implyed and joyntly both intended and included He hath not seen or beheld will not see cannot endure to see or behold any wrong or grievance that hath been shall be is or may be by any offered unto or attempted against his Iacob his Israel And this I conceive to be as the true and genuine so the full and entire sense of the place and it is indeed in effect the same with that which Calvin not without some good approbation relateth as the exposition of some before him to wit that God is said not to see wrong or molestation in or against Israel because he will not suffer them to be wrongfully vexed and grieved nor endure to see the same and if any therefore shall attempt to harm them he will not admit any violence or wrong against them but will oppose himself thereunto whereunto also he addeth that being so understood it may be indefinitely and passively thus rendred as of many other places the like may be shewed No wrong shal be seen done to Jacob nor molestation beheld done to Israel and so saith he the context will run more clearly the reason thereof being rendred in the words next ensuing because God is present with them ready at hand to protect them and to oppose any that shall attempt to wrong or to molest them Thus then it appeares that an other sense may be given of these words then that which these corrupters of Scripture would fasten upon them and that such as well agreeth both with the truth of story and the analogy of faith whereas theirs agreeth with neither and receiveth further coâ—firmation from the ordinary and most usuall signification of the words from the connexion of them with the residue of the context and from the collation of other Scriptures And the result of all that hath hither to been said is this that that which these men would make them to speak doth directly crosse the tenor of the story and the truth of Gods word doth contradict their own tenents and is inconsistent with them could not be the mind and meaning of him by whom they were uttered nor can duly and justly be by them pressed as a ground for such a point of doctrine as they would build thereupon since that they may well bear another sense Let us in the next place proceed now we have the true sense to consider what the proper doctrine is of the place The Text then thus cleared the point of instruction that of it self it naturally yeeldeth and affordeth us is this that God cannot endure to see any wrong or grievance done or offered unto his This he manifested and made known to the world from the very first beginning of his sequestration of persons and people to himself When albeit they were but few in number yea very few and those strangers in the lands wherein they lived what time they wandred from Nation to Nation out of one Kingdom to another when the paucity of them together with their present estate and condition as not strangers onely but travellers might in all likelyhood expose them to contempt and despight and consequently to much wrong and abuse yet it is said that even then he suffered no man to do them wrong but sharply reproved yea and severely punished Kings themselves and that not one alone as the sacred stories shew for their sake for attempting to wrong them And when they were grown now to a greater multitude to be a numerous people tho he suffered them for a while to be oppressed in Egypt yet as he had long before threatned on the King and people that so oppressed them he executed judgement and that in such manner as made all the world ring of it and the fame of it being spread abroad farre and neer made other Nations also to stand in aw of them Too long and tedious it would be to trace this point as might easily be done through the whole body of the holy story to relate thence the heavy doom first past and after executed on Amalek for molesting them in their passage the overthrows and slaughters of Sihon and Og with their forces that denied them passage through their Land opposed them in their way and of those numberlesse multitudes of the Cushites Syrians Assyrians and others that invaded them in their own Countrey under Asa Iehoshaphat and Ezekiah together with the shameful flight of Senacherib the execution done on him by the hands of his owne sonnes and of the exemplary judgement shewed on Haman and his whole house who by plotting and attempting the ruin of that people ruined himself and all his Suffice it may in generall to have observed that no people or person are in Gods booke read of ever to have either wronged Gods people or attempted so to do but that first or last they have paid full dear for it The reasons hereof may be drawn either from those relations that such have unto God or from Gods own nature and disposition as in generall so more especially toward those who in more speciall manner are his First I say the relations that such have unto God and these are manifold and various but all herein concurring that they necessarily imply that affection in God toward them and care of them that is intimated in my Text. For they are his anointed ones his adopted ones his first-born his first-fruits his deer ones his darlings his spouse his turtle his people 1. They are Gods anointed ones Touch not saith he mine anointed take heed how you but touch them how you offer the least wrong to them how you make the lightest or sleightest attempt against them they are mine anointed whom I will not have once touched Kings are justly deemed sacred because they are the Lords anointed and who can be guiltlesse saith David that shall stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and God himself of David With mine holy Oyle have I anointed him and the enemy therefore shall not exact upon him nor the sons of any wrong-doers afflict him I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that hate him They are not indeed such anointed ones of whom God there speaks and in whose behalf he claimeth this prerogative and priviledge and proclaimeth such immunity and indemnity as you have heard they are Kings whom he speaks to and whom he is said to have rebuked for their sakes of whom he there speaks But the anointed he there speaks of and for whom Kings are said to have been reproved were Abraham Isaak and Jacob with their issue and retinue so tearmed in regard of that spirituall ointment that being powred without measure on Christ their head doth from him descend and is derived in its due measure unto every member of that body whereof he is head by vertue whereof they are enabled to become Kings and Priests unto God and so all sound interpreters generally as well ancient as modern expound that place Howbeit if the
did again that howsoever when David committed adultery with Bathsheba and to smother his sinne and enjoy her took away the life of her husband Vriah God beheld it took notice of it was displeased with him and chastised him very sorely for it yet in these dayes if the like wickednesse should by any beleeving persons be perpetrated to wit that a stranger should solicite a mans wife to uncleannesse and she admit him to her husbands bed in his absence being either about publike service or private employments abroad and they should afterward both further complot together to take away the life of her husband that they might the more freely enjoy either other God would not so much as once so see it as to take any notice at all of such villany or be at all angry either with the one or the other supposing them to be such as David was for so doing or ever so farre forth call them to a reckoning as to chastise either of them in the least degree for the same which doctrine whether it be not such as removeth a main curb of restraint to keep men and women in secret especially from sinne and whether it be a lesson fit to be instilled into the minds and heads of young women in the times especially of their husbands more then ordinary occasions of absence and whether they deale wisely and discreetly or are not injurious to themselves that in such case give entertainment to the teachers of such doctrine such of them especially if any such be or shall be as either are not or have not been wholly free from some scandall themselves I leave it to any sober-minded Christian to judge This then it is that these men directly avouch and with an high hand contend for pressing it upon us yea upon all persons as ye have heard to be beleeved and received under a peremptory penalty of no lesse then everlasting damnation And this because we contradict and oppose averring on the other hand for that is all that in this particular we maintain against them that God doth see and take notice of the sinnes slips and excesses of his Saints as well in these dayes as in times past and doth oft chastise them and that sharply also sometime for the same we are therefore by them branded with most opprobrious imputations and loaded with the vilest aspersions that may be which if you can endure with patience to heare as we must bear be pleased to consider with me a while how the Honey-combs author hath behonyed us and from him learn what the usuall dialect concerning us is among his disciples In this manner then is he pleased to bedaub us with his honey such as it is These men saith he tho they be Protestants in name and professe themselves utter enemies to Papists yet shake hands with them in the main points of salvation and by reasonâ— of their being in a dead faith understanding not the doctrine of justification but conceiving it after a carnall and humane witted fashion talking of what they hold as men in a sheep and running round as blind horses in a mill and with Nicodemus accounting the deep things of God absurd they nullifie free justification and make it as good as nothing for they have as much faith as an Oxe or an Asse beleeving nothing but what they see and feele following meerly their present sense as a beast and stumbling at this block of their sight sense and feeling they break the neck of their faith and so endanger to break the neck of their soules for by breaking the neck of their faith they make it a dead faith good for nothing neither to glorifie God nor to save their souls thus they make God no God but make reason sense and feeling their God for pratling idlely and talking by the light of nature of Gods power and presence and all-seeing and all-searching nature after a Gentilish and heathenish manner to the frustrating of his word and promises and seeming to stand for and defend the same by cavils and allegations Heathenish and Gentilish and Papisticall yea beastly ungodly and blasphemous breathing out nothing but unbelief which as a blind bayard goeth about to make God blind that he cannot see his own work wrought upon his children and like a bold Betteresse maketh God to her selfe impotent blind and a lier they reject faith dishonour God rob him of his power spoil him of his truth find him no more our God then the Gentiles and Heathen did and seeming to glorifie him rob him of the glory of his God-head making him impotent in his power false in his word and promises blind that he cannot see his own and his Sonnes proper work in and upon us and so by unbelief abolish to themselves the whole God-head Again lisping in speech and limping in practise yea halting down-right in the doctrine of free justification and sliding back to the legall teaching of the Old Testament in promising rewards to the followers of righteousnesse and threatning punishment to transgressors they sow up again the veil that was rent from the top to the botome and shut up the holy of holies and by mingling the Law and the Gospel together as if one should mingle black and white they marre both and not onely blemish and darken the doctrine of grace but take away Christ and all his benefits secretly undermine and utterly overthrow the Gospel and all the benefits of it deny the nature and essence of faith deny baptisme deny Christ deny his satisfaction and by perverting the Gospel of Christ become of preachers of the Gospel Ministers and Apostles of the Devill and by making a miscilan and mixture of the Law and the Gospel they preach neither good Law nor good Gospel but a miscilan and marring of both and thereby make miscilan Christians that is meer hypocrites for they expell the filiall and bring in a servile fear and make Gods children serve him with eyeâ—service which in them is abominable and so nourish hypocrisie but greatly hinder true sanctification true repentance and holy walking by legall threats and rewards which cause but a constrained hireling sanctity which is hypocriticall legall holinesse or else cause people to run tho more cautiously yet the faster into sinne Furthermore they bring forth a rod to whip if shee tread her foot a little awry the bride in her mariage attire the Queen in her royal robes and pulling the wedding garments off over the brides head and putting on her a mourning garment of blows stripping the Queen and bride making her stand naked to be whipt with rods of crosses afflictions at her marriage feast they frustrate and make void the wedding garment of Christs righteousnesse which hereby is made one in regard of the being of sinne it self and Gods sight of sinne in his with the hypocrisie and security of the wicked and Gods covering is made all one with mans covering nay rather with the deceitfull covering which
and they most many times that have least cause so to do or if by the Spirit he know himself to be in the state of grace which too many presume of upon the report and suggestion not of Gods never erring but of their own corrupt and deceitfull spirit but being granted that such they are or may be that then God doth not see or heare or regard or take notice at all of what they do or the lesse mislike them for so doing 4. I desire to have it considered whether according to these tenents a man may not well expect honest and faithfull dealing rather at the hand of an heathen holding at least a deity and a providence or of a conscientious Papist then at the hands of an Antinomian thus principled For heathen men so qualified as hath been said have by the light of nature acknowledged and professed to believe that God did see and take notice of whatsoever they did or spake yea or thought and was offended with them when in ought of these they failed and even Papists also by those grounds which they hold in common with us as also the Christians of former ages do here in accord with them Whereas our Antinomians you see flatly deny that God doth see or take notice of any evill or failings in ought of theirs presuming them to be in the state of grace no not of dâ—unkennesse or murther much lesse of a fraud of a ly yea they stick not to say and it followeth unavoydably indeed from their principles that God is no more displeased with them when they ly then when they speak truth that which indeed I believe makes so many of them such notorious liers as I have by experience my self found some and by credible report heard others of them to be no more when they be drunk then when they keep themselves sober no more when they commit adultery then when in wedlock they live loyally Again if it shall be said that some of the above-mentioned assertions may yet beare an orthodox sense as indeed they did endeavour when time was by some qualifications to allay the horridnesse of some of them for who can deny may some say but that there is a fountain ready open for sinners to wash in tho they have never so oft sinned upon their repentance and for a believer as one of them sought to salve it to aske forgivenesse of his sin as if Christ had not made full satisfaction to God for it were a point of much impiety and further that in divers sound authors of former ages some such speeches are found as these men now use to presse in the venting and vindicating of their positions To all this I answer 1. that the Apostle by precept enjoyneth Timothy to keep a form of wholsom as well words as doctrines as also by his own practise he admonisheth us to speak the words as well of sobriety as of truth but these their forms are sure far from sobriety and from wholsomnesse as far 2. That these men deal with orthodox Authors I cannot say as flies that leave the whole hide where it is whole sound to seize on some sore or unsound part tho prone enough I doubt not they would be so to do if they could light on ought thus tainted in theÌ„ because those writers were sound enough in those places which these men thereby to countenance their own unsound opinions do abuse and yet I may well say as flies that are wont to slip away from the glasse where it is slick and smooth but to fasten upon it where they find any scratches in it for they passe by those places in them and those their speeches where and wherein they plainly and familiarly deliver themselves and their mind in tearms most proper and suitable to the truth and nature of the doctrine they deal with and pitch upon some high and harsh expressions which carried in an hyperbolicall strain do sometime fall from them the rather thereby to amuse silly people who are prone most to admire what they least understand and to beguile such as are not able to distinguish between propriety of speech and rhetoricall tho sometime more emphaticall meer flourishes where they might do well to remember that it is a dangerous matter as from typicall so from tropicall speeches hyperbolicall especially to raise points of doctrine and to strain that to propriety that is spoken by a figure But herein they deal as the Papists do in some controversies between us and them who to justifie the invocation of Saints deceased passing by yea crossing out sometime those cleer places of the ancients wherein they are most pregnant for invocation of God in Christ onely use to presse us with those passages in their panegyricall discourses where they break forth into rhetoricall compellations of the blessed spirits deceased as they do sometime the like of the senselesse yea and livelesse creatures and to make men beleeve that their late forged monster of transubstantiation is no novelty but a doctrine held and beleeved in the ancient Church letting slip the plain and pregnant speeches of the ancients to the contrary which yet they cannot be ignorant of being inserted some of them even into the corps of their Canon-law fasten upon and urge against us some sacramentall metonymicall and hyperbolicall expressions as in heat of affection and eager pursuit of their matter have slipt at some times from the lips or dropt from the pens of those Worthies which yet divers of them unlesse they will venture as farre as Pope Nicolas whom the glosse it self is ashamed of in propriety of sense themselves dare not admit where by the way tho a little out of the way I cannot forbeare in a word to intimate how herein also these men imitate the patrons of Popery for look what imputations they cast on us because we refuse to receive contrary to the evidence of our sight and sense the grounds of sound reason and principles of Religion that hideouâ— conceit of Christs whole body comprehended in a little thin Wafer-cake which they have now made an article of faith that we are meere carnall creatures preferring sight and sense before faith that we make Christ a lyer deny the truth of his Word and the power of his deity the very self-same aspersions as at large you have heard full as soule if not fouler do these corrupters of the truth of God bedew and bedaub us with because we will not abandon sense reason and religion so as to believe that which they presse as a fundamentall article of faith to wit that believers have no sin that God can see in them tho they see and feel it in themselves and that God cannot but abhor them and refuse to own them if he should espie but the least mote or speâ—k of sin in them 3. The scope and drift of these men farre different from theirs whose speeches they make use of would in these their expressions be observed
is said upon their repentance to have hidden all their sinnes as also to the same purpose they produce those passages where God is said to have removed their sinnes as farre from them as the East is fâ—om the West to have taken them and cast them into the bottome of the sea whereas yet they are enforced by evidence of truth to confesse that in those times God might and did see take notice of and punish sinne even in the best that then were and this cannot therefore be Balaams meaning in this place if what themselves hold be true nor can they alledge this place for the proofe of what they herein maintaine without crossing and contradicting that which otherwhiles they acknowledge Fourthly that this burden lies upon them who undertake to ground such a point as this upon this place to prove that this not onely in probability may be but of necessity must be the true sense of the words which they give for if the words will bear any other sense as well as that which they assigne then cannot the Doctrine which thence they endeavour to deduce be raised necessarily from the place But that the words of the Text may well admit and bear some other orthodox sense then this which they strive and contend all they can to fasten upon it and that very aptly also agreeing with the drift and course of the context shall by Gods assistance be shewed in the ensuing discourse Which yet before I come to make manifest in that which is herein principally intended I shall crave leave to spend some time in considering and discussing the divers versions and expositions that I find given of the same by others And here my purpose is not to make any long stay upon such of them as depart much either from the Originall or from the Translations with us commonly received which alone may seem to intimate some such thing as these men whom at present we deale with would have them to hold out Those of this sort may well be referred to two principal heads The former is of the Chaldie Paraphrast who rendreth th Text thus He beholdeth no a worshippers of Idols in Jacob nor seeth any b workers of falshood in Israel and the Vulgar Latine that giveth it much to the same purpose There is no Idol in Jacob nor Jmage seene in Israel of which we shall God willing say somewhat more hereafter for as for that of a learned writer who would look also that way Vanity shall not decline unto Iacob nor workmanship be seene in Israel it runs so far wide from the Originals that it is scarce worth the taking notice of The latter head is of the Greek Interpreters who thus yeeld them No toilsome travell shall be in Iacob nor paine or painfull labour seene in Israel Which version both the Greek Interpreters and the Latine also divers as well ancient as moderne either in whole or in part following expound some of Gods providence over the people of Jsrael in keeping them from being over-toiled and tired out in their tedious passage through the wildernesse or his powerfull assistance in enabling them with ease to subdue their enemies and surprise their Cities others of the state and condition of Gods elect in the life to come wherein there shall be no pain nor travell the glorified Saints then being freed from all grievance and resting wholly from their labours And true it is that the words here used signifie affliction and vexation as we shall hereafter at large shew But neither doe the versions come exactly home to the Originall nor doe the interpretations of them suit well with Balaams intendements Nor shal we need to be over-solicitous about them because tho admitted they would not afford the least colour for the maintenance of that erroneous conceit that these men would thence assert They may serve onely to shew that the words have not anciently or generally been taken either in such a sense the latter or in such a latitude of sense the former as is now usually given them Passe we on therefore to consider of the severall interpretations of the words so read as we have them in our English translations and as before we have in part related He beheld no vanity in Jacob nor saw transgression in Israel Or He seeth none iniquity in Jacob nor seeth no transgression in Israel Or He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob neither hath he seene perversnesse in Israel In the exposition hereof Interpreters none that I have seene taking them simply as they may seeme at first reading to sound distinguish some of the object or thing seene some of the act the sight or manner of seeing here mentioned Of the Object or thing seene they distinguish two wayes First some more strictly taking iniquity and transgression not for sinne in generall but for one species or particular kind of it only to wit idolatry So as you heard before both the Chaldee Paraphrast understandeth it and the old Latine translator whom the Popish commenters most follow nor doe some of our Protestant writers herein depart from them This sense some build on the word used in the former branch some on that in the latter some on the word Aven in the former branch translated iniquity He saw saith a learned Writer of ours no iniquity in Jacob that is no idâ—latry The reason whereof he thus rendreth God as he is ens entium is benum goodnesse none good but God onely having his goodnesse of himselfe but Idols by way of appropriation are called sinne So Jeremy My people have committed a sinne that is idolatry and This people is prone to sinne that is to idolatry and in this sense is that of Siracides to be understood All the Kings of Israel were sinners except David Iosias and Ezekias that is they were idolaters Thus he wherein some things seeme not so sound not of so clear truth at least For first no one of the places produced doe prove that for which they are alleadged to wit that an Idol is in Scripture termed sinne for no man will expound either those words of Ieremy My people have committed an Idol or those of Aaron to Moses This people is prone to an Idol nor doth this Author himselfe so expound them it is true indeed which had beene a a fitter allegation then any of these are that Moses speaking of the golden Calfe saith I took your sinne meaning the Calfe they had made but sinne is there put by a metonymie for the object of their sinne that wherein they had sinned Secondly there is no necessity by sinne in those places to understand idolatry since that the people there spoken of both had committed many hideous and horrible sinnes besides their idolatries and were prone to many other sinnes as well as to the worships of their Idols but They have siâ—nâ—d sin saith Ieremy that is they have greatly and grievously sinned as David of himselfe tho his sinne were not such
GODS EYE ON HIS ISRAEL OR A PASSAGE OF BALAAM out of NUMB. 23.21 Containing matter very seasonable and suitable to the times Expounded and cleared from Antinomian abuse With Application to the present estate of things with us By THO. GATAKER B.D. and Pastor of Rotherhith PSALM 94. 9. He that planteth the ear shal not he hear he that formed the ey shal not he see 10. He that chastiseth the heathen shal not he correct he that teacheth man knowledge should not he know 11. The Lord knoweth these thoughts of men that they are vanity 12. Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest O Lord and teachest him out of thy Law LONDON Printed by E.G. for Foulke Clifton and are to be sold at his shop on new Fishstreet-hill under Margarets-Cuurch 1643. TO THE Religious Iudicious and Ingenuous READER For such should I desire all that read me to be Religious that willing to be informed of the truth Judicious that able when held out to discern it Ingenuous that ready when convinced of it to acknowledge it Or Because this is matter rather of wish then of hope To any READER indifferently Those especially of mine own Congregation either untainted or tainted with Antinomian opinions HAving in the course of my ministery among mine own people delivered and in conference with others elsewhere declared my judgement concerning a passage in Balaams prophecies much pressed by our Antinomian Teachers for the proofe of one of their principall Positions concerning the present estate of justified persons and Gods sight of sinne in them I have by divers of those who thereby took notice of it been since solicited yea by some of them importuned to explain it more fully and to make it more publique Which motion albeit I did for some space of time entertain with a deaf eare as being one well-neere spent and too well conscious to my self how unfit at these yeers and this weaknesse which might justly plead a discharge from such employments to be drawn forth into the field and engaged in matter of controversie further then the safety and welfare of mine owne flock might there in be concerned yet for some considerations which I shall not need here to relate I have at length been induced to condescend to the desires of those who have herein been so earnest with me and this the rather that I might thereby take occasion to vindicate my selfe from some aspersions which some of these mens followers have endevoured to fasten upon me as if I had falsely and unfaithfully related their opinion in the point especially which they ground on that passage of Scripture here dealt with whereby they affirm that God doth not will not cannot in those times see any sin in any of his justified children Which Position albeit with much confidence they maintain and with no lesse eagernesse contend for as hereafter shall be made to appear yet when it is charged upon them their disciples are wont to cry out and clamour that they are belied wrongfully traduced and injuriously dealt with as being charged with that which they neither teach nor maintain And indeed to meer strangers or even to some of their own followers who being but novices yet in the schoole of these mysteries may chance to boggle and startle somewhat at such assertions as these they may peradventure refuse as your brokers for Popery are in the like case wont to do with some of their grosser points as the worship of Images and the like to be acknown of that which yet they hold or at least seem to hold for whether they can work their own hearts really to beleeve what in some things they say may not unjustly be doubted and where they may be bolder and freer stick not nakedly without maske or vail to propound and peremptorily to avow and maintain as an undeniable truth of God and a main principle of faith Nor is it any marvell that they should thus do since that however truth as we use to say seeks no corners wherein to shroud it selfe in times of liberty especially such as at present we live in nor shunneth any thing more as being of nothing more afraid and ashamed then not to be seen and to appeare in her own native and naked shape yet error on the other side as conscious to it self of its own unsoundnesse is wont to seek lurking nooks wherein to lie hid and starting holes whereat to slip out and shifts and sleights wherewith to disguise it self shunneth nothing more then the light and is most loath to be seen and appear in its own likenesse and when it is therefore pursued that it may be attached and brought forth to light it either beddeth it self with the Eel in the mud or with the cuttle-fish so discoloureth the waters about it that men seem to have lost the sight of what they even now saw and to be as if they wotted not what were become of that which erewhiles they deemed themselves to have had either cleer in their eye or fast in their hand This practise discovered it self over-sufficiently in those three grand patrons and ring-leaders of this faction what time they were convented before the worthy Committee of the honourable house of Commons in the Star-chamber Where being required or requested rather to deliver their opinion in divers points then propounded unto them for the cleering of themselves and the doctrine taught by them they sought at first by all meanâ— to decline giving any answer at all and being pressed upon it when they could not well avoid it the answer they gave was in such generall obscure and ambiguous terms conceived as that they might seem to say somewhat to the point propounded and yet conceal what their mind might be in the main matter intended My chief entendement therefore at present shal be not so much to debate or discusse the points in controversie between us and them I shall leave that to those that have better abilities and more leisure and the truth is that in some particulars their assertions are so grosse that the very discovery by uncasing and devesting them of those veils dressings wherwith their paterouns are wont to disguise them is refutation sufficient but to make manifest and lay open only what it is that they maintain that it may not be deemed as their fautors and followers use to affirm that in dealing with them we fight but with shadowes and spirits of our own raising or shoot at a man of straw that our selves have set up or to hack and hew a post which insteed of an adversary when we have none we have made choyce of whereon to exercise our arms and our armes The question then is what it is that these men maintain concerning Gods sight of sinne in the faithfull which to state aright the controversie as it stands between them and us is not either concerning the efficacy of justification in generall or concerning Gods sight of sin generally in such as beleeve and are
repugnant to Gods word yea no lesse then horrid blasphemy for any man to averre then are we not onely acquited from those hideous imputations that these men would fasten upon us for affirming no more of the faithfull and justified ones that now live then themselves by evidence of truth agreeably to Gods word are enforced to confesse and acknowledge concerning those faithfull and justified ones that lived in times past before Christs appearing in the flesh but the crime of blasphemy may also not unjustly be retorted upon them whose positions do necessarily inferre all that hath been said concerning those blessed Saints and faithful servants of God who then beleeved in Christ as well as we now do were justified by the same faith that we now are and saved by the same grace that we partake in with them The result of all that hath hitherto been said then is this 1. That we wrong them not in that which we charge them to maintain to wit that God doth not now see or take notice of any sinne in any justified person nor is at all displeased with him much lesse doth at any time chastise him for the sâ—me albeit that in his best Saints and children in times past he so did And 2. that they wrong us in charging us with blasphemy and such horrid crimes as following necessarily from that which we maintain contrary to this their assertion when as the same may as justly be charged upon that which themselves hold concerning the faithfull of former times and on the Scriptures that hold out the same Now because it may be said that this was indeed the opinion of Mr. Eaton while he lived but that that opinon of his died with him It were to be wished indeed that it had so done but as by the late publishing of his discourse concerning it the contrary appeareth so for further satisfaction herein I shall entreat the Reader to consider and take notice of these ensuing Positions which with others of the like nature at a publike hearing before a Committee of the Honourable House of Commons in the Star-chamber were by sufficient witnesses proved to have been delivered by three of the chief leaders of this faction among them some in publike some in private some of them in the Pulpit and some by the Presse 1. That the morall Law iâ— of no use at all to a beleever no rule for him to walk nor to examine his life by and that Christians are free from the mandatory power of it Whence it may well be proceeded those exclamations of one of them in the Pulpit Away with the Law away with the Law and that horrid speech of his The Law cuts off a mans legs and then bids him walk 2. That it is as possible for Christ himself to sin as for a child of God to sin 3. That a child of God need not nay ought not to ask pardon for sin and that it is no lesse then blasphemy for him so to do 4. That God doth not chastise any of his children for sin nor is it for the sins of Gods people that the Land is punished 5. That if a man by the Spirit know himself to be in the state of grace tho he be drunk or commit murther God sees no sin in him 6. That when Abraham denied his wife and in outward appearance seemed to lie in his distrust lying dissembling and equivocating that his wife was his sister even then truly all his thoughts words and deeds were perfectly holy and righteous from all spot of sinne in the sight of God freely To which may be added that wholsome exhortation then also averred to have been delivered by one of them likewise in the pulpit which might well passe for an use of the point Let believers sinne as fast as they will there is a fountain open for them to wash in By these their assertions then it is evident enough that as Mr. Eatons book is in great request and high esteem with them so his doctrine is still constantly held and maintained by them As for Abrahams example which to that purpose they abuse being taken out of Mr. Eatons book where it is verbatim so found and he endevoureth by this observation to adde strength unto to wit that tho men did reprove him yet we read not that God took notice of any sin in him nor did once rebuke him all his life after his calling for any one sin 1. I should demand whether this be a good argument to prove that God approved or did not mislike or take notice of or was displeased with any sinfull act in any person because he is not read to have reproved the party so offending for the same For if so we may consequently conclude the same of Noahs being drunk of Lots daughters making their father drunk to make way for their incest and of their incestuous companying with him of Iacobs deluding his father Isaac with a lie of Rebekkah his mothers putting him upon it of Iudahâ— lying tho upon a mistake with his daughter in law Thamar and of her disguising of her self to enduce him therunto of Rubens defiling of his fathers bed of Bathshebaes yeelding to Davids adulterous desire of Joabs murther first of Abner and after of Amasa c. all which tho sinfull acts and excesses God is no where recorded to have rebuked them for or to have reproved in them 2. I demand which of the three periods of time before-mentioned Abrahams life is by these men referred unto For if they will say that he lived before the Law and that therefore it was then with him as it is now with us 1. Moses his example will herein control them who lived also before the Law given in mount Sinai and yet did God so far forth see and take notice of sin in him as that upon his hanging back when he called him to go on his message to Pharao he was very angry with him and for the neglect of his childs circumcision he was like to have slain him 2. It will overthrow the main ground of their assertion to wit that this priviledge tooke not place untill Christ had groaned out his blood and life on the crosse Or if they shall grant that by vertue of his blood then shed it was formerly enjoyed they shall by that grant again overthrow their own assertion concerning those that lived after the delivery of the Law unlesse they will affirm that the Law was given to abbridge the vertue and impeach the efficasy of Christs bloud 3. Let it be observed to what intent and purpose this of Abraham and that also with so many down-right tearms of deep aggrevation is produced namely to prove that tho a man now do as they say he then did dissemble ly and equivocate yea more then that cheat and cousen those he deales with swear and forswear or worse then all this yet if he be a believer as every one almost is over-prone to believe himself to be
of these against the sense that these men would fasten upon it to wit that God saw no sinne at all in Iacob nor transgression in Israel I shall use a fourfold prescription or plea. First that this can not be the meaning of the place because it evidently crosseth the main tenor of the story and the truth of Gods Word For how could God but see those sinnes in that people which so oft he grievously complaineth of professeth to take notice of and to be highly displeased with threatneth to avenge yea not threatned alone so to do but severely and that frequently also punished by plagues and judgements of sundry sorts yea for which he destroyed in the wildernesse the main body of that people which he brought out of Egypt reserving onely their issue to enter upon and enjoy the Land promised them in their stead Or what reasonable creature can be induced to beleive that all this should by God be done when he had so hoodwinked and blindfolded himself that he neither did nor could see that for which he did all this Secondly that Balaam who uttered these words unto Balak did not so understand them nor was of any such mind That which appeares by the advise that he gave unto Balak For as the Nobles of Babylon being well assured that they should never be able to get any advantage against Daniel whereby to ensnare him and bring him into danger save in something that might concern him in his duty to his God solicited Darius to enact and publish such an edict as might straiten him that way so Balaam well wotting that no advantage could be gotten against that people whereby the enemy might be enabled to have the better of them but by making a breach between them and their God advised Balak therefore by the enticements of the daughters of his people to endeavour to enduce them to fornication and superstition to adultery and idolatry two sinnes that are wont to goe hand in hand together that so the wrath of God being incensed against them and his protection withdrawn from them they might either ly open to the enemy or be delivered up by God unto them to be scourged and punished for their sinne But in vain had it been for Balaam to give such counsell to Balak or for Balak to have practised what Balaam suggested had God been so affected towards this people that he could not or would not see or take notice of what was done amisse either in that or in any other kind by them nor would be displeased at all with them for it Thirdly that this sense of the words will not stand with other their own principles but directly crosseth that which themselves otherwhiles averre For when we object unto them against this their position the examples of holy men recorded in Scripture as of Moses of whom it is said that God was angry yea very angry with him for his flinching and hanging back when he was to go on Gods errand to Pharaoh had like to have slain him in his Inne by the way for the neglect of his childs circumcision was displeased with him and Aaron for their incredulity and failings in some unadvised carriages with Aaron also for having an hand in the calf and punished them both with exclusion from possession and enjoyment of the promised Land of David concerning whom it is affirmed that the thing he did in his folly with Bathsheba and in the murther of Vriah was evill in Gods eys himself also confessing that those his sinnes were committed in Gods sight as also that his other sinnes such as he had for some he was falsly charged with were not hidden from him and that God by Nathan sharply reproved him for the same threatning withall to repay his sinne in either kind by the like which accordingly also he did and again that upon the numbring of his people which Satan and his own corrupt heart had put him upon his conscience smote him as having done that which he knew God would take notice of and take to heart as the event sheweth that he did for God not onely signified so much to him by Gad but made him smart for it in his people of Iehoshaphat whom for his assistance of Ahab God by Iehuâ—s â—s messenger summoned to answer it and gave him notice of his wrath incensed against him for it Of Ezekiah with whom for a vain ostentation of his wealth and state to the Babylonian Ambassadors he was not a little displeased and in displeasure to his no small grief no doubt made known unto him what in after times should become not of all his treasures onely but of his posterity When I say we object unto them these and the like examples of Gods people recorded in Gods Book whose excesses and oversights God beheld and that also with an angry and wrathfull eye they use to tell us that these persons were under the cloud they lived in the times of the Old Testament that it is not now as it was then God saw that in them then which he seeth not in us now It is true that in those times God saw sinne and took notice of it and punished it even in his own justified ones but he doth not so now adaies For not to insist on that which in way of reply might be returned hereunto to wit that the Apostle Paul acknowledgeth no other kind or manner of justification then that whereby Abraham and David were justified from whose examples he draweth an argument to prove men to be in these times justified freely by faith as they also in their times were as also that the Apostle Peter affirmeth that those that lived in those times were saved by the grace yea the free grace for unlesse free it is no Grace of God in Christ Iesus as well as we that live in these dayes Not to insist I say and stay hereupon but to turn them over to their own tenents these men herein deale with us in this argument as the Papists doe in some others For as they to make good that Preists under the Gospel have a power to heare confessions and remit sinnes produce some places out of the Old Testament to prove it whereas yet they themselves confesse that the Preists in those times had no such power and to confirme invocation and intercession of Saints deceased they produce likewise some passages out of those Scriptures when as yet being pressed with the practise of the holy men that then lived who used no such invokements of any deceased they are wont to answer that the Saints in those times deceased could not heare prayers or be prayed to because they remained shut up in limbo and were not gotten yet into heaven In like manner doe these men To prove that God seeth no sinne now in his justified ones they alledge these words of Balaam spoken of the Israel that then was as affirming that God saw no sinne in them and other places likewise where he
the like case then Aram had to seek to Ahab with hope that altho we have carried our selves wickedly and wretchedly ungratiously and unworthily toward our good God far otherwise then was meet either for us to do or for him to endure yet he will upon our sincere repentance and serious humiliation be pacified towaâ—d us and reconciled again unto us We have heard say they that the Kings of Israel are mercifull Kings but we know that the God of Israel is a mercifull God they built upon the bare hearsays concerning the Kings of Israel of such as might easily be mistaken in them upon reports which being many times raised from or taken up rather upon meer shewes and semblances of what in truth is not do consequently fail and fall short when it cometh to the triall and so frustrate the expectation of those that rely on them Whereas we have a surer ground whereon to build our hopes even the word of that God who is truth it self and therefore cannot lie concerning himself whom none knowes so well as himself yea none knowes indeed perfectly but himself none in any part but from himself and who therefore cannot be mistaken in himself as men even in themselves and in others much more oft-times are He hath published and proclaimed himself to be a God mercifull and gratious of long sufferance and abounding in goodnesse or kindnesse and truth He hath assured us and with an oath confirmed it that he delighteth not in the death and destruction of sinners his own people especially but would rather have them repent and return then to die in and so perish by their sinnes he hath professed and protested it that tho a man will not receive a wife again that hath gone from him and joyned her self to another nor did his own law allow any man so to do yet notwithstanding our reâ—olt from him and disloyall dealings with him he will dispense with his own law he will upon our taking notice of and acknowledgement of our sins revoke his wrath because he is mercifull and upon our hearty retuâ—n to him return unto us and receive us into grace and favour again And as upon this ground Moses assureth his people that tho God for their sinnes should at any time dispossesse them of their land wherein he had seated them and disperse them into forain parts yet if out of those places whereunto they were dispersed they should seek sincerely to him and return to obey him God would not so leave them nor destroy them but would turn their captivity or reduce their captives and have compassion upon them and gather them out of those nations whither they were scattered and bring them home to their own land again for the Lord thy God saith he is a mercifull God So the people of God themselves when they were so dispossest of their land and removed into forain parts do upon the very same grounds conceive and nourish hopes that howsoever they had trespassed and rebelled and God had not spared them but had overspred them with his wrath and the dismall effects of it had pursued them and slain them and that as might seem without pity the enemy into whose hands he had given them shewing no pity or compassion at all on them yea tho he seemed to have wrapped himself in a thick cloud that their prayers might not pierce or find passage to have accesse to him and appear in his presence yet that he would not utterly cast them off nor retain his wrath for ever but that he would return and repent and have compassion again upon them according to the multitude of his mercies considering that he did not punish with his heart it was against his own disposition to deal with them as he did and would not so have done had not they by their sins provoked and enforced him thereunto It was inducement sufficient to the King of Nineveh notwithstanding that peremptory sentence past upon him and his people yet to conceive some good hope that upon their seeking to God the doom might be reversed Who can tell but that God may return and repent or repent him again and turn from his fierce wrath that we perish not But there was more in it then so that made Ionâ—â— so jealous of the issue of his prophecie I knew saith he that thou art a gratious and mercifull God slow to anger and of great goodnesse and one that repentest thee of the evils that thou denouncest against persons and people upon the repentance of those against whom they are denounced he had certain knowledge of that by God whereof they had onely some uncertain surmises and the same grounds that Jonas had to build on are not wanting to us they are left upon record for our comfort and encouragement Onely let us remember to take the same course that the people of God before-mentioned propound and that the Ninevites before them practised let us search out our sinnes first and turn from them and then let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God and cry mightily to him for mercy for when God saw that they turned from their evill wayes then it is said that God repented of the evill that he had said he would do and did it not This is it that God listeneth after this is that that he waits for that he would hear of from us and see with us that he may shew mercy on us which he even travelleth of and is in pain with untill he be delivered of it in such a season and in such a manner as may make most for our good But till this be let us assure our selves that we may cry long enough and loud enough but in vain and to no purpose like the Patient that calls upon the Physitian for the cure of his disease but will not admit the means that should remove the cause of it or cries to the Surgion for ease of his pain but will not suffer the splinter or sâ—ing to be drawn out of his flesh which sticking there procures the pain A third use may be for caution Is the Lord so affectionate a God to his people so tender of them that he cannot endure to see ought done to them that may vex and grieve them this should be a very forcible motive unto them that they be exceeding careful to shun and eschew the doing of ought that may vex and grieve him that they be tender of wronging him in ought who is so tender of seeing wrong done unto them Gods goodnesse and patience saith the Apostle should lead men to repentaÌ„ce the consideration of it should cause men to be grieved for this that by their sinfull courses they have grieved him who hath been so gratious and good to them Nor should the consideration of this tender affection in God towards us prevail lesse with us for a preventing care of such cariage that it be not committed then for the working of us to repentance after