The Duty and Benefit of SUBMISSION to the Will of GOD in AFFLICTIONS Discovered in Two SERMONS Upon a special Occasion At Stapleford in LEICESTER-SHIRE By JOHN CAVE Rector of COLDORTON in the same County And Chaplain to the LORD-BISHOP of DURHAM Iis qui erudiuntur Tolerantia succurrit objâ—ctis molestiis generose resistens atque efficiens ne animus concidat sed pugnet propulset Doloris ictus Simpl. in Epicteâ—um Quà m pulchâ—um spectaculum Deo cùm Christianus cum dolore congreditur cùm adversùm Minas Supplicia Tormenta componitur Minut. Fel. LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXII TO The Right Honourable and Truly Noble THE LORD and LADY SHERARD OF STAPLEFORD Right Honourable THese two plain Sermons were composed and suited to serve a great and sad Occasion of your Honours reached at your Desires heard with your good liking and most effectually commended by your diligent Observation and Christian Practice of their Doctrine and therefore in these Respects were justly your own without the formality of a Dedication and truly I designed them so intirely for the Service of your Honourable Family that their Preachingh had been their only Publication and they had continued Yours still in the strictest Sence of Propriety if an intimation of your Honour's Desires which to me carry the force of a Command had not only allowed but obliged me to make them more common and seeing the Cross is not only the Badg but the Burthen of our Christianity and you have so many Fellow-Sufferers in the World I have reason to hope that others may find the same Support and Comfort by these seasonable Discourses which through God's Blessing they have happily afforded you And there being so many afflicting Circumstances as it is generally known in your Case your Patience and Submission will want no Advantage of Example but be able to speak more perswasively and make more Converts than these weak Sermons of mine or the Oratory of more powerful Preachers Indeed when Death comes so near us and makes so deep a Wound in Nature we need an extrordinary Assistance of Grace the Benefit of Precept and Example both all the Helps which Philosophy and Religion can furnish lest we be wearied and faint in our Minds St. Hierom writes of one Paulina a Lady of a steady and well-governed Temper in other Trials who yet could not bear her Childrens Death without an immoderate and unseemly Resentment but some allowance may be fairly made to the Tenderness of her Sex when we see Men who have naturally a greater Constancy and Courage wise Men religious Men ready to fall by the same Stroke Synesius the Bishop of Cyrene was so affected with the Death of his Children Epist 16. that in one of his Epistles he complains that the Remembrance of it like a lingring Consumption wasted him daily that all the Pleasure of his Life died with them and at last breaks out into this impatient Wailing Let me live no longer or else forget that they are dead Yea how doth the Heart of King David a Saint and a Souldier melt into a more than a Womanish Softness and bewray its Weakness and Instability in a Torrent of Tears and impotent unmanly Plaints at the Death of one Absolom Absolom a Traitor and a Rebel to his King and Father yet because a Son still must be lamented in the highest Strain of Passion My good Lord and Lady you bewail a Son who had nothing of Absolom in him but his Beauty who had all the Grace and sweetness of Courtesy of a most obliging Mind Speech and Deportment without any of the Guilt or Blemish of Flattery Affectation or Design who wanted no Accomplishment beseeming his Noble Birth and Quality but excelled in Piety to his God and Reverence to his Parents and a towardly Compliance with the other Instructors and Governours of his Youth whereby he soon became the Delight and Ornament of a learned and vertuous Society Exeter Colledg Oâ—on dear to them as a Child and honoured by them as a Patron and therefore wept over as both with a mixt Affection but not so fond as rational And indeed his obliging Qualifications procured him such a general Interest and Esteem that every one who knew him seemed to mourn all along for him as if the Loss had been only his without any Partner to share his Grief But I design not in this In Mr. Laxton's Sermon preached on the day of his Interment so much a Character of his Worth which hath been drawn already in better Colours and with more graceful Strokes than my poor Stock or Skill can supply as a just Commendation of your Honours singular Piety and Patience your deep sence of the Displeasure and yet your meek and humble Submission to the Will of the Father of Spirits in taking from you a Son of so much Delight and Hope and that in the Prime and the Blosom of his Years when he seemed to be all Life and Vigor a very severe and searching Trial. Yet I who had the unhappy Honour to be admitted into the darkest Scene of your Sorrow and to see your Vertue surprized with a most dreadful Assault soon perceived it happily succoured with such forces of Reason and Religion as assured an equal Conflict if not a Victory And I know you have often blessed God who by a wonderful Supply of his Grace hath maintained your Patience and Fortitude and with the Temptation given a way to escape and secure your Innocence And I shall earnestly pray that the God of all Consolation would be pleased still to suggest to you such Religious Considerations as may establish and encrease your present Comfort and lead you through all the obscure Passages of this Veil of Tears into the brightest Glories of Everlasting Light and Joy that the Belief of your dear Son 's happy Translation and the well-grounded Expectation of your own may mortify all your earthly Affections make you every day less concerned for what you enjoy or suffer in this World and that the Felicities of Eternity may render the good or evil things of Time very indifferent to you To these my Prayers I shall upon all Occasions add my best Endeavours to serve your Honours in promoting your highest your heavenly Interest and Benefit as becomes my Office and Obligations there being no one more truly sensible of your Honour 's Great Favours than is My Noble Lord and Lady Your Honours most Faithful Affectionate and Obedient Servant JOHN CAVE Of Submission to the Will of God HEB. xii ix We have had Fathers of our Flesh which corrected us and we gave them Reverence shall we not much rather be in Subjection to the Father of Spirits and live OUR Blessed Saviour who was himself a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with Grief bequeathed a Legacy of Sufferings unto the Heirs of his Glory and it is through manifold Tribulations that we are
them at last if they prove incorrigible but the Father of Spirits hath Potestatem vitae necis the Power of Life and Death over all his Children He bringeth to the Gates of Hell VVisd 16.13 and he bringeth back again And this further obligeth us to a patient bearing of his Will in our own Sickness our own darkest Walks in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and also in the last departure of our dearest Friends and Relatives because God is the Father of Spirits and takes no more from us than what he first gave us And hereby we do but attain to some degrees of Abraham's Faith and Patience who was not more joyful at the Birth and Growth of his only Son than ready to give him again to God in his best Age. 4. He hath the Power of the second as well as of the first Death Luke 12.15 or as our blessed Saviour expresseth it when he hath killed hath Power to cast into Hell Men after they have killed the Body have no more that they can do and our Christian Faith and Hope will bear us up under all the Threatnings and Strokes of their Cruelty and enable us to say with Comfort what the poor Lepers spake in dispair If they kill us we shall but die but who knows the Power of thine Anger 2 Kings 7.4 saith David who knows what degrees of Torment the Wrath of an incensed God can kindle after Death Temporal Judgments are to the wicked but the beginning of Sorrows or in St. Gregory Nazianzen's Expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Smoak of the Lord 's Anger in Hell are the Flames and the unquenchable Fire of it Take the Ashes of the Furnace Exod. 9.8 saith God to Moses and cast them into the Air and they shall be Sores and Plagues upon them such are all temporal Punishments saith the excellent Bishop Brownrig they are but the Ashes of the Furnace of Hell Fire not to be compared to those everlasting Torments A patient bearing of those Afflictions with which God chastens his Children and Servants in this Life is one good way to escape that Wrath which he reserves for his Enemies in the next Thus have I shewed you briefly what good reason we have to be subject to the Father of Spirits rather than to the Fathers of our Flesh our natural or civil Parents in regard of the greater Absoluteness and Latitude of his Dominion 4. There is one thing more which advanceth God's Scepter and awes us into a lower Submission and that is the duration and continuance of his Dominion This seems to be implied in our Apostle's present Argument in the very next Verse to my Text They verily that is the Fathers of our Flesh for a few days chastned us Their's if a severe is but a short-liv'd Empire But God who shews Mercy to thousands punisheth also to the third and fourth Generation yea His Kingdom as the Psalmist speaks is an everlasting Kingdom Psal 145.13 and his Dominion endureth throughout all Generations I might say much more of God's Soveraignty and right of Rule over us a right to give Laws and to inflict Punishments to exact Obedience and enforce Subjection But I shall proceed to shew you in The Second Sermon SEcondly That as is his Majesty such is his Mercy as he hath a more compleat and absolute Right of Dominion over us so he hath an infinitely more tender Love and Kindness for us than the Fathers of our Flesh have This is implied in their proper Characters and distinctions Fathers of our Flesh and Father of Spirits This bespeaks place by his very Name and Title which bears Signatures of Goodness altogether as illustrious as those of Power which you have seen displayed Where Flesh in Scripture is not used to describe Sin either original or actual it for the most part denotes Weakness if not the Corruption the Frailty of our Nature And Spirit is a word of a quite contrary Import and carries in the notion of it high degrees of Purity Knowledg Power and Goodness But 2. The Preheminence of God's Paternal Affection and the Advantage of his Discipline is more plainly represented in the last word of my Text Live and in the Explication of it by those following words They indeed for a few days chastned us after their Pleasure but he for our Profit If they design their Childrens Good they may either through want of Knowledg or excess of Passion mistake the measures of their Discipline but there are none of these Imperfections in the Father of Spirits His Anger which is the Product of Love is also the Subject of Wisdom and managed by both for a singular Benefit He that is the Father of Spirits knows their frame and their Frailties what Medicines they need and what they will bear and as his Wisdom prescribes and directs his Love administers and makes Application 1. He knows what Medicines they need what will prejudice their Health and what will purge their Distempers and therefore accordingly orders them pro jucundis aptissima quaeque See the Art of Contentment p. 123 130. profitable instead of pleasant things sometimes wholsom Wormwood instead of luscious Honey The same Wisdom and Goodness which denies us those things we like because they are hurtful for us doth upon the very same reason give us those distastful things which he sees profitable A wise Physician doth not only diet but if occasion be purge his Patient also And surely there is not such a Purifier such a Cleanser of the Soul as are Afflictions if we do not like disorderly Patients frustrate their Efficacy by the irregular Managery of our selves under them God afflicts no further than the Necessities of his Patients require and what is short of this is though under the shew of Compassion a real Cruelty He doth not punish willingly Lam. 3.33 1 Pet. 1.6 nor grieve the Children of Men. Now for a season if need be you are in heaviness through manifold Temptations If our Affliction be sharp and painful certainly God seeth that we have need of it otherwise he would handle us more gently The Husbandman plows not but to sow and he plows and harrows no longer than till the Clods are broken and God suffers wicked Men whom the Psalmist compares to Plowers or any other Harassers of our Ease and Content no longer to make Furrows upon the Backs or rather upon the Hearts of his Servants than till they are softned and broken and become a fit soil for his Graces to grow in For 2. He that knows our frame understands our Frailties too not only what we need but what we can bear and remembers not only that our Bodies are Dust but that our Souls also partake of the Infirmities of their Companions or rather of the Discomposures of their Instruments and therefore resolves that he will not contend for ever neither be always wrath Isa 57.16 lest the Spirit should fail before him
to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven So that we are not only born to Trouble by the common condition of our Nature which like the Earth that the Lord hath cursed brings forth nothing but Briers and Thorns but also born again to it in the State of our Christianity and trained up in the School of Crosses and Afflictions under the Discipline of our heavenly Master But he that hath called us to suffer with and for himself hath also given us the surest Supports and the strongest Consolations in the most needful time of our Distress by setting before us a Joy unspeakable and over-balancing our light Afflictions with a more exceeding weight of Glory exhorting us to Patience by his Precepts and perswading us to it by his Promises but more especially instructing us therein by his own most exemplary Submission and Resignation of Mind to the Will of his Father And his great Apostle having in the foregoing Chapter reckoned up in order several eminent Patterns of Faith and Patience in the beginning of this points as from those many Witnesses or Martyrs to this one glorious and triumphant Sufferer Christ Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith animating us by the Example of his victorious Patience to a passive Fortitude and Courage in our sharpest fight of Afflictions to an unwearied Perseverance in the roughest ways of Vertue Let us run with Patience the Race that is set before us looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith Vers 1 2. who for the Joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the Shame Look unto him not only to admire but to imitate the Resolution and Invincibility of his Spirit that you may not sink under the Cross which he endured nor be over-whelmed with the Shame which he despised for to this very end and purpose you are to consider him that endured such Contradiction of Sinners against himself Vers 3. lest you be wearied and faint in your Minds Nay consider how much less you suffer then he did his Soul was exceeding sorrowful unto Death To Death which draws an everlasting Vail over all the Glories and Delights of this World but Joy and Comfort may again break through your closest Mourning He shed his precious Blood for you you only shed Tears for your selves tho you labour under many Sorrows and have more Sins to strive against yet you have not resisted unto Blood yet you live still Vers 4. and may out-live all your Afflictions unless you make them mortal by your own peevishness which in themselves or rather in the hand of your best Physician are only medicinal and healthful And he hath told you as much if you have not forgotten the Exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto Children Vers 4. and assureth you of his fatherly Love and Tenderness when he makes you smart most under his correcting Hand My Son despise not thou the chastning of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him Be not stubborn against him nor insensible of his Displeasure for it is the chastning of the Lord who hath power and right to punish but yet be not too much dejected for he speaks you and deals with you not as Enemies nor Servants but as Children and plainly discovers his fatherly Tenderness even in these Exercises of his Lordly Dominion as it follows in the 6th 7th and 8th Verses of this Chapter For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastning God dealeth with you as with Sons for what Son is he whom the Father chastneth not but if ye be without Chastisement whereof all are Partakers then are ye Bastards and not Sons This Consideration if any methinks should ease our Hearts in Trouble and keep us from fainting under God's Rebukes viz. that his Chastisements are the Effects and Arguments of his Love and Good-will towards us at least-wise if we endure them as becometh Children with a dutiful Regret for the Sins the Faults that procured them and an humble Subjection to the Hand that inflicts them And that it is our Interest as well as our Christian Duty so to do our Apostle further demonstrates by a very argumentative Comparison in the words of my Text We have had Fathers of our Flesh and we gave them Reverence shall we not much rather be in Subjection unto the Father of Spirits and live We have had Fathers of our Flesh that is of our Body which consists for the most part of Flesh or Fathers of this Life which we now live in the Flesh a Life exercised with fleshly Instruments and maintained with fleshly Supplies these Fathers corrected and punished us as they saw occasion sometimes with-holding their Favours otherwhiles taking away our Toys and Vanities the Entertainments of our childish Affections sometimes threatning and otherwhiles laying on the Rod and we gave them Reverence we did not only take all patiently at present but stood in awe of them for the future honouring their Authority and fearing their Displeasure How much rather shall we be in Subjection unto the Father of Spirits that is the Father of our Souls God's immediate Off-spring or of our Spiritual Life and all that appertains more directly thereunto Shall we not much rather be in Subjection to this heavenly Father who is infinitely more excellent in himself in his Wisdom Power and Goodness who is the Author of our more noble part the Soul and upholds us in a better Being than that which we derive from our natural Parents and designs us a fruit and benefit of his Correction beyond the Confines of this World a happy Immortality after a troublesome dying Life which is implied in the last word of my Text Live Shall we not much rather be in Subjection to the Father of Spirits and live In the Words thus explained and paraphrased we have 1st A Duty implied or supposed the Submission of Children to their particular Parents 2dly A Duty expressed the Subjection of all Mankind but especially of Christians to the Vniversal Father 3dly The Preference of this Duty to the former 1. In respect of the Excellency and Superiority of Fatherhood 2. In regard of the End and Benefit of his Discipline 1st We are taught the Duty of Children's Submission to their immediate and proper Parents viz. That they ought to own and honour their Authority in their Corrections as well as in their Commands or Instructions We had Fathers of our Flesh who corrected us and we gave them Reverence that is we did well so to do 2dly By an Argument at least à pari from an Equality of Comparison we are taught that we ought to fear and honour our Common Father to be in Subjection to him because he is a Father too 3dly By an Argument in another respect à dispari from the less to the greater we are taught that we ought to be more subject to him 1. In regard of the Excellency and Superiority
of his Nature and his Relation to us Shall we not much rather be in Subjection unto the Father of Spirits 2. In regard of the End and Benefit of his Discipline which reacheth beyond the Interests of this present State and giveth Life and Happiness in another Shall we not rather be in Subjection unto the Father of Spirits and live I begin to speak something very briefly upon the Duty supposed viz. I. That Children ought to submit to the Corrections of their natural Parents They must neither sturdily shake off nor complain and droop too much under the Yoke but reverence their Authority in the harshest and most unpleasant Exercises thereof tempering Joy with Fear and pious Sorrow into a true Patience and seemly Moderation of Spirit equally bearing the Smiles and Frowns of their comforting and their chastning Love and overcoming those Evils by suffering to which they might not oppose an active Force For the Law of Nature and Nations as well as the Law of God in the fifth Commandment teach us the same that Ben-Sirach doth Ecclus. 3.2 The Lord hath given the Father Honour or Power over the Children and hath confirmed the Authority of the Mother over the Sons and therefore he exhorts Verse 8 Honour thy Father in thy Work and in thy Word in omni Patientia as it is in the Vulgar Latine in all Patience that is submit to his Animadversions and Chastisements and this the young Greek that Plutarch speaks of was taught in Zeno's School I have learned saith he patiently to bear my Father's Anger And indeed the Anger of a Father being not only the right of his Power and Place but for the most part the effect of his Love too Children are not to bear it only as a Burden but to receive it as a Blessing as a means to secure that their filial Obedience and Reverence to which God hath made so many and so ample Promises of Good even in this Life And the same Reasons of Subjection will hold if not improve in reverence to a more common Father the Governour of a larger Family yet in a sense the Father of our Flesh too and subordinate to the Father of Spirits as having a right to direct and rule our outward Deportment in order to a general Good and publick Peace though by a particular Grievance or personal Distress sometimes I mean the Father of our Country whom we must reverence even when he corrects and rules with Rigor and to whom we must be subject not only for Wrath or Fear but for Love and Interest yea for Conscience sake and by virtue of our Subjection unto the Father of Spirits who hath placed us only with a reserve for his own Prerogative under his Dominion and Jurisdiction But this minds me to proceed to the second Particular viz. to shew you II. That it is the Duty of all Mankind especially of us Christians to be in Subjection to God the common Father and chief of all the Tribes and Families Here I shall undertake to shew you 1. Wherein our Subjection to this Father doth consist And then 2. Confirm the Doctrine by Proof and Reason 1. Touching the nature and extent of this Subjection it must be of a vast Latitude not only exceeding broad as God's Commandments but as his Corrections too embracing every Law and kissing every Rod of his complying with all the Ends of his Providence so far as he is pleased to notify them to us being equally disposed to do and suffer his Will in one Instance as well as another without dispute or repining But in my Text it hath respect to the suffering part principally if not only to our bearing those Afflictious which God sends sometimes to humble us for our Sins past sometimes to check a growing Vice and otherwhile to prevent a future Vanity and Disorder of Life And I shall endeavour to shew you briefly 1. Wherein this Subjection doth not consist And 2. Positively wherein it doth 1. It doth not consist in choosing Affliction or bringing Trouble upon our selves when we may fairly avoid it Nor 2. In being insensible under it when it lights upon us 1. It doth not consist in chusing Affliction or expesing our selves to unnecessary Danger and Trouble Estius indeed renders it actively nonne subjiciemus nos ipsos shall we not subject our selves But then the meaning will not be that we should make or lay on our own Burdens but that we should bow and stoop to God's Impositions Seneca Epla 62. For Afflictions considered formally in themselves are Oppressions and Distresses of Nature and so evil and it is only the Grace Power and Providence of God that brings good out of them and makes them at any time profitable to us And therefore Tormenta à me abesse velim said the great Stoick himself I am not in love with Torments I do not desire Crosses Sed si sustinenda fuerint ut me in illis fortiter animose honestè geram opiabo but if they be imposed I will pray that I may bear them with an unbroken Spirit and a becoming Courage and Resolution And questionless though our Christian Religion best enableth us to undergo and and overcome all outward Troubles yet it furnisheth us as well with Wisdom to decline them when we may as with Strength and Fortitude to encounter their most violent Assaults A wise Man saith Soloman foresees a Danger and will do his best to avoid it Wherefore it was our Blessed Saviour's own Advice to his Disciples Mat. 10.17 23. to be wise as Serpents in this sense to keep out of harms way and to beware of Men that would deliver up to Counsels yea further in the 23d Verse of that Chapter When they persecute them in one City to flee to another Prov. 17.17 And Solomon had told the World long before or rather recorded it among his Proverbs as a profitable Result of common Observation and Experience A prudent Man seeth the Plague and hideth himself but the foolish Man goeth on still and is punished And again Blessed is he that feareth always saith the same wise King for Distrust is the Sinew of Wisdom Et bonum est timere omnia ut nihil timeamus It is good to fear all things that we may fear nothing that is a prudent Caution will set us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the reach and power of what we fear This Caution the Stoicks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A prudent declining of any hurtful thing And although to some this seems a distrust of God's Providence yet our Apostle assures us it may be an Act of Faith Heb. 11.23 in the foregoing Chapter By Faith Moses when he was born was hid three Months of his Parents to escape the Fury of Pbaraoh We who are at best but God's adopted Children who are what we are merely by his Grace and of our selves have no Sufficiency either to do or suffer as we ought may well pray with
searching our Hearts examining our Ways and considering the nature of it we endeavour to discover and reform that particular Vice for which God seems to rebuke and punish us It was a mark of Incorrigibleness and Ignominy in King Ahaz 2 Chron. 28.22 Jer. 5.3 that in the time of his Distress he sinned more and more and this the Prophet Jeremy laments as a greater Misery then the sorest Affliction in that People Thou hast smitten them Psal 107.3 but they have not grieved thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive Correction they have made their Faces harder than a Rock they have refused to return Whoso is wise Psal 94 12. and will observe these things whoso will take warning by these Directions and these Examples to repent of and reform the Evils and Errors of their Lives They shall understand the loving-Kindness of the Lord even under the shew of his Displeasure That as Tertullian speaks Foelix cui Deus dignatur irasci or rather in David's Language Blessed is the Man whom thou chastnest O Lord and teachest him in thy Law But of this more hereafter I have said as much as the time and the design of my Discourse would permit touching the nature of our Subjection to God's Chastnings I go forward to shew more fully for I have done it in part already that we ought to be so subject and why we ought to beso And because this is a large Field I shall confine my self both for Proof and Reasons to the words of my Text and the foregoing Verses of this Chapter and I doubt not but it will plainly appear that every Christian every adopted Child of God as well as the proper Son our blessed Saviour ought to learn Obedience by the things which he suffers and to shew his Obedience as much if not more in that than any other Instance as he did It is the design of the Holy Ghost in a great part of this Chapter and that foregoing to establish this Doctrine and commend it to our Practice I shall only suggest this to you for a further Confirmation and Commendation thereof viz. That the Chastnings and Afflictions which the Apostle here hath respect unto and which are to be born with so much Contentment and Submission were of a peculiar and extraordinary nature such as God hath never yet tried any of us withal Persecutions and cruel Usages the loss of Goods and good Name as we may infer from some Passages in the tenth Chapter of this Epistle as Cruel Mockings no doubt Scourgings Bonds Imprisonments as those we read of in the latter end of the eleventh Chapter and all for Righteousness sake for believing in Jesus and doing the Will of God Persecutions only short if short at all of those in the following Ages when Children were snatched out of the Arms of their pittiful Parents their Brains dashed out against the Stones before their Faces their best Friends buried in Fires or banished into strange places Such as these were the Primitive Persecutions such as these were the Losses Trials Chastnings the Apostle endeavours to fortify his Hebrews against and to support them under And by how much the less and more gentle our Sufferings are so much the more patiently and submissively ought we to bear them They perhaps might have been better allowed to weep Blood than we to shed Tears in regard of the greater smart and pressure of their Afflictions and therefore I shall hope that the Doctrine of the Text though applied more particularly to their Cases will have an equal if not a more effectual Influence upon ours to administer Strength Courage and Comfort to us in the more ordinary Calamities of our Lives the milder Corrections of the Father of Spirits And now we come to consider the Reasons of this our Subjection 1. The first of which is derived from the Equality of Comparison in my Text between our natural Parents and our spiritual Father If we are to reverence and submit to the one as such we are to do so to both and must be in Subjection unto the Father of Spirits because he is our Father It is an Argument which God himself useth by his Prophet Malachy Mal. 1.6 A Son honoureth his Father if I then be a Father where 's mine Honour where 's your child-like Deportment your chearful Submission to my Will You know 1. That a Father hath right and power to give Laws to and inflict Penalties on his own 2. He hath Kindness and Bowels to mitigate the Rigor of Law and to temper his Discipline according to the different Capacities and Infirmities of his Children When the Rod is in a Father's hand Love and Compassion have the Management of every Blow and it is said of God Psal 103.13 that he pitieth us as a Father pitieth his Son that serveth him And as a tender Father pitieth the sick Child most so doth He most commiserate us in our Distresses He so pitieth us as to succour us in our Troubles and in his due time when it is most for his Glory and our own Good to deliver us out of them according to that gracious Promise Psal 91.15 Psal 34.19 I will be with thee in Trouble to deliver thee Many are the Afflictions of the Righteous but God delivereth himout of them all This me-thinks should perswade us to a patient bearing of Afflictions because they are the Chastnings of a Father The Hand of an Enemy poisons the Wound but the Hand of a Father when it strikes drops Balsam his very Rods are bound up in Silk and Softness and he only wounds that he may heal he only launces and cuts to let out that Corruption which will not be carried off by any milder Method But 3. It is our Submission to his Corrections that maketh it appear that he is indeed our Father and we his Children our Subjection warrants and voucheth our Sonship Every Hypocrite will fawn upon God in Prosperity serve him when he can serve himself on him It is the Property of the true Christian to adhere to him when he suffers for so doing and to trust in him as Job did not only when he maketh an Hedg about us but when he layeth us waste when he spoils us of our Goods our Friends our Children our Health yea our own Lives For as the Valour of a Souldier is best seen in the Battel and the Skill of a Pilot in a Tempest Gubernatorem in tempestate in acie militem intelligas Sen. de provident so the Fortitude and Patience of a Christian is best descerned in Tribulation Until the Storms and Winds came the House built upon the Sand seemed to stand as firm and secure as that upon the Rock and give me leave by way of further Illustration to tell you Geranium noctu olens Lichuis noctiflora That Christian Virtue resembleth two remarkable Plants which I have sometimes taken special notice of one of which casts
a most fragrant strong Perfume in the Night and the other also of no less contrary Complexion to its fellows as if it rejoyced at what they mourn for the Sun 's setting is never seen to blow and shew its Flowers before the Evening I am sure the true Christian's Graces are most illustrious and conspicuous in the dark yea his Light ariseth out of Darkness and when the Sun of his outward Comforts is eclipsed or set his inward Worth and Glory breaks forth as the Noon-day And suitable to our purpose Lib. de Providentia prospera in plebem ac vilia ingenia deveniunt at Calamitates Terroresque mortalium sub jugum mittere proprium magni viri est Ibid Sen. Ep. 13. is what the Wisdom of that sage Heathen Seneca observed Magnum exemplum nisi mala fortuna non invenit that none have been so eminently and exemplarily virtuous as those that have been signally unfortunate and he instanceth in Socrates and declares that the Trial of his Constancy and Equanimity by a violent suffering of Death made him a truly great Man Circuta magnum Socratem fecit Affliction indeed is no certain sign of God's Favour and paternal Love but the willing Susception and the chearful bearing of the Cross is the express Condition and the peculiar Character of our Christianity of our spiritual Sonship or new Birth unto Righteousness And therefore before those Errours and Corruptions which we properly call Popery had invaded the Church the Figure of the Cross was assumed for the Badg of their Profession and the Ensign of their Spiritual Warfare the Pledg of their constant adherence to a crucified Saviour as it is used by us at this day in the Office of Baptism Hence it is that many good Men have petitioned for Crosses as thinking them the necessary Attestations of their Sonship and means of Assimilation unto their Elder Brother But we are under a stronger Obligation still to be in Subjection to our Father which is in Heaven because 4. He is not only the Father of our Flesh for in and by him we live move and have our natural Being and from his Blessing we derive all the Comforts of it but he is the Father of our Spirits too and that by a more immediate Generation Upon which account he hath 1. A more absolute Dominion over us And 2. An infinitely more perfect Love and Kindness for us than our natural Parents have Which brings me to my thrid and last Point viz. III. That we ought to be more subject unto him than to them How much rather shall we be in Subjection unto the Father of Spirits and live How much rather shall we be in Subjection to him 1. In regard of the Excellency of his Nature and the Absoluteness of his Dominion 2. In regard of the Excellency of his Nature which is purely spiritual nothing of Flesh or Frailty in him who is not only a Spirit but the Father of Spirits of Angels and the Souls of Men the most noble and refined Beings and therefore must needs have an infinite Fulness if I may so express it and Perfection of Spirit in himself infinite Power Wisdom Justice and Mercy and therefore the highest degrees of Reverence of Love and Fear are due to his Supremacy of Nature and as a consequent of this to his right of Soveraignty and rule over us Job 25.2 Mal. 1.6 Dominion and Fear are with thee Fear as the result and tribute of Dominion If I be a Master where is my Fear Shall we not pay that Homage to the Father of the whole Creation to the Soveraign Master of all the World which the Subjects of Families and Kingdoms upon Earth yield willingly to their respective Lords Nay shall not the degrees of our Obedience and Submission bear some Proportion to the Pre-eminency of the Divine Power and Authority When the Question is put Whom we should rather obey or be in Subjection to the Fathers of our Flesh Psal 76.12 the Father of our Country or the Father of our Spirits who cuts off the Spirit of Princes St. Austin's Rule is a safe Direction Non debet minor Potestas irasci si major praelata sit and we must stand most in awe of him that hath the greatest Power and Right of Rule And that God hath so will easily appear 1. Because his Dominion is Original in and from himself all other is derivative dependent and subordinate Our Parents are his Children and our King his Subject Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis or in the Psalmist Phrase he is terrible to the Kings of the Earth 2. His Dominion is Absolute no mixed no limited Monarchy Though we have a saying that the King rules us and the Law guides him yet the Supream Lord is not under any controul or any conduct either but that of his own infinite Wisdom and Goodness he doth both in Heaven and Earth Psal 99.5 whatsoever pleaseth himself and ought to please his Subjects too But whether it pleaseth us or no God will assert his own Dominion The Lord will still be King be the People never so impatient It will therefore concern us as well in point of Prudence as of Duty never to rebel against that Power which we cannot subdue but with an humble dereliction of our own Wills to acquiesce in his or in the Psalmist's Phrase Psal 46.10 to be still and know that he is God and will maintain his Prerogative 3. His Dominion is universal and he reigns over all he is Lord of the whole Creation the great and little World and of each part of Man of the Soul and Spirit which is his Creature or rather his Child by a peculiar Participation of his Nature 1. He gives Laws to our Thoughts Desires and Affections which are exempt from Human Jurisdiction and can punish their secret Disorders For 2. Such is his Soveraignty over the Spirit of Man that he can break into the Soul's last Resort and strongest Hold where no other Enemy can enter and wound where the longest Sword of Tyrannical Persecutors cannot reach He can by an invisible Dart secret Arrow of his Indignation shoot into the very Heart and give a Wound in the Spirit which none can bear He can in an instant move that sence of Guilt which will attach and arrest the Conscience and make Desolation a there where our chief Support and Comforts dwell The most enraged and malicious Persecutors can only kill that which would otherwise die of it self But there is no Man hath Power over the Spirit saith Solomon Eccles 8.8 God alone is thus mighty in Strength and who hath hardned his Heart saith Job who hath stood out Job 9.4 and rebelled against him and prospered 3. He hath the Power of Life and Death which the Fathers of our Flesh have not The Father's Power consisteth most especially in these two Points in punishing and chastizing the Children for their smaller Faults and disinheriting
there is no Good in this Life which is not either tempered with some present Evil or followed with some evil Effects and Inconveniencies according to that of Pliny the younger in his incomparable Panegyrick Habet has vices conditio mortalium ut adversa ex secundis ex secundis adversa nascantur Such is the changeable State of us Sejourners upon Earth that our Comforts breed Crosses and what we reap in Joy was first sowed in Tears This is another good End of God's chastning us to wean our Affections from this World while we live in it and to reconcile us to Death our last Enemy and to make us willing to follow our Friends into another World who could not stay with us here and from whom we cannot there be separated I say me-thinks we should not be very fond of such a Life either for our selves or those we love best which is not only so short that it cannot be kept long but withal so full of Trouble that it is hardly worth the keeping nor by consequence to dote on a flattering World which is so little to be enjoyed and its Enjoyments so very full of vexatious Mixtures 6. Lib. de providentiâ Besides that particular and personal Good which God designeth us in our Chastisements he reacheth the Benefit of our Example to others and teacheth them Patience and Constancy by our Subjection to his Fatherly Discipline Seneca speaks it of good Men in their Sufferings Nati sunt in Exemplar they are born to be Patterns to others And we are advised in this Chapter to consider our Saviour's Endurance for the fortifying of our selves the Confirmation of our Courage and Patience lest we be wearied and faint in our Minds Christ suffered for us 1 Pet 2.21 saith St. Peter leaving us an Example that we should follow his Steps 7. God designs a future Good in our present Chastisements and the Prevention of a greater Evil than that which now oppresseth us The Father of Spirits regardeth principally their Interest and if he grieve them here it is that he may spare them the better hereafter When we are judged 1 Cor. 11.32 we are chastned of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World And indeed what can afford us so firm and solid a Support under all our Losses and Crosses all our Disappointments and Calamities of this Life as the comfortable Assurance and Expectation of a blessed Immortality You have heard that the Father of Spirits projects many Benefits and Advantages to us in those Afflictions which seem most to express his Displeasure and that we ought to receive them chearfully at his hand as the Medicines of our Soul and the Seasonings of our Fortune as the Incentives of our Devotion and the Instruments Polishers and Discoverers of our Vertue but that which will enable us not only to bear the Cross with Patience but with Triumph and to glory in Tribulations as the Apostle speaks is the Presage of future Joy and that well-grounded Hope of Glory which they excite in our Souls So that in regard of this great and last Benefit of our Sufferings I may forbear any further Perswasions to Patience and leave you under the Command and Compulsion of so prevailing a Motive as your own Eternal Life and Happiness If there are other very good Reasons as you have heard derived from the Power and Goodness of God this may supersede them all How much rather shall we be in Subjection to the Father of Spirits and live Live longer and more comfortably in this World live for ever in an Eternity of Health and Happiness in the next Now the God of all Grace who hath called us to his Eternal Glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect stablish strengthen settle you To him be Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen FINIS