and Debaucheries Hast thou a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is thy Body turned black and sallow and thy beauty faded 't is probably occasioned by a too great delight and content in admiring the excellency of thy frail Complexion Hast thou a Paralysis is the use of thy Limbs taken from thee 't is Sin is the cause perhaps thy Hands have been shut to the Poor or thy Feet swift to shed Blood or to walk in the paths of ungodliness Sin therefore is not the object of a rational man's Choice because it is the Souls Sickness and the sourse of all bodily Distempers and Diseases Seventhly Sin is not a sit Object to be elected because it is the unhappy parent of Temporal Spiritual and Eternal Death By Sin Death entred into the World Rom. 5. 12. Death is the Child of sin not of Nature Nay it destroys our Souls as well as our Bodies The Soul that sinneth shall dye the death of Nature and the death of Grace Sin occasion'd both and not only so but the death that never dies is sins Wages 't is Sin keeps in the fire of Hell to all Eternity that lays on those everlasting torments prepared for the Devil and his Angels 't is sin that not only feeds the Worm with our Bodies but the never-dying worm with our Souls likewise it kindles the slames of Lust here in our hearts and blows the coals in Hell to torment both our bodies and souls to eternal Ages and who can dwell with everlasting burnings Lastly Sin is not the object of a rational Man or good Christians Choice if put in the ballance with Afflictions and that is the last Branch of the Thesis which I laid down at the beginning of my Discourse occasioned by Elihu's Reprehension of Job under the notion of chusing wickedness rather than sufferings and this I shall demonstrate briefly and plainly and make Application to our selves My Position is this without any Equivocation it is the property of a good Man to chuse the greatest Affliction before the least Sin or there is more evil in one sin than in all whatsoever Suffering This appears in ten Particulars 1. Sin separates from God but Affliction not 2. Affliction is not Sin is evil in its self 3. A sinful state cannot but an afflicted may consist with the love of God 4. The evil of Suffering is but momentany of Sin everlasting 5. We are called to Suffering commanded by Christ to take up our Cross and to follow him but not called to sin 6. The end of Suffering is glory of Sin shame 7. By suffering we lose some outward good by Sin the soul 8. Suffering speaks our conformity to Christ Sin to the Devils 9. God is the Author of Affliction not of Sin Lastly Afflictions may be good if sanctified to us but not Sins I shall not observe a strict order as to every one of these Heads but single out the chiefest and most useful for a mixt Audience 1. To chuse Affliction is a hard choice for Affliction is not good in its self but however it may be useful to us happy is the man that endureth temptations and chastnings the Scripture speaks in many places but happy is the man that commits Iniquity hath not the patronage of one single Text David could say upon tryal Psal 119. 71. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy Statutes but he never said It is good for me that I have sinned unlearned thy Precepts or broke thy Commandments David pleased himself in being afflicted but not in thinking he had sinned as is visible enough in his seven Penitential Psalms and particularly if we compare the 2 Sam. 10. chap. 11. ver with Psalm 51. we shall find David reckoning his sins as the 1 2 3. greatest punishment in all the World David did not first pray that his House might be delivered from the fury of the Sword or that his Wives might not be violated before his face his Children might not be Rebells the good man passed by these things as temporal and trivial punishments but he cries upon his Sins his Sins his Sins three times in a breath Psal 51. 1. as so many haunting Devils that disturbed his rest When Paul of a Persecutor became a persecuted Apostle and was delivered from his sins he was immediately so ravished with the love of his deliverer and the joy of his deliverance that he cared not to be delivered from any misery besides he even gloried in tribulation as very useful both to exercise and feed his patience as Rom. 5. 3. Acts 21. 13. he was ready not to be bound only but dye for the Lord Jesus Sickness and Plunder Banishment and Bonds and every kind of Persecution are heavy burthens to the Flesh but light being wighed in the ballance with the pressures and miseries of Sin and Wickedness when God the Father of Spirits afflicts his Sons and Daughters he doth it that they may be partakers of his Holiness as Heb. 12. 10 11. but Sin is the sting of all afflictions 't is the suffering as Evil doers that keeps men from being Martyrs but they are happy who suffer in a good cause for even hereunto are ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that we should tread in his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his lips Moses well understood himself when he chose rather to be afflicted with the people of God than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Heb. 11. 25. So the old Martyrs Will you have a Prison or deny your Saviour and your Lord Will you burn in this fire or commit that Idolatrous Act Will you dye by a Halter or forsake the Faith Oh say they give us Prisons Fires Axes Gibbets Wheels Lyons all the Torments invented by Men or Devils rather than we will comply with Sin and Wickedness This is a Point necessary in all but especially these Times wherein men boast of a Zeal for God but not according to Knowledge and seek to avoid future possible Afflictions by present unlawful Actions As in the Duke of York's Case no man that understands the Scriptures and will not suffer his Reason by passion to be ecclipsed can believe it lawful by Gods Laws to bar any man of his Right of Succession to a Crown of all temporal Rights the greatest to avoid future probable Inconveniences in Sacred and Civil Administrations nor do I believe that any the framers of this Bill would think it a piece of Justice to have their Children or in default of Issue their Brethren in the flesh thus debar'd of their Rights for different modes of Worship from what is now Legally Established That which is simply evil may not for any good be done the Case we are now upon if Saint Paul or the Holy Ghost speaking by him understood the Christian Religion 't is not lawful to tell an officious Lye for the glory of God as Job 13. 7.
and if you will pardon my hasty Conceptions I resolve to speak what is very Plain Innocent and Honest consonant with the primitive rule of Reforming and preservng Churches recommended by Christ and his Apostles and their immediate and best Successors First Sin is not the object of a Rational man's choice considered either in its self or Consequences 1. Not with respect to its self for it is de numero ineligibilium as the Schools speak There is no Form nor Beauty in it that we should desire it Election is the act of the Will whose adequate object is good and so Sin which is malum in se evil in its self cannot be properly said to be elected hence it comes to pass that such who have not their Senses exercised to discern between Good and Evil chuse Sin by a mistake thinking it to be good putting light for darkness and darkness for light Isaiah 5. 20. thus Saint Paul rather Saul before he was Converted verily thought with himself that he ought to doe many things against Jesus of Nazareth and Christ tells his Disciples that some that Kill'd them by a mistaken zeal should think they did an acceptable service unto God thus Iniquity in practice passeth for Duty and Error in opinion for Truth and Evil is chosen sub ratione boni not for its own sake but under the notion of being at least seemingly good Others chuse Sin that good may come thereof that God may have glory or themselves advantage by it This was objected against St. Paul and his Doctrine which in great Disdain he rejected not as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say Let us doe evil that good may come whose damnation is just Rom. 3. 8. Others chuse evil to escape Danger by it elect the evil of Sin to avoid thereby the evil of punishment So Demas resolving to sleep in a whole skin and not to be persecuted for Christs sake forsook St. Paul and imbraced the present world now in all these three respects whether Sin be chosen under the notion of good by a mistake or that good may come thereof or that Danger be escaped by it each of these single and much more united are a clear demonstration that Sin is not eligible for its self Sin indeed is the worst of any thing that is enemy to God or man it is very much worse than Hell not only as its cause or parent but considered in its self for Hell is good for something even to glorifie God's Justice but Sin serves only to abuse his grace and goodness Hell was of God's making Sin of the Devil 's Nay God made Hell as well to terrifie men from coming there as to punish the willful intruders into that place of torments And hence the chief end of Christs taking our flesh was to save us from our sins our worst kind of enemies Hence in Scripture when God is said to be angry to the highest pitch the stile runs thus I will give him up that is filthy to be filthy still I will choose your delusions give them over to their iniquities so that were there no Hell 't were in this sense a kind of Damnation to be sinners Of all sorts of punishments sin it self is the greatest and so not the proper object in its self of a Rational mans or true Christians choice Secondly As Sin is not to be chosen in and for its self so neither with respect tothe Consequences thereof The first and most immediate fruit of Sin is ignorance man was first tempted by the promise of Knowledge and fell into darkness by believing the Devil holding forth his new lights Adam and Eve knew what was good before the Devil promised them the knowledge of evil and had they not imbraced this temptation they had continued in their happiness This knowledge of evil was the introduction of ignorance the Understanding being baffled the Will became foolish and both conspired to ruine each other for the Will beginning to love Sin the Understanding was set on work to commend and advance it and so became both Factious in approving their new miserable Purchase for ever since Adam and Eve yielded to the Tempter who told them they should be as Gods in knowledge Man hath a double disadvantage for the Devil is hence grown more quick-sighted to abuse us and we the more blind by his opening of our eyes as is sufficiently manifest by the prevalence of Atheism and Idolatry in the world than which nothing can be more ridiculous occasioned originally by the Fall of our first Parents from their native paradise A second effect of Sin is Shame which is an immediate consequence of all sort of wickedness what fruit had you then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed Rom. 6. 21. We see the truth of this by a too sad Experience what Arguments what Preaching what Necessity can perswade men to confess their sins how do men chuse to involve Sin in excuses and denials in the clouds of Lying and the white Linnen of Hypocrisie to shew that a mans spirit is amazed and his face confounded when he is dressed of so shameful Disease It was the unhappy Patrimony which our first Ancestors bequeathed us first to Sin and then to be ashamed of our selves and Actions The woman which thou gavest me said Adam charging his sin upon God The Serpent beguiling me said Eve imputing it to the Devil both betraying the nakedness of their Souls as well as bodies and proportionably making Aprons of Excuses as well as Leaves And you may read the Character of the Parents in the Childrens foreheads for Shame makes us as backward to reveal our sins as we are forward to confess our Sicknesses and less desirous to trust God with the diseases of our Souls than the Physician with those of our Bodies None will own sin amongst all its acquaintance If a man pursue Vengeance he will Christen it Justice he that hates another mans person pretends enmity to his sins and the theft of Rachell shelters its self under the modesty of her sex Genesis 30. 34 35. he that designs to play the Devil first personates the Saint and Rebells call themselves the people of the Lord thus Sacriledge and Schism are a godly thorough Reformation popular Fury is Zeal Obstinacy against Laws tenderness of Conscience Treason and Nonsence praying by the Spirit to dye in Rebellion a glorious Martyrdom and the madness of the Commons against the King and the Priests is courage in the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ oppression of our brethren Subjects calls its self a High Court of Justice and such as seize our Estates were the Keepers of our Liberties and Doctors Elders and Deacons the only Sceptre of Christ and to avoid Arbitrary Government we kneel at the bar of our fellow-Subjects and are imprison'd for new unheard of Crimes to preserve our Properties and Privileges A clear Argument that Sin dares not appear in its own colours
and that Shame is its never failing consequence and so ineligible in both respects Absalon's Rebellion was covered over with a fit of Devotion one Herod murthers with worshipping the blessed Babe and another Herod strikes off the Baptists Head to avoid being perjur'd Saul excused his sin by bringing it to the Altar and the worst of men incarnate Devils of whom St. Paul speaks 2 Timoth. 3. chap. from the 2. to the 7. ver had a form of godliness Now were Sin an eligible thing the proper object of a rational Choyce what need were there of excuses or denials after the commission of any wickedness or giving it glorious or borrowed titles to cover its deformities And so Sin is not to be chosen either for its self or with respect to its immediate fruits or consequences Thirdly Sin is not the object of a rational Mans or true Christians choice because every way opposite to all Gods glorious Attributes and his very Being and Essence If we consider Gods sovereignty Sin is Rebellion if his Justice it is Iniquity if his Goodness sin is Unkindness If God's holiness and pureness Sin is defilement Consider God's holiness as a Rule Sin is a Transgression if as an Excellency Sin is Deformity Thus it is contrary to the whole nature of God and strikes at his Attributes and Essence As God is every way in himself good so Sin is evil in its self and good in no respect and as God is to be loved for himself because the chiefest good so Sin is to hated for it self The holy Ghost could not call it by a worse name than its self as Rom. 7. 13. Sin that it might appear sin and Sin by the commandment appeared exceeding sinful Again God is the great reward of himself and Sin the punishment of its self Dyametrically opposite We are hereby enemies to God Coloss 1. haters of God Rom. 1. 30. Sin is contrary to the glory of God essential and manifestative it denies the glory due to God Rom. 1. 21. Titus 1. 16. despiseth and reproacheth his glory and misimployes it by giving it to men to our selves or to the Devil as they who told our Saviour that he cast out Devils by Belzeebub Sin wrongs God in his very Nature and Being as Psal 14. 1. every sinner wisheth there were no God and saith it in his heart as David observeth Upon each of these Heads I might insist very largely but to avoid trespassing on your patience I pass to the following particulars Fourthly Sin is the transgression of God's Laws and so not the object of a Christians Choice In the Law there is a Rectitude every thing in God's Commands is just and right Sin is crookendness the Law teacheth wisdom Sin is folly and the Wicked man a fool and both in Scripture and very frequent in the Proverbs made convertible terms God's Commands are pure Sin is filthiness Rom. 7. 12. there is liberty in the Law James 2. 8. Sin is a bondage 2 Timothy 2. 26. the keeping of the Law brings a reward but Sin shame and death Rom. 6. 22 23. but that which aggravates the sinfulness of Sin upon this account is that it is the transgression of such Laws as are not grievous 1. Laws reasonable and suitable to our nature and advantageous to our interest 2. Such Laws as the Author of which hath given us sufficient power and strength if not wanting to our selves for the performance 3. Such Laws by obedience to which we arrive at an Eternity of happiness 1. The Laws of God of which Sin is a transgression are reasonable suitable to our Nature and advantageous to our Interest He hath shewed thee O Man what is good and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to doe Justice and love Mercy and walk humbly with thy God This is the summ of the natural Law that we behave our selves reverently and obediently to the divine Majesty and justly and Charitably towards men and for the better discharge of both to govern our selves in sensual delights with Temperance and Moderation and what is there grievous in all this That we inwardly reverence and love God and express it by external worship and our readiness to obey his will revealed testifie our dependance on him in all Dangers and Wants by offering up to him our constant Prayers and Supplications and acknowledge our obligations by continual Praises and Thanksgivings for all his mercies to entertain of God no unworthy thoughts nor give to others that honour and reverence which is only sutable to his Excellence and Perfections carefully to avoid the prophanation of his Name and take heed of the neglect and contempt of his Worship or any thing belonging to it this is the first part of Natural Religion the generals of those Duties which every mans reason tells him he owes to God and here thus far there is nothing commanded but what agrees very well with the reason of Mankind As for the six last precepts of the Decalogue relating to the good order and government of our Selves with respect to our selves Equals Inferiours or Superiours these are such Laws as tend to our own peace and the happiness of humane Socieites and as expounded in Christ's Sermon on the Mount nothing more can be devised for the welfare of Mankind by sweetning their Spirits and allaying their Passions and Animosities 2. The Author of those Laws of which Sin is the Transgression hath not left us destitute of Strength or Power for performance 't is true We have Contracted a great deal of Weakness by our wilful Degeneracy from goodness but that grace which the Gospel offers to us for our Assistance is sufficient for us greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world 1 John 4. 4. and if so then it clearly followeth that such as apply themselves seriously to Religion and yield themselves tractable to good Motions will find the Spirit of God more ready and active for their Incouragement than the Devil to pull them back unless we think God hath given a greater power and a larger commission to the Devil to doe us mischief than to his holy Spirit and his holy Angels to doe us good which were Blasphemy to assert and the calling in question the goodness of God Some say we cannot keep the Commandments and its true of our selves as of our selves we are not able to think a good thought much less to doe a good work As of our selves Note that for the same Apostle saith I can doe all things through Christ that strengtheneth me and these two must be reconciled we cannot and we can keep the Commandments that is we cannot of our selves but we can through Christ that strengthens us and whose grace is never wanting to us unless we are wanting to our selves To say we cannot keep the Commandments without adding Saint Paul's Comment as of our selves I look upon as a Crude position incourageing Idleness for God inquestionably offers us
Will ye speak wickedly for God or talk deceitfully for him If not for the glory of God then not for an inferiour End not for the saving of a Life or the peace of a State Nay as Anselm Austin and others observe we should rather hazard the Salvation of mankind than commit a sin to save it If St. Paul say true and 't is hard to say he does not Damnation is due to such as do a present evil upon the prospect of a future good Rom. 3. 8. Suppose there were Presidents to justifie a Bill of this nature by the Laws of England shall humane Laws evacuate the Laws of God How often hath Jack-Presbyter the framer of that Bill pleaded that God must be obeyed rather than man c. Let him stand to his own Argument or give a Reason for the why not 't is strange to me that men calling themselves Protestants can be guilty of such Votes as these which are disowned by the true Protestant Religion by Law established in this best of Reformed Churches I am neither Papist nor Popishly affected but I assert a true Protestant Principle founded on Holy Writ that Sin is not to be elected if there be no other expedient left to avoid being Persecuted As for the distinction which some make that we may not do evil that good may come that is not for a private good end but we may for a publique benefit I have not so learned Christ I thank God and I desie the Jesuitical and Presbyterian Brotherhood to give me one Scripture Text or any one sound Reason to justifie that Distinction aforesaid and till that be done let the lawful Successor be Zealot for the interest either of Kirk or Conclave as I will not reade Mass nor swallow the Covenant so I will not Rebell against the Ordinance of God but leave God to govern his own World Who restrains the spirit of Princes and is wonderful among the Kings of the earth God who turns the hearts of Kings as the rivers of Water as it pleaseth himself the God who remembers mercy in his wrath and punisheth less than our sins deserved and this was the judgment and practice of the Saints and Churches Apostolically Primitive A Parisian Masacre a Guiscan League a Powder Treason a Covenant Reformation a Spanish Inquisition House and an English High Court of Justice the fighting for Reformation and bidding Defiance to Heaven by whom Kings reign these are Abominations so scandalous and Antichristian as do non-plus Hyperbolies and silence Invention and next to these there is scarce any thing more Criminal than the equally sinful and ridiculous Bill against the Succession of his Royal Highness in case he survive the King to the Crown and Sceptre of this Nation I wish the King may out-live his Brother and put a Period to this Question but I believe the framers of that Bill had a farther Design than the Dukes person and am clearly of opinion that there is both a Popish Plot and a Presbyterian one at this time against the Church or the King or both in Conjunction and hath been more or less so ever since the Reformation and I am heartily sorry that since Papists and Presbyterians call themselves Christians that by their Seditious Principles and Actions they should rather seem Proselytes to Mahomet the Victorious than to the Humble Innocent and Persecuted Jesus and yet that the latter Saints should be so far insensible of this as to call all that will not concur with them in their actions Tantyvies and Tories and French Pensioners is very insolently Ridiculous 2. Afflictions are the Exercises of our Graces as Faith Patience Humility and Charity in which Christ in his life who was a man of Sorrows and acquainted with Griefs was pleased to be exemplary to us and we should and ought to look up to this Jesus who endured the Cross c. Heb. 12. 2. 't is an excellent Expression of Charles the Martyr to his Son our Sovereign this advantage you have above other Princes that you have begun and now spent some years in the experience of Troubles and exercise of Patience wherein Piety and all Vertues are commonly better planted to a thriving as Trees set in Winter than in the warmth and serenity of Times He gives instance in David and Rehoboam the one prepared by many Afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom the other unsoftned by the unparallel'd prosperity of the Court of Solomon and this is indeed the great advantage of Afflictions above earthly Greatness that this last makes us Proud and Insolent and to say who is the Lord and by the other our graces are exercised and increased Ye have heard of the patience of Job saith St. James but we had never heard of any such thing but for his afflictions and we have heard of Job saith though he kill me yet will I trust in him but this was the fruit of his patience in suffering St. Stephen's Charity had never been upon Record for our imitation but for his Persecution Had the old Army of Martyrs took up Arms against their Emperors being Heathens instead of being Patient and Charitable and Humble and Meek like men that understood Christ's Religion they had neither been Presidents to us nor found for themselves a place in Heaven The assaults of Affliction may be terrible like Sampson's Lyon but they yield much sweetness to those who can encounter and overcome who know how to out-live the witherings of their Gourds without Discontent or Peevishness whilst they may yet converse with God as the Royal Martyr Charles the First rarely expresseth it 3. Afflictions wean us from the World and bring us nearer to God and Sin makes us earthly minded and makes a separation between God and us The sufferings of the Saints are the summ of Christian Philosophy they are sent to wean us from the vanities and affections of this World and create in us strong desires after Heaven whilst God here treates us rudely that we may long to be in our Country where God shall be our Portion and Angels our Companions and Christ our perpetual Feast and never ceasing Joy the entertainment of all injured and patient Sufferers Oh Death how bitter art thou to a man that is at ease and rest in his Possessions but he that is uneasy in his Body and unquiet in his Fortunes vexed in his Person and discompos'd in his Designs who here finds no pleasure or rest he will be glad and rejoice to fix his heart where he shall have the full of his desires and what can only make him partaker of real Happiness As long as the waters of Persecution are upon the earth the Allusion is pardonable I conceive so long we dwell in the Ark but where the Land is dry the Dove its self will be tempted to a wandring course of life and never return to her house of safety this blessed effect afflictions had upon Job in making him bid adieu to the World Naked came