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A42728
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A sermon preached at St. Andrew's Plymouth, January 30th, 1698/9 by John Gilbert ... ; with a preface defending King Charles the martyr, and the observation of his day, against the libels, and practice of such, who are enemies to both.
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Gilbert, John, d. 1722.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing G711; ESTC R3491
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22,764
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68
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proceed now in the 2d Place To shew how this can consist with the Justice of God's Providence a seeming Contradiction to this being the maine Objection against it We must consider with Job that God doth great Things past finding out so that his Judgments are a great Deep and our Reason Chap. 9. 10. cannot reach it St. Paul speaking of God's dealing with the Jews who were His chosen People and a long time favoured by Him above all other Nations and at last rejected and suffered the effects of His heaviest Displeasure I say the Apostle speaking of this instance of the Divine Providence acknowledgeth it above his Comprehension How unsearcahble are His Judgments and His Ways past finding out And so this Act of the Divine Providence in giving up the most Innocent to the Rage and Fury of Blood-Thirsty Men is thought somewhat obscure and unaccountable to the Reason of Men. But we ought to own the Justice and Wisdom of God in all His Proceedings and though we cannot understand how they can consist with those Perfections yet we ought firmly to believe That the Lord is Righteous in all His Ways and Holy in all His Works And yet this was not so great a Difficulty as to puzzle the reason of Philosophical and Inquisitive Men amongst the Heathens as appears by Plutarch Simplicius Cicero and Seneca But I am speaking to Christians who believe God's Holy Word by which Divine Revelation we may best be satisfied in this matter and I shall thence produce a few of those Reasons by which the Justice of God's Providence is Vindicated against this Objection 1. The Calamities of this Life which may befall the best of Men are consistant with the Justice of God's Providence because the best of Men as the Apostle saith offend God in many things And the least Sin against God justly deserveth the heaviest Calamities of this Life the Wages of Sin being Death Eternal as well as Temporal And therefore the Prophet saith Why doth a Lam. 3. 39. living Man complain a Man for the Punishment of his Sin That is no Man can reasonably complain he suffereth more than he deserveth from the Justice of God 2. These Calamities of Good Men are consistant with the Justice of God's Providence because by the Wisdome and Goodness of that Providence they receive Benefit and Advantage from them which David acknowledged saying It is good for me that I have been afflicted It would take up too much Time to shew the many Advantages Good Men receive by their Sufferings in this Life In short by this they are more fully weaned from the Love of the World and their Hearts and Affections are more firmly set upon Spiritual and Heavenly Things and thereby their Sufferings yield the Peaceable Fruit of Righteousness so that by this means their Title to the Eternal Happiness of Heaven is Strengthen'd and Confirm'd And this is not all they are hereby qualified and prepared for a sweeter relish of the Felicities of that Blissful State The Plenty of Canaan was the greater Happiness after the Bondage of Aegypt and the scarcity and miseries of the Wilderness And an Haven is not so welcome to those who have Sail'd with fair and gentle Gales as to those who have met with Storms and Tempests And that Rest which remaineth for the People of God will be received with a peculiar Joy and Satisfaction by those who have been tossed upon the Waves of a tempestuous and unquiet World And the Peace and Love the Harmony and Concord which the glorious MARTYR of this Day enjoyeth with the Saints above is the more sweet and pleasant because of the Tumults and Insurrections the Contradiction and Scorn he met with from those who assumed that Name here below 3. Great Glory redoundeth to God by the Patience the Courage and Constancy of his Servants suffering for his sake the Violence and Oppression of Bloody Men. And God's Justice cannot reasonably be questioned for those Disposals of his Providence which tend to His Glory as well as the Good of Men. God was glorify'd by Job's Patience in his Afflictions as well as by his Justice and Charity in his Prosperous State And the Royal MARTYR of this Day brought more Glory to God by his incomparable Patience Humility and Constancy than other Princes who were blessed with Victory and Triumph over their Enemies Last Above all a full and clear Vindication of God's Providence in this Matter will appear by the Retributions of the Life to come Were there no other Life but this and no other Reward for mens Vertue and Goodness but what they receive in this World then we have an Instance by the Murther mentioned in the Text and a far greater from that of this Day which will yield an unanswerable Argument against the Justice of God's Providence But since God hath appointed a Day in which he will after this Life reward the Sufferings of Holy and Innocent Men with unspeakable and eternal Happiness whatsoever they suffer in this Life maketh no Argument against His Justice towards them The Providence of God over his Servants is to be considered as one continued Work from their first Entrance into this World till they take Possession of a better And if any of them pass through an afflicted Life an unjust and a bloody Death to this blisful State they have no more reason to complain of Injustice or Severity in God than the Israelites had because God led them through the Wilderness and the Red Sea the safest Way to take Possession of the Promised Land The Gibeonites therefore in the Text could have no reason to complain if God took them from a slavish and painful to a blissful and happy Life And the same we may say of our late Soveraign this Day barbarously Murthered whom God rewarded with an incorruptible Crown for losing one for his sake that was corruptible and fading And thus having shewed that Innocence is no security against the Violence and Oppression of Bloody Men by giving some Proof of this Assertion and answering the great Objection against it the Application I promised in the Last place shall be very Brief only to make us more cautious of passing Sentence upon Men as guilty of great Crimes because they meet with great Calamities in this Life We cannot make a right Estimate of Mens Innocency or Guilt by what befals them in this World one Event happening to the Righteous and the Wicked as the wise Man saith Therefore as Prosperity is no certain Rule whereby to judge of Mens Vertue and Goodness so neither is Affliction and Misery a sure Rule to pronounce them Guilty By this Rule we must acquit Saul and his Bloody House and condemn the poor Gibeonites whose Cause God did plead and which would be a greater Error we may condemn the whole Army of Martyrs and justify that of Rebels And into what Absurdities will this way of Judging bring us For by this Rule the pretended Judges of
be destroyed For though God allowed them to make Peace with those that were far off yet for the Cities of the Canaanites which God gave them for an Inheritance the Command was Thou shalt save nothing alive that breatheth 20. chap. Deut. 16. ver But in Answer to this it must be considered Aequitate qûadam erat interpretanda ut cum aeternâ Dei clementiâ congrueret Mas in Josh p. 169. that according to the most learned Interpreters the Command to Destroy all and Save nothing alive was to be understood with some mitigation and under some limitations that it might comport with the Mercies of God and His readiness to Save Lex universè edicta esset propter eorum paucitatem qui vitae ante-actae paenitentiâ essent meritas paenas essugituri ibid. those who leave their Sins and turn to Him And though the Command have no such express Limitation yet the reason might be because there were so few who would leave their Idolatry and desire Peace with the People of God these and Rahab being the only instances of such a Repentance among all the numerous Inhabitants then in Canaan But how doth it appear may you say that these Gibeonites did thus Repent and leave their Idolatrous Worship and embrace that of the God of Israel Now though this be not expressed in the Sacred History yet we may collect it from several Passages of it It is plain these Gibeonites were by some means or other acquainted with the wonders God did in Aegypt and that God had commanded the Inhabitants of Canaan should be destroyed And this they believed as appeareth by their saying they were sore afraid of their Lives And this Belief and Terror Josh 9. 24. must needs dispose them to embrace the Worship of that God who alone they thought was able to Save them And besides it is said That Joshua made them Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water for the Congregation and for the Altar of the Lord and it is very unlikely that Joshua * Quis non intelliget eos afae do Demoniorum cultu debuisse alienissimos esse qui in aede Dei opt Max. officio atque muneri alicui praeessent Mas p. 172. would have admitted them to any Service relating to the Altar of God if they had been Vile Idolators and Enemies to the Worship of the true God Joshua and the Princes of Israel in his time were Men that feared God and acted by a better Zeal than that of Saul And if they had by the subtilty of the Gibeonites been drawn into a League contrary to God's Command no doubt but they would have broken the Sinful League and destroyed the Gibeonites with the rest of the Amorites all solemn Leagues and Covenants that are ungodly being better renounced than kept This therefore was an exempt Case these Gibeonites did not joyn with the rest of the Amorites to oppose God's People and his design to settle them in the Land of Canaan they desire to be their Servants and asked only their Lives They offered to Nihil factum est contra legem vide 1 Reg. 8. 20 Grot. leave their Idolatry and to Worship with them the only true God In such a case it was not against God's Command to spare a Canaanite as appeared by another Instance that of Rahab and her Family as I intimated before And we may say of these Gibeonites as the Apostle doth of Rahab By Faith they perished Heb. 11. 9. Eadem ratione vita concessa est Rachabae tori Familiae Paternae Jun. not with them that believed not So that it was a greater Sin an Act of Bloody Cruelty in Saul to kill the Gibeonites who were Proselytes embraced the true Religion lived peaceably and were very serviceable to the People of Israel And though God deferr'd his Vengeance for this Bloody Act for a time yet it fell the heavier at last in David's Days by a three Years Famine The Words being explained we may from them observe Two things 1. That Innocence is no security against the Violence and Oppression of Bloody Men. 2. That the Oppression and Violence of Bloody Men of one Generation may be punished in another 1. That Innocence is no security against the Violence and Oppression of Bloody Men. In the prosecution of this 1. I shall give some Instances the best Proof of the Truth of it 2. I shall shew this is not inconsistent with the Justice of God's Providence in answer to the main Objection against it And Lastly Conclude with a brief Application 1st I shall give some Instances by which it may appear that Innocence is no security against the Oppression and Violence of Bloody Men. A great part of sacred and prophane History is made up of Instances of this Nature Such unjust and violent Proceedings began soon after the Creation and Fall of Man as appeareth by Cain's murthering his Brother Abel And there have been many in all Ages who as St. Jude saith have Verse 11. gone in the way of Cain and have ran greedily after the error of Balaam for Reward Those of whom the World was not worthy Heb. 11. 37 38. were as the Apostle saith stoned saw'n asunder and slain with the Sword This was the Usage which Prophets and Holy Men met with under the Law And our Saviour himself the Apostles and many eminent Bishops which succeeded them met with no better under the Gospel Our blessed Saviour was not only a Lamb without spot a Person of incomparable Piety and Vertue but also one that went about doing good curing Diseases restoring the Lame to their Strength the Blind to their Sight and the Dead to Life But neither his Innocence nor Benificence could secure him against the Blood-thirsty Scribes and Pharisees who often sought his Life and at last with pretended Forms of Justice condemned him as a Malefactor and Crucified him with Thieves And the Apostles when they received the Gift of the Holy Ghost and were sent to preach the Gospel to all Nations they were sent as Lambs among Wolves the purity of their Doctrine the innocence of their Lives the benefit of their Miracles could not preserve them from the Violence of Bloody Men And though by their Miracles they saved other Mens lives yet by Violence they lost their own The time would fail me to speak of those eminent Bishops and other excellent Christians who in all Ages though harmless in their Lives as those Gibeonites but more serviceable helping Men to that Living water of which St. John 4. 14. those that drink shall never thirst met with some as Bloody as Saul who by their unjust Violence defiled their Hands with their innocent Blood But amongst the Noble Army of Martyrs we must not forget The Glorious Martyr of this Day which singular Instance if there were no other was sufficient to convince us that the best of Men are no more secure from Violence than from Natural Death I