Isaac he kept with him and gave him all that he had Right so God giveth temporal gifts to Hypocrites and Cast-aways who are bastards and not sons and not sons of the freewoman not sons of promise not born after the spirit and that is their portion when they have gotten that they have gotten all they are like to have there is no more to be looked for at his hands But as for the Inheritance he reserveth that for his dear Children the godly who are Born after the Spirit and Heirs according to promise on these he bestoweth all that ever he hath all things are theirs for on them he bestoweth his Son the heir of all things in whom are hid all the treasures of all good things and together with whom all other things are conveyed and made over unto them as accessories and appurtenances of him and on them he bestoweth Himself which is All in all in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore To which joy unspeakable and glorious O thou the Father of mercies who hast promised it unto us bring us in the end for thy dear Son's sake Jesus Christ who hath purchased it for us and given into our hearts the earnest of his and thy holy Spirit to seal it unto us To which blessed Son and holy Spirit together with thee O Father three persons and one only wise gracious Almighty and eternal Lord God be ascribed by us and all thy faithful people throughout the world the whole kingdom power and glory for ever and ever Amen Amen AD POPULUM The Second Sermon At Grantham Linc. Feb. 27. 1620. 3 KINGS 21. 29. because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days I Will not so far either distrust your Memories or straiten my self of Time for the delivery of what I am now purposed to speak as to make any large Repetition of the Particulars which were observ'd the last time from the consideration of Ahab's Person and Condition who was but an Hypocrite taken joyntly with his present Carriage together with the Occasion and Success thereof He was humbled It was the Voice of God by his Prophet that humbled him Upon his humbling God adjourneth his Punishment From all which was noted first That there might be even in Hypocrites an Outward formal Humiliation secondly the Power and Efficacy of the Word of God able to humble an Oppressing Ahab thirdly the boundless Mercy of God in not suffering the Outward formal Humiliation of an ungodly Hypocrite to pass altogether unrewarded All this the last time by occasion of those first Clauses in the Verse Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not We are now next to consider of the Great Favour which it pleased God to shew to Ahab upon his humiliation what it was and wherein it consisted It was the Removal at least for a time that is the suspension of an heavy judgment denounced against Ahab and his house most deservedly for his bloody and execrable oppression Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days The Evil which God now promiseth he will not bring I will not bring the evil in his days is that which in vers 21. he had threatned he would bring upon Ahab and upon his house Behold I will bring evil upon thee and will take away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the Son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha the Son of Abijah for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger and made Israel to sin A great Judgment and an heavy But the greater the Judgment is when it is deserved and threatned the greater the mercy is if it be afterwards forborn as some of this was But whatsoever becometh of the Iudgment here we see is Mercy good store God who is rich in mercy and delighteth to be stiled the God of mercies and the Father of mercies abundantly manifesteth his mercy in dealing thus graciously with one that deserved it so little Here is mercy in but threatning the punishment when he might have inflicted it and more mercy in not inflicting the punishment when he had threatned it Here is mercy first in suspending the punishment I will not bring the evil and mercy again in suspending it for so long a time I will not bring the evil in his days Of these two points we shall entreat at this time and first and principally of the former I will not bring the evil It is no new thing to them that have read the sacred Stories with Observation to see God when men are humbled at his threatnings to revoke them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom more than once this is ever Gods manner when men change their deeds to change his doom when they renounce their sins to recal his sentence when they repent of the evil they have done against him to Repent of the evil he had said he would do against them Search the Scriptures and say if things run not thus as in the most ordinary course God commandeth and Man disobeyeth Man disobeyeth and God threatneth God threatneth and man repenteth Man repenteth and God forbeareth Abimelech thou art but a dead man because of the woman which thou hast taken but Abimelech restoreth the Prophet his Wife untouched and God spareth him and he dieth not Hezekiah make thy Will and Put thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live but Hezekiah turneth to the Wall and prayeth and weepeth and God addeth to his days fifteen years Nineveh prepare for desolation for now but forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed but Nineveh fasted and prayed and repented and Nineveh stood after more than forty years twice told Generally God never yet threatned any punishment upon person or place but if they repented he either withheld it or deferred it or abated it or sweetned it to them for the most part proportionably to the truth and measure of their repentance but howsoever always so far forth as in his infinite wisdom he hath thought good some way or other he ever remitted somewhat of that severity and rigour wherein he threatned it A course which God hath in some sort bound himself unto and which he often and openly professeth he will hold Two remarkable testimonies among sundry other shall suffice us to have proposed at this time for the clear and full evidencing hereof The one in Ier. 18. 7 8. At what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and pull down and to destroy If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will
of spirits divers kinds of tongues interpretation of tongues All which and all other of like nature and use because they are wrought by that one and self-same Spirit which divideth to every one severally as he will are therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritual gifts and here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifestation of the Spirit The word Spirit though in Scripture it have many other significations yet in this place I conceive it to be understood directly of the Holy Ghost the third Person in the ever-blessed Trinity For First in ver 3. that which is called the Spirit of God in the former part is in the latter part called the Holy Ghost f I give you to understand that no man speaking by the spirit of God calleth Iesus accursed and that no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Again that variety of gifts which in ver 4. is said to proceed from the same Spirit is said likewise in ver 5. to proceed from the same Lord and in ver 6. to proceed from the same God and therefore such a Spirit is meant as is also Lord and God and that is only the Holy Ghost And again in those words in ver 11. All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will The Apostle ascribeth to this Spirit the collation and distribution of such gifts according to the free power of his own will and pleasure which free power belongeth to none but God alone Who hath set the members every one in the body as it hath pleased him Which yet ought not to be so understood of the Person of the Spirit as if the Father and the Son had no part or fellowship in this business For all the Actions and operations of the Divine Persons those only excepted which are of intrinsecal and mutual relation are the joynt and undivided works of the whole three Persons according to the common known Maxim constantly and uniformly received in the Catholick Church Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa And as to this particular concerning gifts the Scriptures are clear Wherein as they are ascribed to God the Holy Ghost in this Chapter so they are elsewhere ascribed unto God the Father Every good gift and every perfect giving is from above from the Father of Lights Jam. 1. and elsewhere to God the Son Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ Eph. 4. Yea and it may be that for this very reason in the three verses next before my Text these three words are used Spirit in ver 4. Lord in ver 5. and God in ver 6. to give us intimation that these spiritual gifts proceed equally and undividedly from the whole three persons from God the Father and from his Son Iesus Christ our Lord and from the eternal Spirit of them both the Holy Ghost as from one intire indivisible and coessential Agent But for that we are gross of understanding and unable to conceive the distinct Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead otherwise than by apprehending some distinction of their operations and offices to us ward it hath pleased the Wisdom of God in the holy Scriptures which being written for our sakes were to be fitted to our capacities so far to condescend to our weakness and dulness as to attribute some of those great and common works to one person and some to another after a more special manner than unto the rest although indeed and in truth none of the three persons had more or less to do than other in any of those great and common works This manner of speaking Divines use to call Appropriation By which appropriation as power is ascribed to the Father and Wisdom to the Son so is Goodness to the Holy Ghost And therefore as the work of Creation wherein is specially seen the mighty power of God is appropiated to the Father and the work of Redemption wherein is specially seen the wisdom of God to the Son and so the works of sanctification and the infusion of habitual graces whereby the good things of God are communicated unto us is appropriated unto the Holy Ghost And for this cause the gifts thus communicated unto us from God are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual gifts and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifestation of the Spirit We see now why spirit but then why manifestation The word as most other verbals of that form may be understood either in the active or passive signification And it is not material whether of the two ways we take it in this place both being true and neither improper For these spiritual gifts are the manifestation of the spirit actively because by these the Spirit manifesteth the will of God unto the Church these being the Instruments and means of conveying the knowledge of salvation unto the people of God And they are the manifestation of the spirit Passively too because where any of these gifts especially in any eminent sort appeared in any person it was a manifest evidence that the Spirit of God wrought in him As we read it Acts 10. that they of the Circumcision were astonished when they saw that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gifts of the Holy Ghost If it be demanded But how did that appear it followeth in the next verse For they heard them speak with tongues c. The spiritual Gift then is a manifestation of the Spirit as every other sensible effect is a manifestation of its proper cause We are now yet further to know that the Gifts and graces wrought in us by the holy Holy Spirit of God are of two sorts The Scriptures sometimes distinguish them by the different terms of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although those words are sometimes again used indifferently and promiscuously either for other They are commonly known in the Schools and differenced by the names of Gratiae gratum facientes Gratiae gratis datae Which terms though they be not very proper for the one of them may be affirmed of the other whereas the members of every good distinction ought to be opposite yet because they have been long received and change of terms though haply for the better hath by experience been found for the most part unhappy in the event in multiplying unnecessary book-quarrels we may retain them profitably and without prejudice Those former which they call Gratum facientes are the Graces of Sanctification whereby the person that hath them is enabled to do acceptable service to God in the duties of his General Calling these latter which they call Gratis datas are the Graces of Edification whereby the person that hath them is enabled to do profitable service to the Church of God in the duties of his particular Calling Those are
heart to purge out of us by the fire of his Holy Spirit all dross of pride and Hypocrisie to increase in us by the grace of his Holy Spirit the love of Truth and Godliness to support us by the comforts of his Holy Spirit amidst all our distresses and fears and to lead us by the guidance of his Holy Spirit along the paths of holiness unto the ports of happiness And all this for the alone merits sake of his blessed Son and our alone Saviour Iesus Christ. To which blessed Father Son and Holy Spirit be ascribed by us and the whole Christian Church all the Kingdom the Power and the Glory from this time forth for evermore Amen Amen LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell 1686. AD MAGISTRATUM The First Sermon At a Publick Sessions at Grantham Lincoln Iune the 11th 1623. JOB XXIX ver 14 15 16 17. 14. I put on righteousness and it cloathed me my judgment was a Robe and Diadem 15. I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame 16. I was a Father to the poor and the cause which I knew not I searched out 17. And I brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth WHere silence against foul and false imputations may be interpreted a Confession there the Protestation of a mans own innocency as ever just and sometimes necessary When others do us open wrong it is not now Vanity but Charity to do our selves open right and whatsoever appearance of folly or vain boasting there is in so doing they are chargeable with all that compel us thereunto and not we I am become a fool in glorying but ye have compelled me 2 Cor. 12. 11. It was neither pride nor passion in Iob but such a compulsion as this that made him so often in this Book proclaim his own righteousness Amongst whose many and grievous afflictions as it is hard to say which was the greatest so we are sure this was not the least that he was to wrestle with the unjust and bitter upbraidings of unreasonable and incompassionate men They came to visit him as friends and as friends they should have comforted him But sorry friends they were and miserable comforters indeed not comforters but tormenters and accusers rather than friends Seeing Gods hand heavy upon him for want of better or other proof they charge him with Hypocrisie And because they would not seem to deal all in generalities for against this general accusation of hypocrisie it was sufficient for him as generally to plead the truth and uprightness of his heart they therefore go on more particularly but as falsly and as it were by way of instance to charge him with Oppression Thus Eliphaz by name taxeth him Chap. 22. 6 c. Thou hast taken a pledge from thy Brother for naught and hast stripped the naked of their cloathing Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink and thou hast witholden bread from the hungry But as for the mighty man he had the Earth and the honourable man dwelt in it Thou hast sent Widows away empty and the Arms of the Fatherless hast thou broken Being thus shamefully indeed shamelessly upbraided to his face without any desert of his by those men who if he had deserved it should least of all have done it his neighbours and familiar friends can you blame the good man if to remove such false aspersions he do with more than ordinary freedom insist upon his own integrity in this behalf And that he doth in this Chapter something largely wherein he declareth how he demeaned himself in the time of his prosperity in the administration of his Magistracy far otherwise than was laid to his charge When the Ear heard me then it blessed me and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me Because I delivered the poor that cryed and the Fatherless and him that had none to help him The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widows heart to sing for joy in the next immediate verses before these And then he goeth on in the words of my Text I put on righteousness c. It seemeth Iob was a good man as well as a great and being good he was by so much the better by how much he was the greater Nor was he ony Bonus vir a good man and yet if but so his friends had done him much wrong to make him an Hypocrite but he was Bonus Civis too a good Common-wealths man and therefore his friends did him yet more wrong to make him an Oppressor Indeed he was neither the one nor the other But it is not so useful for us to know what manner of man Iob was as to learn from him what manner of men we should be The grieved Spirit of Iob indeed at first uttered these words for his own Iustification but the blessed Spirit of God hath since written them for our instruction To teach us from Iob's example how to use that measure of greatness and power which he hath given us be it more be it less to his glory and the common good So that in these words we have to consider as laid down unto us under the person and from the example of Iob some of the main and principal duties which concern all those that live in any degree of Eminency or Authority either in Church or Common-wealth and more especially those that are in the Magistracy or in any office appertaining to Iustice. And those Duties are four One and the first as a more transcendent and fundamental duty the other three as accessary helps thereto or subordinate parts thereof The first is a Care and Love and Zeal of Iustice. A good Magistrate should so make account of the administration of Iustice as of his chiefest business making it his greatest glory and delight Ver. 14. I put on righteousness and it cloathed me my judgment was a robe and a diadem The second is a forwardness unto the works of Mercy and Charity and Compassion A good Magistrate should have compassion of those that stand in need of his help and be helpful unto them ver 15. and part of 16. I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame I was a father to the poor The third is Diligence in Examination A good Magistrate should not be hasty to credit the first tale or be carried away with light Informations but he should hear and examine and scan and sift matters as narrowly as may be for the finding out of the truth in the remainder of ver 16. And the cause which I knew not I searched out The Fourth is Courage and Resolution in executing A good Magistrate when he goeth upon sure grounds should not fear the faces of men be they never so mighty or many but without respect of persons execute that which is equal and right even upon the greatest Offender
prospered it is said that his name spread far abroad 2 Chron. 26. And the Prophet saith of the People of Israel in respect of her first comely estate before such time as she trusted in her own beauty and played the harlot that her name went forth among the Heathen for her beauty Ezek. 16. 20. Besides a good name as it reacheth farther so it lasteth longer than the most precious Ointments and so it excelleth in the extension of Time as well as of Place As for Riches Pleasures Honours and whatsoever other delights of mortal men who knoweth not of what short continuance they are They many times take them wings and fly away from us leaving us behind to grieve for the loss If it happen thy stay with us to the last as seldom they do yet then is the parting uncomfortable we can neither secure them from the spoil of others nor can they secure us from the wrath of God However part we must If they leave not us whilest we live sure enough we shall leave them when we die It may be when we are dead some pious friend or other may bestow upon our carcasses the cost of embalming with Spices Odours and Ointments as we see the Custom was of old both amongst the Heathens and the People of God And those precious Ointments may perhaps preserve our dead bodies some few months longer from putrefaction than otherwise they would have endured But at length howsoever the worm and the grave will prevail and we shall turn sooner or later first to dirt and then to dust And here is the utmost extension continuance and period of the most precious Ointments literal or Metaphorical the World can afford 21. But a good Name is a thing far more durable It seldom leaveth us unless through some fault or neglect in our selves but continueth with us all our life long At the hour of death also it standeth by us and giveth some sweetning unto the bitterness of those last pangs when our consciences do not suggest to our expiring thoughts any thing to the contrary but that we shall die desired and that those that live by us and survive us will account our gain by that change to be their loss Yea and it remaineth after death precious in the memories and mouths and ears of those that either knew us or had heard of us Surely no Ointments are so powerful to preserve our bodily ashes from corruption as a good name and report is to preserve our Piety and Vertue from Oblivion Their bodies are buried in peace but their name endureth for evermore Ecclus. 44. And upon this account expresly it is that the same Ecclesiasticus elsewhere as you heard before preferreth a good Name not only before the greatest riches because it will out-last a thousand great treasures of gold but even before life it self yea before a good life at least in this though in other respects it be below it as but an appurtenance thereunto that whereas a good life hath but a few days a good Name possibly may endure for ever 22. Now lay all together that hath been said that a good nà me is a more peculiar blessing That it bringeth more solid content That it enableth us more and to more worthy performances That it is of greater extension both for place and time reaching farther and lasting longer than the most precious Ointments either literally or Metaphorically understood and then judge if what Solomon hath here delivered in the Text how great a Paradox soever it may sound in the ears of a Wordling be not yet a most certain and clear Truth viz. That a good name is better then a precious Ointment and therefore in all reason to be preferred by every understanding man before Pleasures Riches Honours or whatsoever other outward delights of wordly men 23. But it is needful you should be here admonished lest what hath been hitherto said should be in any part either mistaken or misapplied that all this while I have spoken but of material Ointments and such other contentment as the outward things of this World can afford The preeminence of a good Name thus far just beware ye make not unjust by over-stretching For there is besides all these a spiritual Ointment also an inward anointing the anointing of the inner mán the Soul and Conscience with oil of the Spirit the saving graces and sweet comforts of the Holy Ghost that oil of gladness wherewith the blessed Son of God was anointed above his Fellows and without measure and whereof all the Faithful and elect Children of God are in their measure his fellow partakers Ye have an Unction from the Holy One saith St. Iohn And again The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you This is a singular and right precious Ointment indeed infinitely more to be preferred before a good Name than a good name is to be preferred before other common and outward Ointments The inseparable adjunct and evidence whereof is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we usually call a good Conscience God forbid any man should so far tender his good name as for the preservation of it to make shipwrack of the other Duae sunt res Conscientia Fama c. saith St. Augustine Two things there are saith he whereof every man should be specially chary and tender his Conscience and his Credit But that of his Conscience must be his first care this of his Name and Credit must be content to come in the second place Let him first be sure to guard his Conscience well and then may he have a due regard of his Good Name also Let it be his first care to secure all within by making peace with God and in his own breast that done but not before let him look abroad if he will and cast about as well as he can to strengthen his Reputation with before the World 24. A very preposterous course the mean while is that which those men take that begin at the wrong end making their Consciences wait upon their Credit Alas that notwithstanding the clear evidence both of Scripture and Reason to the contrary after so many sharp reprehensions by the Minister so many strait prohibitions by the Magistrate there should yet be found among our Gentry so many spirits of that desperate unchristian resolution as upon the slightest provoking word that but toucheth upon their reputation to be ready either to challenge or to accept the duel Either of which to do must needs leave a deep sting in the Conscience if yet it be penetrable and not quite seared up since thereby they expose themselves to the greatest hazard if not inevitable necessity of wilful murther either of themselves or their brethren 2. Alas that there should still be found amongst our Clergy-men that formerly being perswaded that our Church Ceremonies and Service were unlawful and having during such their perswasion preached
or we expected if they be taken from us before we be grown up If our friends whom we trusted have proved unfaithful and shrunk from us when we had use of them if those proportions of Wealth Honour Reputation Liberty or whatsoever other worldly conveniences and contentments we have formerly enjoyed be pared away to very little or even to nothing we have yet one reserve that we dare rest surely upon one anchor of hope that will hold in despight of all the World even the goodness and faithfulness of our gracious Lord God To him have we been left ever since we were born and he hath not hitherto failed nor forsaken us but hath preserved us in being in such a being as he who best knoweth what is fit hath thought fit for us It is our fault if the experience of the time past do not breed in us hope for the time to come and that a lively hope a hope that will never shame either him or us even this That he Will also be our guide unto death that he will not fail or forsake us henceforth for ever but will preserve us still in such a condition as he shall see good for us Persecuted we may be and afflicted but forsaken we shall not be 32. We ought therefore to possess our souls in patience whatsoever shall betide us in the World and not to consult with flesh and blood in seeking to relieve our selves in our distresses by engaging in any unworthy or unwarrantable practice or by siding partaking or but basely complying with the workers of wickedness that we may eat of their dainties Is it possible we should be so ill advised as to think to escape the storm when it approacheth towards us by making shipwrack of a good Conscience If we go after lying vanities and such are all Creatures all men lyars all things vanity do we not ipso facto forsake our own mercy and willfully bring ruine upon us The short and sure way is when any danger any distress is upon us or maketh towards us to run to our heavenly Father as young birds do to their Dam for succour He will gather us under his wings and we shall be safe under his Feathers his faithfulness and truth shall be our shield and buckler If we commit our ways to him cast our selves upon him by a thorough reliance resign all our desires wills and interests into his hands he will certainly bring to pass aut quod volumus aut quod malumus either what we like best or what he knoweth is best 33. Only let us resolve to perform our part do faithfully what he commandeth shun carefully what he forbiddeth suffer patiently what he inflicteth and we may then be confident he will perform his part to the uttermost That when all the World forsaketh us he will take us up take us into his care and protection here and if by patient continuance in well-doing we seek it take us up at the last into the fellowship of that glory and honour and immortality and eternal life which his only beloved Son hath purchased and his ever blessed Spirit consigned to all them that love him and put their trust in his mercy To that only beloved Son and ever-blessed Spirit together with the eternal Father three Persons and one undivided Trinity be rendered by us and the whole Church all the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen AD AULAM. Sermon XV. STOKE POGEYS 1647. Luke 16. 8. For the Children of this World are in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light 1. THe fore-going verses contain a Parable this the Application of it The Parable that of the unjust Steward a faithless and a thriftless man He had wronged his Master without any benefit to himself as prodigals are wont to do other men harm and themselves no good The Master coming at length and with the last to have some knowledge of his false dealing dischargeth him his office and calleth on him to give in his accounts The Steward awakened with that short and unexpected warning began now to think in good earnest what before he never thought of to purpose what should become of him and his for the future he knew not which way in the world to turn himself to get a living when he should be turned out of service He had not been so provident an husband as to have any thing before-hand to live upon He could not frame to handle a spade he had not been brought up with pains-taking And for him that had so long born sway in such a house and like enough with insolence enough now to run craving a small piece of Money of every Traveller by the high-way or stand at another mans door begging a morsel of bread shame and a stout heart would not suffer him to think of that Well something he must do and that speedily too or starve He therefore casteth about this way and that way and every way and at last bethinketh himself of a course and resolveth upon it to shew his Master a trick at the loose that should make amends for all and do his whole business He therefore sendeth for his Masters Debtors forthwith abateth them of their several Sums and makes the Books agree in hope that having gratified so many Persons by such large abatements some of them would remember it sure though others should prove ungrateful and make him some part of requital for the same The Master vexed to see himself so palpably cheated and knew not how to help it for he could require no more of the Debtors than was upon the foot of their Bills could not yet but commend the mans wit howsoever And the Lord commended the unjust Steward because he had done wisely in the former part of this verse 2. Having thus framed the body of the Parable our Saviour now giveth it a soul in this latter part of the verse breatheth into it the breath of life by applying it Application is the life of a Parable The commending of the Stewards wisdom was with the purpose to recommend the example to us that we might from it learn to provide against the time to come as he did and that also by such like means as he did So that the Application hath two parts The one more general respecting the End that as he was careful to provide maintenance for the preservation of his natural life so we should be careful to make provision for our souls that we may attain to everlasting life The other more special respecting the Means that as he provided for himself out of his Masters goods by disposing the same into other hands and upon several persons so we should lay up for our selves a good foundation towards the attainment of everlasting life out of the unrighteous Mammon wherewith God hath intrusted us by being rich in good works communicating and distributing some of that in
have certainer grounds for what we do than uncertain examples Secondly what if Phinehas had the Magistrates Authority to enable him to that attempt It is not altogether improbable to my apprehension from the fifth Verse of the Chapter where the story is laid down Numb 25. 5. especially parallell'd with another story of much like circumstances Exod. 32. 27. that as there the Levites so here Phinehas drew the Sword in execution of the express command of Moses the supreme Magistrate If neither thus nor so yet Thirdly which cutteth off all plea and is the most common answer ordinarily given by Divines to this and the like instances drawn from some singular actions of God's worthies Men of Heroical spirits and gifts such as were David Sampson Ehud Moses Elias and some others especially at such times as they were employed in some special service for the good of God's Church were exempt from the common rules of life and did many things as we are to presume not without the secret motion and direction of God's holy and powerful Spirit which were therefore good in them that secret direction being to them loco specialis mandati like that to Abraham for sacrificing his Son but not safe or lawful for us to imitate Opera liberi spiritus say Divines non sunt exigenda ad regulas communes nec trahenda in exemplum vitae The extraordinary Heroical Acts of God's Worthies are not to be measured by the common rules of life nor to become exemplary unto others Of which nature was David's single combat with Goliah and Sampson's pulling down the house upon himself and the Philistines And Moses slaying the Egyptian and Ehud's stabbing of King Eglon and Eliah's calling down for fire from Heaven upon the Captains and their fifties and divers others recorded in the Scripture Of which last fact we have our blessed Saviour's judgment in Luk. 9. that it was done by the extraordinary and peculiar instinct of God's spirit but it is not to be imitated by others without particular certain assurance of the like instinct Where when the Disciples would have called down for fire from Heaven upon the Samaritans and alledged Elias for their precedent Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them as Elias did His answer was with a kind of indignation as both his gesture and speeches shew Nescitis cujus spiritus estis You know not what manner of spirits you are of Elias was endued with an extraordinary spirit in the freedom whereof he did what he then did but it is not for you or others to propose his example unless you can demonstrate his spirit And if Phinehas's Act also was as most think it was such as these it can no more justifie the usurpation of Magistracy than David's act can bloody Duels or Sampson's self-murther or Moses's secret slaughter or Ehud's King-killing or Eliah's private revenge I have stood the longer upon the discovery of this sin that men might take right judgment of it and not think it either warrantable or excuseable by any pretension of zeal or of whatsoever other good and that both such as have gone too far this way in their practice already for the time past may acknowledge their own oversight and be sorry for it and others seeing their error may for the time to come forbear such outrages and keep themselves within the due bounds of Christian sobriety and their particular Callings And thus much of the former instance in a matter of Commission I am to give you another in a matter of Omission Every Omission of a necessary duty is simply evil as a sin But affirmative duties are but sometimes necessary because they do not obligare ad semper as being many it is impossible they should And many times duties otherwise necessary in case of Superior reason and duties cease to be necessary pro hic nunc and then to omit them is not to do evil Among other necessary duties this is one for a Minister furnished with gifts and abilities for it to acquaint God's people with all material needful truths as he can have convenient occasion thereunto And such conveniency supposed not to do this is simply evil Now then to make the Case and the Question The Case thus A Minister hath just opportunity to preach in a Congregation not his own where he seeth or generally heareth some error in judgment or outragious sin in practice to be continued in with too publick allowance He hath liberty to make choice of his Text and Theme and leisure to provide in some measure for it and his conscience telleth him he cannot pro hic nunc direct his speech with greater service to God's Church than against those errors or sins He seeth on the other side some withdrawments his discretion may perhaps be called in question for medling where he needed not he shall possibly lose the good opinion of some with whom he hath held fair correspondence hitherto he shall preserve his own peace the better if he turn his speech another way This is the Case The Question is Whether these latter considerations and the good that may come thereby be sufficient to warrant unto him the omission of that necessary duty The rule of my Text resolveth negatively they are not sufficient The duty being necessary pro hic nunc it is simply evil to omit it and therefore it may not be omitted for any other good I deny not but a Minister may with good discretion conceal many truths from his flock at least the opening and amplifying of them if they be not such as are needful for them to know either for the establishment of Faith or practice of Life as not only many nice School-points and Conclusions are but also many Genealogies and Levitical Rites and other things even in the Scriptures themselves Nay more a Minister not only in discretion may but is even in Conscience bound at least in the publick exercise of his Ministry to conceal some particular truths from his Auditory yea though they be such as are needful for the practice of life and for the setling of mens Consciences if they be such withal as are not fit to be publickly spoken of as are many Resolutions of Cases appertaining to the seventh Commandment Thou shalt not commit Adultery and some also appertaining to the eighth Thou shalt not steal Our men justly condemn the Popish Casuists for their too much liberty in this kind in their Writings whereby they reduce Vices into an Art under colour of reproving them and convey into the minds of corrupt men Notions of such prodigious filthiness and artificial Legier du-main as perhaps otherwise they would never have dreamed on or thirsted after The loose writings of the unchaste Poets are but dull Tutors of Lust compared with the authorized Tomes of our severe Romish Votaries
are left to their own liberty in the use of indifferent things the Romans Corinthians and others to whom S. Paul wrot about these matters being not limited any way in the exercise of their liberty therein by any over-ruling authority But where the Magistrates have interposed and thought good upon mature advice to impose Laws upon those that are under them whereby their liberty is not infringed as some unjustly complain in the inward judgment but only limited in the outward exercise of it there the Apostolical directions will not hold in the same absolute manner as they were delivered to those whom they then concerned but only in the equity of them so far forth as the cases are alike and with such meet qualifications and mitigations as the difference of the cases otherwise doth require So that a man ought not out of private fancy or meerly because he would not be observed for not doing as others do or for any the like weak respects to do that thing of the lawfulness whereof he is not competently perswaded where it is free for him to do otherwise which was the case of these weak ones among the Romans for whose sakes principally the Apostle gave these directions But the authority of the Magistrate intervening so alters the case that such a forbearance as to them was necessary is to as many of us as are commanded to do this or that altogether unlawful in regard they were free and we are bound for the reasons already shewn which now I rehearse not But you will yet say for in point of obedience men are very loth to yield so long as they can find any thing to plead those that lay these burdens upon us at leastwise should do well to satisfie our doubts and to inform our consciences concerning the lawfulness of what they enjoyn that so we might render them obedience with better cheerfulness How willing are we sinful men to leave the blame of our miscarriages any where rather than upon our selves But how is it not incongruous the while that those men should prescribe rules to their governours who can scarcely brook their Governours should prescribe Laws to them It were good we would first learn how to obey ere we take upon us to teach our betters how to govern However what governours are bound to do or what is â—it for them to do in the point of information that is not now the question If they fail in any part of their bounden duty they shall be sure to reckon for it one day but their failing cannot in the mean time excuse thy disobedience Although I think it would prove a hard task for whosoever should undertake it to shew that Superiours are always bound to inform the consciences of their inferiours concerning the lawfulness of every thing they shall command If sometimes they do it where they see it expedient or needful sometimes again and that perhaps oftner it may be thought more expedient for them and more conducible for the publick peace and safety only to make known to the people what their pleasures are reserving to themselves the reasons thereof I am sure in the point of Ecclesiastical Ceremonies and Constitutions in which case the aforesaid allegations are usually most stood upon this hath been abundantly done in our Church not only in the learned writings of sundry private men but by the publick declaration also of Authority as is to be seen at large in the Preface commonly Printed before the Book of Common-prayer concerning that argument enough to satisfie those that are peaceable and not disposed to stretch their wits to cavil at things established And thus much of the second Question touching a doubting Conscience whereon I have insisted the longer because it is a point both so proper to the Text and whereat so many have stumbled There remaineth but one other Question and that of far smaller difficulty What is to be done when the conscience is scrupulous I call that a scruple when a man is reasonably well perswaded of the lawfulness of a thing yet hath withal some jealousies and fears lest perhaps it should prove unlawful Such scruples are more incident to men of melancholy dispositions or of timorous spirits especially if they be tender conscienced withal and they are much encreased by the false suggestions of Satan by reading the Books or hearing the Sermons or frequenting the company of men more strict precise and austere in sundry points than they need or ought to be and by sundry other means which I now mention not Of which scruples it behoveth every man first to be wary that he do not at all admit them if he can chuse or if he cannot wholly avoid them that secondly he endeavour so far as may be to eject them speedily out of his thoughts as Satans snares and things that may breed him worser inconveniences or if he cannot be so rid of them that then thirdly he resolve to go on according to the more probable perswasion of his mind and despise those scruples And this he may do with a good conscience not only in things commanded him by lawful authority but even in things indifferent and arbitrary and wherein he is let to his own liberty Much more might have been added for the farther both declaration and confirmation of these points But you see I have been forced to wrap things together that deserve a more full and distinct handling that I might hold some proportion with the time I had a purpose briefly to have comprised the sum of what I have delivered concerning a gainsaying a doubting and a scrupulous conscience in some few conclusions for your better remembrance and to have added also something by way of direction what course might be the most probably taken for the correcting of an erroneous conscience for the setling of a doubtful conscience and for the quieting of a scrupulous conscience But it is more than time that I should give place to other business and the most and most material of those directions have been here and there occasionally touched in that which hath been delivered already In which respect I may the better spare that labour Beseech we God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ so to endue us all with the grace of his holy Spirit that in our whole conversations we may unfeignedly endeavour to preserve a good conscience and to yield all due obedience to him first and then to every Ordinance of man for his sake Now to this Father Son and blessed Spirit three persons and one eternal God be ascribed all the Kingdom the Power and the Glory both now and for evermore Amen AD CLERUM The fifth Sermon At a Visitation holden at Grantham Lincoln Octob. 8. 1641. MATTH XV. 9. But in vain they do worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men OUR Saviour sometimes forewarneth his Disciples to beware of the leaven of Pharisees Which leaven as he expoundeth himself
for outward business over Israel and in things that concerned the service of the King when I observe in the Church-stories of all ages ever since the world had Christian Princes how Ecclesiastical persons have been employed by their Sovereigns in their weightiest consultations and affairs of State I cannot but wonder at the inconsiderate rashness of some forward ones in these days who yet think themselves and would be thought by others to be of the wisest men that suffer their tongues to run riot against the Prelacy of our Church and have studied to approve themselves eloquent in no other argument so much as in inveighing against the Courts and the Power and the Iurisdiction and the Temporalities of Bishops and other Ecclesiastical persons I speak it not to justifie the abuses of men but to maintain the lawfulness of the thing If therefore any Ecclesiastical person seek any Temporal office or power by indirect ambitious and preposterous courses if he exercises it otherwise than well insolently cruelly corruptly partially if he claim it by any other than the right title the free bounty and grace of the Supreme Magistrate let him bear his own burden I know not any honest Minister that will plead for him But since there is no incapacity in a Clergyman by reason of his spiritual Calling but he may exercise temporal Power if he be called to it by his Prince as well as he may enjoy temporal land if he be heir to it from his Father I see not but it behoveth us all if we be good Subjects and sober Christians to pray that such as have the power of Iudicature more or less in any kind or degree committed unto them may exercise that power wherewith they are entrusted with zeal and prudence and equity rather than out of envy at the preferment of a Church-man take upon us little less than to quarrel the discretion of our Soveraign Phinees though he could not challenge to execute judgment by virtue of his Priesthood yet his Priesthood disabled him not from executing judgment That for the person Followeth his Action and that twofold He stood up he executed judgment Of the former first which though I call it an Action yet is indeed a Gesture properly and not an Action But being no necessity to bind me to strict propriety of speech be it Action or Gesture or what else you will call it the cicumstance and phrase it seemeth to import some material thing may not be passed over without some consideration Then stood up Phinees Which clause may denote unto us either that extraordinary spirit whereby Phinees was moved to do judgment upon those shameless offenders or that forwardness of zeal in the heat whereof he did it or both Phinees was indeed the High-Priests son as we heard but yet a private man and no ordinary Magistrate and what had any private man to do to draw the sword of justice or but to sentence a malefactor to die Or say he had been a Magistrate he ought yet to have proceeded in a legal and judicial course to have convented the parties and when they had been convicted in a fair trial and by sufficient witness then to have adjudged them according to the Law and not to have come suddenly upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were acting their villainy and thrust them thorow uncondemned I have elsewhere delivered it as a collection not altogether improbable from the circumstances of the original story that Phinees had warrant for this execution from the express command of Moses the supreme Magistrate and namely by virtue of that Proclamation whereby he authorised the Under-Rulers to slay every one his man that were joyned unto Baal-Peor Num. 25. 5. And I since find that conjecture confirmed by the judgment of some learned men insomuch as an eminent Writer in our Church saith that by virtue of that Commission every Israelite was made a Magistrate for this execution But looking more nearly into the Text and considering that the Commission Moses there gave was first only to the Rulers and so could be no warrant for Phinees unless he were such a Ruler which appeareth not and secondly concerned only those men that were under their several governments and so was too short to reach Zimri who being himself a Prince and that of another Tribe too the Tribe of Simeon could not be under the government of Phinees who was of the Tribe of Levi how probable soever that other collection may be yet I hold it the safer resolution which is comonly given by Divines for the justification of this fact of Phinees that he had an extraordinary motion and a peculiar secret instinct of the spirit of God powerfully working in him and prompting him to this Heroical Act. Certainly God will not approve that work which himself hath not wrought But to this action of Phinees God hath given large approbation both by staying the plague thereupon and by rewarding Phinees with an everlasting Priesthood therefore and by giving express testimony of his zeal and righteousness therein as it is said in the next verse after my Text And it was accounted to him for righteousness Which words in the judgment of learned Expositors are not to be understood barely of the righteousness of Faith as it is said of Abraham that he believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness as if the zeal of Phinees in this act had been a good evidence of that faith in Gods promises whereby he was justified and his Person accepted with God though that also but they do withal import the justification of the Action at least thus far that howsoever measured by the common rules of life it might seem an unjust action and a rash attempt at the least if not an heinous murder as being done by a private man without the Warrant of authority yet was it indeed not only in regard of the intent a zealous action as done for the honour of God but also for the ground and warrant of it as done by the special secret direction of Gods holy Spirit a just and a righteous action Possibly this very word of standing up importeth that extraordinary spirit For of those Worthies whom God at several times endowed with Heroical spirits to attempt some special work for the delivery of his Church the Scriptures use to speak in words and phrases much like this It is often said in the book of Iudges that God raised up such and such to judge Israel and that Deborah and Iair and others rose up to defend Israel that is The spirit of God came upon them as is said of Othoniel Iudg. 3. and by a secret but powerful instinct put them upon those brave and noble attempts they undertook and effected for the good of his Church Raised by the impulsion of that powerful Spirit which admitteth no slow debatements Phinees standeth up and feeling
and obedience other fruits of grace in some good and comfortable measure it is a good sign of grace and sanctification in the heart But if thou hast these things only by fits and starts and sudden moods and art sometimes violently hot upon them and other sometimes again and oftner key cold presume not too much upon shews but suspect thy self still of hypocrisie and insincerity and never cease by repentance and prayer and the constant exercises of other good graces to physick and dyet thy soul till thou hast by Gods goodness put thy self into some reasonable assurance that thou art the true child of God a sincere believer and not an hypocrite as Ahab here notwithstanding all this his solemn humiliation was Here is Ahab an Hypocrite and yet humbled before the Lord. But yet now this humiliation such as it was what should work it in him That we find declared at vers 27. And it came to pass that when Ahab heard these words c. There came to him a message from God by the hand of Eliah and that was it that humbled him Alas what was Eliah to Ahab a silly plain Prophet to a mighty King that he durst thus presume to rush boldly and unsent-for into the presence of such a potent Monarch who had no less power and withal more colour to take away his life than Naboth's and that when he was in the top of his jollity solacing himself in the new-taken possession of his new-gotten Vine-yard and there to his face charge him plainly with and shake him up roundly for and denounce Gods judgments powerfully against his bloody abominable oppressions We would think a Monarch nusled up in Idolatry and accustomed to blood and hardened in Sin and Obstinacy should not have brooked that insolency from such a one as Eliah was but have made his life a ransom for his sawciness And yet behold the words of this underling in comparison how they fall like thunder upon the great guilty Offender and strike palsie into his knees and trembling into his joints and tumble him from the height of his jollity and roll him in sackcloth and ashes and cast him into a strong fit of legal humiliation Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me And here now cometh in our second Observation even the power of Gods Word over the Consciences of obstinate sinners powerful to Cast down strong holds and every high thought that exalteth it self against God That which in Heb. 4. if I mistake not the true understanding of that place is spoken of the Essential word of God the second person in the ever blessed Trinity is also in an analogy true of the revealed Word of God the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles that it is Quick and powerful and more cutting than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow Is not my word like as a fire saith the Lord and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces Jer. 23. Like a soft fire to dissolve and melt the hearts of relenting sinners and true Converts but like a strong hammer to batter and break in pieces the rocky and flinty consciences of obstinate and hardened offenders Examples hereof if you require behold in the stories of the Kings Saul whining when Samuel reproveth him in the books of the Prophets Ninevites drooping when Ionas threatneth them in the Acts of the Apostles Felix trembling when Paul discourseth before him in the Martyrologies of the Church Tyrants and bloody Persecutors maskered at the bold consessions of the poor suffering Christians in this Chapter proud Ahab mourning when Eliah telleth him his sin and foretelleth him his punishment Effects which might justly seem strange to us if the Causes were not apparent One cause and the Principal is in the instrument the Word not from any such strength in it self for so it is but a dead letter but because of Gods Ordinance in it For in his hand are the hearts and the tongues and the ears both of Kings and Prophets and he can easily when he seeth it good put the spirit of Zeal and of Power into the heart of the poorest Prophet and as easily the spirit of fear and of terrour into the heart of the greatest King He chooseth weak Instruments as here Eliah and yet furnisheth them with power to effect great matters that so the glory might not rest upon the instrument but redound wholly to him as to the chief agent that imployeth it We have this treasure in earthen Veslels saith St. Paul that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us 2 Cor. 4. We say words are but wind and indeed the words of the best Minister are no better as they are breathed out and uttered by sinful mortal man whose breath is in his nostrils but yet this wind as it is breathed in and inspired by the powerful eternal Spirit of God is strong enough by his effectual working with it not only to shake the top branches but to rend up the very bottom-root of the tallest Cedar in Lebanon Vox Domini confringens Cedros Psal. 29. The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice The voice of the Lord breaketh the Cedars yea the Lord breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon Another Cause is in the Object and that is the force of Natural Conscience which the most presumptuous sinner can never so stifle though he endeavour all he can to do it but that it will be sometimes snubbing and stinging and lashing and vexing him with ugly representations of his past sins and terrible suggestions of future vengeance And then of all other times is the force of it most lively when the voice of God in his Word awakeneth it after a long dead sleep Then it riseth and Sampson-like rouseth up it self and bestirreth it self lustily as a Giant refreshed with Wine and it putteth the disquieted patient to such unsufferable pain that he runneth up and down like a distracted man and doth he knoweth not what and seeketh for ease he knoweth not where Then he would give all Dives his wealth for A drop of Water to cool the heat he feeleth and with Esau part with his birth-right for any thing though it were never so little mean that would give him but the least present refreshing and preserve him from fainting Then sack-cloth and ashes and fasting and weeping and mourning and renting the garments and tearing the hair and knocking the breast and out-cries to heaven and all those other things which he could not abide to hear of in the time of his former security whilest his conscience lay fast asleep and at rest are now in all haste greedily entertained and all too little if by any means they can possibly give any ease or asswagement to the present torment
daily for mercy upon the Land and that weep and mourn in secret and upon their beds for your Abominations whom you hate and despise and persecute and defame and account as the very Scum of the People and the refuse and off-scouring of all things to whom yet you owe your Preservation Surely if it were not for some godly Iehoshaphat or other whose Presence God regardeth among you if it were not for some zealous Moses or other that standeth in the gap for you God's wrath had entred in upon you long ere this as a mighty breach of water and as an overflowing deluge overwhelmed you and you had been swept away as with the Besom of Destruction and devoured as stubble before the fire It is the innocent that delivereth the Land and reprieveth it from Destruction when the Sentence of Desolation is pronounced against it and it is delivered by the pureness of his hands O the goodness of our God! that would have spared the five Cities of the Salt-Sea if among so many thousands of beastly and filthy Persons there had been found but Ten righteous ones and that was for each City but two Persons nay that would have pardoned Ierusalem if in all the Streets and broad places thereof replenished with a World of Idolaters and Swearers and Adulterers and Oppressors there had been found but one single man that executed Iudgment and sought the truth from his heart But Oh the madness of the men of this foolish World withal who seek to do them most Mischief of all others who of all others seek to do them most good thirsting most after their Destruction who are the chiefest Instruments of their preservation O foolish and mad World if thou hast but wit enough yet yet to hug and to make much of that little flock the hostages of thy Peace and the earnest of thy tranquillity if thou wouldest but know even thou at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace Thou art yet happy that God hath a remnant in thee and if thou knewest how to make use of this happiness at least in this thy day by honouring their persons by procuring their safety and welfare by following their examples by praying for their continuance thou mightest be still and more and ever happy But if these things that belong unto thy peace be now hidden from thine eyes if these men that prolong thy peace and prorogue thy destruction be now despised in thy heart in this day of thy peace God is just thou knowest not how soon they may be taken from thee and though he do not bring the evil upon thee in their days when they are gone thou knowest not how soon Vengeance may overtake thee and then shall he tear thee in pieces and there shall be none left to deliver thee I have now done Beseech we God the Father of mercies for his dear Son Jesus Christ his sake to shed his Holy Spirit into our hearts that by his good Blessing upon us that which hath been presently delivered agreeably to his holy Truth and Word may take root downwards in our hearts and bring forth fruit upwards in our lives and conversations and so to assist us ever with his Grace that we may with humble confidence lay hold on his Mercies with chearful reverence tremble at his Iudgments by unfeigned Repentance turn from us what he hath threatned and by unwearied Obedience assure unto us what he hath promised To which Holy Father Son and Spirit three Persons and c. AD POPULUM The Third Sermon At Grantham Linc. Iun. 19. 1621. 3 KINGS 21. 29. I will not bring the evil in his days but in his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house I Come now this third time to entreat of this Scripture and by God's help to finish it Of the Three parts whereof heretofore propounded viz. 1. Ahab's Humiliation 2. The suspension of his judgment for his time 3. And the Devolution of â—t upon Iehoram the two former having been already handled the last only now remaineth to be considered of In the prosecution whereof as heretofore we have cleared GOD's Holiness and Truth so we shall be now occasioned to clear his Iustice from such imputations as might seem to lie upon it from this Act. And that in three respects accordingly as Iehoram who standeth here punishable for Ahab's sin may be considered in a threefold reference to Ahab that is to say either relate as the son of Ahab or disparate as another man from Ahab or comparaâ—â— as a man not altogether so bad as Ahab Now what Justice first to punish the Son for the Father or indeed secondly any one man foâ— another but most of all thirdly the less Offender for the greater It is not a matter of so much difficulty as at the first appearance it seemeth to clear these doubts if all things thereto appertaining be duly and distinctly considered The greatest trouble will be the things being of more variety than hardness to sort them in such manner as that we may therein proceed orderly and without confusion Evermore we know Certainties must rule Uncertainties and clear truths doubtful it will be therefore expedient for us for the better guiding of our Judgments first to lay down some Certainties and then afterwards by them to measure out fit Resolutions to the Doubts and then lastly from the premises to raise some few instructions for our use The first Certainty then and a main one is this Howsoever things appear to us yet God neither is nor can be unjust as not in any other thing so neither in his punishments Is God unrighteous that taketh vengeance God forbid for then how shall God judge the world shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right Indeed the Reasons of his Iustice oftentimes may be oftentimes are unknown to us but they never are they never can be unrighteous in him If in a deep point of Law a learned discreet Iudge should upon sufficient grounds give sentence flat contrary to what an ordinary by stander would think reason as many times it falleth out it is not for the grieved party to complain of injustice done him he should rather impute what is done to want of skill in himself than of Conscience in the Judge Right so if in many things Gods Proceedings hold not proportion with those characters of Justice and Equity which our weak and carnal reason would express we must thence infer our own ignorance not his injustice And that so much the rather because those matters of Law are such as fall within the comprehension of ordinary Reason whereas the ways of God are far removed out of our sight and advanced above our reach and besides an Earthly Iudge is subject to misprison mis-information partiality corruption and sundry infirmities that may vitiate his Proceedings whereas no such thing can possibly fall upon
to God and the fairest requital we can make for them If we withdraw our obedience and fall into open rebellion against God if we abuse them in making them either the occasions or instruments of sin to the dishonour of God and damage of his Servants we repay him ill and unworthily for the good we have received and are guilty of Unthankfulness in this foulest and highest degree Now we have seen what we are let us say the worst we can by unthankful ones call them Wretches Caitiffs Churles any thing load them with infamies disgraces contumelies charge them with Injustice Prophaneness Atheism condemn them and with them the vice it self Unthankfulness to the pit of Hell do all this and more and spare not and as David did at Nathan's Parable when we hear any case or example of ingratitude in any of the former degrees whether really done or but in a Parable pronounce sentence upon the guilty The man that hath done this thing shall surely die But withal let us remember when we have so done that our hearts instantly prompt us what Nathan told David Thou art the man We we are the men we are these unthankful ones unthankful to God first in passing by so many of his blessings without taking any consideration of them unthankful secondly in ascribing his Blessings wholly or partly to our selves or any other but him unthankful thirdly in valuing his Blessings so lightly as to forget them unthankful fourthly in diminishing the worth of his Blessings and repining at our portion therein unthankful fifthly in not rendring to him and his according to the good he hath done for us but sixthly and most of all unthankful in requiting him evil for good and hatred for his good will Dealing thus with him let us not now marvel if he begin to deal something strangely and otherwise than he was wont with us If he deny us his Creatures when we want them if he take them from us when we have them if he withhold his blessing from them that it shall not attend them if we find small comfort in them when we use them if they be unanswering our expectations when we have been at some pains and cost with them if as the Prophet speaketh We sow much and bring in little we eat and have not enough we drink and are not filled we cloath us and we are not warm and the wages we earn we put into a bag with holes if any of these things befal us let us cease to wonder thereat our selves are the causers of all our woe It is our great unthankfulness that blasteth all our endeavours that leaveneth with sowerness whatsoever is sweet and turneth into poison whatsoever is wholesom in the good Creatures of God It is the Word of God and Prayer that sanctifieth them to our use and they are then good when they are received with thanksgiving So long as we continue unthankful we are vain if we look for any sanctification in them if we expect any good from them I have now done with my first Inference for Trial or rather Conviction I add a second of Exhortation The duty it self being so necessary as we have heard Necessary as an Act of Iustice for the receipt of the Creature and necessary as an Act of Religion for the sanctifying of the Creature how should our hearts be enflamed with an holy desire and all our powers quickned up to a faithful endeavour conscionably to perform this so necessary a duty One would think that very necessity together with the consciousness of our former unthankfulness should in all reason be enough to work in us that both desire and endeavour In all reason it should so but we are unreasonable and much ado there is to perswade us to any thing that is good even when we are perswaded Wherefore to enforce the exhortation more effectually I must have leave to press the performance of this duty upon our Consciences with some farther Inducements and important Considerations Consider first the excellency of the Duty There are but three heads whereto we refer all that is called good Iucundum Utile Honestum Pleasure Profit and Honesty There is nothing desirable and lovely but in one or other of these three respects Each of these singly we account good but that excellently good wherein they all concurr We love things that will give us delight sometimes when there is neither profit nor credit in them we love things that will bring us profit though possibly neither delightful greatly nor sâ—emly and we love things that we think will do us honesty oftentimes without regard either of Pleasure or Profit How should we then be affected to this duty of giving thanks and singing Praises unto our GOD wherein all those do jointly concurr and that also in an excellent measure David hath wrapped them all together in one verse in the beginning of Psal. 147. Praise ye the Lord for it is good yea it is a pleasant thing and praise is comely It is good it will bring you profit it is pleasant it will afford you delight and it is comely it will do you honesty and what can heart wish more Again many good virtues and graces of God in us shall expire together with us which though they be eternal in their fruit and reward yet are not so as to their proper Acts which after this life shall cease because there shall be neither need nor use of them then Whether there be Prophecies they shall fail or whether there be tongues they shall cease or whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away There shall be no use of taming the flesh by Fasting or of supplying the want either of others by Alms or of our selves by Prayer Nay even Faith and Hope themselves shall have an end for we shall not then need to believe when we shall see nor to expect when we shall enjoy But giving of Thanks and Praise and Honour and Glory unto God shall remain in the Kingdom of Heaven and of Glory It is now the continual blessed exercise of the glorious Angels and Saints in Heaven and it shall be ours when we shall be translated thither O that we would learn often to practise here what we hope shall be our eternal exercise there Oh that we would accustom our selves being filled in the Spirit to speak to our selves in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing and making Melody in our hearts to the Lord giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ as speaketh our Apostle Ephes. 5. Consider secondly the multitude and variety and continuance of God's Blessings and let that provoke thy Thankfulness If thou hadst received but one or a few benefits yet thanks were due even for those few or for that one more than thou art able to return But what canst thou alledge or how excuse thy unthankfulness when
which only we affirm that it may be found in an Unbeliever and a Reprobate and that is a Natural or Moral integrity when the heart of a meer natural man is careful to follow the direction and guidance of right reason according to that light of Nature or Revelation which is in him without hollowness halting and hypocrisse Rectus usus Naturalium we might well call it the term were fit enough to express it had not the Papists and some other Sectaries with sowring it by the Leaven of their Pelagianism rendred it suspicious The Philosophers and learned among the Heathen by that which they call a good conscience understand no other thing than this very Integrity whereof we now speak Not that an Unbeliever can have a good conscience taken in strict propriety of truth and in a spiritual sence For the whole man being corrupted through the fall of Adam the conscience also is wrapped up in the common pollution so that to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled as speaketh St. Paul Tit. 1. and being so defiled can never be made good till their hearts be sprinkled from that pollution by the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God and till the Conscience be purged by the same blood from dead works to serve the living God as speaketh the same Apostle Heb. 9. and 10. But yet a good Conscience in that sence as they meant it a Conscience morally good many of them had who never had Faith in Christ nor so much as the least inkling of the Doctrine of Salvation By which Not having the Law they were a Law unto themselves doing by nature many of the things contained in the Law and choosing rather to undergo the greatest miseries as shame torment exile yea death it self or any thing that could befal them than wilfully to transgress those rules and notions and dictates of piety and equity which the God of Nature had imprinted in their Consciences Could heathen men and unbelievers have taken so much comfort in the testimony of an excusing Conscience as it appeareth many of them did if such a Conscience were not in the kind that is Morally Good Or how else could St. Paul have made that protestation he did in the Council Men and Brethren I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day At least if he meant to include as most of the learned conceive he did the whole time of his life as well before his conversion as after Balaam was but a cursed Hypocrite and therefore it was but a Copy of his countenance and no better for his heart even then hankered after the wages of unrighteousness when he looked asquint upon Balak's liberal offer with this answer If Balak would give me his house full of Gold and silver I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more But I assure my self many thousands of Unbelievers in the world free from his hypocrisie would not for ten times as much as he there spake of have gone beyond the Rules of the Law of Nature written in their hearts to have done either less or more Abimelech seemeth to be so affected at least in this particular action and passage with Abraham wherein God thus approveth his integrity Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart The Reason of which moral integrity in men unregenerate and meerly natural is that imperium Rationis that power of natural Conscience and Reason which it hath and exerciseth over the whole man doing the office of a Law-giver and having the strength of a Law They are a Law unto themselves saith the Apostle Rom. 2. As a Law it prescribeth what is to be done as a Law it commandeth that what is prescribed be done as a Law it proposeth rewards and punishments accordingly as what it prescribeth and commandeth is done or not done Abimelech's own Reason by the light of Nature informed him that to take another mans Wife from him was injurious and enjoyneth him therefore as he will avoid the horrors and upbraidings of a condemning heart by no means to do it Resolved accordingly to do and to obey the Law of Reason written in his heart before he durst take Sarah into his house he maketh inquiry first whether she were a single woman or a wife and therefore although upon mis-information he took another mans wife unwitting that she was so he pleadeth here and that justly the integrity of his heart And from obedience to the same Law especially spring those many rare examples of Iustice Temperance Gratitude Beneficence and other moral vertues which we read of in Heathen men not without admiration which were so many strong evidences also of this moral integrity of their hearts A point that would bear much enlargement if we intended to amplifie it by Instances and did not rather desire to draw it briefly into use by Inferences A just condemnation it may he first to many of us who call our selves Christians and Believers and have many blessed means of direction and instruction for the due ordering of our hearts and lives which those Heathens wanted yet come so many paces nay leagues short of them both in the detestation of vicious and gross enormities and in the conscionable practice of many offices of vertue Among them what strictness of Iustice which we either slack or pervert What zeal of the common good which we put off each man to other as an unconcerning thing What remission of private injuries which we pursue with implacable revenge What contempt of honours and riches which we so pant after so adore What temperance and frugality in their provisions wherein no excess satisfieth us What free beneficence to the poor and to pious uses whereto we contribute penuriously and with grudging What conscience of Oaths and Promises which we so slight What reverence of their Priests whom we count as the scum of the people What loathing of swinish drunkenness wherein some of us glory What detestation of Usury as a monster in nature whereof some of ours make a trade Particularities are infinite but what should I say more Certainly unless our righteousnesses exceed theirs we shall never come to heaven but how shall we escape the nethermost hell if our unrighteousnesses exceed theirs Shall not Uncircumcision which is by nature if it keep the Law judge thee who by the Letter and Circumcision dost transgress the Law said St. Paul to the Iew Make application to thy self thou that art a Christian. Secondly if even in Unbelievers and Hypocrites and Castaways there may be in particular actions integrity and singleness of heart then it can be but an uncertain Rule for us to judge of the true state of our own and other mens hearts by what they are in some few particular actions Men
answer the Command and such is not ours True it is if the Lord should look upon our very best Endeavours as they come from us and respect us but according to our merit he might find in every step we tread just matter of offence in none of acceptance If he should mark what is done amiss and be extreme in it no flesh living could be able to please him It must be therefore upon other and better grounds than any desert in us or in our ways that God is graciously pleased to accept either of us or them The Apostle hath discovered two of those grounds and joined them both together in a short passage in Heb. 13. Now the God of peace make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is pleasing in his sight through Iesus Christ. Implying that our good works are pleasing unto him upon these two grounds First Because he worketh them in us Secondly Because he looketh upon us and them in Christ. 18. First Because he worketh them in us As we see most men take pleasure in the Rooms of their own contriving in the Engines and Manufactures of their own devising in the Fruits of those Trees which themselves have planted Now the crooked ways of evil men that walk according to the course of the World are indeed the Works of the Devil he is the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience Eph. 2. such works therefore may please the Devil whose they are But it is not possible they should please God who sent his Son into the World on purpose to destroy the Works of the Devil And as for those strayings also and outsteppings whereof Gods faithfullest servants are now and then guilty although they be not the Works of the Devil for he hath not now so much power over them as to work in them yet are they still the Works of the flesh as they are called Gal. 5. Such works therefore may be pleasing to the flesh whose they are but they are so far from being pleasing unto God that they rather grieve his holy Spirit The works then that must please God are such as himself hath wrought in us by that his holy Spirit which are therefore called the fruits of the Spirit in the same Gal. 5. As it is said by the Prophet O Lord thou wilt ordain peace for us for thou also hast wrought all our works in us And again in the Psalm The Lord ordereth a good mans ways and maketh them acceptable unto himself they are therefore acceptable unto him because they are ordered by him 19. That is one ground The other is because God looketh not upon us as we are in our selves neither dealeth with us according to the rigour of a legal Covenant but he beholdeth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the face of his beloved One even Jesus Christ his only Son and as under a Covenant of Grace He is his beloved Son in whom alone he is well pleased for his own sake and in whom and for whose sake alone it is if at any time he be well pleased with any of us or with any of our Ways For being by him and through faith in his Name made the children of God by adoption and grace he is now pleased with us as a loving Father is with his beloved Child As a loving Father taketh in good part the willing Endeavours of his Child to do whatsoever he appointeth him though his performances be very small So the Lord is graciously pleased to accept of us and our weak services according to that willingness we have and not according to that exactness we want not weighing our merits but pardâ—ning our offences and passing by our imperfections as our loving Father in Iesus Christ. That is the other ground 20. And we doubt not but the acceptance we find with God upon these two grounds if seasonably applied will sustain the soul of every one that truly feareth God with strong comfort against two great and common discouragements whereunto he may be subject arising the one from the sense of mens displeasure the other from the conscience of his own imperfections Sometimes God and his own heart condemn him not and yet the World doth and that troubleth him Sometimes God and the World condemn him not and yet his own heart doth and that troubleth him more If at any time it be either thus or so with any of us let us remember but thus much and we shall find comfort in it that although we can neither please other men at all nor our selves sufficiently yet our Works may for all that be graciously accepted by our good God and so our ways may please the Lord. 21. But I forbear the amplification of these comforts that I may proceed from the Antecedent in those former words when a mans ways please the Lord of which I have spoken hitherto unto the Consequent in the remaining words he maketh even his Enemies to be at peace with him Wherein also as in the former part we have three things observable The Persons the Effect the Author The Persons a mans Enemies the Effect Peace the Author the Lord. He maketh a mans Enemies to be at peace with him The words being of an easie understanding will therefore need the less opening Only thus much briefly First for the Persons they that wish him ill or seek to do him Harm in his Person Estate or good Name they are a mans Enemies And Solomon here supposeth it possible that a man whose Ways please the Lord may yet have Enemies Nay it is scarce possible it should be otherwise Inimici Domestici rather than fail Satan will stir him up Enemies out of his own house 2. And these Enemies are then said to be at peace with him which is the Effect when either there is a change wrought in their Affections so as they now begin to bear him less ill-will than formerly they have done or when at least-wise their evil Affections towards him are so bridled or their power so restrained as not to break out into open hostility but whatsoever their thoughts are within to carry themselves fairly and peaceably towards him outwardly so as he is at a kind of peace with them or howsoever sustaineth no harm by them Either of which when it is done it is thirdly Mutatio dextrae excelsi it is merely the Lords doing and it may well be marvellous in our Eyes It is he that maketh a mans Enemies to be at peace with him 22. The scope of the whole words is to instruct us that the fairest and likeliest way for us to procure peace with men is to order our ways so as to please the Lord. You shall therefore find the favour of God and the favour of men often joined together in the Scriptures as if the one were and so usually it is a consequent of the other So
Mystery that driveth at all this must needs be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the highest degree the great mystery of Godliness That for the scope 27. Look now secondly at the parts and parcels the several pieces as it were whereof this mystery is made up those mentioned in this verse and the rest and you shall find that from each of them severally but how much more then from them altogether joyntly may be deduced sundry strong motives and perswasives unto Godliness Take the material parts of this Mystery the Incarnation Nativity Circumcision Baptism Temptation Preaching Life Death Burial Resurrection Ascension Intercession and Second coming of Christ. Or take if I may so call them the formal parts thereof our eternal Election before the World was our Vocation by the Preaching of the Gospel our Iustification by Faith in the merits of Christ our Sanctification by the Spirit of grace the stedfast Promises we have and hopes of future Glory and the rest It would be too long to vouch Texts for each particular but this I say of them all in general There is not one link in either of those two golden chains which doth not straitly tye up our hands tongues and hearts from doing evil draw us up effectually unto God and Christ and strongly oblige us to shew forth the power of his Grace upon our souls by expressing the power of Godliness in our lives and conversations That for the parts 28. Thirdly Christian Religion may be called the Mystery of Godliness in regard of its Conversation because Godliness is the best preserver of Christianity Roots and Fruits and Herbs which let alone and left to themselves would soon corrupt and putriâ—ie may being well condited with Sugar by a skilful Confectioner be preserved to continue for many years and be serviceable all the while So the best and surest means to preserve Christianity in its proper integrity and power from corrupting into Atheism or Heresie is to season it well with Grace as we do fresh meats with salt to keep them sweet and to be sure to keep the Conscience upright Holding the mysteries of faith in a pure Conscience saith our Apostle a little after at verse 9. of this Chapter and in the first Chapter of this Epistle vers 19. Holding faith and a good Conscience which latter some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack Apostasie from the faith springeth most an end from Apostasie in manners And he that hath but a very little care how he liveth can have no very fast hold of what he believeth For when men grow once regardless of their Consciences good affections will soon languish and then will noysom lusts gather strength and cast up mud into the soul that the judgement cannot run clear Seldom is the head right where the heart is amiss A rotten heart will be ever and anon sending up evil thoughts into the mind as marish and fenny grounds do foggy mists into the air that both darken and corrupt it As a mans taste when some malignant humour affecteth the organ savoureth nothing aright but deemeth sweet things bitter and sowre things pleasant So where Avarice Ambition Malice Voluptuousness Vain-glory Sedition or any other domineering lust hath made it self master of the heart it will so blind and corrupt the judgment that it shall not be able to discern at any certainty good from evil or truth from falshood Wholsome therefore is St. Peters advice to add unto faith Vertue Vertue will not only keep it in life but at such a height of vigour also that it shall not easily either degenerate into Heresie or languish into Atheism 29. We see now three Reasons for which the Doctrine of Christianity may be called The mystery of Godliness because it first exacteth Godliness and secondly exciteth unto Godliness and is thirdly best preserved by Godliness From these Premisses I shall desire for our nearer instruction to infer but two things only the one for the trial of Doctrines the other for the bettering of our lives For the first St. Iohn would not have us over-forward to believe every spirit Every spirit doth he say Truly it is impossible we should unless we should believe flat contradictions Whilst one Spirit saith It is another Spirit saith It is not can a man believe the one and not disbelieve the other if he hear both Believe not every spirit then is as much in St. Iohn's meaning as if he had said Be not too hasty to Believe any Spirit especially where there appeareth some just cause of Suspicion but try it first whether it be a true spirit or a false Even as St. Paul biddeth us prove all things that having so done we may hold fast what upon trial proveth good and let the rest go 30. Now holy Scripture is certainly that Lapis Lydius that Test whereby this trial is to be made Ad legem ad testimonium when we have wrangled as long as we can hitherto we must come at last But sith all Sectaries pretend to Scripture Papists Anabaptists Disciplinarians All yea the Devil himself can vouch Texts to drive on a Temptation It were good therefore we knew how to make right applications of Scripture for the Trial of Doctrines that we do not mistake a false one for a true one Many profitable Rules for this purpose our Apostle affordeth us in sundry places One very good one we may gather from the words immediately before the Text wherein the Church of God is said to be the pillar and ground of truth The Collection thence is obvious that it would very much conduce to the guiding of our judgments aright in the examining of mens doctrines concerning either Faith or Manners wherein the Letter of Scripture is obscure or the meaning doubtful to inform our selves as well as we can in credendis what the received sence and in agendis what the constant usage and practice of the Church especially in the ancient times hath been concerning those matters and that to consider what conformity the Doctrines under trial hold with the principles upon which that their sence or practice in the Premisses was grounded The Iudgment and Practice of the Church ought to sway very much with every sober and wise man either of which whosoever neglecteth or but slighteth as too many do upon a very poor pretence that the mystery of iniquity began to work betimes runneth a great hazard of falling into many errors and Absurdities If he do not he may thank his good fortune more than his forecast and if he do he may thank none but himself for neglecting so good a guide 31. But this now mentioned Rule although it be of excellent use if it be rightly understood and prudently applied and therefore growing so near the Text I could not wholly baulk it without some notice taken of it it being not within the Text I press it no farther but come to another that springeth out of the very Text it self And
know not what you may be If you be not in some measure prepared even for that also and resolved by Gods assistance to strive against sin and to withstand all sinful temptations even to the shedding of the last drop of blood in your bodies if God call you to it you have done nothing He that hateth not his life as well as his House and Lands for Christ and his Kingdom is not worthy of either Sharp or long assaults may tire out him that hath endured shorter and easier But he that setteth forth for the goal if he will obtain must resolve to devour all difficulties and to run it out and not to faint or slug till he have finished his course to the end though he should meet with never so many Lions in the way 26. Secondly so great is the natural frailty of man so utterly averse from conforming it self entirely to the good will or pleasure of Almighty God either in doing or suffering that if he be not the better principled within strengthned with grace in the inner man he will not be able to hold out in either but every sorry temptation from without will foil him and beat him off Be not weary of well-doing saith the Apostle Gal. 6. for in due time we shall reap if we faint not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same word again Weariness and faintness of mind we are subject to you see in the point of well-doing But how much more then in the point of suffering which is of the two much the sorer trial 27. Marvel not if ordinary Christians such as these Hebrews were might be in danger of fainting under the Cross when the most holy and eminent of Gods servants whose Faith and Patience and Piety are recorded in the Scriptures as exemplary to all posterity have in their failings in this kind bewrayed themselves to be but men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to passions of fear and distrust even as others Abraham the Father of the Faithful of so strong Faith and Obedience that he neither staggered at the promise of having a Son though it were a very unlikely one at that age through unbelief nor stumbled at the command of sacrificing that Son though it were a very hard one having no more through disobedience yet coming among strangers upon some apprehensions that his life might be endangered if he should own Sarah to be his wife his heart so far misgave him through humane frailty that he shewed some distrustfulness of God by his doubting and dissimulation with Pharoah first and after with Abimelech Gen. 13. and 20. 28. And David also so full of courage sometimes that he would not fear though ten thousands of people whole Armies of men should rise up against him and encompass him round about though the opposers were so strong and numerous that the earth should be moved and the mountains shake at the noise thereof yet at some other times when he saw no end of his troubles but that he was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains day after day and chased from place to place perpetually that he could rest no where his heart began to melt and to faint within him And although he had a promise from God of succeeding in the Kingdom and an anointing also as an earnest to confirm the promise yet it ran strongly in his thoughts nevertheless that he should perish one day by the hands of Saul Insomuch that in a kind of distrust of Gods truth and protection he ventured so far upon his own head never so much as asking counsel at the mouth of God as to expose himself to great inconveniencies hazards and temptations in the midst of an hostile and idolatrous people The good man was sensible of the imperfection acknowledgeth it an infirmity and striveth against it Psal. 77. 29. But of all the rest St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom often stileth him a man of great boldness and fervency of spirit betrayed the greatest weakness Who after so fair warning so lately given him and his own so confident profession of laying down his life in his Masters quarrel yet within not many hours after when he began to be questioned about his Master and saw by the malicious and partial proceedings against the Master how it was like to go with him if he were known to have such a near dependance upon him became so faint-hearted that contrary to his former resolutions and engagement he not only disowned him but with Oaths and Imprecations forswore him Such weakness is there in the flesh where there is yet left some willingness in the spirit that without a continual supply of grace and actual influence of strength from above there is no absolute stedfastness to be found in the best of the Sons of men 30. Yet is not our natural inability to resist temptations though very great the cause of our actual faintings so much because of the ready assistance of Gods grace to relieve us if we would but be as ready to make use of it as a third thing is To wit our supine negligence that we do not stand upon our guard as it concerneth us to do nor provide for the encounter in time but have our Arms to seek when the Enemy is upon us As Ioseph in the years of plenty laid in Provision against the years of dearth so should we whilst it is Calm provide for a Storm and whilst we are at ease against the evil day It is such an ordinary point of wisdom in the common affairs of life for men to be provided of all necessaries befitting their several occasions before the time they should use them that he is rather derided than pitied that having time and means for it neglecteth so to do The Grashopper in the Fable had the merry Summer but the Pismire fared better in Winter If in our prosperity we grow secure flattering our selves in our own thoughts as if our hill were so strong that we should never be removed if then God do but turn his face from us yea but a little and send any little change upon us we shall be so much the more troubled at the affliction when it cometh by how much the less we expected it before Our unpreparedness maketh a very little affliction sometimes fall very heavy upon us and then it foileth us miserably and soon tireth us out and so we suffer by our own negligence 31. To which add in the fourth place that which many times followeth upon such our neglect Gods deserting of us and withdrawing the ordinary support of his grace from us And then as the Philistines over-mastered Samson when his strength was departed from him so will temptations us when we are left to wrestle with them by our own strength alone without the special grace of God to assist It is by Faith that we stand if we do stand This is the victory that overcometh the world even
so many Mock-Graces and specious counter feits that carry a semblance of spiritual fruit but are not the things they seem to be And on the other side inordinate love of our selves partly and partly want of Charity towards our brethren have so disposed us to a capacity of being deceived that it is no wonder if in passing our judgments especially where our selves are concerned we be very much and very often mistaken It might rather be a wonder if we should not be sometimes mistaken 44. As most Errors claim to be a little akin to some Truths so most Vices challenge a kind of affinity to some Vertue Not so much from any proper intrinsecal true resemblance they have with such vertues as by reason of the common opposition they both have to one and the same contrary Vice As Prodigality hath some overly likeness with Liberality and so may hap to be mistaken for it for no other cause but this only that they are both contrary to Covetousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle truly fallacy and deception for the most part arise from the appearance of some likeness oâ— similitude when things that are like but not the same are taken to be the same because they are like They that have given us marks of sincerity for the trial of our Graces have not been able to give us any certain Rules or infallible Characters whereby to try the sincerity of those Marks so as to remove all doubtings and possibility of erring 45. Whence I supose I may safely infer that the certainty of a Man's present standing in grace but much more then of his eternal future salvation although I doubt not but by the mercy of God it may be attainable in this life and that without extraordinary revelation in such a measure as may sustain the soul of an honest Christian with comfort is not yet either so absolutely necessary nor so void of fears and doubtings as some perhaps have imagined 46. Not so necessary but that a Man may be saved without it Many a good soul no doubt there is in the world that out of the experience of the falseness of his own heart and the fear of self-deceit and the sense of his own unworthiness could never yet attain to be so well persuaded of the sincerity of his own Repentance Faith and Obedience as to think that God would approve of it and accept it The censure were very hard and a great violation it would be of Charity I am sure and I think of Truth also to pronounce such a Man to be out of the State of Salvation or to call such his dis-persuasion by the name of Despair and under that name to condemn it There is a common but a great mistake in this matter Despair is far another manner of thing than many take it for When a Man thinketh himself so incapable of God's pardon that he groweth thereupon regardless of all duties and neither careth what he doth nor what shall become of him when he is once come to this resolution Over shoes over boots I know God will never forgive me and therefore I will never trouble my self to seek his favour in vain this is to run a deseperate course indeed this is properly the sin of Despair But when the fear that God hath not yet pardoned him prompteth him to better resolutions and exciteth him to a greater care of repentance and newness of life and maketh him more diligent in the performance of all holy duties that so he may be the more capable of pardon it is so far from being any way prejudical to his eternal salvation that it is the readiest way to secure it 47. But where the greatest certainty is that can be attained to in this life by ordinary means it is not ordinarily unless perhaps to some few persons at the very hour of death so perfect as to exclude all doubtings The fruits of the Spirit where they are true and sincere being but imperfect in this life and the truth and sincerity of them being not always so manifest but that a Man may sometimes be deceived in his judgment concerning the same it can hardly be what between the one and the other the imperfection of the thing and the difficulty of judging but that the Assurance which is wholly grounded thereupon and can therefore have no more strength than they can give it must be subject to Fears Iealonsies and Doubtings 48. I speak not this to shake any Man's comfort God forbid but to stir up every Man's care to abound and increase so much the more in all godliness and in the fruits of the Spirit by giving all diligence by walking in the Spirit and subduing the Lusts of the Flesh to make his Calling and Election sure Sure in it self that he fail not of Salvation in the end and sure to him also as far as he can that his comfort may be the greater and sounder in the mean time Now the God of all Grace and Glory send the Spirit of his Son plentifully into our Hearts that we may abound in the Fruits of godly living to the praise of his Grace our present comfort in this Life and the eternal salvation of our Souls in the Day of our Lord Iesus Christ. AD MAGISTRATUM The First Sermon At the Assizes at Lincoln in the Year 1690 at the Request of Sir DANIEL Dâ—IGNâ— Knight then High Sheriff of that Coâ—â—â—y Prov. 24. 10 12. 10. If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be sâ—ain 12. If thou sayest Behold we know it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every man according to his works 1. AS in most other things so in the performance of that duty which this Text aimeth at we are neither careful before-hand such is the uncharitableness of our incompassionate hearts to do well nor yet willing afterwards through the pride of our Spirits to acknowledg we have done ill The holy Spirit of God therefore hath directed Solomon in this Scripture wherein he would incite us to the performance of the duty to frame his words in such sort as to meet with us in both these corruptions and to let us see that as the duty is necessary and may not be neglected so the neglect is damnable and cannot be excused In the handling whereof I shall not need to bestow much labour either in searching into the contexture of the words or examining the differences of translations Because the sentence as in the rest of this Book for the most part hath a compleat sence within it self without any necessary either dependence upon any thing going before or reference to any thing coming after and the differences that are in the translations are neither many in number nor
We find it expressed with that adjunct Heb. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the immutability of his Counsel And it is here laid down as the great foundation of our Christian hope and the very strength of all our consolation Quod scripsi scripsi What he hath written in the secret Book of his determinate Counsel though it be counsel to us and uncertain until either he reveal it or the event discover it yet is it most certain in it self and altogether unchangeable We follow our own devices many times which we afterwards repent and truly our second thoughts are most an end the wiser But with God there is no after-counsel to correct the errors of the former he knoweth not any such thing as repentance it is altogether hid from his eyes He is indeed sometimes in the Scriptures said to repent as Gen. 6. and in the business of Nineveh and elsewhere But it is not ascribed unto God properly but as other humane passions and affections are as grief sorrow c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to import some actions of God eventually and according to the manner of our understanding like unto the operations which those passions produce in us but have nothing at all of the nature of those passions in them So that still that is eternally true which was spoken indeed by a false Prophet but whose spirit and tongue was at that time guided by the God of Truth Num. 23. 19. God is not a Man that he shall lye Neither the Son of Man that he should repent His Counsel therefore standeth ever one and the same not reversed by repentance or countermanded by any after counsel 18. Followeth the third Difference which consisteth in their Efficacy that is expressed in the Text by their different manner of Existing Many devices may be in a man's heart but it is not in his power to make them stand unless God will they shall never be accomplished But in despight of all the World the counsel of the Lord shall stand nothing can hinder or disappoint that but that it shall have the intended effect 19. The Heart although sometimes it be put for the appetitive part of the Soul only as being the proper seat of the desires and affections as the Head or Brain is of the conceptions or thoughts yet is it very often in Scripture and so it is here taken more largely so as to comprehend the whole Soul in all its faculties as well the apprehensive as the appetitive and consequently taketh in the Thoughts as well as the Desires of the Soul Whence we read of the thoughts of the heart of thoughts arising in the heart of thoughts proceeding from out the heart and the like The meaning then is that multitudes and variety of devices may be in a Man's head or in his heart in his thoughts and desires in his intentions and hopes but unless God give leave there they must stay He is not able to bring them on further to put them in execution and to give them a real existency They imagined such a device as they are not able to perform Psal. 21. Whatsoever high conceits Men may have of the fond imaginations of their own hearts as if they were some goodly things yet the Lord that better understandeth us than we do our selves knows all the thoughts of Men that they are but vain Psal. 94. And this he knoweth not only for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is so by his omniscience and prescience but for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too which is the most perfect kind of knowledg why it is so even because his hand is in it to render them vain It is he that maketh the devices of the people yea and of Princes too as it is added in some Translations to be of none effect Psal. 33. 20. Possibly the heart may be so full that it may run over make some offers outward by the mouth for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh and the tongue may boast great things and talk high It may so indeed but that boasting doth not any thing at all to further the business or to give the thoughts of the heart a firm bottom or base whereon to rest it many times rather helps to overturn them the sooner We call it vapouring and well may we so call it For as a vapour that ariseth from the earth is scattred with the wind vanisheth and cometh to nothing so are all the imaginations and devices that are conceived in the heart of Man blasted when the Lord bloweth upon them and then they come to nothing 21. But as for the Counsels of his heart they shall stand Rooted and established like the Mountains The foundation of God standeth firm though spoken by the Apostle in another sence is most true in this also What he hath purposed either himself to do or to have done by any of his Creatures shall most certainly and infallibility come to pass in every circumstance just as he hath appointed it It is established in the Heavens and tho all the Powers in Earth and Hell should joyn their forces together set to all their shoulders and strength against it and thrust sore at it to make it fall yet shall they never be able to move it or shake it much less to remove it from the place where it standeth or to overthrow it His Name is Iehovah it signifieth as much as Essence or Being 1. Not only because of the eâ—ternity of his own being and that from himself and underived from any other 2. Nor yet because he is the Author of Being to all other things that are 3. But also for that he is able to give a Being reality and subsistence to his own Will and Word to all his Purposes and Promises Da voci tuae vocem virtutiâ— What he hath appointed none can disappoint His counsel doth shall must stand My Counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure Isa. 46. 10. 22. The consideration of these differences hath sufficiently discovered the weakness frailty and unsuccessfulness of Mens devices on the one side and on the other side the stability unchangeableness and unfailingness of God's Counsels Whereof the consideration of the Reasons of the said differences will give us yet farther assurance and those Reasons taken from the Soveraignty the Eternity the Wisdom and the Power of God 23. First God is the prima causa the soveraign Agent and first mover in every motion and inclination of the Creature Men yea and Angels too who far excel them in strength are but secondary Agents subordinate Causes and as it were Instruments to do his Will Now the first cause hath such a necessary influence into all the operations of second causes that if the concurrence thereof be with-held their operations must cease The Provdence of God in ordering the World and the acting of the Creatures by his actuation of them is