God of admirable Wisdom by whom are weighed not only the actions but also the spirits of Men and their very hearts pondered neither is there any thing that may escape his Enquiry Trust not therefore to vain excuses for certainly thy heart shall be throughly sifted and thy pretensions narrowly looked into when he taketh the matter into his consideration Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it The next step is for Deprehension or Conviction and that grounded upon his knowledg or Omniscience And he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it As if he had said Thou mayest by colourable pretences delude Men who are strangers to thy soul and cannot discern the thoughts and intents of the heart But there is no dissembling before him unto whose eyes all things are naked and open nor is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight He that made thy soul at the first and hath ever since kept it and still keepeth it observing every motion and inclinatinon of it he perfectly knoweth all that is in it and if there be any hidden guile in any secret corner of it tho obscured from Man's search by never so many windings and labyrinths yet he will undoubtedly find it out He that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it 3. The last step is for Retribution and that grounded upon his justice And shall not he render to every Man according to his Works As if he had said If mortal Man was to decide the Matter thou mightest have some hope that time and other means that might be used might frame him to thine own bent either to connive at a gross fault or to admit of a slender excuse But God is a most righteous Iudg not to be wrought upon by any artifice to do iniquity or to accept the persons of Men. According therefore as thy works are so without all question shall thy doom be Shall not the Iudg of all the World do right And shall not he render to every Man according to his Works 6. Thus you see the Text opened and therewithal opened a large field of matter if we should beat out every particular But that we may keep within some reasonable bounds and within the time we will hold us to these three principal points or conclusions First That the several excuses before mentioned as supposed to be pointed at in the Text may be sometimes pleaded justly and reasonably and in such case are to be admitted and allowed Secondly That they may be also all of them and are God knoweth too often pretended where there is no just cause for it Thirdly That where they are causlesly pretended tho they may blear the eyes of Men yet will they be of little avail in the sight of God Of each of these in the order as I have now proposed them and first of the first If thou sayest Behold we know it not 7. Questionless if that Allegation could never be just Solomon would wholly and absolutely have rejected it Which since he hath not done but referred it to judgment we may conclude there are times and cases wherein it will be allowed as a good and sufficient plea if it shall be said Behold we knew it not We esteem it the Fool 's Buckler and it is no better as it is many times used to say Non putâram Yet may a right honest and wise Man without the least blemish to his reputation be sometimes driven to take up the very same buckler and to use his own just defence When he is charged with it as his crime that his brother hath been oppressed and he hath not delivered him be he a private Man or be he a publick Minister of Justice it will sufficiently acquit him both in the Judgment of God and of his own heart and of all reasonable Men if he can say bonâ fide as it is in the Text Behold I knew it not The truth whereof I shall endeavour to make appear to you in each of the three forementioned respects First Men may want due information for matter of Fact or secondly Their judgments may be in suspence for point of right or Thirdly Where they perfectly comprehend both the whole business and the equity of it there may lie such rubs in the way as all the power and skill they have will not be able to avoid so that tho the cause be good they cannot tell for their lives which way to do good in it In any of which cases may they not well say Behold we knew it not 8. First They may want information for matter of Fact Not to speak of things farther off which therefore less concern us of those things that are done amongst them that live under us or near us how many passages are there that never come to our knowledg Much talk there is indeed in all our meetings and much bold censuring of the actions of those that are above us at every table Yet much of this we take up but upon trust and the credit of flying reports which are ever full of uncertainty and not seldom of malice and so we run descant upon a false ground But as for the affairs of them that are below us whereon especially the Duty of the Text is to be exercised other than what we chance to hear of obiter and by imperfect or partial relations very little thereof is brought to our ears by way of just complaint or according to pure truth And of all Men the greatest are sure evermore to know the least It is one of the unhappinesses of Princes and Magistrates and all that are in high place that whereas all their speeches and actions are upon the publick Stage exposed to the view and censure of the very meanest as a Beacon on the top of a hill open to every eye and bleak to every wind themselves on the contrary can have very little true information of those abuses and disorders in their Inferiors which it properly belongeth to them both to punish and reform If in private Families which being of a narrow compass are therefore easily looked into the Masters commonly be the last that shall hear of what is amiss therein Dedecus ille domus sciet ultimus how much more then is it improbable in a great Township in a spacious County in a vast Kingdom but that manifold â—usances and injuries should escape the knowledg of the most vigilant and conscionable Governors When both Court and City and the whole Empire rang of wanton Livia's impudent lasciviousness and Messalina's audacious courtings of Silius the Emperors themselves Augustus Father to the one and Claudius Husband to the other heard nothing of either till the news was stale every where else Principes omnia facilius quam sua cognoscunt saith the Historian concerning the one and the Satyrist concerning the other Dum res Nota urbi populo contigat Caesaris aures And no doubt but many pious and
of God's Will and Power with subordinate Agents in every and therefore even in sinful actions God's free Election of those whom he purposeth to save of his own grace without any motives in or from themselves the immutability of God's Love and Grace towards the Saints Elect and their certain perseverance therein unto Salvation the Iustification of sinners by the imputed righteousness of Christ apprehended and applyed unto them by a lively faith without the works of the Law These are sound and true and if rightly understood comfortable and right profitable Doctrines And yet they of the Church of Rome have the forehead I will not say to slander my Text alloweth more to blaspheme God and his Truth and the Ministers thereof for teaching them Bellarmine Gretser Maldonat and the Jesuits but none more than our own English Fugitives Bristow Stapleton Parsons Kellison and all the Rabble of that Crew freely spend their mouths in barking against us as if we made God the author of sin as if we would have men sin and be damned by a Stoical fatal necessity sin whether they will or no and be damned whether they deserve it or no as if we opened a gap to all licentiousness and profaneness let them believe it is no matter how they live Heaven is their own cock-sure as if we cryed down good works and condemned charity Slanders loud and false yet easily blown away with one single word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These imputations upon us and our Doctrine are unjust but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let them that thus mis-report us know that without repentance their damnation will be just It would be time not ill spent to discover the grounds of this observation and to press the uses of it something fully But because my aim lyeth another way I can but point at them and pass If seldom Truth scape unslandered marvel not the reasons are evident On God's part on Man's part on the Devil's part God suffereth Man raiseth and the Devil furthereth these slanders against the Truth To begin ordine retrogrado and to take them backwards First on the Devil's part a kind of Contrariety and Antipathy betwixt him and it He being the Father of Lyes and Prince of darkness cannot away with the Truth and with the Light and therefore casteth up slanders as Fogs and Mists against the Truth to bely it and against the Light to darken it Secondly on Mans part And that partly in the understanding when the judgment either of it self weak or else weakned through precipitancy prejudice or otherwise is deceived with fallacies instead of substance and mistaketh seeming inferences for necessary and natural deductions Partly in the Will when men of corrupt minds set themselves purposely against the known truth and out of malicious wilfulness against the strong testimony of their own hearts slander it that so they may disgrace it and them that profess it Partly in the Affections when men overcome by carnal affections are content to cheat their own souls by giving such constructions to God's Truth as will for requital give largest allowance to their practices and so rather choose to crooken the Rule to their own bent than to level themselves and their affections and lives according to the Rule Thirdly on God's part who suffereth his own truth to be slandered and mistaken Partly in his Iustice as a fearful judgment upon wicked ones whereby their hard hearts become yet more hardened and their most just condemnation yet more just Partly in his goodness as a powerful fiery trial of true Doctors whose constancy and sincerity is the more approved with him and the more eminent with men if they flee not when the Wolf cometh but keep their standing and stoutly maintain God's Truth when it is deepliest slandered and hotly opposed And partly in his Wisdom as a rich occasion for those whom he hath gifted for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to awaken their zeal to quicken up their industry to muster up their abilities to scour up their spiritual armour which else through dis-use might gather rust for the defence and for the rescue of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that precious truth whereof they are depositaries and wherewith he hath entrusted them These are the Grounds The Uses for instruction briefly are to teach and admonish every one of us that we be not either first so wickedly malicious as without apparent cause to raise any slander or secondly so foolishly credulous as without severe examination to believe any slander or thirdly so basely timorous as to flinch from any part of God's truth for any slander But I must not insist This from the slander Observe fourthly how peremptory the Apostle is in his censure against the slanderers or abusers of holy truths Whose damnation is just Some understand it with reference to the slanderers As we be slander ously reported and as some affirm that we say whose damnation is just that is their damnation is just who thus unjustly slander us Others understand it with reference to that ungodly resolution Let us do evil that good may come whose damnation is just that is their damnation is just for the evil they do who adventure to do any evil under whatsoever pretence of good to come of it Both expositions are good and I rather embrace both than prefer either I ever held it a kind of honest spiritual thirst where there are two sences given of one place both agreeable to the Analogy of Faith and Manners both so indifferently appliable to the words and scope of the place as that it is hard to say which was rather intended though there was but one intended yet to make use of both And so will we Take it the first way and the slanderer may read his doom in it Here is his wages and his portion and the meed and reward of his slander Damnation And it is a just reward He condemneth God's truth unjustly God condemneth him justly for it whose damnation is just If we be countable and we are countable at the day of Judgment for every idle word we speak though neither in it self false nor yet hurtful and prejudicial unto others what less than damnation can they expect that with much falsehood for the thing it self and infinite prejudice in respect of others blaspheme God and his holy Truth But if it be done on purpose and in malice to despight the Truth and the professors thereof I scarce know whether there be a greater sin or no. Maliciously to oppose the known Truth is by most Divines accounted a principal branch of that great unpardonable sin the sin against the holy Ghost by some the very sin it self I dare not say it is so nor yet that it is unpardonable or hath final impenitency necessarily attending it I would be loth to interclude the hope of
man by the light of Nature or strength of humane discourse should have been able to have found out that way which Almighty God hath appointed for our salvation if it had not pleased him to have made it known to the world by supernatural revelation The wisest Philosophers and learnedst Rabbies nor did nor could ever have dreamt of any such thing till God revealed it to his Church by his Prophets and Apostles This mystery was hid from Ages and from Generations nor did any of the Princes of this world know it in any of those Ages or Generations as it is now made manifest to us since God revealed it to us by his Spirit As our Apostle elsewhere speaketh 11. The Philosophers indeed saw a little dimly some of those truths that are more clearly revealed to us in the Scriptures They found in all men a great proâ—livity to Evil and an indisposition to Good but knew nothing at all either of the true Causes or of the right Remedies thereof Some apprehensions also they had of a Deity of the Creation of the World of a divine Providence of the Immortality of the Soul of a final Retribution to be awarded to all men by a divine justice according to the merit of their works and some other truths But those more high and mysterious points especially those two that of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead and that of the Incarnation of the Son of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Fathers use to call them together with those appendices of the latter the Redemption of the World the Iustification of a sinner the Resurrection of the body and the beatifical Vision of God and Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven not the least thought of any of these deep things of God ever came within them God not having revealed the same unto them 12. It is no thanks then to us that very children among us do believe and confess these high mysterious points whereof Plato and Aristotle and all the other grand Sophies among them were ignorant since we owe our whole knowledge herein not to our own natural sagacity or industry wherein they were beyond most of us but to divine and supernatural revelation For flesh and bloud hath not revealed them unto us but our Father which is in Heaven We see what they saw not not because our eyes are better than theirs but because God hath vouchsafed to us a better light than he did to them Which being an act of special grace ought therefore to be acknowledged with special thankfulness Our Saviour hath given us the example I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes Mat. 11. 25. 13. Truly much cause we have to bless the holy Name of God that he hath given us to be born of Christian Parents and to be bred up in the bosom of the Christian Church where we have been initiated into these Sacred Mysteries being catechised and instructed in the Doctrine of the Gospel out of the holy Scriptures even from our very Childhood as Timothy was But we are wretchedly unthankful to so good a God and extremely unworthy of so great a blessing if we murmur against our Governours and clamour against the Times because every thing is not point-wise just as we should have it or as we have fancied to our selves it should be Whereas were our hearts truly thankful although things should be really and in truth even ten times worse than now they are but in their conceit only yet so long as we may enjoy the Gospel in any though never so scant a measure and with any though never so hard conditions we should account it a benefit and mercy invaluable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so St. Paul esteemed it the very riches of the grace of God for he writeth According to the riches of his grace wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence having made known to us the mystery of his will Eph. 1. If he had not made it known to us we had never known it aad that is the second Reason why a Mystery 14. There is yet a Third even because we are not able perfectly to comprehend it now it is revealed And this Reason will seâ—ch in the Quantum too For herein especially it is that this Mystery doth so far transcend all other Mysteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great marvellous great Mystery In the search whereof Reason finding it self at a loss is forced to give it over in the plain field and to cry out O altitudo as being unable to reach the unfathomed depth thereof We believe and know and that with fulness of assurance that all these things are so as they are revealed in the holy Scriptures because the mouth of God who is Truth it self and cannot lie hath spoken them and our own Reason upon this ground teacheth us to submit ourselves and it to the obedience of Faith for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so it is But then for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nichodemus his question How can these things be it is no more possible for our weak understanding to comprehend that than it is for the eyes of Bats or Owls to look stedfastly upon the body of the Sun when he shineth forth in his greatest strength The very Angels those holy and heavenly spirits have a desire saith St. Peter it is but a desire not any perfect ability and that but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither to peep a little into those incomprehensible Mysteries and then cover their faces with their wings and peep again and cover again as being not able to endure the fulness of that glorious lustre that shineth therein 15. God hath revealed himself and his good pleasure towards us in his holy Word sufficient to save our souls if we will believe but not to solve all our doubts if we will dispute The Scriptures being written for our sakes it was needful they should be fitted to our capacities and therefore the mysteries contained therein are set forth by such resemblances as we are capable of but far short of the nature and excellency of the things themselves The best knowledge we can have of them here is but per speculum and in aenigmate 1 Cor. 13. as it were in a glass and by way of riddle darkly both God teacheth us by the eye in his Creatures That is per speculum as it were by a glass and that but a divine one neither where we may read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some of the invisible things of God but written in small and out-worn Characters scarce legible by us He teacheth us also by the Ear in the preaching of his holy Word but that in aenigmate altogether by riddles dark riddles That there should be three distinct Persons in one Essence and
an universal concurrence of judgment as there is in the main fundamental points of the Christian Faith And if we were so wise as we might and should be to make the right use of it it would not stumble us a whit in the belief of our Religion that Christians differ so much as they do in many things but rather mightily confirm us in the assurances thereof that they agree so well as they do almost in any thing And it may be a great comfort to every well meaning soul that the simple belief of those certain truths whereon all parties are in a manner agreed may be and ordinarily is sufficient for the salvation of all them who are sincerely careful according to that measure of light and means that God hath vouchsafed them to actuate their Faith with Piety Charity and good Works so making this great Mystery to become unto them as it is in its self Mysterium Pietatis a Mystery of Godliness Which is the last point proposed the Quale to which I now pass 22. As the corrupt Doctrine of Antichrist is not only a Doctrine of Error but of Impiety too called therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The mystery of iniquity 2 Thes. 2. So the wholsom doctrine of Christ is not only a doctrine of Truth but of Piety too and is therefore termed here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Mystery of Godliness Which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Godliness since there appeareth not any great necessity in the Context to restrain it to that more peculiar sence wherein both the Greek and English word are sometimes used namely to signifie the right manner of Gods Worship according to his word in opposition to all idolatrous superstitious or false Worships practised among the Heathens I am the rather enclined to understand it here as many Interpreters have done in the fuller Latitude as it comprehenderh the whole duty of a Christian man which he standeth bound by the command of God in his Law or of Christ in his Gospel to perform 23. Verum and Bonum we know are near of kin the one to the other And the spirit of God who is both the Author and the Revealer of this Mystery as he is the spirit of truth Joh. 14. so is he also the spirit of holiness Rom. 1. And it is part of his work to sanctific the heart with grace as well as to enlighten the mind with knowledge Our Apostle therefore sometimes mentioneth Truth and Godliness together teaching us thereby that we should take them both into our care together If any man consent not to the words of our Lord Iesus Christ and to the doctrine which is after Godliness 1 Tim. 6. And Tit. 1. according to the Faith of Gods Elect and acknowledging of the Truth which is after Godliness And here in express terms The Mystery of Godliness And that most rightly whether we consider it in the Scope Parts or Conservation of it 24. First the general Scope and aim of Christianity is by the mercy of God founded on the merits of Christ to bring men on through Faith and Godliness to Salvation It was not in the purpose of God in publishing the Gospel and thereby freeing us from the personal obligation rigour and curse of the Law so to turn us loose and lawless to do whatsoever should seem good in our own eyes follow our own crooked wills or gratifie any corrupt lust but to oblige us rather the faster by these new benefits and to incite us the more effectually by Evangelical promises to the earnest study and pursuit of Godliness The Gospel though upon quite different grounds bindeth us yet to our good behaviour in every respect as deep as ever the Law did if not in some respects deeper allowing no liberty to the flesh for the fulfilling of the lusts thereof in any thing but exacting entire sanctity and purity both of inward affection and outward conversation in all those that embrace it The grace of God appearing in the revelation of this mystery as it bringeth along with it an offer of salvation to all men so it teacheth all men that have any real purpose to lay hold on so gracious an offer to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live righteously and soberly and godly in this present world 25. It is not to be wondered at if all false Religions give allowance to some ungodliness or other when the very Gods whom they worship give such encouragements thereunto by their lewd examples The Gods of the Pagans were renowned for nothing so much most of them as for their vices Mars a bloody God Bacchus a drunken God Mercury a cheating God and so proportionably in their several kinds all the rest Their great Capital God Iupiter guilty of almost all the Capital vices And where the Gods are naught who can imagine the Religion should be good Their very mysteria sacra as they called them were so full of all wickedness and filthy abominations as was already in part touched but is fully discovered by Clemens Alexandrinus Lactantius Arnobius Tertullian and other of the Ancients of our Religion that it was the wisest point in all their Religion to take such strict order as they did for the keeping of them secret 26. But it is the honour and prerogative of the Christian Religion that it alone alloweth of no wickedness But as God himself is holy so he requireth an holy Worship and holy Worshippers He exacteth the mortification of all evil lusts and the sanctification of the whole man body soul and spirit and that in each of these throughout Every one that nameth himself from the name of Christ doth ipso facto by the very taking of that blessed name upon him and daring to stile himself Christian virtually bind himself to depart from all iniquity nor so only but to endeavour also after the example of him whose name otherwise he unworthily usurpeth to be just merciful temperate humble meek patient charitable to get the habits and to exercise the acts of these and all other holy graces and vertues Nay more the Gospel imposeth upon us some moral strictnesses which the Stoicks themselves or whoever else were the most rigid Masters of Morality never so much as thought of Nay yet more it exalteth the Moral Law of God himself given by Moses to the People of Israel to a higher pitch than they at least as they commonly understood the Law took themselves thereby obliged unto That a man should forsake all his dearest friends yea and deny his own dearest self too for Christs sake and yet for Christs sake at the same time love his deadliest enemies That he should take up his Cross and if need were lay down his life not only for his great Master but even for the meanest of his fellow-servants too That he should exult with joy and abound in hope in the midst of tribulations of persecutions of death it self Surely the
works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven but even in the use of the Creatures and of all indifferent things in eating and drinking in buying and selling and in all the like actions of common life In that most absolute Form of Prayer taught us by Christ himself as the Pattern and Canon of all our Prayers the Glory of God standeth at both ends When we begin the first Petition we are to put up is that the Name of God may be hallowed and glorified and when we have done we are to wrap up all in the Conclusion with this acknowledgment that to him alone belongeth all the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever 11. The Glory of God you see is to be the Alpha and the Omega of all our votes and desires Infinitely therefore to be preferred not only before Riches Honour Pleasures Friends and all the comforts and contentments the World can afford us in this life but even before life it self The blessed Son of God so valued it who laid down his life for his Fathers Glory and so did many holy Martyrs and faithful Servants of God value it too who laid down their lives for their Masters Glory Nay let me go yet higher infinitely to be preferred even before the unspeakable joys of the life to come before the everlasting salvation of our own souls It was not meerly a strain of his Rhetorick to give his brethren by that hyperbolical expression the better assurance of his exceeding great love towards them that our Apostle said before at Chap. 9. of this Epistle that he could wish himself to be accursed to be made an Anathema to be separated and cut off from Christ for their sakes Neither yet was it a hasty inconsiderate speech that fell suddenly from him as he was writing fervente calamo and as the abortive fruit of a precipitate over-passionate zeal before he had sufficiently consulted his reason whether he should suffer it to pass in that form or not for then doubtless he would have corrected himself and retracted it upon his second thoughts as he did Acts 23. when he had inconsiderately reviled the High-Priest sitting then in the place of Judicature But he spake it advisedly and upon good deliberation yea and that upon his conscience yea and upon his Oath too and as in the presence of God as you may see it ushered in there with a most solemn Asseveration as the true real and earnest desire of his heart I speak the truth in Christ I lie not my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost Not that St. Paul wished their salvation more than his own understand it not so for such a desire neither was possible nor could be regular Not possible by the Law of Nature which cannot but begin at home Omnes sibi melius esse malunt quam alteri Nor regular by the course of Charity which is not orderly if he do not so too That is not it then but this That he preferred the Glory of God before both his own salvation and theirs Insomuch that if Gods Glory should so require hoc impossibili supposito he could be content with all his heart rather to lose his own part in the joys of heaven that God might be the more Glorified than that God should lose any part of his Glory for his salvation 12. And great reason there is that as his was so every Christian mans heart should be disposed in like manner that the bent of his whole desires and endeavours all other things set apart otherwise than as they serve thereunto should be the Glory of God For first all men consent in this as an undoubted verity That that which is the chiefest good ought also to be the uttermost end And that must needs be the chiefest good which Almighty God who is goodness it self and best knoweth what is good proposeth to himself as the End of all his Actions and that is meerly his own glory All those his high and unconceiveable acts ad intra being immanent in himself must needs also be terminated in himself And as for all those his powerful and providential acts ad extra those I mean which are exercised upon and about the creatures and by reason of that their efflux and emanation are made better known to us than the former if we follow them to their last period we shall find that they all determine and concentre there He made them he preserveth them he forgiveth them he destroyeth them he punisheth them he rewardeth them every other way he ordereth them and disposeth of them according to the good pleasure of his Will for his own names sake and for his one glories sake That so his Wisdom and Power and Truth and Iustice and Mercy and all those other his divine excellencies which we are to believe and admire but may not seek to comprehend might be acknowledged reverenced and magnified Those two great acts of his most secret and unsearchable councel than the one whereof there is not any one act more gracious the Destination of those that persevere in Faith and Godliness to eternal happiness nor any one act more full of terrour and astonishment than the other the designation of such as live and die in Sin and Infidelity without repentance to eternal destruction the Scriptures in the last resolution refer them wholly to his Glory as the last End The glory of his rich mercy being most resplendent in the one and the glory of his just severity in the other Concerning the one the Scripture saith that he predestinated us to the praise of the Glory of his grace Eph. 1. Concerning the other The Lord made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. He maketh it his End we should make it ours too if but by way of Conformity 13. But he requireth it of us secondly as our bounden Duty and by way of Thankfulness in acknowledgement of those many favours we have received from him Whatever we have nay whatever we are as at first we had it all from him so we still holdit all of him and that jure beneficiario as feudataries with reservation of services out of the same to be performed for the honour of the Donor Our Apostle therefore in our Lords behalf presseth us with the nature of our tenure and challengeth this duty from us by a claim of right Ye have them of God saith he and ye are not your own therefore glorifie God in your body and in your Spirit which are Gods Glorifie him in both because both are his As the rivers return again to the place whence they came Eccl. 1. they all come from the Sea and they all run into the Sea again So all our store as it issued at first from the fountain of his grace so should it all fall at last into the Ocean of his Glory For of him and through him and
's Friends house where after some other Conference the Doctor told him He might have preach'd more useful Doctrine and not have fill'd his Auditors ears with needless Exceptions against the late Translation and for that word for which he offered to that poor Congregation three Reasons why it ought to have been translated as he said he and others had considered all them and found thirteen more considerable Reasons why it was translated as now printed and told him If his Friend then attending him should prove guilty of such indiscretion he should forfeit his Favour To which Mr. Sanderson said He hop'd he should not And the Preacher was so ingenious as to say He would not justifie himself And so I return to Oxford In the year 1608. Iuly the 11th Mr. Sanderson was compleated Master of Arts. I am not ignorant that for the attaining these Dignities the time was shorter than was then or is now required but either his birth or the well performance of some extraordinary exercise or some other merit made him so and the Reader is requested to believe that 't was the last and requested to believe also that if I be mistaken in the time the Colledge Records have mis-informed me But I hope they have not In that year of 1608 he was November the 7th by his Colledge chosen Reader of Logick in the House which he performed so well that he was chosen again the sixth of Novemb. 1609. In the year 1613. he was chosen Sub-Rector of the Colledge and the like for the year 1614. and chose again to the same Dignity and Trust for the year 1616. In all which time and imployments his abilities and behaviour were such as procur'd him both love and reverence from the whole Society there being no exception against him for any faults but a sorrow for the infirmities of his being too timerous and bashful both which were God knows so connatural as they never left him And I know not whether his Lovers ought to wish they had for they prov'd so like the Radical moisture in man's body that they preserv'd the life of Vertue in his Soul which by Gods assisting grace never left him till this life put on Immortality Of which happy infirmities if they may be so call'd more hereafter In the year 1614. he stood to be elected one of the Proctors for the University And 't was not to satisfie any ambition of his own but to comply with the desire of the Rector and whole Society of which he was a Member who had not had a Proctor chosen out of their Colledge for the space of sixty years namely not from the year 1554. unto his standing and they perswaded him that if he would but stand for Proctor his merits were so generally known and he so well beloved that 't was but appearing and he would infallibly carry it against any Opposers and told him That he would by that means recover a right or reputation that was seemingly dead to his Colledge By these and other like perswasions he yielded up his own reason to theirs and appear'd to stand for Proctor But that Election was carried on by so sudden and secret and by so powerful a Faction that he mist it Which when he understood he profest seriously to his Friends That if he were troubled at the disappointment 't was for theirs and not for his own sake For he was far from any desire of such an imployment as must be managed with charge and trouble and was too usually rewarded with hard censures or hatred or both In the year following he was earnestly perswaded by Dr. Kilibie and others to renew the Logick Lectures which he had read some years past in his Colledge and that done to methodize and print them for the ease and publick good of Posterity And though he had an averseness to appear publickly in print yet after many serious solicitations and some second thoughts of his own he laid aside his modesty and promis'd he would and he did so in that year of 1615. And the Book prov'd as his Friends seem'd to prophecy that is of great and general use whether we respect the Art or the Author For Logick may be said to be an Art of right reasoning an Art that undeceives men who take falshood for truth and enables men to pass a true Judgment and detect those Fallacies which in some mens Understandings usurp the place of right reason And how great a Master our Author was in this Art may easily appear from that clearness of Method Argument and Demonstration which is so conspicuous in all his other Writings And that he who had attain'd to so great a dexterity in the use of reason himself was best qualified to prescribe rules and directions for the instructions of others And I am the more satisfied of the excellency and usefulness of this his first publick Undertaking by hearing that most Tutors in both Universities teach Dr. Sanderson's Logick to their Pupils as a Foundation upon which they are to build their future Studies in Philosophy And for a further confirmation of my belief the Reader may note That since this his Book of Logick was first printed there has not been less than ten thousand sold And that 't is like to continue both to discover truth and to clear and confirm the Reason of the unborn World It will easily be believed that his former standing for a Proctors place and being disappointed must prove much displeasing to a man of his great Wisdom and Modesty and create in him an averseness to run a second hazard of his credit and content and yet he was assur'd by Dr. Kilby and the Fellows of his own College and most of those that had oppos'd him in the former Election That his Book of Logick had purchas'd for him such a belief of his Learning and Prudence and his behaviour at the former Election had got for him so great and so general a love that all his former Opposers repented what they had done and therefore perswaded him to venture to stand a second time And upon these and other like Incouragements he did again but not without an inward unwillingness yield up his own reason to theirs and promis'd to stand And he did so and was the tenth of April 1616. chosen Senior Proctor for the year following Mr. Charles Crook of Christ-Church being then chosen the Junior In this year of his being Proctor there happened many memorable accidents part of which I will relate namely Dr. Robert Abbot Master of Balial College and Regius Professor of Divinity who being elected or consecrated Bishop of Sarum some months before was solemnly conducted out of Oxford towards his Diocess by the Heads of all Houses and the other Chiefs of all the University And it may be noted that Dr. Pridiaux succeeded him in the Professorship in which he continued till the year 1642. being then elected Bishop of Worcester at which time our now Proctor Mr. Sanderson succeeded
Books writ ex professo against the being of any original sin and that Adam by his fall transmitted some calamity only but no Crime to his Posterity the good old man was exceedingly troubled and bewailed the misery of those licentious times and seem'd to wonder save that the times were such that any should write or be permitted to publish any Error so contradictory to truth and the Doctrine of the Church of England established as he truly said by clear evidence of Scripture and the just and supreme power of this Nation both Sacred and Civil I name not the Books nor their Authors which are not unknown to learned men and I wish they had never been known because both the Doctrine and the unadvis'd Abettors of it are anâ— shall be to me Apocryphâ—l Another little story I must not pass in silence being an Argument of Dr. Sanderson's Piety great Ability and Judgment as a Casuist Discoursing with an honourable Person whose Piety I value more than his Nobility and Learning though both be great about a case of Conscience concerning Oaths and Vows their Nature and Obligation in which for some particular Reasons he then desired more fully to be inform'd I commended to him Dr. Sanderson's Book De Iuramento which having read with great satisfaction he ask'd me If I thought the Doctor could be induced to write Cases of Conscience if he might have an honorary Pension allow'd him to furnish him with Books for that purpose I told him I believe he would and in a Letter to the Doctor told him what great satisfaction that Honourable Person and many more had reaped by reading his Book De Iuramento and ask'd him whether he would be pleas'd for the benefit of the Church to write some Tract of Cases of Conscience He reply'd That he was glad that any had received any benefit by his Books and added further That if any future Tract of his could bring such benefit to any as we seem'd to say his former had done he would willingly though without any Pension set about that work Having received this answer that honourable Person before mention'd did by my hands return 50 l. to the good Doctor whose condition then as most good mens at that time were was but low and he presently revised finished and published that excellent Book De Conscientiâ A Book little in bulk but not so if we consider the benefit an intelligent Reader may receive by it For there are so many general Propositions concerning Conscience the Nature and Obligation of it explained and proved with such firm consequence and evidence of Reason that he who reads remembers and can with prudence pertinently apply them Hic nunc to particular Cases may by their light and help rationally resolve a thousand particular doubts and scruples of Conscience Here you may see the Charity of that honourable Person in promoting and the Piety and Industry of the good Doctor in performing that excellent work And here I shall add the Judgment of that learned and pious Prelate concerning a passage very pertinent to our present purpose When he was in Oxon and read his publick Lectures in the Schools as Regius Professor of Divinity and by the truth of his Positions and evidences of his Proofs gave great content and satisfaction to all his hearers especially in his clear Resolutions of all difficult Cases which occur'd in the Explication of the subject matter of his Lectures a Person of Quality yet alive privately ask'd him What course a young Divine should take in his Studies to enable him to be a good Casuist His answer was That a convenient understanding of the Learned Languages at least of Hebrew Greek Latin and a sufficient knowledge of Arts and Sciences presuppos'd There were two things in humane Literature a comprehension of which would be of very great use to enable a man to be a rational and able Casuist which otherwise was very difficult if not impossible 1. A convenient knowledge of Moral Philosophy especially that part of it which treats of the Nature of Humane Actions To know quid sit actus humanus spontaneus invitus mixtus unde habent bonitatem malitiam moralem an ex genere objecto vel ex circumstantiis How the variety of circumstances varies the goodness or evil of humane Actions How far knowledge and ignorance may aggravate or excuse increase or diminish the goodness or evil of our Actions For every Case of Conscience being only this Is this Action good or bad May I do it or may I not He who in these knows not how and whence humane Actions become morally good and evil never can in Hypothesi rationally and certainly determine whether this or that particular Action be so 2. The second thing which he said would be a great help and advantage to a Casuist was a convenient knowledge of the Nature and Obligation of Laws in general To know what a Law is what a natural and a Positive Law what 's required to the Latio dispensatio derogatio vel abrogatio legis what promulgation is antecedently required to the Obligation of any Positive Law what ignorance takes off the Obligation of a Law or does excuse diminish or aggravate the transgression For every Case of Conscience being only this Is this lawful for me or is it not and the Law the only Rule and Measure by which I must judg of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any Action It evidently follows that he who in these knows not the Nature and Obligation of Laws never can be a good Casuist or rationally assure himself or others of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of Actions in particular This was the Judgment and good counsel of that learned and pious Prelate and having by long experience found the truth and benefit of it I conceive I could not without ingratitude to him and want of charity to others conceal it Pray pardon this rude and I fear impertinent Scrible which if nothing else may signifie thus much that I am willing to obey your Desires and am indeed London May 10. 1678. Your affectionate Friend Thomas Lincoln THE PREFACE TO THE READER HOW these Sermons will be looked upon if at all looked upon by the men of the Times is no very â—ard matter to conjecture I confess they are not A-la mode nor fitted to the Palate of those men who are resolved before-hand without tasting or trial to nauseate as unsavoury and unwholesome whatsoever shall be tendered unto them from the hand of an Episcopal Divine And therefore the republishing of them in this state of Church-affairs now the things so much contended for in some of them are worn out of date and thrown aside will be deemed at least a very unseasonable Undertaking to as much purpose perhaps it will be said as if a man would this year re-print an Almanack for the Last For the latter part of the Objection at the peril be it of those that had the hardiness
have bestowed also upon the Ceremonies the Epithet of Superstitious Which is a word likewise as the former of late very much extended and standeth in need of a Boundary too and a definition as well as it But howsoever they do with the words I must needs set bounds to my discourse lest I weary the Reader The point of Superstition I have had occasion to touch upon more than once as I remember in some of these Sermons and proved that the Superstition lyeth indeed at their door not ours They forbid the things commanded by the Church under the obligation of Sin and that Obligation arising not from their forbidding them but from the things themselves which they judge to be unlawful and thence impose upon all men a necessity of not using them which is Superstition Whereas the Church requires obedience indeed to her Commands and that also under the obligation of Sin but that obligation arising not at all from the nature of the things themselves always held and declared Indifferent but immediately from the Authority of the Superior commanding the thing and originally from the Ordinance of God commanding Obedience to Superiors as already hath been said and this is not Superstition For further satisfaction therefore in this matter referring the Reader to the Sermons themselves I shall only by way of addition represent to the Objectors St. Paul's demeanor at Athens Where finding the City full of Idols or wholly given to Idolatry he doth not yet fall foul upon them nor exclaim against them in any reproachful manner no nor so much as call them Idolaters though they were such and that in a very high degree but tempering his Speeches with all lenity and condescension he telleth them only of their Superstition and that in the calmest manner too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the comparative degree in such kind of speaking being usually taken for a diminuent term How distant are they from his Example with whom every thing they mislike is presently an Idol Christmas day an Idol the Surplice an Idol the Cross after Baptism a great Idol the Common-Prayer Book an abominable Idol When yet if the worst that can be said against them were granted the most it could amount to is but Superstition and till that be granted which must not be till it be well proved it is more childish than manly to cry out Superstition Superstition § XVII Their next is a Suspicion rather than Objection and that upon no very good ground But Charity is not easily suspicious nor without cause Wherein I have somewhat to say in behalf of my self and other my Brethren and somewhat by way of return to them For my self I had a desire I may truly say almost from my very Childhood to understand as much as was possible for me the bottom of our Religion and particularly as it stood in relation both to the Papists and as they were then stiled Puritans to inform my self rightly wherein consisted the true differences between them and the Church of England together with the grounds of those differences For I could even then observe which was no hard matter to do that the most of mankind took up their Religion upon trust as Custom or Education had framed them rather than choice It pleased God in his goodness to afford me some opportunities suitable to that my desire by means whereof and by his good blessing I attained to understand so much of the Romish Religion as not only to dislike it but to be able to give some rational account why I so do And I doubt not but these very Sermons were there nothing else to do it will sufficiently free me from the least suspicion of driving on any design for Rome As for those other regular Sons of the Church of England that have appeared in this Controversie on her behalf how improbable and so far forth uncharitable the suspicion is that they should be any way instrumental towards the promoting of the Papal Interest may appear amongst other by these few Considerations following 1. That those very persons who were under God the Instruments of freeing us from the Roman Yoke by casting Popery out of the Church and sundry of them Martyred in the cause those very Persons I say were great favourers of these now accounted Popish Ceremonies and the chief Authors or Procurers of the Constitutions made in that behalf Hae manus Trojam erigent 2. That in all former times since the beginning of the Reformation our Archbishops and Bishops with their Chaplains and others of the Prelatical Party many of them such as have written also in defence of the Church against the Puritans were the Principal I had almost said the only Champions to maintain the Cause of Religion against the Papists 3. That even in these times of so great distraction and consequently thereunto of so great advantage to the Factors for Rome none have stept into the gap more readily nor appeared in the face of the Enemy more openly nor maintained the Fight with more stoutness and Gallantry than the Episcopal Divines have done as their late learned Writings testifie Yea and some of them such as beside their other sufferings have lain as deep under the suspicion of being Popishly-affected as any other of their Brethren whosoever 4. That by the endeavours of these Episcopal Divines some that were bred Papists have been gained to our Church others that began to waver confirmed and setled in their old Religion and some that were fallen from us recovered and reduced notwithstanding all the disadvantages of these confused times and of each of these I am able to produce some instance But I profess sincerely as in the presence of God and before the World that I have not known at least I cannot call to remembrance so much as one single Example of any of this done by any of our Anti-Ceremonian Brethren whether Presbyterian or Independent § XVIII But I have somewhat to return upon these our Brethren who thus causelesly suspect us Possible it will not please them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I must speak it out both for the truths sake and theirs To wit that themselves are in truth though not purposely and intentionally whereof in my own thought I freely acquit them yet really and eventually the great promoters of the Roman Interest among us and that more ways than one These three among the rest are evident First by putting to their helping hand to the pulling down of Episcopacy It is very well known to many what rejoycing that Vote brought to the Romish party How even in Rome it self they sang their Io-â—aeans upon the tydings thereof and said triumphantly Now the day is ours Now is the fatal blow given to the Protestant Religion in England They who by conversing much with that Nation were well acquainted with the fiery turbulent spirits of the Scottish Presbyterians knew as well how to make their advantage
is such a Restraint 33 34 2. That it is from God 35 3. That it is from the mercy of God and therefore called Grace 36 Inferences from the Consideration of God's Restraint 37 I. As it lyeth upon others 1. toobless God for our Preservation 38 2. not to trust wicked men too far 39 3. nor to fear them too much 40 4. to endeavour to restrain others from Sinning 41 II. As it lyeth upon our selves 1. To be humble under it 42 2. to entertain the means of such Restraint with Thankfulness 43 3. to pray that God would restrain our Corruptions 44 4. but especially to pray and labour for sanctifying Grace Sermon VII Ad Populum on 1 Pet. 2. 16. Sect. 1 2 THE Occasion Scope of the TEXT 3 5 Coherence and of the TEXT 6 Division of the TEXT 7 8 OBSERVATION I Christian Liberty to be maintained 9 12 with the Explication 13 17 and Five Reasons thereof 18 20 Inferences I. Not to usurp upon the Liberty of others 21 24 II. Nor to betray our own 25 Observation II. Christian Liberty not to be abused 26 28 The words explained and thence 29 31 Three Reasons of the Point 32 34 Four abuses of Christian Liberty viz. I. by casting off the Obligation of the moral Law 35 36 II. by exceeding the bounds of Sobriety 37 III. by giving Scandal to others 38 IV. by disobeying lawful Superiours 39-40 The Grounds and Objections of the Anti-Ceremonians 41-46 propounded and particularly answered 47-50 How mens Laws bind the Conscience 51-52 OBSERVATION III. We being the Servants of God Which is of all other 53-54 1. the most Just Service 55 2. the most Necessary Service 56-57 3. the most Easie Service 58 4. the most Honourable Service 59 5. and the most Profitable Service 60 Ought to carry our selves as his Servants with all 61-63 I. Reverence to his Person in 3 branches 64-66 II. Obedience to his Will both in Doing and Suffering 67-70 III. Faithfulness in his Business in 3 branches 69 The Conclusion AD CLERUM The first Sermon ROM 〈◊〉 _ Meats accounting them Clean or Unclean and of Days accounting them Holy or Servile according as they stood under the Levitical Law These latter St. Paul calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Weak in the Faith those former then must by the Law of Opposition be strong in the Faith It would have become both the one sort and the other notwithstanding they differed in their private Iudgments yet to have preserved the common Peace of the Church and laboured the edification not the ruine one of another the strong by affording faithful instruction to the Consciences of the weak and the weak by allowing favourable construction to the actions of the strong But whilst either measured other by themselves neither one nor other did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Apostle elsewhere speaketh Walk uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel Faults and offences there were on all hands The Strong faulty in contemning the Weak the Weak faulty in condemning the Strong The Strong proudly scorned the weak as silly and superstitious for making scruple at some such things as themselves firmly believed were Lawful The weak rashly censured the Strong as Prophane and Irreligious for adventuring on some such things as themselves deeply suspected were unlawful The blessed Apostle desirous all things should be done in the Church in love and unto edification aequâ lance and eódem Charitatis moderamine as Interpreters speak taketh upon him to arbitrate and to mediate in the business and like a just Umpire layeth his hand upon both parties unpartially sheweth them their several oversights and beginneth to draw them to a fair and honourable composition as thus The strong shall remit somewhat of his superciliousness in disesteeming and despising the Weak and the Weak he shall abate something of his edge and acrimony in judging and condemning the Strong If the Parties will stand to this Order it will prove a blessed agreement for so shall brotherly Love be maintained Scandals shall be removed the Christian Church shall be edified and God's Name shall be glorified This is the scope of my Text and of the whole Chapter In the three first Verses whereof there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first Verse the Proposal of a general Doctrine as touching the usage of weak ones with whom the Church is so to deal as that it neither give offence to nor take offence at the weakness of any Him that is weak in the Faith receive you but not to doubtful Disputations Next there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the second Verse a Declaration of the former general Proposal by instancing in a particular case touching the difference of Meats There is one man strong in the Faith he is infallibly resolved there is no meat unclean of it self or if received with thankfulness and sobriety unlawful and because he knoweth he standeth upon a sure ground 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is confident he may eat any thing and he useth his Liberty accordingly eating indifferently of all that is set before him making no question for Conscience sake One man believeth he may eat all things There is another man weak in the Faith he standeth yet unresolved and doubtful whether some kinds of Meats as namely those forbidden in the Law be clean or he is rather carried with a strong suspicion that they are unclean out of which timorousness of Judgment he chuseth to forbear those Meats and contenteth himself with the fruits of the Earth Another who is weak eateth Herbs This is Species facti this is the case Now the question is In this case what is to be done for the avoidance of scandal and the maintainance of Christian Charity And this question my Text resolveth in this third Verse wherein is contained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Paul's judgment or his counsel rather and advice upon the Case Let not him that eateth despise c. The remainder of the Verse and of the Chapter being spent in giving reasons of the judgment in this and another like case concerning the difference and observation of days I have made choice to intreat at this time of St. Paul's advice as useful for this Place and Auditory and the present Assembly Which advice as the Parties and the faults are is also two-fold The Parties two He that eateth that is the Strong and he that eateth not that is the Weak The Faults likewise two The strong mans fault that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 despising of his brothers Infirmity and the weak mans fault that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 judging of his Brothers liberty Proportionably the parts of the advice accommodated to the Parties and their Faults are two The one for the Strong that he despise not Let not him that eateth despise him that
despised it were enough without God's singular mercy and support to make him repent his late conversion and revolt from the Faith by fearful and desperate Apostacy And he that by such despising should thus offend though but one of the least and weakest of those that believe in Christ a thousand times better had it been for him that he had never been born yea ten thousand times better that a mill-stone had been hung about his neck and he cast into the bottom of the Sea ere he had done it Despising is a grievous sin in the despiser in the strong and despising is a grievous scandal to the despised to the weak Let not therefore the strong despise the Weak Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not And thus much for the former branch of St. Paul's advice The other followeth Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth Faults seldom go single but by couples at the least Sinful men do with sinful provocations as Ball-players with the Ball when the Ball is once up they labour to keep it up right so when an offence or provocation is once given it is tossed to and fro the receiver ever returning it pat upon the giver and that most times with advantage and so betwixt them they make a shift to preserve a perpetuity of sinning and of scandalizing one another It is hard to say who beginneth oftner the Strong or the Weak but whether ever beginneth he may be sure the other will follow If this judge that will despise if that despise this will judge either doth his endeavour to cry quittance with other and thinketh himself not to be at all in fault because the other was first or more This Apostle willing to redress faults in both beginneth first with the Strong and for very good reason Not that his fault simply considered in it self is greater for I take it a certain truth That to judge one that is in the right is a far greater fault considered absolutely without relation to the abilities of the persons than to despise one that is in the wrong But because the strong through the ability of his Judgment ought to yield so much to the infirmity of his weak Brother who through the weakness of his Judgment is not so well able to discern what is fit for him to do What in most other contentions is expected should be done in this Not he that is most in fault but he that hath most wit should give over first Indeed in reason the more faulty is rather bound to yield but if he will be unreasonable as most times it falleth out and not do it then in discretion the more able should do it As Abraham in discretion yieldeth the choice to his Nephew Lot upon the contention of their Herdsmen which in reason Lot should rather have yielded unto him But where both are faulty as it is not good to stand debating who began first so it is not safe to strain courtesie who shall end and mend first In the case of my Text both were faulty and therefore our Apostle would have both mend He hath school'd the Strong and taught him his Lesson not to despise anothers infirmity Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not Now the Weak must take out his Lesson too not to judge anothers Liberty Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth I will not trouble you with other significations of the word to judge as it is here taken is as much as to condemn and so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often taken in the worser sense for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tropically by a Synecdoche generis say Scholiasts and they say true But it is a Trope for which both in this and in divers other words we are not so much beholden to good Arts as to bad Manners Things that are good or indifferent we commonly turn to ill by using them the worst way whence it groweth that words of good or indifferent signification in time degenerate so far as to be commonly taken in the worst sence But this by the way The fault of these weak ones in the case in hand was that measuring other mens actions and consciences by the model of their own understandings in their private Censures they rashly passed their Iudgments upon and pronounced peremptory Sentence against such as used their Liberty in some things concerning the lawfulness whereof themselves were not satisfied as if they were loose Christians carnal Professors nomine tenus Christiani men that would not stick to do any thing and such as made either none at all or else very little conscience of their actions This Practice my Text disalloweth and forbiddeth and the rule hence for us is plain and short We must not judge others The Scriptures are express Iudge not that ye be not judged Matth. 7. Iudge nothing before the time c. 1 Cor. 4. Thou art inexcusable O Man whosoever thou art that judgest Rom. 2. And If thou judgest thou art not a doer of the Law but a Iudge James 4. Not that it is unlawful to exercise civil Iudgment or to pass condemning sentence upon persons orderly and legally convicted for such as have Calling or Authority thereunto in Church or Common-wealth for this Publick Politick Iudgment is commanded in the Word of God and Reason sheweth it to be of absolute necessity for the preservation of States and Common-wealths Nor that it is unlawful secondly to pass even our private censures upon the outward actions of men when the Law of God is directly transgressed and the transgression apparent from the evidence either of the Fact it self or of some strong signs and presumptions of it For it is Stupidity and not Charity to be credulous against sense Charity is ingenuous and will believe any thing though more than Reason but Charity must not be servile to believe any thing against Reason Shall any Charity bind me to think the Crow is white or the Blackamoor Beautiful Nor yet thirdly that all sinister suspicions are utterly unlawful even there where there wanteth evidence either of Fact or of great signs if our suspicions proceed not from any corrupt affections but only from a charitable Iealousie of those over whom we have special Charge or in whom we have special Interest in such sort as that it may concern us to admonish reprove or correct them when they do amiss so was Iob suspicious of his Sons for sinning and cursing God in their hearts But the judgment here and elsewhere condemned is either first when in our private thoughts or speeches upon slender presumptions we rashly pronounce men as guilty of committing such and such sins without sufficient evidence either of fact or pregnant signs that they have committed them Or secondly when upon some actions undoubtedly sinful as Blasphemy Adultery Perjury c.
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
England and her regular and obedient Children in this behalf and it will be expected I should do it If any of the Children of this Church in their too much hast have over-run their Mother that is have busied themselves and troubled others with putting forward new Rites and Ceremonies with scandal and without Law or by using her name without her leave for the serving of their own purposes have causlessly brought an evil suspicion upon her as some are blamed let them answer it as well as they can it is not my business now to plead for them but to vindicate the Church of England against another sort of men who have accused her of Superstition unjustly 17. Set both these aside and her defence is made in a word if we do but remember what hath been already delivered in the Explication of the Text to wit that it is not the commandments of men either Materially or Formally taken but the Opinion that we have of them and the teaching of them for Doctrines wherein Superstition properly consisteth Materially first There is no Superstition either in wearing or in not wearing a Surplice in kneeling or in not kneeling at the Communion in crossing or in not crossing an Infant newly Baptized even as there is no Superstition in washing or in not washing the hands before Meat So long as neither the one is done with an Opinion of necessity nor the other forborn out of the Opinion of unlawfulness For so long the Conscience standeth free The Apostle hath so resolved in the very like case that neither he that eateth is the worse for it nor he that eateth not the better for it A Man may eat and do it with a good Conscience too As in the present case at this time it is certain Christs Disciples did eat and washed not it cannot be doubted but at some time or other they washed before they eat Not for Conscience sake towards God either but even as they saw it fit and as the present occasion required and they might do both without supersition But if any man shall wear or kneel or cross with an Opinion of necessity and for Conscience sake towards God as if those parts of Gods Service wherein those Ceremonies are used in our Church could not be rightly performed without them yea althought the Church had not appointed them doubtless the use of those Ceremonies by reason of such his Opinion should be Superstition to him Because a man cannot be of that Opinion but he must believe it to be true Doctrine that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves necessary parts of Gods worship As on the contrary if any body should refuse to wear or kneel or cross out of an Opinion of their unlawfulness as if those Ceremonies did vitiate the whole act of that Worship whereunto they are applied I cannot see but upon the same ground and by reason of such his Opinion the refusal of those Ceremonies should be to him also Superstition Because a man cannot be of that Opinion but he must believe this to be true Doctrine that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves unlawful to be used in the Worship of God But the obedient Children of the Church of England having no such Opinion either of the necessity or unlawfulness of the said Ceremonies but holding them to be as indeed they are things in their own nature indifferent are even therefore free from Superstition in both the kinds aforesaid So then in the things commanded taken materially that is to say considered in themselves without respect to the Churches command there is no Superstition because there is nothing concerning them Doctrinally taught either the one way or the other 18. Now if we can as well clear these things taken also formally that is to say considered not in themselves but as they stand commanded by publick authority of the Church the whole business is done as to this point Nor is there in truth any great difficulty in it if we will but apprehend things aright For although the very commanding them do seem to bring with it a kind of necessity and to lay a tie upon the Conscience as that of St. Paul implieth both you must needs be subject and that for Conscience sake yet is not that any tie brought upon the Conscience de novo by such command of the Church only that tie that lay upon the Conscience before by virtue of that general Commandment of God of obeying the higher Powers in all their lawful commands is by that Commandment of the Church applied to that particular matter Even as it is in all Civil Constitutions and humane positive Laws whatsoever And the necessity also is but an obediential not a doctrinal necessity But the Text requireth a doctrinal necessity to make the thing done a vain and superstitious Worship Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men Which the Church of England in prescribing the aforesaid Ceremonies hath not done nor by her own grounds could do For look as the case standeth with private men for doing or refusing even so standeth the case with publick Governours for commanding or forbidding As therefore with private men it is not the bare doing or refusing of a thing as in discretion they shall see cause but the doing of it with an Opinion of necessity or the refusing of it with the Opinion of unlawfulness that maketh the action superstitious as hath been already shewed so with publick Governours it is not the commanding or forbidding of a mutable Ceremony as for the present they shall deem it fit for order decency or uniformities sake or such other like respects but the commanding of it with an opinion as if it were of perpetual necessity or the forbidding it with the like opinion as if it were simply unlawful that maketh the Constitution superstitious 19. Now I appeal to any man that hath not run on madly with the cry for company but endeavoured with the Spirit of Charity and Sobriety to satisfie his understanding herein if the Church of England both in the Preface before the Book of Common-Prayer and in the Articles of her Confession and in sundry passages in the Homilies occasionally and these Books are acknowledged her most Authentick Writings the two former especially and the just standard whereby to measure her whole Doctrine if I say she have not in them all and that in as plain and express terms as can be desired disclaimed all humane Traditions that are imposed upon the Consciences of Gods People either in point of Faith or Manners and declared to the world that she challenged no power to her self to order any thing by her own Authority but only in things indifferent and such as are not repugnant to the word of God and that her Constitutions are but for order comeliness and uniformity sake and not for Conscience sake towards God and that therefore any of those her Orders and Constitutions may be retained
error and retracting it that you may build better then let it lie on still till a sorer fire catch it Better for any of us all whether in respect of our errours or sins to prevent the Lords judging of us by timely judging our selves than to slack the time till his judgment overtake us 27. The Second Use should be an Admonition to all my Brethren of the Ministry for the time to come and that in the Apostles words 1 Cor. 3. 10. Let every man take heed what he buildeth St. Paul himself was very careful this way not to deliver any thing to the People but what he had received from the Lord. The Prophets of the Lord still delivered their Messages with this Preface Haec dicit Dominus Yea that wretched Balaam though a false Prophet and covetous enough professed yet that if Balak would give him his house full of Silver and Gold he neither durst nor would go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more There is a great proneness in us all to Idolize our own inventions Besides much Ignorance Hypocrisie and Partiality any of which may byass us awry Our Educations may lay such early anticipations upon our judgments or our Teachers or the Books we read or the Society we converse withal may leave such impressions therein as may fill them with prejudice not easily to be removed The golden mean is a hard thing to hit upon almost in any thing without some warping toward one of the extremes either on the right hand or on the left and without a great deal of wisdom and care seldom shall we seek to shun one extreme and not run a little too far towards the other if not quite into it In all which and sundry other respects we may soon fall into gross mistakes and errors if we do not take the more heed whilst we suspect no such thing by our selves but verily believe that all we do is out of pure zeal for Gods Glory and the love of his truth We had need of all the piety and learning and discretion and pains and prayers we have and all little enough without Gods blessing too yea and our own greater care too to keep us from running into Errors and from teaching for doctrines the commandments of men 28. The Third Use should be for Admonition also to all the people of God that they be not hasty to believe every Spirit but to try the Spirits especially when they see the spirits to disagree and clash one with another or find otherwise just cause of suspicion and that as the Beraeans did by the Scriptures Using withal all good subsidiary helps for the better understanding thereof especially those two as the principal the Rule of Right Reason and the known constant judgment and practice of the Universal Church That so they may fan away the Chaff from the Wheat and letting go the refuse hold fast that which is good To this end every man should especially beware that he do not suffer himself to be carried away with names nor to have any mans person either in hatred or admiration but embrace what is consonant to truth and reason though Iudas himself should preach it and reject what even an Angel from Heaven should teach if he have no other reason to induce him to believe it than that he teacheth it 29. The Fourth Use should be for Exhortation to the learneder sort of my Brethren to shew their faithfulness duty and true hearty affection to God and his Truth and Church by maintaining the simplicity of the Christian Faith and asserting the Doctrine of Christian Liberty against all corrupt mixtures of mens inventions and against all unlawful impositions of mens Commandments in any kind whatsoever If other men be zealous to set up their own errors shall we be remiss to hold up Gods Truth God having deposited it with us and committed it to our special trust how shall we be able to answer it to God and the World if we suffer it to be stollen out of the hearts of our people by our silence or neglect Like enough you shall incurr blame and censure enough for so doing as if you sought but your selves in it by seeking to please those that are in authority in hope to get preferment thereby But let none of these things discourage you if you shall not be able by the grace of God in some measure to despise the censures of rash and uncharitable men so long as you can approve your hearts and actions in the sight of God and to break through if need be far greater tryals and discouragements than these you are not worthy to be called the servants of Christ. 30. The last Use should be an humble Supplication to those that have in their hands the ordering of the great affairs of Church and State that they would in their goodness and wisdoms make some speedy and effectual provision to repress the exorbitant licenciousness of these times in Printing and Preaching every man what he list to the great dishonour of God scandal of the Reformed Religion fomenting of Superstition and Error and disturbance of the peace both of Church and Common-wealth Lest if way be still given thereunto those evil Spirits that this late connivence hath raised grow so fierce within a while that it will trouble all the power and wisdom of the Kingdom to conjure them handsomly down again But certainly since we find by late experience what wildness in some of the Lay-people what petulancy in some of the inferior Clergy what insolency in some both of the Laity and Clergy our Land is grown into since the reins of the Ecclesiastical Government have lain a little slack we cannot but see what need we have to desire and pray that the Ecclesiastical Government and Power may be timely setled in some such moderate and effectual way as that it may not be either too much abused by them that are to exercise it nor too much despised by those that must live under it In the mean time so long as things hang thus loose and unsetled I know not better how to represent unto you the present face of the times in some respects than in the words of the Prophet Ieremy The Prophets prophesie lies and the Priests get power into their hands by their means and my people love to have it so And what will you do in the end thereof 31. What the end of these insolencies will be God alone knoweth The increase of Profaneness Riot Oppression and all manner of wickedness on the one side and the growth of Error Novelty and Superstition on the other side are no good signs onward The Lord of his great mercy grant a better end thereunto than either these beginnings or proceedings hitherto portend or our sins deserve And the same Lord of his infinite goodness vouchsafe to dispel from us by the light of his Holy Spirit all blindness and hardness of
the Bench yet the Text saith he cared for none of those things as if they had their names given them by an Antiphrasis like Diogenes his man manes à manendo because he would be now and then running away so these Iustices à justitia because they neither do nor care to do Iustice. Peradventure here and there one or two in a whole side of a Country to be found that make a Conscience of their duty more than the rest and are forward to do the best good they can Gods blessing rest upon their heads for it But what cometh of it The rest glad of their forwardness make only this use of it to themselves even to slip their own necks out of the yoke and leave all the burthen upon them and so at length even tire out them too by making common pack horses of them A little it may be is done by the rest for fashion but to little purpose sometimes more to shew their Iusticeship than to do Iustice and a little more may be is wrung from them by importunity as the poor widow in the parable by her clamorousness wrung a piece of Iustice with much ado from the Iudge that neither feared God nor regarded man Alas Beloved if all were right within if there were generally that zeal that should be in Magistrates good Laws would not thus languish as they do for want of execution there would not be that insolency of Popish rescuants that licence of Rogues and Wanderers that prouling of Officers that inhancing of sees that delay of suits that countenancing of abuses those carcases of depopulated Towns infinite other mischiefs which are the sins shall I say or the Plagues it is hard to say whether more they are indeed both the sins and the Plagues of this Land And as for Compassion to the distressed is there not now just cause if ever to complain If in these hard times wherein nothing aboundeth but poverty and sin when the greater ones of the earth should most of all enlarge their bowels and reach out the hand to relieve the extreme necessity of thousands that are ready to starve if I say in these times great men yea and men of Iustice are as throng as ever in pulling down houses and setting up hedges in unpeopleing Towns and creating beggars in racking the backs and grinding the faces of the poor how dwelleth the love of God how dwelleth the spirit of compassion in these men Are these eyes to the blind feet to the lame and fathers to the poor as Iob was I know your hearts cannot but rise in detestation of these things at the very mentioning of them But what would you say if as it was said to Ezekiel so I should bid you turn again and behold yet greater and yet greater abominations of the lamentable oppressions of the poor by them and their instruments who stand bound in all conscience and in regard of their places to protect them from the injuries and oppressions of others But I forbear to do that and choose rather out of one passage in the Prophet Amos to give you some short intimation both of the faults and of the reason of my forbearance It is in Amos 5. v. 12 13. I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins they afflict the just they take a bribe and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time for it is an evil time And as for searching out the truth in mens causes which is the third Duty First those Sycophants deserve a rebuke who by false accusations and cunningly devised tales 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of purpose involve the truth of things to set a fair colour upon a bad matter or to take away the righteousness of the innocent from him And yet how many are there such as these in most of our Courts of justice informing and promoting and pettifogging make-bates Now it were a lamentable thing if these men should be known and yet suffered but what if countenanced and encouraged and under hand maintained by the Magistrates of those Courts of purpose to bring Moulter to their own Mills Secondly since Magistrates must be content for they are but men and cannot be every where at once in many things to see with other mens eyes and to hear with other mens ears and to proceed upon information those men deserve a rebuke who being by their office to ripen causes for judgment and to facilitate the Magistrates care and pains for inquisition do yet either for fear or favour or negligence or a fee keep back true and necessary informations or else for spight or gain clog the Courts with false or trifling ones But most of all the Magistrates themselves deserve a rebuke if either they be hasty to acquit a man upon his own bare denial or protestation for si inficiari sufficiet ecquis erit nocens as the Orator pleaded before Iulian the Emperour if a denial may serve the turn none shall be guilty or if hasty to condemn a man upon anothers bare accusation for si accusasse sufficiet ecquis erit innocens as the Emperour excellently replied upon that Orator if an accusation may serve the turn none shall be innocent or if they suffer themselves to be possessed with prejudice and not keep one ear open as they write of Alexander the great for the contrary party that they may stand indifferent till the truth be throughly canvassed or if to keep causes long in their hands they either delay to search the truth out that they may know it or to decide the cause according to the truth when they have found it And as for Courage to execute Iustice which is the last Duty what need we trouble our selves to seek out the causes when we see the effects so daily and plainly before our eyes whether it be through his own cowardice or inconstancy that he keepeth off or that a fair word whistleth him off or that a greater mans letter staveth him off or that his own guilty conscience doggeth him off or that his hands are manacled with a bribe that he cannot fasten or whatsoever other matter there is in it sure we are the Magistrate too often letteth the wicked carry away the spoil without breaking a jaw of him or so much as offering to pick his teeth It was not well in David's time and yet David a Godly King when complaining he asked the Question Who will stand up with me against the evil doers It was not well in Solomon's time and yet Solomon a peaceable King when considering the Oppressions that were done under the Sun he saw that on the side of the oppressors there was power but as for the oppressed they had no comforter We live under the happy government of a godly and peaceable King Gods holy name be blessed for it and yet God knoweth and we all know
forestal the publick hearing by private informations even to the Iudg himself if the access be easie or at leastwise which indeed maketh less noise but is nothing less pernicious to his Servant or Favorite that hath his ear if he have any such noted Servant or Favorite He therefore that would resolve not to receive a false report and be sure to hold his Resolution let him resolve so far as he can avoid it to receive no Report in private for a thousand to one that is a false one or where he cannot well avoid it to be ready to receive the Information of the adverse part withal either both or neither but indeed rather neither to keep himself by all means equal and entire for a publick hearing Thus much he may assure himself there is no man offereth to possess him with a Cause before-hand be it right be it wrong who doth not either think him unjust or would have him so Secondly let him have the conscience first and then the patience too and yet if he have the s conscience certainly he will have the patience to make search into the truth of things and not be dainty of his pains herein though matters be intricate and the labour like to be long and irksom to find out if it be possible the bottom of a business and where indeed the fault lieth first or most It was a great oversight in a good King for David to give away Mephibosheth's living from him to his Accuser and that upon the bare credit of his accusation It had been more for his honour to have done as Iob did before him to have searched out the cause he knew not and as his son Solomon did after him in the cause of the two mothers Solomon well knew what he hath also taught us Prov. 25. that it was the honour of Kings to search out a matter God as he hath vouchsafed Princes and Magistrates his own name so he hath vouchsafed them his own example in this point An example in the story of the Law Gen. 18. where he did not presently give judgment against Sodom upon the cry of their sins that was come up before him but he would go down first and see whether they had done altogether according to that cry and if not that he might know it An example also in the Gospel story Luk. 16. under the Parable of the rich man whos 's first work when his Steward was accused to him for embezeling his good was not to turn him out of doors but to examine his accounts What through Malice Obsequiousness Coverture and Covetousness counterfeit reports are daily raised and there is much cunning used by those that raise them much odd shuffling and packing and combining to give them the colour and face of perfect truth As then a plain Country-man that would not willingly be cosened in his pay to take a slip for a currant piece or brass for silver leisurely turneth over every piece he receiveth and if he suspect any one more than the rest vieweth it and ringeth it and smelleth to it and bendeth it and rubbeth it so making up of all his senses as it were one natural touch stone whereby to try it such jealousie should the Magistrate use and such industry especially where there appeareth cause of suspicion by all means to sift and to bolt out the truth if he would not be cheated with a false report instead of a true Thirdly let him take heed he do not give countenance or encouragement more than right and reason requireth to contentious persons known Sycophants and common informers If there should be no Accusers to make complaints Offenders would be no offenders for want of due Correction and Laws would be no Laws for want of due Execution Informers then are necessary in a Common-wealth as Dogs are about your houses and yards If any man mislike the comparison let him know it it Cicero's simile and not mine It is not amiss saith that great and wise Orator there should be some store of Dogs about the house where many goods are laid up to be kept safe and many false knaves haunt to do mischief to guard those and to watch these the better But if those Dogs should make at the throat of every man that cometh near the house at honest mens hours and upon honest mens business it is but needful they of the house should sometimes rate them off and if that will not serve the turn well favouredly beat them off yea and if after all that they still continue mankeen knock out their teeth or break their legs to prevent a worse mischief Magistrates are petty Gods God hath lent them his name Dixi Dii I have said ye are Gods Psa. 82. and false Accusers are petty Devils the Devil hath borrowed their name Sathan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Accuser of his brethren For a Ruler then or Magistrate to countenance a Sycophant what is it else but as it were to pervert the course of nature and to make God take the Devils part And then besides where such things are done what is the common cry People as they are suspicious will be talking parlously and after their manner Sure say they the Magistrates are sharers with these fellows in the adventure these are but their setters to bring them in gain their Instruments and Emissaries to toll grist to their mills for the increasing of their moulter He then that in the place of magistracy would decline both the fault and suspicion of such unworthy Collusion it standeth him upon with all his best endeavours by chaining and muzling these beasts to prevent them from biting where they should not and if they have fastned already then by delivering the oppressed with Iob To pluck the prey from between their teeth and by exercising just severity upon them to break their jaws for doing farther harm I am not able to prescribe nor is it meet I should to my Betters by what means all this might best be done For I know not how far the subordinate Magistrates power which must be bounded by his Commission and by the Laws may extend this way Yet some few things there are which I cannot but propose as likely good Helps in all reason and in themselves for the discountenancing of false accusers and the lessening both of their number and insolency Let every good Magistrate take it into his proper consideration whether his Commission and the Laws give him power to use them all or no and how far And first for the avoiding of Malicious sutes and that men should not be brought into trouble upon slight informations I find that among the Romans the Accuser in most cases might not be admitted to put in his libel until he had first taken his corporal oath before the praetor that we was free from all malicious and Calumnious intent Certain
rest as I have done in this my Meditations would swell to the proportion rather of a Treatise than a Sermon and what patience were able to sit them out therefore I must not do it And indeed if what I have spoken to this first point were duly considered and conscionably practised I should the less need to do it For it is the Accuser that layeth the first stone the rest do but build upon his Foundation And if there were no false reports raised or received there would be the less use of and the less work for false and suborned Witnesses ignorant or pack'd Iuries crafty and sly Pleaders cogging and extorting Officers but unto these I have no more to say at this time but only to desire each of them to lay that portion of my Text to their hearts which in the first division was allotted them as their proper share and withal to make application mutatis mutandis unto themselves of whatsoever hath been presently spoken to the Accuser and to the Magistrate from this first Rulē Whereof for the better furtherance of their Application and relief of our memories the summ in brief is thus First concerning the Accuser and that is every party in a Cause or Trial he must take heed he do not raise a false report which is done first by forging a meer untruth and secondly by perverting or aggravating a truth and thirdly by taking advantage of strict Law against Equity any of which whoever doth he first committeth a heinous sin himself and secondly grievously wrongeth his neighbour and thirdly bringeth a great deal of mischief to the Commonwealth All which evils are best avoided first by considering how we would others should deal with us and resolving so to deal with them and secondly by avoiding as all other inducements and occasions so especially those four things which ordinarily engage men in unjust quarrels Malice Obsequiousness Coverture and Greediness Next concerning the Iudge or Magistrate he must take heed he do not receive a false report which he shall hardly avoid unless he beware first of taking private informations secondly of passing over Causes slightly without mature disquisition and thirdly of countenancing accusers more than is meet For whose discountenancing and deterring he may consider whether or no these five may not be good helps so far as it lyeth in his power and the Laws will permit first to reject informations tendered without Oath secondly to give such Interpretations as may stand with Equity as well as Law thirdly to chastise Informers that use partiality or collusion fourthly to allow the wronged party a liberal Satisfaction from his Adversary fifthly to carry a sharp Eye and a strait Hand over his own Servants Followers and Officers Now what remaineth but that the several Premises be earnestly recommended to the godly consideration and conscionable practice of every one of you whom they may concern and all your persons and affairs both in the present weighty businesses and ever hereafter to the good guidance and providence of Almighty God we should humbly beseech him of his gracious goodness to give a Blessing to that which hath been spoken agreeably to his Word that it may bring forth in us the fruits of Godliness Charity and Iustice to the Glory of his Grace the Good of our Brethren and the Comfort of our own Souls even for his blessed Son's sake our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ To whom with c. AD MAGISTRATUM The Third Sermon At the Assises at Lincoln August 4th 1625. at the Request of the High-Sheriff aforesaid William Lister Esquire Psal. CVI. 30. Then stood up Phinees and executed Iudgment and the Plague was stayed THE Abridgment is short which some have made of the whole Book of Psalms but into two words Hosannah and Hallelujah most of the Psalms spending themselves as in their proper Arguments either in Supplication praying unto God for his Blessings and that is Hosannah or in Thanksgiving blessing God for his goodness and that is Hallelujah This Psalm is of the latter sort The word Hallelujah both prefixed in the Title and repeated in the close of it sufficiently giveth it to be a Psalm of Thanksgiving as are also the three next before it and the next after it All which five Psalms together as they agree in the same general Argument the magnifying of God's holy Name so they differ one from another in choice of those special and topical Arguments whereby the Praises of God are set forth therein In the rest the Psalmist draweth his Argument from other Considerations in this from the Consideration of God's merciful removal of those Iudgments he had in his just wrath brought upon his own People Israel for their Sins upon their Repentance For this purpose there are sundry instances given in the Psalm taken out of the Histories of former times out of which there is framed as it were a Catalogue though not of all yet of sundry the most famous rebellions of that people against their God and of Gods both Iustice and Mercy abundantly manifested in his proceedings with them thereupon In all which we may observe the passages betwixt God and them in the ordinary course of things ever to have stood in this order First he preventeth them with undeserved favours they unmindful of his benefits provoke him by their rebellions he in his just wrath chastiseth them with heavy Plagues they humbled under the rod seek to him for ease he upon their submission withdraweth his judgments from them The Psalmist hath wrapped all these five together in Vers. 43 44. Many times did he deliver them but they provoked him with their Counsels and were brought low for their iniquity the three first Nevertheless he regarded their affliction when he heard their cry the other two The particular rebellions of the people in this Psalm instanced in are many some before and some after the verse of my Text. For brevity sake those that are in the following verses I wholly omit and but name the rest which are their wretched Infidelity and Cowardice upon the first approach of danger at the Red Sea vers 7. Their tempting of God in the desert when loathing Manna they lusted for flesh vers 13. Their seditious conspiracy under Corah and his confederates against Moses vers 16. Their gross Idolatry at Horeb in making and worshipping the golden Calf ver 19. Their distrustful murmuring at their portion in thinking scorn of the promised pleasant land ver 24. Their fornicating both bodily with the daughters and spiritually with the Idols of Moab and of Midian ver 28. To the prosecution of which last mentioned story the words of my Text do appertain The original story it self whereto this part of the Psalm referreth is written at full by Moses in Numb 25. and here by David but briefly touched as the present purpose and occasion led him yet so as that the most
carcerem ille gehennam And the Apostles to the whole Council of the Jews whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken to you more than unto God judge ye Acts 4. He that will displease God to please men he is the servant of men and cannot be the servant of God But honest and conscionable men who do not easily and often fail this way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the word is Rom. 16. men that are not evil are yet apt sometimes to be so far carried away with an high estimation of some men as to subject themselves wholly to their judgments or wills without ever questioning the truth of any thing they teach or the lawfulness of any thing they enjoyn It is a dangerous thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Iude speaketh to have mens persons in admiration though they be of never so great learning wisdom or piety because the best and wisest men that are are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to the like infirmities as we are both of sin and error and such as may both deceive others and be themselves deceived That honour which Pythagoras his Scholars gave to their Master in resting upon his bare Authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a sufficient proof yea as a divine Oracle many judicious even among the heathen altogether misliked as too servile and prejudicial to that libertas Philosophica that freedom of judgment which was behoveful for the study of Philosophy How much more then must it needs be prejudicial in the judgment of Christians to that libertas Evangelica that freedom we have in Christ to give such honour to any other man but the man Christ Iesus only or to any other Writings than to those which are in truth the Oracles of God the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament There is I confess much reverence to be given to the Writings of the godly ancient Fathers more to the Canons and Decrees of general and provincial Councils and not a little to the judgment of learned sober and godly Divines of later and present times both in our own and other reformed Churches But we may not jurare in verba build our faith upon them as upon a sure foundation nor pin our belief upon their sleeves so as to receive for an undoubted truth whatsoever they hold and to reject as a gross error whatsoever they disallow without farther examination St. Iohn biddeth us try the Spirits before we believe them 1 Iohn 4 And the Beraeans are remembred with praise fol so doing Act. 17. We blame it in the Schoolmen that some adhere pertinaciously to the opinions of Thomas and others as pertinaciously to the opinions of Scotus in every point wherein they differ insomuch as it were grande piaculum a heinous thing and not to be suffered if a Dominican should dissent from Thomas or a Franciscan from Scotus though but in one single controversed conclusion And we blame it justly for St. Paul blamed the like sidings and partakings in the Church of Corinth whilst one professed himself to be of Paul another of Apollo another of Cephas as a fruit of carnality unbeseeming Christians And is it not also blame-worthy in us and a fruit of the same carnality if any of us shall affect to be accounted rigid Lutherans or perfect Calvinists or give up our judgment to be wholly guided by the Writings of Luther or Calvin or of any other mortal man whatsoever Worthy instruments they were both of them of Gods glory and such as did excellent service to the Church in their times whereof we yet find the benefit and we are unthankful if we do not bless God for it and therefore it is an unsavory thing for any man to gird at their names whose memories ought to be precious But yet were they not men Had they received the spirit in the fulness of it and not by measure Knew they oâ—herwise than in part or prophesied otherwise than in part Might they not in many things did they not in some things mistake and err Howsoever the Apostles Interrogatories are unanswerable what saith he was Paul crucified for you or were ye baptized in the name of Paul Even so was either Luther or Calvin crucified for you Or were ye baptized into the name either of Luther or Calvin or any other man That any one of you should say I am of Luther or any other I am of Calvin and I of him and I of him What is Calvin or Luther nay what is Paul or Apollo but Ministers by whom ye believed That is to say Instruments but not Lords of your belief To sum up and to conclude this first point then To do God and our selves right it is necessary we should with our utmost strength maintain the doctrine and power of that liberty wherewith Christ hath endowed his Church without either usurping the mastery over others or subjecting our selves to their servitude so as to surrender either our judgments or consciences to be wholly disposed according to the opinions or wills of men though of never so excellent piety or parts But yet lest while we shun one extreme we fall into another as the Lord be merciful unto us we are very apt to do lest while we seek to preserve our liberty that we do not lose it we stretch it too far and so abuse it the Apostle therefore in the next clause of the Text putteth in a caveat for that also not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness whence ariseth our second observation We must so maintain our liberty that we abuse it not as we shall if under the pretence of Christian liberty we either adventure the doing of some unlawful thing or omit the performance of any requisite duty As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness The Apostles intention in the whole clause will the better appear when we know what is meant by Cloak and what by Maliciousness The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is no where else found in the whole New Testament but in this verse only signifieth properly any Covering as the covering of Badgerâ— skins that was spread over the Tabernacle is in the Septuagints Translation called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An it is very fitly translated a cloak though it do not properly so signifie in respect of that notion wherein the word in our English Tongue is commonly and proverbially used to note some fair and colourable pretence wherewith we disguise and conceal from the conusance of others the dishonestly and faultiness of our intentions in some things practised by us Our Saviour Christ saith of the obstinate Iews that had heard his Doctrine and seen his Miracles that they had no cloak for their sin Ioh. 15. he meaneth they had no colour of plea nothing to pretend by way of excuse And St. Paul professeth in
which perhaps all that while never came within his thoughts but merely respecteth his own occasions and conveniences In this example as in a glass let the objectors behold the lineaments and features of their own Argument Because kneeling standing bowing are commanded by the Church and the people are bound in conscience to obey the Laws of the Church therefore the Church imposeth upon the people kneeling standing and bowing as necessary to salvation If that which they object were indeed true and that the Church did impose these Rites and Ceremonies upon the people as of necessity to salvation and require to have them so accepted doubtless the imposition were so prejudicial to Christian liberty as that every faithful man were bound in conscience for the maintenance of that liberty to disobey her authority therein and to confess against the imposition But our Church hath been so far from any intention of doing that her self that by her foresaid publick declaration she hath manifested her utter dislike of it in others What should I say more Denique teipsum concute It would better become the Patriarchs of that party that thus deeply but untruly charge her to look unto their own cloaks dive into their own bosoms and survey their own positions and practice if happily they may be able to clear themselves of trenching upon Christian liberty and ensnaring the consciences of their brethren and imposing upon their Proselites their own traditions of kneel not stand not bow not like those mentioned Col. 2. of touch not taste not handle not requiring to have them accepted of the People as of necessity unto salvation If upon due examination they can acquit themselves in this matter their accounts will be the easier but if they cannot they shall find when the burden lighteth upon them that it will be no light matter to have been themselves guilty of that very crime whereof they have unjustly accused others As for consent with the Papists in their doctrine concerning the power that mens Laws have over the conscience which is the last objection it ought not to move us We are not ashamed to consent with them or any others in any truth but in this point we differ from them so far as they differ from the truth which difference I conceive to be neither so great as some men nor yet so little as other some men would make it They teach that Humane Laws especially the Ecclesiastical bind the consciences of men not only in respect of the obedience but also in respect of the things themselves commanded and that by their own direct immediate and proper virtue In which doctrine of theirs three things are to be misliked First that they give a preheminence to the Ecclesiastical Laws above the Secular in this power of binding Wee may see it in them and in these objectors how men will run into extremities beyond all reason when they give themselves to be led by corrupt respects As he said of himself and his fellow-Philosophers Scurror ego ipse mihi populo tu so it is here They of Rome carried with a wretched desire to exalt the Papacy and indeed the whole Clergy as much as they may and to avile the secular powers as much as they dare they therefore ascribe this power over the conscience to the Ecclesiastical Laws especially but do not shew themselves all out so zealous for the Secular Ours at home on the contrary out of an appetite they have to bring in a new platform of Discipline into the Church and for that purpose to present the established Government unto the eyes and the hearts of the people in as deformed a shape as they can quarrel the Ecclesiastical Laws especially for tyrannizing over the conscience but do not shew themselves so much aggrieved at the secular Whereas the very truth is whatsoever advantages the secular powers may have above the Ecclesiastical or the Ecclesiastical above the secular in other respects yet as to the poweâ—â—â— binding the Conscience all humane Laws in general are of like reason and stand upon equal terms It is to be misliked secondly in the Romish Doctrine that they subject the conscience to the things themselves also and not only tie it to the obedience whereby they assume unto themselves interpretative the power of altering the nature of the things by removing of their indifferency and inducing a necessity for so long as they remain indifferent it is certain they cannot bind And thirdly and principally it is to be misliked in them that they would have this binding power to flow from the proper and inherent virtue of the Laws themselves immediately and per-se which is in effect to equal them with the divine Law for what can that do more Whereas humane Lawâ— in things not repugnant to the Law of God do bind the conscience indeed to obedience but it is by consequent and by vertue of a former Divine Law commanding us in all lawful things to obey the superior powers But whether mediately or immediately may some say whether directly or by consequent whether by its own or by a borrowed vertue what is it material to be argued so longas the same effect will follow and that as entirely to all intents and purposes the one way as well as the other As if a debt be alike recoverable it skilleth not much whether it be due upon the original bond or upon an assignment If they may be sure to be obeyed the higher powers are satisfied Let Scholars wrangle about words and distinctions so they have the thing it is all they look after This Objection is in part true and for that reason the differences in this controversie are not altogether of so great consequence as they have seemed to some Yet they that think the difference either to be none at all or not of considerable moment judge not aright for albeit it be all one in respect of the Governors whence the Obligation of Conscience springeth so long as they are conscioâ—ably obeyed as was truly alledged Yet unto inferiors who are bound in conscience to yield obedience it is not all one but it much concerneth them to understand whence that Obligation ariseth in respect of this very point whereof we now speak of Christian liberty and for two weighty and important considerations For first If the obligation spring as they would have it from the Constitution it self by the proper and immediate vertue thereof then the conscience of the subject is tyed to obey the Constitution in the rigour of it whatsoever occasions may occur and whatsoever other inconveniences may follow thereupon so as he sinneth mortally who at any time in any case though of never so great necessity doth otherwise than the very letter of the Constitution requireth yea though it be extra casum scandali contemptûs Which were an heavy case and might prove to be of very pernicious consequence and is indeed repugnant
312 18 273 19-20 303. 319 vii 4 274 7 44 17 46 21 213 23 301. 312 s xxiv 203 c. 31 57 36 73 viii 1 5. 51 8 247 ix 19-22 312 x 11 140 30 248 xii 4 6 s vii 41 c. 207. 218 29 48 xiii 5 10 xiv 37 47 38 280 xv 10 321 2 Cor. 1. 19-20 172 iii 17 290 iv 4 303 v 21 190 ix 10 51 xii 7 5. 52. Gal. 1. 10 125. 306 16-17 216 10 323 ii 5 305 14 20 19 310 iii 10-11 310 24-25 240 iv 4 240 v 1 240. 301. 305 13 303. 312 18 310 vi 1 295 2 312 11 308 Eph. 1. 3 192 iv 8 c. 207 16 55 28 199. 208 v 3 273 6 305 15 303 vi 5-7 302. 324 Phil. 3. 19 303 iv 13 221 Col. 1. 10 323 20 240 ii 4 305 8 305 22 304 iii 5 303 22-23 325 1 Thes. 2. 5 308 16 190 v 23 297 2 Thes. 2. 3 305 4 30â— iii 6 207 10 104. 214 11 208 12 208 1 Tim. 1. 8 72 13 26. 68. 280 iii 13 228 iv 3 239 s iv 233 c. 5 311 12 3 16 54 v 3 103. 214 8 208 vi 1 323 3-5 245 8 324 20 25. 302 2 Tim. 1. 6 25. 47 14 25. 303 Tit. 1. 15 253 iii 3 321 8 58 Heb. 1. 3 25. 1 iv 1 179 12 161 13 9 vi 4-5 155 18 178 viii 6 310 x 30 9 xi 8 323 xii 9 176 11 187 23 252 28 323 Iam. 1. 6 50 8 112 17 43. 280 21 309 25 301 ii 12 301 iv 12 9 15 174 17 71. 280 v 17 306 1 Pet. 2. 13 94. 110. s xvi 299 c. 18 324 24 190 v 3 8. 304 2 Pet. 2. 1 309 15 287 iii 18 26 1 Ioh. 2. 7 321 iv 1 307 v 3 304. 321 Iude 3 302 4 310 16 306 FINIS XXI SERMONS VIZ. XVII AD AULAM. III AD MAGISTRATUM I AD POPULUM BY The Right Reverend FATHER in GOD Robert Sanderson Late Lord Bishop of LINCOLN Sometime Fellow of Lincoln-Colledge in Oxford and Regius Professor in the said University Jerem. vi 16. Ask for the old Paths where is the good way and walk therein ' ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eurip. LONDON Printed for B. Tooke T. Passenger and T. Sawbridge and are to be sold by Thomas Hodgkin next door to the Dolphin-Inn in West-Smithfield MDCLXXXVI THE PREFACE 1. I Had thought to have given somewhat a larger account in this Preface than now I do as well concerning the publishing of these Sermons 1. Why at all 2. Why now so late â—3 Why these so many so few as concerning the Sermons themselves 1. The Truth and 2. The Choice of the Matters therein handled 3. The Manner of handling and such other things as some Readers out of curiosity expect to be satisfied in But considering with my self that there may be times wherein it may be a point of the greatest Prudence to keep silence and wherein as it was wisely said of old Qui bene latuit bene vixit He liveth best that appeareth least so it may be as truly said Qui bene tacuit bene dixit He speaketh best that saith least I thought it safer to save that labour than to adventure the possibility of having offence taken upon no better security than the not having meant to give any 2. Therefore in short thus After these Sermons were preached so far was I from any forwardness to publish them that for some years they were thrown aside without any thought at all of printing them but rather a resolution to the contrary I could not observe any such scarcity of printed Sermons abroad as that there should be any great need of sending out more and the copying out of most of them again which was to be done ere the work could be fitted for the Press and could not well be done by any other hand than my own could not be any such pleasing task to me especially at these years 69 current as to tempt me to a willingness to undergo a drudgery of so much toyl and irksomness Wherefore though I was often and earnestly sollicited thereunto both by the entreaties and letters of friends and some considerable offers also from such as trade in Books to quicken me on yet my consent came on very heavily and my resolutions remained uncertain Until I understood that one who having by some means or other light on a Copy of one single Sermon of mine preached at Newport in the Isle of Wight during the Treaty there upon Gal. 5. 22. had surruptitiously without my consent or so much as knowledge and that negligently and imperfectly enough printed it Which not knowing how to help for what was past nor for the future how far it might become a leading example for others to follow as ill Precedents seldom want seconds but well knowing withal that there were in several mens hands Copies also of most of the Sermons here printed I had no other way left to secure the rest from running the same Fate their fellow had done than by yielding my absolute consent to the publishing of them and preparing them as my leisure would serve for the Press For I had learned by this late and some former experiences that there are men of those that make haste to be rich who bear so little reverence to the Laws of common Equity and Ingenuity that they will transgress them all for the gain of e three-half-pence or a piece of bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. But when thus resolved I came to seek up my scattered Copies which lay neglected so little did I value them some in one corner some in another of the Two and Twenty which I intended to publish viz. Nineteen Ad Aulam preached at the Court in my Attendance Ordinary and Occasional there and Three Ad Magistratum preached before some of the Reverend Iudges in their Circuits after the best search I could make I fell short Five of my whole Number Those Ad Magistratum were all found and being all now published there need no farther account to be given of them The Nineteen Ad Aulam were these viz. I. on Eccles. vii 1. Whitehall 1631. II. on Prov. xvi 7. Whitehall 1632. III. on 1 Pet. ii 17. Newark 1633. IV. 1 on Luk. xvi 8. Otelands 1636. V. on Psal. xix 13. Belvoir 1636. VI. 1 on Phil. iv 11. Greenwich 1637. VII 2 on Phil. iv 11. Otelands 1637. VIII on Isai. lii 3. Greenwich 1638. IX on Rom. xv 5. Theobalds 1638. X. on Psal. xxxvii 11. Berwick 1639. XI on 1 Tim. iii. 16. Berwick 1639. XII 1 on 1 Cor. x. 23. Whitehall 1640. XIII on Psal. cxix 75. Whitehall 1640. XIV 3 on 1 Cor. x. 23. Hampton 1640. XV. on Rom. xv 6. Whitehall 1641. XVI on Psal. xxvii 10. Woburne 1647. XVII 2 on Luk. xvi 8. Stoke Pogeys 1647. XVIII on Gal. v. 22. Newport 1648.
XIX on Heb. xii 3. Newport 1648. Of these the I. II. III. IV. and X. were all missing and the XVIII was before faln into the hands of another who would not be perswaded to part with his Copy as he called it either to me upon entreaty perhaps to chastise me for my Ignorance who was so silly before as to think I had had some right to my own or to his fellow-Stationer upon any reasonable or rather as I am informed unreasonable terms which is done though not all out so agreeably to the old Rule Quod tibi fieri non vis yet very conformly to the old Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. Of these Six thus in hazard to be all left out in the Impression Three are recovered and here presented to publick view and Three are not The first viz. that on Eccles. vii 1. I made a shift by the help of my memory to make up as near as it would serve me to what I had so long since spoken out of an old Copy of a Sermon formerly preached upon the same Text elsewhere For I am not ashamed to profess that most of those Ad Aulam were framed upon such Texts and out of such Materials as I had formerly made use of in other places but always cast as it were into new moulds For both fit it was the difference of the Auditories in the one place and in the other should be some what considered and besides my first crude meditaons being always hastily put together could never please me so well at a second and more leisurable review as to pass without some additions defalcations and other alterations more or less The Second and Third also viz. that on Prov. xvi 7. and that on 1 Pet. ii 17. it was my good hap searching purposely among the Papers of my late worthy friend and neighbour whose memory must ever be precious with me Thomas Harrington Esquire deceased there to find together with the Copies of divers others which I wanted not transcribed with his own hand But the Fourth and Fifth are here still wanting because I could not find them out and so is the Eighteenth also because I could not get it in The want of which last though hapning not through my default yet I have made a kind of compensation for by adding one other Sermon of those Ad Populum in lieu of that which is so wanting to make up the number an even score notwithstanding 5. As for the Sermons themselves the matter therein contained the manner of handling c. I must permit all to the Readers doom Who if he be homo quadratus perfectly even and unbyassed both in his Iudgment and Affection that is to say neither prepossessed with some false principle to forestal the one nor carryed aside with partiality for or prejudice against any person or party to corrupt the other will be the better able to discern whether I have any where in these Papers exceeded the bounds of Truth and Soberness or laid my self open to the just imputation either of Flattery or Falshood There hath been a generation of men wise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for their own purposes but Malignants sure enough that laboured very much when time was to possess the world with an opinion that all Court Chaplains were Parasites and their Preaching little other than daubing I hope these Papers will appear so innocent in that behalf as to contribute somewhat towards the shame and confutation of that slander 6. The greater fear is that as the times are all men will not be well pleased with some passages herein especially where I had occasion to speak something of our Church Ceremonies then under command but since grown into disuse But neither ought the displeasure of men nor the change of times to cast any prejudice upon the Truth which in all variations and turnings of affairs remaineth the same it was from the beginning and hath been accustomed and therefore can think it no new thing to find unkind entertainment abroad especially from them whose interest it is to be or at leastwise to seem to be of a different perswasion For that the truth is rather on my side in this point than on theirs that dissent from me there is besides other this strong presumption onwards That I continue of the same judgment I was of twenty thirty forty years ago and profess so to do with no great hopes of bettering my temporal condition by so professing whereas hundreds of those who now decry the Ceremonies as they do also some other things of greater importance as Popish and Antichristian did not many years since both use them themselves and by their subscriptions approve the enjoyning of them but having since in compliance with the Times professed their dislike of them their portion is visibly grown fatter thereby If the face of affairs be not now the same it was when the Sermons wherein this Point is most insisted on were preached What was then done is not sure in any justice now chargeable upon me as a crime who never pretended to be a Prophet nor could then either foresee that the times would so soon have changed or have believed that so many men would so soon have changed with the times 7. Of the presumption aforesaid I have here made use not that the business standeth in need of such a Reserve for want of competent proof otherwise which is the case wherein the Lawyers chiefly allow it but to save the labour of doing that over again in the Preface which I conceive to be already done in the work it self With what success I know not that lieth in the breast of the Reader But that I spake no otherwise than I thought and what my intentions were therein that lieth in my own breast and cannot be known to the Reader who is therefore in charity bound to believe the best where there appeareth no pregnant probability to the contrary The discourses themselves for much of the matter directly tend to the peace both of Church and State by endeavouring to perswade to Unity and Obedience and for the manner of handling have much in them of Plainness little I think nothing at all of Bitterness and so are of a temper fitter to instruct than to provoke And these I am sure are no Symptomes of very bad Intentions If there be no worse Construction made of them than I meant nor worse Use I trust they neither will deserve much blame nor can do much hurt Howsoever having now adventured them abroad though having little else to commend them but Truth and Perspicuity two things which I have always had in my care for whereto else serveth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith God hath endued man but to speak reason and to be understood if by the good blessing of Almighty God whom I desire to serve in the spirit of my mind they may become in any little degree instrumental to his Glory
the edification of his Church and the promoting of any one soul in Faith and Holiness towards the attainment of everlasting salvation I shall have great cause of rejoycing in it as a singular evidence of his underserved mercy towards me and an incomparably rich reward of so poor and unworthy labours Yet dare I not promise to my self any great hopes that any thing that can be spoken in an argument of this nature though with never so much strength of reason and evidence of truth should work any kindly effect upon the men of this generation when the times are nothing favourable and themselves altogether undisposed to receive it No more than the choisest Musick can affect the ear that is stopt up or the most proper Physick operate upon him that either cannot or will not take it But as the Sun when it shineth clearest in a bright day if the beams thereof be intercepted by a beam too but of another kind lying upon the eye is to the party so blinded as if the light were not at all so I fear it is in this case Not through any incapacity in the Organ so much especially in the learneder part among them as from the interposition of an unsound Principle which they have received with so much affection that for the great complacency they have in it they are loth to have it removed And as they of the Roman party having once throughly imbibed this grand Principle that the Catholick Church and that must needs be it of Rome is infallible are thereby rendred incapable to receive any impressions from the most regular and concluding discourses that can be tendred to them if they discern any thing therein disagreeing from the dictates of Rome and so are perpetually shut up into a necessity of erring if that Church can err unless they can be wrought off from the belief of that Principle which is not very easily to be done after they have once swallowed it and digested it without the great mercy of God and a huge measure of self-denial Even so have these our Anti-ceremonial Brethren framed to themselves a false Principle likewise which holdeth them in Errour and hardneth them against all impressions or but Offers of reason to the contrary 8. All Errors Sects and Heresies as they are mixed with some inferior Truths to make them the more passable to others so do they usually owe their original to some eminent Truths either misunderstood or misapplied whereby they become the less discernable to their own Teachers whence it is that such Teachers both deceive and are deceived To apply this then to the business in hand There is a most sound and eminent Truth justly maintained in our own and other Reformed Churches concerning the Perfection and Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures Which is to be understood of the revelation of supernatural Truths and the Substantials of Gods Worship and the advancing of Moral and Civil duties to a more sublime and spiritual height by directing them to a more noble end and exacting performance of them in a holy manner But without any purpose thereby to exclude the belief of what is otherwise reasonable or the practice of what is prudential This Orthodox Truth hath by an unhappy misunderstanding proved that great stone of offence whereat all our late Sectaries have stumbled Upon this foundation as they had laid it began our Anti-ceremonians first to raise their so often renewed Models of Reformation but they had first transformed it into quite another thing by them perhaps mistaken for the same but really as distant from it as Falshood from Truth to wit this That Nothing might lawfully be done or used in the Churches of Christ unless there were either Command or Example for it in the Scriptures Whence they inferred that whatsoever had been otherwise done or used was to be cast out as Popish Antichristian and Superstitious This is that unfound corrupt Principle whereof I spake that root of bitterness whose stem in process of time hath brought forth all these numerous branches of Sects and Heresies wherewith this sinful Nation is now so much pestered 9. It is not my purpose nor is this a place for it to make any large discovery of the cause of the mistake the unsoundness of the Tenent it self and how pernicious it is in the Consequents Yet I cannot but humbly and earnestly entreat them for the love of God and the comfort of their own souls as they tender the peace of the Church and the honour of our Religion and in compassion to thousands of their Christian Brethren who are otherwise in great danger to be either misled or scandalized that they would think it possible for themselves to be mistaken in their Principle as well as others and possible also for those Principles they rest upon to have some frailties and infirmities in them though not hitherto by them adverted because never suspected that therefore they would not hasten to their Conclusion before they are well assured of the Premisses nor so freely bestow the name of Popish and Superstitious upon the opinions or actions of their Brethren as they have used to do before they have first and throughly examined the solidity of their own Grounds finally and in order thereunto That they would not therefore despise the Offer of these few things ensuing to their consideration because tendered by one that standeth better affected to their Persons than Opinions 10. And first I beseech them to consider how unluckily they have at once both straitned too much and yet too much widened that which they would have to be the adequate Rule of warrantable actions by leaving out Prudence and taking in Example Nor doth it sound well that the examples of men though never so Godly should as to the effect of warranting our actions stand in so near equipage with the commands of God as they are here placed joyntly together without any character of difference so much as in degree But the superadding of Examples to Commands in such manner as in this Assertion is done either signifieth nothing or overthroweth all the rest which is so evident that I wonder how it could escape their own observation For that Example which is by them supposed sufficient for our warranty was it self either warranted by some Command or former Example or it was not If it were then the adding of it clearly signifieth nothing for then that warrant we have by it proceedeth not from it but from that precedent Command or Example which warranted it If it were not then was it done meerly upon the dictates of Prudence and Reason and then if we be sufficiently warranted by that Example as is still by them supposed to act after it we are also sufficiently thereby warranted to act upon the meer dictates of Prudence and Reason without the necessity of any other either Command or former Example for so doing What is the proper use that ought to be made of Examples is touched
nothing against Conscience 37 38 2. Get the mastery of thine own Will 39 43 3. Beware of Engagements to Sin 44 45 4. Resolve not to yield to any Temptation 46 The Conclusion Sermon X. Ad Aulam I. Ser. on PHIL. iv 11. Sect. 1 4. THe occasion Scope 5 Paraphrase and 6 Division of the Text. 7 12 Four Observations from the Apostles Protestation 13 14 The Nature of Contentment gathered from the Text in three Particulars viz. 15 16 I. That a man be content with his own Estate without coveting that which is anothers 17 19 Illustrated by Examples both ways 20 21 and proved from Grounds both of Justice 22 and Charity 23 Not all desire of that which is anothers forbidden 24 but the Inordinate only Whether in respect 25 26 1. Of the Object of the Desire 27 29 2. The Act or of the Desire 30 31 3. The Effects of the Desire 32 The Inference thence 33 II. That a man be content with his present Estate 34 Because 1. That only is properly his own 35 2. All looking beyond that disquieteth the mind 36 3. The present is ever best 37 38 The Duty pressed 39 40 and the misunderstanding of it prevented 41 III. That a man be content with any Estate 42 44 with the Reasons thereof 45 c. and Inferences thence Sermon VI. Ad Aulam II. Serm. on PHIL. iv 11. Sect. 1-3 THe Art of Contentment 4 1. Not from Nature 4 2. Institution 6 3. or Outward Things 7 But from God who teacheth it us 8 1. by his Spirit 9 2. by his Promises 10 c. 3. by the Rod of Discipline 12 Inferences I. Where this learning is to be had 13 II. Sundry motives thereunto 14 III. The Trial of our proficiency therein by Six Marks 15 1. The despising of unjust gain 16 2. The moderating of worldly Desires and Care 17 3. The careful using and of what we have 18 4. the charitable dispensing of what we have 19 5. The bearing both of wants with patience 20 c. 6. and losses with patience 22 Seven Helps to further us in this Learning 23 24 1. A right perswasion of the Goodness and Truth of God 25 2. A through sense of our own unworthiness 26 3. Thankfulness for what we have 27 4. A prudent comparing of our Estates with other mens 28 5. To consider the vanity of all outward things 29 30 6. Sobriety in a frugal and temperate use of the Creature 31 7. To remember that we are but Pilgrims here Sermon VII Ad Aulam on ISA. lii 3. Sect. 1. THe Sum and Division of the Text. 2 4 Part I. Mans Sale 5 Inferences thence To take knowledge 1. of our Misery therein 2 2. and Presumption therein 7 The Materials of the Contract viz. 8 10 I. The Commodity and therein our Baseness 11 15 II. The Price and therein our Folly 15 18 An Objection by way of Excuse removed 19 24 III. The Consent and therein our Inexcusableness 25 PART II. Mans Redemption wrought 26 I. EFFECTUALLY Wherein are considered 27 1. The Power of the Redeemer 28 2. The Love of the Redeemer 29 3. The Right of the Redeemer 30 And thence Inferred a threefold Duty viz. 1. of Affiance relatively to his Power 31 2. of Thankfulness relatively to his Love 32 3. of Service relatively to his Right 33 II. FREELY As to us who payed nothing towards it 34 37 But yet a valuable price payed by our Redeemer 38 Inferences thence To exclude Merit 39 But not Endeavours 40 The Conclusion Sermon VIII Ad Aulam on ROM xv 5. Sect. 1 2 THe Scope and Division of the Text. 3 5 THE FORMALITY of the Prayer Observations thence viz. I. Prayer to be joyned with Instruction 6 9 II. God the only Author of Peace 10 III. Concerning the Style FIVE ENQUIRIES viz. 11 13 1. Why the God of Patience 14 16 2. Why of Consolation 17 19 3. Of the Choice of these two Attributes 20 4. Their Conjunction 21 5. and Order 22 In the matter of the Prayer three Particulars 23 I. THE THING prayed for viz. Like mindedness 24 26 Opened 27 and Pressed upon these Considerations 28 1. That we are members of the same Body 29 2. and of the same Family 30 3. That it forwardeth the building up of Gods Church 31 33 4. but the want of it giveth Scandal to the Enemies thereof 34 35 II. The FORMER QUALIFICATION importing an agreement 1. Universal 36 38 2. Mutual 39 40 III. The Later QUALIFICATION importing an agreement 1. according unto Truth and Godliness 41 42 2. after The Example of Christ. 43 The Conclusion Sermon IX Ad Aulam on 1 TIM iii. 16. Sect. 1 4. THe Occasion Scope and Division of THE TEXT 5 6 Of the word Mystery 7 I. POINT The Gospel A GREAT MYSTERY Because 8 9 1. it could not have been known 10 13 2. had it not been revealed and 14 15 3. being revealed cannot be perfectly comprehended 16 17 INFERENCES thence I. Reason not to be the measure of Faith 18 19 II. Disquisition of Truth to be within the bounds of Sobriety 20 21 III. Offence not to be taken at the difference of Opinions among Christians 22 23 II. POINT Christianity a Mystery of Godliness In regard 24 26 1. both of the general Scope thereof 27 2. and of the special Parts thereof 28 3. and the means of conserving it 29 31 INFERENCES thence I. for the trial of Doctrines 32 33 with application to the present Church of England 34 II. For the ordering of our Lives 35 The Conclusion Sermon X. Ad Aulam on PSAL. cxix 75. Sect. 1. THe Division of THE TEXT 2 6 What is meant by the Judgments of God 7 POINT I. The righteousness of Gods Judgments 1. as proceeding from him 8 9 2. as deserved by us 10 INFERENCES thence 1. Not to murmur against the ways of Gods providence 11 2. but to submit our wills to his 12 14 Davids many troubles 15 17 and God the causer thereof 18 POINT II. That God causeth his servants to be troubled it is out of his faithfulness whether we respect 19 1. his Promises 20 22 2. or their Relations 23 The Inference thence To bear troubles chearfully 24 25 POINT III. The faithfulness of God in sending troubles evidenced from 26 30 1. The End he aimeth at therein 31 34 2. The Proportion he holdeth therein 35 36 3. The Issues he giveth thereout Sermon XI Ad Aulam I. Ser. on 1 COR. x. 23. Sect. 1 2. THe Scope and Division of the Text. 3 4 All things meant of Indifferent things only 5 What things are Indifferent 6 8 POINT I. The Liberty we have to indifferent things 9 10 The Error of those that over-much restrain this Liberty 11 14 blamed as 1. unrighteous in it self 15 22 2. Dangerous in the Consequents 23 With some APPLICATION to this Church 24 The chief Causes of that Error discovered 25 27 viz. 1. Ignorance 28 30 2. and Partiality 31
more than so long as there is such a proneness in most men to mis-judg and mis-asperse those that are set over them especially if they once grow to differ about meum and tuum we may expect from the men of this Generation and should prepare for before we put our hand to the plow It should not therefore much discourage us St. Paul counted it but a very small thing so long as we know nothing by our selves and do but what we may and ought if we shall find our selves wrongfully and upon light surmises taxed of Covetousness of Ambition of Time-serving which are the Crimes usually laid in our dish not only by the scum of the people men of lower rank and repute but sometimes even by persons of quality yea such as pretend most to Religion Since holy Paul than whom never man lived freer from such vicious affections could not without so many Protestations secure himself from the sinister jealousies and censures of those from whom he received maintenance Rather should their forwardness to judg thus uncharitably of us make us to walk the more warily and wisely not to give them cause but to be sure in our whole course to have both the warrant for what we are to do and for what we have done the Testimony of a good Conscience That if yet they will needs speak evil of us as of evil doers they may do it gratis and to their own shame and not ours 11. Observe hence thirdly with what great caution the Apostle here speaketh and wheresoever else he is occasioned to speak of himself or his own Affairs It were certainly good for us in the publick exercise of our Ministry at least where we may avoid it not to meddle at all with personal and particular things that concern either our selves or others Both because the more we descend to particulars the more subject we are to mistakings for descendendo contingit errare and the leaven of a little Error or Indiscretion in the Pulpit will sower a great lump of Truth and of Wholsom Doctrine As also because personal matters can hardly be so dealt in especially in publick but that through prejudices and the partiality of mens Affections offence and distast will be taken thereat by some or other It were best for us therefore that we either do not mistake or be not mistaken to hold us to general Truths for bearing personal matters as much as may be But where a Necessity lieth upon us not with coveniency to be avoided as so the Case may be to speak of our own or other mens particular concernments it should be our great care by our blessed Apostles example to ballance well every word we speak and to use such caution and discretion therein that we leave nothing as far as is possible subject to misconstruction neither inject scruples into the heads and minds of our Hearers which we shall not withal have sufficiently removed and not only to be sure to avoid the just giving but to use our best diligence also to prevent the unjust taking of Offence at any thing we shall deliver 12. Observe Fourthly how ready the Apostle is upon every needful occasion as to keep himself from the Crime so to clear himself from the suspicion of evil He that is wanting to his own just defence transgresseth the Law of God and the Rule of Charity in bearing false witness against himself And it is not only cruelty but stupidity too for a man wholly to dis-regard what others think of him Especially pernicious when their mis-conceits of the Person may draw prejudice upon his Doctrine and consequently bring scandal unto the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It carrieth with it ever a strong presumption of Guilt but an infallible argument it is of Vanity howsoever When a man sweareth to put away a Crime from him before it be laid to him and laboureth as a woman in travel to be delivered of an Excuse ere any body have accused him But for to stop the mouth of Calumny upon a false charge or to prevent misprisions where they are likely to ensue and may do harm if they should ensue there to justifie our selves and by publick manifesto as it were to disclaim what we might be wrongfully charged withal is many times expedient and sometimes necessary I am become a fool in glorying saith our Apostle but ye have compelled me As who say your undervaluing of me to the great prejudice of the Gospel but advantage of false Teachers hath made that glorying now necessary for me which had been otherwise but Vanity and Folly When his case falleth to be ours we may then do as he now doth purge our selves from false Crimes and Suspicions and maintain our own Innocency Only be we first sure that our Consciences stand clear in the sight of God before we endeavour to clear our Credits before the faces of men Lest by justifying our selves before them we contract a new Guilt before him and so become indeed worse than we were by striving to seem better than we are All these from the protestation in the former part of the Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not that I speak in respect of want 13. But the main of our business is as I said in the latter part of the verse concerning the Nature and the Art of Contentment All Arts have their Praecognita so hath this The first and chiefest whereof is as in all other Arts and Sciences to understand Quid sit Qua de re agitur what it is that we are to treat of as the subject-matter of the whole discourse as whereunto all the Precepts Rules and Conclusions therein contained must relate We shall never learn the Art unless we first know the Nature of Contentment Of that therefore first from these words very few in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In whatsoever state I am 14. Wherein the Nature of true Contentment is by intimation discovered from the Object thereof in three particulars partly limited and partly unlimited Limited first in respect of the Person it must be a mans own Estate The Verb here is in the first Person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am Limited secondly in respect of the time it must be a mans present Estate The Verb here is of the Present Tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I AM. But thirdly for the Kind high or low for the Quantity great or small for the Quality convenient or inconvenient and in every other respect altogether indifferent and unlimited So it be a mans own and present estate it mattereth not else what it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indefinite In whatsoever estate In these Three joyntly consisteth the Nature of Contentment in any of which whoever faileth is short of St. Paul's learning That man only hath learned to be content that can suffice himself with his own estate with the present estate with any estate Of these Three therefore in their order And
in Amos 2. that sold the needy for a pair of shooes would be content with a small matter so they might be on the taking hand Esau had a very sorry recompense a morsel of meat and a mess of broth for his own birth-right and his fathers blessing yet that was something jus pro jure and something we say hath some savour But to let all go and to get nothing for it this is our singular folly in the next circumstance that of the Price Ye have sold your selves for nought 12. A heavy charge may some say but is there any truth in it or is there indeed any sence in it Examine that first It is well known there can be no buying and selling without the intervention of a Price Pactio pretii is by the Learned put into the definition and therefore is conceived to be of the essence of this kind of contract 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the old formula for buying and selling So that if there be no price paid or to be paid nothing given or to be given in compensation or exchange for what is received it may be a Contract of some other species but it can be no Sale It seemeth then to be a meer implicat a contradiction in adjecto to say that a thing is sold and yet for nothing 13. But here we have a double help to salve it in either of the Terms one First for the term of selling True it is in strict propriety of speech buying and selling cannot be without a price But Divine especially Prophetical expressions are not ever tied to such strictnesses We read therefore in the Scriptures both of buying and selling without a price Of buying without a price Come buy wine and milk without money and without silver Isa. 58. And of selling without a price Thou sellest thy people for nought and takest no money for them Psal. 44. And likewise here in the Text. Nay more that strictness of propriety is not always observed in other Authors Vendendi verbum ad omnem alienationem pertinet saith a learned Civilian The word selling may be extended to every Contract the effect whereof is an alienation And if so then should we have given away our selves gratis as it is said of some Eph. 4. that they have given themselves over to lasciviousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word there yet might we be said to have sold our selves in this construction that is to have made over our selves to Satan by an absolute alienation whereby whatsoever right and interest we had in our selves before were it more or less were it any or none is now conveyed unto and setled upon him 14. Another help we have in the other Term for nought For to say truth we do receive a price such as it is He is content to allow us something he knoweth we would not else bargain Perhaps some little profit or pleasure or ease or honour or applause or revenge some small trifle or other which being of very little worth or use and so not to be taken for a valuable consideration may therefore be called nought or nothing not simply or absolutely nothing but comparatively and respectively nothing Even as in our common speech when a man would express that he hath sold a thing much under worth the forms are ordinary I have even given it away I have parted with it for a song I have sold it for nothing And this common usage of the Phrase as it well preserveth the sence so doth it also that I may stop two gaps with one Bush justifie the truth of this charge in my Text you have sold your selves for nought for between meer nothing and as good as nothing the difference is not great in point of discretion 15. Here then is our folly in this Sale that on the one side we shamefully underprised what we were to part with and on the other side extreamly overvalued what we were to receive in exchange for it Renowned is Glaucus for his folly in Homer for changing armour with Diomedes with such palpable disadvantage that Proverbs came of it And we laught at the silliness of the poor Indians when the Portugals came first among them for parting with a massie lump of Gold-ore for a three-half penny knife Yet is our folly far beyond theirs they had something yea and in the same kind too he brass they Iron for Gold that 's yet one Metal for another though there be great difference in the worth But what sottishness possessed us thus to barter away Coelum pro coeno Heaven for dung Paradise for an apple our selves for nothing 16. But flesh and blood is ready to justifie its own Act as ever they that are guiltiest of folly are the shiest to own it and thus will argue it If we have sold our selves to Satan yet the advantage seemeth to be on our side We are sure we have got something from him say it be but small a vanity a toy yet such a toy as we are pleased withal But he hath got a verier toy from us a very nothing For we have but sold our selves and we are but men and what is man but like a thing of nought Psal. 144. Lay him in the balance with Vanity it self he will prove the verier Vanity of the two that will overweigh him Psal. 62. If any man should chance to think better of himself and take himself to be something there is one will tell him that he mistaketh the matter and deceiveth himself for he is nothing Gal. 6. Nay less than nothing saith our Prophet Isa. 40. By all which it should seem we have rather cheated the Devil than he us and have gotten the better end of him and are so far from having parted with something for nothing as we are charged as that quite contrary we have rather gotten something for nothing Or at least-wise if we have but vanity for vanity we a thing of nought from him he a thing of nought from us fumum accepit fumum vendidit as it is in the Apothegm Or in an Epigram I have heard of two dunces and their disputation Attulit ille nihil retulit ille nihil we are yet upon even terms and that can deserve no great imputation of folly 17. Indeed should we speak of our bodies only these mortal corruptible vile bodies as we find them termed by all those Epithets or look upon our whole nature as it is now embased by it or even taken at the best and set in comparison against God in one of which three respects it must be understood where-ever the Scriptures speak of our worthlesness or nothingness there might then be some place for these Allegations But take the whole man together soul as well as body yea chiefly that and state as him he was before he was sold as so we must do if we will give a true judgment of the fact
understanding can fathom Sic Deus dilexit So God loved the world But how much that so containeth no tongue or wit of man can reach Nothing expresseth it better to the life than the work it self doth That the Word should be made Flesh that the holy One of God should be made sin that God blessed for ever should be made a curse that the Lord of life and glory should suffer an inglorious death and pour out his own most precious blood to ransome such worthless thankless graceless Traitors as we were that had so desperately made our selves away and that into the hands of his deadliest enemy and that upon such poor and unworthy conditions O altitudo Love incomprehensible It swalloweth up the sense and understanding of Men and Angels fitter to be admired and adored with silence than blemished with any our weak Expressions 29. I leave it therefore and go on to the next his Right When de facto we sold our selves to Satan we had de jure no power or right at all so to do being we were not our own and so in truth the title is naught and the sale void Yet it is good against us however we may not plead the invalidity of it forsomuch as in reason no man ought to make advantage of his own act Our act then barreth us But yet it cannot bar the right owner from challenging his own wheresoever he find it And therefore we may be well assured God will not suffer the Devil who is but malae fidei possessor an intruder and a cheater quietly to enjoy what is Gods and not his but he will eject him we have that word Ioh. 12. 21. Ejicietur now is the Prince of this world cast out and recover out of his possession that which he hath no right at all to hold 30. Sundry inferences we might raise hence if we had time I may not insist yet I cannot but touch at three duties which we owe to God for this Redemption because they answer so fitly to these three last mentioned assurances We owe him Affiance in respect of his Power in requital of his Love Thankfulness and in regard of his Right Service First the consideration of his Power in our Redemption may put a great deal of comfort and confidence into us that having now redeemed us if we do but cleave fast to him and revolt not again he will protect us from Sin and Satan and all other enemies and pretenders whatsoever O Israel fear not for I have redeemed thee Isa. 43. If then the Devil shall seek by any of his wiles or suggestions at any time to get us over to him again as he is an unwearied sollicitor and will not lose his claim by discontinuance Let us then look to that Cornu salutis that horn of salvation that God hath raised up for us in Christ our Redeemer and flie thither for succour as to the horns of the Altar saying with David Psalm 119. I am thine oh save me and we shall be safe In all inward temptations in all outward distresses at the hour of death and in the day of judgement we may with great security commit the keeping our souls to him both as a faithful Creator and as a powerful Redeemer saying once more with David into thy hands I commend my spirit for thou hast redeemed me O Lord thou God of truth Psal. 31. 6. 31. Secondly The consideration of his love in our Redemption should quicken us to a thankful acknowledgment of his great and undeserved goodness towards us Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from the hands of the enemy Psal. 107. Let all men let all creatures do it but let them especially If the blessings of corn and wine and oyl of health and peace and plenty of deliverance from sicknesses pestilences famines and other calamities can so affect us as to provoke at least some overly and superficial forms of thanksgiving from us how carnal are our minds and our thoughts earthly if the contemplation of the depth of the riches of God mercy poured our upon us in this great work of our Redemption do not even ravish our hearts with an ardent desire to pour them out unto him again in Hymns and Psalms and Songs of Thanksgiving with a Benedictus in our mouths Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people 32. Thirdly The consideration of his Right should bind us to do him service We were his before for he made us and we ought him service for that But now we are his more than before and by a new title for he hath bought us and paid for us and we owe him more service for that The Apostle therefore urgeth it as a matter of great equity you are not your own but his therefore you are not to satisfie your selves by doing your own lusts but to glorifie him by doing his will When Christ redeemed us by his blood his purpose was to redeem us unto God Rev. 5. 9. and not to our selves and to redeem us from our vain conversation 1 Pet. 1. 18. and not to it And he therefore delivered us out of the hands of our enemies that we might the more freely and securely and without fear serve him in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our lives Luke 1. which being both our bounden duty and the thing withal so very reasonable we have the more to answer for i◠we do not make a conscience of it to perform it accordingly He hath done his part and that which he was no way bound unto in redeeming us and he hath done it to purpose done it effectually Let it be our care to do our part for which their lye so many obligations upon us in serving him and let us also do it to purpose do it really and throughly and constantly 33. Thus is our Redemption done effectually it is also done freely which is the only point now remaining Not for price nor reward Isa. 45. 13. but freely and without money here in the Text. Nor need we here fear another contradiction For the meaning is not that there was no price paid at all but that there was none paid by us we laid out nothing towards this great Purchase there went none of our money to it But otherwise that there was a price paid the Scriptures are clear You are bought with a price saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 6. and he saith it over again Chap. 7. He that paid it calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransom that is as much as to say a price of Redemption and his Apostle somewhat more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which implieth a just and satisfactory price full as much as the thing can be worth Yet not paid to Satan in whose possession we were for we have found already that he was but an Usurper and his title naught He had but bought of us
that if we do our part God will not fail on his Be we first sure that we have Patience we must look to that for that is our part though not solely for we cannot have it without him as was already said but I say be we first sure of that and then we may be confident we shall have comfort sooner or later in some kind or other trust God with that for that is solely his part and he will take order for it without our further care 21. Lastly for the Order It may be demanded why the Apostle joyning both together The God of Patience and Consolation giveth Patience the precedency of Patience first and then of Consolation Is not that also to teach us that as it is a vain and causless fear if a man have patience to doubt whether he shall have comfort yea or no so on the contrary it is a vain and groundless hope if a man want patience to presume that yet he shall have comfort howsoever Certainly no Patience no Consolation It is the Devils method to set the fairer side forwards and to serve in the bestwiâ—e first and then after that which is worse He will not much put us upon the trial of our Patience at the first but rather till us on along with semblances and Promises of I know not what comforts and contentments but when once he hath us fast then he turneth in woe and misery upon us to overwhelm us as a deluge But God in his dispensations commonly useth a quite contrary method and dealeth roughliest with us at the first We hear of little other from him than self-denial hatred from the World taking up the Cross and suffering persecution exercise enough for all the Patience we can get But then if we hold out stoutly to the end at last cometh joy and comfort flowing in upon us both seasonably and plentifully like a river You have need of patience saith the Apostle that after you have done the will of God you may receive the Promise Patience first in doing yea and suffering too according to the will of God and then after that but not before the enjoying of the Promise Would you know then whether the Consolations of God belong unto you yea or no In short if you can have patience never doubt of it if you will not have patience never hope for it 22. Thus much concerning the formality of the Prayer in those former words of the Verse Now the God of patience and of Consolation grant you Proceed we now to the Matter thereof in the remainder of the Verse To be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Iesus Where the particulars are three First the thing it self or grace prayed for which is Unity or Like-mindedness To be like-minded Secondly and Thirdly Two Conditions or Qualifications thereof the one in respect of the Persons One towards another the other in respect of the Manner According to Christ Iesus Of which in their order 23. The thing first To be like-minded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek A phrase of speech although to my remembrace not found elsewhere in holy Scripture yet often used by St. Paul in his Epistles to the Romans to the Corinthians and especially to the Philippians more than once or twice I spare the quotations for brevity sake St. Peters compound word cometh nearest it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Finally be ye all of one mind 1 Pet. 3. Now these words both the Noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mind and the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mind this or that or to be thus or so minded although often used with special reference sometimes to the understanding or judgment sometimes to the inward disposition of the heart will and affections and sometimes to the manifesting of that inward disposition by the outward carriage and behaviour yet are they also not seldom taken at large for the whole soul and all the powers thereof together with all the motions and operations of any or each of them whether in the apprehensive appetitive or executive part And I see nothing to the contrary but that it may very well be taken in that largest extent in this place And then the thing so earnestly begged at the hand of God is that he would so frame the hearts of these Romans one towards another as that there might be an universal accord amongst them so far as was possible both in their Opinions Affections and Conversations Now the God of Patience and Consolation grant you to be like-minded 24. Like-minded first in Opinion and Judgment It is a thing much to be desired and by all good means to be endeavoured that according to our Churches Prayer God would give to all Nations unity peace and concord but especially that all they that do confess his holy name may also agree in the truth of his holy word at leastwise in the main and most substantial truths I beseech you brethren saith St. Paul by the name of our Lord Iesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment That is the first Like-mindedness in Iudgment 25. Like-minded secondly in heart and affection Mens understandings are not all of one size and temper and even they that have the largest and the clearest understandings yet know but in part and are therefore subject to Errors and Mis-apprehensions And therefore it cannot be hoped there should be such a consonancy and uniformity of Iudgment amongst all men no not amongst wise and godly men but that in many things yea and those sometimes of great importance they may and will dissent one from another unto the worlds end But then good heed would be taken lest by the cunning of Satan who is very forward and expert to work upon such advantages difference in judgment should in process of time first estrange by little and little and at length quite alienate our Affections one from another It is one thing to dissent from another to be at discord with our brethren Ita dissensi ab illo saith Tully concerning himself and Cato ut in disjunctione sententiae conjuncti tamen amicitiâ maneremus It is probable the whole multitude of them that believed were but we are not sure they were and it is possible they might not be all of one opinion in every point even in those first and primitive times but St. Luke telleth us for certain that they were all of one heart 26. Like-minded thirdly in a fair and peaceable outward conversation For albeit through humane frailty and amid so many scandals as are and must be in the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there be not evermore that hearty entire affection that ought to be between Christian men especially when they stand divided one from another in opinion yet should they all bear
perfection from Peace And then but not before shall Ierusalem be built as a City that is at unity in it self when they that build Ierusalem are at unity first among themselves 31. Consider fourthly what heartning is given and what advantage to the Enemy abroad whilst there are fractions and distractions at home Per discordias civiles externi tollunt animos said the Historian once of old Rome And it was the complaint of our Countrey-man Gildas uttered long since with much grief concerning the state of this Island then embroiled in Civil Wars Fortis ad civilia bella infirma ad retundenda hostium tela That by how much more her valour and strength was spent upon her self in the managing of intestine and domestick broils the more she laid her self open to the incursions and out-rages of forreign Enemies The common Enemies to the truth of Religion are chiefly Atheism and Superstition Atheism opposing it in the fore-front and Superstition on both hands If either of which at any time get ground of us as whilst we wrangle God knoweth what they may do we may thank our own contentions for it most We may cherish causless jealousies and frame chimera's of other matters and causes out of our fancies or fears But the very truth is there is no such scandal to enemies of all sorts as are our home differences and chiefly those which make it the sadder business that are about indifferent things Alas whereto serveth all this ado about gestures and vestures and other outward rites and formalities that for such things as these are things in their own nature indifferent and never intended to be otherwise imposed than as matters of circumstance and order men should clamour against the times desert their ministerial functions and charges fly out of their own Country as out of Babylon stand at open defiance against lawful authority and sharpen their wits and tongues and pens with so much petulancy that I say not virulency as some have done to maintain their stiffness and obstinacy therein I say whereto sérveth all this but to give scandal to the Enemies of our Church and Religion 32. Scandal first to the Atheist Who till all men be of one Religion and agreed in every point thereof too which I doubt will never be whilst the world lasteth thinketh it the best wisdom to be of none and maketh it his best pastime to jeer at all Great scandal also secondly to the Romanist Who is not a little confirmed in his opinion of the Catholickness of the Roman Faith when he heareth so many of the things which have been and still are retained in the Church of England in common with the Church of Rome as they were transmitted both to them and us in a continued line of Succession from our godly and Orthodox forefathers who lived in the Ages next after Christ and his Apostles to be now inveighed against and decryed as Popish and Superstitious And when he seeth men pretending to piety purity and reformation more than others not contenting themselves with those just exceptions that had been formerly taken by the Church of England and her regular children against some erroneous Doctrines and forms of worship taught and practised in the Church of Rome and endeavoured to be unduly and by her sole Authority imposed upon other Churches to be so far transported with a spirit of Contradiction as that they care not so as they may but run far enough from Rome whither or how far they run although they should run themselves as too oft they do quite beyond the bounds of Truth Allegiance common reason and even common humanity too 33. But especially and thirdly great scandal to those of the separation Who must needs think very jollily of themselves and their own singular way when they shall find those very grounds whereon they have raised their Schism to be so stoutly pleaded for by some who are yet content to hold a kind of communion with us Truly I could wish it were sufficiently considered by those whom it so nearly concerneth for my own part I must confess I could never be able to comprehend it with what satisfaction to the conscience any man can hold those principles without the maintenance whereof there can be nothing colourably pretended for inconformity in point of Ceremony and Church-government and yet not admit of such conclusions naturally issuing thence as will necessarily enforce an utter separation Vae mundo saith our Saviour Woe unto the world because of offences It is one of the great trials wherewith it is the good pleasure of God to exercise the faith and patience of his servants whilst they live on the earth that there will be divisions and offences and they must abide it But vae homini though without repentance wo to the man by whom the occasion cometh Much have they to answer for the while that cannot keep themselves quiet when they ought and might but by restless provocations trouble both themselves and others to the great prejudice and grief of their brethren but advantage and rejoycing of the common Enemy 34. Thus much for the Thing it self Like-mindedness The conditions or Qualifications follow The former whereof concerneth the Persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one toward another It noteth such an agreement as is both Universal and Mutual Universal first I doubt not but in the then Roman Church at the time when this Epistle was written the strong agreed well enough among themselves and were all alike-minded and so the weak among themselves all alike-minded too They all minded to despise these these all minded to judg them But that agreement was with those only of their own party and so a partial agreement which tended rather to the holding up of a Faction than to the making up of an Union It was an Universal agreement the Apostle desired and prayed for that the strong would be more compassionate to the Weak and the weak more charitable toward the Strong both Weak and Strong more patient and moderate and more respective either of other in all brotherly mutual condescensions 35. It is our fault too most an end We are partial to those on that side we take to beyond all reason ready to justifie those enterprises of theirs that look very suspiciously and to excuse or at least to extenuate their most palpable excesses and as ready on the other side to misconstrue the most justifiable actions of the adverse part but to aggravate to the utmost their smallest and most pardonable aberrations Thus do we sometimes both at once either of which alone is an abomination to the Lord justifie the guilty and condemn the innocent Whilst partial affections corrupt our judgments and will not suffer us to look upon the actions of our brethren with an equal and indifferent eye But let us beware of it by all means for so long as we give our selves to be carried away with partialities and prejudices we shall
never rightly perform our duties either to God or man That therefore the agreement may be as it ought to be we must resolve to be patient not towards some but towards all men 1 Thes. 5. to be gentle not unto some but unto all men 2 Tim. 2. to shew all meekness not to some but to all men Titus 3. 2. The Concord should be Universal 36. It should likewise be Mutual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importeth that also either part being ready for charity sake to contemperate and accomodate themselves to other so far as reason requireth But herein also as in the former mens corrupt partiality bewrayeth it self extremely The strong Romans like enough could discern a censorious spirit in the weaker ones and the weak ones perhaps as easily a disdainful spirit in them But neithér of both it is to be doubted were willing enough to look into the other end of the wallet and to examine throughly their own spirits We use to say If every man would mend one all would be well Yea would How cometh it to to pass then that all hath not been well even long ago For where is the man that is not ready to mend one One said I Yea ten yea a hundred why here it is every man would be mending one but not the right one He would be mending his brother but he will not mend himself Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere O saith the strong we should soon agree but that he is so censorious and yet himself â—louteth as freely as ever he did We should hit it very well saith the weak were not he so scornful and himself judgeth as deeply as ever he did Oh the falseness and hypocrisie of mens hearts blinded with self-love how it abuseth them with strong delusions and so filleth the world with divisions and offences 37. For this our blessed Saviour who hath best discovered the malady hath also prescribed the best remedy The Disease is Hypocrisie The Symptoms are One to be cat-eyed outward in readily espying somewhat the smallest mote cannot escape in a brothers eye another to be bat-eyed inward in not perceiving be it never so great a beam in a mans own eye a third a forwardness to be tampering with his brothers eye and offering his service to help him out with the mote there before he think a thought of doing any thing towards the clearing of his own eye The Remedy is to begin at home do but put the things into their right order and the business is done Tu conversus confirma fratres Strengthen thy Brethren what thou canst it is a good office and would not be neglected But there is something more needful to be done than that and to be done first and before that and which if it be first done thou wilt be able to do that much the better then shalt thou see clearly and that is to reform thy self be sure first thy self be converted and then in Gods name deal with thy weak Brother as thou seest cause and strengthen him 38. Let them that are so forward to censure the actions of others especially of their Superiors and are ever and anon complaining how ill things are carried above but never take notice of their own frauds and oppressions and sacriledges and insolencies and peevishnesses and other enormities let them turn their eye homeward another while observe how their own pulses beat and go learn what that is Thou hypocrite cast out first the beam out of thine own eye We deal not like Christians no nor like reasonable men if we expect all men should come to our bent in every thing and we our selves not relent from our own stiffness in the least matter for their sakes Believe it we shall never grow to Christian Unanimity in any tolerable measure so long as every man seeks but to please himself only in following his own liking and is not desirous withal according to our Apostles exhortation ver 2. to please his neighbour also by condescending to his desires where it may be for his good in any thing that is not either unlawful or unreasonable The inclinations to agreement should be mutual that so we might be like-minded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 39. And then all this must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the other qualification in the Text and now only remaineth to be spoken of According to Christ Iesus Which last clause is capable of a double interpretation pertinent to the scope of the Text and useful for our direction in point of practice both and therefore neither of both to be rejected Some understand it as a Limitation of that Unity which was prayed for in the former words and not unfitly For lest it should be conceived that all the Apostle desired in their behalf was that they should be like-minded one towards another howsoever he might intend by the addition of this clause to shew that it was not such an Unity as he desired unless it were according to Truth and Godliness in Christ Jesus There may be an agreement in falso when men hold together for the maintenance of one and the same Common Error Such as is the agreement of Hereticks of Schismaticks of Sect aries among themselves And there may be an agreement in malo when men combine together in a confederacy for the compassing of some mischievous design as did those forty and odd that bound themselves with a curse to destroy Paul Such is the agreement of Thieves of Cheaters of Rebels among themselves Such agreements as these no man ought to pray for indeed no man need to pray for The wisdom of the flesh and cunning of the Devil will bring men on fast enough to those cursed agreements without which he and his know well enough his Kingdom cannot stand The servants of God have rather bent themselves evermore by their prayers and endeavours to dissolve the glue and to break the confederacies of the ungodly Destroy their tongues O Lord and divide them is holy Davids prayer Psal. 55. And St. Paul when he stood before the Sanhedrim at Ierusalem to take off his malicious accusers the better perceiving both the Iudges and by-standers to be of two different factions some Pharisees who believed a Resurrection and other some Sadduces who denied it did very wisely to cast a bone among them When by proclaiming himself a Pharisee and professing his belief of the Resurrection he raised such a dissention between the two factions that the whole multitude was divided insomuch as the chief Captain was fain to use force to get Paul from amid the uproar and to carry him away by which means all their intended proceedings against him were stopt for that time 40. But the Unity that is to be prayed for and to be laboured for in the Christian Church is a Christian Unity that is to say a happy concord in walking lovingly together in the same
path of Truth and Godliness The word of Christ is the word of truth and the mystery of Christ the mystery of Godliness Whatsoever therefore is contrary to either of these Truth or Godliness cannot be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to Christ but rather altogether against him Here then we have our bounds set us our Ne plus ultrà beyond which if we pass we transgress and are exorbitant Alas for us the while when even our good desires may deceive us if they be inordinate and the love of so lovely a thing as Peace is mis-lead us The more need have we to look narrowly to our treadings lest the Tempter should have laid a snare for us in a way wherein we suspected it not and so surprise us ere we be aware Usque ad aras The Altar-stone that is the meer-stone All bonds of friendship all offices of neighbourhood must give way when the honour of God and his truth lie at the stake If peace will be had upon fair terms or indeed upon any terms salvis veritate pietate without impeachment of either of these it ought to be embraced But if it will not come but upon harder conditions better let it go A man may buy Gold too dear Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. The gender of the article there sheweth the meaning not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without which peace but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without which holiness no man shall see the Lord. Without peace some man may having faithfully endeavoured it though he cannot obtain it that is not his fault but without holiness which if any man want it is through his own fault only no man shall see the Lord. Our like-mindedness then must be according to Christ Iesus in this first sence that is so far forth as may stand with Christian truth and godliness 41. But very many Expositors do rather understand the phrase in another sence According to Christ that is according to the example of Christ which seemeth to have been the judgment of our last Translators who have therefore so put it into the margent of our Bibles His Example the Apostle had reserved unto the last place as one of the weightiest and most effectual arguments in this business producing it a little before the Text and repeating it again a little after the Text. So as this prayer may seem according to this interpretation to be an illustration of that argument which was drawn from Christs Example as if he had said Christ sought not himself but us He laid aside his own glory devested himself of Majesty and Excellency that he might condescend to our baseness and bear our infirmities he did not despise us but received us with all meekness and compassion Let not us therefore seek every man to please himself in going his own way and setting up his own will neither let us despise any mans weakness but rather treading in the steps of our blessed Lord Iesus let every one of us strive to please his neighbour for his good unto edification bearing with the infirmities of our weaker brethren and receiving one another into our inwardest bosoms and bowels even as Christ also received us to the Glory of God 42. If the examples of the servants of Christ ought not to be lightly set by how much more ought the Example of the Master himself to sway with every Good Christian In 1 Cor. 10. St. Paul having delivered an exhortation in general the same in effect with that we are now in hand withal ver 24. Let no man seek his own but every man anothers wealth he doth after propose to their imitation in that point his own particular practice and example in the last verse of the Chapter Even as I please all men in all things saith he not seeking mine own profit but the profit of many that they might be saved But then lest he might be thought to cry up himself and that he might know how unsafe a thing it were to rest barely upon his or any other mans example in the very next following words the first words of the next Chapter He leadeth them higher and to a more perject example even that of Christ Be ye followers of me saith he as I also am of Christ. As if he had said Although my example who am as nothing be little considerable in it self yet wherein my example is guided by the example of Christ you may not despise it The original record only is authentical and not the transcript yet may a transcript be creditable when it is signed and attested with a Concordat cum originali under the hand of a publick Notary or other sworn Officer I do not therefore lay mine own example upon you as a Rule I only set it before you as a help or Encouragement that you may the more chearfully follow the Example of Christ when you shall see men subject to the same sinful infirmities with your selves by the grace of God to have done the same before you My example only sheweth the thing to be feasible it is Christs Example only that can render it warrantable Be ye therefore followers of me even as I also am of Christ. 43. Here just occasion is offered me but I may not take it because of the time first and more generally of a very profitable Enquiry in what things and how far forth we are astricted to follow the Example of Christ. And then secondly and more particularly what especial directions to take from his Example for the ordering of our carriage towards our brethren in order to the more ready attaining to this Christian unanimity and like-mindedness one towards another of which we have hitherto spoken But I remit you over for both to what our Apostle hath written Phil. 2. in the whole fore-part of the Chapter The whole passage is very well worthy the pondering and his discourse therein may serve as a Commentary upon a good part of this Text. I therefore commend it to your private meditation and you and what you have heard to the good blessing of Almighty God and that with St. Pauls votive prayer or benediction here for I know not where to fetch a better Now the God of Patience and Consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Iesus That you may with one mind and one mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. To whom c. AD AULAM. The Ninth Sermon BERWICK JULY 16. 1639. 1 Tim. 3. 16. And without all Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness 1. THe Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons being one of the principal acts of the Episcopal power our Apostle therefore instructeth Timothy whom he had ordained Bishop of Ephesus the famous Metropolis of that part of Asia somewhat fully what he was to do in that so weighty an affair What manner of persons and
how qualified he should assume in partem curae to assist him in his Pastoral charge for the service of Gods Church and the propagation of the Gospel Which having done at large from the beginning of the Chapter unto the end of ver 13. he rendreth a reason at vers 14. why he had insisted so long upon that argument even lest the Church of God in his absence should be destitute of sufficient help for the work of the Gospel At Ephesus the hand of God had opened a wide door 1 Cor 16. but withal Satan as his manner is had stirred up many adversaries and some of them very mild ones more like savage beasts than men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word for it 1 Cor. 15. It was at Ephesus that he fought with beasts in the shape of men Witness Demetrius the Silver-smith and that Bellua multorum capitum the mad giddy multitude in a tumultuous assembly all in an uproar and no man well wist for what Acts 19. Here was work enough to be done The door must be held open to let converts in but must be well mann'd and maintain'd too to keep adversaries out All this not to be done but with many hands The harvest being great the labourers had not need be few 2. The only thing that might perhaps make Timothy put off Ordination somewhat the longer might be the expectation of the Apostles coming to whom he might think fit to reserve that honour as to one able by reason of his Apostolick spirit to make choice of meet persons for the Churches service with better certainty than himself could do The Apostle therefore telleth him for that That true it is he had an earnest desire of a long time and still had a full purpose if God would to be with him ere long Yet because of the uncertainty of future events that was not a thing for him to rely upon so as in expectance thereof to delay the doing of any service needful for the Church of Christ. For who could tell how it might please God tâ— dispose of him Or whether the necessities of other Churches might not require his personal presence and pains rather elsewhere He would not therefore he should stay for him but go in hand with it himself with all convenient care and speed All this appeareth in the two verses next before the Text These things I wrote unto thee hoping to come unto thee shortly But if I tarry long that yet thou maist know how to behave thy self in the house of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of Truth 3. This seemeth to be the Scope and Contexture of the whole foregoing part of the Chapter and then immediately fall in the words of the Text And without all controversie great is the mystery of Godliness c. Which seem to have but a very slender dependance upon the foregoing discourse and indeed no more they have For the Apostle having in the end of the fifteenth verse and that but incidentally neither mentioned the word Truth he thereupon taketh occasion in this sixteenth verse a little and briefly to touch upon the Nature and Substance of that holy Truth The whole verse containeth Evangelii Encomium Compendium A brief description of the Nature in the former part and a brief summary of the Doctrine of the Gospel in some remarkable heads thereof in the latter part of the verse 4. With that latter I shall not now meddle In that former part we may observe Quid Quantum and Quale First Quid what is Christianity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a mystery But there are greater and there are lesser Mysteries Quantum therefore Of the bigger sort sure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great Mystery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by all confessions and without all contradiction or controversie Great But the greater the worse if it be not good as well as great Quale therefore What a kind of Mystery is it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a mystery of Piety or Godliness CHRISTIANITY IS THE GREAT MYSTERY OF GODLINESS That is the Tota Now to the Parts and first of the Quid The Gospel a Mystery But then first What is a Mystery For the Quid Nominis and then why the Gospel a Mystery For the Quid Rei The Word first then the Thing 5. For the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I find sundry conceits ready collected to my hand by learned men out of the writings of the Greek Fathers and out of the Commentaries of Grammarians and Criticks both ancient and modern whereof I spare the recital because it would neither much conduce to my present purpose nor profit the present Auditory The word is clearly of a Greek Original from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shut the eye or mouth Of all the mysterious rites used among the Heathens the Eleusinia sacra were the most ceremonious and mysterious insomuch as that when in their Writings the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used by it self without any farther specification it is ordinarily conceived to be meant of those Eleusinian mysteries These none might be present at but they that were solemnly initiated thereunto who upon their first admission which yet was but to the outer and lesser mysteries were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if after a sufficient time of probation a twelve-month was the least they were adjudged meet to be admitted to the greater and more secret mysteries they were then called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereto there seemeth to be some allusion as there is frequently to sundry other customs and usages of the Heathens even in the holy Scriptures themselves But whether they were admitted to their lesser or the greater mysteries strait order was evermore taken with them by Oaths Penalties and otherwise as strong as could be devised that they should by no means reveal any of the passages or rites thereunto belonging to those that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not initiated whom in that respect they counted prophane To do otherwise was reputed so heinous a crime that nothing could be imagined in their superstition more irreligious and piacular than that Quis Cereris ritus audet vulgare profanis He knew not where to find a man that durst presume so to do Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vulgâ—rit arcanae sub iisdem Sit trabibus He would be loth to lodge under the same roof or to put to Sea in the same vessel with him that were guilty of such an high provocation as the divulging abroad of the sacred mysteries lest some vengeance from the offended Deities should overtake them for their impiety and him for company to their destruction It was in very deed the Devils cunning one of the depths of Satan and one of the most advantageous mysteries of his arts by that secrecy to hold up a reverent and religious Esteem of those mysteries which
light of natural reason or at leastwise from some Conclusions properly directly and evidently deduced therefrom If we condemn it before this be done our judgment therein is rash and unrighteous 15. Nor is that all I told you besides the unrighteousness of it in it self that it is also of very noisom and perilous consequence many ways Sundry the evil and pernicious effects whereof I desire you to take notice of being many I shall do little more than name them howbeit they well deserve a larger discovery And first it produceth much Uncharitableness For although difference of judgment should not alienate our affections one from another yet daily experience sheweth it doth By reason of that self-love and envy and other corruptions that abound in us it is rarely seen that those men are of one heart that are of two minds St. Paul found it so with the Romans in his time whilest some condemned that as unlawful which others practised as lawful they judged one another and despised one another perpetually And I doubt not but any of us that is any-whit-like acquainted with the wretched deceitfulness of mans heart may easily conclude how hard a thing it is if at all possible not to think somewhat hardly of those men that take the liberty to do such things as we judge unlawful As for example If we shall judg all walking into the fields discoursing occasionally on the occurrency of the times dressing of meat for dinner or supper or even moderate recreations on the Lords day to be greivous prophanations of the Sabbath how can we chuse but judg those men that use them to be grievous prophaners of Gods Sabbath And if such our judgment concerning the things should after prove to be erroneous then can it not be avoided but that such our judgment also concerning the persons must needs be uncharitable 16. Secondly this mis-judging of things filleth the world with endless niceties and disputes to the great disturbance of the Churches peace which to every good man ought to be precious The multiplying of Books and Writings pro and con and pursuing of Arguments with heat and opposition doth rather lengthen than decide Controversies and instead of destroying the old begetteth new ones whiles they that are in the wrong out of obstinacy will not and they that stand for the truth out of conscience dare not may not yield and so still the War goeth on 17. And as to the publick peace of the Church so is there also thirdly by this means great prejudice done to the peace and tranquility of private mens consciences when by the peremptory Dostrines of some strict and rigid Masters the souls of many a well-meaning man are miserably disquieted with a thousand unnecessary scruples and driven sometimes into very woful perplexities Surely it can be no light matter thus to lay heavy burdens upon other mens shoulders and to cast a snare upon their consciences by making the narrow way to heaven narrower than ever God meant it 18. Fourthly hereby Christian Governours come to be robbed of a great part of that honour that is due unto them from their people both in their Affections and Subjection For when they shall see cause to exercise over us that power that God hath left them in indifferent things by commanding such or such things to be done as namely wearing of a Surplice kneeling at the Communion and the like if now we in our own thoughts have already prejudged any of the things so commanded to be unlawful it cannot be but our hearts will be sowred towards our Superiours in whom we ought to rejoyce and instead of blessing God for them as we are bound to do and that with hearty chearfulness we shall be ready to speak evil of them even with open mouth so far as we dare for fear of being shent Or if out of that fear we do it but indirectly and obliquely yet we will be sure to do it in such a manner as if we were willing to be understood with as much reflection upon authority as may be But then as for our Obedience we think our selves clearly discharged of that it being granted on all hands as it ought that Superiours commanding unlawful things are not therein to be obeyed 19. And then as ever one evil bringeth on another since it is against all reason that our Error should deprive our Superiours of that right they have to our obedience for why should any man reap or challenge benefit from his own act we do by this means fifthly exasperate those that are in authority and make the spirit of the Ruler rise against us which may hap to fall right heavy on us in the end All power we know whether Natural or Civil striveth to maintain it self at the height for the better preserving of it self the Natural from decay and the Civil from contempt When we therefore withdraw from the higher powers our due obedience what do we other than pull upon our selves their just displeasure and put into their hands the opportunity if they shall but be as ready to take it as we are to give it rather to extend their power Whereby if we suffer in the conclusion as not unlike we may a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom may we thank for it but our selves 20. Sixthly by this means we cast our selves upon such sufferings as the cause being naught we can have no sound comfort in Causa non passio we know it is the cause maketh a true Martyr or Confessor and not barely the suffering He that suffereth for the Truth and a good cause suffereth as a Christian and he need not be ashamed but may exult in the midst of his greatest sufferings chearing up his own heart and glorifying God on that behalf But he that suffereth for his Error or Disobedience or other rashness buildeth his comfort upon a sandy foundation and cannot better glorifie God and discharge a good conscience than by being ashamed of his fault and retracting it 21. Seventhly hereby we expose not our selves only which yet is something but sometimes also which is a far greater matter the whole Reformed Religion by our default to the insolent jeers of Atheists and Papists and other prophane and scornful spirits For men that have Wit enough and to spare but no more Religion than will serve to keep them out of the reach of the Laws when they see such men as pretend most to holiness to run into such extravagant opinions and practices as in the judgment of any understanding man are manifestly ridiculous they cannot hold but their Wits will be working and whilst they play upon them and make themselves sport enough therewithal it shall go hard but they will have one fling among even at the power of Religion too Even as the Stoicks of old though they stood mainly for vertue yet because they did it in such an uncouth and rigid way as seemed to be repugnant not
Yet that decency and expediency set aside no man can truly say that the doing of any of this is simply unlawful For why might not an English Minister if he were Prisoner in Turkey to make an escape disguise himself in such a habit as aforesaid which if it were simply unlawful rather than to do it he should dye a thousand deaths And why it should not be as lawful now for a Minister as it was once for an Apostle to work journey-work to make Shoes now as then to make Tents if it might stand with decency and expediency now as well as then let him that can shew a reason Let them look how they will answer it therefore that make it unlawful for Priests either to marry as some do or to be in commission of the peace as some others do as if either the state of Wedlock or the exercise of Temporal Iurisdiction were inconsistent with holy Orders When the maintainers of either Opinion shall shew good Text for what they teach the cause shall be yielded but till that be done they must pardon us if we appeal them both of Pharisaism in teaching for Doctrine mens Precepts So long as this Text stands in the Bible unexpunged All things are lawful for me if any man either from Rome or elsewhere nay if an Angel from Heaven should teach either of those things to be unlawful and bring no better proof for it than yet hath been done he must excuse me if I should not be very forward to believe him 36. Well you see the Apostle here extendeth our liberty very far in indifferent things without exception either of things or persons All things lawful and lawful for all men In the asserting of which liberty if in any thing I have spoken at this time I may seem to any man to have set open a wide gap to carnal licentiousness I must entreat at his hands one of these three things and the request is but reasonable Either First that all prejudice and partiality laid aside he would not judge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the appearance but according to right and truth and then I doubt not but all shall be well enough Or Secondly that he would consider whether these words of our Apostle taken by themselves alone do not seem to set open the gap as wide as I or any man else can stretch it Omnia licent All things are lawful for me Or that Thirdly he would at least-wise suspend his judgment till I shall have handled the latter clauses of my Text also wherein our liberty is restrained as it is here extended Then which may be ere long if God will he shall possibly find the gap if any such be sufficiently stopped up again to keep out all carnal licentiousness and other abuse of Christian Liberty whatsoever In the mean time and at all times God grant us all to have a right judgment and to keep a good conscience in all things AD AULAM. Sermon XII HAMPTON-COURT JULY 26. 1640. 1 Cor. 10. 23. But all things are not expedient But all things edifie not THe former Clause of the Verse here twice repeated All things are lawful for me containeth the Extension as these latter Clauses do the Limitation of that Liberty that God hath left us to things of indifferent Nature That Extension I have already handled and set our Christian Liberty there where according to the constant Doctrine of our Apostle I think it should stand From what I then delivered which I now repeat not plain it was that the Apostle extendeth our Liberty very far without exception either of Things or Persons All Things lawful and lawful for all men All the fear was lest by so asserting our liberty we might seem to set open a gap to carnal licentiousness Although there be no great cause for it in respect of the thing it self yet is not that fear altogether needless in regard of our Corruption who are apt to turn the very best things into abuse and Liberty as much as any thing Yet that fear need not much trouble us if we will but take these latter Clauses of the Verse also along with us as we ought to do Where we shall find the gap if any such were sufficiently made up again to keep out all carnal licentiousness and other abuse of Christian Liberty whatsoever 2. Of those Clauses we are now to speak But all things are not expedient But all things edifie not Wherein the Apostle having before extended our liberty in the power now restraineth it in the use and exercise of that power Concerning which I shall comprehend all I have to say in three Observations grounded all upon the Text. First That the Apostle establisheth the point of lawfulness before he meddle with that of expediency Secondly That he requireth we should have an eye to the expediency also of the things we do not resting upon their lawfulness alone And thirdly that he measureth the expediency of lawful things by their usefulness unto edification Of which in their order 3. And first Expediency in St. Paul's method supposeth lawfulness He taketh that for granted that the thing is lawful before he enter into any Enquiry whether it be expedient yea or no. For expediency is here brought in as a thing that must restrain and limit us in the exercise of that liberty which God hath otherwise allowed us but God hath not allowed us any liberty unto unlawful things And this Observation is of right good use for thence it will follow that when the unlawfulness of any thing is once made sufficiently to appear all farther enquiry into the expediency or inexpediency thereof must thenceforth utterly cease and determine No conjuncture of Circumstances whatsoever can make that expedient to be done at any time that is of it self and in the kind unlawful For a man to blaspheme the holy Name of God to sacrifice to Idols to give wrong sentence in Judgment by his power to oppress those that are not able to withstand him by subtilty to over-reach others in bargaining to take up arms offensive or defensive against a lawful Sovereign none of these and sundry other things of like nature being all of them simply and de toto genere unlawful may be done by any man at any time in any case upon any colour or pretension whatsoever the express Command of God himself only excepted as in the case of Abraham for sacrificing his Son Not for the avoiding of scandal not at the instance of any Friend or command of any Power upon earth nor for the maintenance of the Lives or Liberties either of our selves or others nor for the defence of Religion not for the preservation of a Church or State no nor yet if that could be imagined possible for the salvation of a Soul no not for the redemption of the whole world 4. I remember to have read long since a Story of one of the Popes but who the
Saviours birth when they shared heaven and earth their several portions alloted us our part in peace and the good will of God but with reservation of the whole glory to him Glory be to God on high and in earth peace and towards men good will It is well and happy for us if we may enjoy our own peace and his good will full little have we deserved either of both but much rather the contrary but we were best take heed how we meddle with his glory All other things he giveth us richly to enjoy many a good gift and perfect giving He hath not with-held from us any thing that was his and useful for us no not his only begotten Son excepted the best gift that ever was given and a pledge of all the rest Yea and he will give us a kind of glory too the Lord will give grace and glory Psal. 84. and that not a light one neither nor fading away but such as neither eye nor ear nor heart of man can comprehend so massie and so durable an eternal and exceeding weight of glory But that divine infinite incomprehensible glory that belongeth to him as supream King of kings as his peculiar Prerogative and the choicest flower in his Crown of that he is most jealous in that he will brook no sharer And he hath made known to us his royal pleasure in that point Isa. 42. My glory will I not give to another 7. He will part with none you see it seemeth rather fifthly by the form of the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he looketh for some from us For what else is it to glorifie but to make one glorious by conferring some glory upon him which he had not or not in that degree before And to God how can that be done whose glory is perfect essential and infinite and to what is perfect much less to what is infinite can nothing be added What a great admirer of Virgil said of him tanta Maronis gloria ut nullius laudibus crescat nullius vituperatione minuatur was but a flaunting hyperbole far beyond the merit of the party he meant it to But the like speech would be most exquisitely true of him of whom we now speak indeed a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather than an hyperbole Whose Glory is truly such as all the creatures in the world should they joyn their whole forces together to do it could not make it either more or less than it is 8. We must therefore of necessity forsake the proper signification of the word Glorifie which is to add some glory to another either in specie or in gradu which before he had not and understand it in such a sence as that the thing meant thereby may be feasible And so to glorifie God is no more than to shew forth his glory and to manifest to our own consciences and to the world how highly we praise and esteem his glory and how earnestly we desire and as much as in us lieth endeavour it that all other men would also with us acknowledge and admire the same Sing praise to the honour of his name make his praise glorious Psal. 66. Not make his essence to be more glorious than it is in it self but make his praise to be more and more glorious in the eye and esteem of men That so his power his glory and mightiness of his Kingdom might be known unto men and that men might ascribe unto the Lord the honour due unto his name and that men might sing in the way of the Lord that great is the glory of the Lord. To endeavour by our thanksgivings confessions faith charity obedience goodworks and perseverance in all these to bring Gods true Religion and Worship into request to win a due reverence to his holy name and word to beget in others more high and honourable thoughts concerning God in all those his most eminent Attributes of Wisdom Power Iustice Mercy and the rest that is in Scripture language to glorifie God 9. One thing more from the Person of the Verb and then you have all It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God may be glorified and so leave it indefinite and uncertain by whom it should be done but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye may glorifie him The thing to be done and they to do it One would think the glorious Angels and Saints in heaven were fitter instruments for such an employment than we poor sinful worms upon earth Very true they in heaven are fitter to do it and it is best done there but there is more need of it upon earth and if it be done here in truth and singleness of heart it is very well accepted Poor things God knoweth our best services are if God should value them but according to their weight and worth But in his mercy and that through Christ he graciously accepteth our unfeigned desires and faithful endeavours according to that truth we have be it never so little and not according to that perfection we want be it never so much Alas what is the tinkling of two little bells in a Country-steeple or the peoples running to the Towns end and crying God save the King to add any honour or greatness to the Majesty of a Potent Monarch Yet will a gracious Prince take those mean expressions of his subjects love as an honour done him because he readeth therein their hearty affections towards him and he knoweth that if they knew how to express themselves better they would So it is here It is not the thing done that is looked at so much as the heart Set that right first and then be the performance what it can be God is both pleased and honoured therewithal Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me Psal. 50. That is so he intendeth it and so I accept it 10. You have now all I would say by way of explication from these words The particulars are six First we should propose to our selves some end Therein Secondly look at God Thirdly that God may have glory and that he alone may have it Fourthly Fifthly that something be done for the advancement of his glory and Lastly that it be done by us The result from the whole six taken together is That the Glory of God ought to be the chiefest end and main scope of all our desires and endeavours In whatever we think say do or suffer in the whole course of our Lives and Actions we should refer all to this look at this as the main Whatsoever become of us and our affairs that yet God may be glorified Whether ye eat or drink saith St. Paul or whatsoever else ye do let all be done to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10. He would have us not only in the performance of good works and of necessary duties to intend the Glory of God according to that of our Saviour Let your light so shine before men that they way see your good
destroyed many of his own Sons Sometimes out of the extremity and impatience of hunger As in the sad story of the two mothers who in the great Famine at the siege of Samaria had covenanted to dress their Children by turns and to eat them so fulfilling even to the letter that heavy curse which God had long before threatned against Israel in case of their disobedience Sometimes out of voluptuousness and sensuality As do thousands of prodigal ding-thrifts every where in the World who by gaming drinking luxury and other riot and intemperance vainly wasting their estate out of which by St. Pauls rule they ought to provide and lay up for their Children bring themselves to penury and leave their children to beggery 8. And if by all these and sundry other ways besides it may happen fathers and mothers so often to forsake their children the less are we to marvel if our brethren kinsfolks and neighbours if our familiar acquaintance companions and friends prove unfaithful and shrink from us when we stand in need of them dealing deceitfully as a Brook It is Iobs comparison Iob 6. The Brooks in Winter when the Springs below are open and the bottles of heaven pour down water from above overflow the banks and the meadows all about and look like a little Sea but when the heat of Summer is come and the season dry vanish so as the weary Traveller can find no refreshing nor the Cattel quench their thirst thereat Such is the common friendship of the World Whilst we are full and stand in no need of them they are also full of kindness and overflow with protestations of love and service Amici divitis multi every friend will say I am his friend also Yet they talk but vanity all this while every one with his neighbour they do but flatter with their lips and dissemble with their double heart When we seek to them in our need they look upon us stightly and at a distance at the most let fall some overly expressions that they wish us well and pity our case Good words are good cheap but do little or nothing for us It may be while we are up and aloft they will crouch under us apply themselves to us lend a shoulder yea and sweat to lift us up yet higher But if we be going down then at the best as the Priest and Levite in the Parable they will see and not see but pass by without so much as offering a hand to help us up nay it is well if they lift not up the heel against us and help to tread us yet lower 9. As then first Natural Parents many times want natural affection so common friends many times want common honesty and fail those that trust to them And as they secondly sometimes withdraw their love from their Children upon slender dislikes so these many times take toy at a trifle actum est de amicitia and pick quarrels to desert us when we have not done any thing that may justly deserve it at their hands And as they lastly too much forget their Children whilst they too eagerly pursue their own lusts so these to serve their own ends lay aside all relations and break through all obligations of friendship and if our occasions require something should be done for us that may chance put them to some little trouble hazard or charge or otherwise standeth not with their liking put us off as they did their fellow-virgins Ne non sufficiat Provide for yourselves we cannot help you This is the first kind a voluntary forsaking wherein the fault is theirs when our fathers and mothers and friends might help us but do not 10. The other kind is an enforced forsaking and without their fault when they cannot help us if they would Which also ariseth from three other causes Ignorance Impotency Mortality First there is in the understandings of men a great deal of darkness for the discerning of Truth and falshood even in speculativis matters which stand at a certain stay and alter not but much more for the discerning of Good and Evil in Practicis matters which by reason of the multiplicity of uncertain and mutable Circumstances are infinitely various Whereby it becometh a matter of greater difficulty to avoid folly in practice than Error in judgment No wonder then if the carefullest Parents and faithfullest Friends be many times wanting in their help to those they wish well to when either can find no way at all whereby to to do them good or else pitch upon a wrong one whereby unawares they do them harm Sedulitas autem stultè quem diligit urget Nil moror officium quod me gravat The body of a Patient may be in such a condition of distemper that the learnedst Doctor may be at a stand not knowing perfectly what to make of it and so must either let it alone and do nothing or else adventure upon such probabilities as may lead him to mistake the Cause and so the Disease and so the Cure and so in fine to destroy the Patient by those very means whereby he intended his recovery So Parents and others that love their children or friends well and desire nothing more than to do them good may be so puzled sometimes by the unhappy conjunctures of some cross Circumstances as that they cannot resolve upon any certain course how to dispose of them deal with them or undertake for them with any assurance or but likely hope of a good effect but they must either leave them to wrestle with their own burdens as well as they can or else fall upon some course at all adventure intending their good thereby which may perhaps in the event turn to their undoing 11. And as we may fail of needful help from our best friend for lack of skill so may we also secondly for want of Power Verily all sufficiency is not to be found but in the Almighty Creator alone No Creature can yield out of his own sufficiency a salve for every sore a supply for every want a help for every defect but there is some impotency some vacuity some deficiency in the best Agar loved her Infant well enough and knew too well enough what would save his life for that time if she could tell how to get it But all the water in the bottle being spent and no more to be had in that dry wilderness no help but she must forsake him and for ought she knew and relating but to ordinary means he must perish All she could do was to cast the poor child under a shrub and get her a good way off that she might not see him die and to lift up her own voice that she might not hear his Gen. 21. And Moses his Parents when they had hid him as long as they could or durst at last forsook him and left him in the flags by the brink of the River Nilus Exod. 2. The widdow of Sarepta also
or his own Mother-wit that it may appear to whom he was beholding for it the Story saith the Devil put it into the heart of Iudas to betray his Master And the infusion of that spirit of Satan was so strong in him that it did after a sort transform him into the same image insomuch as he is called by his name Have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil Let all Iudas-like traitors know lest they be too proud and sacrifice to their own wits to whom they owe their wisdom 25. But perhaps you will say this consideration can weigh but little For as Satan by his spirit infuseth wisdom into the children of this world so God by his Spirit infuseth wisdom into the children of light and then since the spirit of God is stronger than the spirit of Satan it should rather follow on the contrary that the wisdom of the children of light should exceed the wisdom of the children of this world The fullest answer hereunto would depend upon the prosecution of the next point the limitation which I shall have occasion to speak something unto anon to wit that the wisdom of the children of this world being but of a very base metal in comparison though it be more in bulk is yet far less in value as a little Diamond may be more worth than a whole quarry of ragge 26. But I answer rather which is sufficient for the present because it leadeth us also to a second reason of the difference That the spirit of God in the children of light doth not act ad ultimum sui posse according to the utmost of his Almighty power but according to the condition of the subject in whom he worketh leaving him as rational Creature to the freedom of his will and as a child of Adam obnoxious to the carnal motions of original concupiscence and after the good pleasure of his own will withal When Satan therefore infuseth of his spirit into a man he hath this advantage that he hath all the wisdom of the flesh to joyn with him readily and to assist him without any thing within to make opposition there-against and to counter-work the working of that spirit that it should not take effect and so the work meeting with some help and no resistance is soon done Facilis descensus as a stone when it is set a going tumbleth down the hill apace or as a Boat that having wind and tide with it runneth glib and merrily down the stream But when God infuseth his spirit into a man though that spirit once entred maketh him partly Willing yet is there in every child of Adam so long as he liveth here another inward principle still which the Scripture use to call by the name of flesh which lusteth against the good Spirit of God and opposeth it and much weakneth the working of it From whence it cometh to pass that the Spirit of God worketh so slowly and so imperfectly in us like a ship adverso flumine much ado to tug it along against the current or the stone which made Sisyphus sweat to roll up the hill although it tumbled down again always of it self 27. Thirdly since it is natural to most men out of self-love to make their own dispositions and thoughts the measure whereby to judge of other mens hence it cometh to pass that honest plain-dealing men are not very apt unless they see apparent reason for it to suspect ill of others Because they mean well themselves they are inclinable to believe that all other men do so too But men that have little truth or honesty themselves think all men to have as little and so are full of fears and jealousies and suspicions of every body Mala mens malus animus Now this maketh them stir up their own wits the more and bestir themselves with the greater endeavours because they dare trust no body else and so they become the more cautelous and circumspect the more vigilant industrious and active in all their enterprises and worldly concernments and consequently do the seldomer miscarry Whereas on the contrary those that out of the simplicity of their own heart suspect no double-dealing by others are the more secure and credulous by so much less solicitous to prevent dangers and injuries by how much less they fear them and consequently are often deceived by those they did not mistrust Which very thing the world being apt withal to judge well or ill of mens counsels by their events hath brought simplicity it self though a most commendable vertue under the reproach of folly we call those simple fellows whom we count fools and hath won to craft and dissimulation the reputation of wisdom 28. Lastly the consciousness of an ill cause unable to support it self by the strength of its own goodness driveth the worldling to seek to hold it up by his wit industry and such like other assistances like a ruinous house ready to drop down if it be not shored up with props or stayed with buttresses You may observe it in Law-suits the worse cause ever the better solicited An honest man that defireth but to keep his own trusteth to the equity of his cause hopeth that will carry when it cometh to hearing and so he retaineth counsel giveth them information and instructions in the case getteth his witnesses ready and then thinketh he need trouble himself no farther But a crafty companion that thinketh to put another beside his right will not rest so content but he will be dealing with the Iury perhaps get one packt for his turn tampering with the witnesses tempting the Iudge himself it may be with a Letter or a Bribe he will leave no stone unmoved no likely means how indirect soever unattempted to get the better of the day and to cast his Adversary You may observe it likewise in Church affairs A regular Minister sitteth quietly at home followeth his study doth his duty in his own Cure and teacheth his people truly and faithfully to do theirs keepeth himself within his own station and medleth no further But schismatical spirits are more pragmatical they will not be contained within their own Circle but must be flying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they must have an Oar in every Boat offering yea thrusting themselves into every Pulpit before they be sent for running from Town to Town from House to House that they may scatter the seeds of Sedition and Superstition at every table and in every corner And all this so wise are they in their generation to serve their own belly and to make a prey of their poor seduced Proselytes for by this means the people fall unto them and thereout suck they no small advantage You may observe it also in most other things but these instances may suffice 29. The point thus proved and cleared that the children of this world are wiser than the children of light that we may make some use
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
of any great weight for altering the meaning of the words Nor is it my purpose to insist upon such inferior observations as might be raised from some expressions or circumstances in the Text otherwise than as they shall occasionally fall in our way in the prosecution of those main points which to the apprehension of evâ—râ— understanding hearer do at the very first view appear to have been chiefly intended therein 2. And they but two First The supposal of a duty tho for the most part and by most Men very slackly regarded and that is the delivering of the oppressed In the two former verses If thou faint in the day of adversity If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain Secondly The removal of the common pretensions which Men usually plead by way of excuse or extenuation at least when they have failed in the former duty In the last verse If thou sayest Behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it c. So that if we will speak any thing to the purpose of the Text we must of necessity speak to those two points that do therefrom so readily offer themselves to our consideration to wit the necessity of the Duty first and then the vanity of the Excuses 3. The Duty is contained and the necessity of it gathered in and from the tenth and eleventh verses in these words If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain Wherein the particulars considerable are First The persons to whom the duty is to be performed as the proper object of our justice and charity Them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain They especially but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also all others that are in their condition in any kind or degree those that are injured or oppressed or in danger to be injured or oppressed by any manner way or means 2ly An act of Charity and Justice to be performed towards those that are in such a condition by such as by reason of the power and opportunities and other advantages that God hath put into their hands are in a capacity to do it which is the very duty it self viz. to look upon them in the day of their adversity and to deliver them out of the hand of their oppressors 3ly A possibility of the neglect or non-performance of this so just and charitable a duty by those that might and therefore ought to do it expressed here by the name of forbearance If thou forbear to deliver 4ly The true immediate cause of that neglect wheresoever it is found viz. the want of spirit and courage in the heart faint-heartedness from whatsoever former or remoter cause thht faintness may proceed whether a pusillanimous fear of the displeasure or a desire to wind himself into the favour of some great person or the expectation of a reward or a lothness to interpose in other Mens affairs or meer sloth and a kind of unwillingness of putting himself to so much trouble or whatever other reason or inducement can be supposed If thou faint in the day of adversity Lastly The censure of that neglect it is an evident demonstration à posteriori and as all other visible effects are of their more inward and secret causes a certain Token and Argument of a sinful weakness of mind If thou faintest c. thy strength is small 4. The result of these particulars amount in the whole to this Every Man according to his place and power but especially those that being in place of Magistracy and Iudicature are armed with publick authority for it are both in Charity and Iustice obliged to use the utmost of their power and to lay hold on all fit opportunities by all lawful means to help those to right that suffer wrong to stand by their poorer Brethren and Neighbours in the day of calamity and distress and to set in for them throughly and stoutly in their righteous causes to protect them from injuries and to deliver them out of the hands of such as are too mighty or too crafty for them and as seek either by violence or cunning to deprive them either of their lives or livelihoods Briefly thus and according to the language of the Text It is our duty every one of us to use our best strength to deliver the oppressed but our sin if we faint and forbear so to do And the making good and the pressing of this duty is like to be all our business at this time 5. A point of such clear and certain truth that the very Heathen Philosophers and Law givers have owned it as a beam of the light of Nature insomuch as even in their account he that abstaineth from doing injuries hath done but the one half of that which is required to compleat Iustice if he do not withal defend others from injuries when it is in his power so to do But of all other Men our Solomon could least be ignorant of this truth not only for that reason because God had filled his heart with a large measure of wisdom beyond other Men but even for this reason also that being born of wise and godly Parents and born to a Kingdom too in which high calling he should be sure to meet with occasions enough whereon to exercise all the strength he had he had this truth considering the great usefulness of it to him in the whole time of his future Government early distilled into him by both his Parents and was seasoned thereinto from his childhood in his education His father David in Psal. 72. which he penned of purpose as a prophetical benediction and instruction for his Son as appeareth by the Inscription it beareth in the Title of it a Psalm for Solomon beginneth the Psalm with a Prayer to God both for himself and him Give the King thy judgments O God and thy righteousness unto the King's Son And then after sheweth for what end he made that Prayer and what should be the effect in order to the Publick if God should be pleased to grant it Then shall he judg the people according unto right and defend the poor vers 2. He shall keep the simple folk by their right defend the children of the poor and punish the wrong doer or as it is in the last Translation break in pieces the oppressor vers 4. and after at the 12 13 and 14 verses altho perhaps the passages there might principally look at Christ the true Solomon and Prince of Peace a greater than Solomon and of whom Solomon was but a Figure yet I believe they were also literally intended for Solomon himself He shall deliver the poor when he crieth the needy also and him that hath no helper He shall be favourable to the simple and needy and shall preserve the souls of the
and by what evidence you must approve your selves to be Gods Defend the poor and fatherless saith he in that Psalm See that such as be in need and necessity have right Deliver the out-cast and poor Save them from the hand of the ungodly This premised it then followeth one verse only interseâ—â—ed I have said Ye are Gods As if he had said So do and then you are Gods indeed but without this care you are Idols and not Gods Much like the Idol-Gods of the Heathen that have eyes and see not ears and hear not mouths and speak â—â—ot that have a great deal of worship from the people and much reverence but are good for nothing By this very Argument in Baruc 6. are such Idols disproved to be Gods They can save no Man from death neither deliver the weak from the mighty They cannot restore a blind Man to his sight nor help any Man in his distress They can shew no mercy to the widow nor do good to the fatherless How should a Man then think and say that they are Gods 11. I hope the greatest upon earth need think it no disparagement to their greatness to look down upon the afflictions of their meanest brethren and to stoop to their necessities when the great God of Heaven and Earth who hath his dwelling so high yet humbleth himself to behold the simple that lie as low as the dust and to liâ—t up the poor that sticketh fast in the mire The Lord looketh down from his Sanctuary from the Heaven did the Lord behold the Earth That he might hear the mournings of such as be in captivity and deliver the children appointed unto death So then for the performance of this duty thou hast God's Commandment upon thee and thou hast God's Example before thee If there be in thee any true fear of God thou wilt obey his Command and if any true hope in God follow his Example 12. If from God we look downward in the next place upon our selves and duly consider either what power we have or what need we may have from both considerations we may discover yet farther the necessity of this duty And first from our Power There is no power but of God and God bestoweth no power upon Man nor indeed upon any Creature whatsoever to no purpose The natural powers and faculties as well of our reasonable souls as of our organical bodies they have all of them their several uses and operations unto which they are designed And by the Principles of all good Philosophy we cannot conceive of Power but in order and with reference to Act. Look then what power God hath put into any of our hands in any kind and in any measure it lieth us upon to employ it to the best advantage we can for the good of our brethren for to this very end God hath given us that power whatever it be that we might do good therewithal The Lord hath in his wise providence so disposed the things of this World that there should ever be some rich to relieve the necessities of the poor and some poor to exercise the charity of the rich So likewise he hath laid distresses upon some that they might be succoured by the power of others and lent power to some that they might be able to succour the distresses of others Now as God himself to whom all power properly and originally belongeth delighteth to manifest his power rather in shewing mercy than in works of destruction God spake once Twice have I heard the same that power belongeth unto God and that thou Lord art merciful Psal. 62. O let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before thee according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die Psal. 79. So all those upon whom God hath derived any part of that power should consider that God gave it them for edification not for destruction to do good withal and to help the distressed and to save the innocent not to trample upon the poor and oppress those that are unable to resist Pestifera vis est valere ad nocendum It is in truth a great weakness in any Man rather than a demonstration of power to stretch his power for the doing of mischief An evident Argument whereof is that observation of Solomon in Prov. 28. confirmed also by daily experience that a poor Man that oppresseth the poor is ever the most merciless oppressor It is in matter of Power many times as it is in matter of Learning They that have but a smattering in Scholarship you shall ever observe to be the forwardest to make ostentation of those few ends they have because they fear there would be little notice taken of their Learning if they should not now shew it when they can And yet you may observe that withal it oftentimes falleth out very unluckily with them that when they think most of all to shew their Scholarship they then most of all by some gross mistake or other betray their Ignorance It is even so in this case Men of base spirit and condition when they have gotten the advantage of a little power conceive that the World would not know what goodly Men they are if they should not do some Act or other whereby to shew forth their power to the World And then their minds being too narrow to comprehend any brave and generous way whereby to do it they cannot frame to do it any other way than by trampling upon those that are below them and that they do beyond all reason and without all mercy 13. This Argument taken from the end of that power that God giveth us was wisely and to good purpose pressed by Mordecai Esth. 1. to Queen Esther when she made difficulty to go into the Presence to intercede for the people of the Iews after that Haman had plotted their destruction Who knoweth saith he there whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this As if he had said Consider the marvellous and gracious providence of God in raising thee who wert of a despised nation and kindred to be partaker with the most potent Monarch in the World in the Royal Grown and Bed Think not but the Lord therein certainly intended some great work to be done by thy hand and power for his poor distressed Church Now the hour is come now if ever will it be seasonable for thee to make use of those great fortunes God hath advanced thee to and to try how far by that power and interest thou hast in the King's favour thou canst prevail for the reversing of Haman's bloody Decree and the preserving our whole Nation from utter destruction And of this Argument there seemeth to be some intimation in the very Text as those words in the 12th verse may and that not unfitly be understood He that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it that is He that hath preserved
of those that desire to live quiet in the land Devise not dilatory shifts to tug men on along in a tedious course of Law to their great charge and vexation but ripen their causes with all seasonable expedition for a speedy hearing In a word do what lieth in your power to the utmost for the curbing of Sycophants and Oppressors and the protecting of the peaceable and innocent use the Sword that God by his Deputy hath put into your hands for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise and safety of those that do well So shall the hearts of every good Man be enlarged towards you and their tongues to honour you and to bless you and to pray for you Then shall God pour out his blessings abundantly upon you and yours yea it may be upon others too upon the whole Land by your means and for your sakes The Lord by his Prophet more than once hath given us some comfortable assurance of such blessed effects to follow upon such premisses The words are worthy to be taken notice of If thou throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour if thou oppress not the stranger the fatherless and the widow and shed not innocent blood in this place Then will I cause you to dwell in this place for ever and ever Jer. 7. And in Ier. 22. Execute ye judgment and righteousness and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor and do no wrong do no violence to the stranger the fatherless nor the widow neither shed innocent blood in this place For if ye do this thing indeed then shall there enter in by the gates of this house Kings sitting upon the throne c. But if ye will not hear these words I swear by my self faith the Lord c. 32. Concerning which and other-like passages frequent in the holy Prophets I see what may be readily opposed True it is will some say where these things are constantly and generally performed a national Iudgment may thereby be removed or a Blessing procured But what are two or three of us if we should set our selves to it with all our strength able to do towards the turning away of God's Iudgments if there be otherwise a general neglect of the Duty in the Land There is something of truth I confess in this Objection for doubtless those passages in the Prophets aim at a general reformation But yet consider first we have to deal with a wonderful gracious and merciful God slow to anger and of great kindness and such a one as will easily be induced to repent him of the evil And who can tell but he may return and repent and leave a blessing behind him where but two or three in a whole Nation do in conscience of their duty and in compassion of the State set themselves unfeignedly to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God though the generality should be corrupt Especially since we have in the second place such excellent precedents of the riches of his Grace and Goodness in this kind upon record that we might not be without hope if we do our part tho we were left even alone God was ready to have spared the five Cities of old Gen. 18. if there had been in them to be found but twice so many righteous Men. But he did actually spare Israel by instantly calling in a great plague which he had a little before sent among them for their sin upon one single act of Iustice done by one single Man Phineas moved with an holy zeal did but stand up and execute judgment upon two shameless offenders and the plague was stayed Psal. 106. Add hereunto that most gracious Proclamation published Ier. 5. and you cannot want encouragement to do every Man his own part whatsoever the rest do Run to and fro through the streets of Ierusalem and see now and know and seek in the broad places thereof if you can find a Man if there be any that executeth Iudgment that seeketh the Truth and I will pardon it Or say thirdly that the sins of a Nation should be grown to that ripeness that the few righteous that are in it could not any longer adjourn the Iudgment for as there is a time of Mercy wherein the righteousness of one or a few may reprieve a whole Nation from destruction so when the appointed time of their fatal stroke is come tho Noah Job and Daniel should be in the midst of it they could prevail no farther than the delivery of their own souls yet even there those that have been faithful shall have this benefit that they shall be able to say with comfort either in the one sense or in the other Liberavi animam meam That is They shall either be preserved from being overwhelmed in the common destruction having their life given them for a prey and as a brand snatched out of the fire as Noah escaped when all the World was drowned and Lot from the deflagration of Sodom or if God suffer them to be involved in the publick calamities have this comfort to sustain their Souls withal that they were not wanting to do their part toward the preventing thereof But howsoever why should any Man fourthly to shift off his duty unseasonably obtrude upon us a new piece of Metaphysicks which our Philosophers hitherto never owned in abstracting the general reformation from the particulars For what is the general other than the particulars together And if ever there be a general reformation wrought the particulars must make it up Do not thou then vainly talk of Castles in the air and of I know not what general reformation but if thou truly desirest such a thing put to thy hand and lay the first stone in thine own particular and see what thy example can do If other particulars move with thee and so a general reformation follow in some good mediocrity thou hast whereof to rejoice that thou hadst thy part a leading part in so good a work But if others will not come on end chearfully so as the work do not rise to any perfection thou hast yet wherewithal to comfort thee that the fault was not thine 33. Thus have you heard sundry reasons and inducements to stir you up to the chearful performance of the duty contained in the Text of doing justice and shewing mercy in delivering the oppressed Some in respect of God who hath given us first his express command to which our obedience and secondly his own blessed example to which our conformity is expected Some in respect of our selves because first whatsoever power we have for the present it was given us for this end that we might therewithal be helpful to others and we know not secondly in what need we may stand hereafter of like help from others Some in respect of our poor distressed brethren who deserve our pity and best furtherance considering first the
according to truth and pronounce of them as they are and not as they seem may we not much rather invert the Proverb and say One tale cannot be good till the other be told that is whether it be good or not the Iudg may not give credit to either till he hath heard both Nay may we not many times farther say when both tales are told that neither is good Because there is most-what in every Man's tale a mixture of some falshoods with some truths whereby it may so happen sometimes that he which hath in truth the more equity on his side by the mingling in some easily discoverable falshoods in telling his tale may render his cause the more suspicious to him that heareth it to think the whole tale naught and he that hath indeed and upon the whole matter the worst cause may yet by the weaving in some evident truths or pregnant probabilities in the telling of his tale gain such credit with him that heareth it that he will be very inclinable to believe the whole tale to be good Or howsoever they may be both so equally false or at least both so equally doubtful as no one that heareth them can well tell whether of both to give credit to It was so in the famous case of the two inmate Harlots whereof King Solomon had the hearing The living Child is mine the dead one thine faith the one No faith the other The dead Child is thine and the living mine Here were presumptions on both sides for why should any Woman challenge another Woman's Child but proofs on neither for being there were none in the house but they two neither of them could produce any witnesses The case hung thus even no more evidence on the one side than on the other no less confidence on the one side than on the other Solomon indeed by that wisdom wherewith God had endowed him in a transcendent measure found out a means whereby to turn the scales to unty that hard knot and to discover the hidden truth But what could a Iudg or a Iury of no more than ordinary wisdom then have been able to have said or done in such a case but even to have left it as they found it And truly for any thing I know Ignorance must have been their best excuse 12. And as first in the Information so there may be a defect secondly in the Proofs He that hath the better cause in veritate rei may yet fail in his proofs and not be able to make it judicially appear that he hath the better cause In which case the old Axiom holdeth Idem est non esse non apparere it is all one in foro externo and as to the determination of a Judg upon the Bench who is to pronounce secundum allegata probata for a Man not to have a right and not to be able to make it appear in a legal way and by such evidence as is requisite in a judicial proceeding that he hath such a right Or he may be out-sworn by the depositions of the witnesses produced on the behalf of the adverse part tho it may be utterly false yet direct and punctual against him and so strong enough howsoever to cast him in his Suit For what Judg but the great Judg of Heaven and Earth can certainly and infallibly know when two or three Men swear directly to a point and agree in one whether yet they swear a falshood or no Or what should induce a mortal Iudg not to believe them especially if withal he see the proofs on the other side to fall short And if in such a case following the evidence in the simplicity of his heart he gave away an honst Mans right from him to a knave he is not to be charged with it as a perverter of justice but hath his Apology here ready fitted for him in the Text Behold we knew it not 13. Add hereunto in the third place the great advantage or disadvantage that may be given to a cause in the pleading by the artificial insinuations of a powerful Orator That same flaxanimis Pitho and Suadae medulla as some of the old Heathens termed it that winning and persuasive faculty which dwelleth in the tongues of some men whereby they are able not only to work strongly upon the affections of Men but to arrest their judgments also and to encline them whether way they please is an excellent endowment of nature or rather to speak more properly an excellent gift of God Which whosoever hath received is by so much the more bound to be truly thankful to him that gave it and to do him the best service he can with it by how much he is enabled thereby to gain more glory to God and to do more good to human Society than most of his brethren are And the good blessing of God be upon the heads of all those be they few or many that use their eloquence aright and employ their Talent in that kind for the advancement of justice the quelling of opression the repressing and discountenancing of insolency and the encouraging and protecting of innocency But what shall I say then of those be they many or few that abuse the gracefulness of their elocution good speakers but to ill purposes to enchant the ears of an easie Magistrate with the charms of a fluent tongue or to cast a mist before the eyes of a weak Iury as Juglers may sport with Country people to make white seem black or black seem white so setting a fair varnish upon a rotten post and a smooth gloss upon a course cloth as Protagoras sometimes boasted that he could make a bad cause good when he listed By which means judgment is perverted the hands of violence and robbery strengthned the edge of the sword of justice abated great offenders acquitted gracious and vertuous Men molested and injured I know not what fitter reward to wish them for their pernicious eloquence as their best deserved Fee than to remit them over or what David hath assigned them in Psal. 120. What reward shall be given or done unto thee O thou false tongue Even mighty and sharp arrows with hot burning coals I might add to those how that sometimes by the subtilty and cunning of a sly Commissioner sometimes by the wilful misprision of a corrupt or the slip of a negligent or the oversight of an ignorant Clerk and by sundry other means which in regard of their number and my inexperience I am not able to recite it may come to pass that the light of Truth may be so clouded and the beams thereof intercepted from the eyes of the most circumspect Magistrate that he cannot at all times clearly discern the Equity of those Causes that are brought before him In all which cases the only Apology that is left him is still the same as before even this Behold we knew it not 14. But when he perfectly understandeth the whole business and seeth
they found them Hoc olim factitavit Pyrrhus seemed to him plea enough in the Comedy It so much the more concerneth every good and wise Man especially those that are in place of Authority whose actions are most looked upon and soonest drawn into Example so to order themselves in their whole conversations that such as come after them may be rather provoked by their good example to do well than encouraged by their evil example to do amiss If at any time hereafter Saul should take any Man's Ox or Ass from him by any manner of fraud oppression or bribery the constant practice of his immediate Predecessor for sundry Years together shall stand up and give evidence against him and cast him Samuel's integrity shall condemn him both at the Bar of his own Conscience and in the mouths of all Men at leastwise he shall have no cause to vouch Samuel for his Precedent no colour to shroud his miscarriages under the authority of Samuel's Example 14. We cannot now marvel that Samuel should thus offer himself to the trial when as no Man urged him to it sith there may be rendred so many congruous reasons for it Especially being withal so conscious to himself of having dealt uprightly that he knew all the World could not touch him with any wilful violation of justice He doth not therefore decline the trial but seek it and putteth himself upon it with marvellous confidence challenging all Comers and craving no favour Behold here I am witness against me before the Lord and before his Anointed Here is no excepting against any Witness nor refusal of any Iudg either God or Man He had a good cause and therefore he had also a good heart All Vertues are connext among the rest so are Iustice and Fortitude The righteous are bold as a Lion The Merchant that knoweth his Wares to be faulty is glad of the dark Shop and false Light whereas he that will uphold them right and good willeth his Customers to view them in the open Sun Qui malè agit odit lucem He that doth evil loveth to skulk in the dark and will not abide the light which is to him as the terrors of the shadow of death lest his evil deeds should be found out and laid open to his shame Even as Adam hid his head in a bush when he heard the Voice of God because his Conscience told him he had transgressed 15. A corrupt Magistrate or Officer may sometimes set a face upon it and in a kind of bravery bid defiance to all the World but it is then when he is sure he hath power on his side to bear him out when he is so backt with his great friends that no Man dare mutire contra once open his lips against him for fear of being shent Even as a rank Coward may take up the Bucklers and brave it like a stout Champion when he is sure the Coast is clear and no body near to enter the Lists with him And yet all this but a meer flourish a faint and feign'd bravado his heart the while in the midst of his belly is as cold as lead and he meaneth nothing less than what he makes shew of If the offer should be indeed accepted and that his actions were like to be brought upon the publick stage there to receive a due and impartial hearing and doom how would he then shrink and hold off trow ye then what crouching and fawning and bribing and dawbing to have the matter taken up in a private Chamber and the wound of his credit a little overly-salved tho upon never so hard and base conditions His best wits shall be tried and his best friends to the utmost if it be possible by any means to decline a publick trial 16. Be just then Fathers and Brethren and ye may be bold So long as you stand right you stand upon your own legs and not at the mercy of others But turn aside once to defrauding oppressing or receiving rewards and you make your selves slaves for ever Intus pugnae foris timores Horrors and gripes within because you have knowingly done what you ought not Terrors and fears within lest your wicked dealings should come to light whereby you might receive the due shame and punishment thereof Possibly you may bear up if the times favour you and by your greatness out-face your Crimes for a while but that is not a thing to trust to O trust not in wrong and robbery saith David Psal. 62. The wind and the tide may turn against you when you little think it and when once you begin to go down the wind every base and busy Companion will have one puff at you to drive you the faster and farther down 17. Yet mistake not as if I did exact from Magistrates an absolute immunity from those common frailties and infirmities whereunto the whole race of mankind is subject The imposition were unreasonable It is one of the unhappinesses that attends both your Calling and ours Magistracy and Ministry that every ignorant Artisan that perhaps knoweth little and practiseth less of his own duty can yet instruct us in ours and upon every small oversight make grievous out-cries by objecting to you your place to us our cloath a Man of his place a Man of his cloath to do thus or thus As if any Christian Man of what place or of what cloath soever had the liberty to do otherwise than well or as if either we or you were in truth that in respect of our natures which in respect of our Offices we are sometimes called we Angels and you Gods Truly however it pleaseth the Lord for our greater honour thus to stile us yet we find it in our selves but too well and we make it seen by us alas but too often that we are Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subject to the like passions ignorances and sinful aberrations that other Men are And I doubt not but Samuel notwithstanding all this great confidence in his own integrity had yet among so many causes as in so many years space had gone through his hands sundry times erred in judgment either in the substance of the sentence or at least in some circumstances of the proceedings By mis-informations or mis-apprehensions or by other passions or prejudices no doubt but he might be carried and like enough sometimes was to shew either more lenity or more rigour than was in every respect expedient 18. But this is the thing that made him stand so clear both in his own Conscience and in the sight of God and the World that he had not wittingly and purposely perverted judgment nor done wrong to any Man with an evil or corrupt intention but had used all faithfulness and good Conscience in those things he did rightly apprehend and all requisite care and diligence so far as humane frailty would suffer to find out the truth and the right in those things whereof he could
Israelites Opprimamus sapienter let us deal wisely with them and destroy them And as Lysander was wont to say that where the Lion's skin would not reach to do the business it should be eeked out with the Foxes Both are hateful both to God and Man Sed fraus odio digna majore saith the Orator of the two Deceit is the baser and more hateful Because men had rather be thought to want strength for that begetteth pity than to want wit which doth but expose them to scorn thence it is that usually they complain more of treachery than they do of open hostility and take it deeper to heart to be defrauded than to be oppressed The loss troubleth them not so much they say but they cannot endure to be cozened Samuel you see disclaimeth this in the first place Whom have I defrauded 28. He knew the Law of God and the Law of Equity the written and the unwritten Law both were altogether against it Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour Levit. 19. and after in the same Chapter Ye shall do no uurighteousness in judgment in mete-yard in weight or in measure In the sixth Chapter of the same book it is declared that he that committeth a trespass by deceiving his neighbour sinneth therein and the Law there enjoyneth an offering to be made for the expiating of that sin How often doth Solomon condemn false weights and false ballances as foul abominations And how frequently do the Prophets object it as a main provocation of God's heavy judgments upon the Land That they set traps and laid snares for men That their houses were full of deceit as a cage is full of birds That they were as crafty Merchants in whose hands are the ballances of deceit That they made the Ephah whereby they measured out the Commodities they sold small and the Shekel wherewith they weighed the mony they were to receive for that they sold great and falsified the ballances and the like St. Paul also if the translations speak his sence aright layeth a charge upon the Thessalonians That no man go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter both because it is the will of God sufficiently revealed in his Word that men should not do so and because God will be a sure and severe avenger of those that do so 1 Thes. 4. And he chideth the Corinthians for doing wrong and defrauding one another 1 Cor. 6. And leâ—t in what he either forbiddeth to or reproveth in others himself should prove guilty he protesteth against all such dealings more than once Receive us we have wronged no Man we have defrauded no Man 2 Cor. 7. And again 2 Cor. 12. Be it I did not burden you as the false Apostles for filthy lucre and to serve their own bellies did nevertheless it may be you will think I was crafty and caught you with guile No such matter saith he I abhor it I never made gain of you either by my self or by my Agents Titus or any other that I sent unto you Much like Samuel's challenge here Whom have I defraud 29. A very grievous thing it is to think of but a thing meerly impossible to reckon up how much less then to remedy and reform all the several kinds of frauds and deceits that are used in the World Wherein men are grown wondrous expert and so shameless withal that they think it rather a credit to them as an argument of their perfect understanding in their several mysteries and particular professions than any blemish to them in their Christian Profession to cheat and cozen they care not whom nor whom so they may get gain and gather wealth by it In the way of trade in buying selling and other bargaining what lying dessembling and deceiving It is stark nought saith the buyer It is perfect good saith the seller when many times neither of both speaketh either as he thinketh or as the truth of the thing is False weights false measures false thumbs false lights false marks false wares falfe oaths In the Markets and Shops In the common offices of neighbourhood friendship service or trust false glosses false promises false tales false cracks false shews false reckonings In the Courts of Law and all juridical proceedings false Bills false answers false suggestions false counsels false accusations false pleas false testimonies false records false motions false verdicts false judgments The hour would fail me to mention but the chief heads of those falshoods that are common and notorious but no Man's experience would serve him to comprehend no Man's breath to declare the infinite variety of those more secret and subtle falshoods that are daily invented and exercised every where under the Sun 30. Yet are they all in the mean time abominable to God that beholdeth them The Lord will abhor both the blood-thirsty and deceitful Man and will prove in the end unprofitable to those that use them and without repentance damnable He that beguileth another howsoever he may please himself therewithal onward yet shall find at length that he hath most of all beguiled himself deceiving and being deceived as the Apostles words though spoken to another purpose are According to that of Solomon The wicked worketh a deceitful work but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward Blessed is the Man then in whose heart and tongue and hands there is found no deceit That walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the Truth from his heart That hath not streched his wits to hurt his neighbour nor made advantage of any Mans unskilfulness simplicity or credulity to gain from him wrongfully That can stand upon it as Samuel here doth and his heart not give his tongue the lie that he hath defrauded no Man 31. The other kind of Injury here next mentioned is Oppression wherein a Man maketh use of his power to the doing of wrong as he did of his wits in defrauding Which is for the most part the fault of rich and great Men because they have the greatest power so to do and are not so easily resisted in what they will have done Do not the rich Men oppress you Jam. 2. For riches and worldly greatness list up the hearts of Men and swell them with pride Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded saith St. Paul and Pride bringeth on Oppression Let not the proud oppress me saith David Ps. 119. They are the large fat kine of Basan that is the Princes and Nobles and great ones of the Land those that dwell in the mountains of Samaria that oppress the poor and crush the needy Amos 4. Yet not they only for even poor and mean Men also are in their dispositions as proud and as merciless as the greatest if their powers were answerable to their wills and their horns to their curstness and they are as ready to shew it too so oft
in our heads amidst the throng of our hopes and fears and desires and care cast this way and that way plotted contrived and devised how to avoid this or that danger how to compass this or that design how to gratify this friend or advance that Child how to counterwork or defeat this or that enemy or competitor when we have summoned all our powers and set all our wits on work to manage the design we have pitched upon and made all so sure that there seemeth nothing wanting to bring our intentions to the wished end Unless God say Amen that is unless it please him either in mercy to bless our endeavours with success for our comfort or at least for some other secret ends agreeable to his wisdom and justice suffer them to take effect they shall all come to nothing and be as the untimely fruit of a woman which after much pain and anguish to her that conceived it perisheth in the womb and never seeth the Sun Secondly What God hath in his everlasting counsel determined either to do himself or to suffer to be done by any of his Creatures shall whether we like it or dislike it whether we will or no undoubtedly even so come to pass as he hath appointed The Lord will be King Fremat licèt orbis and do whatsoever pleaseth him in heaven and earth in the sea and in all deep places be the earth never so unquiet and all the people that dwell therein never so impatient 6. Which two Points to wit the vanity of our Devices and the stability of God's Counsels by reason of the opposition that is betwixt them whereby they mutually give and receive light and confirmation either to and from other are therefore very frequently joined together in sundry places of Scripture As in Psal. 2. the rage and fury of Jews and Gentiles of Princes and People against the Lord and his Anointed their Imaginations Insurrections and joint Consultations to effect their intendments and their professed resolutions to break the bonds and to cast away the cords of their bounden Allegiance how vain and ineffectual they are and instead of that liberty and advantage they had promised to themselves procure them nothing but scorn and vexation is largely declared in the beginning of the Psalm and then followeth in few words how effectual notwithstanding all their imaginations and endeavours to the contrary the purpose of God was in setting up the Kingdom of Christ Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion So in Iob 5. Eliphas sheweth the great Power of God first in disappointing the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise but the wise are taken in their own craftiness and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong and then in fulfilling his own counsel of saving the poor from the sword the mouth and the hand of the Mighty And the like doth David again in Psal. 33. fully and in words agreeable to these of Solomon even in terminis The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought and maketh the devices of the people of none effect That for the first point then followeth for the second in the very next words The counsel of the Lord shall stand for ever and ever and the thoughts of his heart from generation to generation 7. For the better evidencing and enforcing of both which points I shall proceed in this order First To consider of the three differences formerly mentioned and contained in the Text each of them severally and apart then taking the whole together Secondly To shew some Reasons or grounds thereof and Lastly To propose some profitable Inferences from the same 8. The first Difference is in the Names Man's Devices but the Counsel of the Lord. Our most serious thoughts the most mature and best digested deliberations and advices of the Sons of Men and all the most exquisite resolutions and advantageous endeavours ensuing thereupon are but devices in comparison Imaginations Fancies or if you can find any lighter or emptier name whereby to call them Indeed all these expressions are but too high to render to the full the extream vacuity and nothingness of all humane devices Very Chimaera's they are Gastles in the Air that have no real existence in them no base or bottom under them to uphold them 9. I know not readily how to present them unto you better than under the notion of Fancies and so might the word be well enough here rendred There are many fancies or fantastical devices in a Man's heart Now the vanity of Mens fancies may something appear in mad Men in whom the inflammation of blood distempering the brain as it hindereth the operation of the mind and depriveth them of all solidity of judgment so it addeth strength and nimbleness to the fancy Whence it cometh to pass that the sharpest Satyrical wits with all the help of Art and Study cannot ordinarily invent such shrewd and stinging answers nor make such quick and smart returns of wit to those that talk with them as a mad Man sometimes in a frantick fit will hit upon of a sudden 10. But in nothing is the vanity of Mens fancies more apparent than in our ordinary dreams Wherein we often fancy to our selvâ—s golden mountains and many other such things as never were nor ever shall be in rerum natura such as have neither coherence nor possibility in them and such as when we are awake we do not only find to be void of all truth and reality but we laugh at as ridiculous and wonder how such senseless and inconsistent imaginations should ever come into our heads And yet whilst we are dreaming we entertain them with as full a persuasion of the truth and reality of them as we do those things whereof we have the greatest assurance in the World without any the least suspicion to the contrary and are accordingly affected with them mightily pleased or displeased even as they suit with or go cross to our natural desires But when we awake we many times can scarce well tell what we dreamed of much less do we find our selves possest of those things which in our dreams we fancied to be ours 11. As these dreams of one asleep or those flashes of wit that come from a mad-man such are all the plots and projects the thoughts and purposes of Men wherewith they so much please or disquiet themselves about any thing that is done under the Sun Of all which Solomon out of his great wisdom and much experience pronounceth often and peremptorily that they are but vanity and folly and madness They that applaud themselves in their cunning and deep contrivances that trust to their Wealth Power Strength or Policy that think they are able to carry all before them and to do what they list are all the while but in a dream So David affirmeth of the wicked in the midst of their greatest
our care in the last place to provide that they may be as conformable to his Counsels as possible may be Now since the Eternal Counsel of God which is nothing else but his secret will tho it be properly the counsel meant in the Text yet is not proper for us to meddle withal nor appointed by him to be the rule or measure of our Actions we are not bound to conform our wills and purposes thereunto nor consequently to trouble our selves thereabouts Secretum meum mihi When we are called to be of his Counsel but not before we may look into the Ark of his Decrees and enquire into his secret will But till then which will never be it is happiness enough for us and an unspeakable favour from him if we may be admitted to be of his Court though not of his Counsel and thereby to have some good knowledge of his revealed Will. That is all that belongeth to us to that therefore let us hold us as to our proper Rule and Standard As it is not fit for us to search into that Counsel of his which is lockt up in the Cabinet of his secret Will so neither is it safe for us to despise that Counsel of his which is imparted to us in the treasury of his revealed Will. Ask we counsel at God's Mouth consult we the Oracles of his holy Word let his Testimonies be our guides and counsellors and let our thoughts and purposes be conformed to the Counsels and Directions given us therein and that is the most probable way to secure the success according to our own hearts desire and to make them also to stand For what more likely way can be imagined to accomplish the secret Will of God than faithfully to endeavour the accomplishment of his revealed Will and commit the rest to him 41. Whereunto that you may give the better credit take it upon the word of three creditable Witnesses First Solomon Prov. 16. Commit thy works unto the Lord and so shall thy thoughts be established His Father David before him in Psal. 37. Commit thy way unto the Lord and put thy trust in him and he shall bring it to pass And Eliphaz the Temanite long before them both in Iob 22. If thou return unto the Almighty and make thy prayer unto him c. Thou shalt also decree a thing and it shall be established and the light shall shine upon thy ways 42. If any Man unto such evidence of Reason and pregnant Testimonies shall oppose common Experience against which there is no disputing That thousands of Men that have hearkened to the Counsels of God in his holy Word made their requests known to him by Prayer and committed their ways to him by a holy dependence upon his good providence have yet failed in their hopes and the success of their affairs and fallen under their enemies hands All this must be confessed a truth yet no contradiction to what hath been delivered For it was not said that such thoughts and purposes shall infallibly have the desired success but that it is the most probable way for the obtaining thereof amidst the great uncernity of all humane affairs and devices Many times there may be some sinister respects and corrupt aflections mingled with our best intentions or devotions or there may lurk in our hearts some secret noysome lust undiscovered and so unsubdued or there may be a leaning too much upon our own devices or other inferiour helps without casting our selves upon the providence of God so entirely as we ought something or other there may be in us or in our purposes or in our Prayers amiss though perhaps we perceive it not for which it may please God to suffer our Hopes to perish and to render our Endeavours unsuccessful 43. But howsoever two other Considerations there are that will fully answer the Objection and remove all difficulties in this Point First That all temporal Promises are to be understood cum exceptione crucis that is to say not absolutely according to the tenour of the words in the utmost extent but so far forth as God in his infinite wisdom shall see it expedient to deal with his servants either in Mercy or Iustice according to the present temper of their hearts and in order to their future good So that still there is a reservation of a power in him to exercise them with the cross as he shall think Good In that large promise which our blessed Saviour maketh to all those that suffer loss in any kind for his sake and the Gospels eternal life in the world to come is promised absolutely but the hundred fold now in this present life not simply but with persecutions expresly annexed Mar. 10. 44. Secondly That the desires and hopes of godly Men that are agreeable to God's holy Word though they may for the reasons now specified fail as to the particulars desired in these inferiour things which are of smaller importance and concern a Christian but upon the by yet in that which ought to be and in every true Christian is the main of his desires and the ultimate end that he looketh at so that he desireth all other things but respectively and in order to that to wit the glory of God and the fruition of his favour unless the fault be in himself he shall not fail his expectation 45. Hear then the sum of all and the conclusion of the whole matter Give up thy self faithfully to follow the good counsel of God in his revaled will and then give up thy desires entirely to be disposed by his wise counsel in his secret will and he shall undoubtedly give thee thy hearts desire Either in those very particulars thou cravest at his hands if he see the same expedient for thee in order to his glory and thy good or else in some other thing which is in truth much more expedient for thee than that which thou cravest and shall in the end so appear to thee although for the present thou dost not so apprehend it Aut quod volumus aut quod malumus one of both we may be sure of If we submit our wills to his both in doing and suffering doubtless we cannot finally miscarry He will consult nothing but for our good and what he hath consulted must stand A Table of the Places of Scripture to which some Light more or less is given in the foregoing One and Twenty Sermons Chap. Verse Page Gen. III. 5 525 iv 13 496 vi 5 658 6 657 ix 3 390 6 612 27 465 xi 4 362 xiv 21 423 xv 2 445 xviii 21 632 xxi 15-16 557 19 559 xxviii 12 547 20 432 xxxi 29 662 xxxiii 4 662 xlii 21-22 411-573 l 15-17 411 Exod. I. 6 559 10 644 ii 9 559 iii 15 546 xiv 17 662 25 659 xviii 21 584 xx 17 641 xxiii 2 616-627 3 611 8 649 Levit. IV. 1 651 xxv 17 646 Num. XXIII 3 662 19 658 Deut. X. 15 561 xv 11