is subject to change No Prince was ever so firmly established in his Throne but might be pulled down thence to lie with Beggars in the Dust Antient Times yielding more frequent examples of the Circumrotation of this Sphaere or Wheel of mutabilitie their observations to this purpose were Rife Quod cuiquam contigit cuivis potest Whatsoever hath befaln any man good or bad might befal any one of all Et subito est Irus qui modo Croesus erat One turn as the Heathens would have said of Fortunes Wheel might raise up Beggars or Servants to the Throne and bring down Monarchs to the Dust From this Actual Equalitie of all men by Nature and this Possible Equalitie of all men in Condition was it that even among the Heathen he was thought inhumane no natural man but a Monster that would not be affected with anothers extraordinary misery The Former of these two in natures not extreamly depraved doth work a Sympathie or Fellow feeling of others miserie and the Latter that is Possibilitie of suffering the like doth work Fear of doing the evil intended or Penitencie after it be done Likeness or Identity of nature causeth Sympathy or Fellow-feeling in bruit Beasts if one pant for Grief others of the same kind will be affected with it Ignorant and simple men do many things by instinct of nature whereof Philosophers only know the Reason And even in such as did not expresly know this Rule Nature her self did oft-times work and shew by the Effects that it was hidden in their hearts Thus Cyrus when he had condemned Croesus his conquered Enemy to be burnt only calling to mind what a Potent Prince he had sately been and as unlikely to have come to that end as himself was before the victorie gotten was afraid as the Historian notes least some like plague might have come upon himself and so pitying himself rather then the other he recalled the Sentence From the same Reason did that noble Roman weep amain when he saw Carthage the Enemie Citie of Rome set on fire though by the Senates Decree as if he could have wished that her flames might have been quenched with his and other Romans Tears The present Calamitie of that late famous and mightie Citie put him in mind That Rome her self though then sitting as a Queen that knew no sorrow might one day be as bright with fire as for the present she was with Glory Yet was the difference betwixt Cyrus and Croesus's estate as great betwixt Rome and Carthage greater then can ordinarily be found between man and man Cyrus was Conqueror and had gotten the strength of a mighty Kingdom to his former by his Enemies Fall And Rome had never the like occasion to be secure as she had by Carthages destruction which standing would never suffer her to be quiet being the only City of all the world that was able to give Her check Thus could we but consider That whosoever we
be we be but men whatsoever our estate be it is but Humane subject to chance and obnoxious to change Nature would tell us that whatsoever is evil whilest done unto us is evil also to be done to others And seeing there is no evil which we can do to others but the like may be done unto us we should be as unwilling to do any evil at all to others as we are to have any done to us For Nature it self doth as it were of course suggest a fear of being done to as men have done to others Hence springs that Negative precept Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris Again whatsoever is good whilst it is done to us the same is Good whilest done to others in like case nay as good to them as unto us And seeing All Good is to be desired we should be as desirous to do good to others as to have good done to our selves Yea seeing according to the mind of Christ Beatius est Dare quam accipere Acts 20. 36. to do good is better then to have good done to us as every action is better then Passion we should therefore be more desirous of that And hence riseth the Affirmative Precept Do as you would be done to Even the Heathen knew that it was better to give then to take Quas dederis solas semper habebis opes It was more to have a Conscience fraught with the memory of Good Turns done or benefits bestowed on others then to have store of possessions or goods and yet therewith to do little or no good 9. Yet are not these Two Rules so plain and evident unto natural Reason but natural passion and self-love will find exceptions against them There is no man will deny that these Rules were very Good in the old World or Golden Age or that they be Good now if all men would be content to observe them alike But he shall be sure to live by the losse that resolves to do better to any others then it is likely any will do to him Nay many in their heat of discontent at others bad usage of them will not stick quite to invert this Rule and think that it is just and right at least no wrong to use others as they have been used themselves Thus I have known some use more severity towards their inferiors then did well agree with their natural disposition only because they had been severely used by others whilest they were inferiors And this they think not amisse so they do it with no ill mind but only because they would not be the onely men that should be noted and marked as fit to suffer abuse and wrongs whilst their equals go Scot-free Thus sundry shut up from others by reason of infection have sought to infect others only because they would have companions in their miseries albeit it was not Man but God that brought that Bodily Evil upon them And thus many rude and barbarous Beggars being denied harbor or relief of such as might afford it them through a conceit of their own forlorn estate will seek to make others as poor or more miserable then themselves only that they may have some to be their equals or inferiors The like suggestions of evil and wrong in some degree or other will every mans Passions present unto his thoughts yet who so is but naturally wise either will not hear them or if this be too hard to put them off because passion is so familiar and intimate with the soul will not give sentence untill he have heard Reason speak which would oppose him Thus. 10. When thou wast hardly and despightfully used by others suppose abused in person disgraced in speech or indamaged in Goods c. did they well or ill that so did use thee If well why wast thou moved therewith Why dost thou complain Or rather why wouldst thou not be so well used again If evil they did why seekest thou then to imitate them in the evil which thou hatest for if it were evil in them whilst it was done to thee then will it be evil in thee whilst thou dost the like to others Yea perhaps much worse in thee because thou having suffered the like wrong before thou better knows what an heynous Fact it is to do the like For none knows none possibly can know so well what a greivous sin oppression is as he that hath been violently oppressed by others None can so distinctly perceive what an odious offence slander defamation or scurrilitie is as he that hath been scourged by scurrilous Tongues or wronged in his good Name by false accusers sly informers or envious whisperers Generally the nature and qualitie of all evil that happens to one man from another is much better known by suffering then by doing it For he that does it first perhaps scarce knows well what he doth he sees the nature of it but as it were afarre off But he that suffers it feels it at hand and knows it by experience Now the greater we know any evil to be and the more feeling touch we have of the nature and quality of it the more grievous is our sin if we practise the like Wherefore he that hath been most hardly dealt withall sins most if he deal so with others for he doth that to others which he is most unwilling should be done unto himself because he best knows the smart of the evil and according to his unwillingness of having the like done to himself will the smart of the sting of Conscience be for doing so to others Some perhaps or some mans Passions would here Reply These reasons hold true if we should so use them that never did us wrong as others have wrongfully used us but if the partie that used us ill come in our way we do him but right if we use him just so as he hath used us For Justice it self consists in Equalitie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if we pay him but in the same measure that he did mete to us he is justly dealt withal It s true indeed he is but justly dealt withall because he is but done to as he had done to others So a thief or murderer is but justly dealt withall if he be hanged yet if every man that hath his goods stoln should do this which is but right unto a Thief or if every man that hath his friend or brother slain should but do that which is due and should be done unto a murderer not expecting the Judges sentence both might do themselves great wrong in doing that which was but right and due to the offenders respectively And so shall every one wrong his own soul and conscience that will prevent him in his judgements to whom vengeance belongeth by taking Revenge into his own hands and not expect his good leasure by lawful and publick means The Law of nature is Do As thou wouldst be done to not As thou hast been done to against thy will
Precept of our Saviour binds every man to further his Neighbor or Fellow Creature in all such desires that is Generally in all desires which pertain either unto the necessary supplies or comforts of this life or to the hopes and means of attaining the life to come Unto what part of the Affirmative Precept it is most requisite I should exhort you or from what part of the Negative I should disswade you I cannot tell because I am ignorant in what part of the one you are defective or in what part of the other you most exceed In both no doubt we all offend both In not doing to others in sundry cases as we desire it should be done to us and also in doing that to others which we would not have them do to us Two especial Breaches of this Law of Nature I have observed so farre as my experience reacheth and have heard noted by others to be almost general through out the Land The one in not affording our distressed brethren that comfort for the support of this life which in their case we would desire The other in procuring their undoing or grievous loss by our greedy desires of enlarging our own estates advancing our selves or increasing our wealth and commoditie For the First None of us can be ignorant how in ofttimes Sometimes the Famin oft-times nay alwayes for this seven or eight years past the Plague of Pestilence hath raged one where or other throughout the Land The grievousness of that Maladie albeit we know not fully yet that we know it in some sort and esteem of it as a grievous maladie A Plague indeed sent from God our fear of it when it is near unto us doth sufficiently witness and from the measure of our own fear or care to avoid it we may gather how desirous we would be of any comfort if it should seize upon us Of any comfort I say either bodily to case the pain by Lenitives or to prevent the last danger of it by Physick and good Diet. Or if in these we could have no Hope the less we had in them the more desirous would we be of spiritual comfort under the wings of the Almighty The less help Art or Nature or men themselves could afford us the more earnestly would we desire hearty prayers for succor and comfort from the Almightie It would much strengthen our Faith and Hope to know that others did joyn with us in fervent prayers for mercie and it would much lessen our bodily grief and discontent of mind to know that they did bear a part with us it would abate our sorrow to know that they did abate their wonted mirth and jollitie as in compassion to us The Saying is most true Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris But the solace is most comfortable when men do willingly and not by constraint share with us in our miserie for then they take as it were part of our burthen from us and put it upon their own shoulders So as that which is most heavie and grievous whilst it is only laid upon one or some few becomes very light and easie when it is divided and laid upon many willing to communicate in the burden These and many like but more effectual Arguments all of us could plead for our selves if we were in this or any other kind of miserie But who is he of a thousand that would lay half of this to heart when sorrow lies heaviest upon his poor distressed brethren I know not how men in this place are affected but elsewhere for the most part if they be so mindful of their distressed brethren as to relieve their wants and furnish them with the necessaries of this life they think it almost a work of super-erogation and if they should not be commended for it at first they would be more slack to do the like again But that they should afflict or pinch themselves for others penurie That they should abate their ordinary mirth for others sorrow is an ungrateful Doctrine almost a Point of Puritanism Or if some be thus well minded towards their neighbors or allyes they think they have sufficiently discharged their dutie They think this Precept of our Saviour extends it self no further then the Statutes of the Land binding them to do good such good as they would have done to them only to the men of their own or the next Parish As for the miseries of such as are afarre off the sound of them enters not into their ears their sighs and groans move not their hearts If we should tell the people of one Shire or Countrie That they ought to mourn and lament to fast and pray for the afflictions of others some forty miles off or in the utmost confines of another Countrie in this Realm They would be ready I am afraid to laugh at our folly and count us as uncivil as any voluntary disturbes of their sports But here I trust I may be bold to say as much as the Lord hath said whose word requires at least as much I think much more then I have done 20. Consider I beseech you What was their sin to whom Amos pronounceth the dreadful Wo Amos. 6. 1. Wo to them that are at ease in Sion Why What harm was there in this May not men take their ease Yea when the Times so permit But now their Brethren of Samaria were disquieted by their Enemies ease which before was good was now unseasonable and preposterous because not consorting with their Brethrens Estate They lie upon Beds of Ivorie and stretch themselves upon their Beds and eat the Lambs out of the Flock and Calves out of the Stall What of all this Doth any man keep a Flock and eats not of the milk thereof Doth any man plant a Vineyard and not eat of the Fruit thereof Yea of all or any the increase thereof at his pleasure Yet is not all kind of eating of moderate eating fit for every season There is a Time as well of Fasting as of eating and Feasting Herein then was their sin that they did not sympathize with their brethren who were either pined for hunger or fed with the bread of Affliction They sing saith the Prophet unto the sound of the Viol they invent to themselves Instruments of Musick like David Why Could they have followed a better Example Not if they had followed it aright for Davids Musick was invented to praise the Lord. And Yet as the Sons or Daughters of Sion might have replied partly to delight himself and his friends It may be so Where is the point of difference then There is a Time to be sad saith Solomon and a Time to be merrie a Time to weep and a Time to laugh Every thing hath its appointed Time and every thing out of his Time is preposterous and evil If David did solace himself with pleasant mirth it was because prosperitie flourished in those Times he did not use it when news was brought him of Saul and
the Art of Alexander of Macedon to make themselves great I must appeal to God and their own Consciences whether the Demolition of Bishopricks Cathedrals c. was not intended for augmenting Benefices wherewith men in times accounted corrupt lived well contented that they might satisfie the seekings of this present generation But alas What Comfort can it be to this present that the Former Generation was so Bad or to the old ones that the present is so evil Hoc Ithacus There is none that fears God sure not one of those that have erred in their simplicitie but will hast to his prayers That God would graciously please to reconcile amend and forgive both and unite serious and Religious endeavors for the good of our afflicted Church whose very stones are so precious and Dust so beautiful that they deserve our Pitie yea so that if they be not set up again by us they will either be transported to Rome or consummate by Doomsday CHAP. XXXVII The first Sermon upon this Text. ROMANS 2. 1. Therefore Thou art inexcusable O Man whosoever thou art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things From what Premisses The Apostles Conclusion is inferred The Limitation of The Conclusion to the securing of the lawful Magistrate exercising judicature according to his Commission and in matters belonging to his Cognizance David and Ahab judging persons by the Prophets Art feigned did really condemne them-selves The sense of The Major Proposition improved by virtue of the Grammar-Rule concerning Hebrew Participles and by exposition of The phrase How the later Jewes judging the deeds of their Fore fathers did condemn themselves 1. It is not my purpose now to enter a long Dispute with the Anabaptist or other Sectaries which may seem to have help from this Text to oppose Judges and Magistrates Being assured that the Apostle who so warrants and establishes Power exercised by heathens over Christians in the thirteenth Chapter doth not intend the least to disparage it here It will be Task sufficient for me to give the True Extent and Limitation of the Text which says That every one that judgeth another is without Excuse The very First Word of the Text you see doth bear the Stamp or Character of A Conclusion Therefore art thou inexcusable O man Now every Conclusion is a Proposition though every Proposition be not a Conclusion For Every Conclusion is a Proposition inferred from some one or more Propositions more clear Or From which being granted It will necessarily follow The first Question is from what Premisses this Conclusion in my Text is inferred If you peruse the whole Former Chapter it will be hard to find any Proposition with which it hath any necessary Coherence or Dependence we are therefore to look into this second Chapter for the Premisses and to consider that however in Logical or punctual School Disputes the Premisses have alwayes precedence of the Conclusion yet in Rhetorical Civil Moral or Theological discourses The Conclusion is oft-times prefixed to the Premisses or Propositions whence it is inferred And thus it is in this Text. To draw our Apostles meaning into Logical or School-Form We must place his Propositions Thus. Whosoever doth the same things for which he judgeth another is without excuse and doth condemn himself by judging them But Every one that judgeth others doth the same things for which he judgeth them Therefore Every one that judgeth is without excuse and doth condemn himself by Judging them It were a Method breif and plain First to shew the Truth of the Major Secondly the Validity of the Minor But I must according to my intimation given first speak Of The True Extent and right Limitation of the Conclusion 2. The Conclusion you see is Universal Every one whosoever he be that Iudgeth is without Excuse Plea or Apologie But may we hence inferre that all such as exercise Judicature whether Ecclesiastick or Civil are inexcusable Or that the Magistracie established in most Christian Kingdoms is unlawful as questionless it is if all such as exercise Judicature be inexcusable No To teach this were a kind of Heresie The Apostles Conclusion then must be thus farre Limited in Reference to the Parties judging It doth not involve or include All that Iudge others but such as take upon them to judge others being not lawfully thereunto called The Judgment which men lawfully called do Administer is not theirs but the Lords and so far as they exercise his Judgment either in matters Civil or Ecclesiastick they are worthy of Honour no way liable to this Censure of such as iudge others Nor must this Conclusion be extended to Facts or Actions subject to the External Judicature of Courts In respect of such an unrighteous man so he be a Judge lawfully called and constituted may give righteous judgment and whilst he does so he shall not be condemned for judging another who deserves judgment In Foro Exteriore yet will God judge him for not judging himself In Foro Interiore in case he be guilty of such sins as he judges others for and judgeth not himself whilst he judges other mens misdemeanors For a man may be free from Human or Positive Lawes and yet be a more grievous Transgressor of the Law Moral or of the Law of Nature then they are whom he condemns to Death and that deservedly for transgressing Humane positive Laws And such an One is highly obliged to judge himself That so he may by Gods Mercie escape the judgment of God But though this Conclusion do not involve lawful Magistrates moving in their own sphere yet doth it lay hold upon and include them also if they shall be found to exercise judicature in those things which belong not or are not proper to their Cognizance albeit they be in other Cases lawful Judges for in passing beyond their line or exceeding their Commission they put themselves into the number and so into the Condition of those that take upon themselves to judge others having no Authority so to do 3. Again it is not simply Every one that judgeth But every one which does the same things which he condemns in another that is inexcusable or without Plea So the Apostle in the words following seemeth to limit his Conclusion For wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things Now he that doth the same things which he condemneth in another is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Without Apologie Excuse or Plea He that once grants the Premisses or two first Propositions in a Syllogism is by the Law of Disputation presumed to grant the Conclusion The Law of Reason will admit no Negative Plea Much more doth he which pronounceth Sentence against another conclude himself under the same Sentence by doing the same or like Fact which he condemneth in others The Sentence which he pronounceth upon any other in this Case
of Truthes The Philosophers Rapt with Joy in Contemplation and Invention * The former of the Two Philosophers was Pythagoras The later was Archimedes Of both see Plutarch in his Book intituled Non posse hominem suaviter vivere secundum Epicurum Much more Joy in the knowledge of saving truths How this tast'd of eternal life is preserved Of questions touching falling from Grace See the Authors Opinion more fully about Sin against the Holy Ghost Book 8. Chap. 3. which Book though published 21. years since I suppose was written after This. They only enjoy and keep this Tast that diligently seek after it and truly prize it The danger of seeking to enjoy worldly Contentments together with this heavenly Tast See this Fallacie in Aristotles Rhetor. Tast of unlawful pleasures deads and looseth the heavenly Tast Unlawful pleasures and sinful acts destroy the heavenly tast both by Efficiency and Demerit How worldly pleasures and temporal contentments come to prevail against the tast of Eternal life Faculties natural and Grace Two Scales Moderating of worldly desires and natural affections necessary for gaining and preserving the heavenly tast ☜ ☜ Seneca Watchfulness and sobrietie also are necessary Sobrietie consists not only in temperance of meat and drink but in Ruling our thoughts and words The final Recompence of our doings Good or bad Chemnitius's Rule The Romanists Allegation from the force of the word merit Hor. de Arte. The Romanists second proof of Merit The Answer The Rom-third Argument Bellarmine his Reasons The Causal Particles For Because and the like imply not merit of Works And see more of them Book 8. Chap. 15. The Freenesse of the Pardon excludes not all qualification but rather requires sincere performance of good Duties Works not properly meritorious but indeed Unworthy of eternal life How Christs temporal sufferings were of infinite merit Why the pleasures of sin though temporary deserve eternal punishment See this Book Fol. 3498. Of the word Gift or Grace Whether the Grace of God or the Effects of his Eternal Favour can be merited by us See Book 10. Fol. 3285. Gods Justice and righteousness in rewarding us does not imply the merit of our works The divers acceptions of Justice or righteousness Should such a thing be our meriting derogates from Christs merits See the fourth Book Chap. 11 16. c. About merit and justification The place perhaps related to in the next paragraph Of Justification the doctrin whereof is corrupted by the doctrin of Merit ☞ How works are excluded from Justification Two rocks to be avoide here Confid in merit of Works and Praemature conceit or presumption of our Election ☞ Eternal life a most Free Gift of God Gods infinite Freedom The true way of laying hold on General Promises It follows not God cannot deny himself ergo I am in and shall persevere in the state of Salvation Equally dangerous to confide in Merit and to presume of Election See Book 10. Chap. 42. Fol. 3228. The Free Gift of eternal life excludes not due Qualifications in the receiver * This was preached at Newcastle upon Tine For whom was the Kingdom of heaven prepared See the 10. Book Chapt. 42. Fol. 3236. c. Humilitie a necessary qualification The third Point The Qualification for receiving this Free Gift Why Christ instanceth in the Scribes and Pharisees Turkish mercie See the discourses following upon that precept Do as you would be done to Two Generals 1. A sentence and that Twofold 2 The Execution thereof Controversies about the Sentence Three Positive verities or Conclusions See The Fathers cited by this Author in his fourth Book Chap. 11. c. about the inseparableness of Faith and works Good works necessary to Salvation Omission of Good Works forfeit our interest in the promises Damnation awarded for Omissions The Romanists wresting Hebr. 11. 6. to maintain merit of Works The third Positive truth mentioned §. 1. handled Chap. 31. ☞ See this Authors Treatise of Justifying Faith or fourth Book Chap. 15. See this Authors Treatise Of Justifying Faith or fourth Book Chap. 15. A Sinister exposition of Saint James 2. 10. ☞ Why Christ instances in works of Charitie rather then of Pietie ☞ ☞ * About Newcastle upon Tine where these were preached The worse the poor be the more we may be charitable unto them All neglect of the poor is sin This spiritual neglect is a sin exceeding sinful Jansenius his Observation A Catholick verity The Definition of merit The state of the Question Consider three things Increase of Grace no more merited then the First Grace About Free-will See an elaborate Treatise Book X. Chap. 24. c. A Syllogism If there be not Ratio Dati Accepti A promise is no Ground of merit How the Papists and Pharisee agree in this point rather how they exceed him The Objection drawn from the Causal Particle For in the text framed and answered Jansenius his Argument The Author his Answer See the 27th Chapter of this Book where this Argument is most fully answered and that with some variation of what is here The miserie and mistakes of man The short or summe of mans Dutie The Coherence The Authors Method Severus Two Grounds of this Rule or Law of Nature Cyrus Scipio Exceptions against these two Rules The Answer to the former Exceptions ☞ More exceptions against that Rule and Answers to them This Rule must be understood of a 〈◊〉 Will. Rigid censuring a Pronostick of falling Q. If nature alone binde men to do good to their enemies How Christ fulfilled the Law * See §. 8. Rom. 12. 20. The Application ☜ Ps 35. 13 Esai 22. 12. Ezek. 21. 10. How this Precept Do as you c containeth all the Second Table So Christ said to St. Peters Lovest thou me Feed my sheep So David said to God Psal 16 My goodness extendeth not to thee But to the Saints that are in earth and to the excellent in whom is all my delight See St. Aug De Civit. Dei Lib. 10. Cap 4. and 15. Cap. 22. and Lud. vives's Comment An Objection against this precept thus improved and expounded An Answer to the Objection A Second Objection Mens affections are right balanced when they be as ready to do as to receive good A double oversight ☞ Good things are only pleasant whilst they rellish of Gods Goodness ☞ Pro. 16. 8. See the 6. Book 2 part chapt 11. page 95. Titus 2. 11 A Dutie semblable to every desire See §. 13. ☜ See St. Basil de 40. Martyr * See the Sermons upon that Text. Chapt. 35 36. The bestmeans to put the dutie in practise Keep an exact Register or Calendar of our Good and evil dayes Deu. 24. 19 ☞ ☞ Ecclus. 11. 25. 27. Psal 41. 1. Beatus qui intelligit super pauperem ☞ Two great inconveniences of wealth and greatness unduly sought See Fol. 3586. ☞ Such mixt deeds are like a Linsy-wolsey Garment or plowing with an Ox and an Ass yoked or lowing miscellan See Chap.
and Last consists of Thirteen Select Sermons the fittest I could chuse out to aid and accompany the precedent Discourses especially to attend the Tracts Of Christs coming to Judgment Of the Resurrection Of Life and Death Eternal which as they most flagrantly set forth THE TERROR OF THE LORD so are they most likely by startling and amateing the Conscience to prepare mens minds that the Impressions of those Sermons may be most penetrative and permanent As in the last mentioned Tracts me-thinks I find A Particular Summons directed to my self Prepare to meet thy God Give an Account of thy Stewardship So in the annexed Sermons I find peculiar and proper Remembrances of several things wherein I have done very foolishly deeds that ought not to be done For this cause I bow my knees and pray the Reader to lift his heart up in my behalf to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for Pardon and Peace and that what I have here printed in this Book may so be written in the Table of my heart not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God that I may not only wait for but haste to the Coming of the Day of God Having transferred these things unto my self and thus far made the Reader yea the World it self my Confessor I hope none will offend if I shew what respective parts of the ensuing Work may by others be usefully applyed to themselves And first of all The Sorrowful and rightly suffering soul if his actings be according may reap harvests of Comfort from what Our Author hath written About Judgment Resurrection and the Life to Come Whereas he that adds sin to miserie and wrath may certainly presume all the Desolations and Destructions God hath brought upon the Earth as so many Tastes and pledges of Greater to ensue The Woes past are but Schiographies and portendments scarce beginnings of future evils And I earnestly beseech all of the former sort as to fortifie themselves with Arguments to Charitie and forgiving injuries out of Chap. 32. So to regulate their Conversation and Demeanour by the Directions to be sound Chap. 35. The Section Of Christs coming to Judgment is very useful for such as take upon them places of Judicature and most useful for such as judge in matters of Highest Nature and Difference The Precept of Deborah Judg. 5. 10. Meditate ye Ye that sit in Judgment is the same with that of David Psal 2. 10 12. Be Wise Kiss the Son And the Question which David puts in that Golden Psalm Ne perdas will again be put to the Question by the Son of David when he comes to judge the Judges of the Earth Are your minds set upon righteousness O ye Congregation And do ye judge the thing that is right O ye sons of Men Whether ye do or no will then be justly and finally judged The Tract Of the Resurrection who can express the use of it An astonishing Meditation it is to think I now see as surely the eyes of some shal see those Christian brethren that fel in any late Battail were buried where they fell rising out of their places of Burial whether impleading or forgiving one another and with haste marching into the Valley of Jehoshaphat to see the day won or lost there and whose Heads shall then be crowned with Glory Yet is this but as the drop of a bucket to the Ocean of that days Terrors The Sermons upon that Precept of Christ I might say of Noah and Tullie Do as you would be done to are worth their weight in Gold of Ophir and useful for all Christians of what condition soever There came out a Book some sixteen years ago intituled Autocatacrisis Ladensium To the Partie or Persons that Composed or applauded that Book wherein Our Author is named I would especially recommend His Discourses upon Rom. 2. 1. presuming that that those with the Verifications of them exhibited in these late Revolutions will convince Him or them sufficiently That it is no difficult matter to compile a Larger Volume of Particularities wherein they that have judged others have by doing over and over again and again the same things or things more then equivalent condemned themselves and justified those whom they have condemned The Sermons upon 2 Chron. 24. and Matth. 23. contein very sound reproof of the Pharisaical Duplicitie of such as built the Sepulchres of ancient and yet persecuted the present Prophets and therein of such as in our dayes commend the Lives and condemn the Authors of the Deaths of Bishop Cranmer Hooper Ridley Ferrar Father Latimer c. And yet destroy their successors in Order Discipline and Doctrine I call heaven and earth to Record this day not to condemn such but to convince them that they may be saved That Those Men whom they have cast out as enemies to the Church of England and in Effect by driving them out from the Inheritance of the Lord tempted saying Go serve other Gods are The Men that bear the Burthen and heat of the day in all Contests betwixt parties of the English and Romish Churches and that preserve their undoers from being overborn with Romish Errors And this they do upon disadvantages unimaginable save only to such as have experimented them for want of their own Libraries Their former accommodations of Secessus Otia c. Besides Those Sermons will shew That the guilt of Blood will lye long upon a Nation That it justly may and certainly will be required of late Posterity unless A Signal Repentance of the same and especial abstinence from the like sins intervene I appeal to the meekest Moses upon earth what Degree of Guilt he would apportion to that Communitie suppose it in any Forrain Kingdom or the Posteritie thereof which being not only A Pretender to Christianitie but to the Puritie thereof did Sit as a Spectator whilst a Tumultuous Tempest of People for divers hours together did hunt and chase an Aged man were he good or bad unto the Death Yet was this thing done in our Metropolis which is a kind of standing Representative of the whole Nation some thirtie yeers ago Or what censure he would pass upon three Kingdomes the Generality whereof did though but ex-post-facto only by rejoycing at the deed consent to the Assassination of A Prince the man whom the King had honoured Yet was this also done about the same number of years since It is true Justice did treatably overtake the Partie that did this Fact But Who ever sorrowed for the Joy conceived at it These two seem to have been Portentuous Aboadments of Calamities ensuing as the daily visible desolation and Profanation of Gods House is of future woe And I remember them not as making Intercession against Israel or as things I have whereof to accuse mine own Nation with delight but upon the same account that I call mine own sins to remembrance that God may be intreated for the Land to blot them out of His.
Godly men respects their former good works p. 3568. 29. Three points 1. Eternal Life the most free gift of God both in respect of the Donor and of the Donee 2. Yet doth not the sovereign Freenesse of the Gift exclude all Qualifications in the Donees rather requires better in them then in others which exclude it or themselves from it Whether the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared for All or for a certain number 3. The first Qualification for grace is to become as little children A parallel of the conditions of Infants and of Christians truly humble and meek p. 3578 30. Matth. 25. 34. Then shall the King say to them on his Right hand c. Two General Heads of the Discourse 1 A Sentence 2. The execution thereof Controversies about the sentence Three conclusions in order to the decisions of those Controversies 1. The Sentence of life is awarded Secundum Opera not excluding faith 2. Good Works are necessary to salvation Necessitate Praecepti Medii And to Justification too as some say Quoad praesentiam non quoad Efficientiam The third handled in the next Chapter Good Works though necessary are not Causes of but the Way to the Kingdom Damnation awarded for Omissions Saint Augustines saying Bona Opera sequuntur Justificatum c. expounded Saint James 2. 10. He that keeps the whole Law and yet offends in one point c. expounded Why Christ in the final Doome instances only in Works of Charity not of Piety and Sanctity An Exhortation to do good to the poor and miserable and the rather because some of those duties may be done by the meanest of men p. 3587 31. Jansenius his Observation and Disputation about Merit examined and convinced of Contradiction to it self and to the truth The Definition of Merit The state of the Question concerning Merit Increase of Grace no more meritable then the first Grace A Promise made Ex Mero Motu sine Ratione dati accepti cannot found a Title to Merits Such are all Gods Promises Issues of meer Grace Mercie and Bountie The Romanists of Kin to the Pharisee yet indeed more to be blamed then He. The Objection from the Causal Particle FOR made and answered SECT VI. CHAP. 32. Matth. 7. 12. Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you c. The misery of man of the wisest of men in their pilprimage to be Wanderers too The short way to Happiness The Pearl of the Ocean The Epitome Essence spirits of the Law and the Prophets Do as you would be done unto The Coherence the Method Christ advanceth This Dictate of Nature into an Evangelical Law Fortifies it and gives us proper Motives to practise it Two grounds of Equity in this Law 1. Actual Equality of all men by Nature 2. Possible Equality of all men in condition Exceptions against the Rule Answers to those Exceptions This Rule forbids not to invoke or wage Law so it be done with charity Whether Nature alone bind us to do good to our enemies God has right to command us to love them Plato's good communion The Compendious way to do our selves most good is to do as much good as we can to others The Application 33. Matth. 7. 12. The second General according to the Method proposed Chap. 32. Sect. 5. handled This Precept Do as ye would be done to more then equivalent to that Love thy neighbour as thy self for by good Analogy it is applicable to all the Duties of the first Table which we owe to God for our very being and all his other Blessings in all kinds bestowed on us Our desires to receive good things from God ought to be the measure of our Readiness to return obedience to his will and all other duties of dependance upon his Grace and Goodness God in giving Isaac did what Abraham desired and Abraham in offering Isaac did what God desired Two Objections made and answered 1. That this Rule may seem to establish the old Pythagorean Error of Retaliation and the new one of Parity in Estates 2. That the Magistrate in punishing offendors it seems in some Cases must of necessity either violate this Rule or some other p. 3628 34. The Impediments that obstruct the Practice of this Duty of Doing to others as we would have done to our selves are chiefly two 1 Hopes and Desires of attaining better estates then we at present have 2. Fears of falling into Worse Two readie wayes to the Dutie 1. To wean our souls into an indifferencie or vindicate them into a libertie in respect of all Objects 2 To keep in mind alwayes a perfect character of our owne afflictions and releases or comforts Two Inconveniencies arising from accersite greatness or prosperity 1. It makes men defective in performing the Affirmative part of this Duty 2. It makes them perform some part of the Affirmative with the violation of the Negative part thereof A Fallacy discovered An useful general Rule 3640 35. Jer. 45. 2 3 4 5. Thus saith the Lord unto thee O Baruch c. Little and Great termes of Relation Two Doctrines One Corollary Times and Occasions after the nature of things otherwise lawful Good men should take the help of the Anti-peristasis of bad times to make themselves better Sympathie with others in misery enjoyned in Scripture practised by Heathens Argia and Portia The Corollary proved by Instance and that made the Application of the former Doctrin 3648 36. On Jer. 45. latter part of ver 5. Thy life will I give thee for a prey The second Doctrin handled first in Thesi touching the Natural essence of Life in general 2. In Hypothesi Of the Donative of Life to Baruch as the case then stood That men be not of the same opinion about the Price of life when they be in Heat Action and Prosperity which they be of in dejection of Spirit and Adversity proved by Instances Petrus Strozius Alvares de Sande Gods wrath sharpens the Instruments and increases the terror of death Life was a Blessing to Baruch though it be shewed him all those evils from sight of which God took away good King Josiah in favour to him Baruch as a man did sympathize with the miseries of his people As a Faithful man and a Prophet of the Lord he conformed to the just will of God The Application 3663 37. On Rom. 2. 1. Therefore thou art inexcusable O man c. From what Premises the Apostles Conclusion is inferred The limitation of the Conclusion to the securing the Lawful Magistrate exercising Judicature according to his Commission and in matters belonging to his cognizance David and Abab judging persons by the Prophets Art feigned did really condemn themselves The sense of the Major Proposition improved by vertue of the Grammar Rule concerning Hebrew Participles and by Exposition of the phrase How the later Jewes judging the deeds of their forefathers did condemne themselves 3678 38. Second Sermon on Rom. 2. 1. 3690 39. Third Sermon on Rom. 2. 1. A Romish
Dominion of propertie for the most part respects things corporall Howbeit even men or reasonable creatures are sometimes subject to both Branches of Dominion but in different measure according to the severall rites or customes of diverse ages nations or people Such as the Latins call Servi or Servuli slaves or servants properly so called were in bonis Domini they were the goods or possession of their Masters These bodily Lords had not only Dominion of Jurisdiction over but Dominion of propertie to their persons No law did restrain their Masters from disposing of these servants as they pleased as either to exchange give away or sell them and their children The poor servants did oftentimes mutare dominum non servitutem change their Lords without any exchange or alteration of their slaverie Sometimes the Romans had and some other nations at this day have Dominium vitae necis power or dominion to kill maim or wound their servants without any restraint or controll of law But this absolute power to dispose of their slaves or servants was afterwards by the Romane Law inhibited Lords and Masters of private servants were lyable to the sentence of publick Law if they did use intolerable crueltie or severitie towards their slaves But by the Lawes or most Christian nations this absolute Dominion of Lords over their servants and consequently this kind of subjection and slaverie is taken away For every Christian is an Israelite or Hebrew and somewhat more All are in reputation the Sons of Abraham Now the positive Law of God before our Saviours time did exempt the Sons of Abraham by the free woman from slaverie The Kings of Judah might not make bondmen of their brethren the Sons of Jacob. 3. Albeit we retein the name of Masters and Servants yet neither are the one sort properly called Domini nor the other Servi A master with us is no more then Pater familias amongst the Latines and those whom we call servants are famuli Every Father of a familie hath Dominium Jurisdictionis a right or power of Jurisdiction over his familie but not Dominium proprietatis not right or power of propertie in their persons Howbeit even this power or Dominion of Jurisdiction is limited as well by the Lawes of God as of man No father of his family may correct any of his familie as he pleaseth but in such cases and so far as the Law will permit And according to the different condition of the parties over whom the Father of the familie hath this power of Jurisdiction or correction must the exercise of it be alwayes tempered No husband or Master of a familie may exercise the same power over his wife which he doth over his children No man by the Law of nature ought to use his children as his servants or apprentices unlesse they be such by estate or condition of life Nor can a Master of a familie which is of a more ingenuous or generous profession put his servants or apprentices which are of the same profession upon such services as a Master of some inferiour trade or profession may put his servants to A Merchant may not imploy an apprentice to that profession in such workes and services as are proper to and well befitting a Tinker or Cobler or some other inferiour crafts-man or day labourer Howbeit every Master of an apprentice or hired servant hath a right or power not only of Iurisdiction or of government but of propertie though not over his servants bodie or person yet over his bodily labours or imployments Apprentices or servants which are as free born and of parentage as good perhaps better then their Masters have no power to dispose of their own Labours or imployments but must herein follow their Masters directions and appointment and in case they alienate their industrie from their Masters service though to their owne profit without his leave they are subject to his power or Jurisdiction he may authoritatively admonish chastise or otherwise require satisfaction for wronging him by mis-expense of time or in that power or interest which he hath by Covenant in their labours or imployments Yet may not any master of a familie punish a servant as he pleaseth or as his passion shall suggest but so far only as the Law shall permit For every master of a private familie is under the power or Dominion of the publick Magistrate and subject if he be a Christian to Ecclesiastick Censure in case he transgresse the manner or measure of the punishment which the Law of God or of man doth permit him to excercise only within his familie Nor may any Master exact those services or bodily imployments of his servants or apprentices at all times or upon all dayes which at sometimes or upon most dayes he may If a servant should refuse to labour in his ordinary vocation upon the Lords day though commanded so to do by his Master the Master hath no lawfull power of Iurisdiction over him no power to chastise him for such refusall because the Masters right or power to dispose either of his own or of his servants imployments for that day is inhibited by the Law of God and of his Church which hath Dominion of Iurisdiction in those Cases over Masters 4. The issue of these Generalities concerning Lordship or dominion is this Though there be many which are called Lords and Masters and many there be which really and indeed are such yet is there in truth but One Absolute Lord whether we speak of the Lordship or Dominion of proprietie or of Iurisdiction and that is God For by right or title of Creation he hath more absolute power over all his creatures then any creature then absolute Kings and Monarchs as we call them then any chief Lord hath over his Lands or Goods over any thing which they can call theirs whether by gift purchase or inheritance For whatsoever by these or any other means is theirs as money goods or any other bodily substance they did not make any parcel or matter of the substance of it but only acquired a right or title to it being made As they cannot create or make any thing out of nothing so can they not utterly destroy or annihilate any thing created or made The height of all created Power is only to amend or marre the fashion of things and this is but permitted yea even the permission it self presupposed this power is still subordinate in the exercise of it to an higher power But God doth found his right of Dominion over all things or his power to dispose of them and of their appurtenances in their very radical Being This is his sole Gift Nor is His power or dominion only more Soveraign or intensively greater over the most noble bodily substance that is then any creature can have over the least thing that is but it extends also unto those substances which are not subject to man or any creatures dominion He hath a more Soveraign Title of dominion
and Dignity of Lord and to put on The Affection of a Priest perpetually to make intercession on our behalf for Remission of sins past Rom. 3. 26. and for Grace whereby for the future we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Seeing then we have so great an High Priest Let us hold fast our Profession And let us come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and finde grace to help in time of need Worthy is THE LAMB that was slain to receive Power and Riches and Wisdom and Strength and Honor and Glory and Blessing Revel 5. 12. And THE LAMB shall overcome them for He is LORD OF LORDS and KING OF KINGS Rev. 17. 14. SECTION III. Of Christs coming to Judgement 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement Seat of Christ That every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Acts 17. 30. But now God commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given all men assurance in that he raised him from the dead Daniel 7. 9. Rom. 14. 9. To this end Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living We shal All stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God Revel 20. 12. CHAP. IX THe First Words contain an undoubted Maxim or principal Article of our Faith yea such a Plurality of Articles of Christian Belief that I could not choose fitter for continuation of my former Argument concerning Christs Lordship or Dominion And His Dominion as was said before was A Dominion both of Property and of Jurisdiction We are his servants not our own Men as we say we may not dispose of our own souls or bodies much less of our bodily imployments or endeavours as We please but as He pleases Or in case we wrong him by alienating the imployments of our bodies or of our souls from his service who hath the full Dominion of Propertie we cannot exempt our selves from his Dominion of Jurisdiction to which all flesh is lyable without Appeal Now of his Dominion of Jurisdiction or of his Royal Power over us the Exercise of Final Judgment is the Principal Part And of this Judgment the general Sum or Abstract is contained in 2 Cor. 5. 10. Before I enter upon the Particulars therein contained I am in General to advertise That albeit the Scripture be such A Compleat Rule of Christian Faith That neither those which are appointed to interpret the Scriptures ought to propose or commend any point or doctrine as an Article of Faith unto others nor are others bound to believe any thing as a Point of Faith unless it be either expresly contained in the Scriptures or may out of the express testimonies of them be deduced by infallible Rules of Reason and Art Yet in the things believed because contained in Scripture there is a Difference to be observed Some things we believe without any Ground at all besides the meer Authority of Scriptures Other things we beleive from the Authority of Scriptures too yet so as we have the truth which the Scriptures teach concerning them ensealed unto us by Experiments answering to the Rules of Scriptures And these Experiments be of two sorts Either Observable in the general Book of Nature and course of times or Observable in our selves Of this later rank are the Articles of the Godhead of the Creation of Divine Providence of Original Sin of Final judgment and of Life and Death everlasting The Being of a Godhead or Divine Power the very Heathens which knew not Scriptures did in some sort believe of Gods Providence and of Judgment after this life the Heathens likewise had divers Notions which were as rude materials or stuffe unwrought The frame or fashioning of which Notions into true and Christian Belief cannot otherwise be effected then by the Rules of Scripture which are The Lines by which the structure or edifice of Faith must be squared or wrought Now whatsoever the Heathens without the help of Scriptures or Divine Revelations did believe or conceive concerning the Points mentioned Every Christian man which doth believe the Scriptures though but by an historical Faith may much better believe and conceive by the help of Scriptures albeit his affections be not as yet sanctified by the Spirit of Grace although he be but in the Estate of a meer Moral or Natural man so he be not delivered up unto a Reprobate sense The Branches then of my Meditations concerning this Grand Article of Christs coming to Judgment shall be in general These First Of the Natural Notions which the Heathens had and which every natural man so his Conscience be not seared may have Experienced in himself of a Final Judgment after this life or of a Recompence according to his wayes or works The Second By what Authoritie of Scriptures the Exercise of this Final Iudgment is appropriated to Christ The Third The manner of Christs coming to Iudgment The Fourth The parties that are to be Iudged to wit the Quick and the Dead The Fifth The Sentence or Award of this great Iudge and that is Everlasting Life or Everlasting Death Thus you see Three Principal Articles of Our Creed to wit This of Christs coming to Iudge the quick and the dead and the Two last viz. The Resurrection of the body and The life everlasting are so link't together that they cannot be so commodiously explained in several as they may be in this proposed Link or Chain CHAP. X. Of the Natural Notions which the Heathens had and the Internal Experiments which every true Christian may have answering to these Notions of a Final Judgment 1. THe Notions which the Heathens had of a Iudgment to passe upon them after this life were of Two Sorts Either Implicite and Indirect such â—s give better Testimony to us then they made of it to themselves or Direct and Express though indefinite and imperfect and mingled for the most part with some errour And these Later are most frequent in the ancient heathen Poets Many of whose Testimonies to this purpose are so Express and direct that they may well seem to have been taken from some scattered Traditions of that truth which God had revealed unto the Patriarchs before the Law was written or from the written Law it self which it is probable Plato with some other Philosophers and Poets had read at the least received at the second hand However unless the truth concerning this point delivered in Scriptures had been imperfectly implanted in mens hearts by nature these meer natural men could not have submitted their Assent or Opinions unto it That not the ancient Poets onely but the ancient Philosophers had an
meer instinct of nature or would be as far to seek if he were put to give the true reason of it as the poor Pilgrim in the Fable was who being kindly entertained by a Satyr which had found him blowing his fingers for extremity of cold in the woods was unkindly thrust out of his house only for seeking to cool his broth with the same breath wherewith he had warmed his fingers 4. But in what practises or resolutions in the heathen was this divine truth of a Judgment after this life necessarily included The particulars are many but most of them may be reduced unto this General As many of the heathens as either esteemed the love of virtue honestie or godliness more dear then this mortal life with its appurtenances temporal or as many of them as did abhorre the practise of any villani or impietie more than death whatsoever they themselves did expresly say or think concerning this Article of Final Judgment in particular did by these practises or resolutions give authentick testimony unto it Now that virtue or honesty were to be more esteemed then this mortal life with all the commodities of it the most part of heathen Philosophers besides the Sect of Epicures did grant and maintain The Stoicks went further in the esteem of moral virtue then any wise Christian will do in practise then any good Christian ought to do in opinion but of their errors or Hyperboles anon Aristotle the Prince of Philosophers grants that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that some things be absolutely good so good that a man ought to love them more than life or rather to abandon life than their practise Some things again he grants absolutely evil So evil that a man ought rather to chuse death then adventure upon them such are Treason against our native Country Incest Perjury c. This great Philosopher in expresly granting thus much is necessarily concluded by his own Principles to grant a life after this life ended much better then this and a death or an estate of life much worse than death to such as have lived and died dishonestly Nor is he thus far concluded onely by his own Principles but by the very Principles of Nature whose chief Secretary he was For every thing that hath Being doth by an indispensable Law of nature desire the continuance of such Being as it hath but most of all of its Well-being or bettering of its present estate Now if mans hopes or fears were terminated in this life as needs they must with this life be terminated unless we grant a Judgment after death or an award of the evils which men fear or of the good things which they hope every man were bound in reason and by nature to seek the preservation or continuance of his own life before all things in the world besides Nothing were to be esteemed worse then a bodily death nothing so good as continuation of bodily life with health and competency Much better it were to be a part of this visible world then utterly not to Be. To avoid or put off this utter not-Being so long as were possible no devise could be dishonest no practise amiss We do not blame bruit beasts for making what shift they can for maintaining or saving their lives no means which they can use to this end onely are by us accounted foul for as we say they do but follow kind or do as nature directs them But what is the reason why in thus doing they do not amiss nor deserve blame Because nothing can be so ill to them as death nothing so good as life But for a Man to transform himself into a Beast or to continue beastly or filthy practices for continuance or preservation of his bodily life this the very Heathens did detest as unnatural base and odious What was the reason they saw by light of nature that man had better hopes then beasts are capable of as it were wrapped up for him in the constant practice of honesty and vertue and was capable withal of greater evil which might accrew from a dishonest and filthy life then any evil that is incident to the nature of beasts yet did not that Good which good men did aim at either in practice of virtue or by declining vice always betide them in this life in the Judgement of most Heathen 5. Two things there were which most later Heathens not the Stoicks onely did highly extol in Regulus the one That he did prefer the love of his Countrie before the contentments of this life which he might have enjoyed in plenteous manner The other That he did prefer a lingring and cruel death before the stain or guilt of perjury For being in hold or durance amongst the Carthaginians he was remitted to Rome upon oath That if he did not effect what they had given him in charge to treat for he should return again to Carthage and undergo such punishment as they should think fit to inflict It was in his power to have effected with the Romans that which the Carthaginians did desire but he would not use his power to perswade but rather to disswade the Romans from condescending to their enemies desire because he saw it would be prejudicial to their Commonweal and posterity though advantageous to him in particular But he accounted it rather loss then gain as well to himself as to the Roman State to save the life though of some worthy Peer as he was by breach of Oath or Perjury and in this resolution he returned unto the Carthaginians although he knew they resolved to put him to cruel and lingring torture The Observation upon this resolution of Regulus which will generally serve for all the like by what Heathen soever practised or commended is briefly This No humane practise or resolution can be truly commendable but onely so far as it helps to make the Practitioner a better man then he was before or could continue to be without such practise Was Regulus then a better man by this practise then without it he could have been Or did it truly propagate or continue that goodness which before he had If he by doing this did not continue his former goodness or become a better man his commendations are unjust the Fact it self was not truly commendable was no argument either of reason or wit in the Practiser or of honesty in the Resolution If by this Resolution he became a better man then before he was or without it could have been somewhat of Regulus did after the accomplishment of this fact remain to receive the due reward of this Resolution as either his soul his body or both For every real Accident or Attribute necessarily supposeth a real subject to support it and if no better doom had been reserved for Regulus then that which the Carthaginians his chief Judges on earth did award him he could not possibly either have continued or bettered his well-being by undertaking it it was altogether impossible for him to
to torment them Yet it is not possible that the entire and uninterrupted possession or the undisinheritable tenor of virtue compleat should alwayes in this life be a sufficient recompence to it self or able to countervail all the costs or grievances wherewith the most virtuous or most Godly men that live may in this life be charged Virtue then or Godliness is in this life a sufficient recompence to it self spe only not re so far as it is the only Way to our union with God or with Christ who is to all the sons of Abraham as he professed himself to Abraham Gen. 15. 1. their exceeding great reward Nor could true Happiness consist in Virtue if our hopes or fruition of it might be terminated with this life In what sense then is Felicity said to consist in Virtue Only so far as our assured hope of a better life after death is unseparably annexed and indissolubly wedded unto the constant practice of Virtue and Godliness in this life Without Assurance of this hope that Magnificent Confidence which the Stoicks put in Virtue was but a vain imagination in respect of themselves And for this reason albeit all of them were more then Christians Hyperbolical Christians in their speculative commendations of Virtue yet many of them were in practice as cowardly as other heathen And no marvel seeing it is This Hope which must strengthen other Graces of God in us enable our spirits to countersway the contrary inclinations of natural fear of death or torments in the day of tryal Cast not away your confidence saith the Apostle Heb. 10. 35 36 Which hath great recompence of reward For ye have need of patience that after ye have done the Will of God ye might receive the promise And again Hebr. 12. ver 1 2. Let us lay aside every weight and the Sin which doth so easily be et us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto Iesus the Author and finisher of our faith who for the Ioy that was set before him endured the crosse despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God As to encourage our selves to do well with hope or conceit of meriting any thing at Gods hand is pride and presumption a natural branch of Popish Superstition So not to strengthen our selves or quicken our patience in the suffering of any bodily evils that for Christ's Cause can befal us with Hope of Reward or certain expectance of a better Sentence to be pronounced by a supreme Judge is but a branch of the blind Stoicks Affection or of his forced and affected Zeal to Virtue And it is no better then a Stoical Doctrine or error which some have taught that we are to do good meerly for goodness sake sine intuitu mercedis without any eye or respect to our reward or recompence It is an error if it be persisted in so much more dangerously heretical in Divinity then theirs was in Philosophy by how much we are more deeply bound then they were not to sever those things by Nicities or speculative Distinctions which God hath indissolubly conjoyned and whose conjunction the Son of God himself whilest he lived on earth hath by his practice and example ratified unto us And St. Paul delivers it as a point of useful doctrine to the Thessalonians 1 Thes 4. 13. to comfort themselves against the terrors and assaults of death whether made upon themselves or upon their friends with hope of a resurrection to a better life Now it were impossible for any man to comfort himself with this hope without intuition or respect unto this great reward that God hath to bestow on men For greater reward he hath none to bestow then Life eternal nor is man capable of any like unto it But of this Point more fully when we come to the last point proposed to wit The Sentence or Award of this Final Judgement 8. But now to shut up the First Point concerning the natural Notions which the heathens had and The internal Experiments which every true Christian may have answering to these Notions of a Final Judgment The sum of all is compriz'd by our Apostle Rom. 2. 14 15 16. whose words are a full confirmation of what hath been before observed concerning the Heathens When the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another In the day when God shall Judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel It was no part of our Apostles meaning that the Consciences of these heathens should not give in their Evidence or accusations until the day of Final Iudgment No their Evidence shall in that day appear more full and publick when God shall Iudge the secrets of the heart but even in this secrecie of the heart there was an Evidence though private yet full enough to themselves of a Judgment to come The Apostles speech is distributively universal every mans thoughts do accuse or excuse him for all his own deeds respectively And no marvel seeing the Notions of good and evil are as naturally implanted in our souls as the Notions of truth and falshood And children so such as have the Tuition of them would be careful so their parents were not more delighted to ripen their wits then to ripen the seeds of morality might as soon be taught to put a difference betwixt things sacred and prophane as between the right hand and the left But this is our miserie that these Notions of good or evil are sooner corrupted and choked then our Notions of truth and falshood Yet however The working of Conscience cannot utterly be choked or deaded in any although the voice of it be oft times unheard although most men seek to stifle it 9. The Internal Experiments which certifie the Christian of a Judgment to come be so frequent and forcible that pains will be better spent in perswading men to take notice of them then in a long discourse of them It is the chief wisdom of a Christian the very life of Christian Sobriety not to exceed so much in mirth though honest harmless and in season nor in the frequency of any business though indifferent and lawful as not to allot the secrets of our hearts and consciences some set hours and times for Audience Multiplicitie of business without interposition of vacancies to this purpose is but like perpetual noise and clamor in a Court of Justice and not to use some retired Interims for examination of our souls is but as if men should continually laugh or brawl whilest the Officers of the Court injoyn peace or silence So often then as we shall perceive our Conscience either expresly to check us or inwardly to
felicity or in his application of those good Lessons which Nature did suggest unto him he found himself tyed by bond of Conscience to observe the Law of Nature The Original of his positive error was an ignorance or blindness common to him and most Heathen in some degree or other in not being able to discern the corruption of nature from Nature her self or to distinguish between the suggestions or intimations of Nature as it sometimes was and universally might have continued and the particular suggestions or longings of Nature as it was corrupted or tainted in himself or others more or less in all It was a Principle of his Doctrine as Seneca tells us That Nature which he profest to follow as his guide did abhor all vice or wickedness It seems he held those courses or habits of life onely vicious which we Christians account unnatural or prodigious vices as Tyranny Cruelty or excessive Luxury And such vices as these the most Heathens whom corruption of Nature did lead blindfold into many grievous sins and cast such a mist before their eyes as made unlawful pleasures appear unto them as parts of true happiness did by the light of Nature detest as contrary to the unapprehended Remnants or Reliques of Gods Image yet inherent in them though mingled with Corruption or much defaced with the Image of Satan But from what Grounds of Nature or Experiments did this Author or first Founder of the Sect of Epicures collect that Nature did detest all wickedness Thus he did reason and collect Quia sceleratis etiam inter tuta timor est Because he saw such as had polluted their Consciences with wicked and prodigious practises to live in fear even whilest they seemed to have safety her self for their guard against all external Occurrences whose probable assaults or annoyances humane Policy could possibly forecast And none more subject to this slavish fear which their Consciences did inwardly suggest then such as for their greatness and confidence in Tyranny and Cruelty were most terrible to others What was it then which these men did so much fear No other men nor any revenge that man could attempt upon them What then The company of themselves or solitary conference with their own Consciences Yet no mans conscience can make his heart afraid unless the conscience it self be first affrighted What is it then which the consciences of supream earthly Judges or Monarchs absolute by right of Conquest can so much fear in the height of their temporal security The Censure doubtless or check of some superior Judge If this fear had been vain or but a speculative Phansie it could not have been uinversal or general in all or most wicked men specially in such as were by nature terrible and stout and wary withal to prevent all probabilities of danger from men Yet was this check of Conscience or this unknown Doom or Censure which Conscience whilest it checkt the hearts of wicked men did so much fear so universal and constant that Epicurus a man of no scrupulous Conscience did observe it to be implanted by nature in all and upon this observation did ground his former general Principle That nature her self did abhor or detest wickedness The suggestion then or intimation of a future Judgement was natural but the apprehension or construction which Epicurus made of these suggestions was but such as ordinary men make of representations in natural Dreams before they be throughly awaked or before they consult the Philosopher or Physician The Christian Truth which nature in these Heathens being in respect of any supernatural use or end of her own suggestions altogether dumb did seek by these signs or intimations to express was that Lesson which the Author of nature great Physician of our souls hath expresly taught us Fear not them which after they have killed the body can do no more but fear him who is able to cast both body and soul into Hell fire yea I say unto you fear him Matth. 10. 28. Luke 12. 4. 14. As the wicked amongst the Heathens could not by any earthly Guard or greatness exempt themselves from that Dread or Fear which their corrupt Consciences did internally suggest So that confident Boldness which the integrity of conscience doth naturally suggest unto every man in his laudable actions was sometimes represented by the more civil and sober sort of Heathens after a manner more magnificent and in a measure more ample then it usually is by most Christians Their expressions or conceipts of such confidence as integrity of conscience doth arm men withal did as far exceed our ordinary apprehensions of it as the representations of natural Causes working within us which are made unto us in sleep or dreams do our waking apprehensions of the like workings or suggestions of nature Si Fractus illabatur orbis saith Horace a profest Disciple of Epicurus Carm. Lib. 3. Ode 3. impavidum ferient ruinae Albeit the Heavens should rend assunder above his head and this inferior world break in pieces about his ears yet a man of an intire and sound conscience would stand unmoved unaffrighted like a pillar of brass or marble when the roof which it supporteth were blown away or fallen from it This Hyperbolical expression of that Confidence which integrity of Conscience in some measure always affords was in this Heathen if he had been put upon the tryal but as the representation of a mans bodily estate made in a Dream whose true cause is unknown unto the Dreamer As in men that dream so in this Heathen Poet the apprehension of that which Nature did truly and really suggest is most full and lively but full and lively in both without Judgement without true use or right application That Confidence then is the companion of a good Conscience is a truth implanted by Nature and freely acknowledged by the oppugners of Divine Providence But from what original or fountain this truth should issue or to what comfortable Use it might serve were points which Nature could not distinctly teach or points at least which the meer natural man without help of Scriptures or instructions from those Heavenly Physicians of the soul whom God hath appointed Interpreters of this Book of life could not learn But we Christians know and believe that when the Heavens shall be gathered as a Scroul when the Elements shall melt with heat and when the earth shall be removed out of his place that even in the midst of these terrible spectacles such as have their Consciences purified by Faith shall lift up their heads for joy as knowing these and the like to be undoubted Prognosticks or fore-running signs of their Redemption drawing nigh unto them A Crisis rather a kinde of First-fruits of this Holy Confidence was most remarkably attested to have been in the Primitive Christians So Antoninus the Emperor as in our 1. Book chap. 24. out of Eusebius his 4. Book of Hist Eccles chap. 13. we did
that both verses may in some Sort be literally meant of the Word Preached or Written Pro modulo that is so far as the Word Written or Preached hath reference or Analogie to the Eternal Word or to his Power here described For the Son of God is seldom if at all enstiled The Word of God without importance of some transcendent relation to the Word of God Written or Preached And from this affinity which the word Written or Uttered hath with the eternal and unutterable Word of God the Word Written or Preached may have some share or portion as it were by Reversion in the Attributes here assigned unto The Word of God But the compleat Subject either of the First Proposition The Word of God is lively or of the second The Word of God is powerful or of the third The Word of God is sharper then any two edged Sword the Word Written or Preached cannot be Nothing can be besides God himself or that Word which St. Iohn saith was in the beginning in whom was Life and whose life was the light of men Nor are the peculiar and special Attributes of God any where in Scripture set forth in a more full and Majestick Character of words then in these words of St. Paul The propositions are in number seven or eight The Subject of all the propositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE WORD is the same And for this reason if any of these Attributes be literally meant of the Son of God or of the Son of God only Completiveè all the rest must be compleatly meant of him He only it is Qui â—anti mensuram nominis implet who rightly fils the Importance of this Title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word in that place Admit then the Word Written or Preached may truly be said to be quick and powerful and in some sort not more sharp but more peircing then any two edged Sword for a Sword with one edge may be as sharp as a Sword with two edges but not so piercing but admit the Word of God preached might be more piercing then any Sword yet could it not properly be said to be a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart or that there is no creature which is not manifest unto it nor can it possibly be imagined to be the Logical Subject of the two last Propositions for the Apostle plainly speaks of a living person Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in HIS SIGHT but all things are naked and open unto the eyes OF HIM 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as our English renders it with whom we have to do as Beza and Calvin had before better expressed it then Erasmus who renders it of whom we speak or then the Vulgar Latine adquem nobis est sermo Of which Latine I know not how to make good English But the Syriack of all most fully All things are opened unto the eyes of him to whom MEN must render an account Every one that hears the Word preached must give an account of the Word which he hears but this account we must not we cannot give unto the Word preached but unto him whose Words they are which we hear or from Whom the Word preached must derive all the efficacy force and power which it hath The full meaning of the Original if any be disposed to have it fully rendred in the Original tongue is as much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cui à nobis reddenda est ratio to whom we must render our final account such is the usual importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in matters civil or of contract or covenant So saith Athanasius in his Creed at his coming to judge the quick and the dead all men shall rise again with their bodies and shall give ACCOUNT for their own works And our Apostle supposeth that this account must be given by every one before he receive his doom for things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 13. So then all men must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must reddere rationem render a final account of their own works And we Christians in special of the Word of God read or preached unto us how far it hath fructified or miscarried in us And this account or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Eternal Word or Son of God by whom God made the world But albeit St. Paul by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hebr. 4. mean the self same Person or partie whom St. John doth in the first of his Gospel yet may we hence discover a further Notion or imPortance of the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is the peculiar Title of the Son of God then was before Book 7th Chap. 26. exprest in handling that Point how the word was made flesh or why the Son of God was called THE WORD The Reason was not only because he was the Speaker of the Trinity or the Declarer of Gods Will unto men nor because he was the main Object of all Gods word whether revealed to Moses or the Prophets but specially or most principally for that he was the express Image of God the Father or Verbum internum the full expression of the Wisdom Power and Majesty of the Father And withal more then the Ideal Pattern according to which all things were made For though he be the full expression of the power and wisdom of his Father as he is his only begotten Son from all eternity yet are not all things which are made by him or can be made by him a full expression of his power or wisdom He was begotten not made by his Father and therefore equal to him The world was made by Him not begotten and therefore far inferior to him He is a patern or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all things that are made but a patern that cannot be paralleld by them As He was the patern or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by whom the world was made and so considered by St. Iohn So is He the pattern or exemplary Rule of all the Laws which God hath given to man whether written in their hearts or in the Book of Grace or of Nature The Rule or patern of all the Words which God hath spoken to men by his Apostles by his Prophets or by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Son himself And according to this Notion or importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is by St. Paul called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto whom all men must reddere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 render an account of their words of their works and of their thoughts he being in all respects the most compleat Rule or Exemplar by which all words all works thoughts for which men are to make account are to be valued or censured the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or exact measure of all approbation or disprovement of the
indeed would directly follow He that is able to make men live again that have been dead for a thousand years is also able to quicken the corn in the next month which died the last month This kind of Argument would be as clear as if you should say That he that is able to make ready payment of a thousand pounds may soon and easily pay an hundred But you would take it as an impertinent or indiscreet allegation to say I know this man is able to pay you an hundred pounds therefore I would perswade you to take his bond for a thousand But our Apostles Argument in this place may seem less probable and it is at least to appearance but Thus God dayly raiseth up corn within a year after it is sowen Ergo he shall raise up Adams body which was consumed to dust five thousand years ago 6. To frame the Apostles Argument which is an Argument of Proportion aright you must take his Principles or grounds into your consideration Now he first supposeth and takes it as all good Christians ought to do for granted that God doth give that body unto every seed with which it ariseth or cometh out of the ground The increase of things sown or planted is not in his Language or Philosophie the meer Effect or gift of Nature For even Nature her self or whatsoever she hath to bestow is the gift of God That which Philosophers call Nature is in true Divinity nothing else but The Law which God hath set to things natural or subject to change or motion Now he which made this Law whether for guiding bodies sublunary or celestial can dispense with it at his pleasure He sometimes inhibits the ordinary course of the Law of Nature by substraction as it were of his Royal Assent or by suspending the concurrence of his Operative Power And sometimes again he advanceth the state of things natural by creating or making a New Law unto the manner of their Being or of their Operations that is he changeth their Qualities though not their Natures or Essences Thus much presupposed or premised our Apostles Inference is as firm and strong as it is Emphatical Stulte Tu quod Seminas O Fool that which THOU sowest is not quickened except it die c. The force or Emphasis may be gathered thus If God doth give a body unto that seed which thou sowest for thine own use and benefit much more will the same God give a body to The Seed which He Himself doth sow much more will he quicken it after it hath been dead seeing the End why he sowes it is not thy temporal benefit or commodity but His Own immortal glory When God did enact that severe Law from which death natural takes its original Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return the Intent or purport of that Law was not that man by returning to dust should utterly or finally perish and be for ever as if he never had been What then was the intent or purport of this Law That mans body should be committed unto the earth as seed is committed to the ground that as the corn which springs out of the earth returns to earth again and is still raised up with advantage and increase unto the Sower So the bodies of men after that by the first mans folly they became corruptible and certain to suffer corruption whether in the earth in the air or in the Sea might be raised again but not to corruption that God may receive the seed which is sown with increase of Glory to himself this increase of Glorie being rooted in the increase of their happiness by whose immortalitie he is immediately glorified Thus much of the former difficulty to wit how our Apostles Instance or experiment in the work of nature doth infer his intended Conclusion to wit the future Resurrection from the dead And from the Solution of this Former the Second may easily be assoyled 7. The second Difficulty was How this Instance or Experiment of the Corn dying and being quickened again can fit or parallel the Resurrection of the body seeing the Corn which is quickened or springeth up is not The same body which was sown Whereas it is a Point of our Belief that the same numerical bodies which die and return to dust or are resolved into ashes or into the Elements of which they consist shall be raised up at the last day For if The Body raised up were not the self same that died the Body which died should not be parttaker either of pain or joy everlasting but another Bodie should be tormented or glorified instead of the Body which died Every man should not receive reward or punishment according to that which he had done in the body or at least this reward or punishment should not be received in the same Body in whhic he had done ill or well Aquinas a Great School-man in his time labours to assoyl the proposed Difficultie by framing the Apostles Argument Thus. If Nature can repair that which dies Idem Specie that is If Nature can make it to be of the same Kind it was though not the same numerical body it was as he that sows Wheat reaps Wheat not Rie or Barley though not the self same grains of Wheat which he sows Then The God of nature and Creator of all things shall raise up the bodies of men which are his seed and proper husbandry the very self same which they were not the self same for kind or specifical Unity but the same Individuals Of all the bodies which have died not one shall miscarry not so much as a hair of any mans head or any least part of his body shall finally perish But though all this be True yet is it Impertinent it fals not within the compass of our Apostles Inference in this place who neither affirms nor denies nor took it so much as into his consideration whether the Corn which springs up be the same Individual Nature or substance which did putrifie and die in the ground The utmost Circumference of his considerations or thoughts extends no further then thus That the Body which God doth give to every seed is not for qualitie the same which was sown for it was sown Bare Corn without blade husk or ear and loseth that corpulencie or quantitie which it had But it springs not up bare Corn. The new life which it gets in the womb of the earth is cloathed with a fresh body capable of nourishment and growth of both which it was uncapable whilst it was severed from the ear wherein it grew or after the stalk was cut down And This Change or alteration in the Corn sown and springing up doth well fit the Change or alteration which shall be wrought in our Bodies at the Resurrection or last day Our bodies by death become more uncapable of nourishment then the corn severed from the ear or cut down for they are utterly deprived of life of sense of
motion in all the Interim between the day of their dissolution and the last day By the Resurrection they shall not only recover life sense and motion but the life which they get shall be indowed with Immortalitie the bodies shall be clothed with Glory This change of our mortal bodies into immortal is much greater then the most plentifull increase which any seed doth yield One seed or grain may in some soils bring forth thirty in others sixtie in others a hundred but immortality added to the life of the body is an increase in respect of this mortal life which now we lead inexpressible by any number The life of Methuselah is not comparable to it albeit the years which he lived on earth were multiplied by the dayes contained in them and both multiplied again by all the minutes and scruples conteined in the dayes and years which he lived And yet after this increase of life our bodies shall be the same they were for nature and essence but not the same for qualities or capacities whether of joyes or pains In these respects they shall differ far more then any corn growing doth from the seed from which it springs And this difference of qualities between the bodies which die and shall be raised again was all that our Apostle sought or intended to illustrate or set forth by that similitude which he useth Thou sowest not the corn which shall be that is not the same corn for quantitie for qualitie for vigour of life nor shall mens bodies be raised again to such a life only as they formerly had or to such a corruptible estate as that wherein death did apprehend them but to a life truly immortal 8. The second question proposed by the Corinthian Naturalist was with what bodies shall the dead come forth or appear And the direct Answer to this Question is included in the former similitude so much insisted on before as that it needs not to be repeated here the Effect of it is This That they shall come forth with bodies much more excellent then those with which they descended into the grave And of this general Answer included in the similitude of the Corn or Seed sown all the Exemplifications following unto verse 45. are native Branches 39. All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one kind of flesh of men another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of birds 40. There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial but the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another 41. There is one glory of the Sun another of the Moon and another glory of the Stars for one Star differeth from another in glory 42. So also is the resurrection of the dead it is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption 43. It is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power 44. It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body c. Thus much of the Positive Force of our Apostles Argument drawn from the similitude of the Corn which by the Law of Nature must die before it be quickned and receive increase 9. But of this similitude it is no native branch or part whether the corn which dies being sown do rise again the next year for vital substance or life the same which it was whilst it was contained in the blade or ear the year before certainly it is not the same for Corpulencie for matter or quantitie But whether the seeds of life or spirit of corn do not remain the same by continuation though in divers bodies or matter our Apostle disputes not nor do I dispute This is a curiositie which cannot be determined in the Pulpit without appeal unto the Schools The vital spirit or essence of the Corn may be so far the same in the corn which is sown and which is reaped that if we should for disputation sake suppose or imagine what some have dogmatically affirmed to wit That the corn sown were endowed with sense or feeling were capable of pleasure or pain the pleasure which it formerly enjoyed might be renewed increased or multiplied with increase or multiplication of its bodily substance so might the pain which it had felt before it was sown be renewed and increased after it were quickned again if any sort of corn were appointed as some men are to torture and punishment Now albeit we must believe that mens bodies after the Resurrection shall be the very same for substance which they were before death yet are we not bound to believe that they shall be any further the same then that every man which died in his sins may in his bodie feel an infinite increase of those miseries which he had deserved and in some sort felt whilst he lived on earth Or that every man at the last day may reap an infinite increase of those joyes and comforts of which in this life he had some tasts or pledges whilst he sowed unto the spirit For as the Apostle elsewhere speaks he that soweth unto the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption a full crop of all the miseries incident to mortalitie but miseries more then mortal miseries everlasting and never dying And he that in this life soweth unto the spirit shall at the Resurrection of the spirit reap life but a life immortal without end without annoyance or interruption of joy Again they extend the former similitude too far which from it would gather that as there is a natural force or previal disposition in the corn sown by which as by a secondary cause or instrumental mean it is quickned and increased So there be natural seeds of life in the putrified reliques of mens bodies or remnants of the matter dissolved out of which life immortal shall so spring as the blade doth out of the seed which is sown only by the sustentative or operative power of God by which all things are supported or enabled to produce their natural effects For although it be true that the works which we ascribe to nature are wrought by God or by continuation of the same power by which they were first created and set a working yet the Resurrection of mens bodies shall not be wrought by the mere continuation of This Power There must be more then a conservation of their matter more then an usual co-operation with the Elements out of which they are raised there must be even a new creation of their bodies yet not a Creation of them out of nothing but out of the scattered fragments of their matter such a creation as the works of the fifth and sixth day were when God commanded the sea or water to bring forth fishes in their kind and the earth to bring forth trees or plants in their kinde These were not effects of nature or of that power only by which the Sea and earth were from
wherein thou shalt not be yet shalt thou be made again All times are alike to God His power to make thee again cannot be restrained by thy weakness or not Being it cannot be shortened by any length of time All of us that now are all the Generations that hereafter shall be must appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that all may receive in the body according to the things done in the body whether they be good or bad For he shall recompence every man according to all his works Yea so recompence That both those which now deny it and those that now believe and confess it shall from experience then say Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous Doubtlesse there is a God that judgeth the earth CHAP. XVI 1. COR. 15 16 17 20. 16. For if the dead Rise not then is not Christ raised 17. And if Christ be not raised your faith is vain you are yet in your sins c. 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the First-Fruits of them that slept The Apostles Method in proving The Resurrection peculiar and yet artificial His way of mutual or reciprocal Inference both Negative and Assertive justified and shewed That both these Inferences naturally arise and may concludently be gathered from the Text and from the Principles of Christian Belief Wherein the witness false upon supposition verse 14 15. should consist That Philosophical Principle Deus natura nihil faciunt frustrà divinely improved Gods special and admirable works have ever A Correspondent That is some extraordinarie rare End How sin is taken away by Christ's death How by His Resurrection How we are justified by Christ's Resurrection How we may try our selves and know Whether we rightly believe this Article Of the Resurrection of the Dead or No. 1. THat the Resurrection from death to life is in nature possible as implying no Contradiction though unto nature or any natural Agent most impossible hath been discussed at large before That there shall De Facto be a Resurrection unto Glorie meerly depends upon the Will and Pleasure or powerful Ordinance of God who as we believe is able to effect whatsoever His Will or Pleasure is should be wrought And our Belief of this Resurrection unto Glorie must be grounded upon His Will and pleasure revealed in Scriptures How Gods Will and Pleasure to raise up the Dead in Christ to an endless immortal and most happy Life hath been clearly revealed by his Prophets in The Old Testament I have shewed other-where and any one of ordinary observation in Reading the Scriptures and Commentators may Collect. Especially taking Example and light from our blessed Saviour his managing that Text Exod. 3. 6. I am the God of Abraham c. in his Argument with the Sadduces who both denied the Resurrection and disputed as they thought subtilly and irrefragably against it And observing the great dexteritie of St. Peter in the second and of St. Paul in the thirteenth of the Acts in proving the Resurrection of Christ out of the Psalms and out of the Prophet Isaiah and how fitly St. Paul in the 54. and 55. verses of this Chapter makes application of the Prophecie of Hosea Chap. 13. v. 14. unto the proper matter and season wherein it shall Consummativè be fulfilled I shall here make such observations as naturally arise from the verses before recited and from other verses in that Chapter wherein The Apostle useth such a method or manner of Argument to prove the Resurrection from the Dead as neither Moses nor any Prophet had used before They indeed foretold and fore-signified respectively that Christ should die and rise again and that all which believe in him should be raised to a life immortal with him But the Connexion betwixt these two Assertions which we are bound severally to believe from the authoritie of Moses and the Prophets as That Christs Resurrection from the grave should be the necessarie Cause of our Resurrection or That our future Resurrection should necessarily infer Christs Resurrection from the dead or that the denial or doubt of our Resurrection should infer a denial or doubt of his Resurrection is more then can easily be gathered out of Moses or the Prophets This mutual Inference of the ones Resurrection by the other whether Negatively or Assertively was first made by our Apostle in this place at least in expresse Terms though implicitely made by our Saviour before Our Apostle in making this mutual Inference seems in the Judgment of some to transgress or violate the Laws of Argumentation generally agreed upon in the School of nature which notwithstanding he elsewhere and usually more exquisitely observes then any Naturalist doth The Inferences made by our Apostle are radically and generally Two The One Negative Per Reductionem ad impossibile aut absurdum The other Affirmative by Positive Proof The Negative hath many branches The First is ver 13. If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen The Second springs out of this in the 14. verse And if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain And yet of this their Faith One Branch was Their Belief in Christs death and passion The Third Branch seems to spring out of both these verse 15. Yea and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ whom he raised not up if so be that the dead rise not The First Branch is resumed again by our Apostle in the sixteenth verse and the Second likewise in the seventeenth with this Addition that If Christ be not raised then such as believe in Christ are yet in their sins And ver 18. Then they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished not only frustrated of their hopes of the life to come but deprived or couzened of such pleasures or contentments of this life as the unbelievers injoy and without loss or detriment might injoy if the dead were not to be raised up or if Christ were not already raised from the dead For he saith ver 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable The affirmative inference is contained in ver 12. 20. Now if Christ be Preached that he rose from the dead how say some among you that there is no Resurrection from the dead This interrogation resolved into an Affirmative imports thus much If we truly Preach and you truly believe that Christ was raised from the dead then we must of necessity Preach and you of necessity believe that there shall be a general Resurrection of the dead and that such as die in Christ shall be raised up to immortal Glory And this affirmative is expressly assumed by our Apostle ver 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept And afterward by him powerfully re-inforced as may be seen in the 21 22
of infamy and hope of Honour were of themselves sufficient to keep most men within the compass of civilitie or moral goodness were it not generally true in all Common-wealths which Solomon had observed in his times Prov. 28. 4. That they which forsake the Law do praise the wicked and so St. Peter tells us 1 Pet. cap. 4. v. 4. That such as walked in the wayes of the Gentiles in lasciviousnesse lust excesse of wine ryotings banquettings and abominable idolatry did think it a strange thing that these late Converts to whom he wrote this Epistle did not run with them to the like excesse And for this cause as he adds they speak evil of them that is they put all the shame they could upon them As then so now Every societie of lewd or naughtie men have their usurped customs which are equivalent with them to Laws have their Parliaments whereby wo unto them Esay 5. 20. they attempt to alter or invert the Law of God and the Law of nature to establsh evil for good and to disgrace goodness as if it were evil What course of life what branch of lewdness more infamous by the Law of God then ryot or drunkenness a vice so shameful that the Fathers eye must not pity it in his Children that are tainted with it but even their natural Parents as well the Mother as the Father are bound by the Law of God Deut. 21. 20 21. to inform against them to accuse them before the Magistrate lest the shame and sin should reflect upon themselves by connivance And by the same Law the publick Magistrate is bound upon the accusation of their Parents to put them to an ignominious death And yet there is a generation of men outwardly professing the knowledge of God and of Christ which seek to put shame ignominie upon all such as will not run with them to the like excess which have their Laws and Rules for authorizing and cherishing this lawless and unruly custom God again by his written Law and by his Sentence against Cain awards death and shame to murtherers And yet the seeds of this accursed sin are more then legitimated ranked amongst the essential parts of honour made as the very touch and tryal of Gentry by men which esteem it a greater shame to indure the breath of a verbal Lie from anothers rash mouth then to tell or devise an hundred real Lies or to outface a truth by false oaths And by this corrupt custom which goes currant for a soveraign Law amongst braver Spirits as they account themselves the observance of Laws divine and humane which forbid all private Revenge all resolutions to kill or be killed is branded with the infamy of Cowardise A terrible bug-bear but to such only as are Men in maliciousness but Children in Knowledge For it is a sign of the greatest Cowardise that can be to be affrighted at the noise of vain words or to forsake the Fortress upon a false Alarm or representation of counterfeit Colors As these so every other vice hath its Baud or Advocate to give it countenance and to disgrace the contrary vertue 6. The old Serpent which beguiled the first Man by the first woman works still upon the weaker vessel and makes it his instrument to foyl the stronger He is not ignorant that this masculus pudor as the Philosopher cals it this virile or manly fear of shame whereby youth is naturally restrained from shameful courses cannot easily be vanquished but by suborning this effeminate or womanish fear of worldly or popular disgrace to betray it as Dalilah did her Husband Samson And the expelling of this masculine by this womanish fear of disgrace or reproach is as the putting out of the eyes of discretion whereby we discern good from evil So that Satan leads them up and down at his pleasure as the Philistines did Samson after he had lost his bodily eyes by the cutting off his hair We have a Saying or Proverb rather Past Shame past Grace The Heathens had the like Observation save only that they knew not what Grace meant They had no use of the word Grace in that sense which is most common and yet most proper with us A Child or man past Grace is with us as much as Filius perditus A Son of perdition Such an one as Judas was who yet was not past Grace that is not irrecoverably lost until he became impudent and obdurate in sin Now it was the observation of one and he was none of the precisest amongst the Heathen Illum ego periisse dico cui quidem periit pudor I give that man saith Plautus for lost which hath lost modestie or is past shame Our Common Proverb and the Saying of this Poet have this sure Ground in true Divinitie That want of modestie or a face uncapable of shame supposeth a great measure of iniquity in the brest That which we call a Brazen face hath alwayes for its Supporter an Iron sinew or a brawny heart Jer. 3. 3. and 5. 3. and 6. 15. and 8. 12. 7. As nothing passeth into the understanding but by the gates of sense So the true belief of that which God threatened unto sin and that was death is ushered into the heart of man by shame and confusion of face The first impression of Gods threatenings unto our first Parents was made upon this part And all the Sons of Adam even unto this day either have or might have a pledge of that which Moses relates concerning their and their eldest Sons hiding themselves and going out from the presence of the Lord. To this day it is true Qui male agit odit Lucem an evil conscience flies the light or presence of men And the face commonly bewrayes the heart as he said Heu quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu It is an hard matter not to confess a crime or the truth although the mouth be silent Yet as some men by long custom in sin degenerate into Atheists and see no reliques of Gods image wherein they were created in themselves although the notion of a Godhead or Divine Power be naturally ingrafted in all So though shame and blushing be most natural to man when he doth evil yet some by long continuance in sin shake off this vail or covering of their nakedness Such they are of whom Jeremie spake in the Old and in the New Testament St. Jude speaks ver 10. Men that are prone to speak evil of those things which they know not but what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves and become as impenetrable by shame as bruit beasts whom God hath deprived of reason He that is not subject to this passion participates more of the nature or disposition of collapsed Angels than of collapsed man The Divels we read do tremble at their belief or apprehension of Gods Judgments We do not read that they are ashamed of the evil which deserves it as our first
presence is of the two the worse And certain it is that it cannot be less seeing that Everlasting Life which is The Gift of God and Crown of holiness is at the least so much better as the second death or pains of hell are worse then this mortal life But if I mistake not the Members of this Distinction concerning the punishment of losse and the punishment of sense by pain are not altogether Opposite but Co-incident The very conceit or remembrance of this infinite loss and of their folly in procuring it cannot but breed an insufferable measure of grief and sorrow unto the damned which will be fully equivalent to all their bodily pain And this fretting remembrance and perpetual reflection upon the folly of their former wayes is as I take it That Worm of Conscience that never dies But of this hereafter The miserable estate of the damned or such as shall suffer the second death may be reduced to these two Heads to Punishment Essential or to Punishment Accidental or concomitant The Essential Punishment comprehends both Poena damni and Poena sensus The positive pains of that brimstone Lake and the Worm of Conscience which gnaweth upon their souls The Punishment Accidental or concomitant is that Loathsomnesse of the Region or place wherein they are tormented and of their Companions in these torments In this life that Saying is generally true Solamen miseris Socios habuisse doloris it is alwayes some comfort to have Consorts in our pain or distress But this Saying is out of date in the Region of death the more there be that suffer these pains the less comfort there is to every one in particular For there is no concord or consort but perpetual discord which is alwayes so much greater by how much the parties discording are more in number And to live in continual discord though with but some few is a kind of Hell on earth And thus much in brief of the second death wherein it exceeds the First 10. If any one that shall read this should but suspect or fear that God had inevitably ordained him unto this death or created him to no better end then to the day of wrath This very cogitation could not but much abate his love towards God Whom no man can truly love unless he be first perswaded That God is good and loving not towards his Elect only but toward all men towards himself in particular But this opinion of Absolute Reprobation or ordination to the day of wrath I pray may never enter into any mans brains But flesh and blood though not polluted with this Opinion will if not repine and murmur yet perhaps demur a while upon another Point more questionable to wit How it may stand with the Justice of the most righteous Judge to recompence the pleasures of sin in this life which is but short with such exquisite and everlasting torments in the life to come Specially seeing the pleasures of sin are but transient neither enjoyed nor pursued but by interposed Fits whereas the torments of that Lake are uncessantly perpetual and admit no intermission The usual Answer to this Quaere is That every sin deserves a punishment infinite as being committed against an infinite Majestie But seeing this answer hath no Ground or warrant from the Rule of Faith in which neither the Maxim it self is expresly contained nor can it be deduced thence by any good Consequence we may examine it by the Rule of Reason Now by the Rule of Reason and proportion the punishment due to offences as committed against an infinite Majestie should not be punishment infinite for time and duration but infinite for qualitie or extremitie of pain whiles it continues If every minute of sinful pleasures in this world should be recompenced with a thousand years of Hell-pains this might seem rigorous and harsh to be conceived of him that is as infinite in Goodness as in Greatness as full of Mercie as of Majestie But whatsoever our thoughts or wayes be his wayes we know are equal and just most equal not in themselves only but even unto such as in sobrietie of spirit consider them But wherein doth the equalitie of his wayes or justice appear when he recompenceth the momentany pleasures of sin with such unspeakable everlasting torments It appears in this That he sentenceth no creatures unto such endlesse pains but only such as he had first ordained unto an endlesse life so much better at least then this bodily and mortal life as the second death is worse then it Adam had an immortal life as a pledge or earnest of an eternal life in possession and had not lost it either for himself or us if he had not wilfully declined unto the wayes of death of which the righteous Judge had fore-warned him Now when life and death are so set before us as that Hold is given us of life to recompence the wilful choice of death with death it self this is most equal and just And if the righteous Lord had sentenced our first Parents unto the second death immediately upon their first transgression his sentence had been but just and equal their destruction had been from themselves Yet as all this had been no more then just so it had been less then justice moderated or rather over-ruled by mercie Now instead of executing justice upon our first Parents the righteous Lord did immediately promise a gratious redemption and as one of the Antients said Foelix peccatum quod talem meruit Redemptorem it was a happy sin which gave occasion of the promise of such a Redeemer 11. But did this extraordinary mercy promised to Adam extend it self to all or to Adam only or to some few that should proceed from him Our publick Liturgie our Articles of Religion and other Acts of our Church extend it to Adam and to all that came after him But how the Nations whom God as yet hath not called unto the light of his Gospel or whose fore-elders he did not call unto the knowledge of his Laws given unto Israel how either Fathers or Children came to forsake the mercies wherein the whole humane nature in our first Parents was interested is A Secret known to God and not fit to be disputed in particular This we are sure of in the General That God did not forsake them till they had forsaken their own mercies But for our selves All of us have been by Baptism re-ordained unto a better estate then Adam lost Now if upon our first second third or fourth open breach or wilful contempt of our Vow in Baptism the Lord had sentenced us unto everlasting death or given Satan a Commission or warrant to pay us the wages of sin this had been but just and right his wayes in this had been equal because our wayes were so unequal But now he hath so long time spared us and given us so large a time of repentance seeking to win us unto his love by many blessings and
of a Rect-Angled Triangle did offer up presently a Magnificent sacrifice to the Gods or divine powers from whom he conceived this revelation came unto him Another having after long search discovered how much pure Gold the Gold-smith had taken out of the King of Scicilies Crown and made up the weight of it with silver cunningly mixed was so over wrought with joy that he ran instantly out of the Bath naked as he was forgetting his clothes crying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found it I have found it out 12. And such as at their vacant times are able but to try the conclusions which these men have found out or to contemplate the truth and use of those unfailing principles in the Mathematicks or in Naturall Philosophy which they have discovered may hence reap more pure delight and sincere joy then the enjoyment of all things temporal without such contemplation can afford Yet the most admirable principles or surest conclusions of humane Sciences are not so good at best no better then meer shadows of those solid Truthes which are contained in the Mystery of godliness Even the Law it self which God gave unto his people by Moses is but a picture of that intire truth which is contained in the knowledge of God and of his Christ Hence saith our Evangelist John 1. 17. The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ What shall we say then was there no truth in the Law which was given by Moses God forbid It was a Law most true Yet the truth of it was but a Picture of that live substance of Truth which is contained in the Gospel or rather in the knowledge of Christ If we did only desire that Ioy or delight which naturally ariseth from the contemplation of the agreement between the principles and conclusions in the same Art or Science The whole world besides though we had the perfect knowledge of it could not yeeld that plenty of pleasant speculations which the Harmonie or consent between the Types or Figures of the old Testament and the live substances answering unto them in the New or which the known accomplishments of the Prophetical predictions exhibit in Christ to all that will seriously meditate on them What madness is it then to be in love or to dote either on shadowes in the book of nature or in the pictures of the Law and to neglect the live Feature of that substantial truth which presents it self unto our view in the Gospel of Christ The most exact knowledge that can be had in the book of nature or in humane Sciences doth alwayes end in contemplation it is but like musick which vanisheth with the motion it leaves no permanent mirth behind it Whereas the contemplation of the mystery of godliness so it be frequent and serious doth alwayes imprint and instill the sweet influence of life and joy into our souls The knowledge of humane Sciences as it may be comprehended by the wit of man So it is terminated with this life But the knowledge of Christ or rather Christ himself who is the subject of divine knowledge is an inexhaustible fountain of truth whose Current still even in this life increaseth as our capacities to receive it increase and so shall increase in the world to come without stint or restraint For the fruit or issue of it as you heard before is everlasting life and that is a life which hath a beginning here on earth but shall have no end in heaven An Advertisement to the Reader THough it was told the Reader before Book 10. Fol. 3068. That it was the Practise of this Great Author First To deliver in Sermons that matter which he intended afterwards to weave or form into the Body of his printed Discourses Yet the Tenor of the last precedent and the next following chapter seems to require that the Reader be re-minded of The Same here again And withall it be signified That The Epocha or Commencement of These Tracts must be pitched thirtie or more years Retro as may be Collected out of a Passage in the twenty fifth Chapter And lastly that the Place where these Tracts when they were Meer Sermons were preached was The Famous Town of Newcastle upon Tine where our Author was A most Exemplarie Careful and Pious Vicar but how prosperous or successful God only knows for divers years together CHAP. XXVI ROMANS 6. 22. But now ye have your fruits unto holinesse and the end everlasting Life c. Whether the Tast of Eternal Life once had may be lost Concerning Sin against the Holy Ghost How temporal Contentments and the pleasures of sin coming in competition prevail so as to extinguish and utterly dead The Heavenly Tast both by way of Efficiencie and Demerit The Advantages discovered by which a Lesser Good gets the Better of a Greater 1. THe Fruits of Holinesse as hath been said are Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and in the Fruition of this Peace and Joy consists that Tast of Eternal Life which in this world can be had And this Tast must be perfected and established by the Knowledge of Christ and him crucified Which Knowledge hath been the Main Subject both of my private Meditations and of my labors published in the seventh book of Commentaries upon the Creed We are now to inquire how this Tast of Eternal Life must be preserved The Rule is most true in the General That it must be preserved and perfected by the same means by which it was first planted and that is by the Knowledge of Christ So that it is but One Question how the knowledge of Christ may be perfected in us and how this Tast of eternal life may be preserved The next Particular subordinate unto this General is by what means such as either have or might have had the Tast of Eternal Life come to be deprived of it A great Question not impertinent to this inquiry hath been of late Whether Faith or Grace being once had may be lost or whether lost only for a time or for ever But as I have often told you there is more Contention about this Point amongst modern Writers then Contradiction between their Opinions if they would calmly and distinctly express their meaning That from some Degree of Faith or from some kind of Grace a man may fall no man denies That no man can fall from the Grace of Election or Predestination I do not question And further then This it is not safe for any to be peremptory in any Positive Assertion nor fit to dispute without or beyond these Lists As for such as take upon them to dispute this or the like Question in these Terms Whether a man may fall from saving Grace they bring it in the end to an issue untriable in this life at least on their parts For admit it for a truth which some do question that a man may be certain Certitudine Fidei by the
that continue in well doing But that Good Works should deserve Eternal Life Only upon supposal of Gods promise some of the greatest Scholars I will not say of the best men amongst them will not yield But to take them at their Best As when they say that Good works do merit as much as God hath promised to Reward them with This is too bad For to merit in their language is a great deal more then to be Rewarded it includes a Reward due unto the works wrought not meerly given out of the mercie or bountie of him that promiseth The Rule is General Whatsoever any man hath Interest in by promise it must be expected sued for and accepted upon the same Terms that it is promised unlesse between the promise made and the performance of it we can oblige the party promising by some real service that may be profitable unto him more then was included in the Conditions to which the promise did tie us To do more then is Covenanted and promised so it be behoof-ful for either party especially if it be profitable to the Rewarding party deserves a Reward in Equity though not in Law at his hands to whom it is behoof-ful If the party which promiseth us a good Turn receive any thing from us in lieu or consideration of what he promiseth he is tyed in Law to perform his promise and is a debter till he perform it The performance is not a meer courtesie or bountie but an Act of Commutative Justice The Assuming of a shilling may bind a man to the payment of many pounds Wheresoever there is Quid pro quo or Ratio dati et accepti something as well given as taken upon mutual promise there is an Act of Commutative Justice And wheresoever there is not Ratio dati et accepti Somewhat given as well taken there can be nothing due in Justice From this ground some great Schoolmen in the Romish Church deny Justice commutative or that branch of Justice which is the Rule of all matters of bargain or sale to be properly in God because there cannot be Ratio dati et accepti any mutual giving or taking between God and his creatures For he gives us all that we have or can have we cannot possibly give him any thing which he hath not And for this reason albeit he were purposed to bestow the greatest measure of Grace upon us that any creature is capable of this could not include any Grace of merit for still the more place Grace hath in our hearts the less room there is for Merit True it is that our Lord and Saviour did merit heaven at his Fathers hands for us but the ground or foundation of this His merit was not only the fulnesse of Grace in him as man but that he being in the Form of God the Son of God equal to his Father did humble himself and become man for us and did his Father service as man he therefore did merit all graces for us because he was the Son of God not by Adoption or creation but by Eternal Generation To be the Sons of God by Adoption or to be made his sons by Grace is a blessing bestowed on us for the which we become Debters to God the Father and servants to God the Son so deeply indebted to both that albeit we should do ten times more then we do we should still be unprofitable servants we could not make the least Recompence for that which he hath done for us The manner of the Apostles Interrogation Rom. 11. 35. Quis prior illidedit who hath first given to him includes an universal negation No man hath given ought to God No man can give any thing unto him And if none can give any thing unto him none can receive any thing from him by way of merit or valuable consideration but of meer mercy and free Bounty 7. If we would scan the Tenor of all Gods promises made unto us in Scripture with such accurateness as Lawyers do Tenures of Land we should find that he only promiseth to be merciful and bountiful unto us whether we limit his promises to the First Grace which we receive from him or extend them to All after-increase of Grace or to the accomplishing of all blessings promised in this life by our admission unto life eternal in the world to come Now if Mercy and Bounty be the Compleat Object of all his promises then may we not expect performance or accomplishment of his promises as a Just recompence or merit for any service which we do him but only as the Fruit or effect of his mercy or loving kindness If a loving earthly father should allot his son a liberal Pension before he could in modestie ask it or in discretion expect it and promise him withall that if he did employ this present years Pension well he would allow him more liberally for the next year following in this case how well soever his son did either demean himself or use his present Pension yet seeing the whole profit did redound unto himself not unto his father the more bountifully his father deals with him in the years following the more still he is bound unto him An ingenuous or gracious son would not challenge the second or third years Pension as more due unto him by right or merit then the First albeit he had his fathers promise for these two years which he had not for the first For the fathers promise was only to be good and bountiful unto him so he would be dutifully thankful for his bountie Now to expect or challenge that by way of right and merit which is promised meerly out of favour or loving kindness and upon condition of dutiful demeanour is a transgression of duty an high degree of unthankfulness especially from a son unto the father For every son by the Law of God and nature owes obedience and respect unto his Father and though there be no mutual bond of Obedience yet is there a bond of mutual dutie between an earthly father and his son at least the father as well as the son owes obedience unto Gods Law and Gods Law enjoyns every father unto kind usuage of his son so he challenge it not by way of debt or merit but in love humilitie or obedience But on our heavenly Father no bond of Obedience of debt or dutie can be laid what good soever he doth unto us it is meerly from his Free Mercy and loving kindness It was his meer goodness to Create us to give our First Parents such Being as once they had This First Being could not be merited nor doth any Romanist affirm it could Having lost that goodness wherein we were created it was more then meer Goodness the abundance of mercy to make us any promise of Restauration to our First blood and Dignitie And after this promise made it is but the continuation or increase of the same abundant mercy to bestow the Grace of Adoption upon us and no more
hearing the word Life The life of man is short And The Text of the Law wherein the precepts are contained is long The Commentaries of the Prophets and sacred Histories necessarie for the Exposition thereof are voluminous and large The true sence or meaning of either in some points not easie to be found out unless we be well instructed how to seek it so as what the Jesuite saith absolutely but falsly of all Scripture is Comparatively true of This advice of Solomons It is a plain and easie way a light of mans life after it be once well learned but it is hard to Learn without a good Guide to directs us Wherefore behold a greater then Solomon Christ Jesus himself directs us in One and that a very short Line unto that Point whereunto the large discourses both of The Law and the Prophets do as it were by the Circumference Lead us Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets that is The Summe of the Law and the Prophets is contained in this short Rule 3. Because our Saviour gives it we may believe it that this is the best Epitome that ever was given of any so large a Work Or rather not an Epitome of the Law and the Prophets but the whole Substance or Essence of the Law and the Prophets Herein all their particular Admonitions are contained as Branches in their Root Out of the practise of this Principle or Precept all the Righteousness which the Law and the Prophets do teach will sooner spring and flourish much better then if we should turn over all the Learned Comments that have been written upon them without the practise of this Compendious Rule This Abridgement is a Document of His Art that could draw a Camel through the eye of a Needle that spake as never man spake Sure then if any place of Scripture besides those which contain the very Foundation of Christian Faith as Christs Incarnation Passion or Resurrection be more necessary to be learned then other then is this most necessary and most worthy the Practise Seeing all Doctrines of good Life of honest and upright Conversation are derived hence as particular Conclusions in Arts and Sciences from their Causes and Principles 4. For any Coherence of these words with any precedent or consequent we need not be sollicitous It sufficeth to know They are a principal part of our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount in which He delivered the true meaning of the Fundamental Parts of the Law purging the Text from the corrupt Glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees Every Sentence therein is a Maxim of Life and as it were an intire compleat Body of it self not a limb or member of any other particular Discourse Every full Sentence of it This Main Rule especially may be anatomized by it self without unripping any other adjoyning For which Reason some Learned have thought that St. Matthew was not curious to relate every sentence in that Rank and Order as it came from our Saviours Mouth but set them down as any one would do all the memorable good sentences he could call to mind of a good Discourse read or heard placing that perhaps first which was spoke last or that last which was spoke in the middest Yet if as in Description of Shires men usually annex some parts of the Bordering Countries any desire to have the Particular words or Speeches of our Saviour whereunto this Illative Therefore is to be referred he must look back unto the fifth Chapter of this Gospel verse 42. Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow turn thou not away For so St. Luke who is more observant of our Saviours method in this Sermon then St. Matthew in the sixth Chapter of his Gospel verse 30 31. Couples these two Sentences together which St. Matthew had set so farre asunder And immediately after the words of the Text he inferres by Arguments that Duty of loving our Enemies which he had set down the precept for before verse the 27. though St. Matthew place both Duty and Arguments immediately after the Sentence before cited viz. Give to him that asketh c. So that this Precept Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you c. as is most probable came in between the matter of that 42 and 43 verse of that fifth Chapter And yet it might be repeated again in the latter end of that Sermon by our Saviour At least for some special Use or Reason placed there by St. Matthew because being the Foundation or Principle whence all other Duties of Good Life are derived it seems the Evangelist would intimate thus much unto us That of all our Saviours Sermon which contained the very Quintessence of the Law this was the sum And for this Reason he adds that Testimonie concerning the Excellencie of this Rule which St. Luke omits namely That in it is contained the Law and the Prophets 5. The Method which I purpose by Gods Assistance to observe is This. First To set down the Truth and Equitie of the Rule it self Whatsoever ye would that men c. with the Grounds or Motives to the practise thereof Secondly To shew in what sense or how farre the Observation of it is The Fulfilling of the Law and the Prophets Doctrine with such Exceptions as may be brought against it Thirdly Of the meanes and method of putting this Rule in practise It was A Saying of the Father of Physiicans Natura est Medica let Physicians do what they can Nature must effect the Cure The Physician may either strengthen Nature when it is Feeble or ease it from the oppression of Humors But Nature must work the Cure This is in proportion true for matters of Moralitie or Good Life Natura est optima Magistra All that the best Teachers can perform in natural or moral Knowledge is but to help or cherish those natural Notions or Seeds of Truth and Goodness which are ingrafted in our Souls Art doth not infuse or pour in but rather ripen and draw out that which lay hid before And it is the skill of every instructor to apply himself to every mans nature and to begin with such Truths as every one can easily assent unto as soon as he hears them albeit without help of a Teacher he could not have found them out himself And yet the more easily we assent to any Truth the lesse we perceive how we were moved thereto and the lesse we perceive it the more ready we are to imagin that we did more then half move our selves or that we could have found out that by our selves which we have learned of others Whereas in truth there is nothing more hard then to speak to the purpose and yet so in matters of Morality and Good Life as every man of ordinary capacitie shall think upon the hearing of it that he could have invented or said the like Ut sibi
For what-soever was evil in another whilst done to thee is evil in thee whilst thou dost the same to him Thy fact is as his fact and thy sin as his sin The evil is one and the same Only thou maist alledge that he was more prone to do the same evil because he did it without Provocation and thou dost it provoked that is as much as to say he hath overcome thee in evil but thou also art overcome of evil the evil hath overcome that which is good in Thee Thy passion overbears thy Reason and Judgement which is such an offence against the Law of nature as it would be against the Law of this Land if a Tumultuous multitude should take the Lawes as we say into their own hand and execute malefactors without the Judges or Magistrates consent 11. What then will some say shall I pocket up every wrong shall I make myself a But or mark for all to shoot at shall I prostitute my person to abuse my good name to slander my goods to spoil without redresse God forbid For vengeance is Gods and he will repay and he hath Powers on earth which bear not the sword in vain If it be an open injury by whose example if it should go unpunished others might be imboldened to do the like and if the present offendant might thereby grow insolent or retchless likely to do the like again to others as well as to thee Thou dost no way Transgresse rather Two ways observe This Rule of natures Law if thou solicit his chastisement at the Lawful Magistrates hand First Thou shalt teach the offender the practise of this Rule which before he knew not or neglected though bound thereto as well as Thou For when the Magistrate shall inflict upon him such punishment as shall be more grievous to him then the wrong that he did was to thee he will be as careful to avoid the doing as thou art to avoid the suffering of the same or like injurie This is The Rule of Publick punishments That they should alwayes be such as the party offending would be as unwilling to suffer as the party offended is to endure the wrong Secondly seeing all men naturally desire securitie from danger losse or disquietness and for this End wish that all private Disturbers of Publick Peace might either be amended or cut off Thou shalt do to others whom thou hast more reason to respect then the party offending as thou wouldst desire they should do for thee in the like case if thou seek for justice at the publick Magistrates hand whose Dutie it is to provide for all mens securitie and Peace Yea though perhaps thou do to this man offending as thou wouldst not be done to in like case yet shalt thou do to a great many others 〈◊〉 all honest men as thou wouldst that they should do to thee in the like Case Thou canst not but consider that other mens cases may be thine own and couldst be willing that if they had the like occasion of complaint and could make legal proof of wrong done they should prosecute their cause for thine and others securitie from the like For these Ends and purposes to prosecute any injurie done by any private person before a Publick Magistrate or wrongs done by an inferior Magistrate before his lawful Superior is but just and right a Dutie whereunto we are bound by the law of nature if the party offending be insolent and stub born likely to hold on his wonted course unlesse restrained by the Magistrate But if the offence be private betwixt thee and thy neighbour not likely to redound to any further publick Harm if it was an offence of infirmitie or proceeded from some natural unruly passion for which he is afterwards heartily sorie then thou art bound in conscience to remit it For if thou considerest thine own infirmities thou canst not but find thy self obnoxious to like passions and that thou maist at one Time or other be as far overseen and yet couldest wish in thine hart that such thine escapes or oversights should not be prosecuted to the uttermost but rather be pardoned upon submission or penitencie And experience doth teach us that such as are too rigid or austere censurers of other mens infirmities do oft-times fall into the like or worse themselves even into such as they are otherwise least inclined unto but in that they are men the sons of sinful Adam they are in some degree or other inclined unto any evil And therefore whilst they prosecute such as upon infirmitie or Passion fall into some Enormous crime as if they were not men but monsters or Noxious creatures of another kind their judgement is just if they themselves fall into the like that they may know themselves to be but men not altogether free from passion and infirmities Vide interpretes in 7. cap. St. Matthaei v. 1. See Plinies epist lib. 9. epist 12. 12. Thus far natural Reason may lead us in our sober thoughts That we should not do any harm to others because we would not have any other do harm to us or that we should forbear to prosecute the infirmities of others because we would have others bear with our own But yet if we consult nature alone it may seem doubtful whether a man be bound by her Lawes to do good unto his enemie as to relieve him in distresse to defend him in danger or the like This Rule of nature may seem not to bind men hereunto For many men oft-times would chuse to suffer great losse rather then to be beholden to their enemie sometimes rather to starve for hunger then to be upbraided with his Benevolence or to incur evident danger of Death rather then it should be said That his deadly enemie had preserved his life He that is thus minded the salvage and Giant-like spirit would say Bravely minded may in the Jollitie of his resolution think himself no way bound to do his enemie any good of whom he lookes for none nay of whom he would receive none though it should be thrust upon him Yet natural Reason and conscience so this man would hear them speak and abide their censure would condemn him if he refused to do good unto his enemie The Rule is mis-applyed by Passion for nature and Reason bid us That we should do that to every man which we would have any man do for us not to do that to this or that man which we expect from them alone Now there is no man so wilfull unless he be witlesse also but would be relieved in distresse delivered from danger and warranted from losse albeit not by this or that man whom he disliketh yet by some one or other whom he likes better Wherefore seeing Reason teacheth us That to do good to others as they are men is good it in self it teacheth us so we would learn of it to good unto whomsoever For why should enmitie or our enemy hinder us from doing that which
of the lost sheep and Groat His rejoycing for the recoverie of his strayed sheep was not his alone but his neighbours also Her sorrow for losse of her money was not only hers but her Gossips as after the finding it her joy was theirs too It is worth the consideration and I beseech you to consider what a madness it would seem to a wise man if because the finger did ake or pain him a mans head or heart and inward thoughts should presently resolve to cut it off or vex it more because it did vex them Yet such is our malice and madness if because our brother or fellow member in Christ so we must account all that Communicate with us in the same Sacraments doth vex or torment us we should therefore resolve to vex and torment him again This is A Symptome of such hellish Phrenzie as the Poet describes Ipse suos Artus lacero divellere morsu Certat As monstrous and pitifull a Spectacle to the eyes of Faith as it would be to the eyes of the Body to see as we have heard of some hanged quick in irons ready to starve for hunger and destitute of hopes of other food to eat the flesh of their armes to satisfie their gnawing entrals So monstrous is their sin so miserable their estate that to satiate their revengeful minds or to wreck their imbred spite do harm vex or torment their Fellow-members in Christ If you bite and devour one another saith the Apostle Gal. 5. 16. see that ye be not not consumed one of another His meaning is Whosoever doth vex or harm his brother shall feel the smart of it himself one time or other as certainly as the heart or soul that wounds or cuts an outward member shall feel the smart or want of it And again that whosoever yeelds any comfort to his distressed or comfortless brother shall as certainly be partaker of the good he does to him as the heart which directs or the hand which applies the medicine to any ill affected part shall find ease and rest by the mitigation of the sickly members pain 18. Would you then know the most certain compendious way to do your selves most good seek as far as in you lies to do good to all other men seek not your own good so much as the good of others or rather seek your own good especially by the means of doing good to others Consider that there is a great reward promised to such as do good to others but there is no promise made for doing good to our selves If we seek to inrich our selves or advance our estate we have our reward if we obtain riches or advancement but if we relieve those that be in necessitie if we assist or direct into good wayes those that for want of means may be tempted to ill courses To this double good work which both relieves the Body and rescues the soul There is appointed a great reward There is a reward promised to such as relieve the poor none to such as inrich themselves There is a reward promised to such as comfort the broken hearted none to such as solace themselves with mirth and passe their Time in pleasures There is a reward for those that raise Up them that fall none to them that being in competent estate seek to advance themselves If such as seek riches get riches if such as seek advancement get advancement verily they have their full reward But if they get or seek it to the prejudice of their poor brethren their sin is grievous And our Saviour Christ pronounceth A wo unto them Luke 6. 24. Wo unto you that are rich for you have received your consolation Is this the condition of all such as be rich no but of such rich ones as regard not understand not the poor Of such as seek to enrich themselves more then to relieve others Wo be to you that be full to wit when others are hungry and you give them not to eat Wo unto you that laugh to wit in time of Publick calamitie and wo when you should mourn with your brethren that do mourn for thus not doing unto them as you would be done unto in the like case God shall do that to you which you would not and give them their hearts desire God will turn their mourning into joy and your laughter into tears A False Balance saith Solomon is abomination to the Lord but a perfect weight pleaseth Him Pro. 11. 1. Now to be more desirous to do good to our selves then to others is as it were to buy with a greater measure and sell with a less For even this practise were no cousenage in Hucksters and marketters unless the Balance of their hearts and minds were unequally set before that is unless the measure of their desire of private gain were greater then their desire of doing good to others This is the point wherein their own Beam differs from or disagrees with Gods Balance hung up in their consciences Love thy neighbour as thy self Do as you would be done unto God that tryeth the very heart and reines doth weigh all our secret thoughts more exactly and curiously then we would weigh Gold and by how much we are more desirous to receive good from others then to do Them Good so much more shall we want of our hearts desire This is the second point wherein the Doctrine of Grace exceeds the Law of nature The Heathen had a surmise or fear that some like evil might befall them as they had done to others yet was not their expectation of punishment so certain but they thought it might be and often was prevented with policie or if they escaped unpunished in this life they thought themselves safe enough whereas we certainly know and believe that God will certainly bring all to equalitie and it shall go worst with them that go unpunished in this life for usually his punishments in this life bring men as it were to a composition with their adversaries both teaching them to do as they would be done unto and to repent for the wrongs they have committed but such as passe this life unpunished and impenitent are arrested at their first entry into the other they fall immediately into the Jaylors hands from whence there is no Redemption 19. Thus much of the First Point according to the method proposed § 5. that is Of the equitie of the Precept and of the Grounds or motives which might incite us to the performance of it either drawn from the Law of Nature or from the Law of Grace the Holy Gospel Of the Second Point that is In what sense The Observation of it is the fulfilling the Law and Prophets or How The Command it self contains the Summe of the Law and Prophets afterward Here only for A Ground to Application I take it as granted That natural Reason and the written Law teach every man what is good for himself and whereon to set his desires And this Rule of Nature and
and wittingly keepes none truly and sincerely because He observes them not in as much as God commanded them to be kept for then He would be desirous to observe all alike or if he shew divers effects of love unto his neighbour these proceed not from the love of God for that would command all his Affections and every effect of love as well as One. He can expect no reward of God as the fruit of such love because it is not throughly rooted in the entire and sincere Love of God So that their Reasons who restrain this precept only to the second Table admit a double exception First It is not proved by them that This Precept is adaequate or only but aequivalent to that Love thy neighbour as thy self Secondly If it were yet the fulfiling of This might be Interpretativè the fulfilling of the Law seeing no man can love his neighbour but he must love God above all 3. It is as true again that no man can love God unless he love his brother also so saith St. John 1. Epist ch 4. ver 20. If any man say He loves God and hate his brother he is a lyar for how can he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen love God whom he hath not seen So that our love to God must be the motive or incitement for us to love our neighbour and yet the same love of God must be perfected and made compleat in us by practising love for his sake upon our neighbours So saith St. John verse 11. If God so loved us we ought also to love one another no man hath seen God at any time As if he had said We cannot direct our love immediatly to God himself because He dwelleth in light that none can attain unto but our love must be bestowed upon our neighbours that is upon men in whom His Image shineth and loving them in Him and for His sake we love him more then them and this is it which S. John saith in the same place If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfect in us And in like sort when we do to men as we desire they should do unto us because this is a Duty acceptable to God and proceeds from the love we bear to him we do not only perform our duty towards men but also our duty towards God So that This Rule rightly practised is the whole Law and the Prophets and in effect equivalent to those Two Commandments Love God above all and thy neighbour as thy self as appears out of the former Collections But is more evident if we observe the Former Extent or exposition of it which was thus Whatsoever ye would should be done unto you either by God or man That do to all men as they are your fellow creatures for your Creators sake Or if we would further search out the exact Temper and constitution of mind whereat this precept aims it consists as I may so speak in Aequilibrio in the aequipoise of our desires of doing and receiving good whether the Good be to be directed immediately unto God or to our neighbours for his sake That is we should be as ready to glorifie Gods name both secretly with our hearts and by outward profession and practise of good Deeds as we are desirous to receive any blessing or benefit from him And thus it is evident that the exact performance of this Precept would be the exact fulfilling of the Law and Prophets that the performance of every part of this duty sincerely in some though not in perfect measure is in like sort the fulfilling of the Law Quoad perfectionem vel integritatem partium as the Schools say though not quoad perfectionem Graduum that is observing this Rule as it hath been expounded we shall observe every Commandment or part of the Law though none of them in that perfect and exact measure which we should but performing the former the Blood of Christ Jesus shall cleanse us from all our guilt of sin whereto we are liable if God should enter into judgment with us for not performing of the later Thus you have seen how this precept doth directly concern both the First and Second Table 4. Yet further That even that love and duty which we owe unto our neighbors doth Collaterally likewise respect every Preceept of the First Table for we are bound by this love we owe one to another every one according to his calling opportunity and ability to instruct another in the knowledge of every precept whether of the First or Second Table or any other part of the Law and to incite one another to the performance of the same and to dehort from their Breach or Transgression So saith the Lord Levit. 19. v. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart but thou shalt plainly rebuke thy neighbor and suffer him not to sin not to transgress any of Gods Commandments whatsoever The sum of all is this The Law of Nature and the Law of God teach every man to know what is good for himself and thereupon to fix his desires and this Rule of Nature whose practise is here enjoyned by our Saviour binds every man to be as willing to further his Neighbor or Fellow-Creature in pursuit of any lawful good as he is desirous of the same himself whether these desires be of things pertaining to this life or to the hopes and means of obtaining the life to come Yet against this Precept it may be Objected That it may seem to establish the Pythagorean Retaliation which was such an error in Philosophy as the present error of the Anabaptists is in Religion Both of them tending to an Equalitie of all sorts of men So may this Rule seem at first sight to make all men Equal For if every man must do to others as he would be done unto Then most the Master perform the like duties to the servant as he expects from him so must the Prince unto his Subjects the Magistrate to such as are under him the Father to the Son c. There be some common Grounds which will serve to Answer other Objections which may be made As first What-ever ye would c. must be understood of a Regulated Will A Will not tainted with any inordinate self-love or sinful desires Secondly It must be interpreted with A Salvo to all Gods other Commandments They must stand as God has set them reconciled to one another and not be set at variance by our exorbitant willes or affections Thirdly It must not be extended to the dissolving of Order and disparagement of Dignities or Powers ordained by God But this Objection may have its proper Solution two wayes First The meaning of the Precept is not that we should do the self same to every man in every estate which we expect he should do to us living in that estate wherein we are For seeing there is an Inequality of Estates there must be also
an Inequality or diversity of Duties belonging to those several Estates The meaning then is thus Whatsoever you could wish that men should do unto you supposing you were in the same estate they are in that you must do to them now they are in that estate Thus the Greatest Monarch on earth in as much as He is but man and might have been or may be yet subject to anothers pleasure must stoop to this consideration what usage he would expect of his Prince if he himself were a Subject and he must afford the self fame to them So must the Father likewise consider what usage he did expect of his Parents and the like he must afford unto his children So likewise must every Inferiour seriously consider with himself what respect he would desire of his Inferiours were he in place of Authoritie and the self same he must afford unto such as are his lawful Magistrates Otherwise besides the evil of confusion if either Superiour or inferiour use other loss respectively or more contemptuously then they would be content withall themselves the Righteous Judge will reduce all to equality Thus St. Paul teacheth Colos 3. ver 20. Children saith he obey your parents in all things for that is well-pleasing to the Lord and verse 21. Fathers provoke not your children to anger And concerning servants he saith more expressly Eph. 6. v. 5. Servants be obedient unto them that are your masters according to the flesh not with eye-service as men pleasers but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart and ye masters as it followes in the 9. verse do the same things unto them putting away threatning and know that your master also is in Heaven neither is there respect of persons with him If either servants would use their masters otherwise then they would be used if they were masters or masters Use their servants otherwise then they would be Used if they were such God will bring a more miserable servitude on the One and continue it on the other From these places of St. Paul we may likewise frame a Second Answer to to the former Objection Thus. If we compare men in their several estates wherein they live wherein they are not wherein they may be then this mutual Duty of doing as we would be done unto must not be paid as we say in Kind but in Proportion The Rule is this seeing all men delight in comfort and contentation of mind only that is such which is truly good in respect of the party which desires it every man should be desirous to do that good to others which is best befitting his estate wherein he may take true comfort and best content Seing great personages take great comfort in honour and serviceable respects inferiours should with a good mind give Honor to whom Honor is due and they should be as ready though not to Honor their inferiours yet to afford them that wherein they have more delght as in relieving the poor and needy by Hospitalitie in countenancing others of competent estate in their commendable courses in protecting them from wrong or in a word according to the Exigence of their several states or occasions 6. Again it may be objected That this Rule however we interpret it must be violated by the Publick Magistrate in inflicting punishment upon Offenders For many a man that hath deserved Death according to Positive Laws will naturally and that I think without offence be most desirous of life and would make earnest suit for his release The Question is Whether the publick Magistrate in this Case should do as he would be done unto if he were in the like Case For it may seem that either he must transgress the Positive Laws to which he is sworn or violate this Law of Nature which is more sacred then any Positive Law The Answer is easie from that which hath been said before No publick Officer is here to propose unto himself this one man or Malefactors Case but rather the Common-wealths or such in it as deserve better and yet might be further endangered by Malefactors escaping unpunished if his Case were theirs he would be desirous to have the Law executed and therefore must afford them this their just desire if it be in his power otherwise such pity finds oft-times at Gods hands the reward of Cruelty A notable Example whereof we have in Alexander de Medices the first of that Family that took upon him to be the Prince of Florence but not so willing to execute Justice as to usurp Authority He contrary to his Country Laws granted pardon to a Murtherer at one of his neer Kinsmens Request who afterwards willing to purchase Fame by freeing his Country from his Kinsmans Duke Alexanders Tyranny used the former Malefactors help in killing the Duke which had given him life at his request 7. But to return to that we were upon when these Objections crossed our way God weighs our secret thoughts more exactly then we can do bodies gross and sensible As the Balance is just in our sight when both ends are even and both alike apt to be aequally moved with equal weights so are our thoughts in Gods sight just when we are as apt to do good as ready to receive it We may desire or receive good either from men or from God and we may return good respectively to both kindnesses as we say in kind to men Duties of obedience praise and thanks c. unto God To men we may repay good either for their own sakes or because we would desire good from them in like case or else because we expect good from God The equalitie of our conditions as men as fellow-creatures or brethren in Christ bindes us to afford the same measure of good to others not which they have measured to us but as we desire they should do to us if we were in their case Every man knows his own desires and therefore cannot he ignorant what he should do If they have dealt ill with us we may not in any case deal so with them for we were unwilling to receive ill and therefore should be as unwilling to repay it and the rather for fear God do to us as we do to them Because in so doing we took his office into our hands If they have done us any good we are more strictly bound to repay them in larger measure then we received it because we were prevented by them As in a Balance even set the Rebound doth alwayes exceed the first sway or motion so in repaying such good to our brethren as God hath graciously dealt to us we should exceed the former proportion because we are bound to distribute to their necessities so is not He to ours And alwayes the freer the Gift is the greater should the receivers thankfulness be This was that which aggravated the unthankful servants offence that seeing his master had freely forgiven him yet he would not forgive his fellow
it hath been or as they desired it should have been done to them to bring themselves out of their present pain Thus far nature doth lead us without any actual Intention of mind or consideration of performing this dutie as injoyned us either by the Law of Nature or of Grace And if we would as they say but let nature work it would teach us more particulars of every kinde and how to propose every mans Case of like nature as our own But such is our natural folly that we learn not many of these lessons but only such as experience teacheth us Herein then is the difference between the foolish and men spiritually wise Experience in the one sets nature a working In the other Reason assisted by Grace from one or two experiments drawes general Rules 2. The impediments which hinder us either in taking a true estimate of our desires or performing that to others which we our selves would desire are these Our eager Desires either of being in better estate then we are or our Fears of being in worse These are such sowre door-keepers as will not suffer any other mens desires or notifications of their miseries to enter into our souls or to make any impression upon them If our souls or affections were neither inclined much this way nor that way but stood at the Push The bare sight of any others affection whether joyful or sad would possesse us with the like But whilst our souls are fast tyed and led captive by some one desire or other unto some one Object or other as commoditie pleasure honour advancement or the like they cannot easily be drawn any other way Yea oft-times the proposal of others miseries makes souls so affected cleek the faster hold because they apprehend that to relieve or supply those would in such proportion lessen and weaken the means of effecting what they desire and have purposed to effect Thus if one that hath set his soul on riches see his brother pinched with want and penurie he streight imagines that povertie is the mother of miserie and the more he gives the nearer he shall bring himself to povertie and this incires his desire both of increasing and retaining what he hath already got that so he may be the better fenced against povertie which he fears coming upon him as an armed man If he should part but with a peny or some small tribute he thinks himself quite undone crying like the miser in Horace Quod si comminuas vilem redigatur ad assem So likewise the ambitious man if he see one crushed or kept down for want of means he is not so much affected with his Case as seekes to prevent if it were possible all possibilitie of the like in himself and so seeking hales all to himself never considering by whose wants his increase of honor shall arise If unto these you oppose one that relies upon Gods providence and seekes to content himself with what is present rather then to intertain great hopes for the future or one that thinks not how much better estate then he many others have but thanks God it is so well with him and knows it may be worse his mind is easily moved to a fellow-feeling of others calamitie because it is not fastened to contrarie hopes but stands rather in suspense and more inclinable to expect a meaner then to hope for a better estate 3. The best Method therefore for right practizing of This Rule will be To keep our souls as clear as the apple of our eye to view all estates but not to be dazelled with the glorie of any To Frame our hearts so as they may take impression from any other mans estate good or bad but not to suffer the desire of any to incorporate in them For as when the colour of any object is inherent in the sight it hinders the impression of all others so the desire of any sensible Good if it be incorporate in our hearts will hinder us in the Estimate of far better and make us unapt to Sympathize with our Brethren I may do all things saith St. Paul but I will not be brought under the power of any thing that is he would so love all sensible good as upon occasion to be content to hate it he would not fasten his desires upon it for so it should command him not he use it He knew to use the world as if he used it not he knew how to abound and how to want The former Resolution was the Root of those branches of this Dutie who is weak and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not His preserving himself free was that w ch made him as apt to take the impressions of others affections as the eye is to take the shapes of visibles Hence was it that he could become all unto all being not in subjection to any thing Et mihi res non me rebus submittere Conor But we who have not attained to this libertie of mind nor can altogether cast off this yoke of servitude but have our souls as it were overcharged with many unnecessarie delights and worldly desires had so much the more need of counterpoizes to bring them back to their Aequilibrium to such a state of Indifferencie as may easily be inclined to compassion 4. There is no man I think of riper years but hath tasted afflictions at one time or other of divers kindes and hath been acquainted with comforts of as many The true Character of both should be throughly imprinted in our minds whilst they are fresh and dayly renewed by meditation or proposal of the same or like If we could truly take and so retain the true measure and estimate either of our grief in calamitie or comfort upon Release These would serve us as so many Keyes or tunes of songs gotten by heart so as we should no sooner hear another sound the like Note but presently we should consort with him and if his case were mournful we should ease him by participation of his sorrow seek remedy for it as if it were our own He that never had experience of calamitie his miserie is the greater and he should do well to make it the less by going to the House of mourning Meditation will work whatsoever Experience doth Gutta cavat Lapidem c. Others tears would we be much conversant among the mourners would pierce at length even hearts of stone The Former method was that which the Lord himself so oft inculcates to the Israelites Remember that ye were strangers c. He expected that the remembrance hereof should make them like affected to strangers and apt to mourn with them as they had done for themselves and to afford strangers such comforts as he had afforded them This Precept was five or six times at the least repeated to them And not only they that had lived in a strange Land the Land of Aegypt but their posterity were bound to celebrate for ever the memorial
outwardly and for fashion sake unless it be to persons of their own Rank whose evils and calamities they can apprehend as their own Secondly which is the worst of evils that can be imagined whilst they perform some Branches of the Affirmative Precept that is whilst they seek to pleasure others in their eagre desires of preferment or such things wherein they would be pleasured again they bring a necessity upon themselves of transgressing the Negative part of this Precept that is Of doing that to others which they would not have done unto themselves if they were in their Case I am perswaded That the miseries which fall upon the inferior sorts of men by the mutual desires of great men to do one to another as they would be done unto that is by pleasuring one another in their suites of honour preferment or inlarging their estates are more then all that God doth otherwise lay upon them in this life Many thousands whom God never cursed are by these meanes forced to seek their bread in stony places And is it possible that any man can perswade himself that if he were in such poor mens Cases he should be well pleased with their dealings who seek to enlarge their superfluities by the certain diminishing of other mens necessaries for life And yet who is he almost that thinks he doth not observe this Precept well enough if he be willing to do another man as good a Turn as he expects from him although he know not to whose harm it may redound If no determinate person for the present feel the smart they think Conscience hath no cause to cry As if God Almighty did not see as well what evil will hereafter insue as what is present and did not punish immoderate desires which necessarily bring on with them publick Calamities as well as outragious but private Facts 7. With this Fallacie A Dicto secundum quid ad Simpliciter we usually deceive our selves in the performance of this Dutie We think it sufficient to do as we have been done unto or if we do to some one or few as we expect from them or as we could desire to be done unto if their Case were ours Whereas we should examin it not from our affection to This or That man but by our Indifferencie of receiving and Returning good towards All. Oft-times to do one man good may be conjoyned with some others harm whom we have more reason to respect And here we may quickly mistake in the proposal of their Exigence as our own If you fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture which saith Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self ye do well saith St. James Chap. 2. 4. But if ye regard persons ye commit sin and are rebuked of the Law as Transgressors The Apostles Discourse in that place inferres as much as I have said And his meaning is that which our Saviour had taught in the Parable of the Samaritan That every man as man is our neighbor and therefore this Dutie of loving others as our selves and doing as we would be done unto was to be performed to all alike without respect of persons For that which we are to respect is the Exigence of their estate So much is Formally and Essentially included in the Dutie it self Not that we may not be more ready to do good to one man then to another for this we may do without respect of Persons Do good to all but especially to such as are of the Houshold of Faith The Object of this Dutie is man as man in his lawful desires Our love then or readiness of doing good must be increased according to the just exigencies of their desires where These are equal our desire of doing good may be augmented according to particular respects of nearness c. as To a Christian before a Turk to an English man before another For if we must love others as our selves we must be most ready to respect that in others which we in a Regular Way desire should be most respected in our selves Now next to eternal happiness life and the necessities thereof we most respect And if we stand in danger of losing the one or suffer want of the other we desire that those main Chances as we say may be secured before we begin to hunt after pleasures or superfluities If then we must Do to all men as we would be done unto without respect of persons that is excluding none we must first releive the necessities of such as want and tender the life of such as are in sickness or danger and then if occasion require we may require or deserve kindnesses in matters of innocuous pleasure as in feasting sporting furthering mens advancements or the like Otherwise to respect the pleasuring of a Dear Friend in these before the Releif of an Enemies necessities is preposterous and a breach of the Law Because it is to have respect of persons 8. The Rule is General in all Christian duties Our affections must be directed to the Adaequate Object as we term it and set not more upon one part then another but upon every essential part alike Or if any increase of affection or liking be to be made it should alwayes proceed from the increase of some Exigence essentialy included in the right Motive or Ground of our affection or from some Actual Intention of that Qualitie or Propertie in some part of the Object which is the Modus Considerandi or which is the allurement or Term of our desires or affections Otherwise setting our affections more upon one part than upon another for some Extrinsecal or Accidental Reasons not included as we say in modo Considerandi in the Formal Reason or property of the Object the observing of our duty in that part doth usually inforce a Defalcation or breach of it in some other just as uneven and irregular zeal to one or some few Commandments doth alwayes produce a dispensing with or neglect of the rest Ense Thyestaeo poenas exegit Orestes Orestes in seeking to Revenge his Fathers unnatural violent Death did no otherwise then he himself would have given the Son of his Body in charge if he had lyen upon his Death-bed But yet he ought this honour to his cruel and adulterous Mother to have let her die at least by some others Hands not to have imbrued his own in her blood not to have taken life from that body from which he received life The Poets Censure of his Fact is accute Mixtum cum pietate nefas dubitandaque Caedis Gloria maternae laudem cum crimine pensat A righteous man saith Solomon is merciful to his beast but the mercies of the wicked are cruel Pity upon dumb beasts is commanded in the Law especially to such as do man service And he that is merciful unto them upon a true respect in as much as they are partakers with us of Life and sense and communicate with us in our more general nature will be
of better Note then is fitting for us to censure nominatim have been induced to mistake such necessary performances as are not usually undertaken without precedent consultation of mens own hearts for matter of Counsel not of Precept 7. Subordinate to those general Precepts Do as ye would be done unto Let every man walk as he is called are these disjunctive Precepts of the Apostle Rom. 12. 15. Rejoyce with them that rejoyce and weep with them that weep Both these precepts are necessarie both most necessary in their time and place neither necessary at all times and in all places for they are incompatible Hence saith Solomon Eccles 3. 4. There is a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance So then weeping and laughing mourning and dancing are both in their several turns or seasons expedient but weeping and mourning most suitable to the occasions of most times and more expedient for most persons For it is better to go into the house of mourning then into the house of Mirth Men seldom mourn without just occasions and few men but often have just occasions to mourn But many laugh when they have just cause to lament And to consort with such in this their follie were extream impietie especially in such as Ieremy and Baruch were in all that are Overseers or Watchmen over Gods flock This made the Prophet Jeremy Chap. 9. 1. to wish O that mine head were full of water and mine eyes fountains of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people Thus wished Ieremy even whilst Jerusalem went mad in mirth and Jollity whilst her children were bold and audacious to hold on more then an ordinary Pace in their wonted courses from evil to worse because they were blind and ignorant and would not see the day of their visitation drawing on To men therefore endued with reason more especially to Christian men amongst them most especially to the Preacher and Pastor who have Christ Jesus and the Prophets for their pattern the Precept is all one To mourn with them that mourn and to mourn for them whose Case is mournful Though haply not so apprehended by them such as Jerusalems Case was when our Saviour beheld it and wept saying O that thou hadst known at the least in this thy day those things which belong unto thy peace but now are they hid from thine eyes c. Luke the 19. 42. As also at this time when this message came to Baruch 8. So natural is this precept of the Apostle weep with them that weep that even bruit beasts to whom God hath given neither speech nor Language nor understanding to perceive the words of the wise or the exhortation of the eloquent are yet so intelligent so apprehensive of the vocal signes or significations of grief uttered from others of their own kind that they may well seem to bear the Emblem of St. Pauls Practise ingraven in their nature Who is weak saith the blessed Apostle 2 Corinth 2. 29. and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not For what beast of the field shall groan and others of the same kind are not upon the hearing like affected which of them panteth for pain or want of breath and others at this spectacle stand not amazed either bereft of all motion or else tortured with like He that Created all things in number weight and due proportion hath mutually framed their hearts to others groanes and sighes as a stringed instrument to a voice Unison So doubtless were our hearts set in our first Creation All in just proportion to their maker our voices were consonant to his word our affections conformable to his will all Unisons amongst themselves Untill the Rector of this Quire that should have taken up this everlasting song did strain too high polluting our nature and corrupting our instruments of breath ordained only to have sounded out praises to our God by eating of that poisonous apple Since which time the best of our voices have been harsh and unpleasant in their makers ears And besides the harshness of every one in particular we have alwayes sung out of tune perpetually Jarring among our selves whilst one hath sung another cryed whilst one mourns another pipes or dances for Joy Yet doth the mutual bond of our affections remain still greater then any bond amongst beasts we have this consort set out unto us in Gods written word Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye unto them for this is the effect of Gods Law each part of which we are bound to obey This is the sum of the Prophets writings each period whereof we are bound to believe What musick can be more pleasant to a pensive heart then to have others bear a full consort with him in grief Herein then we do not only omit A Precept of Christ but directly violate Gods eternal Law yea the very Prime Fundamental Law of nature in that we do not Sympathize with others in such sort as we desire they should do with us in like distresse in that we minister not comfort to others with as great alacritie and delight as we desire to receive it from them Nature teacheth and Gods Law commands to mourn with them that mourn and the Necessitie of such as mourn and the true unpartial estimate of our own desires of comfort in like Case will give us the exact measure of our mourning Our mourning is then truly harmonical when it is for the Qualitie sincere and for the Quantitie rightly proportiond unto the present necessitie of times places or persons And on the contrary then we walk as the Scripture speaks with a heart and a heart and use a deceitful ballance when our hearts are open to receive comfort or benefit from others and shut or straitned to return the like or when we receive any of these from God or man with our whole heart and either repay to the same parties from whom we had them or distribute them to others with a faint or fained heart without such delight or joy in doing them good as we take in having good done unto us This Eternal Rule of Equitie was Transcendent unto that particular strict Command so often inculcated to the Israelites when they came into the good Land of Promise viz. Not to forget the stranger that lived amongst them The positive precept aimed at through this negative as the End or scope was the Cheerful relief of the poor stranger and the immediate Means unto this End was alway to remember that they themselves had been strangers in the Land of Egypt Now to remember that they themselves had been strangers is in the language of the holy Spirit still to retain the perfect estimate of their former grief whilst they were strangers to be able continually to sound the depth of their own misery that it might serve as a Key to tune their hearts
in just and full consort to the miserable They did then truely remember the strangers that were within their gates when they sorrowed in the same manner for them as they had done for themselves when the delight and joy that they had taken in their own deliverance from servitude and thraldom was made the measure of their delight and joy in freeing others from the yoke of servitude in relieving the poor distressed stranger that sojourned with them True compassion is but a fellow feeling of others miseries And then only are we truly compassionate when their miseries are made ours when as the Apostle saith we are weakened at their weakness and burn at their offence or grievance Once thus affected in easing them we ease our selves their comfort becomes our comfort whence ariseth our cheerfulness and sinceritie in doing good for now we do unto them as we desire they should do unto us Yea even as we would do unto our selves seeing the only way to case our selves of this present grief which is by Sympathie in us is by curing the Protopathie in them This is equitie and righteousness in the sight of God when we afford comfort unto others according to the same measure we our selves would receive it from others or when we distribute Gods benefits with the like Joy to our fellow servants as we receive them from him Delight in receiving and delight in doing good ought to be so fully reciprocal in nature and quantitie that they should differ but as via Thebis Athenas and Athenis Thebas or as two times three and three times two This is as the wise man speaks truly to keep the heart when we keep it still in this Aequilibrio not more inclined to accept then to afford a blessing not more prone to rejoyce at our own good then to sorrow at others harms Not more apt to be elevated with our own promotion then to be depressed by others undeserved dejection or discomfort And albeit we were able to frame the whole course of our lives fully parallel to this streight Rule yet should we still remain unprofitable servants and altogether unable to supererogate All actual or purposed swerving whether directly or indirectly from this Level is a declining to hypocrisie He that cannot contract his ordinary libertie in the use of things pleasant or profitable for this life according to the Exigence or Aboading of the instant season or doth not labour so to frame and settle the habitual bent of his affections as they may be alike free and apt to be moved with sad occurences as with occasions of joy such a man may happily often joy in his courses but his rejoycing cannot be in the Lord his laughter is madness his choicest recreation folly dissimulation harboureth in his heart mischief is companion of his thoughts the issue of his untimely mirth is grief and sorrow everlasting 9. But here I know it will be replied that this constitution of mind is in these latter times more rare then absolute Complexion in mens bodies or mixture ad pondus in bodies natural The Replication perhaps is true but true especially for this reason that every man seeks great things greater then Baruch here did for himself And hearts stretched by desires unseasonably superfluous or exorbitant to an higher strain then is fitting can hold no consort with their humbled brethrens affections They can neither be brought to any true Consonancie with the times wherein they live nor with their own Callings Howbeit we require not such an exact or absolute temper of mans heart as our Creator framed in our first Parents That was the Patern by which we must direct our practise If our intention to imitate this patern be sincere And our indeavors to accomplish our intentions industrious and entire whatsoever is wanting to our abilitie The super-excellencie of Christs righteousness and merits far exceeding our first Parents worth shall abundantly supplie in us which were first the natural Sons of Adam then degenerate Sons of the living God now regenerate by Grace and adopted Sons in Christ But the experience of others temper in former times though Adams Children as now we are or once were bewrayes the Complexion of our Age to be deeply tainted with hypocrisie For this I have found and every one may find without curious search that the very sight remembrance or rehearsal of others miseries united by the bond of Common dutie hath brought the minds of such as have bent their ears to natures discipline or been well instructed in Civilitie unto a perfect sympathie with as great facilitie as men tune their voices to others pleasant songs or fashion their bodily motions to others musick Apathie or want of Fellow-feeling to speak indifferently is no natural propertie of the meer natural or unregenerate man but rather a symptom of a gracelesse mind obdurate with self-pleasing humors and desires Of hearts truly mollified with a mutual touch though but of moral or civil Love one takes the impression of anothers woe or grief as easily as softened wax does the seal Thus the fresh memory of the Camp the consideration of the Ark of God and Israels and Joabs lying abroad in the fields makes honest Uriah joyned with them in the common link of military life though far dis-joyned in place abjure with double oath the solace of his lawful bed Thus the remembrance of our Saviours humiliation in Ierusalem makes that Noble Duke of Bulloign many hundred years after refuse to wear a golden Crown in that City though but the lawful Guerdon of his Heroick worth an honour well befitting his person but not the place wherein his Lord Redeemer under whose banner he fought had been annointed King with his own blood shed by the impression of a Crown of Thorns Are the true paterns of those practises extant only in the book of Grace Or are the practises recorded only in sacred Story or of Christians or sacred Persons only Or have not Heathen Poets which knew no Law besides the Lawes of Nature and their Rules of Art exactly painted the like paterns Have not heathen Histories whose veracity is no way liable to just suspition related the like real practises of Heathen persons Non haec apta mihi nitidis ornatibus inquit Tempora nec miserae placeant insignia formae Thebaidos Libro 4. It is the Poetical Character or speech of the Noble Princess uttered rather out of fear then certain foresight of the mishap that might befal her Husbâ—d now setting forth unto the Thebane war in hope to recover his supposed right As the Reason of her refusing Harmonia's Chain that was the insignia or ornament offered her by way of gratification for gracing or furthering the present consultation of warre was much what the same with Duke Godfreys refusal of the Golden Crown So the Manner of her abjuring it was not unlike Uriah's Oath Scilicet heu superi cum tu cludare minaci Casside
Reformation and Refining was that they made The Church which in their Language was the bodie of the Clergie A body Politick or kingdom distinct from the body of the Layetie holding even Christian Kings and Emperours to be Magistrates meerly Temporal or civil altogether excluded from medling in affairs Ecclesiastick Now this being granted the Supream Majestie of every kingdom State or nation should be wholly seated in the Clergie The greatest Kings and Christian Monarchs on earth should be but meer vassals to the Ecclesiastick Hierarchie or at the most in such subordination to it as Forraign Generals and Commanders in chief are to the States or Soveraignties which imploy them who may displace them at their pleasure whensoever they shall transgresse or not execute their instructions or Commissions For this reason as in the handling of the first verses of the 13. Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans hath been declared unto you before All the disputes or Lawes concerning the Supremacie of Kings or Free States within their own Dominions were to no purpose unlesse this Root of mischief and Rebellion be taken away which makes the Clergie a body politick or Common-weal Ecclesiastick altogether distinct from the Layetie-Christian Now this erroneous Root of mischief hath been well removed by the Articles of Religion established in this Church and Land Article the 37. wherein The same authoritie and power is expresly given to the Kings of this Realm and their successors which was in use and practise amongst the Kings of Judah and the Christian Emperors when kingdoms and Common-weales did first become Christian The Law of God and of nature will not suffer the Soveraign Power in Causes Ecclesiastick to be divorced from the Supream Majestie of any Kingdom or free Soveraigntie truely Christian But what be the contrary Errors into which such as take upon them to be Reformers of the Reformation already made have run headlong Or how do they the same things wherein they judge the Romanists The Romanists as they well observe deserve condemnation by all Christian States for appropriating the Name or Soveraign Dignitie of the Church unto the Clergie and by making the Prerogative of Priests and Prelates to be above the Prerogatives of Kings and Princes The Contrary faction of Reformers not content to deprive the Clergie of those civil Immunities and priviledges wherewith the Law of God the Law of Nations and the Fundamental Law of this Kingdom have endowed them will have them to be no true members of the Common-weale or Kingdom wherein they live Or at the best but such Inferior members of the Common-weale as the Papists make the Layetie to be of the Church men that shall have no voice in making those Coercive Lawes by which they are to be governed and to govern their flocks yea men that shall not have necessary voyces in determining controversies of Religion or in making Rules and Canons for preventing Schisme I should have been afraid to beleeve thus much of any sober man professing Christianitie unlesse I had seen A book to this purpose perused as is pretended in the Frontispice by the Learned in the Laws But the Author hath wisely concealed his own name and the names of those learned in the Lawes which are in grosâ—â— pretended for its Approbation And therefore I shall avoid suspition of ayming at any particular out of mis-affection to his person in passing this general Censure No man could have had the heart to write it no man the face to read it without blushing or indignation but he that was altogether unlearned and notoriously ignorant in the Law of God in the Law of nature and in the Fundamental points of Christianitie 6. All Errors in this kind proceed from these Originals First The Authors of them Charitie may hope by Incogitancie or want of consideration rather than out of Malice seek to subject the Clergie unto the same Rule unto which the Church was subject for the first 300. years after Christ during which time the Kings and Emperours under which the Christians lived were Heathens And whilst the chief Governours were such no Christians could exercise Coercive Authoritie as to Fine imprison or banish any that did transgresse the Lawes of God or of the Church The Apostles themselves could use no other manner of punishment besides delivering up to Satan Excommunication or inhibition from hearing the word or receiving the Sacraments Secondly the Authors of the former Errors consider not That whilest the Church was in this subjection to meer Civil and not Christian Power the Lay-Christians of what rank soever though noble men by birth were as straightly confined and kept under as were the Clergie Yea the Clergie in those times had greater authoritie over Lay-Christians then any other men had Authority much greater over the greatest then any besides the Romish Prelates do this day challenge over the meanest of their flocks But after Kings and Emperors and other supream Magistrates were once converted to the Christian Faith their dignities were no whit abated but gained this Addition to their former Titles that they were held supream Magistrates in Causes Ecclesiastick That is they had power of calling Councils and Synods for quelling Schisms and Heresies in the Church power likewise to punish the Transgressors of such Laws or Canons as had been made by former Godly Bishops or Prelates which lived under Heathen States or of such as the Bishops or Clergy which lived under their Government should make for the better Government of Christs Church Unto punishments meerly spiritual which the Apostles and Bishops had formerly only used Christian Emperors added punishments temporal as imprisonment of body loss of goods exile or death according to the nature and qualitie of the transgression But that any Laws or Canons were made by Christian Kings or Emperors for the Government of the Church or that any Controversies in Religion were determined without the Express Suffrages and Consents of Bishops and Pastors though all wayes ratified by the Soveraigntie of the Nation or State for whom such Canons were made no man until these dayes wherein we live did ever question 7. And of such as question or oppose Episcopal Authoritie in these Cases I must say as once before out of this place in like case I did If Heathen they be in heart and would perswade the Layetie again to become Heathens their Resolutions are Christian at least their conclusions are such as a good Christian living under Heathens would admit But if Christians they be in heart and profession their Conclusions are heathenish or worse For what Heathen did ever deny their Priests the chief stroke or sway in making Lawes or ordinances concerning the Rites or service of their Gods or in determining Points Controverted in Religion To conclude this Point The men that seek to be most contrary to the Romish Church and are most forward to judge her for enlarging the Prerogative of Priesthood beyond its ancient