good Nor is he most beloved of God who hath rolled over the greatest number of good thoughts in his mind or of good words in his mouth no nor he that hath stirred up the strongest passions hereabouts but he that Loveth God and Heaven best and hateth sin most and whose will is most confirmed for Holiness of life He that goeth about his labour in obedience to God may have as much comfort as another that is meditating or praying But neither labour nor prayer is matter of comfort to an ungodly carnal heart Yea if decay of memory or natural ability take you off both Action and Conâ—â—mplation you may have as much acceptance and solid comfort in a patient bearing of the Cross and an obedient ☜ cheerful submission to the holy Will of God Tit. 5. Directions to the Melancholy about their Thoughts IT is so easie and ordinary a thing for some weak-headed persons to cast themselves into Melancholy Read more after Paâ—t 3. against Despair by over-straining either their Thoughts or their Affections and the case of such is so exceeding lamentable that I think it requisite to give such some particular Directions by themselves And the rather because I see some Persons that are unacquainted with the nature of this and other diseases exceedingly abuse the name of God and bring the profession of Religion into scorn by imputing all the affects and speeches of such Melancholy persons to some great and notable operations of the spirit of God and thence draw observations of the methods and workings of God upon the soul and of the nature of the legal workings of the spirit of bondage As some other such have divulged the prophecies the possessions and dispossessing of Hysterical Women as I have read especially in the Writings of the Fryars I do not call those Melancholy who are rationally sorrowful for sin and sensible of their misery and sollicitous about their recovery and salvation though it be with as great seriousness as the faculties can bear As long as they have sound Reason and the imagination fantasie or thinking faculty is not crazed or diseased But by Melancholy I mean this diseased crazynes hurt or errour of the imagination and consequently of the understanding which 〈◊〉 dicunt â—â—p entem nunquam sanitate mentis excâ—dere Incidere tamen aliquando in imaginationes absurdas propter atraebiâ—is redundantiam sive ob delâ—rationem non quidem deviatione rationis verum ex imbecilâ—itate naturae Laert. in Zâ—â—one is known by these following signes which yet are not all in every Melancholy person § 2. 1. They are commonly exceeding fearful causlesly or beyond what there is cause for every thing which they hear or see is ready to increase their fears especially if fear was the first cause as ordinarily it is 2. Their fantasie most erreth in aggravating their sin or dangers or unhappiness every ordinary infirmity they are ready to speak of with amazement as a heynous sin And every possible danger they take for probable and every probable one for certain and every little danger for a great one and every calamity for an utter undoing 3. They are still addicted to excess of sadness some weeping they know not why and some thinking it ought to be so and if they should smile or speak merrily their hearts smite them for it as if they had done amiss 4. They place most of their Religion in sorrowing and austerities to the flesh 5. They are continual self-accusers turning all into matter of accusation against themselves which they hear or read or see or think of quarrelling with themselves for every thing they do as a contentious person doth with others 6. They are still apprehending themselves forsaken of God and are prone to despair They are just like a man in a Wilderness forsaken of all his friends and comforts forlorn and desolate their continual thought is I am undone undone undone 7. They are still thinking that the day of Grace is past and that it is now too late to repent or to find mercy If you tell them of the tenour of the Gospel and offers of free pardon to every penitent believer they cry out still too late too late my day is past not considering that every soul that truly repenteth in this life is certainly forgiven 8. They are oft tempted to gather despairing thoughts from the doctrine of Predestination and to think that if God have reprobated them or have not elected them all that they can do or that all the world can do cannot saâ—e them and next they strongly conceit that they are not elected and so that they are past help or hope not knowing that God electeth not any man separatedly or simply to be saved but conjunctly to believe repent and to be saved and so to the end and means together and that all that will repent and choose Christ and a holy life are elected to salvation because they are elected to the means and condition of salvation which if they persevere they shall enjoy To Repent is the best way to prove that I am elected to Repent 9. They never read or hear of any miserable instance but they are thinking that this is their case If they hear of Cain of Pharaoh given up to hardness of heart or do but read that some are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction or that they have eyes and see not ears and hear not hearts and understand not they think This is all spoken of me or this is just my case If they hear of any terrible example of Gods judgements on any they think it will be so with them If any dye suddenly or a house be burnt or any be distracted or dye in despair they think it will be so with them The reading of Spira's case causeth or increaseth Melancholy in many the ignorant Author having described a plain Melancholy contracted by the trouble of sinning against Conscience as if it were a damnable despair of a sound understanding 10. And yet they think that never any one was as they are I have had abundance in a few weeks with me almost just in the same case and yet every one say that never any one was as they 11. They are utterly unable to Rejoyce in any thing They cannot apprehend believe or think of any thing that is comfortable to them They read all the threatnings of the word with quick sense and application but the Promises they read over and over without taking notice of them as if they had not read them or else say They do not belong to me The greater the mercy of God is and the riches of grace the more miserable am I that have no part in them They are like a man in continual pain or sickness that cannot rejoyce because the feeling of his pain forbiddeth him They look on husband wife friends children house goods and all without any comfort as one would do that is going to be executed for some
we are here on earth They were compassed with temptations and clog'd with flesh and burdened with sin and persecuted by the world and they went out of the world by sickness and death as we must do and yet now their tears are wiped away their pains and groans and sears are turned into unexpressible blessedness and joy And would we not be with them Is not their company desirable and their felicity more desirable The glory of the new Ierusalem is not described to us in vain Rev. 21. 22. God will be all in all there to us as the only sun and Glory of that world and yet we shall have pleasure not only to see our Glorified Redeemer but also to converse with the Heavenly society and to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of God and to Love and Praise him in consort and harmony with all those holy blessed spirits And shall we be afraid to follow where the Saints of all Generations have gone before us And shall the company of our best and most and happiest friends be no inducement to us Though it must be our highest joy to think that we shall dwell with God and next that we shall see the Glory of Christ yet is it no small part of my comfort to consider that I shall follow all those holy persons whom I once conversed with that are gone before me and that I shall dwell with such as Henoch and Elias and Abraham and Moses and Iob and David and Peter and Iohn â—nd Paul and Timothy and Ignatius and Polycarpe and Cyprian and Reader bear with this mixture For God will own his image when piâ—vish contenders do deny it or blaspheam it and will receive those whom faction and proud domination would cast ouâ— and vilifie with scorn and slanders Naziaâ—zene and Augustine and Chrysostome and Bernard and Gerson and Savonarola and Miraâ—dula and Taulerus and Kempisius and Melancthon and Alasco and Calvin and Bucholâ—zer and Bullinger and Musculus and Zanchy and Bâ—cer and Paraeus and Grynaeus and Chemnitius and Gerhard and Chamier and Capellus and Blondel and Rivet and Rogers and Bradford and Hooper and Latimer and Hildersham and Amâ—sius and Langley and Nicolls and Whitaker and Cartwright and Hooker and Bayne and Preston and Sibbes and Perkins and Dod and Parker and Ball and Usher and Hall and Gataker and Bradshaw and Vines and Ash and millions more of the family of God I name these for my own delight and comfort it being pleasant to me to remember what companions I shall have in the heavenly joyes and praises of my Lord. How few are all the Saints on earth in comparison of those that are now with Christ And alas how weak and ignorant and corrupt how selfish and contentious and froward are Gods poor infants here in flesh when above there is nothing but Holiness and Perfection If Knowledge or Goodness or any excellency do make the creatures truly amiable all this is there in the highest degree but here alas how little have we If the Love of God or the Love of us do make others Lovely to us it is there and not here that these and all perfections flourish O how much now do I find the company of the wise and learned the godly and sincere to differ from the company of the ignorant bruitish the proud and malitious the false-hearted and ungodly rabble How sweet is the converse of a holy wise experienced Christian O then what a place is the new Ierusalem and how pleasant will it be with Saints and Angels to See and Love and Praise the Lord. § 8. Direct 8. That sickness and death may be comfortable to you as your passage to Eternity Direct 8. take notice of the seal and earnest of God even the spirit of grace which he hath put into your hearts That which emboldened Paul and such others to groan after immortality and to be most willing to be absent from the body and present with the Lord was because God himself had wrought or made them for it and given them the earnest or pledge of his spirit 2 Cor. 5. 4 5 8. For this is Gods mark upon his chosen and justified ones by which they are sealed up to the day of their redemption Ephes. 4. 30. Ephes. 1. 13. In whom also after ye believed ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise 2 Cor. 1. 21 22. God hath annointed us and sealed us and given us the pledge or earnest of his spirit into our hearts This is the pledge or earnest of our inheritance Ephes. 1. 14. And what a comfort should it be to us when we look towards Heaven to find such a pledge of God within us If you say I fear I have not this earnest of the spirit Whence then did your desires of holiness arise what weaned you from the world and made you place your hopes and happiness above whence came your enmity to sin and opposition to it and your earnest desires after the Glory of God the prosperity of the Gospel and the good of souls The very Love of Holiness and holy persons and your desires to know God and perfectly Love him do shew that heavenly nature or spirit within you which is your surest evidence for eternal life For that spirit was sent from heaven to draw up your hearts and fit you for it And God doth not give you such natures and desires and preparations in vain This also is called The witness of the spirit with or to our spirit that we are the children of God and if Children then heirs heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Rom. 8. 15 16 17. It witnesseth our adoption by evidencing it as a seal or pledge doth witness our title to that which is so confirmed to us The nature of every thing is suited to its use and end God would not have given us a heavenly nature or desire if he had not intended us for Heaven § 9. Direct 9. Look also to the testimony of a holy life since grace hath imployed you in seeking after Direct 9. the heavenly inheritance It is unlawful and perillous to look after any works or righteousness of So Hezektah your own so as to set it in whole or in part instead of Christ or to ascribe to it any honour that is proper to him As to imagine that you are innocent or have fulfilled the Law or have made God a compensation by your merits or sufferings for the sin you have committed But yet you must judge your selves on your sick beds as near as you can as God will judge you And he will judge every man according to his work and will recompense and reward men according to their works Matth. 25 39 40 c. Well done good and faithful servant Thou hast been faithful over a little I will make thee ruler over much Come ye blessed of my father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you for I was hungry
Orbs besides what Scripture saith even reason will strongly perswade any rational man 1. When we consider that Sea and Land and Air and all places of this lower baser part of the world are replenished with inhabitants suitable to their natures And therefore that the incomparably more great and excellent Orbs and Regions should all be uninhabited is irrational to imagine 2. And as we see the Rational Creatures are made to govern the Brutes in this inferiour world so reason telleth us it is improbable that the higher Reason of the inhabitants of the higher Regions should have no hand in the government of man And yet God hath further condescended to satisfie us herein by some unquestionable apparitions of good Angels and many more of evil spirits which puâ—s the matter past all doubt that there are inhabitants of the unseen world And when we know that such there are it maketh it the more easie to us to believe that such we may be either numbered with the happy or unhappy Spirits considering the affinity which there is between the nature of our souls and them To conquer senseless Saducism is a good step to the conquest of irreligiousness He that is well perswaded that there are Angels and Spirits is much better prepared than a Sadducee to bâ—lieve the immortality of the soul And because the infinite distance between God and man is apt to make the thoughts of our approaching his Glory either dubious or very terrible the remembrance of those myriads of blessed Spirits that dwell now in the presence of that glory doth much embolden and confirm our thoughts As he that would be afraid whether he should have access to and acceptance with the King would be much encouraged if he saw a multituâ—e as mean as himself or not much unlike him to be familiar attendants on him I must confess such is my own weakness that I find a frequent need of remembring the holy Hosts of Saints and Angels that are with God to embolden my soul and make the thoughts of Heaven more familiar and sweet by abating my strangeness â—mazedness and fears And thus far to make them the Media that I say not the Mediators of my thoughts in their approaches to the Most High and Holy God Though the remembrance of Christ the true Mediator is my chief encouragement Especially when we consider how servently those holy Spirits do love every holy person upon earth and so that all those that dwell with God are dearer friends to us than our Fathers or Mothers here on earth are as is briefly proved before this will embolden us yet much more § 18. Direct 5. Make use of the thoughts of the Angelical Hosts when you would see the Glory and Direct 5. Majesty of Christ If you think it a small matter that he is the Head of the Church on earth a handful of people contemned by the Satanical party of the world yet think what it is to be Head over all things far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come that is Gave him a power dignity and name greater than any power dignity or name of men or Angels and hath put all things under his feet Ephes. 1. 21 22 23. Being made so much better than the Angels as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they Of him it is said Let all the Angels of God worship him Heb. 1. 4 6. Read the whole Chapter Our Head is the Lord of all these Hosts § 19. Direct 6. Make use of the remembrance of the glorious Angels to acquaint you with the dignity Direct 6. of humane nature and the special dignity of the servants of God and so to raise up your hearts in Magna dignitas fidelium animarum ut unaquaeque habeat ab ortu nativitatis in custodiam sui Angelum depuâ—atum imo plures Hitro Luke 20. 36. thankfulness to your Creator and Redeemer who hath thus advanced you 1. What a dignity is it that thâ—se holy Angels should be all Ministring Spirits sâ—nt for our good that they should love us and concern themselves so much for us as to rejoyce in Heaven at our conversion Lord What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him For thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour Psal. 8. 4. 5. 2. But yet it is a higher declaration of our dignity that we should in Heaven be equal with them and so be numbered iâ—to their society and joyn with them everlastingly in the praise of our Creator 3. And it is yet a greater honour to us that our Natures are assumed into union of person with the Son of God and sâ— advanced above the Angels For he took not on him the nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham Nâ—r hath he put the world to come in subjection to the Angels Heb. 2. 5 16. This is the Lords doing and it is wonderous in our eyes § 20. Direct 7. When you would admire the works of God and his government look specially to the Direct 7. Angels part If God would be glorified in his works then especially in the most glorious parts If he take delight to work by Instruments and to communicate such excellency and honour to them as may conduce to the honour of the principal cause we must not overlook their excellency and honour unless we will deny God the honour which is due to him As he that will see the excellent workmanship of a Watch or any other Engine must not overlook the chiefest parts nor their operation on the rest So he that will see the excellent order of the works and Government of God must not over-look the Angels nor their Offices in the Government and preservation of the inferiour creatures so far as God hath revealed it unto us We spoil the Musick if we leave out these strings It is a great part of the glory of the works of God that all the parts in Heaven and Earth are so admirably conjoyned and joynted as they are and each in their places contribute to the beauty and harmony of the whole § 21. Direct 8. When you would be apprehensive of the excellency of Love and Humility and exact Direct 8. obedience tâ— the will of God look up to the Angels and see the lustre of all these vertues as they shine Heb. 1. 14. Psal. 103. 20 21 in them How perfectly do they Love God and all his Saints Even the weakest and meanest of the members of Christ With what humility do they condescend to minister for the heirs of salvation How readily and perfectly do they obey their Maker Though our chiefest pattern is Christ himself who came nearer to us and appeared in flesh to give us the example of all such duties yet under him the
if they could procure it but yet consent to receive that Protection and Iustice which is their own due from the possessour and consent to his Relation only thus far this is a Kingdom truly but more defective or maimed than the first 4. But if the people do not so much as Receive him nor submit to his Administrations he is but a Conquerour and not a King and it is in respect to him no Kingdom though in respect to some other that hath title and consent without actual possession of the Administration it may be a Kingdom And this is the true and plain solution of this question which want of distinction doth obscure Quest. 8. Whether sincere faith and Godliness be necessary to the Being of the Ministry And whether it be lawful to hear a wicked man or take the Sacrament from him or take him for a Minister THis question receiveth the very same solution with the last foregoing and therefore I need not say much more to it I. The first part is too oft resolved mistakingly on both extreams Some absolutely saying that Godliness or Faith is not necessary to the Being of the Ministry And some that it is necessary Whereas the true solution is as aforesaid Sincere faith and Godliness is necessary to make a man a Minister so far as that God will own and justifie him as sent by himself as to his own Duty and Benefit For he cannot be Internally and Heartily a Christian Pastor that is no Christian nor a Minister of God who is not Godly that is â—s not truly Resigned to God obeyeth him not and Loveth him not as God But yet the Reality of these are not necessary to make him a Visible Pastor as to the Peoples Duty and Benefit 2. But the Profession of true Faith and Godliness is necessary so far as that without it the people ought not to take him for a Visible Minister as the profession of Christianity is to a visible Christian 3. And in their choice they ought to prefer him caeteris paribus whose profession is most credible Obj. That which maketh a Minister is Gifts and a Calling which are distinct from Grace and real Christianity Answ. Every Minister is a Christian though every Christian be not a Minister or Pastor Therefore he that is a Visible Pastor must Visibly or in Profession have both Obj. But a man may be a Christian without saving Grace or Godliness Answ. As much as he may be Godly without Godliness That is he may be Visibly a Christian and Godly without sincere faith or Godliness but not without the profession of both It is not possible that the profession of Christianity in the Essentials can be without the profession of Godliness For it includeth it II. To the other question I answer 1. A man that Professeth Infidelity or Impiety yea that Professeth not faith and Godliness is not to be taken for a Minister or heard as such 2. Every one that professeth to stand to his Baptismal Covenant professeth faith and Godliness 3. He that by a vicious life or bad application of doctrine contradicteth his profession is to be lawfully accused of it and heard speak for himself and to be cast out by true Church-justice and not by the private censure of a private person 4. Till this be done though a particular private member of the Church be not bound to think that the Minister is Worthy nor that the Church which suffereth him and receiveth him doth well yet they are bound to judge him one who by the Churches reception is in possession and therefore a visible Pastor and to submit to his publick Administrations Because it is not in a private mans power but the Churches to determine who shall be the Pastor 5. But if the case be past Controversie and notorious that the man is not only scandalous and weak and dull and negligent but also either 1. Intolerably unable 2. Or an Infidel or gross Heretick 3. Or certainly ungodly a private man should admonish the Church and him and in case that they proceed in impenitency should remove himself to a better Church and Ministry And the Church it self should disown such a man and commit their souls to one that is fitter for the trust 6. And that Church or person who needlesly owneth such a Pastor or preferreth him before a fitter doth thereby harden him in his usurpation and is guilty of the hurt of the peoples souls and of his own and of the dishonour done to God Quest. 9. Whether the people are bound to Receive or Consent to an ungodly intolerable heretical Pastor yea or one far less fit and worthy than a competitor if the Magistrate command it or the Bishop impose him FOr the deciding of this take these Propositions 1. The Magistrate is authorized by God to Govern Ministers and Churches according to the orders and Laws of Christ and not against them But not to ordain or degrade nor to make Ministers or unmake them nor to deprive the Church of the Liberty settled on it by the Laws of Christ. 2. The Bishops or Ordainers are authorized by Christ to judge of the fitness of the person to the office in general and solemnly to invest him in it but not to deprive the people of their freedom and exercise of the natural care of their own salvation or of any Liberty given them by Christ. 3. The peoples Liberty in choosing or consenting to their own Pastors to whom they must commit the â—are of their souls is partly founded in nature it being they that must have the benefit or loss and no man being authorized to damn or hazard mens souls at least against their wills And partly setled by Scripture and continued in the Church above a thousand years after Christ at least in very In the time of the Arrian Emperours the Churches refused the Bishops whom the Emperours imposed on them and stuck to their own Orthodox Bishops especially at Alexandria and Caesarea after the greatest urgency for their obedience many parts of it See Blondels Full proof de jure plebis in regim Eccles. Hildebertus Caenoman alias Turonensis even in his time sheweth that though the Clergy were to lead and the people to follow yet no man was to be made a Bishop or put upon the people without their own consent Epist. 12. Bibl. Pet. To. 3. p. 179. Filesacus will direct you to more such testimonies But the thing is past Contro-sie I need not cite to the learned the commonly cited testimony of Cyprian Plebs maximam habet potestatem indignos recusandi c. And indeed in the nature of the thing it cannot be For though you may drench a mad mans body by force when you give him physick you cannot so drench mens souls nor cure them against their wills 4. Not that the Peoples consent is necessary to the general office of a Gospel Minister to Preach and Baptize but only to the appropriation or relation of a
mortal sâ—n The Cure p. 404 Part 7. Directions against sinful Dâ—eams p. 407 CHAP. IX Directions for the Government of the Tongue p. 408 Tit. 1. The General Directions The moment of it The Duties of the Tongue Thirty Tongue sins The Cure p. 408 c. Tit. 2. Directions against prophane swearing and using Gods name unreverently and in Vain p. 414 What is an Oath What is a lawful Oath How far the Swearers Intent is necessary to the being of an Oath How far swearing by Creatures is a sin Q. Is it Lawful to lâ—y the hand on the Book and kiss it in taking an Oath p. 416. Q. Is it lawful to give another such an Oath or worse When Gods name is taken in vain The greatness of the sin The Cure Tit. 3. Directions against Lying and dissembling p 421. What Truth is How far we are bound to speak truth Q. Whether to every one that asketh us Q. 2. Or to every one that I answer to Q. 3. Are we bound ever to speak the whole Truth Q. 4. Is all Lâ—gical fâ—lshood a sin that is to speak disagreeably to the Matter Q 5. Or to speak contrary to our minds Q 6. Is it a sin when we speak not a known untruth nor with a â—â—â—â—â—se to deceive Q 7. Or is this a Lye Q. 8. Must our words be ever true in the proper literal sense Q 9. Must I speak in the common sense or in the Hearers sense Q. 10. Is it lawful to deceive another by true words Q. 11. Doth Lying câ—nsâ—â—â—â— in Deceiving or in speaking falsly as to the Matter â—r in speaking contrary to our minds What a Lye is How sin is Voluntary The Intrinsecal Evil of Lying The Cure ad p. 428 Q. 1. Is often Lying a certain sign of a graceless state Where the question is again fully resolved because it is of great importance What sin is Mortal and what is Mortified Q. 2. Is it not contrary to the light of nature to suffer e. g. a Parent a King my self my Countrey rather to be destroyed than to save them by a harmless lye The case of the Midwives in Aegypt and of Rahab opened Q. 3. Is deceit by Action lawful which seemeth a Practical Lye And how shall we interpret Christs making as if he would have gone further Luk. 24. 28. and Dâ—vid's feigning himself mad and common stratagems in War and doing things purposely to deceive another Q. 4. Is it lawful to tempt a Child or Servant to Lye meerly to try them Q. 5. Is all equivocation unlawful Q. 6. Is all mental reservation unlawful Q 7. May Children Servants or Subjects in danger use words which tend to hide their faults Q. 8. May I speak that which I think is true but am nâ—t sure Q 9. May I believe or speak that of another by way of news discourse character which I hear reported by Godly credible persons or by many ad p. 430 Tit. 4. Directions against Idle talk and baâ—ling What is not Idle talk and what is The sorts of it The greatness of the sin in general and the special aggravations The Cure Who must most carefully watch against this sin p. 431 Tit. 5. Directions against filthy ribbald seurril us talk p. 437 Tit. 6. Directions against prophane deriding sâ—â—rning or opposing Godliness p. 438. What the sin is The greatness of it and â—â—â—â—tish impudence and terrible consequents The Cure CHAP. X. Directions for the Government of the Body Part 1. Direction about our Labour and Callings p. 447 Tit. 1. Directions for the right choice of our Labours or Callings Q 1. Is Labour necessary to all Q. 2. What Labour is necessary Q. 3. Will Religion excuse us from Labour Q. 4. Will Riches excuse us Q. 5. Why Labour is necessary The good of it Q. May a man have a Calling consisting of various uncertain works Q. 2. May one have divers Trades or Callings at once Directions p. 447 Tit. 2. Directions against Sloth and Idleness What it is and what not The aggravations of it The Signs of Sloth The Greatness of the sin Who should be most careful to avoid it p. 451 Tit. 3. Directions against Sloth and Laziness in things spiritual and for Zeal and Diligence The kinds of false Zeal The mischiefs of false Zeal The Signs of holy Zeal The excellency of Zeal and Diligence Motives to excite us to it Other helps p. 456 Part 2. Directions against sin in Sports and Recreations p. 460. What Lawful Recreation is Eighteen necessary qualifications of it or eighteen sorts of sinful recreation Q. Must all wicked men forbear recreations Q. What to judge of Stage-playes Gaming Cards Dice c. The evil of them opened Twelve convincing Questions to them that use or plead for such pastimes Seven more Considerations for vain and sportful Youths Further Directions in the use of Recreations Part 3. Directions about Apparel and against the sin therein committed Q. 1. May pride of Gravity and Holiness be seen in apparel Q. 2. How else it appeareth Q. 3. May not a deformity be bid by Apparel or painting Q. 4. May we follow the fashions Further Directions ad p. 465 c. TOME II. Christian Oeconomicks CHAP. I. DIrections about Marriage for Choice and Contract p 475 Whether Marriage be indifferent Who are called to marry Who may not marry Q. What if Parents command it to one that it will be a hurt to Q. What if I have a corporal necessity when yet marriage is like to be a great incommodity to my soul Of Parents prohibition Q. What if Parents forbid marriage to one that cannot live chastly without it or when affections are unconquerable Q. What if the child have promised marriage and the Parents be against it Of the sense of Numb 30. How far such promise must be kept Q. What if the Parties be actually married without Parents consent Q. May the aged marry that are frigid impotent sterile The incommodities of a married life to be considered by them that need restraint Especially to Ministers p. 482. Further Directions How to cure lustful Love Several Cases about marrying with an ungodly person Q. 1. What Rule to follow about prohibited degrees of Consanguinity Whether the Law of Moses or of Nature or the Laws of the Land or Church c. p. 486 Q. 2. What to do if the Law of the Land forbid more degrees than Moses Law p. 487 Q. 3. Of the Marriage of Cousin Germanes before band Q. 4. What such should do after they are married Q 5. What must they after do that are married in the degrees not forbidden by name Lev. 18. and yet of the same nearness and reason Q. 6. If they marry in a degree forbidden Lev. 18. may not necessity make it lawful to continue it as it made lawful the marriage of Adams Sons and Daughters Q. 7. Whether a Vow of Chastity or Celibate may be broken and in what cases p. 488 CHAP. II. Directions for the choice of 1.
lay down some previous Instructions proper to those that are but newly entred into Religion presupposing what is said in my Book of Directions to those that are yet under the work of Conversion to prevent their miscarrying by a false or superficial change Direct 1. TAke heed lest it be the Novelty or reputation of Truth and Godliness that takes with Direct 1. you more than the solid Evidence of their Excellency and Necessity lest when the Novelty and reputation are gone your Religion wither and consume away § 1. It is said of Iohn and the Jews by Christ He was a burning and a shining light and ye were willing for a season to rejoyce in his light John 5. 35. All men are affected most with things that seem new and strange to them It is not only the infirmitie of Children that are pleased with new Cloaths and new Toyes and Games but even to graver wiser persons new things are most affecting and commonness and custom dulls delight Our habitations and possessions and honours are most pleasing to us at the first And every condition of life doth most affect us at the first If nature were not much for Novelty the publishing of News-books would not have been so gainful a Trade so long unless the matter had been truer and more desirable Hence it is that Changes are so welcome to the world though they prove ordinarily to their cost No wonder then if Religion be the more acceptable when it comes with this advantage When men first hear the doctrine of Godliness and the tydings of another world by a powerful Preacher opened and set home no wonder if things of so great moment affect them for a time It is said of them that received the seed of Gods Word as into stony ground that forthwith it sprung up and they anon with joy received it Matth. 13. 5 20. but it quickly withered for want of rooting These kind of hearers can no more delight still in one Preacher or one profession or way than a Glutton in one Dish or an Adulterer in one Harlot For it is but a kind of sensual or natural pleasure that they have in the highest truths And all such delight must be fed with Novelty and variety of objects The Athenians were inquisitive after Pauls doctrine as Novelty though after they rejected it as seeming to them incredible Acts 17. 19 20 21. May we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears we would know therefore what these things mean For all the Athenians and Strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but to tell or hear some new thing § 2. To this kind of Professors the greatest Truths grow out of fashion and they grow weary of them as of dull and ordinary things They must have some New Light or new way of Religion that lately came in fashion Their souls are weary of that Manna that at first was acceptable to them as Angels food Old things seem low and New things high to them And to entertain some Novelty in Religion is to grow up to more maturity And too many such at last so far overthrive their old apparel that the old Christ and old Gospel are left behind them § 3. The Light of the Gospel is speedilier communicated than the Heat And this first part being most acceptable to them is soon received and Religion seemeth best to them at first At first they have the Light of Knowledge alone and then they have the warmth of a new and prosperous profession There must be some time for the operating of the heat before it burneth them and then they have enough and cast it away in as much haste as they took it up If Preachers would only lighten and shoot no thunderbolts even a Herod himself would hear them gladly and do many things after them But when their Herodias is medled with they cannot bear it If Preachers would speak only to mens fansies or understandings and not meddle too smartly with their Hearts and Lives and carnal interests the world would bear them and hear them as they do Stage-players or at least as Lecturers in Philosophy or Physick A Sermon that hath nothing but some general toothless notions in a handsome dress of words doth seldom procure offence or persecution It is rare that such mens preaching is distasted by carnal hearers or their persons hated for it It is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the Sun Eccles. 11. 7. But not to be scorched by its heat Christ himself at a distance as promised was greatly desired by the Jews but when he came they could not bear him his doctrine and life were so contrary to their expectations Mal. 3. 1 2 3. The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come into his Temple even the Messenger of the Covenant whom you delight in behold he shall come saith the Lord of Hosts But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appeareth for he is like a Refiners fire and like Fullers soap Many when they come first by profession to Christ do little think that he would cast them into the fire and refine them and purge away their dross and cast them anew into the mould of the Gospel Rom. 6. 17. Many will play awhile by the Light that will not endure to be melted by the fire When the Preacher cometh once to this he is harsh and intolerable and loseth all the praise which he had won before and the pleasing Novelty of Religion is over with them The Gospel is sent to make such work in the soul and life as these tender persons will not endure It must captivate every thought to Christ and kill every lust and pleasure which is against his will and put a new and heavenly life into the soul It must possess men with deep and lively apprehensions of the great things of eternity It is not wavering dull Opinions that will raise and carry on the soul to such vigorous constant victorious action as is necessary to salvation When the Gospel cometh to the Heart to do this great prevailing work then these men are impatient of the search and smart and presently have done with it They are like Children that love the Book for the gilding and sineness of the Cover and take it up as soon as any but it is to play with and not to learn They are weary of it when it comes to that At first many come to Christ with wonder and will needs be his servants for something in it that seemeth fine till they hear that the Son of Man hath not the accommodation of the Birds or Foxes and that his doctrine and way hath an enmity to their worldly fleshly interest and then they are gone They first entertained Christ in complement thinking that he would please them or not much contradict them But when they find that they have received a guest
that will rule them and not â—e ruled by them that will not suffer them to take their pleasure nor enjoy their riches but hold them to a life which they cannot endure and even undo them in the world he is then no longer a guest for them Whereas if Christ had been received as Christ and Truth and Godliness deliberately entertained for their welldiscerned Excellency and Necessity the deep rooting would have prevented this Apostacie and cured such Hypocrifie § 4. But alas poor Ministers find by sad experience that all prove not Saints that flock to hear them and make up the crowd nor that for a season rejoyce in their light and magnifie them and take their parts The blossom hath its beauty and sweetness but all that blossometh or appeareth in the bud doth not come to perfect fruit Some will be blasted and some blown down some nipt with â—â—osts some eaten by Worms some quickly fall and some hang on till the strongest blasts do cast them down some are deceived and poysoned by false Teachers some by worldly cares and the deceitfulness of riches become unfruitful and are turned aside The lusts of some had deeper rooting then the Word And the friends of some had greater interest in them than Christ and therefore they forsake him to satisfie their importunity some are corrupted by the hopes of preferment or the favour of man some feared from Christ by their threats and frowns and choose to venture on damnation to scape persecution And some are so worldly wise that they can see reason to remit their zeal and can save their souls and bodies too and prove that to be their duty which other men call sin if the end will but answer their expectations And some grow weary of truth and duty as a dull and common thing being not supplyed with that variety which might still continue the delights of Novelty § 5. Yet mistake not what I have said as if all the affection furthered by Novelty and abated by Commonness and use were a sign that the person is but an Hypocrite I know that there is something in the Nature of man remaining in the best which disposeth us to be much more passionately affected with things when they seem New to us and are first apprehended than when they are old and we have known or used them long There is not I believe one man of a thousand but is much more delighted in the Light of Truth when it first appeareth to him than when it is trite and familiarly known and is much more affected with a powerful Minister at first than when he hath long â—ate under him The same Sermon that even transported them at the first hearing would affect them less if they had heard it preach'd an hundred times The same Books which greatly affected us at the first or second reading will affect us less when we have read them over twenty times The same words of Prayer that take much with us when seldom used do less move our affections when they are daily used all the year At our first conversion we have more passionate sorrow for our sin and love to the godly than we can afterwards retain And all this is the case of learned and unlearned the sound and unsound though not of all alike Even Heaven it self is spoken of by Christ as if it did participate of this when he saith that Joy shall be in Heaven over One sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance Luke 15. 7 10. And I know it is the duty of Ministers to take notice of this disposition in their hearers and not to dull them with giving them still the same but to profit them by a pleasant and profitable variety Not by preaching to them another Christ or a new Gospel It is the same God and Christ and Spirit and Scripture and the same Heaven the same Church the same faith and hope and repentance and obedience that we must preach to them as long as we live Though they say we have heard this an hundred times Let them hear it still and bring them not a new Creed If they hear so oft of God and Christ and Heaven till by Faith and Love and Fruition they attain them as their end they have heard well But yet there is a grateful variety of subordinate particulars and of words and methods and seasonable applications necessary to the right performance of our Ministry and to the profitting of the flocks Though the Physicion use the same Apothecaries Shop and Dispensatory and Drugs yet how great a variety must he use of compositions and times and manner of administration § 6. But for all this though the best are affected most with things that seem new and are dulled with the long and frequent use of the same expressions yet they are never weary of the substance of their Religion so as to desire a change And though they are not so passionately affected with the same Sermons and Books or with the thoughts or mention of the same substantial matters of Religion as at first they were Yet do their Iudgements more solidly and tenaciously embrace them and esteem them and their wills as Resolvedly adhere to them and use them and in their lives they practise them better than before Whereas they that take up their Religion but for Novelty will lay it down when it ceaseth to be New to them and must either change for a Newer or have none at all § 7. And as unsound are they that are Religious only because their education or their friends or the Laws or judgement of their Rulers or the Custom of the Countrey hath made it necessary to their Reputation These are Hypocrites at the first setting out and therefore cannot be saved by continuance in such a carnal Religiousness as this I know Law and Custom and education and friends when they side with Godliness are a great advantage to it by affording helps and removing those impediments that might stick much with carnal minds But truth is not your own till it be received in its proper evidence nor your faith divine till you believe what you believe because God is true who dâ—th reveal it nor are you the Children of God till you Love him for himself nor are you truly Religious till the Truth and Goodness of Religion it self be the principal thing that maketh you Religious It helpeth much to discover a mans sincerity when he is not only Religious among the Religious but among the prophane and the enemies and scorners and persecutors of Religion And when a man doth not pray only in a praying family but among the prayerless and the deriders of fervent constant prayer And when a man is heavenly among them that are earthly and temperate among the intemperate and riotous and holdeth the truth among those that reproach it and that hold the contrary When a man is not carried only by a stream of
To be as like God in all his communicable excellencies as is agreeable to our created state and capacity 2. And to have as near and full communion with him as we can attain to and enjoy § 7. 7. The Will of God and his Goodness and Holiness is more nearly propounded to us to be the Rule of our Conformity than his Power and his Knowledge Therefore his Law is most immediately the expression of his Will and our Duty and Goodness lyeth in our Conformity to his Law being Holy as he is Holy Because I may not stand on the particulars I shall give you a brief imperfect Scheme of that of God which you must thus know GOD is to be known by us I. As â—â—â—â—â—â—â—â— I. In his BEING Qâ—od â—â—â—â— 1. One and indivisible In Three Persons 2. Immense and incomprehensible 3. Eternal 1. The FATHER 2. The SON 3. The HOLY GHOST 1. Necessary 2. Independent 3. Immutable II. In his NATURE Quod â—â—t A SPIRIT 1. Simple uncompounded 2. Impassionate incoruptible immortal 3. Invisible intactible c. and LIFE it self 1. POWER 2. UNDERSTANDING 3. WILL. III. In his PERFECTIONS Qâ—aliâ—â—â—â—â— 1. OMNIPOTENT 2. OMNISCIENT 3. MOST GOOD 1. MOST GREAT 2. MOST WISE 3. MOST HOLY and HAPPY 1. BEING HIMSELF 2. KNOWING HIMSELF 3. LOVING ENJOYING HIMSELF II. As Râ—laâ—â—d to his Creatures I. The EFFICIENT Cause of all things Rom. 9. 36. OF HIM 1. CREATOR Conserver 1. Our OWNER or LORD most Absolute Free and Irresistible d 1. Our Life and Strength and Safety e 1. Perfecting our Natures in Heavenly Life II. The DIRIGENT Cause THROUGH HIM 2. REDEEMER Saviour 2. Our RULER or KING 1. By Legislation 2. Judgement 3. Execution Absolute Perfect True Holy Just Merciful Patient Terrible 2. Our Light and Wisdom 2. Whom we shall behold in Glorious Light III. The FINAL Cause TO HIM are all things To him be Glory for ever Amen 3. REGENERATOR Sanctifier 3. Our BENEFACTOR or FATHER 1. Most Loving 2. Most Bountiful 3. Most Amiable Patient Merciful Constant. Causally and Objectively d 3. Our Love and Ioy And so our End and Rest and Happiness hereafter e 3. Whom we shall Please and Love and be Pleased in him and Loved by him Rejoyce in him Praise him and so Enjoy him Perfectly and Perpetually See these Practically opened and improved in the First Part of my Divine Life The more full Explication of the Attributes fit for the more capacious is reserved for another Tractate § 8. For the right improvement of the Knowledge of all these Attributes of God I must refer you Do Dâ—s ita uâ— sunt loquere Bias iâ—l â—â—â—â— â—â—g Paâ—â—i Sâ—alâ—gâ—i â—â—â—â—â— sâ—s de 〈◊〉 Mâ—â—do Ep. Cath. l 14. God never wrought Miracâ—e to convince Atheism because his ordinary works convince it â— Baâ—oâ— Essay 16. p. 87. Deus est mens soluta libera legâ—egata ab omni concretione mortall omnia seâ—â—â—â—enâ— movens c. Cicero 1. Tâ—â—cul to the fore-mentioned Treatise The acts which you are to exercise upon God are these 1. The clearest Knowledge you can attain to 2. The firmest Belief 3. The highest Estimation 4. The greatest Admiration 5. The â—eartiest and sweetest Complacency or Love 6. The strongest Desire 7. A filial Awfulness Reverence and Fear 8. The boldest quietting Trust and confidence in him 9. The most fixed Waiting Dependance Hope and Expectation 10. The most absolute self-resignation to him 11. The fullest and quiettest submission to his disposals 12. The humblest and most absolute subjection to his Governing Authority and Will and the exactest obedience to his Laws 13. The boldest courage and fortitude in his cause and owning him before the world in the greatest sufferings 14. The greatest Thank fulness for his Mercies 15. The most faithful improvement of his Talents and use of his Means and performance of our trust 16. A reverent and holy use of his Name and Word with a Reverence of his Secrets forbearing to intrude or meddle with them 17. A wise and cautelous observance of his Providences publick and private neither neglecting them nor mis-interpreting them neither running before them nor striving discontentedly against them 18. A disâ—â—rning loving and honouring his Image in his children notwithstanding their infirmities and faults without any friendship to their faults or over magnifying or imitating them in any evil 19. A reverent serious spiritual adoration and worshipping him in publick and private with soul and body in the use of all his holy Ordinances but especially in the joyful celebration of his Praise for all his Perfections and his Mercies 20. The highest Delight and fullest Content and Comfort in God that we can attain Especially a Delight in Knowing him and Obeying and Pleasing him Worshipping and Praising him Loving him and being beloved of him through Jesus Christ and in the hopes of the Perfecting of all these in our Everlasting fruition of him in Heavenly Glory All these are the Acts of Piety towards God which I lay together for your easier observation and memory But some of them must be more fully opened and insisted on DIRECT V. Remember that God is your Lord or Owner and see that you make an absolute Gr. Dir. 5. Of Self-resignation to God as our Owner Resignation of your selves and all that you have to him as his Own and Use your selves and all accordingly Trust him with his Own and rest in his disposals § 1. OF this I have already spoken in my Sermon of Christs Dominion and in my Directions for a sound Conversion and therefore must but touch it here It is easie notionally to know and say that God is our Owner and we are not our Own But if the Habitual Practical knowledge of it were as easie or as common the happy effects of it would be the sanctification and reformation of the world I shall first tell you what this Duty is and how it is to be performed and then what fruits and benefits it will produce and what should move us to it § 2. I. The duty lyeth in these acts 1. That you consider the Ground of Gods Propriety in you Persuasum hoc sit à principiâ— hominibus dominos esse omnium rerum ac moderatores Deos eaque quae gâ—raâ—â—ur coâ—um geâ—i dâ—â—â—â—one aâ—que numâ—nâ— Et qâ—â—â—â—â— quisque â—â—â—â— quâ—â— agat quâ—d in se admiâ—â—aâ— qua mâ—nte qua pâ—etaâ—e â—olat râ—ligiâ—nem intue â— pâ—orumque impâ—orum habere ratâ—onem 〈◊〉 â— dâ—â—â—â—â— 1. In making you of Nothing and preserving you 2. In Redeeming you by purchase 3. In Regenerating you and renewing you for himself The first is the Ground of his Common Natural Propriety in you and all things The second is the Ground of his Common Gracious Propriety in you and all men as Purchased by Christ Rom. 14. 9 Iohn 13. 3. The third is the Ground of his special Gracious Propriety in you and all his sanctified peculiar people Understand and acknowledge what a Plenary
have it No nor with any perfection of your intellectual nature meerly as such and for your selves without the Pleasing and Glorifying God in it If you practically perceive that every thing is therefore and so far Good and Amiable as God shineth in it as its cause or as it conduceth to Glorifie him and Please his Will If accordingly you Love that person best on whom you perceive most of God and that is most serviceable to him though not at all beneficial to your self If you Love the wellfare of the Church the Kingdom the World and of the Heavenly society Saints Angels and Christ as the Divine Nature interest Image or impress maketh all Lovely in their several degrees and would rather be annihilated were it put upon your choice than Saints Angels Kingdoms Church should be annihilated If your hearts have devoted themselves and all that you have to God as his own to be used to his utmost service If your chief desire and endeavour in the world be to please his blessed will and in that will and the comtemplation of his infinite perfections you seek your rest If you desire your own everlasting happiness in no other kind but as consisting in the perfect sight of Gods Glory and in your perfect Loving of him and being pleasant or beloved to him and this as resting more in the Infinite Amiableness of God than the felicity which hence will follow to your selves though that also must be desired If now you deny your own glory for his Glory if your chief desire and endeavour be to Love him more and more and you Love your selves best when you Love him most In a word If nothing more take up your care than how to Love God more and nothing in the whole world your self or others seem more Amiable to your sober practical judgement and your wills than the Infinite Goodness of God as such If all this be so you have not only attained sincerity which is not now the question but this Divine nature and high confirmed Holiness Though withall you never so much desire your own salvation which is but to desire more of this Love And though your Nature have such a sensitive selfish desire of Life and Pleasure as is brought into subjection to this Divine Love If any be offended that so many propositions must be used in opening the case and say that they rather confound mens witts than inform them I Answer 1. The matter is high and I could not ascend by a shorter ladder Nor have I the faculty of climbing it per saltum stepping immediately from the lowest to the highest part If any will make the case plainer in fewer words and with less ado I shall thankfully accept his labour as a very great benefit when I see it 2. Either all these particulars are really diverse and really pertinent to the matter in question or not If not it is not blaming the number that will evince it but naming such particulars as are either unjustly or unnecessarily either distinguished or inserted And if it be but repeating the same things that is blamed I shall be glad if all these words and more would make such weighty cases clear and do confess that after all I need more light and am allmost stalled with the difficulties my self But if the particulars can be neither proved false nor needless but the Reader be only overset with multitude I would intreat him to be patient with other men that are more laborious and more capable of knowledge And let him know that if his difficulties do not rather engage him in a diligent search than tempt him to impatience and accusation I number him not only with the slothful contemners but therefore also with the enemies of knowledge even as I reckon the neglecters and contemners and accusers of Piety among its enemies But ere I end I must answer some Objections Object 1. Some will say Doth not every man Love God above himself and all while he knoweth him to be Better and so more Lovely For there is some Act of the will that answereth this of the understanding Answ. 1. You must know that the carnal mind is first captivated to carnal self and sensuality And therefore the most practical and powerful apprehensions of Goodness or Amiableness in every such person doth fasten upon Life and Pleasure or sensual prosperity And the sense having here engaged the mind and will the contrary conclusions that God is Best are but superficial and uneffectual like dreams and though they have answerable effects in the will they are but uneffectual velleities or wishes which are born down with far stronger desires of the contrary And though God be loved as one that is notionally conceived to be Best and Most to be Loved yet he is not loved Best or Most Yea though ordinarily the understanding say God is Best and Best to me and for me and Most to be loved when it cometh to volition or choice there is a secret apprehension which saith more powerfully hic nunc this sensible pleasure is Better for me and more eligible Why else is it chosen Unless you will say that the motion is principally sensitive and the force of the sensitive Appetite suspendeth all forcible opposition of the Intellect and so ruleth the Locomotive facultie it self But whether the Intellect be Active or but Omissive in it the sin cometh up to the same height of evil However it be it is most evident that while such men say God is most to be Loved they love him not most when they will not leave a lust or known sin for his Love Nor shew any such love but the contrary in their lives Object 2. But do not all men practically Love God best when they Love Wisdom Honesty and Goodness in all men Even in strangers that will never profit them And what is God but Wisdom Goodness and Greatness it self Answ. They first Idolize themselves and their sensual delights and then they Love such Wisdom Goodness and Greatness as is suitable to their self ish sensual lust and interest And it is not the Prime Good which is above them and to be preferred before them which they love as such but such Goodness as is fitted to their fleshly concupiscence and ends And therefore Holiness they Love not And though they love that which is never like to benefit them that is but as it is of the same kind with that which in others nearer them may benefit them and therefore is suitable to their minds and interest And yet we confess that the mind of man hath some principles of virtue and some footsteps and witnesses of a Deity left upon it But though these work up to an approbation of Good and a dislike of evil in the General notion of it and in particulars so far as it crosseth not their Lust yet never to prefer the Best things practically before their Lust And God is not Loved Best nor as God
it not by will or work but only he willeth the Person not including the Holiness as to any absolute will And so God loveth the person without the Holiness but not so much as he would love him if he were holy Object But you intimate that it is best as to the beauty of the Universe that there be sin and unholiness and damnation And God loveth that which is Good as to the Universe yea that is a Higher Good than personal Good as the subject is more noble and therefore more to be loved of us as it is of God Answ. 1. I know Augustine is oft alledged as saying Bonum est ut malum fiat But sin and punishment must be distinguished It is true of Punishment presupposing sin that it is Good and Lovely in respect to publick Ends though hurtful to the person suffering And therefore as God willeth it as Good so should we not only be patient but be pleased in it as it is the demonstration of the Justice and Holiness of God and as it is Good though not as it is our hurt But sin or unholiness privative is not Good in it self nor to the Universe Nor is it a true saying that It is good that there be sin Nor is it willed of God Though not nilled with an absolute effective Nolition as hath been elsewhere opened at large Sin is not Good to the Universe nor any part of the beauty of the Creature God neither willeth it Causeth it or Loveth it Object At least he hath no great Love to Holiness in those persons that he never giveth it to Otherwise he would work it in them Answ. He cannot love that existent which existeth not Nor doth he any further Will to give it them thâ—n to Command it and give them all necessary means and perswasions to it But what if God make but one Sun Will you say that he hath no great Love to a Sun that will make no more What if he make no more Worlds Doth that prove that he hath no great love to a world He loveth the World the Sun and so the Saints which he hath made And he doth not so far love Suns or Worlds or Saints as to make as many Suns or Worlds or Saints as foolish Wits would prescribe unto him Our Question is What Being God loveth and we should most love as being Best and Likest him and not what he should give a Being to that is not Object 6. Holiness is but an Accident and the person is the substance and Better than the Accident And Dr. Twiâ—s â—ppugneth on such accounts the saying of Arminius That God loveth Iustice better than just men because it is for Iustice that he loveth them Answ. 1. Aristotle and Pâ—rphyrie have not so clearly made known to us the nature of those things or modes which they are pleased to call Accidents as that we should lay any great stress upon their sayings about them Another will say that Goodness it self is but an Accident and most will call it a Mode and they will say that the substance is better than the Mode or Accident and therefore better than Goodness it self And would this think you be good arguing Distinguish then between Physical Goodness of Being in the soul both as a Substance and as a Formal Vertue and the Perfective or Modal qualitative or gradual Goodness And then consider that the later alway presupposeth the former where there is Holiness there is the substance with its Physical Goodness and the perfective Modal or Moral Goodness too But where there is no Holiness there is only a substance deprived of its Modal Moral Goodness And is not both better than one and a perfect being than an imperfect And as to Arminius saying He cannot mean that God loveth Righteousness without a subject or substance better than a subject without Righteousness For there is no such thing to love as Righteousness without a subject Though there may be an abstracted distinct conception of it If therefore the Question be only Whether God love the same man better as he is a Man or as he is a Saint I answer he hath a Love to each which is suitable to its kind He hath such complacency in the substance of a Serpent a Man a Devil as is agreeable to their being that is as they bear the natural impressions of his creating perfections yet such as may stand with their pain death and misery But he hath such a complacency in the actual Holiness Love and Obedience of men and Angels as that he taketh the person that hath them to be meet for his service and glory and everlasting felicity and delight in him as being qualified for it So that Gods Love must be denominatively distinguished from the object and so it is a Love of Nature and a Love of the Moral perfections of Nature The first Love is that by which he loveth a man because he is a man and so all other creatures The second Love is that by which he loveth a good man because he is Good or Holy And if it will comfort you that God loveth your being without your perfections or virtue let it comfort you in pain and death and Hell that he continueth your being without your well being or felicity Object 7. All Goodness or Holiness is some ones Goodness or Holiness as health is And as it is the persons wellfare and perfection so it is given for the persons sake Therefore the person as the finis cut and utmost End is better than the thing given him and so more amiable Answ. That all Goodness is some ones Goodness proveth but that some one is the Subject or Being that is Good but not that to Be is better than to be Good as such And as he is in some respect the finis cui for whom it is and so it is Good to him yet he and his Goodness are for a higher end which is the pleasing of God in the demonstration of his Goodness That therefore is best which most demonstrateth Gods Goodness And there is no subject or substance without its accidents or modes And that person that is not Good and Holy is Bad and Unholy Therefore the question should be Whether a person bad and unholy be more amiable than a person good and holy that hath both Physical and Moral Goodness And for all that the name of an Accident maketh Action seem below the person yet it must be also said that the person and his faculties are for Action as being but the substance in a perfect Mode and that Action is for higher ends than the persons being or felicity Object 8. Love is nothing but benevolence Velle bonum alicui ut ei bene sit But who is it that would not wish good to God that is to be blessed as he is But how can holiness then be loved but rather the person for his holiness because we cannot wish it good but only to be what it is Answ.
will find that Hell is no jeasting matter If you mock your selves out of your salvation where are you then If you play with time and means and mercy till they are gone you are undone for ever O dally not till you are past remedy Alas poor dreaming trifling Hypocrites Is time so swift and life so short and death so sure and near and God so holy just and terrible and Heaven so glorious and Hell so hot and both everlasting and yet will you not be in earnest about your work Up and be doing as you are men and as ever you care what becomes of you for ever Depart from iniquity if you will name the name of Christ 2 Tim. 2. 19. Let not a cheating world delude you for a moment and have the kernel the heart while God hath but the empty shell A mock-Religion will but keep up a mock-hope a mock-peace and a mock-joy and comfort till Satan have done his work and be ready to unhood you and open your eyes Job 8. 13. So aâ—e the paths of all that forget God and the Hypocrites hope shall perish Job 27. 8 9. For what is the hope of the hypocrite though he bath gained when God taketh away his soul Will God hear his â—ry when trouble cometh upon him Job 20. 4 5 6 7. Knowest thou not this of old that the triumphing of the wicked is short and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment Though his excellency mount up to the Heavens and his head reach unto the Clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung they which have seen him shall say where is he Away then with hypocritical formality and dalliance and be serious and sincere for thy soul and with thy God PART IV. Directions against inordinate Man-pleasing or that Over-valuing the Favour and Censure of Man which is the fruit of Pride and a great Cause of Hypocrisie Or Directions against IDOLIZING MAN § 1. AS in other cases so in this iniquity consisteth not simply in the hearts Neglect of God but in the preferring of some competitor and prevalence of some object which standeth up for an opposite interest And so the obeying man before God and against him and the valuing the favour and approbation of man before or against the approbation of God and the fearing of mans censure or displeasure more than Gods is an IDOLIZING MAN or setting him up in the place of God It turneth our chiefest observance and care and labour and pleasure and grief into this humane fleshly channel and maketh all that to be but Humane in our hearts and lives which objectively should be Divine Which is so great and dangerous a sin partaking of so much Impiety Hypocrisie and Pride as that it deserveth a special place in my Directions and in all watchfulness and consideration to escape it § 2. As all other Creatures so specially Man must be regarded and valued only in a due subordination and subserviency to God If they be valued otherwise they are made his enemies and so are to be hated and are made the principal engine of the ruine of such as overvalue them See what Luke 14. 26 27. the Scripture saith of this sin Isa. 2. 22. Cease ye from Man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of Matth. 23 9. And call no Man your Father upon the earth for Magna animi sublimiâ—ate carpentes se atque objuâ—gantes Soâ—â—ates conâ—emnebat 〈…〉 Socrat. one is your Father which is in Heaven 8. And be not ye called Rabbi for one is your Master even Christ but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant Jer. 20. 15. Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm Psal. 118. 6 8 9. The Lord is on my side I will not fear what man can do unto me It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man yea in Princes Job 32. 21 22. Let me not accept any mans person neither let me give flattering titles unto man For I know not to give flattering titles in so doing my Maker would soon take me away Job 21. 4. As for me is my complaint to man Gal. 1. 10. Do I seek to please men For if I yet When 〈◊〉 was asked why â—he exercised not himself with the most he answered If I should do as the mâ—st dâ— I should be no Philosopher La 〈…〉 p. Adulatâ—onâ—â—â—â—â—dum crimen servitutis malâ—gnitati falsa species libertatis inest Taâ—itus â—b 17. Secure Conscience first Qua semel amisâ—a postea nullus â—â—â—â—s pleased men I should not be a servant of Christ. 1 Cor. 4. 3. But with me it is a very small thing to be judged of you or of mans judgement Luke 14. 26. If a man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven Matth. 5. 11 12. Not with eye-service as men-pleasers Ephes. 6 6. Col. 3. 22. 1 Thess. 2. 4. So we speak not as pleasing men but God who tryeth our hearts Jude 16. Having mens persons in admiration because of advantage This is enough to shew you what Scripture saith of this inordinate man-pleasing or respect to man And now I shall proceed to Direct you to escape it § 3. Direct 1. Understand well wherein the nature of this sin consisteth that you may not run into the Direct 1. contrary extream but may know which way to bend your opposition I shall therefore first shew you how far we may and must please men and how far not § 4. 1. Our Parents Rulers and Superiours must be honoured obeyed and pleased in all things which they require of us in the several places of authority which God hath given them over us And this must be not meerly as to man but as to the Officers of God from whom and for whom and not against him they have all their power Rom. 13. Exod. 20. 12. Titus 3. 1. 1 Pet. 2. 13. 2. 2 10. § 5. 2. We must in charity and condescension and meekness of behaviour seek to please all men in order to their salvation We must so thirst for the conversion of sinners that we must become all things lawful to all men that we may win them We must not stand upon our terms and Rom. 14. 15. 1 2 3. keep at a distance from them but condescend to the lowest and bear the infirmities of the weak and in things indifferent not take the course that pleaseth our selves but that which by pleasing him may edifie our weak brother We must forbear and forgive and part with our right and deny our selves the use of our Christian
member above and so against the rest either superiors and so against the fifth command or equals against the rest § 5. HUMILITY is contrary to pride and therefore consisteth 1. In a contentedness with Humility what that degree and state which God hath assigned us 2. In mean thoughts of our selves esteeming our selves no Greater Wiser or Better than we are 3. In a willingness and desire that others should not think of us or speak of us or use us as greater or wiser or better than we are that they should give us no more honour praise or Love than is our due the redundancie being but a deceit or lie and an abuse of us and them 4. In the avoiding of all inordinate aspiring endeavors and a contented exercise of our assigned offices and doing the meanest works of our own places 5. In the avoiding of all ostentation or appearance of that greatness wisdom or goodness which we have not and fitting our speeches apparel provisions furniture and all our deportment and behaviour to the meanness of our parts and place and worth This is the very Nature of Humility The more particular signs I shall open afterwards § 6. II. Pride lying in the heart is oft mis-judged of by others that see but the outward appearances The Inward se â—â—nâ—â— of Pride that are noâ—â—â— and sometime by the person himself that understandeth not the nature of it The inward appearances that are mistaken for pride and are not it are such as these 1. When a man in power and Government hath a spirit suitable to his place and work This is not Pride but vertue 2. When natural strength and vigor of spirits expelleth pusillanimity especially when faith beholding God expelleth all inordinate respect to men and fear of all that they can do this is not pride but Christian magnanimity and fortitude and the contrary is not humility but weakness and pusillanimity and cowardize 3. When a wise man knoweth in what measure he is wise and in what measure other men are ignorant or erroneous and when he is conscious of his knowledge and delighted and pleased in it through the love of truth and thankful to God for revealing it to him and blessing so far his studies and endeavours all this is mercy and duty and not pride For truth is amiable and delectable in it self And he that knoweth must needs know that he knoweth as he that seeth doth perceive by seeing that he seeth And if it be a fault to know that I know it must be a fault to know at all Bâ—t some knowledge is necessary and unresistible and we cannot avoid it And that which is good â—â—â—â—t be vâ—lued and we must be thankful for it Humility doth no more require that a wise man think â—â—â—â— knowledge equal with a fools or ignorant mans than that a sound man take himself to be sick â—â— When a wise man valueth the useful knowledge which God hath given him above all the glory and vanities of the world which are indeed of lower worth this is not Pride but a due estimation of things 5. When a wise man desireth that others were of his mind for their own good and the propagating of the truth this is not Pride but Charity and love of truth Else preachers were the 〈…〉 Hâ—mâ—lâ—aâ— enim ut reliquae virâ—utes opus est voluntatis Nam sicut virtutes per ra ionem cognoscimus ita per di 〈…〉 nobis sâ—â—â—â—unt Tâ—â—â—â—â— â—â—â—â— c. 7 p 103 104. prâ—udest men and Paul had done ill in labouring so much for mens conversion and saying to Agripâ—a Aâ—â—s 2â— 29. I would to God that not only thou but also all that hear me this day were both allmost aâ—d allâ—â—â—â—ther such as I am except these â—onds 6. When an innocent man is conscious of his innocency and a holy person is conscious of his holiness and assured of his state in grace and rejoyceth in it and is thankful for it this is not Pride but an excellent priviledge and duty If Angels rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner Luke 15. the sinner hath reason to rejoyce himself And iâ— it be a sin to be unthankful for our daily bread much more for grace and the hope of Glory 7. When we value our good name and the honour that is indeed our due as we do other outward common mercies not fâ—r themselves but so far as they honour God or tend to the good of others or the promoting of truth or piety among men desiring no more than is indeed our due nor over-valuing it as that which we cannot spare but submitting it to the will of God as that which we can be without this is not Pride but a right estimation of the thing § â— The outward seemings which are oft mistaken for the signs and fruits of Pride by others are The outward appâ—aâ—anâ—eâ—â—â— Pride that are not it such as these 1. When a Magistrate or other Governour doth maintain the honour of his place which is necessary to his succesful Government and liveth according to his degree When Princes and Rulâ—rs and Masters and Parents do keep that distance from their subjects and servants and scholars and children which is meet and needful to their good it is usually mis-judged to be their Pride 2. When a sinner is convinced of the necessity of Holiness in a time and place where it is rare and infidelity or prophaness and ungodliness is the common road the necessary singularity of such a one in giving up himself to the will of God is commonly charged on him as his pride As if he were proud that cannot be contented to be damned in Hell for company with the most or to despise salvation if most despise it and to forsake his God when most forsake him and to serve the Devil when See 〈◊〉 Tâ—act How a man may â—â—aâ—se himself without 〈◊〉 bâ—ame 〈…〉 304. most men serve him If you will not swear and be drunk and game and spend your time even the Lords day in vanity and sensuality as if you were afraid of being saved and as if it were your busyness to work out your damnation the world will call you proud and singular and think it strange that you run not with them to excess of riot speaking evil â—f you 1 Pet. 4. 4. You shall quickly hear them say What will you be wiser than all the Town What a Saint What a holy precisian is this When â—â—t was grieved for the filthiness of Sodom they scorn him as a proud controller Gen. 19. 9. This one fellow came in to sâ—journ and he will needs be a Iudge And what thought they of Noaâ— that walked with God in so great singularity when the world was drowned in and for their wickedness When David humbled his soul with fasting they turned it to his reproach Psalm 69. 10. 35. 13. Especially when any of the servants of Christ do press towards the highest degree of holiness
supposed Greatness when the Sign 1. Greatness of God should shew them their contemptible vileness and to magnifie themselves when they should magnifie their Maker It makes the strong man glory in his strength and the rich man in his wealth and the Conquerour in his Victories and Princes and Rulers and Lords of the Earth Jer. 9. 23 24. Psal. 49. 6. 2 Chron. 25. 19. in their Dominions and Dignities and power to do hurt or good to others and say as Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 4. 30. Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the House of the Kingdom by the might of my power for the honour of my Majesty How hard is it to be Great and truly Humble and not to swell and be lifted up in Heart as they rise in Power This God abhorreth as unsuitable to worms and dust and injurious to his honour and will make them know that Power and Riches and Strength are his and that the Most High doth rule in the Kingdom of men and giveth it to whom be will Dan. 4. 32. § 11. Sign 2. Pride causeth men to set up their supposed Worth and Goodness above or against the Sign 2. Lord So that they make themselves their principal End and practise that which some of late presume to teach that it is not God that can or ought to be mans End but himself alone As if we were made only for our selves and not for our Creator Pride makes men so considerable in their own esteem that they live wholly to themselves as if the world were to stand or fall with them If they be well all is well with them If they are to dye they take it as if the world were at an end They Ut lumen lunae in praesentia solis non apparet paâ—i ratione esse secundum in praesentia pâ—â—â—â— nec meritum nostrum praesente merito Christi Paul Scaâ—â—â—â—â— Tâ—â—â—â— â—3 74. â—e Mâ—â—do 〈◊〉 Epist. â— 14 value God but as they do their food or health or pleasure even as a means to their own felicity not as preferring him before themselves nor making him the chiefest in their End They love themselves much better than God And so far is man fallen from God to Himself that he feeleth himself disposed to this as strongly as that he taketh it to be his primitive nature and therefore warrantable and that it is impossible to go higher § 12. God is to be mans End though we can add nothing to him The highest Love supposeth no want in him that we love but an excellency of Glory Wisdom and Goodness to which all our How God is mans End faculties offer up themselves in Admiration Love and Praise not only for the Delights of these nor only tâ—at our persons may herein be happy but chiefly that God may have his due and his will may be pleased and fulfilled and because his Excellencies deserve all this from men and Angels When Idem sâ—nant sumâ—e aâ—ari esse finem ultimum at proculdubio Deus summe amandus est Uâ—um vero finem Aristoteles declaravit esse Usum virtutis in vita sancta integra Heâ—â—â—â—h Illust. in A istot we love a man of wonderful Learning and Wisdom and Meekness and Charity and Holiness and other Goodness it is not chiefly for our selves that we love him that we may receive something from him â—or we feel his Excellency command our Love though we were sure that we should never receive any thing from him Nor is the Delight of Loving him our chief end but a consequent or the lesser parâ— of our End For we feel that we Love him before we think of the Delight The Admiration Love and Praise of God our ultimate End hath no End beside their proper object For it is it self the final act even mans Perfection Amiableness magnetically attracteth Love If you ask an Angel why he loveth God he will say because he is infinitely amiable And though in such motions nature secretly aimeth at its own perfection and felicity and lawfully interesceth it self in this final motion yet the Union being of such as are infinitely unequal O how little do the glorified Spirits respect themselves in comparison of the blessed glorious God See what I said of this before Chap. 3. Direct 11. 15. § 13. Sign 3. Pride maketh men more desirous to be over-loved themselves than that God be Sign 3. loved by themselves or others They would fain have the eyes and hearts of all men turned upon them as if they were as the Sun to be admired and loved by all that see them § 14. Sign 4. Pride causeth men to depend upon themselves and contrive inordinately for themselves Sign 4. and trust in themselves as if they lived by their own wit and power and industry more than by the favour and providence of God Isa. 9. 9. Obad. 3. § 15. Sign 5. Pride makes men return the thanks to themselves which is due to God for the Sign 5. mercies which they have received God is thanked by them but in complement But they seriously Dan. 4. 30. Hab. 1. 16. Laâ—â—t in Tâ—al speaketh of the Oraâ—le of Deâ—phos adjudging the Tâ—â—pos to the Wisest So it was sent to Thales and from him to another till it came to Sâ—lon who sent it to the Oracle saying None is wiser than God So should we all send back to God the praise and glory of all that is ascribâ—d to us ascribe it to their care or skill or industry or power They sacrifice to their Net and say our hand our contrivance our power our good husbandry hath done all this § 16. Sign 6. Pride setteth up the wisdom of a foolish man against the infinite wisdom of God It Sign 6. makes men presume to judge their Judge and judge his Laws before they understand them and to Laâ—rt saith that Pythagoras first called himself a Philosopher Nullum enim hominum sed sâ—lum Deum esse sepienteâ— asserit Antea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicta quae nuâ—c Philosophia qui hanc profitebantur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellati Quicunque ad summam animi virtutem exâ—reverunt hos nunc honestiore vocabulo authore Pythagora Philosophos appellamus pag. 7. quarrell with all that they find unsuitable to their own conceits and say How improbable is this or that and how can these things be He that cannot undo a pair of Tarrying Irons or unriddle a Riddle till it be taught him which afterwards appeareth plain will question the truth of the Word of God about the most high unsearchable mysteries Proud men think they could mend Gods Word and they could better have ordered matters in the world and for the Church and for themselves and for their friends tha then providence of God hath done § 17. Sign 7. Pride maketh men set up their own Love and Mercy above the Love and Mercy of Sign 7. God Augustine mentioneth a sort of
moderation in the heart and cureth those bloodshotten eyes which are unable till cured to discern the truth It helpeth us to knowledge and to that which is more edifying and keepeth knowledge from puffing us up And experience will tell you at long running that among Antients and Moderns Greeks and Latines Papists and Protestants Lutherans and Calvinists Remonstrants and Contraremonstrants Prelatists Presbyterians Independents c. commonly the Moderaters are not only the best and most charitable but the wisest most judicious men § 61. Direct 19. With all your Readings still joyn the reading of the Scriptures and of the most Direct 19. holy and practical Divines not fantastical Enthusiastick counterfeits Paracelsian Divines but those that lead you up by the solid doctrine of faith and Love to true Devotion and Heavenly mindedness and conversation § 62. This must be your bread and drink your daily and substantial food without this you may soon be filled with air that cannot nourish you and prove in the end as sounding brass and tinkling Cymbals These will breed strength and peace and joy and help you in your Communion with God and hopes of Heaven and so promote the End of all your Studies There is more life and sweetness in these than in the things that are more remote from God and Heaven § 63. Direct 20. Lastly Do all as dying men promise not your selves long life lest it tempt you Direct 20. to waste your time on things least necessary and to loiter it away or lest you lose the quickning benefit which the sight of death and eternity would yield you in all your studies § 64. The nearer you apprehend your selves to death and Heaven the greater help you have to be mortisied and Heavenly This will make you serious and keep up right intentions and keep out wrong ones and powerfully help you against temptations that when you have studied to save others you may not be cast-awayes nor be cheated by the Devil with the shell and leaves and flowers while you go without the saving fruit § 65. I have spoken the more on this subject of Governing the Thoughts because it is so great and excellent a part of the work of man and God doth so much regard the heart and the Spirit of Christ and Satan so much strive for it and grace is so much employed about it and our Happiness or misery Joy or sorrow is greatly promoted by our Thoughts And more I would have said but that in the third Chapter and in my Treatise of the Divine Life there is much said already And for a Method and Directions for particular Meditations I have given it at large in the fourth Part of the Saints Rest from whence it may easily be taken and applyed to other subjects as it is there to Heaven It is easie to write and read Directions but I fear lest slothfulness through the difficulty of Practice will frustrate my Directions to the most But if any profit by them my labour is not lost CHAP. VII Directions for the Government of the Passions § 1. THE Passions are to be considered 1. As in themselves and the sin of them as respecting God and ourselves only And so I am to speak of them here 2. As they are a wrong to others and a breach of the commandments which require Love and duty towards our Neighbour And so I shall speak of them after § 2. Passions are not sinful in themselves for God hath given them to us for his service And there is none of them but may be sanctified and used for him But they are sinful 1. When they are misguided and placed on wrong objects 2. When they darken reason and delude the mind and keep out truth and seduce to error 3. When they rebel against the Government of the will and trouble it and hinder it in its choice or prosecution of good or urge it violently to follow their bruitish inclination 4. When they are unseasonable 5. Or immoderate and excessive in degree 6. Or of too long continuance 7. And when they tend to evil effects as to unseemly speeches or actions or to wrong another § 3. Passions are Holy when they are devoted to God and exercised upon him or for him They are Good when 1. They have right objects 2. And are guided by Reason 3. And are obedient to the well-guided will 4. And quicken and awake the Reason and the will to do their duty 5. And tend to good effects exciting all the other powers to their office 6. And exceed not in degree so as to disturb the brain or body Tit. 1. Directions against all sinful Passions in general § 4. Direct 1. TRust not to any present actual resistance without any due Habitual mortification of Direct 1. Passions and fortification of the soul against them Look most to the holy constitution of your mind and life and then sinful Passions will fall off like scabs from a healthful body when the blood is purified § 5. No wonder if an unholy soul be a slave to Passion when the Body is inclined to it For such a one is under the power of selfishness carnality and worldliness and from under the Government of Christ and his spirit and wanteth that life of Grace by which he should cure and subdue the corruptions of nature The way for such a one to master passion is not to strive by natural selfish principles and reasons which are partial poor and weak but to look first to the main and to seek with speed and earnestness for a New and sanctified heart and get Gods Image and his spirit and renewing quickning Grace This is the only effectual conqueror of Nature A dull and gentle disposition may seem without this to conquer that which never much assaulted it the tryal of such persons being some other way But none conquereth Satan indeed but the spirit of Christ. And if you should be free from passion and not be free from an unholy carnal worldly heart you must perish at last if you seemed the â—almest persons upon earth Begin therefore at the foundation and see that the Body of sin be mortified and that the whole tree be rooted up which beareth these evil bitter fruits and that the Holy victorious new-new-nature be within you and then you will resist sin with Light and Life which others resist but as in their sleep § 6. Direct 2. More particularly let your souls be still possessed with the fear of God and live as in Direct 12. his family under his eye and Government that his authority may be more powerful than temptations and your holy converse with him may make him still more regarded by you than men or any creatures And then this Sun will put out the lesser lights and the thunder of his voice will drown the whisperers that would provoke you and the humming of those wasps which make you so impatient God would make the creature nothing and then it would do
1 Pet. 2. 21 22 23 24. Isa. 53. cast down who never despised or envied man nor never feared man who never was over-merry or over-sad who being reviled reviled not again but was dumb as a lamb before the shearers § 21. Direct 17. Keep as far from all occasions of your passions as other duties will allow you And Direct 17. contrive your affairs and occasions into as great an opposition as may be to the temptation Run not into temptation if you would be delivered from evil Much might be done by a willing prudent man by the very ordering of his affairs God and Satan works by means let the means then be regarded § 22. Direct 18. Have a due care of your bodies that no distemper be cherished in them which causeth Direct 18. the distemper of the soul. Passions have a very great dependance on the temperament of the body And much of the cure of them lieth when it is possible in the bodyes emendation § 23. Direct 19. Turn all your passions into the right chanel and make them all Holy using them for Direct 19. God upon the greatest things This is the true cure The bare restraint of them is but a palliate cure like the easing of pain by a dose of opium Cure the fear of man by the fear of God and the Love of the creature by the Love of God and the cares for the body by caring for the soul and earthly fleshly desires and delights by spiritual desires and delights and worldly sorrow by profitable godly sorrow § 24. Direct 20. Controul the effects and frustrate your passions of what they would have and that Direct 20. will ere long destroy the cause Cross your selves of the things which carnal Love and desire would have Forbear the things which carnal mirth or anger would provoke you to and the fire will go out for want of fewel Of which more in the particulars Tit. 2. Directions against sinful Love of Creatures § 1. LOve is the Master Passion of the soul because it hath the chiefest Object even Goodness which Solus Amor facit hominem bonum vel malum Paul Sâ—aliger Thes. p. 721. is the object of the will And simple Love is nothing but Complacencie which is nothing but the simple Volition of Good And it is a Passionate Volition or Complacencie which we call the Passion of Love When this is Good and when its sinful I shewed before But yet because the one half of the cure here lieth in the conviction and it is so hard a thing to make any Lover perceive a sinfullness in his Love I shall first help you in the tryal of your Love to shew the sinfullness of it when I have first named the objects of it § 2. Any creature which seemeth Good to us may possibly be the object of sinful Love As Honor Greatness authority praises money houses lands cattle meat drink sleep apparel sports friends relations and life it self As for Lustful Love I shall speak of it anon Helps for discovering of sinful Love § 3. Direct 1. Make Gods interest and his word the standard to judge of all affections by That Direct 1. which is against the Love of God and would abate or hinder it yea which doth not directly or indirectly tend to further it is certainly a sinful Love And so is all that is against his word For the Love of God is our final act upon our ultimate end and therefore all that tends not to it is a sin against our very end and so against our nature and the use of our faculties § 4. Direct 2. Therefore whatever creature is Loved ultimately for it self and not for a higher end Direct 2. even for God his service his honour his relation to it or his excellencie appearing in it is sinfully loved For it is made our God when it is Loved ultimately for it self § 5. Direct 3. Suspect all Love to creatures which is very strong and violent and easily kindled and Direct 3. hardly moderated or quieted Though you might think it is for some spiritual end or excellencie that you Love any person or any thing yet suspect it if it be so easie and strong Because that which is truly and purely spiritual is against corrupted nature and comes from Grace which is but weak we find no such easiness to Love God and scripture and prayer and holiness nor are our affections so violent to these It s well if all the fewel and blowing we can use will keep them alive It s two to one that the flesh and the Devil have put in some of their fewel or gunpouder if it be fierce § 6. Direct 4. Suspect all that Love which selfishness and fleshly-interest have a hand in Is it some Direct 4. bodily pleasure and delight that you love so much Or is it a good book or other help for your soul We are so much apter to exceed and sin in carnal fleshly mindedness than in Loving what is good for our souls that there we should be much more suspicious If it be violent and for the body it s ten to one there is sin in it § 7. Direct 5. Suspect all that Love to creatures which your Reason can give no good account of nor Direct 5. shew you a justifiable cause If you Love one place or person much more than others and know not why but Love them because you cannot choose this is much to be suspected Though God may sometime kindle a secret Love between friends from an unexpressible unity or similitude of minds beyond what reason will undertake to justifie yet this is rare and commonly fansie or folly or carnality is the cause However it is more to be suspected and tryed than Rational Love § 8. Direct 6. Suspect all that fervent Love to any Creature which is hasty before sufficient tryal for Direct 6. commonly both persons and things have the best side outward and seem better at the first appearance than they prove Not but that a moderate Love may be taken up upon the first appearance of any excellency especially spiritual But so as to allow for a possibility of being deceived and finding more faultiness upon a fuller tryal than we at first perceive Have you dwelt in the house with the persons whom you so much admire and have you tryed them in their conversations and seen them tryed by crosses losses injuries adversity prosperity or the offers of preferment or plenty in the world you would little think what lurketh undiscovered in the hearts of many that have excellent parts till tryal manifest it § 9. Direct 7. Try your affections in prayer before God whether they be such as you dare boldly pray Direct 7. God either to increase or continue and bless and whether they be such as Conscience hath no quarrel against If they endure not this tryal be the more suspicious and search more narrowly The name and presence
answer 1. Regard your duty more than what men think of you Prefer virtue before the thoughts or breath of men 2. But yet if you do it wisely the wise and good will think much the better of you You may easily let them see that you do it not in fordid sparing but in love of Temperance and of them if you speak but when there is need either for eating more or less and if your discourse be first in general for Temperance and apply it not till you see that they need help in the application 3. It is undenyable that healthful persons are much more prone to excess than to the defect in eating and that nature is very much bent to Luxury and Gluttony I think as much as to any one sin and it s as sure that it is a beastly breeding odious sin And if this be so is it not clear that we should do a great deal more to help one another against such Luxury than to provoke them to it Had we not a greater regard to mens favour and fansies and reports than to God and the good of their souls the case were soon decided § 11. 7. Another cause of Gluttony is that Rich men are not acquainted with the true Use of 〈…〉 aâ—te alios Aâ—tes quae liberalis â—uerâ—nt mechaâ—iâ—ae â—vaseâ—e ipsâ—â— qui â—â—lloâ—â—m dâ—â—â—â— philo sophi â—â—â—â—tores â—â—â—â—iâ—â— aâ— pâ—tâ—es patâ—â—â—â— esse solent 〈…〉 atque a 〈…〉 â—actiâ—â—â—â— â—â—que intelligaâ— nullam esse râ—â—â—â—quam spem salâ—tâ—â— Nobâ—â—itatâ— tribuâ—tur quod est Gulae aâ—t procâ—lâ—â—bio â—â—â—â—itatis Petrarch Riches nor think of the account which they must make to God of all they have They think that their Riches are their own and that they may use them as they please or that they are given them as plentiful provisions for their flesh and they may use them for themselves to satisfie their own desires as long as they drop some crums or scraps or small matters to the poor They think they may be saved just in the same way that the Rich man in Luk. 16. was damned and he that would have warned his five Brethren that they come not to that place of torment is yet himself no warning to his followers They are cloathed in purple and fine linen or silk and fare sumptuously or deliciously every day and have their good things in this life and perhaps think they merit by giving the scraps to Lazarus which its like that Rich man also did But God will one day make them know that the Richest were but his Stewards and should have made a better distribution of his provisions and a better improvement of his Talents and that they had nothing of all their Riches given them for any hurtful or unprofitable pleasing of their Appetites nor had no more allowance for Luxury than the poor If they knew the Right use of Riches it would reform them § 12. 8. Another cause of Gluttony is their unacquaintedness with those Rational and Spiritual Exercises in which the delightful fruits of Abstinence do most appear A man that is but a painful serious Student in any noble study whatsoever doth find a great deal of â—erenity and aptitude come by Temperance and a great deal of cloudy mistiness on his mind and dulness on his invention come by fulness and excess And a man that is used to holy contemplations meditation reading prayer self-examination or any spiritual converse above or with his heart doth easily find a very great difference how abstinence helpeth and Luxury and fullness hinder him Now these Epicures have no acquaintance with any such Holy or Manly works nor any mind of them and are therefore unacquainted with the sweetness and benefit of abstinence and having no taste or tryal of its benefits they cannot value it They have nothing to do when they rise from eating but a little talk about their worldly business or complement and talk with company which expect them or go to their sports to empty their paunches for another meele and quicken their appetites lest Luxury should decay as the Israelites worshipped the Golden Calf and as the Heathens their God Bacchus Exod. 32. 5. They sate down 1 Cor. â—0 7. to eat and drink and rose up to play Their dyet is fitted to their work Their idle or worldly lives agree with gluttony But were they accustomed to better work they would find a necessity of a better dyâ—◠§ 13. 9. Another great cause of Gluttony is mens beastly ignorance of what is hurtful or helpful Of this see more in my Book of self-denyal to their very health They make their Appetites their Rule for the quantity and quality of their food And they think that nature teacheth them so to do because it giveth them such an Appetite and because it is the measure to a beast And to prove themselves Beasts they therefore take it for their measure As if their natures were not Rational but only sensitive or nature had not given them Reason to be the superiour and Governour of sense As if they knew not that God giveth the Bruits an appetite more bounded because they have not Reason to bound it and giveth them not the temptation Sâ—e Plutarâ—ks Precepts of health of your delicate varieties or giveth them a concoction answerable to their appetites and yet giveth man to be the Rational Governour of those of them that are for his special service and apt to exceed And if his Swine his Horses and his Cattle were all left to their Appetites they would live but a little while If promiscuous generating be not lawful in mankind which is lawful in bruits why should they not confess the same of the Appetite Men have so much love of life and fear of death that if they did but know how much their Gluttony doth hasten their death it would do more to restrain it with the most than the fear of death eternal doth But they judge of their digestion by their present feeling If they feel not their stomachs sick or disposed to vomit or if no present pain correct them they think their Gluttony doth not hurt them and think they have eaten no more than doth them good But of this more anon in the Directions § 14. 10. Another great cause of Gluttony is that it is grown the common custome and being not known is in no disgrace unless men eat till they spew or to some extraordinary measure And so the measure which every man seeth another use he thinketh is moderation and is fit for him whereas the ignorance of Physick and matters of their own health hath made Gluttony almost as common as eating with those that are not restrained by want or sickness And so every man is an example of evil to another and encourage one another in the sin If Gluttony were but in as much disgrace as whoredome yea or as drunkenness is and as easily known and as commonly taken notice of it would contribute
would be more offended Therefore I shall only give you these general intimations 1. Nature is content with a little but Appetite is never content till it have drowned Nature 2. It is the perfection of concoction and 〈…〉 Senec. goodness of the nutriment that is more conducible to health than the quantity 3. Nature will easilier overcome twice the quantity of some light and passable nourishment than half so much of gross and heavy meats Therefore those that prescribe just twelve Ounces a day without differencing meats that so much differ do much mistake 4. A healthful strong body must have more than the weak and sickly 5. Middle aged persons must have more than old folks or children Juvenum viâ—tus est Nihil â—â—â—â—us Soâ—â—at 6. Hard Labourers must have more than easie Labourers and these more than the idle or Students or any that stir but little 7. A body of close Pores that evacuateth little by sweat or transpiration must have less especially of moisture than another 8. So must a cold and flegmatick constitution 9. So must a stomach that corrupteth its food and casteth it forth by periodical bilious evacuations 10. That which troubleth the stomach in the digestion is too much or too bad unless with very weak sickly persons 11. So is that too much or bad which maketh you more dull for study or more heavy and unfit for labour unless some disease be the principal cause 12. A body that by excess is already filled with crudities should take less than another that nature may have time to digest and waste them 13. Every one should labour to know the temperature of their own bodies and what diseases they are most enclined to and so have the judgement of their Physicion or some skilful person to give them such directions as are suitable to their own particular temperature and diseases 14. Hard Labourers err more in the quality than the quantity partly through poverty partly through ignorance and partly through appetite while they refuse that which is more wholsome as meer Bread and Beer if it be less pleasing to them 15. If I may presume to conjecture ordinarily very hard Labourers exceed in quantity about a fourth part Shop-keepers and persons of easier Trades do ordinarily exceed about a third part Voluptuous Gentlemen and their Servingmen and other servants of theirs that have no hard labour do usually exceed about half in half But still I except persons that are extraordinarily temperate through weakness or through wisdom And the same Gentlemen usually exceed in Variety Costliness Curiosity and Time much more than they do in quantity so that they are Gluttons of the first magnitude The Children of those that govern not their appetites but let them eat and drink as much and as often as they desire it do usually exceed above half in half and lay the foundation of the diseases and miseries of all their lives All this is about the truth though the Belly believe it not § 48. When you are once grown wise enough to know what in measure and time and quality is Venter praecepta non audit Senec. fittest for your health go not beyond that upon any importunity of Appetite or of friends For all that is beyond that is Gluttony and sensuality in its degree § 49. Direct 8. If you can lawfully avoid it make not your Table a snare of Temptation to your Direct 8. selves or others I know a greedy appetite will make any Table that hath but necessaries a snare to iâ— If you will not take this counsel at least use after meat to set before your guests a Bason and a â—eather oâ— a Provang to vomit it up again that you may shew some mercy to their bodies if you will shew none to their souls self But do not you unnecessarily become Devils or tempters to your selves or others 1. For Quality study not Deliciousness too much unless for some weak distempered stomachs the best meat is that which leaveth behind it in the mouth neither a troublesome loathing nor an eager appetite after more for the tastes sake But such as Bread is that leaveth the Palate in an indifferent moderation The curious inventions of new and dilicious dishes meerly to please the Appetite is Gluttony inviting to greater Gluttony Excess in Quality to invite to excess in Quantity § 50. Object But you 'll say I shall be thought niggardly or sordid and reproached behind my back if my Table be so fitted to the temperate and abstinent Answ. This is the pleading of Pride for Gluttony Rather than you will be talkt against by belly-gods A Sensualist craving to be admitted of Cato among his familiars Cato answered him I cannot live wiâ—h one whose Palate is wiser than his brain Erâ—s or ignorant fleshly people you will sin against God and prepare a Feast or Sacrifice for Bacchus or Venus The antient Christians were torn with Beasts because they would not cast a little Frankincense into the fire on the Altar of an Idol And will you feed so many Idol bellies so liberally to avoid their censure Did not I tell you that Gulosity is an irrational vice Good and temperate persons will speak well of you for it And do you more regard the judgement and esteem of belly-gods § 51. Object But it is not only riotous luxurious persons that I mean I have no such at my Table But it will be the matter of obloquy even to good people and those that are sober Answ. I told you some measure of Gluttony is become a common sin and many are tainted with it through custome that otherwise are good and sober But shall they therefore be left as uncurable or shall they make all others as bad as they And must we all commit that sin which some sober people are grown to favour You bear their censures about different opinions in Religion and other matters of difference and why not here The deluded Quakers may be witnesses against you that while they run into the contrary extream can bear the deepest censures of all the world about them And cannot you for honest Temperance and Sobriety bear the censures of some distempered or guilty persons that are of another mind Certainly in this they are no Temperate persons when they plead for excess and the baits of sensuality and intemperance § 52. 2. For variety also make not your Table unnecessarily a snare Have no greater variety than the weakness of stomachs or variety of Appetites doth require Unnecessary variety and pleasantness of meats are the Devils great instruments to draw men to Gluttony And I would wish no good people to be his Cooks or Caterers When the very brutish Appetite it self begins to say of one dish I have enough then comes another to tempt it unto more excess and â—â—other after that to more All this that I have said I have the concurrent judgement of Physicion 〈…〉 n who condemn fulness and variety as
covering him § 4. 3. And that God hath not put this Law into mans nature without very great cause albeit the Implicite belief and submission due to him should satisfie us though we knew not the causes particularly yet much of them is notorious to common observation As that if God had not restrained lust by Laws it would have made the female sex most contemptible and miserable and used worse by men than dogs are For first rapes and violence would deflowre them because they are too weak to make resistance And if that had been restrained yet the lust of men would have been unsatisfied and most would have grown weary of the same woman whom they had abused and taken another at least when she grew old they would choose a younger and so the aged women would be the most calamitous creatures upon earth Besides that lust is addicted to variety and groweth weary of the same the fallings out between men and women and the sicknesses that make their persons less pleasing and age and other accidents would expose them almost all to utter misery And men would be Law-makers and therefore would make no Laws for their relief but what consisted with their lusts and ends So that half the world would have been ruined had it not been for the Laws of matrimony and such other as restrain the lusts of men § 5. 4. Also there would be a confused mixture in procreation and no men would well know what children are their own which is worse than not to know their Lands or Houses § 6. 5. Hereby all natural affection would be diminished or extinguished As the love of Husband and Wife so the Love between Fathers and Children would be diminished § 7. 6. And consequently the due education of children would be hindered or utterly overthrown The mothers that should first take care of them would be disabled and turned away that fresh harlots might be received who would hate the offspring of the former So that by this means the world and all societies and civility would be ruined and men would be made worse than bruits whom nature hath either better taught or else made for them some other supply Learning Religion and civility would be all in a manner extinct as we see they are among those few savage Cannibals that are under no restraint For how much all these depend upon education experience telleth us In a word this confusion in procreation would introduce such confusion in mens hearts and families and all societies by corrupting and destroying necessary affection and education that it would be the greatest plague imaginable to mankind and make the world so base and beastly that to destroy mankind from off the earth would seem much more desirable Judge then whether God should have left mens Lusts unrestrained § 8. Object But you 'll say there might have been some moderate restraint to a certain number as Object it is with the Mahometans without so much strictness as Christ doth use Answ. That this strictness is necessary and is an excellency in Gods law appeareth thus 1. By Answ. the greatness of the mischief which else would follow To be remiss in preventing such a confusion in the world would be an enmity to the world 2. In that mans nature is so violently inclined to break over that if the hedge were not close there were no sufficient restraining them they would quickly run out at a little gap 3. The wiser and the better any nation or persons are even among the Heathens the more fully do they consent to the strictness of Gods Laws 4. The cleanest sort of bruits themselves are taught by nature to be as strict in their copulations Though it be otherwise with the meer terrestrial beasts and birds yet the aërial go by couples Those that are called the fowles of the Heavens that fly in the air are commonly taught this chastity by nature as if God would not have lust come near to Heaven 5. The families of the Mahometans that have more wives than one do shew the mischief of it in the effects in the hatred and disagreement of their wives and the great slavery that women are kept in making them like slaves that they may keep them quiet And when women are thus enslaved who have so great a part in the education of children by which all virtue and civility are maintained in the world it must needs tend to the debasing and brutifying of mankind § 9. 7. Children being the pretiousest of all our treasure it is necessary that the strictest Laws be made for the securing of their good education and their welfare If it shall be treason to debase or counterfeit the Kings coyn and if men must be hanged for robbing you of your goods or money and the Laws are not thought too strict that are made to secure your estates how much more is it necessary that the Laws be strict against the vitiating of mankind and against the debasement of your image on your children and against that which tendeth to the extirpation of all virtue and the ruine of all societies and souls § 10. 8. God will have a holy seed in the world that shall bear his image of holiness and therefore he will have all means fitted thereunto Bruitish promiscuous generation tendeth to the production of a bruitish seed And though the word preached is the means of sanctifying those that remain unsanctified from their youth yet a holy marriage and holy dedication of children to God and holy education of them are the former means which God would not have neglected or corrupted and to which he promiseth his blessing As you may see 1 Cor. 7. 14. Mal. 2. 15. Did not he make one Yet had he the residue of the spirit And wherefore one That he might seek a godly seed Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth For the Lord bateth putting away § 11. 9. Yea lust corrupteth the mind of the person himself if it be not very much restrained and moderated It turneth it from the only excellent pleasure by the force of that bruitish kind of pleasure It carrieth away the thoughts and distempereth the passions and corrupteth the phantasie and Solomons wives turned away his heart aâ—ter other Gods 1 Kings 11. 4. The wisdom of Solomon preserved him not from the power of lust and the deceit of women 1 Pet. 2. 10. Fleshly â—â—â—â—ts that fight against the â—oâ—l thereby doth easily corrupt the intellect and heart Pleasure is so much of the End of man which his Nature leadeth him to desire that the chief thing in the world to make a man Good and Happy is to engage his heart to those Pleasures which are Good and make men Happy And the chief thing to make him Bad and Miserable is to engage him in the pleasures which make men Bad and end in Misery And the principal thing by which you may know
ability opportunity and a Call may be excused by Religion from worldly labours as Ministers but not from such spiritual labours for others which they can perform He that under pretence of Religion withdraweth from converse and forbeareth to do good to others and only liveth to himself and his own soul doth make Religion a pretense against Charity and the works of Charity which are a great part of Religion For pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted of the world Jam. 1. 27. Even when sickness imprisonment or persecution disableth to do any more for others we must pray for them But while we can do more we must § 4. Quest. 4. Will not Riches excuse one from labouring in a Calling Answ. No but rather bind Quest. 4. them to it the more For he that hath most wages from God should do him most work Though Wâ—â—l not Riches excuse they have no outward want to urge them they have as great a necessity of obeying God and doing good to others as any other men have that are poor § 5. Quest. 5. Why is labour thus necessary to all that are able Answ. 1. God hath strictly commanded Quest. 5. â—â—y Labour is necessary it to all And his Command is Reason enough to us 2 Thess. 3. 10 11 12. For even when we were with you this we commanded you that if any would not work neither should he eat For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly working not at all but are busie-bodies Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Iesus Christ that with quietness Ezek. 46. 1. Deut. 16. 15. Deut. 2. 7. Exod. 34. 21. they work and eat their own bread See vers 6. 14. 1 Thess. 4. 11. We beseech you brethren that ye study to be quiet and to do your own business and work with your hands as we commanded you that ye may walk honestly or decently towards them that are without and that ye may have lack of nothing Gen. 3. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground And in the fourth Commandment Six dayes shalt thou labour So Ephes. 4. 28. Prov. 31. 31 33. § 6. 2. Naturally action is the end of all our Powers and the Power were vain but in respect to the act To be able to understand to read to write to go c. were little worth if it were not that we may Do the things that we are enabled to § 7. 3. It is for Action that God maintaineth us and our abilities work is the moral as well as the natural End of power It is the act by the power that is commanded us § 8. 4. It is action that God is most served and honoured by not so much by our being able to do good but by our doing it who will keep a servant that is able to work and will not Will his meer ability answer your expectation § 9. 5. The publick welfare or the good of many is to be valued above our own Every man therefore is bound to do all the good he can to others especially for the Church and Commonwealth And this is not done by Idleness but by Labour As the Bees labour to replenish their hive so man being a sociable creature must labour for the good of the society which he belongs to in which his own is contained as a part § 10. 6. Labour is necessary for the preservation of the faculties of the mind 1. The labour of the mind is necessary hereto because unexercised Abilities will decay as Iron not used will consume with rust Idleness makes men fools and dullards and spoileth that little ability which they have 2. And the exercise of the Body is ordinarily necessary because of the minds dependance on the body and acting according to its temperature and disposition It is exceedingly helped or hindered by the body § 11. 7. Labour is needful to our health and life The Body it self will quickly fall into mortal Socrates was mightâ—ly addicted to the exercise of his body as necessary to the health of body and mind Laert. Plâ—tarch out of Plato saith that soul and body should be equally exercised togâ—ther and driven on as two Houses in a Coach and not either of them overgo the osher Prâ—â— of Health diseases without it except in some very few persons of extraordinary soundness Next to abstinence labour is the chief preserver of health It stirreth up the natural heat and spirits which perform the chief offices for the life of man It is the proper bellows for this vital fire It helpeth all the concoctions of nature It attenuateth that which is too gross it purifieth that which beginneth to corrupt it openeth obstructions it keepeth the mass of blood and other nutritious humours in their proper temperament fit for motion circulation and nutrition it helpeth them all in the discharge of their natural offices It helpeth the parts to attract each one its proper nutriment and promoteth every sermentation and assimilation by which nature maintaineth the transitory still consuming Oyle and mass It excelleth art in the preparation alteration and expulsion of all the excrementitious matter which being retained would be the matter of manifold diseases and powerfully fighteth against all the enemies of health In a word it doth incomparably excell the help of the most skilful Physicions and excellent Medicines in the world for the preventing of most diseases incident to man and consequently to the benefit of the soul it self which cheerfully useth a cheerful and well tempered body and useth a languishing sickly body as the Rider useth a tired Horse or as we use a sick or lazie servant or a blunted Knife or a Clock or Watch that is out of order I speak all this of Bodily labour which is necessary to the Body and consequently to the mind For want of which abundance grow melancholly and abundance grow sluggish and good for nothing and abundance cherish filthy lusts and millions yearly turn to earth before their time For want of bodily labour a multitude of the idle Gentry and rich people and young people that are slothful do heap up in the secret receptacles of the body a dunghill of unconcocted excrementitious filth and vitiate all the mass of humours which should be the fewel and oyle of life and dye by thousands of untimely deaths of Feavors Palsies Convulsions Apoplexies Dropsies Consumptions Gout c. more miserably than if Thieves had murdered them by the High-way because it is their own doing and by their sloth they kill themselves For want of bodily exercise and labour interposed abundance of Students and sedentary persons fill themselves with diseases and hasten their death and causelesly blame their hard studies for that which was caused by their bodily sloth The hardest studies will do
genuine 1. There is a zeal and activity meerly Natural which is the effect of an active temperature of body 2. There is an affected zeal which is hypocritical about things that are good when men speak and make an outward stir as if they were truly zealous when it is not so 3. There is a selfish zeal when a proud and selfish person is fervent in any matter that concerneth himself for his own opinions his own honour his own estate or friends or interest or any thing that is his own 4. There is a partial factioâ—s zeal when errour or pride or worldliness hath engaged men in a party and they think it is their duty or interest at least to side with the Sect or Faction which they have chosen they will be zealous for all the Mat. 23. 15. Opinions and wayes of their espoused Party 5. There is a superstitious Childish carnal zeal for small indifferent inconsiderable things Like that of the Pharisees and all such hypocrites for their Washings and Fastings and other ceremonious Observances 6. There is an envious malicious zeal against those that have the precedency and cross your desires or cloud your honour in the World or that contradict you in your conceits and ways such is that at large described Iam. 3. 7. There is a pievish contentious wrangling zeal that is assaulting every man who is not squared just to your conceits 8. There is a malignant zeal against the Cause and Servants of the Lord which carryeth men to persecute them See that you take not any of these or any such like for holy zeal § 3. If you should so mistake these mischiefs would ensue 1. Sinful zeal doth make men The mischiefs of false zeal doubly sinful As holy zeal is the fervency of our grace so sinful zeal is the intention and fervency of sin 2. It is an honouring of sin and Satan as if sin were a work and Satan a Master worthy to be fervently and diligently followed 3. It is the most effectual violent way of sinning making men do much evil in a little time and making them more mischievous and hurtful to others than other sinners are 4. It blindeth the judgement and maketh men take truth for falshood and good for evil and disableth Reason to do its office 5. It is the violent resister of all Gods means and teacheth men to rage against the truth that should convince them It stops mens ears and turns away their hearts from the Counsel which would do them good 6. It is the most furious and bloody persecutor of the Saints and Church of Jesus Christ It made Paul once exceeding mad against them Act. 26. 10 11. and shut them up in Prison and punish them in the Synagogues See Jam. 3. and câ—mpel them to blaspheam and persecute them even unto strange Cities and vote for their death Thus concerning zeal he persecuted the Church Phil. 4. 6. 7. It is the turbulent disquieter of all Societies A destroyer of Love a breeder and fomenter of contention and an enemy to order peace and quietness 8. It highly dishonoureth God by presuming to put his name to sin and errour and Rom. 10. 2. Act. 21. 20 22. to entitle him to all the wickedness it doth Such zealous sinners commit their sin as in the Name of God and fight against him ignorantly by his own pretended or abused authority 9. It is an impenitent way of sinning The zealous sinner justifieth his sin and pleadeth reason or Scripture for it and thinketh that he doth well yea that he is serving God when he is murdering his Servants Ioh. 16. 2. 10. It is a multiplying sin and maketh men exceeding desirous to have all others of the sinners mind The zealous sinner doth make as many sin with him as he can Yea if it be but a zeal for small and useless things or about small Controversies or Opinions in Religion 1. It sheweth a mind that 's lâ—mentably strange to the tenour of the Gospel and the mind of Christ and the practice of the great substantial things 2. It destroyeth Charity and peace and breedeth censuring and abusing others 3. It dishonoureth holy zeal by accident making the prophane think that all zeal is no better than the foolish passion of deceived men 4. And it disableth the persons that have it to do good even when they are zealous for holy truth and duty the people will think it is but of the same nature with their erroneous zeal and so will disregard them § 4. The signs of holy zeal are these 1. It is guided by a right Judgement It is a zeal for The signs of holy zeal Truth and Good and not for falshood and Evil Rom. 10. 2. 2. It is for God and his Church or cause and not only for our selves It consisteth with meekness and self-denyal and patience as to our own concernments and causeth us to prefer the interest of God before our own Numb 12. 3. Exod. 32. 19. Gal. 4. 12. Act. 13. 9 12. 3. It is always more careful of the substance than the circumstances It preferreth great things before small It contendeth not for small Controversies to Mat. 23. 22 23. Tit. 2. 14. the loss or wrong of greater truths It extendeth to every known truth and duty but in due proportion being hottest in the greatest things and coolest in the least It maketh men rather zealous of good works than of their controverted Opinions 4. Holy Zeal is alway charitable It is not cruel 2 Pet. 2. 7 8. â—â—â—â—k 9. 4. 1 Cor. 5. and bloody nor of a hurting disposition Luk. 9. 55. but is tender and merciful and maketh men burn with a desire to win and save mens souls rather than to hurt their bodies 1 Cor. 13. Zeal against the sin is conjunct with Love and pity to the sinner 2 Cor. 12. 21. 5. Yet it excludeth that foolish pity which cherisheth the sin Rev. 2. 2. 1 King 15. 13. 6. True zeal is tender of the Churches Unity and Peace It is not a dividing tearing zeal It is first pure and then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits Jam. 3. 17. 7. True zeal is impartial and is Gâ—n 38. 24. 2 Sam. 12. 5. as hot against our own sins and our Childrens and other relations sins as against anothers Mat. 7. 4. 8. True zeal respecteth all Gods Commandments and is not hot for one and contemptuous of another It aimeth at perfection and stinteth not our desires to any lower degree It maketh a man desirous to be like to God even Holy as he is Holy It consisteth principally in the fervour of our Love to God when false Zeal consisteth principally in censorious wranglings against other mens actions or opinions It first worketh towards good and then riseth up against the hindering-evil 9. It maketh 2 Cor. 8. 3. Act 18. 25. Exod. 36. 6. a man laborious in holy duty to God and diligent in
understand the true nature and use of Recreations Labour to be acquainted Direct 2. just how much and what sort of Recreation is needful to your selves in particular In which you must have respect 1. To your bodily strength 2. To your minds 3. To your labours And when you have resolved on 't what and how much is needful and fit to help you in your duty allow it its proper time and place as you do your meals and see that you suffer it not to encroach upon your duty § 51. Direct 3. Ordinarily joyn profit and pleasure together that you lose no time I know not one Direct 3. person of an hundred or of many hundred that needeth any Game at all there are such variety of better exercises at hand to recreate them And it is a sin to idle away any time which we can better improve I confess my own nature was as much addicted to playfullness as most and my judgement alloweth me so much recreation as is needful to my Health and Labour and no more But for all that I find no need of any game to recreate me When my mind needeth recreation I have variety of recreating Books and Friends and business to do that And when my body needeth it the hardest Labour that I can bear is my best recreation walking is instead of games and sports as profitable to my body and more to my mind If I am alone I may improve that time in meditation If with others I may improve it in profitable cheerful conference I condemn not all sports or games in others but I find none of them all to be best for my self And when I observe how far the temper and life of Christ and his best servants was from such recreations I avoid them with the more suspition And I see but few but distaste it in Ministers even Shooting Bowling and such more healthful games to say nothing of Chess and such other as fit not the end of a recreation Therefore there is somewhat in it that nature it self hath some suspition of That student that needeth Chess or Cards to please his Mind I doubt hath a carnal empty mind If God and all his books and all his friends c. cannot suffice for this there is some disease in it that should rather be cured than pleased And for the Body it is another kind of exercise that profits it § 52. Direct 4. Watch against inordinate sensual Delight even in the Lawfullest sport Excess Direct 4. of pleasure in any such vanity doth very much corrupt and befool the mind It puts it out of relish with spiritual things and turneth it from God and Heaven and duty § 53. Direct 5. To this end keep a watch upon your thoughts and fantasies that they run not after Direct 5. sports and pleasures Else you will be like children that are thinking of their sport and longing to be at it when they should be at their Books or business § 54. Direct 6. Avoid the company of revellers gamesters and such time-wasters Come not Direct 6. among them lest you be ensnared Accompany your selves with those that delight themselves in God 2 Tim. 2. 22. § 55. Direct 7. Remember death and judgement and the necessities of your souls Usually these Direct 7. Eccles. 2. 2. sports seem but foolishness to serious men And they say of this mirth as Solomon it is madness And it is great and serious subjects which maketh serious men Death and the world to come when they are soberly thought on do put the mind quite out of rellish with foolish pleasures § 56. Direct 8. Be painful in your honest Callings Laziness breedeth a love of sports when Direct 8. you must please your slothful flesh with ease then it must be further pleased with vanities § 57. Direct 9. Delight in your relations and family duties and mercies If you love the company Direct 9. and converse of your Parents or Children or Wives or Kindred as you ought you will find more pleasure in discoursing with them about holy things or honest business than in foolish sports But Adulterers that love not their Wives and unnatural Parents and Children that love not one another and ungodly Masters of Families that love not their duty are put to seek their sport abroad § 58. Direct 10. See to the sanctifying of all your Recreations when you have chosen such as are Direct 10. truly suited to your need and go not to them before you need nor use them not beyond your need See also that you lift up your hearts secretly to God for his blessing on them and mix them all along as far as you can with holy things as with holy Thoughts or holy Speeches As for Musick which is a lawful pleasure I have known some think it prophaness to use it privately or publickly with a Psalm that scrupled not using it in common mirth When as all our mirth should be as much sanctified as is possible All should be done to the Glory of God And we have much more in Scripture for the Holy Use of Musick publick and private than for any other use of it whatever And it is the excellency of Melody and Musick that they are recreations which may be more aptly and profitably sanctified by application to holy uses than any other And I should think them little worth at all if I might not use them for the holy exhilerating or elevating of my soul or affecting it towards God or exciting it to duty Direct 11. § 59. Direct 11. The sickly and the Melancholy who are usually least inclined to sport have much more need of Recreation than others and therefore may allow it a much larger time than those that are in health and strength Because they take it but as Physick to recover them to health being to abate again when they are recovered § 60. Direct 12. Be much more severe in regulating your selves in your recreations than in censuring Direct 12. others for using some sports which you mislike For you know not perhaps their case and reasons and temptations But an idle Time-wasting sensual sporter every one should look on with pity as a miserable wretch PART III. Directions about Apparel and against the Sin therein committed § 1. Direct 1. FItness is the first thing to be respected in your Apparel to make it a means to Direct 1. the end to which it is appointed The Ends of Apparel are 1. To keep the body warm 2. To keep it from being hurt 3. To adorn it soberly so far as beseemeth the common dignity of humane nature and the special dignity of your places 4. To hide those parts which nature hath made your shame and modesty commandeth you to cover § 2. The Fitness of Apparel consisteth in these things 1. That it be fitted to your Bodies as your Shoo to your foot your Hat to your head c. 2. That it be suited to your
for their mortified garb Thus many Sects amongst the Popish Fryars go by Agreement or Vow in Clothes so differing from all other persons in seeming humility and gravity which must be the badge of their Order in the eye of the world that the boast and affectation is visible and professed And thus the Quakers that by the notoriety of their difference from other sober persons and by their impudent bawling in the Streets and Churches and railing against the holiest and humblest Ministers and people that are not of their Sect and this in the face of Markets and Congregations do make a plain profession or detection of their Pride But where it is not openly revealed we cannot judge it § 13. Quest. 3. Is it not lawful for a person that is deformed to hide their deformity by their clothing Quest. 3. And for any person to make themselves by clothing or spots or painting to seem to others as comely and beautiful as they can Answ. The person and the matter and the End and Reasons the May not a â—â— formity be hâ—â— by appareâ— oâ— paâ—â—â—â—ing principle and the probable consequents must all be considered for the right answering of this Question It is lawful to some persons by some means for some good Ends and Reasons when a greater Evil is not like to follow it to hide their deformities and to adorn themselves so as to seem more comely than they are But for others persons by evil means for evil ends and reasons or when it tendeth to evil consequents it is unlawful 1. A person that is naturally very deformed may do more to hide it by their ornaments than one that hath no such deformity may do to seem more comely Because one aspireth no higher than to seem somewhat like other persons but the other aspireth to seem excellent above others And a person that is under Government may do more in obedience to their Governours than another may do that is at their own choice 2. If the matter of their ornament be but modest decent clothing and not immodest insolent luxurious vain or against Nature or the Law of God or man it is in that respect allowable But so is no cover of deformity by unlawful means 3. It may be lawful if also it be to a lawful end as to obey a Governour or only to cover a deformity so as not unnecessarily to reveal it But it is alway sinful when the end is sinful As 1. If it be to seem extraordinary beautiful or comely when you are not so or if it be to be Laertius saith that when Craesus sate in all his ornaments and glory on his Throne he asked Soloâ— An pulchrius unquâ—m specticulum vidâ— it Ilâ—umque ditisse Gallos gallmaceâ—s fasianos pavoâ—â—s Naturali enim eos nitore speciosiâ—ate exâ—mia vestiri observed and admired by beholders 2. If it be to tempt the beholders minds to lustful or undue affections 3. If it be to deceive the mind of some one that you desire in marriage For in that case to seem by such dissembling to be what you are not is the most injurious kind of cheat much worse than to sell a Horse that is blind or lame for a sound one 4. If it be to follow the fashions of proud Gallants that you may not be scorned by them as not neat enough all these are unlawful ends and reasons 4. So also the Principle or Mind that it cometh from may make it sinful As 1. If it come from a lustful wanton mind 2. Or if it come from an overgreat regard of the opinion of spectators which is the proper complexion of Pride A person that doth it not in pride is not very solicitous about it nor makes no great matter of it whether men take him to be comely or uncomely and therefore he is at no great cost or care to seem comely to them If such persons be deformed they know it is Gods work and not their sin and it is sin that is the true cause of shame And all Gods works are good and for our good if we are his children They know that God doth it to keep them humble and prevent that pride and lust and wantonness which is the undoing of many and therefore they will rather be careful to improve it and get the benefit than to hide it and seem comelier than they are 5. Also the consequents concur much to make the action good or bad Though that be not your end yet if you may foresee that greater hurt than good will follow or is like to follow it will be your sin As 1. If it tend to the ensnaring of the minds of the beholders in procacious lustful wanton passions though you say you intend it not it is your sin that you do that which probably will procure it yea that you did not your best to avoid it And though it be their sin and vanity that is the cause it is never the less your sin to be the unnecessary occasion For you must consider that you live among diseased souls And you must not lay a stumbling-block in their way nor blow up the fire of their lust nor make your ornaments their snares but you must walk among sinful persons as you would do with a Candle amongst Straw or Gunpowder or else you may see the flame which you would not foresee when it is too late to quench it But a proud and procacious lustful mind is so very willing to be loved and thought highly of and admired and desired that no fear of God or of the sin and misery of themselves or others will satisfie them or take them off 2. Also it is sinful to adorn your selves in such fashions as probably will encourage pride and vanity in others or seem to approve of it When any fashion is the common badge of the proud and vain sort of persons of that time and place it is sinful unnecessarily to conform your selves to them because you will harden them in their sin and you joyn your selves to them as one of them by a kind of profession As when spotted faces a name that former Ages understood not or naked breasts or such other fashions are used ordinarily by the vain and brain-sick and heart-sick proud and wanton party it is a sin unnecessarily to use them For 1. You will hinder their Repentance 2. And you will hinder the great Benefit which the world may get by their vain attire For though it be no thanks to them that intend it not yet it is a very great commodity that cometh to mankind by these peoples sin that fools should go about in fools-coats and that empty brains and proud and wanton hearts should be so openly detected in the Streets and Churches that sober people may avoid them and that wise and chaste and civil people may not be deceived by such in marriage to their undoing As the different clothing of the different Sexes is necessary to
Marriage be only by verbal conjunction Divines are disagreed what is to be done Some think that it is no perfect Marriage ante concubitum and also that their conjunction hath but the nature of a Promise to be faithful to each other as Husband and Wife And therefore the Matter promised is unlawful till parents consent and so not to be done But I rather think as most do that it hath all that is essential to Marriage ante concubitum and that this Marriage is more than a Promise of fidelity de futuro even an actual delivery of themselves to one another de praesenti also and that the thing promised in Marriage is lawful For though it be a sin to marry without Parents consent yet when that is past it is lawful for married persons to come together though Parents consent not And therefore that such Marriage is valid and to be continued though it was sinfully made § 17. 3. A third sort that are not called of God to marry are they that have Absolutely vowed not Of Vows of Chastity to marry Such may not marry unless Providence disoblige them by making it become an indispensible duty And I can remember but two waies by which this may be done 1. In case there be any of so strong Lust as no other lawful means but marriage can suffice to maintain their chastity To such marriage is as great a duty as to eat or drink or cover ones nakedness or to hinder another from uncleanness or lying or stealing or the like And if you should make a Vow that you will never eat or drink or that you will go naked or that you will never hinder any one from uncleanness lying or stealing it is unlawful to fullfil this Vow But all the doubt is whether there be any such persons that cannot overcome or restrain their lust by any other lawful means I suppose it is possible there may be such But I believe it is not one of an hundred If they will but practise the Directions before given Tom. 1. Chap. 8. Part 5. Tit. 1. 2. I suppose their lust may be restrained And if that prevail not the help of a Physicion may And if that prevail not some think the help of a Surgeon may be lawful to keep a Vow in case it be not an apparent hazard of life For Christ seemeth to allow of it in mentioning it without reproof Matth. 19. 12. if that text be to be understood of castration But most expositors think it is meant only of a confirmed resolution of chastity And ordinarily other means may make this needless And if it be either needless or perilous it is unlawful without doubt § 18. 2. The second way by which God may dispense with a Vow of chastity is by making the marriage of a person become of apparent necessity to the publick safety And I am able to discern but one instance that will reach the case And that is if a King have Vowed chastity and in case he marry not his next heir being a professed enemy of Christianity the Religion safety and happiness of the whole Nation is apparently in danger to be overthrown I think the case of such a King is like the case of a Father that had vowed never to provide food or rayment for his children Or as if Ahab had vowed that no well should be digged in the Land and when the drought cometh it is become necessary to the saving of the peoples lives Or as if the Ship-master should vow that the ship shall not be pumpt which when it leaketh doth become necessary to save their lives In these cases God disobligeth you from your Vow by a mutation of the matter And a Pastor may dispense with it Declaratively But For the Pope or any mortal man to pretend to more is impiety and deceit § 19. Quest. May the aged marry that are frigid impotent and uncapable of prâ—creation Answ. Yes Quest. God hath not forbidden them And there are are other lawful ends of marriage as mutual help and Wives are young mens mistresses companions for the middle age and old mens nurses So that a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will Lord Bacon Essay comfort c. which may make it lawful § 20. Direct 2. To restrain your inordinate forwardness to marriage keep the ordinary inconveniencies Direct 2. of it in memory Rush not into a state of life the inconveniencies of which you never thought on If you have a call to it the knowledge of the difficulties and duties will be necessary to your prepararation and faithful undergoing them If you have no call this knowledge is necessary to keep you off I shall first name the inconveniencies common to all and then some that are proper to the Ministers of the Gospel which have greater reason to avoid a married life than other men have § 21. 1. Marriage ordinarily plungeth men into excess of worldly cares It multiplieth their business and usually their wants There are many things to mind and do There are many to provide for And many persons you will have to do with who have all of them a selfish disposition and interest and will judge of you but according as you fit their ends And among many persons and businessâ—s some things will frequently fall cross you must look for many rubs and disappointments And your natures are not so strong content and patient as to bear all these without molestation § 22. 2. Your wants in a married state are hardlier supplied than in a single life You will want so many things which before you never wanted and have so many to provide for and content that all will seem little enough if you had never so much Then you will be often at your wits end taking thought for the future what you shall eat and what you shall drink and wherewith shall you and yours be cloathed § 23. 3. Your wants in a married state are far hardlier born than in a single state It is far easier to bear personal wants our selves than to seethe wants of Wife and Children Affection will make their sufferings pinch you And ingenuity will make it a trouble to your mind to need the help of servants and to want that which is fit for servants to expect But especially the discontent and impatience of your family will more discontent you than all their wants You cannot help your Wife and Children and Servants to contented minds O what a heart-cutting tryal is it to hear them repining murmuring and complaining To hear them call for that which you have not for them and grieve at their condition and exclaim of you or of the providence of God because they have it not And think not that Riches will free you from these discontents For as the Rich are but few so they that have much have much to do with it A great foot must have a great shoo When poor men want some small supplys
Virgin doth well So then he that marrieth doth well but he that marrieth not doth better And mark Christs own words Matth. 19. 11. His Disciples say unto him If the case of a man be so with his wife it is not good to marry But he said unto them All men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it is given He that is able to receive it let him receive it § 30. 10. The business of a married state doth commonly devour almost all your time so that little is left for holy contemplations or serious thoughts of the life to come All Gods service is contracted and thrust into a corner and done as it were on the by The world will scarce allow you time to meditate or pray or read the Scripture You think your selves as Martha under a greater necessity of dispatching your business than of sitting at Christs feet to hear his Word O that single persons knew for the most part the pretiousness of their leisure and how free they are to attend the service of God and learn his Word in comparison of the married § 31. 11. There is so great a diversity of temperaments and degrees of understanding that there are scarce any two persons in the world but there is some unsuitableness between them Like stones that have some unevenness that maketh them lye crooked in the building some crossness there will be of opinion or disposition or interest or will by nature or by custome and education which will stir up frequent discontents § 32. 12. There is a great deal of duty which Husband and Wife do owe to one another As to instruct admonish pray watch over one another and to be continual helpers to each other in order to their everlasting happiness and patiently to bear with the infirmities of each other And to the weak and backward heart of man the addition of so much duty doth add to their weariness how good soever the work be in it self And men should feel their strength before they undertake more work § 33. 13. And the more they Love each other the more they participate in each others griefs And one or other will be frequently under some sort of suffering If one be sick or lame or pained or defamed or wronged or disquieted in mind or by temptation fall into any wounding sin the other beareth part of the distress Therefore before you undertake to bear all the burdens of another and suffer in all anothers hurts it concerneth you to observe your strength how much more you have than your own burdens do require § 34. 14. And if you should marry one that proveth ungodly how exceeding great would the affliction be If you loved them your souls would be in continual danger by them They would be the powerfullest instruments in the world to pervert your judgements to deaden your hearts to take you off from a holy life to kill your prayers to corrupt your lives and to damn your souls And if you should have the grace to scape the snare and save your selves it would be by so much the greater difficulty and suffering as the temptation is the greater And what a heart-breaking would it be to converse so nearly with a child of the Devil that is like to lye for ever in Hell The daily thoughts of it would be a daily death to you § 35. 15. Women especially must expect so much suffering in a Married life that if God had not put into them a natural inclination to it and so strong a love to their children as maketh them patient under the most annoying troubles the world would ere this have been at an end through their refusal of so calamitous a life Their sickness in breeding their pain in bringing forth with the danger of their lives the tedious trouble night and day which they have with their children in their nursing and their childhood besides their subjection to their husbands and continual care of family affairs being forced to consume their lives in a multitude of low and troublesome businesses All this and much more would have utterly deterred that Sex from marriage if Nature it self had not enclined them to it § 36. 16. And O what abundance of duty is incumbent upon both the Parents towards every child for Art thou discontented with thy childless state Remember that of all the Roman Kings noâ— one of them left the Crown to his Son Plutarch de â—ranq anim the saving of their souls What uncessant labour is necessary in Teaching them the Doctrine of Salvation Which made God twice over charge them to teach his word diligently or sharpen them unto their children and to talk of them when they sit in their houses and when they walk by the way and when they lye down and when they rise up Deut. 6. 6 7. 11. 19. What abundance of obstinate rooted corruptions are in the hearts of Children which Parents must by all possible diligence root up O how great and hard a work is it to speak to them of their sins and Saviour of their God their souls and the life to come with that reverence gravity seriousness and unwearied constancy as the weight of the matter doth require and to suit all their actions and carriage to the same ends Little do most that have Children know what abundance of care and labour God will require of them for the sanctifying and saving of their Childrens souls Consider your fitness for so great a work before you undertake it § 37. 17. It is abundance of affliction that is ordinarily to be expected in the miscarriages of Children when you have done your best much more if you neglect your duty as even godly Parents too often do After all your pains and care and labour you must look that the foolishness of some and the obstinacy of others and the unthankfulness of those that you have loved best should even pierce your hearts You must look that many vices should spring up and trouble you and be the more grievous by how much your children are the more dear And O what a grief it is to breed up a Child to be a servant of the Devil and an enemy of God and godliness and a persecutor of the Church of God! And to think of his lying in Hell for ever And alas how great is the number of such 18. And it is not a little care and trouble that servants will put you to so difficult is it to get those that are good much more to make them good so great is your duty in teaching them and minding them of the matters of their salvation so frequent will be the displeasures about your work and worldly business and every one of those displeasures will hinder them for receiving your instructions that most families are houses of correction or affliction § 39. 19. And these marriage Crosses are not for a year but during life They deprive you of all hope of relief while you live
the Enemies of Religion that forbad Christs Ministers to preach his Gospel and forbad Gods servants to meet in Church-assemblies for his Worship the support of Religion and the comfort and edification of believers would then lye almost all upon the right performance of family-duties There Masters might teach the same truth to their housholds which Ministers are forbid to preach in the Assemblies There you might pray together as fervently and spiritually as you can There you may keep up as holy converse and communion and as strict a discipline as you please There you may celebrate the praises of your blessed Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and observe the Lords Day in as exact and spiritual a manner as you are able You may there provoke one another to Love and to good works and rebuke every sin and mind each other to prepare for death and live together as passengers to eternal life Thus holy families may keep up Religion and keep up the life and comfort of believers and supply the want of publick preaching in those Countreys where persecutors prohibit and restrain it or where unable or unfaithful Pastors do neglect it § 8. Motive 8. The duties of your families are such as you may perform with greatest peace and least exception Motive 8. or opposition from others When you go further and would be instructing others they will think you go beyond your Call and many will be suspicious that you take too much upon you And if you do but gently admonish a rowt of such as the Sodomites perhaps they will say This one fellow came in to sojourn and he will needs be a Iudge Gen. 19. 9. But your own house is your Castle Your family is your charge You may teach them as oft and as diligently as you will If the ungodly rabble scorn you for it yet no sober person will condemn you nor trouble you for it if you teach them no evil All men must confess that Nature and Scripture oblige you â—o it as your unquestionable work And therefore you may do it among sober people with approbation and quietness § 9. Motive 9. Well governed Families are honourable and exemplary unto others Even the worldly and Motive 9. ungodly use to bear a certain reverence to them For Holiness and Order have some witness that commendeth them in the consciences of many that never practised them A worldly ungodly disordered family is a Den of Snakes a place of hissing railing folly and confusion It is like a Wilderness overgrown with Bryars and Weeds But a holy family is a Garden of God It is beautified with his Graces and ordered by his Government and fruitful by the showres of his heavenly blessing And as the very sluggard that will not be at the cost and pains to make a Garden of his thorny Wilderness may yet confess that a Garden is more beautiful and fruitful and delightful and if wishing would do it his Wilderness should be such Even so the ungodly that will not be at the cost and pains to order their souls and families in holiness may yet see a beauty in those that are so ordered and wish for the happiness of such if they could have it without the labour and cost of self-denyal And no doubt the beauty of such holy and well governed families hath convinced many and drawn them to a great approbation of Religion and occasioned them at last to imitate them § 10. Motive 10. Lastly Consider That holy well governed families are blest with the special presence Motive 10. and favour of God They are his Churches where he is worshipped His houses where he dwelleth He is engaged both by Love and Promise to bless protect and prosper them Psal. 1. 3. 128. It is safe to sail in that Ship which is bound for Heaven and where Christ is the Pilot. But when you reject his Government you refuse his company and contemn his favour and forfeit his blessing by despising his presence his interest and his commands § 11. So that it is an evident truth that most of the mischiefs that now infest or seize upon mankind throughout the earth consist in or are caused by the disorders and ill-governedness of families These are the Schools and Shops of Satan from whence proceed the beastly ignorance lust and sensuality the devilish pride malignity and cruelty against the holy wayes of God which have so unman'd the progeny of Adam These are the Nests in which the Serpent doth hatch the Eggs of Covetousness Envy Strife Revenge of Tyranny Disobedience Wars and Bloodshed and all the Leprosie of sin that hath so odiously contaminated humane nature and all the miseries by which they make the world calamitous Do you wonder that there can be persons and Nations so blind and barbarous as we read of the Turks Tartarians Indians and most of the inhabitants of the earth A wicked education is the cause of all which finding nature depraved doth sublimate and increase the venome which should by education have been cured And from the wickedness of families doth National wickedness arise Do you wonder that so much ignorance and voluntary deceit and obstinacy in errors contrary to all mens common senses can be found among professed Christians as Great and small High and low through all the Papal Kingdom do discover Though the Pride and Covetousness and Wickedness of a worldly carnal Clergie is a very great cause yet the sinful negligence of Parents and Masters in their families is as great if not much greater than that Do you wonder that even in the Reformed Churches there can be so many unreformed sinners of beastly lives that hate the serious practice of the Religion which themselves profess It is ill education in ungodly families that is the cause of all this O therefore how great and necessary a work is it to cast Salt into these corrupted fountains Cleanse and cure these vitiated Families and you may cure almost all the calamities of the earth To tell what the Emperours and Princes of the earth might do if they were wise and good to the remedy of this common misery is the idle talk of those negligent persons who condemn themselves in condemning others Even those Rulers and Princes that are the Pillars and Patrons of Heathenisme Mahometanisme Popery and Ungodliness in the world did themselves receive that venome from their Parents in their birth and education which inclineth them to all this mischief Family-reformation is the easiest and the most likely way to a common Reformation At least to send many souls to Heaven and train up multitudes for God if it reach not to National reformation CHAP. VI. More special Motives for a holy and careful Education of Children BEcause the chief part of Family-Care and Government consisteth in the right Education of Children I shall adjoyn here some more special Motives to quicken considerate Parents to this duty And though most that I have to say for it be already said
first care should be to know and perform the Duties of our Relations and please God in them and then look for his blessing by way of encourageing-reward Study and do your parts and God will certainly do his § 2. Direct 1. The first Duty of Husbands is to Love their Wives and Wives their Husbands Direct 1. with a true entire Conjugal Love Ephes. 5. 25 28 29 33. Husbands love your Wives even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it So ought men to love their Wives as their own Gen 2. 24. Ephes. 5 25 28 29 33. bodies he that loveth his Wife loveth himself For no man ever yet â—ated his own flesh â—ut nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church Let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himself It is a Relation of Love that you have entered God hath made it your Duty for your mutual help and comfort that you may be as willing and ready to succour one another as the hand is to help the eye or other fellow-member and that your converse may be sweet and your burdens easie and your lives may be comfortable If Love be removed but for an hour between Husband and Wife they are so long as a bone out of joint There is no ease no order no work well done till they are restored and set in joint again Therefore be sure that Conjugal Love be constantly maintained § 3. The Sub-directions for maintaining Conjugal Love are such as these Direct 1. Choose one at Sub-directions â—o maintain Conjugal love first that is truly amiable especially in the vertues of the mind 2. Marry not till you are sure that you can Love entirely Be not drawn for sordid ends to joyn with one that you have but ordinary affections â—or 3. Be not too hasty but know before hand all the imperfections which may tempt you afterwards to loathing But if these duties have been sinfully neglected yet 4. Remember that Justice commandeth you to Love one that hath as it were forsaken all the world for you and is contented to be the companion of your labours and sufferings and be an equal sharer in all conditions with you and that must be your companion until death It is worse than barbarous inhumanity to entice such a one into a bond of Love and society with you and then to say You cannot Love her This was by perfidiousness to draw her into a spare to her undoing What comfort can she have in her converse with you and care and labour and necessary sufferings if you deny her Conjugal Love Especially if she deny not Love to you the inhumanity is the greater 5. Remember that Women are ordinarily affectionate passionate creatures and as they love much themselves so they expect much love from you And when you joyned your self to such a Nature you obliged your self to answerable duty And if Love cause not Love it is ungrateful and unjust contempt 6. Remember that you are under Gods command And to deny conjugal Love to your Wives is to deny a duty which God hath urgently imposed on you Obedience therefore should command your Love 7. Remember that you are Relatively as it were one flesh You have drawn her to forsake Father and Mother to cleave to you You are conjoyned for procreation of such children as must bear the image and nature of you both your possessions and interests are in a manner the same And therefore such nearness should command affection They that are as your selves should be most easily loved as your selves 8. Take more notice of the good that is in your Wives than of the evil Let not the observation of their faults make you forget or overlook their vertues Love is kindled by the sight of Love or Goodness 9. Make not infirmities to seem odious faults but excuse them as far as lawfully you may by considering the frailty of the Sex and of their tempers and considering also your own infirmities and how much your Wives must bear with you 10. Stir up that most in them into exercise which is best and stir not up that which is evil And then the good will most appear and the evil will be as buried and you will easilier maintain your love There is some uncleanness in the best on earth And if you will be daily stirring in the filth no wonder if you have the annoyance And for that you may thank your selves Draw out the fragrancy of that which is good and delectable in them and do not by your own imprudence or pievishness stir up the worst and then you shall find that even your faulty Wives will appear more amiable to you 11. Overcome them with Love and then whatever they are in themselves they will be Loving to you and consequently Lovely Love will cause Love as fire kindleth fire A good husband is the best means to make a good and loving Wife Make them not froward by your froward carriage and then say We cannot love them 12. Give them examples of amiableness in your selves set them the pattern of a prudent lowly loving meek self denying patient harmless holy heavenly life Try this a while and see whether it will not shame them from their faults and make them walk more amiably themselves § 4. Direct 2. Another Duty of Husbands and Wives is Cohabitation and where age prohibiteth Direct 2. not a sober and modest conjunction for procreation Avoiding lâ—sciviousness unseasonableness and whatever tendeth to corrupt the mind and make it vain and filthy and hinder it from holy employment And therefore Lust must not be cherished in the married but the mind be brought to a moderate chaste and sober frame and the Remedy must not be turned into an increase of the disease but used to extinguish it For if the mind be left to the power of Lust and only marriage trusted to for the cure with many it will be found an insufficient cure and Lust will rage still as it did before and will be so much the more desperate and your case the more miserable as your sin prevaileth against the remedy Yet marriage being appointed for a remedy against lust for the avoiding all unlawful congress the Apostle hath plainly described your duty 1 Cor. 7. 2 3 4 5. It is good for a man not to touch a woman Nevertheless to avoid fornication let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence and likewise also the wife unto the husband The wife hath not power of her own body but the husband and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife Defraud you not one the other except it be with consent for a time that ye may give your selves to fasting and prayer and come together again that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency Therefore those persons live contrary to the nature of
Religious Countreys among more wise and learned men than he converseth with at home and have sufficient motives for his course But to send young raw unsettled persons among Papists and prophane licentious people though perhaps some sober person be in company with them and this only to see the Countreys and fashions of the World is an action unbeseeming any Christian that knoweth the pravity of humane nature and the mutability of young unfurnished heads and the subtilty of deceivers and the contagiousness of sin and errour and the worth of a soul and will not do as some Conjurers or Witches even sell a soul to the Devil on condition he may see and know the fashions of the world which alas I can quickly know enough of to grieve my heart without travelling so far to see them If an other Countrey have more of Christ and be nearer Heaven the invitation is great but if it have more of sin and Hell I had rather know Hell and the Suburbs of it too by the Map of the Word of God than by going thither And if such children return not the confirmed children of the Devil and prove not the calamity of their Countrey and the Church let them thank special grace and not their Parents or themselves They over-value that vanity which they call Breeding who will hazard the substance even Heavenly Wisdom Holiness and Salvation to go so far for so vain a shadow § 16. Direct 16. Teach your children to know the pretiousness of Time and suffer them not to mispend Direct 16. an hour Be often speaking to them how pretious a thing Time is and how short mans life is and how great his work and how our endless life of joy or misery dependeth on this little Time Speak odiously to them of the sin of those that play and idle away their time And keep account of all their hours and suffer them not to lose any by excess of sleep or excess of play or any other way but engage them still in some employment that is worth their Time Train up your children in a life of diligence and labour and use them not to ease and idleness when It was one of the Roman Laws of thâ— twelve Tablâ—â— Filius aâ—â—e 〈…〉 â—â—ns 〈…〉 curia 〈…〉 vitâ—â—â—â— c 〈…〉 ne prâ—staâ—o Alioquâ— parentes nutrire câ—gitor A Son â—hat is taught to Trade to live by shall not be bound to keep his Parents in want but others shall Ezek. 16. 49. they are young Our wandring Beggars and too many of the Gentry utterly undo their children by this means Especially the female Sex They are taught no Calling nor exercised in any employment but only such as is meet for nothing but ornament and recreation at the best and therefore should have but recreation-hours which is but a small proportion of their time So that by the sin of their Parents they are betimes engaged in a life of Idleness which afterward it is wondrous hard for them to overcome And they are taught to live like Swine or Vermine that live only to live and do small good in the world by living To rise and dress and adorn themselves and take a walk and so to dinner and thence to Cards or Dice or chat and idle talk or some play or visit or recreation and so to Supper and to chat again and to bed is the lamentable life of too many that have great obligations to God and greater matters to do if they were acquainted with them And if they do but interpose a few hypocritical heartless words of prayer they think they have piously spent the day Yea the health of many is utterly ruined by such idle fleshly education so that disuse doth disable them from any considerable motion or exercise which is necessary to preserve their health It would move ones heart with pity to see how the houses of some of the Higher sort are like Hospitals and education hath made especially the females like the lame or sick or bedrid so that one part of the day that should be spent in some profitable employment is spent in bed and the rest in doing nothing or worse than nothing and most of their life is made miserable by diseases so that if their legs be but used to carry them about they are presently out of breath and are a burden to themselves and few of them live out little more than half their dayes Whereas poor creatures if their own Parents had not betrayed them into the sins of Sodom Pride fulness of bread and abundance of Idleness they might have been in health and lived like honest Christian people and their legs and arms might have served them for Use as well as for integrality and ornament § 17. Direct 17. Let necessary correction be used with discretion according to these following Rules Direct 17. 1. Let it not be so seldome if necessary as to leave them fearless and so make it uneffectual and let it not be so frequent as to discourage them or breed in them a hatred of their Parents 2. Let it be different according to the different tempers of your children Some are so tender and timerous and apt to be discouraged that little or no correction may be best And some are so hardned and obstistinate that it must be much and sharp correction that must keep them from dissoluteness and contempt 3. Let it be more for sin against God as lying railing filthy speaking prophaneness c. than for faults about your worldly business 4. Correct them not in passion but stay till they perceive that you are calmed For they will think else that your anger rather than your reason is the cause 5. Alwayes shew them the tenderness of your Love and how unwilling you are to correct them if they could be reformed any easier way and convince them that you do it for their good 6. Make them read those Texts of Scripture which condemn their sin and then those which command you to correct them As for example if Lying be their sin turn them first to Prov. 12. 22. Lying lips are abomination to the Lord but they that deal truly are his delight and 13. 5. A righteous man hateth lying John 8. 44. Ye are of your Father the Devil when he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyar and the Father of it Rom. 22. 15. For without are dogs and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye And next turn him to Prov. 13. 24. He that spareth his rod hateth his Son but be that loveth him chastneth him betimes Prov. 29. 15. The rod and reproof give wisdom but a child left to himself bringeth his Mother to shame Prov. 22. 15. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him Prov. 23. 13 14. Withhold not correction from the child for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die Thou shalt beat him with the rod
and run greedily after the the errours of Balaam And 2 Pet. 2. 3 14 15. Through Covetousness they make mer handize of you An heart they have exercised with covetous practices Cursed Children or Children of a Curse which have for saken the right way and are gone astray following the way of Balaam the Son of Bosor who loved the wages of unrighteousness but was rebuked for his iniquity the duâ—b Asse speaking with mans voice forbad the madness of the Prophet When you shall every one hear Thou foâ—l this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided Luke 12. 19 20 21. will it not then cut deep in your perpetual torments to remember that you got that little pelf by betraying so many souls to hell What men in the World doth Iames speaks to if not to you Jam. 5. 1 2 3 4. Go to now ye Rich men weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire ye have heaped treasure together for the last dayes Behold the hire of the labourers which have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud cryeth and the cryes of them which have reaped have entred into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath How much more the cry of betrayed souls And here we may seasonably answer these cases Quest. 1. Is it lawful for a Christian to buy and use a man as a slave Quest. 2. Is it lawful to use a Christian as a slave Quest. 3. What difference must we make between a free servant and a slave To Quest. 1. I answer There is a slavery to which some men may be Lawfully put and there is a slavery to which none may be put And there is a slavery to which only the criminal may be put by way of penalty 1. No man may be put to such a slavery as under the first Direction is denyed that is such as shall injure Gods interest and service or the mans salvation 2. No man but as a just punishment for his crimes may be so enslaved as to be deprived of those liberties benefits and comforts which brotherly love obligeth every man to grant to another for his good as far as is within our power all things considered That is the same man is a servant and a brother and therefore must at once be used as both 3. Though poverty or necessity do make a man consent to sell himself to a life of lesser misery to escape a greater or death it self yet is it not lawful for any other so to take advantage by his necessity as to bring him into a condition that shall make him miserable or in which we shâ—â— not exercise so much love as may tend to his sanctification comfort and salvation Because no Iustice is beseeming a Christian or a Man which is not conjoyned with a due measure of Charity But 1. He that deserveth it by way of penalty may be penally used 2. He that stole and cannot restore may be forced to work it out as a servant And in both these cases more may be done against anothers ease or liberty than by meer contract or consent He that may hang a flagitious offender doth him no wrong if he put him to a slavery which is less penal than death 3. More also may be done against Enemies taken in a lawful War than could be done against the innocent by necessitated consent 4. A certain degree of servitude or slavery is lawful by the necessitated consent of the innocent That is so much 1. As wrongeth no interest of God 2. Nor of mankind by breaking the Law of Nations 3. Nor the person himself by hindering his salvation or the needful means thereof nor those comforts of life which nature giveth to man as man 4. Nor the Common-wealth or society where we live Quest. 2. To the 2 Quest. I answer 1. As men must be variously Loved according to the various Quest. 2. degrees of amiableness in them so various degrees of Love must be exercised towards them Therefore good and real Christians must be used with more Love and brotherly tenderness than others 2. It is meet also that infidels have so much mercy shewed them in order to the saving of their souls as that they should be invited to Christianity by fit encouragements And so that they should know that if they will turn Christians they shall have more priviledges and emoluments than the enemies of truth and piety shall have It is therefore well done of Princes who make Laws that Infidel slaves shall be free men when they are duly Christened 3. But yet a nominal Christian who by wickedness forfeiteth his Life or freedom may penally be made a slave as well as Infidels 4. And a poor and needy Christian may sell himself into a harder state of servitude than he would choose or we could otherwise put him into But 5. To go as Pirats and catch up poor Negro's or people of another Land that never forfeited Life or Liberty and to make them slaves and sell them is one of the worst kinds of Thievery in the world and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind And they that buy them and use them as beasts for their meer commodity and betray or destroy or neglect their souls are fitter to be called incarnate Devils than Christians though they be no Christians whom they so abuse Quest. 3. To the 3 Quest. I answer That the solution of this case is to be gathered from what Quest. 3. is said already A Servant and a Voluntary slave were both free men till they sold or hired themselves And a criminal person was a freeman till he forfeited his life or liberty But afterward the difference is this that 1. A free servant is my servant no further than his own Covenant made him so Which is supposed to be 1. To a certain kind and measure of labour according to the meaning of his contract 2. For a limited time expressed in the contract whether a year or two or three or seven 2. A Slave by meer Contract is one that 1. Usually selleth himself absolutely to the will of another as to his labour both for kind and measure where yet the limitations of God and nature after and before named are supposed among Christians to take place 2. He is one that selleth himself to such labour during life 3. A Slave by just penalty is lyable to so much servitude as the Magistrate doth judge him to which may be 1. Not only such labour as aforesaid as pleaseth his master to impose 2. And that for life 3. But it may be also to stripes and severities which might not lawfully be inflicted on another 1. The Limitations of a
will be often at it when they love it so that all these benefits will follow 1. It will make them Love the Book though it be but with a common Love 2. It will make them spend their time in it when else they would rather be at play 3. It will acquaint them with Scripture-History which will afterwards be very useful to them 4. It will lead them up by degrees to the knowledge of the doctrine which is all along interwoven with the History § 5. Direct 5 Take heed that you turn not all your family instructions into a customary formal Direct 5. course by bare readings and repeating Sermons from day to day without familiar personal application For it is ordinarily seen that they will grow as sleepy and senseless and customary under such a dull and distant course of duty though the matter be good almost as if you had said nothing to them Your business therefore must be to get within them and awaken their consciences to know that the matter doth most nearly concern them and to force them to make application of it to themselves § 6. Direct 6. Let none affect a formal Preaching way to their families except they be Preachers Direct 6. themselves or men that are able for the Ministry But rather spend the time in Reading to them the pâ—â—e fullest Books and speaking to them more familiarly about the state and matters of their souls Not that I think it unlawful for a man to preach to his family in the same Method that a Minister doth to his people For no doubt but he may teach them in the profitablest manner he can And that which is the best Method for a set speech in the Pulpit is usually the best Method in a family But my reasons against this Preaching-way ordinarily are these 1. Because it is very few Masters of families that are able for it even among them that think they are And then they ignorantly abuse the Scripture so as tends much to Gods dishonour 2. Because there is scarce any of them all but may read at the same time such lively profitable Books to their Families as handle those things which they have most need to hear of in a far more edifying manner than they themselves are able except they be so poor that they can get no such Books 3. Because the familiar way is most edifying And to talk seriously with Children and Servants about the great concernments of their souls doth commonly more move them than Sermons or set speeches Yet because there is a season for both you may sometimes read some powerful Books to them and sometimes talk familiarly to them 4. Because it often comes from Pride when men put their speech into a Preaching method to shew their parts and as often nourisheth pride § 7. Direct 7. Let the manner of your teaching them be very often interlâ—cutory or by way of Direct 7. Questions Though when you have so many or such persons present as that such familiarity is not seasonable then Reading repeating or set speeches may do best But at other times when the number or quality of the company hindereth not you will find that Questions and familiar discourse is best For 1. It keepeth them awake and attentive when they know they must make some answer to your Questions which set speeches with the dull and sluggish will hardly do 2. And it mightily helpeth them in the application so that they much more easily take it home and perceive themselves concerned in it § 8. Direct 8. Yet prudently take heed that you speak nothing to any in the presence of others that Direct 8. tends to open their ignorance or sin or the secrets of their hearts or that any way tendeth to shame them except in the necessary reproof of the obstinate If it be their common ignorance that will be opened by questioning them you may do it before your servants or Children themselves that are familiar with each other but not when any strangers are present But if it be about the secret state of their souls that you examine them you must do it singly when the person is alone Lâ—st shaming and troubling them make them haâ—e instruction and deprive them of all the benefit of it § 9. Direct 9. When you come to teach them the Doctrine of Religion begin with the Baptismal Direct 9. Covenant as the summ of all that is essential to Christianity And here teach them briefly all the substance of this at once For though such General knowledge will be obscure and not distinct and satisfactory yet it is necessary at first because they must see Truths set together For they will understand nothing truly if they understand it but independantly by broken parts Therefore open to them the summ of the Covenant or Christian Religion all at once though you say but little at first of the several parts Help them to understand what it is to be baptized into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And here you must open it to them in this order You must help them to know who are the Covenanters GOD and MAN and first the nature of man is to be opened because he is first known and God in him who is his Image Familiarly tell them that man is not like a beast that hath no Reason nor free will nor any knowledge of another World nor any other life to live but this But he hath an understanding to know God and a will to choose good and refuse evil and an immortal soul that must live for ever and that all inferiour Creatures were made for his service as he was made for the service of his Creator Tell them that neither man nor any thing that we see could make it self but God is the Maker preserver and disposer of all the world That this God is infinite in Power and Wisdom and Goodness and is the Owner and Ruler and Benefactor Felicity and End of man That man was made to be wholly devoted and resigned to God as his Owner and to be wholly Ruled by him as his Governour and to be wholly given up to his Love and Praise as his Father his Felicity and End That the Tempter having drawn man from this blessed state of life in Adam's fall the world fell under the wrath of God and had been lost for ever but that God of his mercy provided us a Redeemer even the Eternal Son of God who being One with the Father was pleased to take the nature of man and so is both God and man in one person who being born of a Virgin lived among men and fulfilled the Law of God and overcame the Tempter and the World and dyed as a Sacrifice for our sins to reconcile us unto God that all men being born with corrupted natures and living in sin till Christ recover them there is now no hope of salvation but by him that he hath paid our debt and made
some that may inform you should hear them pray sometime that you may know their spirit and how they profit § 20. Direct 20. Put such Books into their hands as are meetest for them and engage them to Direct 20. read them when they are alone And ask them what they understand and remember of them And hold them not without necessity so hard to work as to allow them no time for reading by themselves But drive them on to work the harder that they may have some time when their work is done § 21. Direct 21. Cause them to teach one another when they are together Let their talk be profitable Direct 21. Let those that read best be reading sometime to the rest and instructing them and furthering their edification Their familiarity might make them very useful to one another § 22. Direct 22. Tire them not out with too much at once but give it them as they can receive it Direct 22. Narrow mouth'd bottles must not be filled as wider vessels § 23. Direct 23. Labour to make all sweet and pleasant to them and to that end sometime mix Direct 23. the reading of some profitable history as the Book of Martyrs and Clarkes Martyrologie and his Lives § 24. Direct 24. Lastly Entice them with kindnesses and rewards Be kind to your Children Direct 24. when they do well and be as liberal to your servants as your Condition will allow you For this maketh your persons acceptable first and then your instructions will be much more acceptable Nature teacheth them to Love those that Love them and do them good and to hearken willingly to those they love A small gift now and then might signifie much to the further benefit of their souls § 25. If any shall say that here is so much ado in all these directions as that few can follow Direct 25. them I intreat them to consult with Christ that dyed for them whether souls be not pretious and worth all this adoe And to consider how small a labour all this is in comparison of the everlasting end And to remember that all is Gain and pleasure and a delight to those that have holy hearts And to remember that the effects to the Church and Kingdom of such holy Government of families would quite over-compensate all the pains CHAP. XXIII Tit. 1. Directions for Prayer in General § 1. HE that handleth this Duty of PRAYER as it deserveth must make it the second The Stoicks say Orabit sapiens ac vâ—ta faciet bona à diis postulans Lacrt. it Zenone So that when Scneca saith Cur deos precibus fatigatis c. he only intendeth to reprove the slothful that think to have all done by prayer alone while they are idle and neglect the means Part in the Body of Divinity and allow it a larger and exacter Tractate than I here intend For I have before told you that as we have three Natural faculties An Understanding Will and Executive Power so these are qualified in the Godly with Faith Love and Obedience and have three particular Rules The Creed to shew us what we must Believe and in what Order The Lords Prayer to shew us what and in what order we must Desire and Love And the Decalogue to tell us what and in what order we must do Though yet these are so near kin to one another that the same actions in several respects belong to each of the Rules As the Commandments must be Believed and Loved as well as Obeyed and the matter of the Lords Prayer must be believed to be good and necessary as well as Loved and Desired and Belief and Love and Desire are commanded and are part of our obedience yet for all this they are not formally the same but divers And as we say that the Heart or Will is the man as being the Commanding faculty so Morally the Will the Love or Desire is the Christian and therefore the Rule of Desire or Prayer is a Principal part of true Religion The internal part of this Duty I partly touched before Tom. 1. Chap. 3. and the Church Part I told you why I past by Tom. 2. it being not left by the Government where we live to Private Ministers discussion save only to perswade men to obey what is established and commanded Therefore because I have omitted the later and but a little toucht upon the former I shall be the larger on it in this place to which for several Reasons I have reserved it § 2. Direct 1. See that you understand what Prayer is Even The expressing or acting of our Direct 1. Desires before another to move or some way procure him to grant them True Christian Prayer is The believing and serious expressing or acting of our lawful desires before God through Iesus our Mediator by the help of the Holy Spirit as a means to procure of him the grant of these desires Here note 1. That inward Desire is the soul of Prayer 2. The expressions or inward actings of them is as the Body of Prayer 3. To men it must be Desire so expressed as they may Plerumque hoc negotium plus gentibus quam sermonibus agitur August Epist. 121. understand it But to God the inward acting of Desires is a Prayer because he understandeth it 4. But it is not the acting of Desire simply in it self that is any Prayer For he may have Desires that offereth them not up to God with Heart or Voice But it is Desires as some way offered up to God or represented or acted towards him as a means to procure his blessing that is Prayer indeed § 3. Direct 2. See that you understand the Ends and Use of Prayer Some think that it is of Direct 2. no Use but only to move God to be willing of that which he was before unwilling of And therefore because that God is Immutable they think that Prayer is a Useless thing But Prayer is Useful 1. As an act of Obedience to Gods Command 2. As the performance of a condition without which he hath not promised us his Mercy and to which he hath promised it 3. As a Means to actuate and express and increase our own Humility Dependance Desire Trust and Hope in God and so to make us capable and fit for Mercy who else should be uncapable and unfit 4. And so though God be not changed by it in himself yet the Real change that is made by it on our selves doth infer a change in God by meer Relation or Extrinsical denomination he being one that is according to the tenour of his own established Law and Covenant engaged to disown or punish the Unbelieving Prayerless and Disobedient and after engaged to Own or pardon them that are Faithfully Desirâ—us and Obedient And so this is a Relative or at least a denominative change So that in Prayer Faith and Fervency are so far from being useless that they as much prevail for the thing
sense and reason but will wish that they had Loved God and sought and served him not formally in hypocritical complement but with all their heart and soul and might § 9. Direct 8. Labour also to fortifie the minds of your friends against all fears of suffering for Direct 8. Christ and all impatience in any of their afflictions Say to them The sufferings as well as the pleasures of this life are s◠short that they are not worthy once to be compared with the durable things of the life to come If I have past through a life of want and toil if my body hath endured painful sickness if I have suffered never so much from men and been used cruelly for the sake of Christ what the worse am I now when all is past Would an easie honourable plentiful life have made my death either the safer or the sweeter O no! It is the things eternal that are indeed significant and regardable Neither pleasure nor pain that is short is of any great regard Make sure of the Everlasting pleasures and you have done your work O live by faith and not by sense Look not at the temporal things which are seen It is not your concernment whether you are rich or poor in honour or dishonour in health or sickness but whether you be justified and sanctified and shall live with God in Heaven for ever Such serious counsels of dying men may make their sickness more fruitful than their health CHAP. XXXI Directions to the Friends of the Sick that are about them § 1. Direct 1. WHen you see the sickness or death of your friends take it as Gods warning Direct 1. to you to prepare for the same your selves Remember that thus it must be with you Thus are you like to lye in pain and thus will all the world forsake you and nothing of all your honour or wealth will afford you any comfort This will be the end of all your pleasures of your greatness and your houses and lands and attendance and of all your delicious meats and drinks and of all your mirth and play and recreations Thus must your carkasses be forsaken of your souls and laid in a grave and there lie rotting in the dark and your souls appear before your Judge to be sentenced to their endless state This certainly will be your case and O how quickly will it come Then what will Christ and Grace be worth Then nothing but the favour of God can comfort you Then whether will it be better to you to look back on a holy well-spent life or upon a life of fleshly ease and pleasure Then had you rather be a Saint or a Sensualist Lay this to heart and let the house of mourning make you better and live as one that looks to dye § 2. Direct 2. Use the best means for the recovery of the sick which the ablest Physicions shall advise Direct 2. you to as far as you are able Take heed of being guilty of the Pride and folly of many self-conceited ignorant persons who are ready to thrust every Medicine of their own upon their friends in sickness when they neither know the nature of the sickness or the cure Many thousands are brought to their death untimely by the folly of their nearest friends who will needs be medicining them and ruling them and despising the Physicion as if they were themselves much wiser than he when they are meerly ignorant of what they do As ignorant Sectaries despise Divines and set up themselves as better Preachers so many silly Women despise Physicions and when they have got a few Medicines which they know not the nature of nor how to use they take themselves for the better Physicions and the lives of their poor friends must pay for their pride and folly No means must be trusted to instead of God but the best must be used in subservience unto God And one would think that a small measure of wit and humility might serve to make silly women understand that they that never bestowed one year in the study of Physick are not so likely to understand it as those that have studied and practised it a great part of their lives It is sad to see people kill their dearest friends in kindness even by that ignorance and proud selfconceitedness which also maketh them the destroyers of their own souls § 3. Quest. But seeing God hath appointed all mens time what good can Physick do If God hath Quest. appointed them to live they shall live and if he have appointed them to dye it is not Physick that can save them Answ. This is the foolish reasoning of wicked people about their salvation If God have appointed Answ. me to salvation I shall be saved if he have not all my diligence will do no good But such people know not what they talk of God hath made your duty more open and known to you than his own decrees And you separate those things which he hath joyned together As God hath appointed no man to salvation simply without respect to the means of salvation so God hath appointed no man to live but by the means of life His Decree is not Such a man shall be saved or Such a man shall live so long only But this is his Decree Such a man shall be saved in the way of faith and holiness and in the diligent use of means and Such a man shall live so long by the use of those means which I have fitted for the preservation of his life So that as he that liveth a holy life may be sure he is chosen to salvation if he persevere and he that is ungodly may be sure that he is in the way to Hell so he that neglecteth the means of his health and life doth shew that it is unlike that God hath appointed him to live and he that useth the best means is liker to recover though the best will not cure uncurable Diseases nor make a man immortal The reasoning is the same as if you should say If God have appointed me to live so long I shall live though I neither eat nor drink But if he have not eating and drinking will not prolong my life But you must know that God doth not only appoint you to live that is but half his Decree but he decreeth that you shall live by eating and drinking § 4. Direct 3. Mind your friends betimes to make their Wills and prudently by good advice to settle Direct 3. their estates that they may leave no occasion of contending about it when they are dead This should be done in health because of the uncertainty of life But if it be undone till sickness it should then be done betimes The neglect of it oft causeth much sinful contending about worldly things even among those near relations who should live in the greatest amity and peace § 5. Direct 4. Keep away vain company from them as far as you can conveniently
and accordingly your speech must be mixt and tempered and your counsels or comforts given with the Conditions and Suppositions exprest § 13. Quest. But what order would you have us observe in speaking to the ignorant and ungodly Quest. 5. when the time is so short Answ. 1. Labour to awaken them to a lively sense of the change which is at hand that they may Answ. understand the necessity of looking after the state of their souls 2. Then shew them what are the terms of salvation and who they are that the Gospel doth judge to salvation or damnation 3. Next advise them to try which of these is their condition and to deal faithfully seeing self-flattery may undo them but can do them no good 4. Then help them in the tryal q. d. If it have been so or so with you then you may know that this is your case 5. Then tell them the Reasons of your fears if you fear they are unconverted or of your hopes if you hope indeed that it is better with them 6. Then exhort them conditionally if they are yet in a carnal unsanctified state to lament it and be humbled and penitent for their sinful and ungodly life 7. And then tell them the Remedy in Christ and the Holy Ghost and the Promise or Covenant of Grace 8. And lastly tell them their present duty that this Remedy may prove effectual to their salvation And if you have so much interest or authority as maketh it fit for you excite them by convenient questions so far to open their case as may direct you and as by their answers may shew whether they truly resolve for a holy life if God restore them and whether their hearts indeed be changed or not § 14. Direct 7. If you are not able to instruct them as you should read some good Book to Direct 7. them which is most suitable to their case Such as Mr. Perkins Right art of Dying well The Practice of Piety in the Directions for the Sick Mr. Ed. Lawrences Treatise of Sickness or what else is most suitable to them And because most are themselves unable for counselling the sick aright and you may not have a fit Book at hand I shall here subjoyn a brief Form or two for such to Read to the Sick that can endure no long discourse And other books will help you to forms of Prayer with them if you cannot pray without such help § 15. Direct 8. Iudge not of the state of mens souls by those carriages in their sickness which Direct 8. proceed from their diseases or bodily distemper Many ignorant people judge of a man by the manner of his dying If one die in calmness and clearness of understanding and a few good words they think that this is to die like a Saint Whereas in Consumptions and oft in Dropsies and other such Chronical diseases this is ordinary with good and bad And in a Feaver that 's violent or a Phrensie or Distraction the best man that is may die without the use of Reason Some diseases will make one blockish and heavy and unapt to speak and some consist with as much freedom of speech as in time of health The state of mens souls must not be judged of by such accidental unavoidable things as these § 16. Direct 9. Be neither unnaturally sensless at the death of friends nor excessively dejected or afflicted Direct 9. To make light of the Death of Relations and friends be they good or bad is a sign of a very vitious nature that is so much selfish as not much to regard the Lives of others And he that regardeth not the Life of his friends is little to be trusted in his lower concernments I speak not this of those persons whose temper alloweth them not to weep For there may be as deep a regard and sorrow in some that have no tears as in others that abound with them But I speak of a naughty selfish nature that is little affected with any ones concernments but its own § 17. Yet your grief for the death of friends must be very different both in degree and kind 1. For ungodly friends you must grieve for their own sakes because if they dyed such they are lost for ever 2. For your Godly friends you must mourn for the sake of your selves and others because God hath removed such as were blessings to those about them 3. For choice Magistrates and Ministers and other instruments of publick good your sorrow must be greater because of the common loss and the judgement thereby inflicted on the World 4. For old tryed Christians that have overcome the world and lived so long till age and weakness make them almost unserviceable to the Church and who groan to be unburdened and to be with Christ your sorrow should be least and your joy and thanks for their happiness should be greatest But especially abhor that nature that secretly is glad of the death of Parents or little sorrowful because that their estates are faln to you or you are enriched or set at liberty by their death God seldom leaveth this sin unrevenged by some heavy judgements even in this life § 18. Direct 10. To overcome your inordinate grief for the death of your relations consider these Direct 10. things following 1. That excess of sorrow is your sin And sinning is an ill use to be made of your Help against excessive grief for the Death of friends affliction 2. That it tendeth to a great deal more It unfitteth you for many duties which you are bound to as to Rejoice in God and to be Thankful for mercies and cheerful in his Love and Praise and Service And is it a small sin to unfit your selves for the greatest duties 3. If you are so troubled at Gods disposal of his own what doth your Will but rise up against the will of God as if you grudged at the exercise of his Dominion and Government that is that he is God! Who is wisest and Best and fittest to dispose of all mens lives Is it God or you Would you not have God to be the Lord of all and to dispose of Heaven and earth and of the lives and Crowns of the greatest Princes If you would not you would not have him to be God If you would is it not unreasonable that you or your friends only should be excepted from his disposal 4. If your friends are in Heaven how unsuitable is it for you to be overmuch mourning for them when they are rapt into the highest Joyes with Christ and Love should teach you to rejoice with them that rejoice and not to mourn as those that have no hope 5. You know not what mercy God Isa. 57. 1. shewed to your friends in taking them away from the evil to come you know not what suffering Phil. 1. 2◠23. the Land or Church is falling into or at least might have faln upon themselves nor what sins they might have
among them and defile them 7. It is the duty of the several members of the flock if a Brother trespass against them to tell him his faults between them and him and if he hear not to take two or three and if he hear not them to tell the Church 8. It is the Pastors duty to admonish the unruly and call them to Repentance and pray for their Conversion 9. And it is the Pastors duty to declare the obstinately impenitent uncapable of Communion with the Church â—nd to charge him to forbear it and the Church to avoid him 10. It is the peoples duty to avoid such accordingly and have no familiarity with them that they may be ashamed and with such no not to eat 11. It is the Pastors duty to Absolve the Penitent declaring the remission of their sin and re-admitting to the Communion of the Saints 12. It is the peoples duty to re-admit the absolved to their Communion with joy and to take them as Brethren in the Lord. 13. Though every Pastor hath a General power to exercise his office in any part of the Church where he shall be truly called to it yet every Pastor hath a special obligation and consequently a special power to do it over the flock of which he hath received the special charge and oversight 14. The Lords day is separated by Gods appointment for the Churches ordinary holy Communion in Gods Worship under the conduct of these their Guides 15. And it is requisite that the several particular Churches do maintain as much agreement among themselves as their capacity will allow them and keep due Synods and correspondencies to that end Thus much of Gods Worship and Church-order and Government at least is of Divine institution and determined by Scripture and not left to the will or liberty of man Thus far the Form of Government at least is of Divine Right § 21. But on the contrary 1. About Doctrine and Worship the Scripture is no Law in any of these following cases but hath left them undetermined 1. There are many natural Truths which the Scripture meddleth not with As Physicks Metaphysicks Logick c. 2. Scripture telleth not a Minister what particular Text or Subject he shall Preach on this day or that 3. Nor what method his Text or Subject shall be opened and handled in 4. Nor what day of the week besides the Lords day he shall preach nor what hour on the Lords day he shall begin 5. Nor in what particular place the Church shall meet 6. Nor what particular sins we shall most confess nor what personal mercies we shall at this present time first ask nor for what we shall now most copiously give thanks For special occasions must determine all these 7. Nor what particular Chapter we shall now read nor what particular Psalm we shall now sing 8. Nor what particular translation of the Scripture or version of the Psalms we shall now use Nor into what Sections to distribute the Scripture as we do by Chapters and Verses Nor whether the Bible shall be Printed or Written or in what Characters or how bound 9. Nor just by what sign I shall express my consent to the truths or duties which I am called to express consent to besides the Sacraments and ordinary words 10. Nor whether I shall use written Notes to help my memory in Preaching or Preach without 11. Nor whether I shall use a writing or book in prayer or pray without 12. Nor whether I shall use the same words in preaching and prayer or various new expressions 13. Nor what utensils in holy administrations I shall use as a Temple or an ordinary house a Pulpit a font a Table cups cushions and many such which belong to the several parts of Worship 14. Nor in what particular gesture we shall preach or read or hear 15. Nor what particular garments Ministers or people shall wear in time of Worship 16. Nor what natural or artificial helps to our natural faculties Of which I have spoke more fully in my Disput. 5. of Church-Government p. 400. c. we shall use as medicaments for the Voice tunes musical instruments spectacles hour-glasses These and such like are undetermined in Scripture and are left to be determined by humane prudence not as men please but as means in order to the proper end according to the General Laws of Christ. For Scripture is a General Law for all such circumstances but not a particular Law So also for Order and Government Scripture hath not particularly determined 1. What individual persons shall be the Pastors of the Church 2. Or of just how many persons the Congregations shall consist 3. Or how the Pastors shall divide their work where there are many 4. Nor how many every Church shall have 5. Nor what particular people shall be a Pastors special charge 6. Nor what individual persons he shall Baptize receive to Communion admonish or absolve 7. Nor in what words most of these shall be expressed 8. Nor what number of Pastors shall meet in Synods for the communion and agreement of several Churches noâ— how oft nor at what time or place nor what particular order shall be among them in their consultations with many such like § 22. When you thus understand how far Scripture is a Law to you in the Worship of God it will be the greatest Direction to you to keep you both from disobeying God and your Superiours that you may neither pretend obedience to man for your disobedience to God nor pretend obedience to God against your due obedience to your Governours as those will do that think Scripture is a more particular Rule than ever Christ intended it And it will prevent abundance of unnecessary scruples contentions and divisions § 23. Direct 12. Observe well in Scripture the difference between Christs Universal Laws which Direct 12. bind all his Subjects in all times and places and those that are but local personal or alterable Laws What commands of God are not universal noâ— perpetual lest you think that you are bound to all that ever God bound any others to The Universal Laws and unalterable are those which result from the Foundation of the universal and unalierable nature of persons and things and those which God hath supernaturally revealed as suitable constantly to all The particular local or temporary Laws are those which either resulted from a particular or alterable nature of persons and things as mutually related as the Law of nature bound Adams Sons to marry their Sisters which bindeth others against it or those which God supernaturally enacted only for some particular people or person or for a time If you should mistake all the Iewish Laws for universal Laws as to persons or duration into how many errours would it lead you So also if you mistake every personal mandate sent by a Prophet or Apostle to a particular man as obliging all you would make a snare of it Every man is not to abstain
to do that which by accident tempteth or occasioneth other men to sin One is a command of God when it is a duty which we do The other is a greater good to be attained by the action which cannot be attained in a less dangerous way As in a Countrey where there is so great a necessity of Alehouses and Taverns that the good that is done by them is greater than the hurt is like to be though some will be drunk it is lawful to use these trades though some be hurt by it It is lawful to â—ell flesh though some will be gluttonous It is lawful to use moderate decent ornaments though some vain minds will be tempted by the sight to lust As it is lawful to go to Sea though some be drowned To act a Comedy or play at a lawful game with all those cautions which may secure you that the good of it is like to be greater than the hurt is not unlawful But to set up a common Play-house or gaming house where we may foresee that the mischief will be far greater than the good though the acts were lawful in themselves this is but to play the Devils part in laying snares for souls Men are not thus to be tised to Hell and damned in sport though but accidentally and though you Vowed the act § 62. Rule 40. Thus also must the case of scandal be resolved As scandal signifieth an action that occasioneth Rule 40. another to sin or a stumbling block at which we foresee he is like to fall to the hurt of his soul Of Scandal which is the sense that Christ and the Apostles usually take it in so it is the same case with this last Sanders â— 82. handled and needs no other resolution But as scandal signifieth in the late abusive sense the meer displeasing of another or occasioning him to censure you for a sinner so you must not break a Vow to escape the censures or displeasure of all the world Otherwise Pride would be still producing Perjury and so two of the greatest sins would be maintained Rule 41. § 63. Rule 41. Though in the Question about the obligation of an oath that is taken ignorantly or by deceit there be great difficulties yet this much seemeth clear 1. That he that is culpably ignorant is more obliged by his vow or contract while he useth all the outward form than he that is inculpably ignorant 2. That though the deceit as the force of him that I swear to do forfeit his right to what I promise him yet my Oath or Vow obligeth me to do or give the thing having interessed God himself in the cause 3. That all such errour of the essentials of an Oath or Vow as Nullifieth it of which I spake before or make the matter sinful do infer a nullity in the obligation or that it must not be kept But no smaller errour though caused by Deceit doth disoblige The commonest doubt is Whether an errour about the very person that I swear to and this caused by Quest. his own deceit do disoblige me All grant that I am obliged notwithstanding any circumstantial Answ. errour as if I think a Woman rich whom I marry and she prove poor or wise and godly and she prove foolish or ungodly yea if the errour be about any integral part as if I think she had two eyes or legs and she have but one And all grant that an errour about an essential part that is which is essential to the Relation or thing Vowed if inculpable at least disobligeth As if I took a man in marriage thinking he had been a woman Or if I took a person for a Pastor a Physicion a Councellour a Pilote that hath no tolerable ability or skill in the essentials of any of those professions But whether I am bound if I swear to Thomas thinking it was Iohn or if I marry Leah thinking she is Rachel is the great doubt And most Casuists say I am not And therefore I dare not Sanders p. 122. be bold to contradict them But I much suspect that they fetcht their decision from the Lawyers who truly say that in foro civili it inferreth no obligation But whether it do not oblige me Ethically Sanders p. 120 121. and in foro conscientiae coeli I much doubt 1. Because it seemeth the very case of Ioshua and the Israelites who by the guile of the Gibeonites were deceived into an error personarum taking them to This seemeth the case of Isaac in blessing Iacob The error personae caused by Iacobs own deceit did not nullifie the blessing because it was fixed on the determinate person that it was spoken to be other persons than they were And yet that this oath was Obligatory saith Dr. Sanderson is apparent 1. In the text it self Iosh. 9. 19. 2. In the miracle wrought for that victory which Ioshua obtained in defending the Gibeonites when the Sun stood still Iosh. 10. 8 13. 3. In the severe revenge that was taken on the lives of Sauls posterity for offering to violate it 2 Sam. 21. 2. And this seemeth to be the very case of Iacob who took not himself disobliged from Leah notwithstanding the mistake of the person through deceit And though the Concubitus was added to the contract that obliged most as it was the perfecting of the Contract which an Oath doth as strongly 3. And the nature of the thing doth confirm my doubt because when I see the person before me there is the individuum determinatum in the haec homâ— and so all that is essential to my Vow is included in it If I mistake the name or the quality or birth or relations of the person yet my Covenant is with this determinate person that is present though I be induced to it be a false supposition that she is another But this I leave to the discussion of the judicious § 64. Rule 42. The question also is weighty and of frequent use If a man Vow a thing as a duty in Rule 42. obedience to God and Conscience which he would not have done if he had taken it to be no duty and if he afterward find that it was no duty is he obliged to keep this Vow And the true answer is that the discovery of his errour doth only discover the nullity of his obligation to make that Vow and to do the thing antecedently to the Vow But if the thing be lawful he is bound to it by his Vow notwithstanding the mistake which induced him to make it § 65. Rule 43. Vows about trifles not unlawful must be kept though they are sinfully made As Rule 43. if you vow to take up a straw or to forbear such a bit or sort of meat or garment c. But to Sanders p. 84. make such is a great prophanation of Gods name and a taking it in vain as common swearers do § 66. Rule 44. A General Oath though
taken upon a particular occasion must be generally or strictly interpreted Rule 44. unless there be special reasons for a restraint from the Matter End or other evidence As if you are afraid that your Son should marry such a Woman and therefore swear him not to marry without your Consent He is bound thereby neither to marry that Woman not any other Or if your servant haunt one particular Alehouse and you make him forswear All Houses in General he must avoid all other So Dr. Sanderson instanceth in the Oath of Supremacy p. 195. § 67. Rule 45. He that Voweth absolutely or implicitly to obey another in all things is bound to obey Rule 45. him in all lawful things where neither God nor other superiour or other person is injured unless the nature of the relation or the ends or reasons of the oath or something else infer a limitation as implyed § 68. Rule 46. Still distinguish between the falshood in the words as disagreeing to the Thing sworn and Rule 46. the falshood of them as disagreeing from the swearers mind The former is sometime excusable but the later never There are many other Questions about Oaths that belong more to the Chapter of Contracts and Justice between man and man and thither I refer them CHAP. VI. Directions to the People concerning their Internal and Private Duty to their Pastors and the improvement of their Ministerial Office and Guifts THe Peoples Internal and Private duty to their Pastors which I may treat of without an appearance of â—ncroachment upon the work of the Canons Rubricks and Diocesans I shall open to you in these Directions following § 1. Direct 1. Understand first the true Ground and Nature and Reasons of the Ministerial Direct 1. Office or else you will not understand the Grounds and Nature and Reasons of your duty to them The Diâ—â—â—â— 2. of Church-Government Ch. 1. And universal Coâ—coâ—d Nature and Works of the Ministerial Office I have so plâ—inly opened already that I shall referr you to it to avoid repetition Hâ—re are two sorts of Reasons to be given you 1. The Reasons of the necessity of the Ministerial work 2. Why certain persons must be separated to this work and it must not be left to all in common § 2. 1. The Necessity of the work it self appeareth in the very Nature of it and enumeration of the parts of it Two sorts of Ministers Christ hath made use of for his Church The first sâ—rt was for Of the differencâ— between fixed and uâ—fixed Ministers see my Disp. 2. 〈…〉 Church-Government and Ios. Acoâ—â—aâ— 5. â— 21. 22. dâ— Missionibus the Revelation of some New Law or Doctrine to be the Churches Rule of Faith or Life And these were to prove their authority and credibility by some Divine attestation which was especially by Miracles and so Moses revealed the Law to the Jews and Christ and the Apostles revealed the Gospel The second sort of Ministers are appointed to Guide the Church to salvation by opening and applying the Rule thus already sealed and delivered And these as they are to bring no new Revelations or Doctrines of faith or Rule of life so they need not bring any Miracle to prove their call or authority to the Church For they have no power to deliver any new Doctrine or Gospel to the Church but only that which is confirmed by Miracles already And it is impudency to demand that the same Gospel be proved by new Miracles by every Minister that shall expound or preach it That would make Miracles to be no Miracles § 3. The work of the ordinary Ministry such as the Priests and Teachers were under the Law The Work of the Ministry and ordinary Pastors and Teachers are under the Gospel being only to Gather and Govern the Churches their work lay in Explaining and Applying the Word of God and delivering his Sacraments and now containeth thâ—se particulars following 1. To Preach the Gospel for the Conversion Rom. 10. 7 14. Mar. 16. 15. of the unbelieving and ungodly world And that is done partly by expounding the words by a Translation into a tongue which the hearers or readers understand and partly by opening the sense Matth. 28. 19 20. and matter 2. In this they are not only Teachers but Messengers sent from God the Father Son and Holy Ghost to charge and command and intreat men in his Nâ—me to Repent and believe and be reconciled 2 Cor. 5. 19 20 21. to God and in his Name to offer them a sâ—alâ—d pardon of all their sins and title to eternal life 3. Those that become the Disciples of Christ they are as his Stewards to receive into his Acts 26 17 18. Eph. 2. 19. house as fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the Houshold of God and as his Commissioned Officers Acts 2. 37 38 39 40. to solemnize by Baptism their enterance into the holy Covenant and to receive their engagement to God and to be the Messengers of Gods Engagement unto them and by Investiture to deliver them by that Sacrament the pardon of all their sin and their title by Adoption to â—ternal life As a house is delivered by the delivery of a Key or Land by a Twig and Turfe or Knighthood by a Sword or Garter c. 4. These Ministers are to gather these Converts into solemn Assemblies and ordered Churches Tit. 1. 7. 1 â—or 4. 1 2. Matth 28. 19 20. for their solemn worshipping of God and mutual edification communion and safe proceeding in their Christian course 5. They are to be the stated Teachers of the Assemblies by expounding and applying that Word which is fit to build them up 6. They are to be the Guides of the Congregation Acts 20. 32. 1 Cor. 3. 11 12. in publick Worship and to stand between them and Christ in things pertaining to God as subservient to Christ in his Priestly Office And so both for the people and also in their names to put Acts 14. 23. 2 Tim 2. 2. Acts 13. 2. 2. 41 42. 6. 2 Acts 20. 7 28. 1 Tim. 5. 17. Titus 1. 5. Acts 20 20 31. â—ol 1. 28. Eph 4 11 12. Mal. 2. 7. 1 Tim. 5. 17. up the publick Prayers and Praises of the Church to God 7. It is their duty to Administer to them as in the Name and stead of Christ his Body and Blood as broken and shed for them and so in the frequent renewals of the holy Covenants to subserve Christ especially in his Priestly Office to offer and deliver Christ and his benefits to them and to be their Agent in offering themselves to God 8. They are appointed to Oversâ—e and Govern the Church in the publick Ordering of the solemn Worship of God and in râ—buking any that are there disorderly and seeing that all things be done to edification 9. They are appointed as Teachers for every particular Member of the Church to have private
of a distinct order the Reader must not expect that I here determine For 1. The Power is by Christ given to them as is before proved and in Tit. 1. 5. 2. None else are ordinarily able to discern aright the Abilities of a man for the sacred Ministry The people may discern a profitable moving Preacher but whether he understand the Scripture or the substance of Religion or be â—ound in the faith and not Heretical and delude them not with a form of well uttered words they are not ordinarily able to judge 3. None else are fit to attend this work but Pastors who are separated to the sacred office It requireth Act. 13. 2. Rom. 1. 1. 1 Tim. 4. 15. more time to get fitness for it and then to perform it faithfully than either Magistrates or people can ordinarily bestow 4. The power is no where given by Christ to Magistrates or people 5. It hath been exercised by Pastors or Church-officers only both in and ever since the Apostles dayes in all the Chuâ—ches of the World And we have no reason to think that the Church hath been gathered from the beginâ—â—â—â— till now by so great an errour as a wrong conveyance of the Ministerial power III. The word Iurisdiction as applyed to the Church officers is no Scripture Word and in the common sence soundeth too bigg as signifying more power than the servants of all must claim For Isa. 33. 2â— Jam. 4. 1â— there is One Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy But in a moderate sence it may be tolerated As Jurisdiction signifieth in particular 1. Legislation 2. Or Judicial Process or Sentence 3. Or the Execution of such a sentence strictly taken so Ordination is no part of Jurisdiction But as Iurisdiction signifieth the same with the power of Government Ius Regendi in general so Ordination is an Act of Jurisdiction As the placing or choosing of Inferiour officers may belong to the Steward of a Family or as the Calling or authorizing of Physicions belongeth to the Colledge of Physicions and the authorizing of Lawyers to the Judges or Society or the authorizing of Doctors in Philosophy to the Society of Philosophers or to particular rulers Where note that in the three last instances the Learning or Fitness of the said Persons or Societies is but their Dispositio vel aptitudo ad potestatem exercendam but the actual Power of conveying authority to others or designing the Recipient person is received from the supream power of the Land and so is properly an Act of Authority here called Jurisdiction So that the common distinguishing of Ordination from Iurisdiction or Government as if they were totâ specie different is unsound IV. Imposition of hands was a sign like the Kiss of peace and the anointing of persons and like our kneeling in Prayer c. which having first somewhat in their nature to invite men to the use was become a common significant sign of a superiours benediction of an inferiour in those times and Countreys And so was here applyed ordinarily for its antecedent significancy and aptitude to this use and was not purposely Instituted nor had its significancy newly given it by Institution And so was not like a Sacrament necessarily and perpetually affixed to Ordination Therefore we must conclude 1. That Imposition of hands in Ordination is a decent apt significant sign not to be scrupled by any nor to be omitted without necessity as being of Scripture ancient and common use 2. But yet that it is not essential to Ordination which may be valid by any fit designation and separation of the person And therefore if it be omitted it nullifieth not the action And if the Ordainers did it by Letters to a man a thousand miles off it would be valid And some persons of old were ordained when they were absent V. I add as to the need of Ordination 1. That without this Key the office and Church doors would be cast open and every Heretick or Self-conceited person intrude 2. It is a sign of a proud unworthy person that will judge himself fit for so great a work and Act. 13. 2. Heb. 5. 4. 10. intrude upon such a conceit when he may have the Judgement of the Pastors and avoideth it 3. Those that so do should no more be taken for Ministers by the people than any should go for Christians that are not Baptized or for marryed persons whose marriage is not solemnized Quest. 20. Is Ordination necessary to make a man a Pastor of a particular Church as such And is he to be made a General Minister and a particular-Church-Elder or Pastor at once and by one Ordination I Have proved that a man may be made a Minister in general yea and sent to exercise it in Converting Infidels and baptizing them before ever he is the Pastor of any particular Church To which I add that in this General Ministry he is a Pastor in the universal Church as a Licensed Physicion that hath no Hospital or Charge is a Physicion in the Kingdom And 1. As Baptism is as such our Enterance into the universal Church and not into a particular so is Ordination to a Minister an enterance only on the Ministry as such 2. Yet a man may at once be made a Minister in general and the Pastor of this or that Church in particular And in Kingdoms wholly inchurched and Christian it is usually fittest so to do Lest many being ordained sine titulo idleness and poverty of supernumeraries should corrupt and dishonour the Ministry Which was the cause of the old Canons in this case 3. But when a man is thus called to both at once it is not all done by Ordination as such but his complicate Relation proceedeth from a complication of Causes As he is a Minister it is by Ordination And as he is The Pastor of this People it is by the conjunct causes of appropriation which are 1. Necessarily the Peoples Consent 2. Regularly the Pastors approbation and recommendation and reception of the person into their Communion 3. And sometimes the Magistrate may do much â—â— oblige the people to consent 4. But when a man is made a Minister in general before he needeth no 〈◊〉 Ordination to fix him in a particular charge but only an Approbation recommendation particular Investiture and Reception For else a man must be oft ordained even as oft as he removeth But yet Imposition of hands may fitly be used in this particular Investiture though it be no proper ordination that is no collation of the office of a Minister in general but the fixing of one that was a Minister before Quest. 21. May a man be oft or twice Ordained IT is supposed that we play not with an ambiguous word that we remember what Ordination is And then you will see Cause to distinguish 1. Between entire true Ordination and the external act or words or ceremony only 2. Between one that was truly ordained before and one that
Church it is done by a double consent to the double relation By baptism he professeth his consent to be a member of Christ and his universal Church and additionally he consenteth to be guided by that particular Pastor in that particular Church which is another Covenant or Consent Quest. 33. Whether Infants should be Baptized I have answered long agoe in a Treatise on that Subject Also What Infants should be Baptized And who have Right to Sacraments And whether Hypocrites are univocally or equivocally Christians and Church-members I have resolved in my Disput. of Right to Sacraments Quest. 34. Whether an unbaptized person who yet maketh a publick profession of Christianity be a member of the Visible Church And so of the Infants of Believers unbaptized Answ. 1. SUch persons have a certain Imperfect irregular kind of profession and so of Membership Their Visibility or Visible Christianity is not such as Christ hath appointed As those that are Marryed but not by Legal Celebration and as those that in cases of necessity are Ministers without Ordination so are such Christians as Constantine and many of old without Baptism 2. Such persons ordinarily are not to be admitted to the Rights and Communion of the Visible Church because we must know Christs sheep by his own mark But yet they are so far visible Christians as that we may be perswaded nevertheless of their salvation As to visible Communion they have but a remote and incompleat jus â—d rem and no jus in re or legal investiture and possession 3. The same is the case of unbaptized Infants of believers because they are not of the Church meerly as they are their natural seed but because it is supposed that a person himself devoted to God ☞ doth also devote his Children to God Therefore not nature only but this supposition arising from the true nature of his own dedication to God is the reason why believers Children have their right to Baptism Therefore till he hath Actually devoted them to God in Baptism they are not legally members of the Visible Church but only in fieri and imperfectly as is said Of which more anon Quest. 35. Is it certain by the Word of God that all Infants Baptized and dying before actual sin are undoubtedly saved Or what Infants may we say so of Answ. I. 1. WE must distinguish between certainty objective and subjective or plainlyer the Since the writing of this there is come forth an excellent Book for Infant Baptism by Mr. Ioseph Whistoâ— in which the Grounds of my present Solutions are notaâ—â—y cleared Reality or Truth of the Thing and the certain apprehension of it 2. And this certainty of apprehension sometime signifieth only the Truth of that apprehension when a man indeed is not deceived or more usually that clearness of apprehension joyned with Truth which fully quieteth the mind and excludeth doubting 3. We must distinguish of Infants as Baptised Lawfully upon just title or unlawfully without title 4. And also of Title before God which maketh a Lawful claim and Reception at his bar and Title before the Church which maketh only the Administration lawful before God and the Reception lawful only in foro ecclesiae or externo 5. The word Baptism signifieth either the external part only consisting in the words and outward action or the Internal Covenanting of the heart also 6. And that internal Covenant is either sincere which giveth right to the benefits of Gods Covenant or only partial reserved and unsound such as is common to hypocrites Conclus 1. God hath been pleased to speak so little in Scripture of the case of Infants that modest men will use the words Certainly and Undoubtedly about their case with very great Caution And many great Divines have maintained that their very Baptism it self cannot be Certainly and undoubtedly proved by the Word of God but by Tradition Though I have endeavoured to prove the contrary in a special Treatise on that point 2. No man can tell what is objectively certain or revealed in Gods Word who hath not subjective certainty or knowledge of it 3. A mans apprehension may be True when it is but a wavering opinion with the greatest doubtfulness Therefore we do not usually by a Certain apprehension mean only a True apprehension but a clear and quieting one 4. It is possible to baptize Infants unlawfully or without any Right so that their Reception and baptizing shall be a great sin as is the misapplying of other Ordinances For instance one in America where there is neither Church to receive them nor Christian Parents nor Sponsors may take up the Indians Children and Baptize them against the Parents wills Or if the Parents consent to have their Children outwardly Baptized and not themselves as not knowing what Baptizing meaneth or desire it only for outward advantages to their Children Or if they offer them to be Baptized only in open derision and scorn of Christ such Children have no Right to be received And many other instances neerer may be given 5. It 's possible the person may have no Authority at all from Christ who doth Baptize them And Christs part in Reception of the person and Collation and Investiture in his benefits must be done by his Commission or else how can we say that Christ doth it But open Infidels Women Children madmen scorners may do it that have none of his Commission 6. That all Infants baptized without title or right by mis-application and so dying are not undoubtedly saved nor any word of God doth certainly say so we have reason to believe on these following grounds 1. Because we can find no such Text nor could ever prevail with them that say so to shew us such an ascertaining Word of God 2. Because else gross sin would certainly be the way to salvation For such mis-application of Baptism by the demanders at least would certainly be gross sin as well as mis-applying the Lords Supper 3. Because it is clean contrary to the tenour of the new Covenant which promiseth salvation to none but penitent Believers and their seed What God may do for others unknown to us we have nothing to do with But his Covenant hath made no other promise that I can find 〈…〉 d we are â—ertain of no mans salvation by Baptism to whom God never made a promise of it If by the Children of the faithful be meant not only their Natural seed but the Adopted or bought also of which they are true Proprietors yet that is nothing to all others 4. To add to Gods words Especially to his very Promise or Covenant is so terrible a presumption as we dare not be guilty of 5. Because this tyeth Grace or salvation so to the outward washing of the body or opus operatum as is contrary to the nature of Gods Ordinances and to the tenour of Scripture and the judgement of the Protestant Divines 6. Because this would make a strange disparity between the two Sacraments of the same
and hypocrite God-fathers will offer him 6. And that thus the seed of Heathens and Christians should be levelled and yet an ignorant bold undertaker to carry away the priviledge of saving persons from them both All this is but mens unproved imaginations He that never commandeth God-fathers but forbiddeth the Usurping sort and only alloweth humane prudence to use the Lawful sort did never put the souls of all children Christians and Heathens into their hands no more than into the hands of the Priest that baptizeth them VI. I do not find that remote ancestors that are dead or that are not the proprietors of the children are the performers of the Condition by which they have right to baptism or salvation 1. Because God hath put that power and work in the hands of others even the Parents which they cannot nullifie 2. Because the promise of mercy to thousands is no supposition that the successors make no intercision 3. Else the threatnings to the seed of the wicked would signifie nothing nor would any in the world be excluded from right but all be levelled Because Noah was the common Father of mankind And if you lay it on dead Ancestors you have no rule where to stop till you come to Noah VII I conclude therefore that it is elearly the Immediate Parents both or one and probably any true domestick Owner of the Child who hath the power to Choose or Refuse for him and so to enter him into Covenant with God and so by Consent to perform the Condition of his Right For 1. Abundance of promises are made to the faithful and their seed of which I have spoke at large in my Book of Infant Baptism And besides the punishment of Adams sin there is scarce a Parent infamous for sin in Scripture but his posterity falleth under the punishment as for a secondary Original sin or guilt As the case of Cain Cham the Sodomites the Amalekites the Jews Achan Gehezi c. shew And 1 Cor. 7. 14. it is expresly said Else were your children unclean but now are they holy of the sense of which I have spoke as aforecited Object But if Owners may serve one may buy multitudes and a King or Lord of slaves whose Own the people are may cause them all to be baptized and saved Answ. 1. Remember that I say that the Christian Parents Right is clear but I take the other as more dark For it is principally grounded on Abraham and the Israelites circumcising their children born to them in the house or bought with money And how far the parity of reason here will reach is hard to know All that I say is that I will not deny it because favores sunt ampliandi 2. If such a Prince be an hypocrite and not a sincere Christian himself his faith or consent cannot save others that cannot save himself 3. It is such a propriety as is conjunct with a Divine Concession only that giveth this power of Consenting for an Infant Now we find clear proof of Gods Concession to Natural Parents and probable proof of his Concession of it to Domestick Owners but no further Deut. 29 10 11 12 13. that I know of For 1. It is an Act of Gods Love to the child for the Parents sake and therefore to such children as we are supposed to have a special Nearness to and Love for 2. And it is a Consent and Covenanting which he calls for which obligeth the promiser to consequent pious education which is a domestick act 3. They are comprized in the Name of Parents which those that adopt them and educate them may be called 4. And the Infants are their Children not their Slaves But now if the Emperour of Moscovy Indostan c. had the propriety in all his people as slaves this would not intimate paternal interest and love but tyranny nor could he be their domestical educater Therefore I must limit it to a pro-parent or domestical educating proprietor Quest. 41. Are they really baptized who are baptized according to the English Liturgie and Canons where the Parent seemeth excluded and those to Consent for the Infant who have no power to do it Answ. I Find some puzled with this doubt Whether all our Infants baptism be not a meer Nullity For say they the outward washing without Covenanting with God is no more baptism than the body or Corpse is a man The Covenant is the chief essential part of baptism And he that was never entered into Covenant with God was never baptized But Infants according to the Liturgie are not entered into Covenant with God which they would prove thus They that neither ever covenanted by themselves or by any authorized person for them were never entred into Covenant with God For that 's no act of theirs which is done by a stranger that hath no power to do it But c That they did it not themselves is undenyable That they did it not by any person empowred by God to do it for them they prove 1. Because God-fathers are the persons by whom the Infant is said to promise But God-fathers have no power from God 1. Not by Nature 2. Not by Scripture 2. Because the Parents are not only not inâ—luded as Covenanters but positively excluded 1. In that the whole Office of Covenanting for the child from first to last is laid on others 2. In that the twenty ninth Canon saith No Parent shall be urged to be Present nor admitted to Answer as God-father for his own child by which the Parent that hath the power is excluded Therefore our children are all unbaptized To all this I answer 1. That the Parents Consent is supposed though he be absent 2. That the Parent is not required to be absent but only not to be urged to be present but he may if he will 3. That the reason of that Canon seems to be their jealousie lest any would exclude God-fathers 4. While the Church hath no where declared what person the Sponsors bear nor any further what they are to do than to speak the Covenanting words and promise to see to the pious education of the child the Parents may agree that the God-fathers shall do all this as their deputies primarily and in their steads and secondarily as friends that promise their assistance 5. While Parents really consent it is not their silence that nullifieth the Covenant 6. All Parents are supposed and required to be themselves the choosers of the Sponsors or Sureties and also to give notice to the Minister before hand By which it appeareth that their Consent is presupposed And though my own judgement be that they should be the principal Covenanters for the child expresly yet the want of that expressness will not make us unbaptized persons Quest. 42. But the great Question is How the Holy Ghost is given to Infants in Baptism And whether all the Children of true Christians have inward sanctifying Grace Or whether they can be said to be justified and to be
in a state of salvation that are not inherently sanctified And whether any fall from this Infant state of salvation Answ. OF all these great difficulties I have said what I know in my Appendix to Infant Baptism to Mr. Bedford and Dr. Ward and of Bishop Davenants judgement And I confess that my judgement agreeth more in this with Davenants than any others saving that he doth not so much appropriate the benefits of baptism to the children of sincere believers as I do And though by a Letter in pleading Davenants cause I was the occasion of good Mr. Gatakers printing of his answer to him yet I am still most inclined to his judgement Not that all the baptized but that all the baptized seed of true Christians are pardoned justified adopted and have a title to the Spirit and salvation But the difficulties in this case are so great as driveth away most who do not equally perceive the greater inconveniencies which we must choose if this opinion be forsaken that is that all Infants must be taken to be out of the Covenant of God and to have no promise of salvation Whereas surely the Law of Grace as well as the Covenant of Works included all the seed in their capacity 1. To the first of these Questions I answer 1. As all true believers so all their Infants do receive initially by the promise and by way of obsignation and Sacramental Investiture in Baptism a Ius Relationis a right of peculiar Relation to all the three persons in the blessed Trinity As to God as Matth. 28. 19 20. their reconciled Adopting Father and to Jesus Christ as their Redeemer and actual Head and Justifier so also to the Holy Ghost as their Regenerater and Sanctifier This Right and Relation 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. adhereth to them and is given them in order to future actual operation and communion As a Marriage Covenant giveth the Relation and Right to one another in order to the subsequent Communion Eph. 4. 4 5. and duties of a married life And as he that sweareth allegiance to a King or is listed into an Army or is entred into a School receiveth the Right and Relation and is so correlated as obligeth to the mutual subsequent Offices of each and giveth right to many particular benefits By this Right and Relation God is his own God and Father Christ is his own Head and Saviour and the Holy Spirit is his own Sanctifier without asserting what operations are already wrought on his soul but only to what future ends and uses these Relations are Now as these Rights and Relations are given immediately so those Benefits which are Relative and the Infant immediately capable of them are presently given by way of communion He hath presently the pardon of Original sin by virtue of the Sacrifice Merit and Intercession of Christ. He hath a state of Adoption and Right to Divine Protection Provision and Church-communion according to his natural Capacity and Right to everlasting life 2. It must be carefully noted that the Relative Union between Christ the Mediator and the baptized persons is that which in Baptism is first given in order of nature and that the rest do flow from this The Covenant and Baptism deliver the Covenanter 1. From Divine Displicency by Reconciliation with the Father 2. From Legal Penalties by Justification by the Son 3. From sin it self by the operations of the Holy Ghost But it is Christ as our Mediator-Head that is first given us in Relative Union And then 1. The Father Loveth us with Complacency as in the Son and for the sake of his first beloved 2. And the Spirit which is given us in Relation is first the Spirit of Christ our The Spirit is not given radically or immediately to any Christian but to Christ our Head alone and from Him to us Head and not first inherent in us So that by Union with our Head that Spirit is next united to us both Relatively and as Radically Inherent in the Humane Nature of our Lord to whom we are united As the Nerves and Animal Spirits which are to operate in all the body are Radically only in the Head from whence they flow into and operate on the members as there is need though there may be obstructions So the Spirit dwelleth in the Humane Nature of our Head and there it can never be lost And it is not necessary that it dwell in us by way of Radication but by way of Influence and Operation These things are distinctly and clearly understood but by very few and we are all much in the dark about them But I think however doctrinally we may speak better that most Christians are habituated to this perilous misapprehension which is partly against Christianity it self that the Spirit floweth immediatly from the Divine Nature of the Father and the Son as to the Authoritative or Potestative conveyance unto our souls And we forget that it is first given to Christ in his Glorified Humanity as our Head and radicated in Him and that it is the Office of this Glorified Head to send or communicate to all his members from Himself that Spirit which must operate in them as they have need This is plain in many Texts of Scripture Rom. 8. 32. He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall be not also with him freely give us all things when he giveth him particularly to us 1 John 5. 11 12. And this is the record that God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath the life and he that hath not the Son hath not the life Rom. 8. 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Eph. 1. 22 23. And gave him to be the Head over all things to the Church which is his body the fulness of him that filleth all in all John 15. 26. The Advocate or Comforter whom I will send unto you from the Father c. John 16. 7. If I depart I will send him unto you John 14. 26. The Comforter whom the Father will send in my Name Gal. 4. 6. And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts crying Abba Father Gal. 2. 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me I know that is true of his Living in us Objectively and Finally but that seemeth not to be all Col. 3. 3 4. For ye are dead and your life is bid with Christ in God when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in Glory I know that in verse 3. by Life is meant Felicity or Glory But not only as appeareth by verse 4. where Christ is called Our Life Matth. 28. 19. All power is given unto me in Heaven and Earth ver 20. I am with you allwayes Joh. 13. 3. The Father hath given all things into his hands Joh. 17. 2
3. Thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him And this is life eternal to know thee c. Joh. 5. 21. The Son quickeneth whom he will v. 26. For as the Father hath life in Himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself Joh. 6. 27. Labour for that meat which endureth to everlasting life which the son of man shall give unto you For him â—ath God the Father sealed V. 32. 33. He giveth Life unto the World V. 53 54 55 56. Whosâ— eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life dwelleth in me and I in him my flesh is meat indeed At the Living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me V. 63. It is the spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing Joh. 7. 39. This spake he of the spirit which they that believe in him should receive Joh. 3. 34. God giveth not the spirit to him by measure 1 Cor. 6. 17. He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit 2 Cor. 3. 17. The Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty Phil. 1. 19. Through the supply of the spirit of Iesus Christ. Joh. 15. 4. Abide in me and I in you As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me V. 5. I am the Vine ye are the branches He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit For without me or out of me or severed from me ye can do nothing I will add no more All this is proof enough that the spirit is not given radically or Immediately from God to any believer but to Christ and so derivatively from him to us Not that the Divine nature in the third person is subject to the humane nature in Christ But that God hath made it the office of our Mediators Glorified Humanity to be the Cistern that shall first receive the Waters of life and convey them by the pipes of his appointed means to all the offices of his house Or to be the Head of the Animal spirits and by nerves to convey them to all the members 3. We are much in the dark concerning the degree of Infants Glory And therefore we can as little know what degree of grace is necessary to prepare them for their Glory 4. It is certain that Infants before they are Glorified shall have all that Grace that is prerequisite to their preparation and fruition 5. No sanctified person on earth is in an Immediate capacity for Glory Because their sin and imperfection must be done away which is done at the dissolution of soul and body The very accession of the soul to God doth perfect it 6. Infants have no actual faith or hope or Love to God to exercise And therefore need not the influence of the spirit of Christ to exercise them 7. We are all so very much in the dark as to the clear and distinct apprehension of the true nature of Original inherent pravity or sin that we must needs be as much ignorant of the true nature of that Inherent sanctity or Righteousness which is its contrary or curâ— Learned Illirious thought it was a Substance which he hath in his Clavis pleaded for at large Others call it a Habit Others a nature or natural Inclination and a privation of a Natural Inclination to God Others call it an Indisposition of the mind and will to holy Truth and Goodness and an Ill disposition of them to errour and evil Others call it only the Inordinate Lust of the sensitive faculties with a debility of Reason and Will to resist it And whilest the nature of the soul it self and its faculties are so much unknown to it self the nature of Original pravity and Righteousness must needs be very much unknown 8. Though an Infant be a distinct natural person from his Parents yet is he not actually a distinct person Morally as being not a moral Agent and so not capable of moral Actions good or evil Therefore his Parents Will goeth for his 9. His first acceptance into the Complacencial Love of God as distinct from his Love of Benevolence is not for any inherent Holiness in himself but 1. As the Child of a believing Parent who hath Dedicated him to Christ and 2. As a member of Christ in whom he is well pleased 10. Therefore God can complacencially as well as benevolently Love an Infant in Christ who only believeth and Repenteth by the Parents and not by himself nor is not yet supposed to have the spirit of sanctification 11. For the spirit of sanctification is not the presupposed Condition of his acceptance into Covenant with God but a gift of the Covenant of God it self following both the Condition on our part and our right to be Covenanters or to Gods promise upon that condition 12. So the adult themselves have the operation of the spirit by which they Believe and Repent by which they come to have their Right to Gods part in the Covenant of Baptism for this is antecedent to their baptism But they have not that gift of the spirit which is called in Scripture the spirit Act. 26 8. 2 Tâ—m 4. 7. Rom. 8 30. Gal. 4. 6. of sanctification and of Power Love and a sound mind and is the benefit given by the Covenant of Baptism till afterward Because they must be in that Covenant before it can be made good to them And their Faith or Consent is their Infants right also antecedent to the Covenant gift 13. There is therefore some notable difference between that work of the spirit by which we first Repent and believe and so have our title to the promise of the spirit and that gift of the spirit which is promised to believers which is not only the spirit of Miracles given in the first times but some notable degree of Love to our Reconciled Father suitable to the Grace and Gospel of Redemption and Rom. 8 9. Rom. 8. 16. â—5 Reconciliation and is called the spirit of Christ and the spirit of Adoption which the Apostles themselves seem not to have received till Christs ascension And this seemeth to be not only different from the Gifts of the spirit common to Hypocrites and the unbelievers but also from the special gift of the spirit which maketh men believers So that Mr. Tho. Hooker saith trulyer than once I understood that Vâ—cation is a special Grace of the spirit distinct from Common Grace on one side and from sanctification on the other side Whether it be the same degree of the spirit which the faithful had before Christs Incarnation which causeth men first to believe distinct from the higher following degree I leave to enquiry But the certainest distinction is from the different effects 14. Though an Infant cannot be either disposed
to a holy life or fit for Glory immediately without an inward Holiness of his own yet by what is said it seemeth plain that meerly on the account of the Condition performed by the Parent and of his Union Relatively with Christ thereupon and his title to Gods promise on these Grounds he may be said to be in a state of salvation that is to have the pardon of his Original sin deliverance from hell in right adoption and a right to the needful operations of the Holy Ghost as given to him in Christ who is the first receiver of the spirit 15. But when and in what sort and degree Christ giveth the actual operations of the spirit to all Covenanted Infants it is wonderful hard for us to know But this much seemeth clear 1. That Christ may when he please work on the soul of an Infant to change its disposition before he come to the use of Reason 2. That Christ and his spirit as in Covenant with Infants are ready to give all necessary assistance to Infants for their inherent sanctification in the use of those means and on those Mr. Whiston p. 60. sheweâ—h That even the promises of a new Heart c. Ezek 36 37 c. Though they may run in the external tenour of them absolutely yet are not absolutely absolute but have a subordinate condition and that is That the parties concerned in them do faithfully use the means appointed of God in a subserviency to his working in or bestowing on them the Good promised further conditions on which we must wait for it and expect it For the Holy Ghost is not so engaged to us in our Covenant or Baptism as to be obliged presently to give us all the grace that we want But only to give it us on certain further conditions and in the use of certain means But because this leadeth me up to another question I will suspend the rest of the answer to this till that be handled Only I must answer this objection Obj. It is contrary to the Holy nature of God complacenically to Love an unsanctified Infant that is yet in his Original Corruption unchanged and he justifieth none relatively from the guilt of sin whom he doth not at once inherently sanctifie Answ. 1. Gods complacencial Love respecteth every one as he is For it is Goodness only that he so Loveth Therefore he so Loveth not those that either Actually or Habitually Love not Him under any false supposition that they do Love him when they do not His Love therefore to the Adult and Infants differeth as the objects differ But there is this Lovely in such Infants 1. That they are the Children of believing sanctified Parents 2. That they are by his Covenant Relatively United to Christ and so are Lovely as his members 3. That they are pardoned all their original sin 4. That they are set in the way to Actual Love and holiness being thus dedicated to God 2. All imperfect Saints are sinners And all sinners are as such abhorred of God whose pure eyes cannot behold iniquity As then it will stand with his purity to accept and love the Adult upon their first believing before their further sanctification and notwithstanding the remnant of their sins so may it do also to accept their Infants through Christ upon their Dedication 3. As the actual sin imputed to Infants was Adams and their Parents only by Act and not their own it is no wonder if upon their Parents faith and repentance Christ wash and justifie them from that guilt which arose only from anothers act 4. And then the inherent pravity was the effect of that Act of their Ancestors which is forgiven them And this pravity or inherent Original sin may two wayes be said to be mortified radically or Virtually or inceptively before any inherent change in them 1. In that it is mortified in their Parents from whom they derived it who have the power of choosing for them and 2. In that they are by Covenant engraffed into Christ and so related to the cause of their future sanctification yea 3. In that also they are by Covenant and their Parents promise engaged to use those means which Gods being a God to any individual person doth râ—quire and presuppose that they do for the present supposing them capable or for the future as soon as capable take God in Christ as their God Ibid. p. 61. Christ hath appointed for sanctification 5. And it must be remembred that as this is but an inceptive preparatory change so the very pardon of the Inherent vitiosity is not perfect as I have elsewhere largely proved however some Papists and Protestants deny it While sin remaineth sin and corruption is still indwelling besides all the unremoved penalties of it the very being of it proveth it to be so far unpardoned in that it is not yet abolished and the continuance of it being not its smallest punishment as permitted and the spirit not given so far as to cure it Imperfect pardon may consist with a present right both to further sanctification by the Spirit and so to Heaven Obj. Christs body hath no unholy members Answ. 1. 1 Cor. 7. 14. Now are your Children holy They are not wholly unholy who have all the fore-described holiness 2. As Infants in Nature want memory and actual reason and yet initially are men so as Christs members they may want actual and habitual faith and Love and yet initially be sanctified by their Union with him and his spirit and their Parents Dedication and be in the way for more as they grow fit And be Christians and Saints in fieri or initially only as they are men Quest. 43. Is the right of the Baptized Infants or adult to the sanctifying operations of the Holy Ghost now Absolute or suspended on further Conditions And are the Parents further duty for their Children such conditions of their Childrens reception of the Actual assistances of the Spirit Or are Childrens own actions such Conditions And may Apostate Parents forfeit the Covenant benefits to their Baptized Infants or not Answ. THE question is great and difficult and few dare meddle with it And almost all Infant-cases are to us obscure I. 1. It is certain that it is the Parents great duty to bring up their Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 2. It is certain that God hath appointed this to be the means of their actual knowledge faith Eph. 6 4 5. Col 3. 21. Gen. 18 19. Deut. 6. 6 7 8. 11. 18 19 20. and holiness 3. And God doth not appoint such means unnecessarily or in vain nor may we ordinarily expect his grace but in the use of the means of Grace which he hath appointed us to use 4. It is certain that Gods receiving the Children of the faithful is an act of Gods Love to the Parents as well as the Children and promised as a part of his blessing on themselves 5. It is certain that these Parents
power derived from the Emperours and partly meer Agreements or Contracts by degrees degenerating into Governments And so the new forms and names are all but accidental of adjuncts of the true Christian Churches And though I cannot prove it unlawful to make such adjunctive or extrinsick constitutions forms and names considering the Matter simply it self yet by accident these accidents have proved such to the true Churches as the accident of sickness is to the body and have been the causes of the Divisions Wars Rebellions Ruines and Confusions of the Christian world 1. As they have served the covetousness and ambition of carnal men 2. And have enabled them to oppress simplicity and sincerity 3. And because Princes have not exercised their own power themselves nor committed it to Lay-Officers but to Church-men 4. Whereby the extrinsick Government hath so degenerated and obscured the Intrinsick and been confounded with it that both going under the equivocal name of Ecclesiastical Government few Churches have had the happiness to see them practically distinct Which tempâ—eth the Erashans to deny and pull down both together because they find one in the Pastors hands which belongeth to the Magistrate and we do not teach them to untwist and separate them Nay few Divines do clearly in their Controversies distinguish them Though Marsilius Patavinus and some few more have formerly given them very fair light yet hath it been but slenderly improved 11. There seemeth to me no readier and directer way to reduce the Churches to holy Concord and true reformation than for the Princes and Magistrates who are the extrinsick Rulers to re-assume their own and to distinguish openly and practically between the properly-Priestly or Pastoral intrinsick Office and their extrinsick part and to strip the Pastors of all that is not Intrinseeally their own It being enough for them and things so heterogeneous not well consisting in one person And then when the people know what is claimed as from the Magistrate only it will take off most of their scruples as to subjection and consent 12. No mortal man may abrogate or take down the Pastoral Office and the Intrinsick real power thereof and the Church-form which is constituted thereby seeing God hath instituted them for perpetuity on earth 13. But whether one Church shall have one Pastor or many is not at all of the Form of a particular Church but it is of the Integrity or gradual perfection of such Churches as need many to have many and to others not so Not that it is left meerly to the will of man but is to be varied as natural necessity and cause requireth 14. The nature of the Intrinsick Office or power anon to be described is most necessary to be understood as distinct from the power of Magistrates by them that would truly understand this The number of Governours in a Civil State make that which is called a variety of Forms of Common-wealths Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy Because Commanding Power is the thing which is there most notably exercised and primarily magnified And a wiser and better man yea a thousand must stand by as Subjects for want of Authority or true Power which can be but in One Supream either Natural or Political person because it cannot consist in the exercise with self-contradiction If one be for War and another for Peace c. there is no Rule Therefore the Many must be one Collective or Political person and must consent or go by the major Vote or they cannot govern But that which is called Government in Priests or Ministers is of another nature It is but a secondary subservient branch of their Office The first parts are Teaching and Guiding the people as their Priests to God in publick Worship And they Govern them by Teaching and in order to further Teaching and Worshipping God And that not by Might but by Reason and Love Of which more anon Therefore if a Sacred Congregation be Taught and conducted in publick Worship and so Governed as conduceth hereunto whether by one two or many it no more altereth the Form of the Church than it doth the Form of a School when a small one hath one Schoolmaster and a great one four Or of a Hospital when a small one hath one Physicion and a great one many seeing that Teaching in the one and Healing in the other is the main denominating work to which Government is but subservient in the most notable acts of it 15. No mortal man may take on him to make another Church or another Office for the Church as a Divine thing on the same grounds and of the same nature pretendedly as Christ hath made those already made The case of adding new Church Officers or Forms of Churches is the same with that of making new Worship Ordinances for God and accordingly to be determined which I have largely opened in its place Accidents may be added Substantials of like pretended nature may not be added Because it is an usurping of Christs power without derivation by any proved commission and an accusing of him as having done his own work imperfectly 16. Indeed no man can here make a new Church Officer of this Intrinsick sort without making him new work which is to make new Doctrine or new Worship which are forbidden For to do ☞ Gods work already made belongs to the Office already instituted If every King will make his own Officers or authorize the greater to make the less none must presume to make Christ Officers and Churches without his Commission 17. No man must make any Office Church or Ordinance which is corruptive or destructive or contrary or injurious to the Offices Churches and Oâ—dinances which Christ himself hath made This Bellarmine confesseth and therefore I suppose Proâ—estants will not deny it Those humane Offices which usurp the work of Christs own Officers and take it out of their hands do malignantly fight against Christs institutions And while they pretend that it is but Preserving and not Corrupting or Opposing additions which they make and yet with these words in their mouths do either give Christs Officers work to others or hinder and oppress his Officers themselves and by their new Church-forms undermine or openly destroy the old by this expression of their enmity they confute themselves 18. This hath been the unhappy case of the Roman frame of Church innovations as you may observe in the particulars of its degeneracy 1. Councilâ— were called General or Oecumenical in respect to one-Empire only And they thence grew to extend the name to the whole world when they may as well say that Constantine Martiaâ— c. were Emperours of the whole world seeing by their authority they were called 2. These Councils at first were the Emperours Councils called to direct him what to setle in Church orders by his own power But they were turned to claim an imposing authority of their own to command the Churches as by commission from God 3. These Councils at first
Relation or a Right duly to receive the Sacrament that is To receive it understandingly and seriously at those seasons when by the Pastors it is administred 2. But if upon faults or accusations this Right be duly questioned in the Church it is become a controverted right and the possession or admission may by the Bishops or Pastors of the Church be suspended if they see cause while it is under tryall till a just decision 3. Though Infants are true members yet the want of natural capacity duly to receive maketh it unlawful to give them the Sacrament because it is to be Given only to Receivers and Receiving is more than eating and drinking It is Consenting to the Covenant which is the real Receiving in a moral sense or at least Consent professed So that they want not a state of right as to their Relation but a natural capacity to Receive 4. Persons at age who want not the Right of a stated Relation may have such actual Natural and Moral indispositions as may also make them for that time unmeet to Receive As Sickness Infection a Journey persecution scattering the Church a Prison And morally 1. Want of necessary knowledge of the nature of the Sacrament which by the negligence of Pastors or Parents may be the case of some that are but newly past their childhood 2. Some heinous sin of which the sinner hath not so far repented as to be yet ready to receive a sealed pardon or which is so scandalous in the Church as that in publick respects the person is yet unfit for its priviledges 3. Such sins or accusations of sin as make the persons Church-title justly Controverted and his Communion suspended till the case be decided 4. Such fears of unworthy Receiving as were like to hurt and distract the person if he should receive till he were better satisfied These make a man uncapable of present Reception and so are a barr to his plenary right They have still right to Receive in a due manner But being yet uncapable of that due Receiving they have not a plenary right to the thing 5. The same may be said of other parts of our duty and priviledges A man may have a Relative habitual or stated right to praise God and give him thanks for his justification and sanctification and adoption and to godly conference to exercises of humiliation c. who yet for want of present actual preparation may be uncapable and so want a plenary right 6. The understanding of the double preparation necessary doth most clearly help us to understand this case A man that is in an unregenerate state must be visibly cured of that state of utter ignorance unbelief ungodliness before he can be a member of the Church and lay a claim to its priviledges But when that is done besides this general preparation a particular preparation also to each duty is necessary to the right doing it A man must understand what he goeth about and must consider of it and come with some suitable affections A man may have right to go a journey that wants a Horse or may have a Horse that is not sadled He that hath clothes must put them on before he is fit to come into company He that hath right to write may want a pen or have a bad one Having of Gracious habits may need the addition of bringing them into such acts as are suitable to the work in hand Quest. 70. Is there any such thing in the Church as a rank or Classis or Species of Church members at age who are not to be admitted to the Lords Table but only to hearing the Word and Prayer between Infant members and adult confirmed ones Answ. SOme have excogitated such a classis or species or order for convenience as a prudent necessary thing Because to admit all to the Lords Table they think dangerous on one side And to cast all that are unfit for it out of the Church they think dangerous on the other side and that which the people would not bear Therefore to preserve the reverence of the Sacrament and to preserve their own and the Churches peace they have contrived this middle way or rank And indeed the controversie seemeth to be more about the title whether it may be called a middle order of meer Learners and Worshippers than about the Matter I have occasionally written more of it than I can here stay to recite And the accurate handling of it requireth more words than I will here use This breviate therefore shall be all 1. It is certain that such Catechumens as are in meer preparation to faith repentance and baptism are no Church-members or Christians at all and so in none of these ranks 2. Baptism is the only ordinary regular door of enterance into the visible Church and no man unless in extraordinary cases is to be taken for a Church-member or visible Christian till Baptized Two Objections are brought against this 1. The Infants of Christians are Church-members as such before baptism and so are believers They are baptized because members and not members by baptism Answ. This case hath no difficulty 1. A Believer as such is a member of Christ and the Church What makes a visible member invisible but not of the visible Church till he be an orderly Professor of that belief And this Profession is not left to every mans will how it shall be made but Christ hath prescribed and instituted a certain way and manner of profession which shall be the only ordinary symbol or badge by which the Church shall know visible members and that is baptism Indeed when baptism cannot be had an open profession without it may serve For Sacraments are made for Man and not Man for Sacraments But when it may be had it is Christs appointed Symbol Tessera and Church-door And till a person be baptized he is but Irregularly and initially a Professor As an Embrio in the Womb is a man or as a Covenant before the writing sealing and delivering is initially a Covenant or as persons privately contracted without solemn Matrimony are married or as a man is a Minister upon Election and Tryal before Ordination He hath only in all these cases the beginning of a title which is not compleat nor at all sufficient in foro Ecclesiâ— to make a man Visibly and Legally A married man a Minister and so here a Christian. For Christ hath chosen his own visible badge by which his Church-members must be known 2. And the same is to be said of the Infant-title of the children of believers They have but an initial right before baptism and not the badge of visible Christians For there are three distinct gradations to make up their visible Christianity 1. Because they are their own and as it were parts of themselves therefore Believers have power and obligation to dedicate their children in Covenant with God 2. Because every believer is himself dedicated to God with all that is his own according
was an Ecclesiastical Usurper quoad personam that had no true Call to a Lawful Office shall after have a Call or if any thing fall out which shall make it our duty to Consent and Call him then the impediment from his Usurpation is removed 3. It is not lawful though the Civil Magistrate command us to swear obedience even in licitis honestis to such an Usurper whose Office it self is unlawful or forbidden by Christ as he is such an Officer No Protestant thinketh it lawful to swear obedience to the Pope as Pope nor do any that take Lay-Elders to be an unlawful Office think it lawful to swear obedience to them as such 4. If one that is in an unlawful Ecclesiastical Office be also at once in another that is lawful we may swear obedience to him in respect of the Lawful Office So it is Lawful to swear obedience to the Pope in Italy as a Temporal Prince in his own Dominions And to a Cardinal as Richelieu Mazarine Ximenes c. as the Kings Minister exercising a power derived from him So it is lawful for a Tenant where Law and Custome requireth it to swear fidelity to a Lay Elder as his Landlord or Temporal Lord and Master And so the old Non-conformists who thought the English Prelacy an unlawful Office yet maintained that it is Lawful to take the Oath of Canonical obedience because they thought it was imposed by the King and Laws and that we swear to them not as Officers claiming a Divine Right in the Spiritual Government but as Ordinaries or Officers made by the King to exercise so much of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction under him as he can delegate according to the Oath of Supremacy in which we all acknowledge the King to be Supream in all Ecclesiastical Causes that is Not the Supream Pastor Bishop or Spiritual Key-bearer or Ruler but the Supream Civil Ruler of the Church who hath the power of the Sword and of determining all things extrinsick to the Pastoral Office and so of the Coercive Government of all Pastors and Churches as well as of other Subjects And if Prelacy were proved never so unlawful no doubt but by the Kings Command we may swear or perform formal obedience to a Prelate as he is the Kings Officer Of the Non-conformists judgement in this read Bradshaw against Canne c. 5. But in such a case no Oath to Inferiours is lawful without the Consent of the Soveraign power or at least against his will 6. Though it be a duty for the flock to obey every Presbyter yet if they would make all the people swear obedience to them all wise and conscionable Christians should dissent from the introduction of such a custome and deny such Oaths as far as lawfully they may that is 1. If the King be against it we must refuse it 2. If he be neutral or meerly passive in it we must refuse unless some apparent necessity for the Churches good require it 1. Because it favoureth of Pride in such Presbyters 2. Because it is a new Custome in the Church and contrary to the antient practice 3. It is not only without any authority given them by Christ that they exact such Oaths but Mat. 22. 4 10. Luke 22. 27 c. Mark 9. 35. 1 Pet. 5. 2 3. 1 Cor. 9. 19. 1 Cor. 4. 1. 2 Cor. 4. 5. also contrary to the great humility lowliness and condescension in which he describeth his Ministers who must be Great by being the servants of all 4. And it tendeth to corrupt the Clergy for the future 5. And such new impositions give just reason to Princes and to the People to suspect that the Presbyters are aspiring after some inordinate exaltation or have some ill project for the advancement of themselves 7. But yet if it be not only their own ambition which imposeth it but either the King and Laws command it or necessity require it for the avoidance of a greater evil it may be Lawful and a duty to take an Oath of Obedience to a Lawful Presbyter or Bishop Because 1. It is a ☜ duty to Obey them 2. And it is not forbidden us by Christ to promise or swear to do our duty even when they may sin in demanding such an Oath 8. If an Office be Lawful in the essential parts and yet have unlawful integrals or adjuncts or be abused in exercise it will not by such additions or abuses be made unlawful to swear Obedience to the Officer as such 9. If one Presbyter or Bishop would make another Presbyter or Bishop to swear obedience to him without authority the Case is the same as of the Usurpers before mentioned Quest. 154. Must all our preaching be upon a Text of Scripture Answ. 1. IN many Cases it may be lawful to preach without a Text to make Sacred Orations Act◠2 3. like Greg. Nazianzenes and Homilies like Macarius's Ephrem Syrus's and many other antients and like our own Church-Homilies 2. But ordinarily it is the fittest way to preach upon a Text of Scripture 1. Because it is our Luke 4. 18. very Office to Teach the people the Scripture The Prophets brought a new word or message from God but the Priests did but keep interpret and teach the Law already received And we are not Mal. 2. 7. successors of the inspired Prophets but as the Priests were Teachers of Gods received Word And this practice will help the people to understand our Office 2. And it will preserve the due esteem and reverence of the Holy Scriptures which the contrary practice may diminish Quest. 155. Is not the Law of Moses abrogated and the whole Old Testament out of date and therefore not to be Read publickly and preached on Answ. 1. THe Covenant of Innocency is ceased cessante subditorum capacitate as a Covenant or promise And so are the Positive Laws proper to Adam in that state and to many particular persons since 2. The Covenant mixt of Grace and Works proper to the Jews with all the Jewish Law as such was never made to us or to the rest of the world and to the Jews it is ceased by the coming and perfecter Laws and Covenant of Christ. 3. The Prophecies and Types of Christ and the Promises made to Adam Abraham and others of his Coming in the flesh are all fulfilled and therefore not useful to all the ends of their first making And the many Prophecies of particular things and persons past and gone are accomplished 4. But the Law of Nature is still Christs Law And that Law is much expounded to us in the Old Testament And if God once for another use did say This is the Law of Nature the truth of these words as a Divine Doctrine and Exposition of the Law of Nature is still the same 5. The Covenant of Grace made with Adam and Noah for all mankind is still in force as to the great benefits and main condition that is as to pardon given by it
more congruously and it seems with less offence than we Saith the Geographia Nubiensis aptly There is a certain King dwelling at Rome called the Pope c. when he goeth to describe him Nothing well suites with our function but the pure Doctrine of Salvation Let States-men and Lawyers mind the rest Two things I must apologize for in this Part 1. That it 's maimed by defect of those Directions to Princes Nobles Parliament-men and other Magistrates on whose duty the happiness of Kingdoms Churches and the World dependeth To which I answer that those must teach them whom they will hear while my Reason and experience forbid me as an unacceptable person to speak to them without a special invitation I can bear the Censures of Strangers who knew not them or me I am not so proud as to expect that men so much above me should stoop to read any Directions of mine much less to think me fit to teach them Every one may reprove a poor servant or a beggar It 's part of their priviledge But Great men must not be so much as admonished by any but themselves and such as they will hear At least nothing is a duty which a man hath reason to think is like to do much more harm than good And my own judgement is much against pragmatical presumptuous Preachers who are over-forward to meddle with their Governours or their affairs and think that God sendeth them to reprove persons and things that are strange to them and above them and vent their distastes upon uncertain reports or without a Call 2. And I expect to be both blamed and mis-understood for what I hear say in the Confutation of Mr. Richard Hooker his Political Principles and my Citation of B. Bilson and such others But they must observe 1. That it is not all in Mr. Hookers first and eighth Book which I gainsay but the principle of the Peoples being the fountain of Authority or that Kings receive their Office it self from them with the consequents hereof How far the people have in any Countrys the power of Electing the Persons Families or Forms of Government or how far nature giveth them propriety and the consequents of this I meddle not with at all 2. Nor do I choose Mr. Hooker out of any envy to his name and honour but I confess I do it to let men know truly whose Principles these are And if any causelesly question whether the eighth imperfect Book be in those passages his own let them remember that the sum of all that I confute is in his first Book which is old and highly honoured by you know whom And I will do him the honour and my self the dishonour to confess that I think the far greater number of Casuists and Authors of Politicks Papists and Protestants are on his side and fewest on mine But truth is truth On the subjects duty I am larger because if they will not hear at least I may boldly and freely instruct them If in the later part there be any useful Cases of Conscience left out it is because I could not remember them Farewell A Christian Directory TOM IV. Christian Politicks CHAP. I. General Rules for an Upright Conversation § 1. SOLOMON saith Prov. 10. 9. He that walketh uprightly walketh surely And Perfection and Uprightness are the characters of Iob Chap. 1. 1 8. 2. 3. And in the Scripture to be Upright or Righteous and to walk uprightly and to do righteously are the titles of those that are acceptable to God And by Uprightness is meant not only sincerity as opposed to Hypocrisie but also Rectitude of Heart and Life as opposed to crookedness or sin and this as it is found in various Degrees of which we use to call the lowest degree that is saving by the name of sincerity and the highest by the name of Perfection § 2. Concerning Uprightness of life I shall I. Briefly tell you some of those blessings that should make us all in love with it and II. Give you some necessary Rules of practice § 3. I. Uprightness of heart and life is a certain fruit of the Spirit of Grace and consequently a mark of our Union with Christ and a proof of our acceptableness with God Psal. 7. 10. My defence is of God who saveth the upright in heart Psal. 11. 7. For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness and his countenance doth behold the upright It is a title that God himself assumeth Psal. 25. 8. Good and upright is the Lord. Psal. 92. 15. To shew that the Lord is upright He is my rock and no unrighteousness is in him And God-calleth himself the Maker the Director the Protector and the Lover of the upright Eccl. 7. 29. God made man upright Psal. 1. 6. The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous Psal. 25. 12. What man is he that feareth the Lord him will he teach in the way that he shall choose Prov. 2. 7. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly 2. The Upright are the Pillars of humane society that keep up Truth and Iustice in the world without whom it would be but a company of lyers deceivers robbers and enemies that live in constant rapine or â—ostility There were no Trust to be put in one another further than self-interest did oblige men Psal. 15. 1 2. Lord who shall abide in thy Tabernacle Who shall dwell in thy holy hill He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart Therefore the wicked and the enemies of Peace and destroyers of Societies are still described as Enemies to the upright Psal. 11. 2 3. For lo the wicked bend their bow they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do Job 12. 4. The just and upright man is laughed to scorn Psal. 37. 14. The wicked have drawn out the sword to slay such as be of upright conversation And indeed it is for the uprights sake that societies are preserved by God as Sodom might have been for ten Lots At least they are under the protection of Omnipotency themselves Isa. 33. 15 16. He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly he that despiseth the gain of oppression that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes that stoppeth his ear from hearing of blood that shutteth his eyes from seeing evil He shall dwell on high his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks bread shall be given him his waters shall be sure Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty they shall behold the Land that is very far off Prov. â—8 10. The upright shall have good things in possession Prov. 14. 11. The house of the wicked shall be overthrown but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish 3. Uprightness affordeth Peace of Conscience and quietness and holy security to the soul. This was Pauls rejoycing the testimony
to pull them down on pretence of setting up him that hath appointed them whose Kingdom personal is not of this world § 42. Direct 18. When you are tempted to dishonourable thoughts of your Governours look over the Direct 18. face of all the earth and compare your case with the nations of the world and then your murmurings may be turned into thankfulness for so great a mercy What cause hath God to difference us from other nations and give us any more than an equal proportion of mercy with the rest of the world Have we deserved to have a Christian King when five parts of the world have Rulers that are Heathens and Mahometans Have we deserved to have a Protestant King when all the world hath but two more How happy were the world if it were so with all nations as it is with us Remember how unthankfulness forfeiteth our happiness § 43. Direct 19. Consider as well the Benefits which you receive by Governours as the sufferings Direct 19. which you undergo And especially consider of the common benefits and value them above your own He that knoweth what man is and what the world is and what the Temptations of Great men are and what he himself deserveth and what need the best have of affliction and what good they may get by the right improvement of it will never wonder nor grudge to have his earthly mercies mixt with crosses and to find some salt or sowreness in the sawce of his pleasant dishes For the most luscious is not of best concoction And he that will more observe his few afflictions than his many benefits hath much more selfish tenderness of the flesh than ingenuous thankfulness to his benefactor It is for your good that Rulers are the Ministers of God Rom. 13. 3 4 5. Perhaps you will think it strange that I say to you what I have oft said that I think there are not very many Rulers no not Tyrants and persecutors so bad but that the Godly that live under them do receive from their Government more good than hurt and though it must be confest that better Governours would do better yet almost Dicunt Stoici sapientes non modo liberos este verum Reges cum sit Regnum imperium nemini obnoxium quod de sapientibus soliâ— asseritur Statuere eâ—im oportere principem de bonis malis haec autem malorum scire neminem Similiter ad Magistrarus judicia oratoriam solos illos idoneos neminemque malorum Laâ—rt in Zenone the worst are better than none And none are more beholden to God for Magistrates than the Godly are however none suffer so much by them in most places of the world My reason is 1. Because the multitude of the needy and the dissolute Prodigals if they were all ungoverned would tear out the throats of the more wealthy and industrious and as Robbers use men in their houses and on the high way so would such persons use all about them and turn all into a constant war And hereby all honest industry would be overthrown while the fruit of mens labours were all at the mercy of every one that is stronger than the owner and a robber can take away all a night which you have been labouring for many years or may set all on fire over your heads And more persons would be killed in these wars by those that sought their goods than Tyrants and persecutors use to kill unless they be of the most cruel sort of all 2. And it is plain that in most Countreys the universal enmity of corrupted nature to serious Godliness would inflame the rabble if they were but ungoverned to commit more murders and cruelties upon the Godly than most of the persecutors in the world have committed Yet I deny not that in most places there are a sober sort of men of the middle rank that will hear reason and are more equal to Religion than the Highest or the Lowest usually are But suppose these sober men were the more numerous yet is the vulgar rabble the more violent and if Rulers restrained them not would leave few of the faithful alive on earth As many volumes as are written of the Martyrs who have suffered by persecuters I think they saved the lives of many more than they murdered Though this is no thanks to them it is a mercy to others As many as Queen Mary Martyred they had been far more if She had but turned the rabble loose upon them and never meddled with them by Authority I do not think Nero or Dioclesian Martyred near so many as the people turned loose upon them would have done Much more was Iulian a protector of the Church from the popular rage though in comparison of a Constantine or Theodosius he was a plague If you will but consider thus the benefits of your common protection your thankfulness for Rulers would overcome your murmurings In some places and at some times perhaps the people would favour the Gospel and flock after Christ if Rulers hindered them not But that would not be the ordinary case and their unconstancy is so great that what they built up one day in their zeal the next day they would pull down in fury § 44. Direct 20. Think not that any change of the form of Government would cure that which is Direct 20. caused by the peoples sin or the common pravity of humane nature Some think they can contrive such Eam Rempublicam optimam dicunt Stoici quae sit mixta ex regno populari dominatu optimor umque potentia Laâ—rt in Zenone forms of Government as that Rulers shall be able to do no hurt But either they will disable them to do good or else their engine is but glass and will fail or break when it comes to execution Men that are themselves so bad and unhumbled as not to know how bad they are and how bad mankind is are still laying the blame upon the form of Government when any thing is amiss and think by a change to find a cure As if when an Army is infected with the Plague or composed of Cowards the change of the General or form of Government would prove a cure But if a Monarch be faulty in an Aristocracy you will but have many faulty Governours for one and in a Democracy a multitude of Tyrants § 45. Direct 21. Set your selves much more to study your Duty to your Governours than the duty Direct 21. of your Governours to you as knowing that both your temporal and eternal happiness dependeth much more upon your selves than upon them God doth not call you to study other mens duties so much as Bad people make bad Governours In most places the people are so willful and tenacious of their sinful customes that the best Rulers are not able to reform them Yea many a Ruler hath cast off his Government being wearyed with mutinous and obstinate people Plato would not meddle
truly signifieth the Rulers Will. 2. That it is the Act of a Power derived from God and therefore no further bindeth than it is the exercise of such a power 3. That it is given 1. Finally for Gods glory and pleasure and for the Common Good comprehending the Honour of the Ruler and the welfare of the society ruled And therefore obligeth not when it is 1. Against God 2. Or against the Common Good 2. And it is subordinate to Gods It is not Mr. Humphâ—â—y alone that hath written that Laws bind not in conscience to obedience which are against the Publick Good The greatest Casuists say the same excepting the case of scandal He that would see this in them may choose but these two special Authors Bapt. Fragos de Regimine Reipublicae Greg. Sayrus in his Clavis Regia and in them he shall find enow more câ—â—ed Though I think some further Cautions would make it more satisfactory own Laws in Nature and Scripture and therefore obligeth not to sin or to the violation of Gods Law 4. You must note that Laws are made for the Government of Societies as such universally and so are fitted to the Common Case for the Common Good And it is not possible but that a Law which prescribeth a duty which by accident is so to the most should meet with some particular subject to whom the case is so circumstantiated as that the same act would be to him a sin And to the same man it may be ordinarily a duty and in an extraordinary case a sin Thence it is that in some cases as Lent Fasts Marriages c. Rulers oft authorize some persons to grant dispensations in certain cases And hence it is said that Necessity hath no Law Hereupon I conclude as followeth 1. It is no sin to break a Law which is no Law as being against God or not authorized by him as of a Usurper c. See R. Hooker Conclus Lib 8. 2. It is no Law so far as it is no signification of the true Will of the Ruler what ever the words be Therefore so far it is no sin to break it 3. The Will of the Ruler is to be judged of not only by the Words but by the Ends of Government and by the Rules of Humanity 4. It being not possible that the Ruler in his Laws can foresee and name all exceptions which may occur it is to be supposed that it is his Will that the Nature of the thing shall be the notifier of his Will when it cometh to pass And that if he were present and this case fell out before him which the sense and end of the Law extendeth not to he would say This is an excepted Case 5. There is therefore a wide difference between a General Law and a personal particular Mandate As of a Parent to a Child or a Master to a Servant For this latter fully notifieth the Will of the Ruler in that very case and to that very person And therefore it cannot be said that here is any exception or that it is not his Will But in an Universal or General Law it is to be supposed that some particular excepted Cases will fall out extraordinarily though they cannot be named And that in those Cases the Rulers will dispenseth with it 6. Sometimes also the Ruler doth by the meer neglect of pressing or executing his own Laws permit them to grow obsolete and out of use And sometimes he forbeareth the execution of them for some time or to some sort of persons And by so doing doth notifie that it was not his Will that â—t such a time and in such cases they should oblige I say not that all remissness of execution is such a sign But sometimes it is And the very word of the Law-giver may notifie his dispensation or suspending will As for instance Upon the burning of London there were many Laws about coming to Parish Churches and relief of the poor of the Parish and the like that the people became uncapable of obeying And it was to be supposed that the Rulers will would have been to to have excepted such Cases if foreseen and that they did dispense with them when they fell out 7. Sometimes also the penalty of violating a Law is some such Mulct or service which the Ruler intendeth as a Commutation for the duty so that he freely leaveth it to the choice of the subject which he will choose And then it is no sin to pay the Mulct and omit the Action because it crosseth not the Law-givers will 8. Sometimes also the Law may command this principally for some mens sake which so little concerns others that it should not extend to them at all were it not lest the Liberty of them should be an impediment to the obedience of others and consequently of the common good In which case if those persons so little concerned do but omit the action secretly so as to be no scandal or publick hurt it seemeth that they have the implicite Consent of the Rulers 9. Sometimes particular duties are commanded with this express exception Unless they have just and reasonable impediment As for coming every Lords Day to Church c. which seemeth to imply that though in cases where the publick good is concerned the person himself shall not be Judge nor at all as to the penalty yet that in actions of an indifferent nature in themselves this exception is still supposed to be implyed Unless we have just and reasonable impediments of which in private Cases as to the Crime we may judge 10. I need not mention the common natural exceptions As that Laws bind not to a thing when it becometh naturally impossible or cessante materia vel capacitate subjecti obligati c. 11. Laws may change their sense in part by the change of the Law-giver For the Law is not formally to us his Law that is dead and was once our Ruler but his that is alive and is now our Ruler If Henry the eighth make a Law about the outward acts of Religion as for coming to Church c. and this remain unrepealed in King Edwards Queen Maries Queen Elizabeths King Iames his dayes c. even till now As we are not to think that the Law-givers had the same sense and will so neither that the Law hath the same sense and obligation For if the general words be capable of several senses we must not take it as binding to us in the sense it was made in but in the sense of of our present Law-givers or Rulers because it is their Law 12. Therefore if a Law had a special Reason for it at the first making as the Law for using Bows and Arrows that Reason ceasing we are to suppose the Will of the Law-giver to remit the obligation if he urge not the execution and renew not the Law 13. By these plain principles many particular difficulties may be easily resolved which cannot be foreseen and named e.
office nor yet may he break his Laws for the avenging of himself He may use no other means than the Law of God and his Soveraign do allow him Therefore he may not rail or revile or slander or rob or strike or hurt any unless in case of defence as afterward nor take any other prohibited course § 17. Prop. 9. No rigor or severity must be used to right my self where gentler means may probably do it but the most harmless way must first be tryed § 18. Prop. 10. In general All wrongs and debts and damages must be forgiven when the hurt is like to be greater which will come by our righting our selves than that which by forbearance we shall sustain And all must be forgiven where Gods Law or mans forbiddeth us not to forgive Therefore a man that will here know his duty must conduct his actions by very great prudence which if he have not himself he must make use of a guide or Counsellour and he must be able to compare the Evil which he suffereth with the evil which will in probability follow his Vindication and to discern which of them is the greater Or else he can never know how far and when he may and must forgive And herein he must observe § 19. 1. The hurt that cometh to a mans soul is greater than the hurt that befalleth the body And therefore if my suing a man at Law be like to hurt his soul by uncharitableness or to hurt my own or the souls of others by scandal or disturbances I must rather suffer any meer bodily injuries than use that means But if yet greater hurt to souls would follow that bodily suffering of mine the Case is then altered the other way So if by forgiving debts or wrongs I be liker to do more good to the soul of him whom I forgive or others than the recovery of my own or the righting of my self is like any way to equal I am obliged to forgive that debt or wrong § 20. 2. The good or hurt which cometh to a community or to many is caeteris paribus to be more regarded thâ—n that which cometh to my self or any one alone Because many are of more worth than One and because Gods honour caeteris paribus is more concerned in the good of many than of one Therefore I must not seek my own right to the hurt of many either of their souls or bodies unless some greater good require it § 21. 3. The good or hurt of publick persons Magistrates or Pastors is caeteris paribus of more regard than the good or hurt of single men Therefore caeteris paribus I must not right my self to the dishonour or the hurt of Governours no though I were none of their charge or subjects because the publick good is more concerned in their honour or wellfare than in mine The same may be said of persons by their Gifts and interests more eminently serviceable to God and the common good than I am § 22. 4. The good or hurt of a neer relation of a dear friend of a worthy person is more to be regarded by me caeteris paribus than the good or hurt of a vile unworthy person or a stranger And therefore the Israelites might not take Usury of a poor brother which yet they might do of an aliene of another Land The Laws of nature and Friendship may more oblige me to one than to another though they were supposed equal in themselves Therefore I am not bound to remit a debt or wrong to a Thief or deceiver or a vile person when a neerer or a worthier person would be equally damnified by his benefit And thus far if without any partial self-love a man can justly estimate himself he may not only as he is neâ—rest himself but also for his real worth prefer his own commodity before the commodity of a more unworthy and unserviceable person § 23. 5. Another mans Necessities are more regardable than our own superfluities as his life is more regardable than our corporal delights Therefore it is a great sin for any man to reduce another to extremity and deprive him of necessaries for his life meerly to vindicate his own right in superfluities for the satisfaction of his concupiscence and â—ensual desires If a poor man steal to save his own or his Childrens lives and the rich man vindicate his own meerly to live in greater fulness or gallantry in the World he sinneth both the sin of sensuality and uncharitableness But how far for the common good he is bound to prosecute the Thief as criminal is a case which depends on other circumstances And this is the most common case in which the forgiving of debts and damages is required in Scripture viz. when the other is poor and we are rich and his necessities require it as an act of Charity And also the former case when the hurt by our vindication is like to be greater than our benefit will countervail § 24. Quest. 2. What is the meaning of those words of Christ Matth. 5. 38 39 40 41 42. Quest. 2. Ye have heard that it hath been said An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth But I say unto you that ye resist not evil but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also and if any man will sue thee at the Law and take away thy Coat let him have thy Cloak also And whosoever shall compell thee to go a mile go with him two Give to him that asketh thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn thou not away Answ. The meaning of the Text is this as if he had said Because you have heard that Magistrates are required to do justice exactly between man and man and to take an eye for an eye c. therefore you may perhaps believe those Teachers who would perswade you that for any man to exact this satisfaction is no fault But I tell you that duties of Charity must be performed as well as Iustice must be done And though it be the Magistrates duty to do you this Iustice it is not your duty alwayes to require it but Charity may make the contrary to be your duty Therefore I say unto you overvalue not the concernments of your flesh nor the trifles of this world but if a man abuse you or wrong you in these trifles make no great matter of it and be not presently inflamed to revenge and to right your selves but exercise your patience and your Charity to him that wrongeth you and by a habituated stedfastness herein be ready to receive another injury with equal patience yea many such rather than to fly to an unnecessary vindication of your right For what if he give you another Stroke Or what if he also take your Cloke or what if he compel you to another mile for him Let him do it Let him take it How small is your hurt What inconsiderable things are these Your resistance and
when it is not like to do more hurt than good either directly of it self or by mens abuse when Religion or the soul of any man or any ones body or estate or name is not like to lose more than my gain or any other benefits will compensate When all these concurr its lawful to go to Law § 29. Quest. 5. Is it lawful to defend my person life or estate against a Thief or Murderer or unjust Quest. 5. Invader by force of arms Answ. You must distinguish 1. Between such Defence as the Law of the Land alloweth and such as it forbiddeth 2. Between Necessary and Unnecessary actions of defence Prop. 1. There is no doubt but it is both lawful and a duty to defend our selves by such convenient means as are likely to attain their end and are not contrary to any Law of God or Man We must defend our Neighbour if he be assaulted or oppressed and we must love our neighbours as our selves Prop. 2. This Self-defence by force is then lawful when it is Necessary and other more gentle means have been uneffectual or have no place supposing still that the means be such as the Law of God or man forbiddeth not Prop. 3. And it is necessary to the Lawfulness of it that the means be such as in its nature is like to be successful or like to do more good than harm § 30. But on the other side Prop. 1. We may not defend our selves by any such force as either the Laws of God or our Rulers thereto authorized by him shall forbid For 1. The Laws are made by such as have more power over our lives than we have over them our selves 2. And they are made for the good of the Common-wealth which is to be preferred before the good or life of any single person And what ever selfish Infidels say both nature and grace do teach us to lay down our lives for the welfare of the Church or State and to prefer a multitude before our selves Therefore it is better to be robbed opprest or killed than to break the peace of the Common-wealth Prop. 2. Therefore a private man may not raise an Army to defend his life against his Prince or lawful Governour Perhaps he might hold his hands if personally he went about to murder him without the violation of the publick peace But he cannot raise a War without it Prop. 3. We may not do that by blood or violence which might be done by perswasion or by any lawful gentle means Violence must be used even in defence but in case of true necessity Prop. 4. When Self-defence is like to have Consequents so ill as the saving of our selves cannot countervail it is then unlawful finis gratia and not to be attempted Prop. 5. Therefore if Self-defence be unlikely to prevail our strength being inconsiderable and when the enemy is but like to be the more exasperated by it and our sufferings like to be the greater Nature and reason teach us to submit and use the more effectual lawful means § 31. Quest. 6. Is it lawful to take away anothers life in the defending of my purse or estate Quest. 6. Answ. 1. You must again distinguish between such defence as the Law of the Land alloweth and such as it forbiddeth 2. Between what is Necessary and what is Unnecessary 3. Between a life less worth than the prize which he contendeth for and a life more worth than it or than mine own 4. Between the simple defence of my purse and the defence of it and my life together 5. Between what I do with purpose and desire and what I do unwillingly through the assailants â—emerity or violence 6. And between what I do in meer defence and what I do to bring a Thief or Robber unto legal punishment And so I answer Prop. 1. You may not defend your purse or your estate by such actions as the Law of the Land forbiddeth Unless it go against the Law of God Because it is to be supposed that it is better a mans estate or purse be lost than Law and publick order violated Prop. 2. You may not against an ordinary Thief or Robber defend your purse with the probable hazard of his life if a few good words or other safe and gentle means which you have opportunity to use be like to serve turn without such violence Prop. 3. If it might be supposed that a Prince or other person of great use and service to the Common-wealth should in a frolick or otherwise assault your person for your estate or purse it is not lawful to take away his life by a defensive violence if you know it to be he Because though in some Countreys the Law might allow it you yet finis gratia it is unlawful because his life is more necessary to the common good than yours Prop. 4. If a pilfering Thief would steal your purse without any violence which hazardeth your life ordinarily you may not take away his life in the defending of it Because it is the work of the Magistrate to punish him by publick Justice and your defence requireth it not Prop. 5. All this is chiefly meant of the voluntary designed taking away of his life and not of any lawful action which doth it accidentally against your will § 33. On the other side Prop. 1. If the Law of the Land allow you to take away a mans life in the defending of your purse it removeth the scruple if the weight of the matter also do allow it Because it supposeth that the Law taketh the offendor to be worthy of death and maketh you in that case the executioner of it And if indeed the crime be such as deserveth death you may be the executioner when the Law alloweth it Prop. 2. And this is more clear when the Robber for your money doth assault your life or is like for ought you see to do it Prop. 3. And when gentler means will not serve the turn but violence is the only remedy which is left you which is like to avail for your defence Prop. 4. And when the person is a vile offender who is rather a plague and burden to the Common-wealth than any necessary member of it Prop. 5. If you desire not and design not his death but he rush upon it himself in his fury while you lawfully defend your own the case is yet less questionable Prop. 6. If a Thief have taken your purse though you may not take away his life after to recover it because it is of less value nor yet in revenge because that belongeth not to private men yet if the Law require or allow you to pursue him to bring him to a judicial tryal if you kill him while he resisteth it is not your sin because you are but suppressing sin in your place according to the allowance of the Law § 34. Quest. 7. May I kill or wound another in the defence or vindication of my honour or good name
Parent in this respect cannot oblige him to his hurt For if he will quit the benefit he may be freed when he will from his obligation and may refuse to stand to the Covenant if he dislike it If he will give up his lease he may be disobliged from the Rent and service § 3. In all this you may perceive that no man can oblige another against God or his salvation And therefore a Parent cannot oblige a child to sin nor to forbear hearing or reading the Word of God or praying or any thing necessary to his salvation Nor can he oblige him to hear a Heretical Pastor nor to marry an Infidel or wicked Wife c. § 4. And here also you may perceive on what grounds it is that God hath appointed Parents to oblige their children in the Covenant of Baptism to be the servants of God and to live in holiness all their dayes § 5. And hence it is apparent that no Parents can oblige their children to be miserable or to any such condition which is worse than to have no being § 6. Also that when Parents do as commonly they do profess to oblige their children as Benefactors for their good the obligation is then to be interpreted accordingly And the child is then obliged to nothing which is really his hurt Yea all the Propriety and Government of Parents cannot authorize them to oblige the child to his hurt but in order to some greater good either to the Parents themselves or to the Common-wealth or others At least that which the Parents apprehend to be a greater good But if they err through ignorance or partiality and bind the child to a greater hurt for their lesser good as to pay 200 l. to save them from paying 100 l. whether their injury and sin do excuse the child from being obliged to any more than the proportion of the benefit required I leave undetermined § 7. Quest. 2. But what if the Parents disagree and one of them will oblige the child and the other Quest. 2. will not Answ. 1. If it be an act of the Parents as meer Proprietors for their own good either of them may oblige him in a just degree because they have severally a propriety 2. If it be an act of Government as if they oblige him to do this or that act of service at their command in his minority the Father may oblige him against the Mothers consent because he is the chief Ruler but not the Mother against the Fathers will though she may without it § 8. Quest. 3. Is a man obliged by a contract which he made in ignorance or mistake of the Quest. 3. matter Answ. I have answered this before in the case of Marriage Part. 3. Chap. 1. I add here 1. We Must distinguish between culpable and inculpable error 2. Between an error about the principal matter and about some smaller accidents or circumstances 3. Between a case where the Law of the Land or the common good interposeth and where it doth not 1. If it be your own fault that you are mistaken you are not wholly freed from the obligation But if it was your gross fault by negligence or vice you are not at all freed But if it were but such a frailty as almost all men are lyable to so that none but a person of extraordinary virtue or diligence could have avoided the mistake then equity will proportionably make you an abatement or free you from the obligation So far as you were obliged to understand the matter so far you are obliged by the contract especially when another is a loser by your error 2. An inculpable error about the circumstances or smaller parts will not free you from an obligation in the principal matter But an inculpable error in the essentials will 3. Except when the Law of the Land or the common good doth otherwise over-rule the case For then you may be obliged by that accident In divers cases the Rulers may judge it necessary that the effect of the contract shall depend upon the bare words or writings or actions lest false pretences of misunderstanding should exempt deceitful persons from their obligations and nothing should be a security to contractors And then mens private commodity must give place to the Law and to the publick good 4. Natural infirmities must be numbered with faults though they be not moral vices as to the contracting of an obligation if they be in a person capable of contracting As if you have some special defect of memory or ignorance of the matter which you are about Another who is no way faulty by over-reaching you must not be a loser by your weakness For he that cometh to the market or contracteth with another who knoweth not his infirmity is to be supposed to understand what he doth unless the contrary be manifest You should not meddle with matters which you understand not Or if you do you must be content to be a loser by your weakness 5. Yet in such cases another that hath gained by the bargain may be obliged by the Laws of equity and charity to remit the gain and not to take advantage of your weakness But he may so far hold you to it as to secure himself from loss except in cases where you become the object of his Charity and not of Commutative Justice only § 9. Quest. 4. Is a drunken man or a man in a transporting passion or a melancholy person obliged by Quest. 4. a contract made in such a case Answ. Remember still that we are speaking only of Contracts about matters of profit or worldly interest and not of marriage or any of another nature And the Question as it concerneth a man in Drunkenness or Passion is answered as the former about culpable error And as it concerneth a melancholy man it is to be answered as the former question in the case of natural infirmity But if the melancholy be so great as to make him uncapable of bargaining he is to be esteemed in the same condition as an Ideot or one in deliration or distraction § 10. Quest. 5. But may another hold a man to it who in drunkenness or passion maketh an ill bargain Quest. 5. or giveth or playeth away his money and repenteth when he is sober Answ. He may ordinarily take the money from the loser or him that casteth it thus away But he may not keep it for himself But if the loser be poor he should give it to his Wife or Children whom he robbeth by his sin If not he should either give it to the Magistrate or Overseer for the poor or give it to the poor himself The reason of this determination is Because the loser hath parted with his propriety and can lay no further claim to the thing But yet the gainer can have no right from anothers crime If it were from an injury he might so far as is necessary to reparations But from a crime he cannot For his
tempted to Popery or Infidelity In some Countreys they learn to drink Wine instead of Beer and arising from the smaller sort to the stronger if they turn not drunkards they contract that appetite to Wine and strong drink which shall prove as Clemens Alexandrinus calleth gluttony and tipling a Throat-madness and a Belly-devil and keep them in the sin of gulosity all their dayes And in some Countreys they shall learn the art of Gluttony to pamper their guts in curious costly uncouth fashions and to dress themselves in novel fantastical garbs and to make a business of adorning themselves and setting themselves forth with proud and procacious fancies and affections to be lookt upon as comely persons to the eyes of others In some Countreys they shall learn to waste their precious hours in Stage-playes and vain spectacles and ceremonious attendances and visits and to equalize their life with death and to live to less use and benefit to the world than the Horse that carryeth them In most Countreys they shall learn either to prate against Godliness as the humour of a few melancholy fools and be wiser than to believe God or obey him or be saved or at least to grow indifferent and cold in holy affections and practices For when they shall see Papists and Protestants Lutherans and Calvinists of contrary minds and hear them reproaching and condemning one another this cooleth their zeal to all Religion as seeming but a matter of uncertainty and contention And when also they see how the wise and holy are made a scorn in one Countrey as Bigots and Hugonots and how the Protestants are drunkards and worldlings in another Countrey and how few in the world have any true sense and savour of sound and practical Religion and of a truly holy and heavenly life as those few they are seldome so happy as to converse with this first accustometh themselves to a neglect of holiness and then draweth their minds to a more low indifferent opinion of it and to think it unnecessary to salvation For they will not believe that so few shall be saved as they find to be holy in the world And then they grow to think it but a fancy and a troubler of the world And it addeth to their temptation that they are obliged by the carnal ends which drew them out Read Bishop Halls Quo Vadis on this subject to be in the worst and most dangerous company and places that is at Princes Courts and among the splendid gallantry of the world For it is the fashions of the Great ones which they must see and of which when they come home they must be able to discourse So that they must travel to the Pesthouses of pomp and lust of idleness gluâ—â—ony drunkenness and pride of Atheism irreligiousness and impiety that they may be able to glory what acquaintance they have got of the grandeur and gallantry of the Suburbs of Hell that they may represent the way to damnation delectable and honourable to others as well as to themselves But the greatest danger is of corrupting their Intellectuals by converse with deceivers where they come either Infidels or jugling Iesuits and Fryars For when these are purposely trained up to deceive how easie is it for them to silence raw unfurnished Novices yea even where all their five senses must be captivated in the doctrine of Transubstantiation And when they are silenced they must yield or at least they have deluding stories enough of the Antiquity Universality Infallibility Unity of their Church with a multitude of lyes of Luther Calvin Zuinglius and other Reformers to turn their hearts and make them yield But yet that they may be capable of doing them the more service they are instructed for a time to dissemble their perversion and to serve the Roman Pride and Faction in a Protestant garb and name Especially when they come to Rome and see its glory and the monuments of antiquity and are alluned with their splendour and civilities and made believe that all the reports of their Inquisitions and cruelties are false this furthereth the fascination of unexperienced youths 2. And usually all this while the most of them lay by all serious studies and all constant employment and make Idleness and Converse with the Idle or with Tempters to be their daily work And what a mind is like to come to which is but one half year or twelvemonth accustomed to idleness and vain spectacles and to a pleasing converse with idle and luxurious persons it is easie for a man of any acquaintance with the world or with humane nature to conjecture 3. And they go forth in notable peril of their health or lives Some fall into Feavors and dye by change of air and drinks Some fall into quarrels in Taverns or about their Whores and are murdered Some few prove so steadfast against all the temptations of the Papists that it is thought conducible to the holy cause that they should be killed in pretence of some quarrel or be poysoned Some by drinking Wine do contract such sickness as makes their lives uncomfortable to the last And the brains of many are so heated by it that they fall mad 4. And all this danger is principally founded in the quality of the persons sent to travel which Peregrinaâ—io â—evia taedâ—a quaedam animorum veâ—uâ—i nause as toâ—â—â—â—t Non tollâ—t mâ—rbos quâ— altiuâ— penetrarunt quam â—t externa ulla m dicina huc pâ—râ— ngâ—t Id. eb are ordinarily empty Lads between eighteen and twenty four years of age which is the time of the Devils chief advantage when naturally they are proâ—e to those Vices which prove the ruine of the most though you take the greatest care of them that you can 1. Their lust is then in the highest and most untamed rage 2. Their appetites to pleasing meats and drinks are then strongest 3. Their frolick inclinations to sports and recreations are then greatest 4. And ignorant and procacious Pride beginneth then to stir 5. All things that are most Vile and Vain are then apt to seem excellent to them by reason of the novelty of the matter as to them who never saw such things before and by reason of the false esteem of those carnal persons to whose pomp and consequently to whose judgement they would be conformed 6. And they are at that age exceedingly inclined to think all their own apprehensions to be right and to be very confident of their own conceptions and wise in their own eyes Because their juvenile intellect being then in the most affecting activity it seemeth still clear and sure to them because it so much affects themselves 7. But above all they are yet unfurnished of almost all that solid wisdome and setled holiness and large experience which is most necessary to their improvement of their travels and to their resistance of all these temptations Alas how few of them are able to deal with a Jesuite or hold fast their Religion against
Love is holy and from God whereas the same Love may be of God as to the principle motives and ends in the main and yet may have great mixtures of passionate weakness and sinful excess which may tend to their great affliction in the end Some that have been converted by the writings of a Minister a hundred or a thousand miles off must needs go see the Author some must needs remove from their lawful dwellings and callings to live under the Ministry of such a one yea if it may be in the house with him some have affections so violent as proveth a torment to them when they cannot live with those whom they so affect some by that affection are ready to follow those that they so value into any errour And all this is a sinful Love by this mixture of passionate weakness though pious in the main Quest. 9. Why should we restrain our Love to a bosome friend contrary to Cicero's doctrine and what Quest. 9. sin or danger is in loving him too much Answ. All these following 1. It is an errour of judgement and of will to suppose any one Better than he is yea perhaps than any creature on earth is and so to Love him 2. It is an irrational act and therefore not fit for a Rational creature to Love any one farther than reason will allow us and beyond the true causes of regular Love 3. It is usually a fruit of sinful selfishness For this excess of Love doth come from a selfish cause either some strong conceit that the person greatly Loveth us or for some great kindness which he hath shewed us or for some need we have of him and fitness appearing in him to be useful to us c. Otherwise it would be purely for Amiable worth and then it would be proportioned to the nature and measure of that worth 4. It very often taketh up mens minds so as to hinder their Love to God and their desires and delights in holy things While Satan perhaps upon Religious pretences turneth our affections too violently to some person it diverteth them from higher and better things For the weak mind of man can hardly think earnestly of one thing without being alienated in his thoughts from others nor can hardly love two things or persons fervently at once that stand not in pure subordination one to the other And we seldom Love any fervently in a pure subordination to God For then we should Love God still more fervently 5. It oft maketh men ill members of the Church and Commonwealth For it contracteth that Love to one over-valued person which should be diffused abroad among many and the common good which should be loved above any single person is by this means neglected as God himself which maketh Wives and Children and bosome friends become those gulfs that swallow up the estates of most rich men so that they do little good with them to the publick state which should be preferred 6. Overmuch friendship engageth us in more duty than we are well able to perform without neglecting our duty to God the Commonwealth and our own souls There is some special duty followeth all special acquaintance but a bosome friend will expect a great deal You must allow him much of your Time in conference upon all occasions and he looketh that you should be many wayes friendly and useful to him as he is or would be to you When alas frail man can do but little our Time is short our strength is small our estates and faculties are narrow and low And that Time which you must spend with your bosome friend where friendship is not moderated and wisely managed is perhaps taken from God and the publick good to which you first owed it Especially if you are Magistrates Ministers Physicions Schoolmasters or such other as are of publick usefulness Indeed if you have a sober prudent friend that will look but for your vacant hours and rather help you in your publick service you are happy in such a friend But that is not the excess of Love that I am reprehending 7. This inordinate friendship prepareth for disappointments yea and for excess of sorrows Usually experience will tell you that your best friends are but uncertain and imperfect men and will not answer your expectation And perhaps some of them may so grosly fail you you as to set light by you or prove your Adversaries I have seen the bonds of extraordinary dearness many ways dissolved One hath been overcome by the flesh and turned drunkard and sensual and so proved unfit for intimate friendship who yet sometime seemed of extraordinary uprightness and zeal Another hath taken up some singular conceits in Religion and joyned to some sect where his bosome friend could not follow him And so it hath seemed his duty to look with strangeness contempt or pity on his ancient friend as one that is dark and low if not supposed an adversary to the truth because he espouseth not all his mis-conceits Another is suddenly lifted up with some preferment dignity and success and so is taken with higher things and higher converse and thinks it is very fair to give an embrace to his ancient friend for what he once was to him instead of continuing such endearedness Another hath changed his place and company and so by degrees grown very indifferent to his ancient friend when he is out of sight and converse ceaseth Another hath himself chosen his friend amiss in his unexperienced youth or in a penury of wise and good men supposing him much better than he was and afterward hath had experience of many persons of far greater wisdom piety and fidelity whom therefore reason commanded him to preser All these are ordinary dissolvers of these bonds of intimate and special friendship And if your Love continue as hot as ever its excess is like to be your excessive sorrow For 1. You will be the more grieved at every suffering of your friend as sickness losses crosses c. whereof so many attend mankind as is like to make your burden great 2. Upon every removal his absence will be the more troublesome to you 3. All incongruities and fallings out will be the more painful to you especially his jealousies discontents and passions which you cannot command 4. His death if he die before you will be the more grievous and your own the more unwellcome because you must part with him These and abundance of sore afflictions are the ordinary fruits of too strong affections And it is no rare thing for the best of Gods servants to profess that their sufferings from their friends who have over-loved them have been ten times greater than from all the enemies that ever they had in the world And to those that are wavering about this case Whether only a common friendship with all men according to their various worth or a bosome intimacy with some one man be more desirable I shall premise a free confession of my
that you sinned with must by all importunity be follicited to repentance and the sin must be confessed and pardon craved for tempting them to sin 2. Where it can be done without a greater evil than the benefit will amount to the Fornicators ought to joyn in marriage Exod. 22. 16. 3. Where that cannot be the man is to put the Woman into as good a case for outward livelyhood as she would have been in if she had not been corrupted by him by allowing her a proportionable dowry Exod. 22. 17. and the Parents injury to be recompensed Deut. 22. 28 29. 3. The Childs maintenance also is to be provided for by the fornicator That is 1. If the man by fraud or sollicitation induced the Woman to the sin he is obliged to all as aforesaid 2. If they sinned by mutual forwardness and consent then they must joyntly bear the burden yet so that the Man must bear the greater part because he is supposed to be the stronger and wiser to have resisted the temptation 3. If the Woman importuned the man she must bear the more but yet he is responsible to Parents and others for their damages and in part to the Woman her self because he was the stronger vessel and should have been more constant And volenti non fit injuria is a rule that hath some exceptions Quest. 12. In what case is a man excused from restitution and satisfaction Quest. 12. Answ. 1. He that is utterly disabled cannot restore or satisfie 2. He that is equally damnified by the person to whom he should restore is excused in point of real equity and Conscience so be it that the Reasons of external order and policy oblige him not For though it may be his sin of which he is to repent that he hath equally injured the other yet it requireth eonfession rather than restitution or satisfaction unless he may also expect satisfaction from the other Therefore if you owe a man an hundred pound and he owe you as much and will not pay you you are not bound to pay him unless for external order sake and the Law of the Land 3. If the debt or injury be forgiven the person is discharged 4. If Nature or common-custome do warrant a man to believe that no restitution or satisfaction is expected or that the injury is forgiven though it be not mentioned it will excuse him from restitution or satisfaction As if Children or friends have taken some trifle which they may presume the kindness of a Parent or friend will pass over though it be not justifiable Quest. 13. What if the Restitution will cost the restorer far more than the thing is worth Quest. 13. Answ. He is obliged to make Satisfaction instead of Restitution Quest. 14. What if the confessing of the fault may enrage him that I must restore to so that he will Quest. 14. turn it to my infamy or ruine Answ. You may then conceal the person and send him satisfaction by another hand or you may also conceal the wrong it self and cause satisfaction to be made him as by gift or other way of payment Tit. 2. Directions about Restitution and Satisfaction Direct 1. FOresee the trouble of restitution and prevent it Take heed of Covetousness which would Direct 1. draw you into such a snare What a perplexed case are some men in who have injured others so far as that all they have will scarce make them due satisfaction Especially publick oppressours who injure whole Nations Countreys or communities and unjust Judges who have done more wrong perhaps in one day or week than all their estates are worth and unjust Lawyers who plead against a righteous cause and false witnesses who contribute to the wrong and unjust Juries or any such like Also oppressing Landlords and Souldiers that take mens goods by violence and deceitful tradesmen who live by injuries In how sad a case are all these men Direct 2. Do nothing which is doubtful if you can avoid it lest it should put you upon the trouble of Direct 2. restitution As in case of any doubtful way of Usury or other gain consider that if it should hereafter appear to you to be unlawful and so you be obliged to restitution though you thought it lawful at the taking of it what a snare then would you be in when all that use must be repayed And so in other cases Direct 3. When really you are bound to restitution or satisfaction stick not at the Cost or Suffering be Direct 3. it never so great but be sure to deal faithfully with God and Conscience Else you will keep a thorn in your hearts which will smart and fâ—ster till it be out And the ease of your Consciences will bear the charge of your costlyest restitution Direct 4. If you be not able in your life time to make restitution leave it in your willâ— as a debt upon your Direct 4. Estates but never take it for your own Direct 5. If you are otherwise unable to satisfie offer your labour as a servant to him to whom you Direct 5. are indebted if at least by your service you can make him a compensation Direct 6. If you are that way unable also beg of your friends to help you that Charity may Direct 6. enable you to pay the debt Direct 7. But if you have no means at all of satisfying confess the injury and crave forgiveness Direct 7. and cast your self on the mercy of him whom you have injured CHAP. XXXIII Cases and Directions about our obtaining Pardon from God Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about obtaining pardon of sin from God Quest. 1. IS there pardon to be had for all sin without exception or not Quest. 1. Answ. 1. There is no pardon procured nor offered for the final non-performance of the conditions of pardon that is for final impenitency unbelief and ungodliness 2. There is no pardon for any sin without the conditions of pardon that is without true faith and repentance which is our conversion from sin to God 3. And if there be any sin which certainly excludeth true Repentance to the last it excludeth pardon also which is commonly taken to be the case of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost of which I have written at large in my Treatise against Infidelity But 1. All sin except the final non-performance of the conditions of pardon is already conditionally pardoned in the Gospel that is If the sinner will repent and believe No sin is excepted from pardon to penitent believers 2. And all sin is actually pardoned to a true penitent believer Quest. 2. What if a man do frequently commit the same heynous sin may he be pardoned Quest. 2. Answ. Whilest he frequently committeth it being a mortal sin he doth not truly repent of it And while he is impenitent he is unpardoned But if he be truly penitent his heart being habitually and actually turned from the sin it will be forgiven
14. between light and darkness a believer and an Infidel Answ. It maketh it unlawful for a Believer to marry an Infidel except in case of true necessity Because they can have no Communion in Religion But it nullifieth not a marriage already made nor maketh it lawful to depart or divorce Because they may have meer conjugal Communion still As the Apostle purposely determineth the case in 1 Cor. 7. Quest. 15. Doth not the Desertion of one party disoblige the other Quest. 15. Answ. 1. It must be considered what is true Desertion 2. Whether it be a Desertion of thâ— Relation it self for continuance or only a temporary desertion of co-habitation or congress 3. What the temper and state of the deserted party is 1. It is sometimes easie and sometimes hard to discern which is the deserting party If the Wife go away from the Husband unwarrantably though she require him to follow her and say that she doth not desert him yet it may be taken for a desertion because it is the man who is to rule and choose the habitation But if the man go away and the woman refuse to follow him it is not he that is therefore the deserter Quest. But what if the man have not sufficient cause to go away and the woman hath great and urgent reasons not to go As suppose that the man will go away in hatred of an able Preacher and good company and the woman if she follow him must leave all those helps and go among ignorant prophane heretical persons or Infidels which is the deserter then Answ. If she be one that is either like to do good to the Infidels Hereticks or bad persons whom they must converse with she may suppose that God calleth her to receive good by doing good or if she be a confirmed well-setled Christian and not very like either by infection or by want of helps to be unsetled and miscarry it seemeth to me the safest way to follow her Husband She must lose indeed Gods publick Ordinances by following him But it is not imputable to her as being out of her choice and she must lose the benefits and neglect the duties of the Conjugal Ordinance if she do not follow him But if she be a person under such weaknesses as make her remove apparently dangerous as to her perseverance and salvation and her Husband will by no means be prevailed with to change his mind the case then is very difficult what is her duty and who is the deserter Nay if he did but lead her into a Countrey where her life were like to be taken away as under the Spanish Inquisition unless her suffering were like to be as serviceable to Christ as her life Indeed these cases are so difficult that I will not decide them The inconveniencies or mischiefs rather are great which way soever she take But I most incline to judge as followeth viz. It is considerable first what Marriage obligeth her to simply of its own nature and what it may do next by any superadded Contract or by the Law or Custome of the Land or any other accident As to the first it seemeth to me that every ones obligation is so much first to God and then to their own souls and lives that marriage as such which is for Mutual help as a Means to higher Ends doth not oblige her to forsake all the Communion of Saints and the place or Countrey where God is lawfully worshipped and to lose all the helps of publick Worship and to expose her soul both to spiritual famine and infection to the apparent hazard of her salvation and perhaps bring her children into the same misery nor hath God given her Husband any power to do her so much wrong nor is the Marriage-Covenant to be interpreted to intend it But what any humane Law or Contract or other accident which is of greater publick consequence may do more than Marriage of it self is a distinct Case which must have a particular discussion Quest. But what if the Husband would only have her follow him to the forsaking of her estate and undoing her self and children in the world as in the case of Galeacius Caracciolus Marquess of Vicum yea and if it were without just cause Answ. If it be for greater spiritual gain as in his case she is bound to follow him But if it be apparently foolish to the undoing of her and her children without any cause I see not that Marriage simply obligeth a Woman so to follow a fool in beggary or out of a Calling or to her ruine But if it be at all a controvertible Case whether the Cause be just or not then the Husband being Governour must be Judge The Laws of the Land are supposed to be just which allow a Woman by Trustees to secure some part of her former Estate from her Husbands disposal Much more may she before hand secure her self and children from being ruined by his wilful folly But she can by no Contract except her self from his true Government Yet still she must consider whether she can live continently in his absence otherwise the greatest sufferings must be endured to avoid incontinency 2. Moreover in all these cases a temporary removal may be further followed than a perpetual transmigration because it hath fewer evil consequents And if either party renounce the Relation it self it is a fuller desertion and clearer discharge of the other party than a meer removal is Quest. 16. What if a Man or Wife know that the other in hatred doth really intend by poyson or Quest. 16. other murder to take away their life May they not depart Answ. They may not do it upon a groundless or rash surmise nor upon a danger which by other lawful means may be avoided As by Vigilancy or the Magistrate or especially by love and duty But in plain danger which is not otherwise like to be avoided I doubt not but it may be done and ought For it is a duty to preserve our own lives as well as our neighbours And when Marriage is contracted for mutual help it is naturally implyed that they shall have no power to deprive one another of life However some barbarous Nations have given men power of the lives of their Wives And killing is the grossest kind of Desertion and a greater injury and violation of the Marriage-Covenant than Adultery and may be prevented by avoiding the murderers presence if that way be necessary None of the Ends of Marriage can be attained where the hatred is so great Quest. 17. If there be but a fixed hatred of each other is it inconsistent with the Ends of Marriage Quest. 17. And is parting lawful in such a case Answ. The injuring party is bound to Love and not to separate and can have no liberty by his or her sin And to say I cannot love or my Wife or Husband is not amiable is no sufficient excuse Because every person hath somewhat that is amiable if it
be but humane nature And that should have been foreseen before your choice And as it is no excuse to a drunkard to say I cannot leave my drink so it is none to an adulterer or hater of another to say I cannot love them For that is but to say I am so wicked that my heart or will is against my duty But the innocent parties case is harder though commonly both parties are faulty and therefore both are obliged to return to Love and not to separate But if hatred proceed not to adultery or murder or intollerable injuries you must remember that Marriage is not a Contract for years but for life and that it is possible that hatred may be cured how unlikely soever it may be And therefore you must do your duty and wait and pray and strive by Love and Goodness to recover Love and then stay to see what God will do For mistakes in your choice will not warrant a separation Quest. 18. What if a Woman have a Husband that will not suffer her to read the Scriptures nor go Quest. 18. to Gods Worship publick or private or that so beateth or abuseth her as that it cannot be expected that humane nature should be in such a case kept fit for any holy action or if a man have a Wife that will scold at him when he is praying or instructing his family and make it impossible to him to serve God with freedome or peace and comfort Answ. The Woman must at necessary seasons though not when she would both read the Scriptures and Worship God and suffer patiently what is inflicted on her Martyrdome may be as comfortably suffered from a Husband as from a Prince But yet if neither her own Love and duty and patience nor friends perswasion nor the Magistrates justice can free her from such inhumane cruelty as quite disableth her for her duty to God and man I see not but she may depart from such a Tyrant But the man hath more means to restrain his Wife from beating him or doing such intollerable things Either by the Magistrate or by denying her what else she might have or by his own violent restraining her as belongeth to a Conjugal Ruler and as circumstances shall direct a prudent man But yet in case that unsuitableness or sin be so great that after long tryal there is no likelihood of any other co-habitation but what will tend to their spiritual hurt and calamity it is their lesser sin to live asunder by mutual consent Quest. 19. May one part from a Husband or Wife that hath the Leprosie or that hath the French Quest. 19. Pox by their adulterous practices when the innocent persons life is endangered by it Answ. If it be an innocent persons disease the other must co-habite and tenderly cherish and comfort the diseased yea so as somewhat to hazard their own lives but not so as apparently to cast them away upon a danger not like to be avoided unless the others life or some greater good be like to be purchased by it But if it be the Pox of an Adulterer the innocent party is at liberty by the others adultery and the saving of their own lives doth add thereto But without Adultery the disease alone will not excuse them from co-habitation though it may from Congress Quest. 20. Who be they that may or may not marry again when they are parted Quest. 20. Answ. 1. They that are released by divorce upon the others Adultery Sodomy c. may marry again 2. The case of all the rest is harder They that part by consent to avoid mutual hurt may not marry again Nor the party that departeth for self-preservation or for the preservation of estate or children or comforts or for liberty of Worship as aforesaid Because it is but an intermission of Conjugal fruition and not a total dissolution of the Relation And the innocent party must wait to see whether there be any hope of a return Yea Christ seemeth to resolve it Matth. 5. 31 32. that he is an Adulterer that marrieth the innocent party that is put away because the other living in adultery their first contracted Relation seemeth to be still in being But Grotius and some others think that Christ meaneth this only of the man that over-hastily marrieth the innocent divorced Woman before it be seen whether he will repent and reassume her But how can that hold if the Husband after Adultery free her May it not therefore be meant that the Woman must stay unmarried in hope of his reconciliation till such time as his adultery with his next married Wife doth disoblige her But then it must be taken as a Law for Christians For the Jew that might have many Wives disobligeth not one by taking another A short desertion must be endured in hope But in case of a very long or total desertion or rejection if the injured party should have an untameable lust the case is difficult I think there are few but by just means may abstain But if there be any that cannot after all means without such trouble as overthroweth their peace and plainly hazardeth their continence I dare not say that Marriage in that case is unlawful to the innocent Quest. 1. IS it lawful to suffer or tollerate yea or contribute to the matter of known sin in a family ordinarily in Wife Child or Servant And consequently in any other Relations Answ. In this some lukewarm men are apt to run into the extream of Remissness and some unexperienced young men that never had families into the extream of censorious rigor as not knowing what they talk of 1. It is not Lawful either in Family Commonwealth Church or any where to allow of sin nor to tollerate it or leave it uncured when it is truly in our power to cure it 2. So that all the question is When it is or is not in our power Concerning which I shall answer by some instances I. It is not in our Power to do that which we are Naturally unable to do No Law of God bindeth us to Impossibilities And Natural Impotency here is found in these several cases 1. When we are overmatcht in strength when Wife Children or Servants are too strong for the Master of the house so that he cannot correct them nor remove them A King is not bound to punish rebellious or offending Subjects when they are too strong for him and he is unable either by their Numbers or other advantages If a Pastor censure an offendor and all the Church be against the censure he cannot procure it executed but must acquiesce in having done his part and leave their guilt upon themselves 2. When the thing to be done is an Impossibility at least Moral As to hinder all the persons of a Family Church or Kingdom from ever sinning It is not in their own power so far to reform themselves Much less in a Ruler so far to reform them Even as to our selves Perfection is