contract my speech to the scanting of time or you if I should lengthen it to the weight of the matter And therefore I resolved here to make an end and to give place as fit it is to the businesse whereabout we meet The Total of what I have said and should say is in effect but this No pretension of a good end of a good meaning of a good event of any good whatsoever either can sufficiently warrant any sinfull action to be done or justifie it being done or sufficiently excuse the Omission of any necessary duty when it is necessary Consider what I say and the Lord give you understanding in all things Now to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit c. AD CLERUM The Third Sermon At a Visitation at Boston Lincoln 13. March 1620. 1 COR. 12.7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall IN the first Verse of this Chapter S. Paul proposeth to himself an Argument which he prosecuteth the whole Chapter through and after a profitable digression into the praise of Charity in the next Chap. resumeth again at the 14. Chapter spending also that whole Chapter therein and it is concerning spirituall gifts Now concerning spirituall gifts brethren I would not have you ignorant c. These gracious gifts of the holy Spirit of God bestowed on them for the edification of the Church the Corinthians by making them the fuell either of their pride in despising those that were inferiour to themselves or of their envy in malicing those that excelled therein abused to the maintenance of schisme and faction and emulation in the Church For the remedying of which evils the Apostle entreth upon the Argument discoursing fully of the variety of these spirituall gifts and who is the Author of them and for what end they were given and in what manner they should be imployed omitting nothing that was needfull to be spoken anent this subject In this part of the Chapter entreating both before and after this verse of the wondrous great yet sweet and usefull variety of these spirituall gifts he sheweth that howsoever manifold they are either for kind or degree so as they may differ in the materiall and formall yet they do all agree both in the same efficient and the same finall cause In the same efficient cause which is God the Lord by his Spirit ver 4 6. Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit and there are differences of administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all And in the same finall cause which is the advancement of Gods glory in the propagation of his Gospel and the edification of his Church in this ver But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall By occasion of which words we may enquire into the nature convenience and use of these gifts First their nature in themselves and in their originall what they are and whence they are the works of Gods Spirit in us the manifestation of the Spirit Secondly their conveyance unto us how we come to have them and to have property in them it is by gift It is given to every man Thirdly their use and end why they were given us and what we are to do with them they must be employed to the good of our Brethren and of the Church is given to every man to profit withall Of these briefly and in their order and with speciall reference ever to us that are of the Clergy By manifestation of the Spirit here our Apostle understandeth none other thing then he doth by the adjective word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first and by the substantive word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the last verse of the Chapter Both which put together do signifie those spiritual gifts and graces whereby God enableth men and specially Church-men to the duties of their particular Callings for the generall good Such as are those particulars which are named in the next following verses the word of Wisdome the word of Knowledge Faith the gifts of healing workings of miracles prophecy discerning 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall 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 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 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 onely 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 onely excepted which are of intrinsecall and mutuall relation are the joynt and undivided works of the whole three Persons according to the common known maxime constantly and uniformly received in the Catholike 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 to 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 spirituall 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 eternall Spirit of them both the Holy Ghost as from one entire indivisible and coessentiall Agent But for that we are grosse of understanding and unable to conceive the distinct Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead otherwise then by apprehending some distinction of their operations and offices to-us-ward it hath pleased the wisdome 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 speciall manner than unto the rest although indeed and in truth none of the three persons had more or lesse 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 Wisdome 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 appropriated to the Father and the work of Redemption wherein is specially seen the wisdome of God to the Son and so the works of sanctification and the infusion of habituall 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall gifts and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifestation of the Spirit We see now why spirit but then why manifestation The word as most other verballs of that form may be understood either in the active or passive signification And it is not materiall whether of the two wayes we take it in this place both being true and neither improper For these spirituall 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 in Acts 10. that they of the Circumcision were astonished When they saw that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift 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 spirituall Gift then is a manifestation of the Spirit as every other sensible effect is a manifestation of its proper cause We are now yet farther to know that the Gifts and graces wrought in us by the 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 Schooles and differenced by the names of Gratiae gratum facientes Gratiae gratis datae Which termes 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 termes though haply for the better hath by experience been found for the most part unhappy in the event in multiplying unnecessary book-quarrells 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 generall 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 given Nobis Nobis both to us and from us that is chiefly for our own good these Nobis sed Nostris to us indeed but for others that is chiefly for the good of our brethren Those are given us ad salutem for the saving of our own souls these ad lucrum for the winning of other mens souls Those proceed from the speciall love of God to the Person and may therefore be called personall or speciall these proceeed from the Generall love of God to his Church or yet more generall to humane societies and may therefore be rather called Ecclesiasticall or Generall Gifts or Graces Of that first sort are Faith Hope Charity Repentance Patience Humility and all those other holy graces and fruits of the Spirit which accompany salvation Wrought by the blessed and powerful operation of the holy Spirit of God after a most effectuall but unconceivable manner regenerating and renewing and seasoning and sanctifying the hearts of his Chosen But yet these are not the Gifts so much spoken of in this Chapter and namely in my Text Every branch whereof excludeth them Of those graces of sanctification first we may have indeed probable inducements to perswade us that they are or are not in this or that man But hypocrisie may make such a semblance that we may think we see spirit in a man in whom yet there is nothing but flesh and infirmities may cast such a fogge that we can discern nothing but flesh in a man in whom yet there is spirit But the gifts here spoken of do incurre into the senses and give us evident and infallible assurance of the spirit that wrought them here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a manifestation of the spirit Again Secondly those Graces of sanctification are not communicated by distribution Alius sic alius verò sic Faith to one Charity to another Repentance to another but where they are given they are given all at once and together as it were strung upon one threed and linked into one chain But the Gifts here spoken of are distributed as it were by doal and divided severally as it pleased God shared out into severall portions and given to every man some to none all for to one is given by the Spirit the word of Wisdome to another the word of Knowledge c. Thirdly those Graces of sanctification though they may and ought to be exercised to the benefit of others who by the shining of our light and the sight of our good works may be provoked to glorifie God by walking in the same paths yet that is but utilitas emergens and not finis proprius a good use made of them upon the bye but not the main proper and direct end of them for which they were chiefly given But the Gifts here spoken of were given directly
of the Ruler of the Feast in the Gospel Every man at the beginning setteth forth good Wine and then after that which is worse though there be many thousand men in the world that never rode that way or had occasion to set forth any Wine at all either better or worse very so ought we to conceive the meaning of the universall particle Every man both in this and in many other like speeches in the Scriptures with due limitations according to the tenour and purpose of the thing spoken of It mattereth not then as to the intent of this present speech be it true be it false otherwise whether every man have received a spirituall gift or no onely thus much is directly intended that every man who hath received such a gift hath received it by way of gift All spirituall graces all those dispositions habits and abilities of the understanding part from which the Church of God may receive edification in any kind together with all the secondary and inferiour helps that any way conduce thereunto they are all the good gifts of God The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man The variety both of the gifts meet for several offices of the offices wherein to employ those gifts is wonderfull no less wonderful the distribution of both gifts and offices But all that variety is derived from one and the same fountain the holy Spirit of God and all those distributions pass unto us by one and the same way of most free and liberall donation Have all the Word of Wisdome Have all the Word of Knowledge Have all Faith Have all Prophecy or other spirituall grace No they have not but b to one the Word of Wisdome the Word of Knowledge to another to others other gifts There is both variety you see and distribution of these graces But yet there is the same Author of them and the same manner of communicating them For to one is given by the spirit the Word of Wisdome to another the Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit and to others other graces but they are all from the same Spirit and they are all given And as the gifts so the offices too To that question in ver 29. Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers Answer may be made as before negatively No they are not but some Apostles some Prophets some Teachers There is the like variety and distribution as before but withall the same Donor and the same donation as before For he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Pastors and Teachers Ephes. 4. And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers c. beneath at ver 28. Both gifts and offices as they are à Deo for the Author so they are ex dono for the manner from God and by way of gift If we had no other the very names they carry like the superscription upon Caesars penny were a sufficient proof from whom we first had them When we call them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gratias gratis datas gifts and graces and manifestations of the Spirit do we not by the use of those very names confess the receipt For what more free than gift and what less of debt or desert than grace Heathen men indeed called the best of their perfections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Habits but Saint Iames hath taught us Christians a fitter name for ours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts They say they had them and looked no farther but we must know as that we have them so as well how we came by them And therefore this Apostle above at Chap. 4. joyneth the having and the receipt together as if he would have us behold them uno intuitu and at once Quid habes quod non accepisti what hast thou that thou hast not received Possibly thou wilt alledge thy excellent naturall parts these were not given thee but thou broughtest them into the world with thee or thou wilt vouch what thou hast attained to by Art and Industry and these were not given thee but thou hast won them proprio Marté and therefore well deservest to wear them Deceive not thy self it is neither so nor so Our Apostle in the place now last mentioned cutteth off all such Challenges Quis te discrevit who made thee to differ from another Say there were as there is not such a difference in and from Nature as thou conceivest yet still in the last resolution there must be a receipt acknowledged for even Nature it self in the last resolution is of Grace for GOD gave thee that Or say there were as there is not such a difference of desert as thou pretendest yet still that were to be acknowledged as a gift too for GOD gave thee that power whatsoever it was whereby thou hast attained to whatsoever thou hast But the truth is the difference that is in men in regard of these gifts and abilities ariseth neither from the power of Nature nor from the merit of labour otherwise than as GOD is pleased to use these as second causes under him but it cometh meerly from the good will and pleasure of that free spirit which bloweth where and when and how he listeth dividing his graces to every man severally as he will at the eleventh and as it hath pleased him at verse 18. of this Chapter Nature is a necessary agent and if not either hindred by some inferiour impediment or over-ruled by some higher power worketh alwayes alike and produceth the same effects in all individuals of the same kind and how is it possible she should make a difference that knoweth none And as for Desert there is indeed no such thing and therefore it can work nothing For can God be a debtor to any man or hath any man given to him first that it might be recompensed him again As a lump of Clay lyeth before the Potter so is all mankind in the hand of GOD. The Potter at his pleasure out of that Lump frameth vessels of all sorts of different shape proportion strength fineness capacity as he thinketh good unto the severall uses for which he intendeth them So God after the good pleasure of his own will out of mankind as out of an untoward lump of Clay all of the same piece equall in nature and desert maketh up vessels for the use of his Sanctuary by fitting several men with several gifts more or less greater or meaner better or worse according to the difference of those offices and employments for which he intended them It is not the Clay but the Potter that maketh the difference there neither is it any thing in man but the Spirit of God that maketh the difference here Whatsoever spirituall abilities we have we have them of gift and by grace The manifestation of the spirit is given to every man A point of very fruitfull
that other collection may be yet I hold it the safer resolution which is commonly given by Divines for the justification of this fact of Phinehes that he had an extraordinary motion and a peculiar secret instinct of the Spirit of God powerfully working in him and prompting him to this Heroicall Act. Certainly God will not approve that work which himself hath not wrought But to this Action of Phinehes God hath given large approbation both by staying the plague thereupon and by rewarding Phinehes with an everlasting Priesthood therefore and by giving expresse testimony of his zeal and righteousnesse therein as it is said in the next verse after my Text And it was accounted to him for righteousnesse Which words in the judgement of learned Expositors are not to be understood barely of the righteousnesse of Faith as it is said of Abraham that he believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousnesse as if the zeal of Phinehes in this act had been a good evidence of that faith in Gods promises whereby he was justified and his Person accepted with God though that also but they do withall import the justification of the Action at least thus far that howsoever measured by the common rules of life it might seem an unjust action and a rash attempt at the least if not an haynous murder as being done by a private man without the warrant of authority yet was it indeed not onely in regard of the intent a zealous action as done for the honour of God but also for the ground and warrant of it as done by the speciall secret direction of Gods holy Spirit a just and a righteous action Possibly this very word of standing up importeth that extraordinary spirit For of those Worthies whom God at severall times endowed with Heroicall spirits to attempt some speciall work for the delivery of his Church the Scriptures use to speak in words and phrases much like this It is often said in the book of Judges that God raised up such and such to judge Israel and that Deborah and Iair and others rose up to defend Israel that is The spirit of God came upon them as is said of Othoniel Iudg. 3. and by a secret but powerfull instinct put them upon those brave and noble attempts they undertook and effected for the good of his Church Raised by the impulsion of that powerfull spirit which admitteth no slow debatements Phinehes standeth up and feeling himself called not to deliberate but act without casting of scruples or fore-casting of dangers or expecting commission from men when he had his warrant sealed within he taketh his weapon dispatching his errand and leaveth the event to the providence of God Let no man now unlesse he be able to demonstrate Phinehes spirit presume to imitate his fact Those Opera liberi spiritûs as Divines call them as they proceeded from an extraordinary spirit so they were done for speciall purposes but were never intended either by God that inspired them or by those Worthies that did them for ordinary or generall examples The errour is dangerous from the priviledged examples of some few exempted ones to take liberty to transgresse the common rules of Life and of Lawes It is most true indeed the Spirit of God is a free Spirit and not tied to strictnesse of rule nor limited by any bounds of Lawes But yet that free spirit hath astricted thee to a regular course of life and bounded thee with Lawes which if thou shalt transgresse no pretension of the Spirit can either excuse thee from sinne or exempt thee from punishment It is not now every way as it was before the coming of Christ and the sealing up of the Scripture Canon God having now setled a perpetuall form of government in his Church and given us a perfect and constant rule whereby to walk even his holy word And we are not therefore now vainly to expect nor boastingly to pretend a private spirit to lead us against or beyond or but beside the common rule nay we are commanded to try all pretensions of private spirits by that common rule Ad legem ad testimonium to the Law and to the Testimony at this Test examine and Try the spirits whether they are of God or no. If any thing within us if any thing without us exalt it self against the obedience of this rule it is no sweet impulsion of the holy spirit of God but a strong delusion of the lying spirit of Sathan But is not all that is written written for our Example or why else is Phinehes act recorded and commended if it may not be followed First indeed Saint Paul saith All that is written is written for our learning but Learning is one thing and Example is another and we may learn something from that which we may not follow Besides there are Examples for Admonition as well as for Imitation Malefactors at the place of execution when they wish the by-standers to take example by them bequeath them not the Imitation of their courses what to do but Admonition from their punishments what to shunne Yea thirdly even the commended actions of good men are not ever exemplary in the very substance of the action it self but in some vertuous and gracious affections that give life and lustre thereunto And so this act of Phinehes is imitable Not that either any private man should dare by his example to usurpe the Magistrates office and to do justice upon Malefactors without a Calling or that any Magistrate should dare by his Example to cut off gracelesse offenders without a due judiciall course but that every man who is by vertue of his Calling endued with lawfull authority to execute justice upon transgressors should set himself to it with that stoutnesse and courage and zeal which was in Phinehes If you will needs then imitate Phinehes imitate him in that for which he is commended and rewarded by God and for which he is renowned amongst men and that is not barely the action the thing done but the Affection the zeal wherewith it was done For that zeal God commendeth him Numb 25. verse 11. Phinehes the sonne of Eleazar the sonne of Aaron the Priest hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel whilest he was zealous for my sake among them And for that zeal God rewardeth him Ibid. verse 13. He shall have and his seed after him the Covenant of an everlasting Priesthood because he was zealous for his God And for that zeal did Posterity praise him the wise sonne of Sirac Eccl. 45. and good old Mattathias upon his death-bed 1 Macc. 2. And may not this phrase of speech He stood up and executed judgement very well imply that forwardnesse and heat of zeal To my seeming it may For whereas Moses and all the Congregation sate weeping a gesture often accompanying sorrow or perhaps yet
Secondly here is a Warning for us to take consideration of the losse of good or usefull men and to fear when they are going from us that some evil is comming towards us The Prophet complaineth of the too great and general neglect hereof in his times The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart and mercifull men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Esa. 57. When God sendeth his Angel to pluck out his righteous Loâ—s what may Sodome expect but fire and brimstone to be rained down upon them When he plucketh up the fairest and choicest flowers in his garden and croppeth off the tops of the goodliest poppies who can think other than that he meaneth to lay his garden waste and to turn it into a wild wildernesse when he undermineth the main pillars of the house taketh away the very props and buttresses of Church and Common-weal sweepeth away religious Princes wise Senatours zealous Magistrates painfull Ministers men of eminent rancks gifts or example who can be secure that either Church or Common-weal shall stand up long and not â—otter at least if not fall God in Mercy taketh such away from the evil to come we in wisdom should look for evil to come when God taketh such away Thirdly here is instruction for wordlings to make much of those few godly ones that live among them for they are the very pawns of their peace and the pledges of their security Think not yee filthy Sodomites it is for your own sakes that ye have been spared so long know to whom you are beholden This Fellow that came in to sojourn among you this stranger this Lot whom you so hate and malign and disquiet he it is that hath bayled you hitherto and given you protection Despise not Gods patience and long suffering ye prophane ones neither blesse your selves in your ungodly wayes neither say We prosper though we walk in the lusts of our hearts This and thus we have done and nothing hath been done to us God holdeth his hand and holdeth his tongue at us surely He is such a one as our selves Learn O ye despisers that if God thus forbear you it is not at all for your own sakes or because he careth not to punish evil doers no he hath a little remnant a little flock a little handfull of his own among you a few names that have given themselves unto him call upon him daily for mercy upon the land and that weep and mourn in secret and upon their beds for your abominations whom you hate and despise and persecute and defame and account as the very scumme of the people and the refuse and off-scowring of all things to whom yet you owe your preservation Surely if it were not for some godly Iehoshaphat or other whose presence God regardeth among you if it were not for some zealous Moses or other that standeth in the gap for you Gods wrath had entred in upon you long ere this as a mighty breach of water and as an overflowing deluge overwhelmed you and you had been swept away as with the Besome of destruction and devoured as stubble before the fire It is The innocent that delivereth the land and repriveth it from destruction when the sentence of desolation is pronounced against it and it is delivered by the purenesse of his hands O the goodnesse of our GOD that would have spared the five Cities of the Salt Sea if among so many thousands of beastly and filthy persons there had been found but Ten righteous ones and that was for each City but two persons nay that would have pardoned Ierusalem if in all the streets and broad places thereof replenished with a world of Idolaters and Swearers and Adulterers and Oppressours there had been found but one single man that executed judgement and sought the truth from his heart But O the madness of the men of this foolish world withall who seek to doe them most mischief of all others who of all others seek to doe them most good thirsting most after their destruction who are the chiefest instruments of their preservation On foolish and mad world if thou hadst but wit enough yet yet to hugge and to make much of that little flock the hostages of thy peace and the earnest of thy tranquillity if thou wouldst but Know even thou at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace Thou art yet happy that God hath a remnant in thee and if thou knewest how to make use of this happinesse at least in this thy day by honouring their persons by procuring their safety and welfare by following their examples by praying for their continuance thou mightest be still and more and ever happy But if these things that belong unto thy peace be now hidden from thine eyes if these men that prolong thy peace and prorogue thy destruction be now despised in thy heart in this day of thy peace God is just thou knowest not how soon they may be taken from thee and though he do not bring the evil upon thee in their days when they are gone thou knowest not how soon vengeance may overtake thee and Then shall he tear thee in pieces and there shall be none left to deliver thee I have now done Beseech we God the Father of mercies for his dear son Iesus Christ his sake to shed his Holy Spirit into our hearts that by his good blessing upon us that which hath been presently delivered agreeably to his holy truth and word may take root downwards in our hearts and bring forth fruit upwards in our lives and conversations and so to assist us ever with his grace that we may with humble confidence lay hold on his mercies with cheerfull reverence tremble at his judgements by unfeigned repentance turn from us what he hath threatned and by unwearied Obedience assure unto us what he hath promised To which Holy Father Sonne and Spirit three persons and c. THE THIRD SERMON AD POPVLVM At Grantham Linc. Iun. 19. 1621 3 Kings 21.29 I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house I Come now this third time to entreat of this Scripture and by Gods help to finish it Of the three parts whereof heretofore propounded viz. 1. Ahabs Humiliation 2. The suspension of his judgement for his time 3. And the Devolution of it upon Iehoram the two former having been already handled the last only now remaineth to be considered of In the prosecution whereof as heretofore we have cleared GOD'S Holiness and Truth so we shall be now occasioned to clear his Iustice from such imputions as might seem to lie upon it from this Act. And that in three respects accordingly as Iehoram who standeth here punishable for Ahabs sin may be considered in a threefold
differences to as small a number and as narrow a point as may be That if we cannot grow to be of the same belief in every thing we might at least be brought to shew more Charity either to other their to damn one another for every difference and more Ingenuity then to seek to render the one the other more odious to the world then we ought by representing each others opinions worse then they are § XX. The Seventh Objection containeth the other ground of their said former suspicion to wit the vehement pressing of the Ceremonies Wherein First they do not well in calling them Popish and Superstitious but that having already fully cleared I shall not now insist upon Secondly by requiring to have some Command or Example of Scripture produced to warrant to their consciences the use of the Ceremonies They offer occasion to consider of that point wherein the very Mystery of Puritanisme consisteth viz. That no man may with a safe conscience do any thing for which there may not be produced either Command or Example from the Scripture Which erroneous Principle being the main foundation upon which so many false conclusions are built and the fountain from which so many acts of sinful disobedience issue would well deserve a full and through-Examination But this Preface being already swollen far beyond the the proportion I first intended and for that I have heretofore both in one of these Sermons and elsewhere discovered in part the unsoundness thereof I am the willinger both for mine own ease and the Readers to refer him over thither and to spare mine own farther labour here Considering Thirdly that in the present case we need not flinch for fear of any harme that Principle could do us should it be admitted as sound as they would have it For we have both Commands and Examples in the Scriptures to warrant both the prescribing and the using of the Ceremonies Though not as specified in their particulars yet as either comprehended in the General or inferred by way of Proportion Which kinde of Warranty from Scripture themselves are by force of argument driven to allow as sufficient or else they would be at a loss for a hundred things by them daily done upon no better or other warrant then that For Commands then we have besides that grand Canon 1 Cor. 14.40 Let all things be done decently and according to order all those Texts that either contain the right and liberty we have to all the Creatures of God to use them for our service without scruple All things are lawfull nothing unclean of it self To the pure all things are pure c. or require Subjection and Obedience to Superiours Let every soul be subject to the higher powers Submit to every ordinance of man c. And as for Example I think I could readily produce a full Score and not bate an Ace of some Ceremonies and circumstantial actions ordered used or done by holy men even in the old Testament who yet were more strictly tyed to prescript forms then Christians are under the Gospel for the doing whereof it doth not appear that they either had any command from God or were guided by any former precedents or expected any other warrant then the use of their reason and of prudential discourse What warrant else had David for his purpose of building a Temple to God which yet Nathan the Prophet of God approved yea which God himselfe approved of Or what Salomon for keeping a feast of seven dayes for the dedication of the Altar Or what Ezekiah for continuing the feast of unleavened bread seven dayes longer then the time appointed by the Law Or what Mordecai and Ester for making an Ordinance for the yearly observation of the feast of Purim Or what lastly Iudas and the Maccabes for ordeining the feast of the Dedication of the Altar to be kept from year to year at a set season for eight dayes together which solemnity continued even in the dayes of Christ and seemeth to have been by him approved in the Gospel The building of Synagogues in their Town the wearing of sackcloth and ashes in token of humiliation the four fasts mentioned Zach. 8. whereof one only was commanded with sundry other I omit for brevities sake Instances enow and pregnant enough to manifest how very much our brethren deceive themselves by resting upon so unsound a Principle and that upon a meer mistake as will appear presently by § XXI Their Eighth and last Objection Wherein they seem to lay an imputation upon all those that stand for the Ceremonies as if they consequently denyed the sufficiency of the Scripture For answer hereunto first it is freely confessed that the acknowledging of the holy Scriptures to be a perfect Rule of Faith and Manners is the main Article of the Protestant Religion as opposed to the Romish But that all that stand for the Ceremonies should deny the same is so manifestly untrue or indeed that some of the Church of England should deny that which is so clearly contained in the Articles of the Church whereunto he hath subscribed so improbable that it might well pass for a perfect Calumny were not the original occasion of their mistake herein so apparent if but even from the manner of their discourse in the present business The true state whereof Secondly is this The things wherein the power of Christianity consisteth are of two sorts Credenda and Agenda which we usually express by Faith and Manners And the Scripture we acknowledge to be a perfect Rule of Both yet not as excluding the use of Reason but supposing it When God gave us the light of his holy Word he left us as he found us reasonable creatures still without any purpose by the gift of that greater and sublimer light to put out the light he had formerly given us that of Reason or to render it useless and unserviceable Of which light the proper use and that which God intended it for when he gave it us is that by the helpe thereof we might be the better enabled to discern Truth from Falshood that we might embrace the one and reject the other and Good from Evil that we might do the one and shun the other Our Reason therefore is doubtlesse a good Rule both for things to be believed and for things to be done so far as it reacheth but no perfect Rule at all rather a very imperfect one because it reacheth not home To supply the defects whereof dimme as it is even in Naturall and Morall things but dark as darkness it self in things Supernaturall and Divine it was that it pleased the wisdome and goodness of our God to afford us another Light viz. that of supernatural revelation in his holy word without which we could never by the light of Reason alone have found out the right way that leadeth to eternal happiness So that God having first made us reasonable Creatures and then
vouchsafed us his holy word to instruct us what we are to believe and to do either as Men or as Christians We are now furnished with as perfect absolute and sufficient a Rule both of Faith and Manners as our condition in this life is capable of And it is our duty accordingly to resign our selves wholy to be guided by that Word yet making use of our Reason withall in subordination and with submission thereunto as a perfect Rule both of Faith and Life This being clearly so and the Scripture by consent of both parties acknowledged to be the perfect Rule of what we are to believe as well as of what we are to do I earnestly desire our Brethren to consider what should hinder a Christian man from doing any thing that by the meer use of his Reason alone he may rightly judge to be lawful and expedient though it be not commanded or exampled in the Scriptures so as it be not contrary thereunto more then from believing any thing that by the like use of his Reason alone he may rightly judge to be true or credible though the same be not revealed or contained in the Scripture nor is contrary thereunto I do without scruple believe a Mathematical or Philosophical truth or a probable historical relation when I read it or hear it and I believe an honest man upon his word in what he affirmeth or promiseth though none of all these things be contained in the Scripture and thus to believe was never yet by any man that I know of thought derogatory to the sufficiency of Scripture as it is a perfect Rule of Faith Why I may not in like manner wear such or such a garment use such or such a gesture or do any other indifferent thing not forbidden in Scripture as occasions shall require without scruple or why thus to do should be thought derogatory to the sufficiency of scripture as it is a perfect Rule of Manners I confess I have not the wit to understand Since there seemeth to be the like reason of both let them either condemne both or acquit both or else inform us better by shewing us a clear and satisfactory reason of difference between the one and the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the main hinge upon which the whole dispute turneth and whereunto all other differences are but appendages The true belief and right understanding of this great Article concerning the Scriptures sufficiency being to my apprehension the most proper Characteristical note of the right English Protestant as he standeth in the middle between and distinguished from the Papist on the one hand and the sometimes styled Puritan on the other I know not how he can be a Papist that truly believeth it or he a Puritan that rightly understandeth it § XXII Having thus answered the several Objections aforesaid wherewith it may be some that stand freer from prejudice then their fellows will be satisfied if any shall yet aske me why I plead still so hard for Ceremonies now they are laid down and so no use either of them or of any discourse concerning them I have this to say First I saw my selfe somewhat concerned to prevent if I could the mis-censuring of these Sermons in sundry of which the Questions that concern Ceremonies are either purposely handled or occasionally touched upon which could not be done without vindicating the Ceremonies themselves as the subject matter thereof Secondly hereby they that were active in throwing them down may be brought to take a little more into their consideration then possibly they have yet done upon what grounds they were thereunto moved and how sound those grounds were that if it shall appear they were then in an Error and they consider withall what disorder confusion and libertinisme hath ensued upon that change they may be sensible of it and amend But Thirdly whatsoever become of the Ceremonies which are mutable things the two Doctrines insisted on concerning them the one touching the Power that Governors have to enjoyn them the other touching the Duty that lyeth upon Inferiours to observe them when they are enjoyned being Truths are therefore alwayes the same and change not It is no absurdity even at mid-winter when there is never a flower upon the bough to say yet Rosa est flos Lastly a time may come when either the same Ceremonies may be restored or others substituted in their rooms and then there may be use again of such reasons and answers as have been pleaded in their defense For I doubt not but those that shall from time to time have the power to order Ecclesiastical affairs if disorders or inconveniencies shall continue to grow after the rate and proportion they have done for some years past will see a necessity of reducing things into some better degree of Decency and Vniformity then now they are Which it is not imaginable how it should be done without some Constitutions to be made concerning Indifferent things to be used in the publick worship and some care had withall to see the Constitutions obeyed Otherwise the greatest part of the Nation will be exposed to the very great danger without the extraordinary mercy of God preventing of quite losing their Religion Look but upon many of our Gentry what they are already grown to from what they were within the compasse of a few years and then Ex pede Herculem by that guess what a few years more may do Do we not see some and those not a few that have strong natural parts but little sence of Religion turned little better then professed Atheists And othersome nor those a few that have good affections but weak and unsetled judgments or which is still but the same weakness an over-weening opinion of their own understandings either quite turned or upon the point of turning Papists These be sad things God knoweth and we all know not visibly imputable to any thing so much as to those distractions confusions and uncertainties that in point of Religion have broken in upon us since the late changes that have happened among us in Church-affairs What it will grow to in the end God onely knoweth I can but guesse § XXIII The Reverend Arch-Bishop Whitgift and the learned Hooker men of great judgment and famous in their times did long since foresee and accordingly declared their fear that if ever Puritanism should prevail among us it would soon draw in Anabaptism after it At this Cartwright and other the advocates for the Disciplinarian interest in those dayes seemed to take great offence as if those fears were rather pretended to derive an odium upon them then that there was otherwise any just cause for the same protesting ever their utter dislike of Anabaptism and how free they were from the least thought of introducing it But this was onely their own mistake or rather Jealousie For those godly men were neither so unadvised nor so uncharitable as to become Judges of other mens thoughts or intentions
nor Religion but the Kings and such as would be as forward for the Masse as the Communion if the State should alter Fourthly all such Ministers as are not endowed with gifts for the Pulpit they damne as hirelings and not sheepherds calling them idol-Sheepherds betrayers of Christs flock intruders into the Ministery without a Calling dumbe Dogs and I know not how many names besides Yea although they be such as are diligent according to their measure of gifts to perform such duties as the Church requireth to present the prayers of the people to God to declare by reading the holy Bible and good Homilies for that purpose appointed the will of God to the people to instruct the younger sort in the points of Catechisme to visit and comfort the sick and afflicted and to administer reverently and orderly the holy Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper Fifthly they judge all such as interpose for the Churches peace and oppose their novelties as enemies to all goodnesse men of profane mindes haters of Religion despisers of the Word persecutors of the Brethren impes of Satan instruments of Hell and such as utterly abhorre all godly and Christian courses Sixthly and lastly for I irke to rake longer in this sink they bewray themselves to be manifest Iudges of all that are not of their stamp by singling out unto themselves and those that favour them certain proper Appellations of Brethren and Good-men and Professors as if none had Brotherhood in Christ none had interest in goodnesse none made Profession of the Gospel but themselves Whereas others have received the signe of their Profession in their foreheads after Baptisme which perhaps they did not whereas others daily stand up in the Congregation to make Profession of their Christian belief which it may be they do not or if those things be not materiall whereas others by the grace of God are as stedfastly resolved in their hearts if need should be to seale the truth of their profession with their blood as any of them can be But they will say these peremptory Censures are but the faults of some few all are not so hot and fiery There be others that are more temperate in their speeches and Moderate in their courses and desire onely they may be spared for their own particular but they preach not against any of these things nor intermeddle to make more stirres in the Church I answer first it were lamentable if this were not so If all were of that hot temper or distemper rather that many are they would quickly tire out themselves without spurring Fâ—r be it from us to judge mens hearts or to condemn men for that we know not by them Yet of some that carry themselves with tolerable moderation outwardly we have some cause to suspect that they do inwardly and in their hearts judge as deeply as the hottest spirited railers And we gather it from their forwardnesse at every turn and upon every slender occasion obliquely to gird and indirectly to glance at our Church and the discipline and the Ceremonies thereof as far as they well dare And if such men meddle no further we may reasonably think it is not for want of good will to do it but because they dare not Secondly though they preach not against these things in the publick Congregations yet in their private conventicles it is not unknown some do Though their Pulpits do not ring with it yet their Houses do though their ordinary Sermons ad populum be more modest yet their set conferences are sometimes but too free especially when they are required their opinions by those that invite them And what themselves for feare of Censure thus preach but in the eare their Lay-Disciples openly preach on the house-top Thirdly although both their Pulpits and Tables should be silent yet their Practice sufficiently preacheth their dislike And who knoweth not that a Reall and Exemplary seducement maketh the Author guilty as well as a Verball and Oratory Saint Peter did not preach Iudaisme but onely for offending the Jews forbare to eat with the Gentiles yet Saint Paul reproveth him for it to his face and interpreteth that fact of his as an effectuall and almost compulsive seducement Cogis Iudaizare Gal. 2. Why compellest thou the Gentiles to Iudaize Lastly it is to be considered whether it may be enough for a Pastor not to meddle with these things and whether he be not in conscience bound especially in case he live among a people distracted in opinions to declare himself expresly either for them or against them If they be utterly unlawfull and he know it so how is he not bound in conscience to reprove those that use them or require them otherwise he betrayeth the truth of God by his silence and suffereth men to go on in their superstition without rebuke But if he be sufficiently resolved of their lawfulnesse how is he not bound in Conscience to reprove those that refuse them or oppose them otherwise he betrayeth the peace of the Church by his silence and suffereth men to go on in their disobedience without rebuke Nay more every Minister that hath received pastorall charge hath twice or thrice if not oftner witnessed his allowance of all and singular the 39. Articles of the Church of England Once at his Ordination before the Bishop then at his Institution into his Benefice before his Ordinary and both these by Subscription under his hand and then after upon his Induction before his own Flock and that by verball Approbation By which Subscription and Approbation he hath not onely acknowledged in the Church the power of ordaining Rites and Ceremonies Artic. 20. but he hath after a sort also bound himself openly to rebuke such as willingly and purposely break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church as offenders against the common orders of the Church and wounders of the consciences of the weak brethren Artic. 34. He then that for any respect whatsoever is meal-mouth'd in these things wherein he is bound both in Conscience and by vertue of his own voluntary Act to speak freely neither is constant to his own hand and tongue nor is faithfull in Gods house as was Moses in discharging a good Conscience and revealing unto his people the whole Counsell of God Thus have I endeavoured having the opportunity of this place as I held my self both in Conscience and in regard of my Subscription bound to deliver my opinion freely so far as my Text gave occasion concerning the Ceremoniall Constitutions of our Church and therein laboured to free not onely the conformer from all unjust censures but even the non-conformer also so far as he hath reason to expect it from all scandalous despisings I beseech you pardon my length if I have been troublesome I had much to say and the matter was weighty and I desired to give some satisfaction in it to those that are contrary-minded and I have no purpose for
for this end and so intended by the giver to be imployed for the the benefit of others and for the edifying of the Church they were given to profit withall It then remaineth to understand this Text and Chapter of that other and latter kind of spirituall Gifts Those Graces of Edification or Gratiae gratis datae whereby men are enabled in their severall Callings according to the quality and measure of the graces they have received to be profitable members of the publick body either in Church or Common-wealth Under which appellation the very first naturall powers and faculties of the soul onely excepted which flowing à principiis speciei are in all men the same and like I comprehend all other secondary endowments and abilities whatsoever of the reasonable soul which are capable of the degrees of more and lesse and of better and worse together with all subsidiary helps any way conducing to the exercise of any of them Whether they be first supernaturall graces given by immediate and extraordinary infusion from God such as were the gifts of tongues and of miracles and of healings and of prophesie properly so called and many other like which were frequent in the infancy of the Church and when this Epistle was written according as the necessity of those primitive times considered God saw it expedient for his Church Or whether they be Secondly such as Philosophers call Naturall dispositions such as are promptnesse of Wit quicknesse of Conceit fastnesse of Memory clearnesse of Understanding soundnesse of Iudgement readinesse of Speech and other like which flow immediately à principiis individui from the individuall condition constitution and temperature of particular persons Or whether they be Thirdly such as Philosophers call Intellectuall habits which is when those naturall dispositions are so improved and perfected by Education Art Industry Observation or Experience that men become thereby skilfull Linguists subtile Disputers copious Orators profound Divines powerfull Preachers expert Lawyers Physicians Historians Statesmen Commanders Artisans or excellent in any Science Profession or faculty whatsoever To which me may adde in the fourth place all outward subservient helps whatsoever which may any way further or facilitate the exercise of any of the former graces dispositions or habits such as are health strength beauty and all those other Bona Corporis as also Bona Fortunae Honour Wealth Nobility Reputation and the rest All of these even those among them which seem most of all to have their foundation in Nature or perfection from Art may in some sort be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall gifts in as much as the spirit of God is the first and principall worker of them Nature Art Industry and all other subsidiary furtherances being but second Agents under him and as means ordained or as instruments used by him for the accomplishing of those ends he hath appointed And now have we found out the just latitude of the spiritual gifts spoken of in this Chapter and of the manifestation of the spirit in my Text. From whence not to passe without some observable inferences for our Edification We may here first behold and admire and magnifie the singular love and care and providence of God for and over his Church For the building up whereof he hath not onely furnished it with fit materialls men endowed with the faculties of understanding reason will memory affections not onely lent them tools out of his own rich store-house his holy Word and sacred Ordinances but as sometimes he filled Bezaleel and Aholiab with skill and wisdome for the building of the materiall Tabernacle so he hath also from time to time raised up serviceable Men and enabled them with a large measure of all needfull gifts and graces to set forward the building and to give it both strength and beauty A Body if it had not difference and variety of members were rather a lump than a Body or if having such members there were yet no vitall spirits within to enable them to their proper offices it were rather a Corps than a Body but the vigour that is in every part to do its office is a certain evidence and manifestation of a spirit of life within and that maketh it a living Organicall body So those active gifts and graces and abilities which are to be found in the members of the mysticall body of Christ I know not whether of greater variety or use are a strong manifestation that there is a powerfull Spirit of God within that knitteth the whole body together and worketh all in all and all in every part of the body Secondly though we have just cause to lay it to heart when men of eminent gifts and place in the Church are taken from us and to lament in theirs our own and the Churches loss yet we should possess our souls in patience and sustain our selves with this comfort that it is the same God that still hath care over his Church and it is the same Hâ—ad Iesus Christ that still hath influence into his members and it is the same blessed Spirit of God and of Christ that still actuateth and animateth this great mysticall Body And therefore we may not doubt but this Spirit as he hath hitherto done from the beginning so will still manifest himself from time to time unto the end of the world in raising up instruments for the service of his Church and furnishing them with gifts in some good measure meet for the same more or less according as he shall see it expedient for her in her severall different estates and conditions giving some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all meet in the unity of the Faith of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. He hath promised long since who was never yet touched with breach of promise that he would be with his Apostles and their successors alwayes unto the end of the world Thirdly where the Spirit of God hath manifested it self to any man by the distribution of gifts it is but reason that man should manifest the Spirit that is in him by exercising those gifts in some lawfull Calling And so this manifestation of the Spirit in my Text imposeth upon every man the Necessity of a Calling Our Apostle in the seventh of this Epistle joyneth these two together a Gift and a Calling as things that may not be severed As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one Where the end of a thing is the use there the difference cannot be great whether we abuse it or but conceal it The unprofitable servant that wrapped up his Masters talent in a napkin could not have received a much heavier doom had he mis-spent it O then up and be doing
for the reasons already shewn to let it passe as a collection impertinent and that I suppose is the worst that can be made of it There is a second acception of the word Faith put either for the whole systeme of that truth which God hath been pleased to reveale to his Church in the Scriptures of the old and new Testament or some part thereof or else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the assent of the mind thereunto In which signification some conceiving the words of this Text to be meant do hence inferre a false and dangerous conclusion which yet they would obtrude upon the Christian Church as an undoubted principle of truth that men are bound for every particular action they do to have direction and warrant from the written word of God or else they sinne in the doing of it For say they faith must be grounded upon the word of God Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God Rom. 10. Where there is no Word then there can be no Faith and then by the Apostles doctrine that which is done without the Word to warrant it must needs be sin for whatsoever is not of faith is sin This is their opinion and thus they would inferre it I know not any piece of counterfeit doctrine that hath passed so currently in the world with so little suspicion of falshood and so little open contradiction as this hath done One chief cause whereof I conjecture to be for that it seemeth to make very much for the honour and perfection of Gods sacred Law the fulnesse and sufficiency whereof none in the Christian Church but Papists or Atheists will deny In which respect the very questioning of it now will perhaps seem a strange novelty to many and occasion their miscensures But as God himself so the Holy Word of God is so full of all requisite perfection that it needeth not to begge honour from an untruth Will you speak wickedly for God or talk deceitfully for him I hold it very needfull therefore both for the vindicating of my Text from a common abuse and for the arming of all my brethren as well of the Clergy as Laity against a common and plausible errour that neither they teach it nor these receive it briefly and clearly to shew that the aforesaid opinion in such sort as some have proposed it and many have understood it for it is capable of a good interpretation wherein it may be allowed first is utterly devoid of truth and secondly draweth after it many dangerous consequents and evil effects and Thirdly hath no good warrant from my present Text. The Opinion is that to do any thing at all without direction from the Scripture is unlawfull and sinfull Which if they would understand onely of the substantials of Gods worship and of the exercises of spirituall and supernaturall graces the assertion were true and sound but as they extend it to all the actions of common life whatsoever whether naturall or civil even so farre as to the taking up of a straw so it is altogether false and indefensible I marvell what warrant they that so teach have from the Scripture for that very doctrine or where they are commanded so to believe or teach One of their chiefest refuges is the Text we now have in hand but I shall anon drive them from this shelter The other places usually alleaged speak onely either of divine and supernaturall truths to be believed or else of workes of grace or worship to be performed as of necessity unto salvation which is not to the point in issue For it is freely confessed that in things of such nature the Holy Scripture is and so we are to account it a most absolute and sufficient direction Upon which ground we heartily reject all humane traditions devised and intended as supplements to the doctrine of faith contained in the Bible and annexed as Codicils to the holy Testament of Christ for to supply the defects thereof The question is wholly about things in their nature indifferent such as are the use of our food raiment and the like about which the common actions of life are chiefly conversant Whether in the choice and use of such things we may not be sometimes sufficiently guided by the light of reason and the common rules of discretion but that we must be able and are so bound to do or else we sinne for every thing we do in such matters to deduce our warrant from some place or other oâ— Scripture Before the Scriptures were written it pleased GOD by visions and dreames and other like revelations immediately to make known his good pleasure to the Patriarches and Prophets and by them unto the people which kind of Revelations served them to all the same intents and purposes whereto the sacred Scriptures now do us viz. to instruct them what they should believe and do for his better service and the furtherance of their own salvations Now as it were unreasonable for any may to think that they either had or did expect an immediate revelation from God every time they ate or drank or bought or sold or did any other of the common actions of life for the warranting of each of those particular actions to their consciences no lesse unreasonable it is to think that we should now expect the like warrant from the Scriptures for the doing of the like actions Without all doubt the Law of nature and the light of reason was the rule whereby they were guided for the most part in such matters which the wisdome of God would never have left in them or us as a principall relike of his decayed image in us if he had not meant that we should make use of it for the direction of our lives and actions thereby Certainly God never infused any power into any creature whereof he intended not some use Else what shall we say of the Indies and other barbarous nations to whom God never vouchsafed the lively oracles of his written word Must we think that they were left a lawlesse people without any Rule at all whereby to order their actions How then come they to be guilty of transgression for where there is no Law there can be no transgression Or how cometh it about that their consciâ—nces should at any time or in any case either accuse them or excuse them if they had no guide nor rule to walk by But if we must grant they had a Rule and there is no way you see but grant it we must then we must also of necessity grant that there is some other Rule for humane actions besides the written word for that we presupposed these nations to have wanted Which Rule what other could it be then the Law of Nature and of right reason imprinted in their hearts Which is as truly the Law and Word of God as is that which is printed in our Bibles So long as our actions are warranted either by the
whereof we now speak had been more timely discovered and more fully and frequently made known to the world than it hath been Fourthly let that doctrine be once admitted and all humane authority will soon be despised The commands of Parents Masters and Princes which many times require both secrecy and expedition shall be taken into slow deliberation and the equity of them sifted by those that are bound to obey though they know no cause why so long as they know no cause to the contrary Delicata est obedientia quae transit in causae genus deliberativum It is a nice obedience in S. Bernards judgement yea rather troublesome and odious that is over-curious in discussing the commands of superiours boggling at every thing that is enjoyned requiring a why for every wherefore and unwilling to stir untill the lawfulness and expediency of the thing commanded shall be demonstrated by some manifest reason or undoubted authority from the Scriptures Lastly the admitting of this doctrine would cast such a snare upon men of weak judgements but tender consciences as they should never be able to unwind themselves thereout again Mens daily occasions for themselves or friends and the necessities of common life require the doing of a thousand things within the compasse of a few dayes for which it would puzzle the best Textman that liveth readily to bethink himself of a sentence in the Bible clear enough to satisfie a scrupulous conscience of the lawfulnesse and expediency of what he is about to do for which by hearkening to the rules of reason and discretion he might receive easie and speedy resolution In which cases if he should be bound to suspend his resolution and delay to do that which his own reason would tell him were presently needfull to be done untill he could haply call to mind some precept or example of Scripture for his warrant what stops would it make in the course of his whole life what languishings in the duties of his calling how would it fill him with doubts and irresolutions lead him into a maze of uncertainties entangle him in a world of wofull perplexities and without the great mercy of God and better instruction plunge him irrecoverably into the gulph of despair Since the chief end of the publication of the Gospel is to comfort the hearts and to revive and refresh the spirits of Gods people with the glad tidindgs of liberty from the spirit of bondage and fear and of gracious acceptance with their GOD to anoint them with the oyl of gladness giving them beauty for ashes and instead of sackcloth girding them with joy we may well suspect that doctrine not to be Evangelicall which thus setteth the consciences of men upon the rack tortureth them with continuall fears and perplexities and prepareth them thereby unto hellish despaire These are the grievous effects and pernicious consequents that will follow upon their opinion who hold that we must have warrant from the Scripture for every thing whatsoever we do not onely in spirituall things wherein alone it is absolutely true nor yet onely in other matters of weight though they be not spirituall for which perhaps there might be some colour but also in the common affairs of life even in the most slight and triviall things Yet for that the Patrons of this opinion build themselves as much upon the authority of this present Text as upon any other passage of Scripture whatsoever which is the reason why we have stood thus long upon the examination of it we are therefore 〈…〉 next place to clear the Text from that their mis-interpretation The force of their collection standeth thus as you heard already that faith is ever grounded upon the word of God that therefore whatsoever action is not grounded upon the word being it is not of faith by the Apostles rule here must needs be a sin Which collection could not be denied if the word Faith were here taken in that sense which they imagine and wherein it is very usuall taken in the Scriptures viz. for the doctrine of supernaturall and divine revelation or for the belief thereof which doctrine we willingly acknowledge to be compleatly contained in the holy Scriptures alone and therefore dare not admit into our belief as a branch of divine supernaturall truth any thing not therein contained But there is a third signification of the word Faith nothing so frequently found in the Scriptures as the two former which yet appeareth both by the course of this whole Chapter and by the consent of the best and most approved interpreters as well ancient as modern to have been properly intended by our Apostle in this place namely that wherein it is put for a certain perswasion of mind that what we do may lawfully be done So that whatsoever action is done by us with reasonable assurance and perswasion of the lawfulnesse thereof in our own consciences is in our Apostles purpose so far forth an action of Faith without any inquiring into the means whereby that perswasion was wrought in us whether it were the light of our own reason or the authority of some credible person or the declaration of Gods revealed will in his written Word And on the other side whatsoever action is done either directly contrary to the judgement and verdict of our own consciences or at leastwise doubtingly and before we are in some competent measure assured that we may lawfully do it that is it which S. Paul here denieth to be of faith and of which he pronounceth so peremptorily that it is and that co nomine a sin About which use and signification of the word Faith we need not to trouble our selves to fetch it from a trope either of a Metonymie or Synecdoche as some do For though as I say it do not so often occur in Scripture yet it is indeed the primary and native signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faith derived from the root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to perswade Because all kinds of Faith whatsoever consist in a kind of perswasion You shall therefore find the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth properly to believe and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth properly not to be perswaded to be opposed as contrary either to other in Iohn 3. and Acts 14. and other places To omit the frequent use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Fides in Greek and Latine authors in this signification observe but the passages of this very Chapter and you will be satisfied in it At the second verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one believeth that he may eat all things that is he is verily perswaded in his conscience that he may as lawfully eat flesh as herbs any one kind of meat as any other he maketh no doubt of it Again at the fourteenth verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know and am perswaded that there is nothing
to heare with other mens eares and to proceed upon information those men deserve a rebuke who being by their office to ripen causes for judgement and to facilitate the Magistrates care and paines for inquisition doe yet either for feare or favour or negligence or a fee keep back true and necessary informations or else for spight or gaine clogge 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 owne bare deniall or protestation for si inficiari sufficiet ecquiâ— erit nocens as the Oratour pleaded before Iulian the Emperour if a deniall may serve the turne none shall bee guilty or if hasty to condemne a man upon anothers bare accusation for si accusasse sufficiet ecquis erit innocens as the Emperour excellently replyed upon that Oratour if an accusation may serve the turne none shall be innocent or if they suffer themselves to be possessed with prejudice and not keepe one eare 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 cowardise or inconstancy that he keepeth off or that a fair word whistleth him off or that a great 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 spoyle without breaking a jaw of him or so much as offering to pick his teeth It was not well in Davids time and yet David a Godly King when complainingly he asked the Question Who will stand up with me against the evil doers It was not well in Solomons 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 it is not much better now nay God grant it be not generally even much worse Receive now in the last place and as the third and last inference a word of Exhortation and it shall be but a word You whom God hath called to any honour or office appertaining to justice as you tender the glory of God and the good of the Common-wealth as you tender the honour of the King and the prosperity of the Kingdome as you tender the peace and tranquillity of your selves and neighbours as you tender the comfort of your own consciences and the salvation of your own souls set your selves throughly and cheerfully and constantly and conscionably to discharge with faithfulnesse all those duties which belong unto you in your severall stations and callings to advance to the utmost of your power the due administration and execution of Iustice. Do not not decline those burdens which cleave to the honours you sustain Do not post off those businesses from your selves to others which you should rather do then they or at least may as well do as they Stand up with the zeal of Phinees and by executing judgement help to turn away those heavy plagues which God hath already begun to bring upon us and to prevent those yet heavier ones which having so rightly deserved we have all just cause to fear Breath fresh life into the languishing lawes by mature and severe and discreet execution Put on Righteousnesse as a Garment and cloathe your selves with Iudgement as with a Robe and Diadem Among so many Oppressions as in these evil dayes are done under the Sun to whom should the fatherlesse and the widow and the wronged complain but to you whence seek for relief but from you Be not you wanting to their necessities Let your eyes be open unto their miseries and your ears open unto their cryes and your hands open unto their wants Give friendly Counsel to those that stand need of your Direction afford convenient help to those that stand need of your assistance carry a Fatherly affection to all those that stand need of any comfort protection or relief from you Be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame and be you instead of fathers to the poor But yet do not countenance no not a poor man in his cause farther than he hath equity on his side Remember one point of wisdom not to be too credulous of every suggestion information But do your best to spie out the chinks starting holes and secret conveyances packings of cunning crafty companions and when you have found them out bring them to light do exemplary justice upon them Sell not your ears to your servants nor tye your selves to the informations of some one or a few or of him that cometh first but let every party have a fair an equal hearing Examin proofs Consider circumstances be content to hear simple men tell their tales in such language as they have think no pains no patience too much to sift out the truth Neither by inconsiderate haste prejudice any mans right nor weary him out of it by torturing delayes The cause which you know not use all diligence convenient both care and speed to search it out But ever withall remember your standing is slippery you shall have many and sore assaults very shrewd temptations so that unless you arm your selves with invincible resolution you are gone The wicked ones of this world will conjure you by your old friendship and acquaintance by all the bonds of neighbourhood and kindnesse bribe your Wives Children Servants to corrupt you procure great mens Letters or favourites as engines to move you convey a bribe into your own bosomes but under a handsomer name in some other shape so cunningly secretly sometimes that your selves shall not know it to be a bribe when you receive it Harden your faces and strengthen your resolutions with a holy obstinacy against these and all other like temptations Count him an enemy that will alledge friendship to pervert justice When you sit in the place of justice think you are not now Husbands or Parents or Neighbours but Iudges Contemn the frowns and the favours and the letters of great ones in comparison of that trust which greater ones than they the King State a yet greater
judgement upon Zimri and Cosbi did withall lift up his heart to God to blesse that action and to turn it to good In which respects especially if the word withall will bear it as it seemeth it will some men should have done well not to have shewn so much willingnesse to quarrell at the Church-translations in our Service-book by being clamorous against this very place as a grosse corruption and sufficient to justifie their refusall of subscription to the Book But I will not now trouble either you or my selfe with farther curiosity in examining Translations because howsoever other Translations that render it praying or appeasing may be allowed either as tolerably good or at least excusably ill yet this that rendreth it by Executing Iudgment is certainly the best whether we consider the course of the Story it selfe or the propriety of the word in the Originall or the intent of the Holy Ghost in this Scripture And this Action of Phinehes in doing judgement upon such a paire of great and bold offenders was so well pleasing unto God that his wrath was turned away from Israel and the plague which had broken in upon them in a sudden and fearfull manner was immediately stayed thereupon Oh how acceptable a sacrifice to God above the blood of Bulls and of Goates is the death of a Malefactor slaughtered by the hand of Iustice When the Magistrate who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Minister and Priest of God for this very thing putteth his knife to the throat of the beast and with the fire of an holy zeal for GOD and against sin offereth him up in Holocaustum for a whole burnt-offering and for a peace-offering unto the Lord. Samuel saith that to obey is better than sacrifice and Salomon that to do justice and judgement is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice Obedience that is the prime and the best sacrifice and the second best is the punishment of Disobedience There is no readier way to appease GODS wrath against sinne then is the rooting out of sinners nor can his deputies by any other course turn away his just judgements so effectually as by faithfull executing of Iustice and judgement themselves When Phinehes did this act the publick body of Israel was in a weak state and stood in need of a present and sharp remedy In some former distempers of the State it may be they had found some ease by dyet in humbling their soules by fasting or by an issue at the tongue or eye in an humble confession of their sinnes and in weeping and mourning for them with teares of repentance And they did well now to make triall of those remedies again wherein they had found so much help in former times especially the remedies being proper for the malady and such as often may do good but never can do harm But alas fasting and weeping and mourning before the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation had not strength enough against those more prevalent corruptions wherewith the State of Israel was then pestered This Phinehes saw who well perceived that as in a dangerous pleurisie the party cannot live unlesse he bleed so if there were any good to be done upon Israel in this their little lesse than desperate estate a vein must be opened and some of the rank blood let out for the preservation of the rest of the body This course therefore he tries and languishing Israel findeth present ease in it As soon as the blood ran instantly the grief ceased He executed judgement and the plague was stayed As God brought upon that people for their sinnes a fearfull destruction so he hath in his just wrath sent his destroying Angel against us for ours The sinnes that brought that Plague upon them were Whoredome and Idolatry I cannot say the very same sinnes have caused ours For although the execution of good Lawes against both incontinent and idolatrous persons hath been of late yeares and yet is we all know to say no more slack enough yet Gods holy name be blessed for it neither Idolatry nor Whoredome are at that height of shamelesse impudency and impunity among us that they dare brave our Moseses and out-face whole Congregations as it was in Israel But still this is sure no plague but for sinne nor nationall Plagues but for Nationall sinnes So that albeit none of us may dare to take upon us to be so far of Gods counsell as to say for what very sinnes most this plague is sent among us yet none of us can be ignorant but that besides those secret personall corruptions which are in every one of us and whereunto every mans own heart is privy there are many publick and nationall sinnes whereof the people of this Land are generally guilty abundantly sufficient to justifie GOD in his dealings towards us and to cleer him when he is judged Our wretched unthankfulnesse unto GOD for the long continuance of his Gospel and our peace our carnall confidence and security in the strength of our wooden and watry walls our riot and excesse the noted proper sinne of this Nation and much intemperate abuse of the good creatures of GOD in our meates and drinkes and disperts and other provisions and comforts of this life our incompassion to our brethren miserably wasted with War and Famine in other parts of the world our heavy Oppression of our brethren at home in racking the rents and cracking the backes and Grinding the faces of the poor our cheap and irreverent regard unto Gods holy ordinances of his Word and Sacraments and Sabbaths and Ministers our wantonnesse and Toyishnesse of understanding in corrupting the simplicity of our Christian Faith and troubling the peace of the Church with a thousand niceties and novelties and unnecessary wranglings in matters of Religion and to reckon no more that universall Corruption which is in those which because they should be such we call the Courts of Iustice by sale of offices enhauncing of fees devising new subtilties both for delay and evasion trucking for expedition making trappes of petty penall Statutes and but Cobwebs of the most weighty and materiall Lawes I doubt not but by the mercy of God many of his servants in this Land are free from some and some from all of these common crimes in some good measure but I fear me not the best of us all not a man of us all but are guilty of all or some of them at least thus farre that we have not mourned for the corruptions of the times so feelingly nor endeavoured the reformation of them to our power so faithfully as we might and ought to have done By these and other sinnes we have provoked Gods heavy judgement against us and the Plague is grievously broken in upon us and now it would be good for us to know by what meanes we might best appease his wrath and stay this Plague Publick Humiliations have ever been thought
message God grant unto all of us that by our hearty sorrow and repentance for our sinnes past by our stedfast resolutions of future amendment and by setting our selves faithfully and uprightly in our severall places and callings to do God and the King and our Country service in beating down sin and rooting out sinners we may by his good grace and mercy obtaine pardon of our sinnes and deliverance from his wrath and be preserved by his power through faith unto salvation Now to God the Father the Sonne c. THE FIRST SERMON AD POPVLVM At Grantham Linc. Octob. 3. 1620 3 Kings 21.29 Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days but in his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house THe History of this whole Chapter affordeth matter of much Variety and Use but no passage in it so much either of Wonder or Comfort as this in the close of the whole both Story and Chapter That there should be Mighty-ones sick with longing after their meaner neighbours Vineyards That there should be crafty heads to contrive for greedy Great-ones what they unjustly desire That there should be officious Instruments to do a piece of legal injustice upon a Great mans letter That there should be knights of the Post to depose any thing though never so false in any cause though never so bad against any man though never so innocent That an honest man cannot be secure of his life so long as he hath any thing else worth the losing There is instance in the fore-part of the Chapter of all this in Ahab sickning and Iesabel plotting and the d Elders obeying and the VVitnesses accusing and poor Naboth suffâ—ring But what is there in all this singularly either Strange or Comfortable All is but Oppression Active in the rest Passive in Naboth And what wonder in either of these stupet haec qui jam post terga reliquit Sexaginta annos himself may passe for a wonder if he be of any standing or experience in the world that taketh either of these for a wonder And as for matter of Comfort there is matter indeed but of Detestation in the one of Pity in the other in neither of Comfort To passe by the other Occurrents also in the latter part of the Chapter as That a great Oppressour should hugge himself in the cleanly carriage and fortunate successe of his damned plots and witty villanies That a weak Prophet should have heart and face enough to proclaim judgement against an Oppressing King in the prime of his Jollity That a bloody Tyrant should tremble at the voice of a poor Prophet and the rest some of which we shall have occasion to take in incidentally in our passage along mark we well but this close of the Chapter in the words of my Text And it will be hard to say whether it contain matter more Strange or more Comfortable Comfortable in that Gods mercy is so exceedingly magnified and such strong assurance given to the truly penitent of finding gracious acceptance at the hands of their God when they find him so apprehensive of but an outward enforced semblance of contrition from the hands of an Hypocrite Strange in that Gods Mercy is here magnified even to the hazard of other his divine perfections his Holinesse his Truth his Iustice. For each of these is made in some sort questionable that so his mercy might stand clear and unquestioned A rotten-hearted Hypocrite humbleth himself outwardly but repenteth not truly and God accepteth him and rewardeth him Here is Gods mercy in giving respect to one that ill deserved it but where is his Holiness the while being a God of pure eyes that requireth Truth in the inward parts and will not behold iniquity thus to grace Sinne and countenance Hypocrisie A fearfull judgement is denounced against Ahabs house for his Oppression but upon his humiliation the sentence at least part of it is reversed Here is Mercy still in revoking a sentence of destruction and if somewhat may be said for his Holinesse too because it was but a temporal and temporary favour yet where is his Truth the while being a God that cannot lye and VVith whom is no variablenesse neither so much as the bare shadow of turning thus to say and unsay and to alter the thing that is gone out of his lipps A Iudgement is deserved by the Father upon his humiliation the execution is suspended during his life and lighteth upon the Son Here is yet more Mercy in not striking the Guilty and if somewhat may be said for Gods truth too because what was threatned though not presently is yet at last performed yet where is his Iustice the while being a God that without respect of persons rendreth to every man according to his own works and will Not acquit the guilty neither condemn the innocent thus to sever the Guilt and the Punishment and to lay the Iudgement which he spareth from the Father upon the Son from the more wicked Father upon the lesse wicked Son Thus God to magnifie the riches of his Mercy is content to put his Holiness and his Truth and his Iustice to a kind of venture That so his afflicted ones might know on what object especially to fasten the eyes of their souls not on his Holiness not on his Truth not on his Iustice not only nor chiefly on these but on his Mercy He seeketh more general glory in and would have us take more special knowledge of and affordeth us more singular comfort from his Mercy than any of the rest as if he desired we should esteem him unholy or untrue or unjust or any thing rather than unmercifull Yet is he neither unholy nor untrue nor unjust in any of his proceedings with the sons of men but Righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works and true in in all his words And in this particular of his proceedings with King Ahab at this time I hope by his blessed assistance so to acquit his Holiness and Truth and Iustice from all sinister imputations as that he may be not only magnified in his mercy but justified also in the rest and Clear when he is judged as we shall be thereunto occasioned now and hereafter in the handling of this Scripture Wherein are three main things considerable First the Ground or rather the occasion of Gods dealing so favourably with Ahab namely Ahabs humiliation Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not c. Secondly the great Favour shewed to Ahab thereupon namely the suspension of a Judgement denounced I will not bring the evil in his days Thirdly the Limitation of that favour it is but a suspension for a time no utter removal of the judgement But in his sons days will I bring
the evil upon his house Wherein we shall be occasioned to enquire how the first of these may stand with Gods holiness the second with his Truth the third with his Iustice And first of Ahabs humiliation Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me This Ahab was King of Israel that is King over those ten Tribes which revolted from Rehoboam the Son of Salomon and clave to Ieroboam the son of Nebat Search the whole sacred story in the Books of Kings and Chronicles and unless we will be so very charitable as notwithstanding many strong presumptions of his Hypocrisie to exempt Iehu the son of Nimshi and that is but one of twenty we shall not find in the whole List and Catalogue of the Kings of Israel one good one that clave unto the Lord with an upright heart Twenty Kings of Israel and not one or but one good and yet than this Ahab of the twenty scarce one worse It is said in the sixteenth Chapter of this Book that Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him at verse 30. and at verse 33. that He did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the Kings of Israel that were before him and at verse 25. of this Chapter that There was none like unto Ahab which did sell himself to work wickednesse in the sight of the Lord. An Oppressour he was and a Murderer and an Idolater and a Persecuter of that holy Truth which God had plentifully revealed by his Prophets and powerfully confirmed by Miracles and mercifully declared by many gracious deliverances even to him in such manner as that he could not but know it to be the Truth and therefore an Hypocrite and in all likelyhood an obstinate sinner against the holy Ghost and a Cast-away This is Ahab this the man But what is his carriage what doth he he humbleth himself before the Lord. Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me The manner and occasion of his humbling is set down a little before at V. 27. And it came to passe when Ahab heard those words the words of Eliah the Prophet dealing plainly and roundly with him for his hatefull Oppression and Murther That he rent his cloathes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly And that is the humbling here spoken and allowed of and for which God here promiseth that he will not bring the evill in his dayes Lay all this together the man and his ill conditions and his present carriage with the occasion and successe of it and it offereth three notable things to our consideration See first how far an Hypocrite a Cast-away may go in the outward performance of holy duties and particularly in the practice of Repentance here is Ahab humbled such a man and yet so penitent See again secondly how deep Gods word though in the mouth but of weak instruments when he is pleased to give strength unto it pierceth into the consciences of obstinate sinners and bringeth the proudest of them upon their knees in despight of their hearts here is Ahab quelled by Eliah such a great one by such a weak one See yet again thirdly how prone God is to mercy and how ready to apprehend any advantage as it were and occasion to shew compassion here is Ahab humbled and his judgement adjourned such a real substantial favour and yet upon such an empty shadow of Repentance Of these three at this time in their order and of the first first An Hypocrite may go very farre in the outward performances of holy duties For the right conceiving of which assertion Note first that I speak not now of the common graces of Illumination and Edification and good dexterity for the practising of some particular Calling which gifts with sundry other like are oftentimes found even in such apparently wicked and prophane men as have not so much as the form much lesse the power of Godlinesse but I speak even of those Graces which de tota specie if they be true and sincere are the undoubted blessed fruits of Gods holy renewing Spirit of sanctification such as are Repentance Faith Hope Ioy Humility Patience Temperance Meeknesse Zeal Reformation c. in such as these Hypocrites may go very farr as to the outward semblance and performance Note secondly that I speak not of the inward power and reality of these graces for Cast-aways and Hypocrites not having union with God by a lively faith in his Son nor communion with him by the effectual working of his Spirit have no part nor fellowship in these things which are proper to the chosen and called of God and peculiar to those that are his peculiar people but I speak only of the outward performances and exercises of such actions as may seem to flow from such spiritual graces habitually rooted in the heart when as yet they may spring also and when they are found in unregenerate men do so spring from Nature perhaps moralized or otherwise restrained but yet unrenewed by saving and sanctifying grace Note thirdly that when I say an Hypocrite may go very farre in such outward performances by the Hypocrite is meant not only the grosse or formal Hypocrite but every natural and unregenerate man including also the Elect of God before their effectual calling and conversion as also Reprobates and Cast-awayes for the whole time of their lives all of which may have such fair semblances of the forenamed Graces and of other like them as not only others who are to judge the best by the Law of Charity but themselves also through the wretched deceitfulnesse of their own wicked and corrupt hearts may mistake for those very graces they resemble The Parable of the seed sown in the stony ground may serve for a full both declaration and proof hereof which seed is said to have sprouted forth immediately Springing up forthwith after it was sown but yet never came to good but speedily withered away because for want of deepnesse of earth it had not moysture enough to feed it to any perfection of growth and ripenesse And that branch of the Parable our blessed Saviour himself in his exposition applieth to such hearers as When they hear the Word immediately receive it with gladnesse and who so forward as they to repent and believe and reform their lives but yet all that forwardnesse cometh to nothing they endure but for a short time Because they have no root in themselves but want the sap and moysture of Grace to give life and lasting to those beginnings and imperfect offers and essayes of goodnesse they made shew of Here are good affections to see to unto the good word of God they receive it with joy it worketh not only upon their judgements but it seemeth also to rejoice yea after a sort to ravish their hearts
findeth himself hot in his body and fain he would know whether it be Calor praeter naturam or no whether a kindly and naturall heat or else the fore-runner or symptome of some disease There is no better way to come to that knowledge than by these two Notes Universality and Constancy First for Vniversality Physicians say of heat and sweat and such like things Vniversalia salutaria partialia ex morbo If a man be hot in one part and cold in another as if the palms of his hands burn and the soles of his feet be cold then all is not right but if he be of an indifferent equal heat all over that is held a good sign of health Then for Constancy and Lasting if the heat come by fits and starts and paroxysms leaping eftsoones and suddenly out of one extreme into another so as the party one while gloweth as hot as fire another while is chill and cold as ice and keepeth not at any certain stay that is an ill sign too and it is to be feared there is an Ague either bred or in breeding but if he continue at some reasonable certainty and with in a good mediocrity of heat and cold it is thought a good sign of health As men judge of the state of their bodies by the like rule judge thou of the state of thy soul. First for integrity and universality Is thy Repentance thy Obedience thy Zeal thy Hatred of sin other graces in thee Vniversal equally bent upon all good equally set against all evill things it is a good sign of Grace and Sanctification in the heart But if thou repentest of one sin and persistest in another if thou obeyest one commandement and breakest another if thou art zealous in one point and cool in another if thou hatest one vice and lovest another flatter not thy self too much thou hast reason to suspect all is not sound within Then for Continuance and Lasting I deny not but in case of prevailing temptations the godly may have sometimes uncomfortable and fearfull intermissions in the practice of godlinesse which yet make him not altogether Gracelesse as a man may have sometimes little distempers in his body through mis-dyet or otherwise and yet not be heart-sick or greater distempers too sometimes to make him sick and yet be heart-whole But yet if for the most part and in the ordinary constant course of thy life thou hast the practice of repentance and obedience and other fruits of grace in some good comfortable measure it is a good sign of Grace and Sanctification in the heart But if thou hast these things only by fits and starts and sudden moods and art sometimes violently hot upon them other sometimes again and oftner key cold presume not too much upon shewes but suspect thy self still of Hypocrisie and Insincerity and never cease by repentance and prayer and the constant exercise of other good graces to Physick and Dyet thy soul till thou hast by Gods goodness put thy self into some reasonable assurance that thou art the true child of God a sincere believer and not an Hypocrite as Ahab here notwithstanding all this his solemn humiliation was Here is Ahab an Hypocrite and yet humbled before the Lord. But yet now this humiliation such as it was what should work it in him That we find declared at verse 27. And it came to passe that when Ahab heard these words c. There came to him a message from God by the hand of Eliah and that was it that humbled him Alas what was Eliah to Ahab a silly plain Prophet to a mighty King that he durst thus presume to rush boldly and unsent-for into the presence of such a potent Monarch who had no lesse power and withall more colour to take away his life than Naboth's and that when he was in the top of his jollity solacing himself in the new-taken possession of his new-gotten Vineyard and there to his face charge him plainly with and shake him up roundly for and denounce Gods judgements powerfully against his bloudy abominable oppressions We would think a Monarch nusled up in Idolatry and accustomed to bloud and hardened in Sinne and Obstinacy should not have brooked that insolency from such a one as Eliah was but have made his life a ransome for his sawcinesse And yet behold the words of this underling in comparison how they fall like thunder upon the great guilty offender and strike palsie into his knees and trembling into his joynts and tumble him from the height of his jollity and roll him in sack-cloth and ashes and cast him into a strong fit of legal humiliation Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me And here now cometh in our second Observation even the power of Gods word over the Consciences of obstinate sinners powerfull to Cast down strong holds and every high thought that exalteth it self against God That which in Heb. 4. if I mistake not the true understanding of that place is spoken of the Essential word of God the second Person in the ever-blessed Trinity is also in some analogie true of the revealed word of God the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles that it is Quick and powerfull and more cutting than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit and of the joynts and marrow Is not my word like as a fire saith the Lord and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces Ierem. 23. Like a soft fire to dissolve and melt the hearts of relenting sinners and true converts but like a strong hammer to batter and break in pieces the rocky and flinty consciences of obstinate and hardened offenders Examples hereof if you require behold in the stories of the Kings Saul whining when Samuel reproveth him in the books of the Prophets the Ninivites drooping when Ionas threatneth them in the Acts of the Apostles Felix trembling when Paul discourseth before him in the Martyrologies of the Church Tyrants and bloudy Persecutors maskered at the bold confessions of the poor suffering Christians in this Chapter proud Ahab mourning when Eliah telleth him his sin and foretelleth him his punishment Effects which might justly seem strange to us if the Causes were not apparent One Cause and the Principal is in the instrument the Word not from any such strength in it self for so it is but a dead letter but because of Gods Ordinance in it For in his hands are the hearts and the tongues and the eares both of Kings and Prophets and he can easily when he seeth it good put the spirit of zeal and of power into the heart of the poorest Prophet and as easily the spirit of fear and of terrour into the heart of the greatest King He chooseth weak Instruments as here Eliah and yet furnisheth them with power to effect great matters that so the glory might not rest upon the instrument but redound wholly to him
as to the chief agent that imployeth it We have this treasure in earthen vessels saith Saint Paul that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us 2 Cor. 4. We say Words are but wind and indeed the words of the best Minister are no better as they are breathed out and uttered by sinfull mortall man whose breath is in his nostrils but yet this wind as it is breaâ—hed in and inspired by the powerfull eternal Spirit of God is strong enough by his effectuall working with it not only to shake the top-branches but to rend up the very bottom-root of the tallest Cedar in Lebanon Vox Domini confringens Cedros Psal. 29. The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation the voyce of the Lord is a glorious voyce The voyce of the Lord breaketh the Cedars yea the Lord breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon Another Cause is in the Object and that is the force of Natural Conscience which the most presumptuous sinner can never so stifle though he endeavour all he can to do it but that it will be sometimes snubbing and stinging and lashing and vexing him with ougly representations of his past sinnes and terrible suggestions of future vengeance And then of all other times is the force of it most lively when the voyce of God in his word awakeneth it after a long dead sleep Then it riseth and Sampson-like rouseth up it self and bestirreth it self lustily as a Giant refreshed with wine and it putteth the disquieted patient to such unsufferable pain that he runneth up and down like a distracted man and doth he knoweth not what and seeketh for ease he knoweth not where Then he would give all Dives his wealth for A drop of water to cool the heat he feeleth and with Esau part with his birth-right for any thing though it were never so little or mean that would give him but the least present refreshing and preserve him from fainting Then sack-cloth and ashes and fasting and weeping and mourning and renting the garments and tearing the hair and knocking the brest and out-cries to heaven and all those other things which he could not abide to hear of in the time of his former security whilest his conscience lay fast asleep and at rest are now in all haste and greedily entertained and all too little if by any means they can possibly give any ease or asswagement to the present torment he feeleth in his soul. A third Cause is oftentimes in the Application of the Instrument to the Object For although Gods Word in the general be Powerfull and the Conscience of it self be of a stirring Nature yet then ordinarily doth the Word of God work most powerfully upon the Consciences of obstinate sinners when it is throughly and closely applyed to some special corruption whereunto the party cannot plead Not-guilty when the sinne and the judgement are both so driven home that the guilty offender can neither avoid the evidence of the one nor the fear of the other A plain instance whereof we have in this present history of King Ahab When Eliah first came to him in the Vineyard he was pert enough Hast thou found me O mine enemy But by that the Prophet had done with him told him of the sin which was notorious Hast thou killed and taken possession foretold him of the judgement which was heavy I will bring evill upon thee and will take away thy Posterity c. the man was not the man Eliah left him in a farr other tune than he found him in The Prophets words wrought sore upon him and his Conscience wrought sore within him both together wrought him to the humiliation we now speak of It came to passe when he heard these words that he rent his clothes c. If you desire another instance turn to Acts 24.25 where there is a right good one and full to this purpose There we read that Felix the Roman Deputy in Jury Trembled when Paul reasoned of Iustice and of Temperance and of the judgement to come What was that thing may we think in St. Pauls reasoning which especially made Felix to tremble It is commonly taken to be the Doctrine of the last judgement which is indeed a terrible doctrine and able if it be throughly apprehended to make the stoutest of the sons of men to tremble But I take it that is not all The very thing that made Felix tremble seemeth rather to be that Paul's discourse fell upon those special vices wherein he was notably faulty and then clapt in close with judgement upon them For Felix was noted of much cruelty and injustice in the administration of the affairs of Jury howsoever Tertullus like a smooth Orator to curry favour with him and to do Paul a displeasure did flatteringly commend his government and he was noted also of incontinency both otherwise and especially in marrying Drusilla who was another mans wife Tacitus speaking of him in the fifth of his history painteth him out thus Per omnem saevitiam libidinem jus regium servili ingenio exercuit And for such a man as governed with cruelty and rapine and lived in unchaste wedlock to hear one reason powerfully of Iustice and of Chastity for so much the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there used properly importeth and of Iudgement it is no wonder if it make him tremble Do thou consider this and tremble whosoever thou art that in thy thoughts despisest the holy word of God accounting of it but as of some humane invention to keep fools in awe withall and thou also whosoever thou art that undervaluest this precious treasure for the meanness or other infirmities of the earthen vessel wherein it is conveyed Tell me doest thou not herein struggle against the testimony and evidence of thine own heart Doth not thine own Conscience and Experience tell thee that this Sword of the Spirit hath a keen edge and biteth and pierceth where it goeth Hath it not sometimes galled and rubbed and lanced and cut thee to the very bone and entred even to the dividing asunder of the joynts and of the marrow Hath it not sometimes as it were by subtile and serpentine insinuations strangely wound it self through those many crooked and Labyrinthean turnings that are in thine heart into the very in-most corner and center thereof and there ripped up thy bowels and thy reins and raked out the filth and corruption that lurked within thee and set thy secretest thoughts in order before thy face in such sort as that thou hast been strucken with astonishment and horrour at the discovery Though perhaps it have not yet softened and melted thy stony and obdurate heart yet didst thou never perceive it hammering about it with sore strokes and knocks as if it would break and shiver it into a thousand pieces Doubtlesse thou hast and if thou wouldest deny it thy conscience is able to give
are to do to turn away Gods wrath from us and to escape the judgements he threatneth against us Even this As in his Comminations he joyneth Mercy and Truth together so are we in our Humiliations to joyn Faith and Repentance together His threatnings are true let us not presume of forbearance but fear since he hath threatned that unless we repent he will strike us Yet his threatnings are but conditional let us not despair of forbearance but hope although he hath threatned that yet if we repent he will spare us That is the course which the godly guided by the direction of his holy Spirit have ever truly and sincerely held and found it ever comfortable to assure them of sound peace and reconciliation with God That is the course which the very Hypocrites from the suggestion of natural Conscience have sometimes offered at as far as Nature enlightned but unrenewed could lead them and found it effectual to procure them at the least some forbearance of threatned judgements or abatement of temporal evils from God Thus have you heard three Uses made of Gods mercy in revoking joyned with his truth in performing what he threatneth One to chear up the distressed that he despair not when God threatneth another to shake up the secure that he despise not when God threatneth a third to quicken up all that they beleeve and repent when God threatneth There is yet another general Vse to be made hereof which though it be not directly proper to the present argument yet I cannot willingly passe without a little touching at it and that is to instruct us for the understanding of Gods promises For contraries as Promises and Threatnings are being of the like kind and reason either with other do mutually give and take light either to and from other Gods threatnings are true and stedfast his Promises are so too Promisit qui non mentitur Deus which God that cannot lie hath promised saith the Apostle in one place and in another All the Promises of God are Yea and Amen and where in a third place he speaketh of Two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie his promise is one of those two The Promises then of God are true as his Threatnings are Now look on those Threatnings again which we have already found to be true but withall conditional and such as must be ever understood with a clause of reservation or exception It is so also in the Promises of God they are true but yet conditional and so they must ever be understood with a conditional clause The exception there to be understood is Repentance the condition here Obedience What God threatneth to do unto us absolutely in words the meaning is he will doe it unlâ—ss we repent and amend and what he promiseth to do for us absolutely in words the meaning is he will do it if we believe and obey And for so much as this clause is to be understood of course in all Gods promises we may not charge him with breach of Promise though after he do not really perform that to us which the letter of his promise did import if we break the condition and obey not Wouldest thou know then how thou art to entertain Gods promises and with what assurance to expect them I answer with a confident and obedient heart Confident because he is true that hath promised Obedient because that is the condition under which he hath promised Here is a curb then for those mens presumption who living in sinne and continuing in disobedience dare yet lay claim to the good Promises of God If such men ever had any seeming interest in Gods Promises the interest they had they had but by contract and covenant and that covenant whether either of the two it was Law or Gospel it was conditional The covenant of the Law wholly and à Priori conditional Hoc fac vives Do this and live and the Covenant of the Gospel too after a sort and à Posteriori Conditional Crede Vives Believe and Live If then they have broken the conditions of both covenants and do neither Believe nor Do what is required they have by their Unbelief and Disobedience forfeited all that seeming interest they had in those Promises Gods promises then though they be the very main supporters of our Christian Faith and Hope to as many of us as whose consciences can witnesse unto us a sincere desire and endeavour of performing that Obedience we have covenanted yet are they to be embraced even by such of us with a reverend fear and trembling at our own unworthinesse But as for the unclean and filthy and polluted those Swine and Dogs that delight in sinne and disobedience and every abomination they may set their hearts at rest for these matters they have neither part nor fellowship in any of the sweet promises of God Let dirty Swine wallow in their own filth these rich pearles are not for them they are too precious let hungry Dogges glut themselves with their own vomit the Childrens bread is not for them it is too delicious Let him that will be filthy be filthy still the promises of God are holy things and belong to none but those that are holy and desire to be holy still For our selves in a word let us hope that a promise being left us if with faith and obedience and patience we wait for it we shall in due time receive it but withall let us fear as the Apostle exhorteth Heb. 4. Lest a promise being left us through disobedience or unbelief any of us should seem to come short of it Thus much of the former thing proposed the magnifying of Gods Mercy and the clearing of his Truth in the revocation and suspension of threatned judgements by occasion of these words I will not bring the Evil. There is yet a Circumstance remaining of this generall part of my Text which would not be forgotten it is the extent of time for the suspending of the judgement I will not bring the Evil in his dayes Something I would speak of it too by your patience it shall not be much because the season is sharp and I have not much sand to spend I will not bring the evil in his dayes The judgement denounced against Ahabs house was in the end executed upon it as appeareth in the sequel of the story and especially from those words of Iehu who was himself the instrument raised up by the Lord and used for that execution in 4 Kings 10. Know that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord which the Lord spake concerning the house of Ahab for the Lord hath done that which he spake by his servant Eliah Which were enough if there were nothing else to be said to justifie Gods Truth in this one particular That which Ahab gained by his humiliation was only the deferring of
decree He spake the word and they were made he commanded and they were Created So in all their operations in actu secundo when they do at any time exercise those natural faculties and doe those Offices for which they were created all this is still done by the same powerfull word and decree of God He upholdeth all things by the word of his power As we read of bread so we often read in the Scriptures of the staff of bread God sometimes threatneth he will break the staff of bread What is that Bread indeed is the staff of our strength it is the very stay and prop of our lives if God break this staff and deny us bread we are gone But that is not all bread is our staff but what is the staff of bread Verily the Word of God blessing our bread and commanding it to feed us is the staff of this staff sustaining that vertue in the bread whereby it sustaineth us If God break this staff of bread if he withdraw his blessing from the bread if by his countermaund he inhibit or restrain the vertue of the bread we are as far to seek with bread as without it If sanctified with Gods word of blessing a little pulse and water hard and homely fare shall feed Daniel as fresh and fat and fair as the Kings dainties shall his Companions a cake and a cruse of water shall suffice Eliah nourishment enough to walk in the strength thereof forty daies and nights a few barly loaves and small fishes shall multiply to the satisfying of many thousands eat while they will But if Gods Word and Blessing be wanting the lean Kine may eat up the Fat and be as thin and hollow and ill-liking as before and we may as the Prophet Haggai speaketh eat much and not have enough drink our fills and not be filled This first degree of the Creatures sanctification by the word of God is a common and ordinary blessing upon the Creatures whereof as of the light and dew of Heaven the wicked partake as well as the godly and the thankless as the thankfull But there is a second degree also beyond this which is proper and peculiar to the Godly And that is when God not only by the word of his Power bestoweth a blessing upon the Creature but also causeth the Echo of that word to sound in our hearts by the voyce of his Holy spirit and giveth us a sensible taste of his goodness to us therein filling our hearts not only with that joy and gladness which ariseth from the experience of the effect viz. the refreshing of our natural strength but also joy and gladness more spiritual and sublime than that arising from the contemplation of the prime cause viz. the favour of God towards us in the face of his Son that which David calleth the light of his countenance For as it is the kind welcome at a Friends Table that maketh the chear good rather than the quaintness or variety of the dishes Super omnia vultus Accessere boni so as that a dinner of green herbs with love and kindness is better entertainment than a stalled Oxe with bad looks so the light of Gods favourable countenance shining upon us through these things is it which putteth more true gladness into our hearts than doth the corn and the wine and the oyle themselves or any other outward thing that we do or can partake Now this sanctified and holy and comfortable use of the Creatures ariseth also from the word of Gods decree even as the former degree did but not from the same decree That former issued from the decree of common providence and so belonged unto all as that Providence is common to all But this later degree proceedeth from that special word of Gods decree whereby for the merits of Christ Jesus the second Adam he removeth from the Creature that curse wherin it was wrapped through the sin of the first Adam And in this the wicked have no portion as being out of Christ so as they cannot partake of Gods Creatures with any solid or sound comfort and so the Creatures remain in this degree unsanctified unto them For this reason the Scriptures stile the Faithfull Primogenitos the first born as to whom belongeth a double portion and Haeredes mundi heirs of the world as if none but they had any good right thereunto And S. Paul deriveth our Title to the Creatures from God but by Christ All things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods As if these things were none of theirs who are none of Christs And in the verse before my Text he saith of meats that God hath created them to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth as if those that wanted faith and saving knowledge did but usurp the bread they eat And indeed it is certain the wicked have not right to the Creatures of God in such ample sort as the Godly have A kind of Right they have and we may not deny it them given them by Gods unchangeable ordinance at the Creation which being a branch of that part of Gods Image in man which was of natural and not of supernatural grace might be and was foulely defaced by sin but was not neither could be wholly lost as hath been already in part declared A Right then they have but such a right as reaching barely to the use cannot afford unto the user true comfort or found peace of Conscience in such use of the Creatures For though nothing be in and of it self unclean for Every Creature of God is good yet to them that are unclean ex accidenti every Creature is unclean and polluted because it is not thus sanctified unto them by the Word of God And the very true cause of all this is the impurity of their hearts by reason of unbelief The Holy Ghost expresly assigneth this cause To the pure all things are pure but to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and Conscience is defiled As a nasty Vessel sowreth all that is put into it so a Conscience not purified by faith casteth pollution upon the best of Gods Creatures But what is all this to the Text may some say or what to the point What is all this to the Duty of Thanksgiving Much every manner of way or else blame Saint Paul of impertinency whose discourse should be incoherent and unjoynted if what I have now last said were beside the Text. For since the sanctification of the Creature to our use dependeth upon the powerfull and good word of God blessing it unto us that duty must needs be necessary to a sanctified use of the Creature without which we can have no fair assurance unto our consciences that that word of blessing is proceeded out of the mouth of God
for that Bread of life which came down from Heaven and feedeth our Soules unto eternal life and neither they nor it can perish If we must say for that Give us this day our daily bread shall we not much more say for this Lord evermore give us this bread But I have done Beseech we now Almighty God to guide us all with such holy discretion and wisdome in the free use of his good Creatures that keeping our selves within the due bounds of Sobriety Charity and civil Duty we may in all things glorifie God and above all things and for all things give thanks alwayes unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ. To which our Lord Jesus Christ the blessed Sonne of God together with the Father and the Holy Spirit three Persons and one onely wise gracious and everliving God be ascribed as is most due by us and his whole Church all the Kingdome the Power and the glory both now and for evermore Amen Amen THE SIXTH SERMON AD POPVLVM At S. Pauls Crosse London April 15. 1627. GEN. 20.6 And God said unto him in a dream Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart For I also withheld thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her FOr our more profitable understanding of which words it is needfull we should have in remembrance the whole story of this present Chapter of which story these words are a part And thus it was Abraham commeth with Sarah his Wife and their family as a Stranger to sojourn among the Philistims in Gerar covenanteth with her before-hand thinking thereby to provide for his own safety because she was beautifull that they should not be to know that they were any more than Brother and Sister Abimelech King of the place heareth of their comming and of her beauty sendeth for them both enquireth whence and who they were heareth no more from them but that she was his Sister dismisseth him taketh her into his House Hereupon God plagueth him and his House with a strange Visitation threatneth him also with Death giveth him to understand that all this was for taking another mans Wife He answereth for himself GOD replyeth The Answer is in the two next former Verses the Reply in this and the next following Verse His Answer is by way of Apology he pleadeth first Ignorance and then and thence his Innocence And he said Lord wilt thou slay also a righteous Nation Said not he unto me She is my Sister and she even she her self said He is my Brother in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this That is his Plea Now God replyeth of which reply letâ—â—ng pass the remainder in the next Verse which concerneth the time to come so much of it as is contained in this Verse hath reference to what was already done and past and it meeteth right with Abimilechs Answer Something he had done and something he had not not done he had indeed taken Sarah into his House but he had not yet come near her For that which he had done in taking her he thought he had a just excuse and he pleadeth it he did not know her to be another mans Wife and therefore as to any intent of doing wrong to the Husband he was altogether Innocent But for that which he had not done in not touching her because he took her into his House with an unchaste purpose he passeth that over in silence and not so much as mentioneth it So that his Answer so far as it reached was just but because it reached not home it was not full And now Almighty God fitteth it with a Reply most convenient for such an Answer admitting his Plea so far as he alleged it for what he had done in taking Abrahams Wife having done it simply out of ignorance Yea I know thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart and withall supplying that which Abimelech had omitted for what he had not done in not touching her by assigning the true cause thereof viz. his powerfull restraint For I also with-held thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her In the whole Verse we may observe First the manner of the Revelation namely by what means it pleased God to conveigh to Abimelech the knowledge of so much of his will as he thought good to acquaint him withall it was even the same whereby he had given him the first information at Verse 3. it was by a dream And God said unto him in a dream and then after the substance of the Reply whereof again the general parts are two The former an Admission of Abimelechs Plea or an Acknowledgement of the integrity of his heart so far as he alleged it in that which he had done yea I know that thou didst it in the integrity of thine heart The later an Instruction or Advertisement to Abimelech to take knowledge of Gods goodnesse unto and providence with him in that which he had not done it was God that over-held him from doing it For I also with-held thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her By occasion of those first words of the Text And God said unto him in a dream if we should enter into some enquiries concerning the nature and use of divine Revelations in general and in particular of Dreams the Discourse as it would not be wholly impertinent so neither altogether unprofitable Concerning all which these several Conclusions might be easily made good First that God revealed himself and his will frequently in old times especially before the sealing of the Scripture-Canon in sundry manners as by Visions Prophecies Extacies Oracles and other supernatural means and namely and among the rest by Dreams Secondly that God imparted his Will by such kind of supernatural Revelations not only to the godly and faithfull though to them most frequently and especially but sometimes also to Hypocrites within the Church as to Saul and others yea and sometimes even to Infidells too out of the Church as to Pharaoh Balaam Nebuchadnezzer c. and here to Abimelech Thirdly that since the writings of the Prophets and Apostles were made up the Scripture-Canon sealed and the Christian Church by the preaching of the Gospel become Oecumenical dreams and other supernatural Revelations 〈◊〉 also other things of like nature as Miracles and whatsoever more immediate and extraordinary manifestations of the will and power of God have ceased to be of ordinary and familiar use so as now we ought rather to suspect delusion in them than to expect direction from them Fourthly that although God have now tyed us to his holy written word as unto a perpetual infallible Rule beyond which we may not expect and against which we may not admit any other direction as from God yet he hath no where abridged himself
ground and that was his Innocency and the Integrity of his heart Each of these three will afford us some observable instruction for our use And the first thing we will insist upon from these words shall be The grievousnesse of the sin of Adultery hatefull even in the judgement of those men who made small or no conscience at all of Fornication See how this is raised from the Text. Abimelechs heart never smote him for taking Sarah into his house so long as he supposed her to be but a single Woman led with the common blindnesse and custome of the Gentiles he either knew not or considered not that such fornication though in a King was a Sin But the very frame of his Apology sheweth that if he had known her to be another mans Wife and yet had taken her he could not then have pretended the integrity of his heart and the innocency of his hands as now he doth and God alloweth it but he should have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his own heart would have condemned him for it and he should therein have sinned grosly against the light of his own Conscience It cannot be doubtful to us who by the good blessing of God upon us have his holy word to be A light unto our feet and a lanthorn unto our paths from the evidence whereof we may receive more perfect and certain information than they could have from the glimmering light of depraved Nature I say it cannot be doubtfull to us but that all fornication how simple soever is a sin foul and odious in the sight of God and deadly to the committer As first being opposite directly to that holinesse and honour and sanctification which God prescribeth in his will Secondly causing usually consumption of estate rottennesse of bones and losse of good-name Thirdly stealing away the heart of those that are once ensnared therewith and bewitching them even unto perdition in such powerful sort that it is seldom seen a man once brought under by this sin to recover himself again and to get the victory over it Fourthly putting over the guilty to the severe immediate judgement of God himself who for this sin slew of the Israelites in one day 23 or 24 thousand And having fifthly one singular deformity above all other sins in all other kindes that it is a direct sin against a mans own body in depriving it by making it the instrument of filthinesse and the members of an harlot of that honour whereunto God had ordained it to be a member of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Ghost But yet of this foul sin the Gentiles made no reckoning So long as they abstained from married persons it never troubled their Consciences to defile themselves with those that were single by fornication because they esteemed it either as no sin or as one of the least It was not only the fond speech of an indulgent and doating old Father in the excuse of his licentious son in the Comedy Non est flagitium mihi crede adolescentulum scortari and yet he spake but as the generality of them then thought but it was the serious plea also of the grave Roman Oratour in the behalf of his Client in open Court before the severity of the sage and Reverend bench of Judges Quando hoc non factum est quando reprehensum quando non permissum and Datur omnium concessu c. Nor in the lust of concupiscence saith St. Paul as the Gentiles which know not God An errour so universally spread and so deeply rooted in the mindes and in the lives of the Gentiles who having their understanding darkned through the ignorance that was in them because of the blindnesse of their hearts wrought such uncleannesse not only without remorse but even with greedinesse that the Apostles had much adoe with those men whom by the preaching of the Gospel they had converted from Gentilism to Christianity before they could reclaim them from an Errour so inveterate both in the judgement and practise Saint Paul therefore as it both became and concerned him being the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles often toucheth upon this string in his Epistles written unto the Churches of the Gentiles But no where doth he set himself more fully and directly with much evidence of reason and strength of argument against this Sin and errour than in the first Epistle he wrote to the Corinthians because among them this sin was both it self most rife in the practise the Corinthians being notedly infamous for lust and wantonnesse and it was also as much slighted there as any where many of them thinking that the body was made for fornication as the belly for meats and that fornication was as fit and convenient for the body as meats for the belly Out of which consideration the Apostles in that first General Councel holden at Jerusalem Acts 15. thought it needfull by Ecclesiastical Canon among some other indifferent things for the Churches peace to lay this restraint upon the converted Gentiles that they should abstain from Fornication Not as if Fornication were in it self an indifferent thing as those other things were nor as if those other things were in themselves and simply unlawfull as Fornication was but the Apostles did therefore joyn Fornication and those other indifferent things together in the same Canon because the Gentiles accounted fornication a thing as indifferent as what was most indifferent Some remainders of the common error there were it seemeth among some Christians in S. Augustines daies who both relateth the opinion and confuteth it And some in the Popish Church have not come far behinde herein so many of them I mean as hold that simple fornication is not intrinsecally and in the proper nature of it a sin against the Law of Nature but only made such by divine positive Law A strange thng it is and to my seeming not lesse than a mystery that those men that speak so harshly of Marriage which God hath ordained should withall speak so favourably of fornication which God hath forbidden preposterously preferring the disease which springeth from our corruption before the remedy which God himself hath prescribed in his word But howsoever if some Christians have spoken and written and thought so favourably of fornication as to their shame it appeareth they have done the lesse may we marvell to see Abimelech a King and an Infidel allow himself the liberty to continue in the sin of Fornication and yet notwithstanding such allowance stand so much upon his own innocency and integrity as he doth God forbid any man that heareth me this day should be so either ignorant or uncharitable as to conceive all or any of that I have yet said spoken to give the least shadow of liberty or excuse to Fornication or any uncleannesse which Saint Paul would not
and dyed in Idolatry and so are damned And if they were saved in their faith why may not the same faith save us and why will not you also be of that religion that brought them to Heaven A motive more plausible than strong the Vanity whereof our present Observation duly considered and rightly applyed fully discovereth We have much reason to conceive good hope of the salvation of many of our Fore-fathers who led away with the common superstitions of those blinde times might yet by those general truths which by the mercy of God were preserved amid the foulest overspreadings of Popery agreeable to the Word of God though clogged with an addition of many superstitions and Antichristian inventions withal be brought to true Faith in the Son of God unfeigned Repentance from dead works and a sincere desire and endeavour of new and holy Obedience This was the Religion that brought them to Heaven even Faith and Repentance and Obedience This is the true and the Old and Catholique Religion and this is our Religion in which we hope to finde salvation and if ever any of you that miscal your selves Catholiques come to Heaven it is this Religion must carry you thither If together with this true Religion of Faith Repentance and Obedience they embraced also your additions as their blinde guides then led them prayed to our Lady kneeled to an Image crept to a Cross flocked to a Mass as you now do these were their spots and their blemishes these were their hay and their stubble these were their Errors and their Ignorances And I doubt not but as S. Paul for his blasphemies and persecutions so they obtained mercy for these sins because they did them ignorantly in misbelief And upon the same ground we have cause also to hope charitably of many thousand poor souls in Italy Spain and other parts of the Christian World at this day that by the same blessed means they may obtain mercy and salvation in the end although in the mean time through ignorance they defile themselves with much foul Idolatry and many gross Superstitions But the Ignorance that excuseth from sin is Ignorantia facti according to that hath been already declared whereas theirs was Ignorantia juris which excuseth not And besides as they lived in the practise of that worship which we call Idolatry so they dyed in the same without repentance and so their case is not the same with Saint Pauls who saw those his sins and sorrowed for them and forsook them But how can Idolaters living and dying so without repentance be saved It is answered that ignorance in point of fact so conditioned as hath been shewed doth so excuse à toto that an Action proceeding thence though it have a material inconformity unto the Law of God is yet not formally a sin But I do not so excuse the Idolatry of our Fore-fathers as if it were not in it self a sin and that without repentance damnable But yet their Ignorance being such as it was nourished by Education Custom Tradition the Tyranny of their leaders the Fashion of the times not without some shew also of Piety and Devotion and themselves withall having such slender means of better knowledge though it cannot wholly excuse them from sin without repentance damnable yet it much lesseneth and qualifieth the sinfulness of their Idolatry arguing that their continuance therein was more from other prejudices than from a wilful contempt of Gods holy Word and Will And as for their Repentance it is as certain that as many of them as are saved did repent of their Idolatries as it is certain no Idolater nor other sinner can be saved without Repentance But then there is a double difference to be observed between Repentance for Ignorances and for known sins The one is that known sins must be confessed and repented of and pardon asked for them in particular every one singly by it self I mean for the kindes though not ever for the individuals every kinde by it self at least where God alloweth time and leisure to the Penitent to call himself to a punctual examination of his life past and doth not by sudden death or by some disease that taketh away the use of reason deprive him of opportunity to do that Whereas for Ignorances it is enough to wrap them up all together in a general and implicite confession and to crave pardon for them by the lump as David doth in the 19. Psalm Who can understand all his Errors Lord cleanse thou me from my secret sins The other difference is that known sins are not truly repented of but where they are forsaken and it is but an hypocritical semblance of penance without the truth of the thing where is no care either endeavour of reformation But ignorances may be faithfully repented of and yet still continued in The reason because they may be repented of in the general and in the lump without special knowledge that they are sins but without such special knowledge they cannot be reformed Some of our fore-fathers then might not only live in Popish Idolatry but even dye in an Idolatrous act breathing out their last with their lips at a Crucifix and an Ave-Mary in their thoughts and yet have truly repented though but in the general and in the croud of their unknown sins even of those very sins and have at the same instant true Faith in Jesus Christ and other Graces accompanying salvation But why then may not I will some Popeling say continue as I am and yet come to heaven as well as they continued what they were and yet went to heaven If I be an Idolater it is out of my Errour and Ignorance and if that general Prayer unto God at the last to forgive me all my Ignorances will serve the turn I may run the same course I do without danger or fear God will be merciful to me for what I do ignorantly Not to preclude all possibility of mercy from thee or from any sinner Consider yet there is a great difference between their state and thine between thine ignorance and theirs They had but a very small enjoyance of the light of Gods Word hid from them under two bushels for sureness under the bushel of a tyrannous Clergy that if any man should be able to understand the books he might not have them and under the bushel of an unknown tongue that if any man should chance to get the books he might not understand them Whereas to thee the light is holden forth and set on a Candlestick the books open the language plain legible and familiar They had eyes but saw not because the light was kept from and the land was dark about them as the darkness of Egypt But thou livest as in a Goshen where the light encompasseth thee in on all sides where there are burning and shining lamps in every corner of the land Yet is thy blindeness greater for who so blinde as he that will
not see and more inexcusable because thou shuttest thine eyes against the light lest thou shouldst see and be converted and God should heal thee Briefly they wanted the light thou shunnest it they lived in darkness thou delightest in it their ignorance was simple thine affected and wilful And therefore although we doubt not but that the times of their ignorance God winked at yet thou hast no warrant to presume that God will also in these times wink at thee who rejectest the counsel of God against thine own soul and for want of love and affection to the truth art justly given over to strong delusions to believe fables and to put thy confidence in things that are lies So much for that matter Secondly here is a needful admonition for us all not to flatter our selves for our ignorance of those things that concern us in our general or particular Callings as if for that ignorance our reckoning should be easier at the day of judgement Ignorance indeed excuseth sometimes sometimes lesseneth a fault but yet not all ignorance all faults not wilful and affected ignorance any fault Nay it is so far from doing that that on the contrary it maketh the offence much more grievous and the offender much more inexcusable A heedless servant that neither knoweth nor doth his Masters will deserveth some stripes A stubborn servant that knoweth it and yet transgresseth it deserveth more stripes But worse than them both is that ungracious servant who fearing his Master will appoint him something he had rather let alone keepeth himself out of the way beforehand and michâ—th in a corner out of sight of purpose that he might not know his Masters will that so he may after stand upon it when he is chidden and say He knew it not such an untoward servant deserveth yet more stripes Would the Spirit of God think you in the Scripture so often cal upon us to get the knowledge of Gods will and to increase therein or would he commence his suit against a land and enter his action against the people thereof for want of such knowledge if ignorance were better or safer O it is a fearful thing for a man to shun instruction and to say he desireth not the knowledge of God Nâ—â—uerunt intelligere ut bene agerent When men are once come to that pass that they will not understand nor seek after God when they hate the light because they take pleasure in the works of darkness when they are afraid to know too much lest their hearts should condemn them for not doing thereafter when like the deaf Adder they stop their ears against the voyce of the charmer for fear they should be charmed by the power of that voyce out of their crooked and Serpentine courses when they are so resolved to take freedom to sin that they chuse to be still Ignorant rather than hazard the foregoing of any part of that freedom what do they but even run on blindfold into hell and through inner poast along unto utter darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Frustrà sibi de ignorantiâ blandiuntur saith S. Bernard qui ut liberiùs peccent libenter ignorant Saint Paul so speaketh of such men as if their case were desperate If any man be ignorant let him be ignorant as who say if he will needs be wilful at his peril be it But as many as desire to walk in the fear of God with upright and sincere hearts let them thirst after the knowledge of God and his will as the Hart after the rivers of waters let them cry after knowledge and lift up their voices for understanding let them seek it as silver and dig for it as for hid treasures let their feet tread often in Gods Courts and even wear the thresholds of his house let them delight in his holy Ordinances and rejoyce in the light of his Word depending upon the ministery thereof with unsatisfied ears and unwearted attention and feeding thereon with uncloyed appetites that so they may see and hear and learn and understand and believe and obey and increase in wisedom and in grace and in favour with God and all good men But then in the third place consider that if all ignorance will not excuse an offender though some do how canst thou hope to finde any colour of excuse or extenuation that sinnest wilfully with knowledge and against the light of thine own conscience The least sin thus committed is in some degree a Presumptuous sin and carryeth with it a contempt of God and in that regard is greater than any sin of Ignorance To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is a sin saith Saint Iames Sin beyond all plea of excuse Saint Paul though he were a Persecutor of the Truth a Blasphemer of the Lord and injurious to the Brethren yet he obtained Mercy because he did all that ignorantly His bare ignorance was not enough to justifie him but he stood need of Gods mercy or else he had perished in those sins for all his ignorance But yet who can tell whether ever he should have found that mercy if he had done the same things and not in ignorance Ignorance then though it do not deserve pardon yet it often findeth it because it is not joyned with open contempt of him that is able to pardon But he that sinneth against knowledge doth Ponere obicem if you will allow the phrase and it may be allowed in this sense he doth not only provoke the Iustice of God by his sin as every other sinner doth but he doth also damb up the Mercy of God by his contempt and doth his part to shut himself out for ever from all possibility of pardon unless the boundless over-flowing mercy of God come in upon him with a strong tide and with an unresisted current break it self a passage through Do this then my beloved Brethren Labour to get knowledge labour to increase your knowledge labour to abound in knowledge but beware you rest not in your knowledge Rather give all diligence to adde to your knowledge Temperance and Patience and Godliness and brotherly kindeness and Charity and other good graces Without these your knowledge is unprofitable nay damnable Qui apponit scientiam apponit dolorem is true in this sense also He that increaseth knowledge unless his care of obedience rise in some good proportion with it doth but lay more rods in steep for his own back and increase the number of his stripes and adde to the weight and measure of his own most just condemnation Know this that although Integrity of heart may stand with some ignorances as Abimelech here pleadeth it and God alloweth it yet that mans heart is devoid of all singlenesse and sincerity who alloweth himself in any course he knoweth to be sinful or taketh this liberty to
they of his own house Let not any man then that hath either Religion or Honesty have any thing to do with that man at least let him not trust him more than needs he must that is an Enemy either to Religion or Honesty So far as common Humanity and the necessities of our lawful Occasions and Callings do require we may have to do with them and rest upon the good providence of God for the success of our affairs even in their hands not doubting but that God will both restrain them from doing us harm and dispose them to do us good so far as he shall see expedient for us but then this is not to trust them but to trust God with them But for us to put our selves needlesly into their hands and to hazard our safety upon their faithfulness by way of trust there is neither wisdom in it nor warrant for it Although God may do it yet we have no reason to presume that he will restrain them for our sakes when we might have prevented it our selves and would not and this we are sure of that nothing in the world can preserve us from receiving mischief from them unless God do restrain them Therefore trust them not Thirdly if at any time we see wickedness set aloft bad men grow to be great or great men shew themselves bad sinning with an high hand and an arm stretched out and God seemeth to strengthen their hand by adding to their greatness and encreasing their power if we see the wicked devouring the man that is more righteous than he and God hold his tongue the whilest if we see the ungodly course it up and down at pleasure which way soever the lust of their corrupt heart carryeth them without controul like a wilde untamed Colt in a spacious field God as it were laying the rains in the neck and letting them run in a word when we see the whole world out of frame and order we may yet frame our selves to a godly patience and sustain our hearts amid all these evils with this comfort and consideration that still God keepeth the rains in his own hands and when he seeth his time and so far as he seeth it good he both can and will check and controul and restrain them at his pleasure as the cunning Rider sometimes giveth a fiery horse head and letteth him fling and run as if he were mad he knoweth he can give him the stop when he list The great Leviathans that take their pastime in the Sea and with a little stirring of themselves can make the deep to boyl like a pot and cause a path to shine after them as they go he can play with them as children do with a bird he suffereth them to swallow his hook and to play upon the line and to roll and tumble them in the waters but anon he striketh the hook through their noses and fetcheth them up and layeth them upon the shore there to beat themselves without help or remedy exposed to nothing but shame and contempt What then if God suffer those that hate him to prosper for the time and in their prosperity to Lord it over his heritage What if Princes should sit and speak against us without a cause as it was sometimes Davids case Let us not free at the injuries nor envy at the greatness of any let us rather betake us to Davids refuge to be occupied in the statutes and to meditate in the holy Word of God In that holy Word we are taught that the hearts even of Kings how much more then of inferiour persons are in his rule and governance and that he doth dispose and turn them as seemeth best to his godly wisdom that he can refrain the spirit of Princes binde Kings in chains and Nobles in links of Iron and though they rage furiously at it and lay their heads together in consultation how to break his bands and cast away his cords from theÌ„ yet they imagin but a vain thing whilst they strive against him on earth he laugheth them to scorn in heaven and maugre all opposition will establish the Kingdom of his Christ and protect his people Say then the great ones of the world exercise their power over us and lay what restraints they can upon us our comfort is they have not greater power over us than God hath over them nor can they so much restrain the meanest of us but God can restrain the greatest of them much more Say our enemies curse us with Bell Book and Candle our comfort is God is able to return the curse upon their own heads and in despight of them too turn it into a blessing upon us Say they make warlike preparations against us to invade us our comfort is God can break the Ships of Tarshish and scatter the most invincible Armadoes Say they that hate us be more in number than the hairs of our head our comfort is the very hairs of our head are numbred with him and without his sufferance not the least hair of our heads shall perish Say to imagine the worst that our Enemies should prevail against us and they that hate us should be Lords over us for the time our comfort is â—e that loveth us is Lord over them and can bring them under us again when he seeth time In all our fears in all our dangers in all our distresses our comfort is that God can do all this for us our care should be by our holy obedience to strengthen our interest in his protection and not to make him a stranger from us yea an enemy unto us by our sins and impenitency that so we may have yet more comfort in a cheerful confidence that God will do all this for us The Assyrian whose ambition it was to be the Catholick King and universal Monarch of the world stiling himself the Great King thus saith the Great King the King of Assyria when he had sent messengers to revile Israel and an Army to besiege and destroy Ierusalem yet for all his rage he could do them no harm the Lord brought down the stout heart of the King of Assyria put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips and made him return back by the way by which he came without taking the City or so much as casting a bank or shooting an arrow against it Nay he that is indeed the great King over all the children of pride and hath better title to the stile of most Catholick King than any that ever yet bare it whose Territories are large as the Earth and spacious as the Air I mean the Devil the Prince of this world he is so fettered with the chain of Gods power and providence that he is not able with all his might and malice no not though he raise his whole forces and muster up all the powers of darkness and
thee whosoever thou art that pleasest thy self with odious comparisons and standest so much upon terms of betternesse thou art neither Extortioner nor adulterer drunkard nor swearer thief slanderer nor murtherer as such and such are It may be thou are none of these but I can tell thee what thou art and that is as odious in the sight of God as any of these thou art a proud Pharisee which perhaps they are not To let thee see thou art a Pharisee do but give me a direct answer without shifting or mincing to that Question of Saint Paul Quis te discrevit Who hath made thee to differ from another Was it God or thy self or both together If thou sayest it was God thou art a dissembler and thy boasting hath already confuted thee for what hast thou to do to glory in that which is not thine If thou hast received it why doest thou glory as if thou hadst not received it If thou sayest it was from thy self what Pharisee could have assumed more All the shift thou hast is to say it was God indeed that made the difference but he saw something in thee for which he made thee to differ thou acknowledgest his restraint in part but thine own good nature did something If this be all thou art a very Pharisee still without all escape That Pharisee never denied God a part no nor the chiefest part neither he began his vaunting prayer with an acknowledgement of Gods work I thank thee O God that I am not like other men It was not the denial of all unto God but the assuming of any thing unto himself that made him a right Pharisee Go thy way then and if thou wilt do God and thy self right deny thy self altogether and give God the whole glory of it if thou hast been preserved from any evill And from thy brothers fall besides compassioning forlorn Nature in him make a quite contrary use unto thy self even to humble thee thereby with such like thoughts as these Considering thy self lest thou also be tempted Am I any better than he of better mould than he or better tempered than he Am not I a childe of the same Adam a vessel of the same clay a chip of the same block with him why then should I be high-minded when I see him fallen before me why should I not rather fear lest my foot slip as well as his hath done I have much cause with all thanfulnesse to blesse God for his good providence over me in nâ—t suffering me to fall into this sin hitherto and with all humility to implore the continuance of his gracious assistance for the future without which I am not able to avoid this or any other evill Secondly since all restraints from sin by what second means so ever they are conveyed unto us or forwarded are from the merciful providence of God whensoever we observe that God hath vouchsafed us or doth offer us any means of such his gracious restraint it is our duty joyfully to embrace those means and carefully to cherish them and with all due thankfulnesse to blesse the name of God for them Oh how oft have we plotted and projected and contrived a course for the expediting of our perhaps ambitious perhaps covetous perhaps malicious perhaps voluptuous designs and by the providence of God some unexpected intervening accident hath marred the curious frame of all our projects that they have come to nothing as a Spiders web spun with much art and industry is suddenly disfigured and swept away with the light touch of a besome How oft have we been resolved to sin and prepareâ— to sin and even at the pits brink ready to cast our selves into hell when he hath plucked us away as he plucked Lot out of Sodom by affrightments of natural Conscience by apprehensions of dangers by taking away the opportunities by ministring impediments by shortning our power by sundry other means Have we now blessed the Name of God for affording us these gracious means of prevention and restraint Nay have we not rather been enraged thereat and taken it with much impatience that we should be so crossed in the pursuit of our vain and sinful desires and purposes As wayward Children cry and take pet when the Nurse snatcheth a knife from them wherewith they might perhaps cut their fingers perhaps haggle their throats or putteth them back from the wels mouth when they are ready with catching at babies in the water to type over and as that merry mad man in the Poet was in good earnest angry with his friends for procuring him to be cured of his madnesse wherein he so much pleased himself as if they could not have done him a greater displeasure Pol me occidistis amici Non servastis such is our folly We are offended with those that reprove us testy at those that hinder us impatient under those crosses that disable us yea we fret and turn again at the powerful application of the holy Word of God when it endevoureth to reform us or restrain us from those evils wherein we delight Let us henceforth mend this fault cheerfully submit our selves to the discipline of the Almighty and learn of Holy David with what affections to entertain the gracious means he vouchsafeth us of restraint or prevention as appeareth by his speeches unto Abigail when she by her wisdome had pacified his wrath against Nabal whose destruction he had a little before vowed in his heat Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou which hast kept me this day from coming to shed bloud and from avenging my self with mine own hand He blessed God as the Cause and her as the Instrument and her discreet behaviour and advice as the Means of staying his hand from doing that evill he had vowed with his mouth and was in his heart purposed to have done Thirdly since we owe our standing to the hand of God who holdeth us up without whose restraint we should fall at every turn and into every temptation we cannot but see what need we have to seek to him daily and hourly to withhold us from falling into those sins whereunto either our corrupt nature would lead us or outward occasions draw us We may see it by the fearful falls of David and Peter men nothing inferiour to the best of us how weak a thing man is to resist temptation if God withdraw his support and leave him but a little to himself Which made David pray to God that he would Keep back his servant from presumptuous sins He well knew though he were the faithful servant of God that yet he had no stay of himself but unlesse God kept him back he must on and he must in and he must in deep even as far as to presumptuous sins No man though he be never so good hath any assurance as upon his own
may without prejudice admit of some restraint in the outward practice of it Ab illicitis semper quandoque à licitis I think it is S. Gregories A Christian must never doe unlawfull nor yet alwayes lawfull things St. Paul had liberty to eat flesh and he used that liberty and ate flesh yet he knew there might be some cases wherein to abridge himself of the use of that liberty so farr as not to eat flesh whilst the world standeth But what those Restraints are and how farr they may be admitted without prejudice done to that liberty that we may the better understand let us goe on to The fourth Position Sobriety may and ought to restrain us in the outward practice of our Christian liberty For our Dye◠all fish and flesh and fowl and fruits and spices are lawfull for us as well as Bread and herbs but may we therefore with thriftless prodigality and exquisite ryot fare deliciously and sumptuously every day under pretence of Christian liberty Likewise for our Apparel all stuffs and colours the richest silks and furrs and dyes are as lawfull for us as cloth and leather and sheeps russet Christian liberty extendeth as well to one as another But doe we think that liberty will excuse our pride and vanity and excesse if we ruffle it out in silks and scarlets or otherwise in stuff colour or fashion unsuitably to our years sex calling estate or condition In all other things of like nature in our buildings in our furniture in our retinues in our disports in our recreations in our society in our Mariages in other things we ought as well to consider what in Christian sobriety is meet for us to doe as what in Christian liberty may be done Scarce is there any one thing wherein the Devil putteth slurrs upon us more frequently yea and more dangerously too because unsuspected than in this very thing in making us take the uttermost of our freedom in the use of indifferent things It therefore concerneth us so much the more to keep a sober watch over our selves and souls in the use of Gods good Creatures lest otherwise under the fair title and habit of Christian liberty we yeeld our selves over to a carnal licentiousnesse The fifth position As Sobriety so Charity also may and ought to restrain us in the outward exercise of our Christian liberty Charity I say both to our selves and others First to our selves for regular charity beginneth there If we are to cut off our right hand and to pluck out the right eye and to cast them both from us when they offend us much more then ought we to deny our selves the use of such outward lawfull things as by experience we have found or have otherwise cause to suspect to be hurtfull either to our bodies or souls So a man may and should refrain from meats which may endanger his bodily health But how much more then from every thing that may endanger the health of his soul If thou findest thy self enflamed with lust by dancing if enraged with choler by game if tempted to covetousnesse pride uncleannesse superstition cruelty any sin by reason of any of the Creatures it is better for thee to make a covenant with thine eyes and ears and hands and sences so far as thy condition and calling will warrant thee not to have any thing to doe with such things than by gratifying them therein cast both thy self and them into hell Better by our voluntary abstinence to depart with some of our liberty unto the Creatures than by our voluntary transgression forfeit all and become the Devils captives But Charity though it begin at home yet it will abroad and not resting at our selves reacheth to our brethren also of whom we are to have a due regard in our use of the Creatures An argument wherein St. Paul often enlargeth himself as in Rom. 14. and 1 Cor. 8. the whole Chapters throughout and in a great part of 1 Cor. 10. The resolution every where is that all things be done to edification that things lawfull become inexpedient when they offend rather than edifie that though all things indeed are pure yet it is evil for that man which useth them with offence that albeit flesh and wine and other things be lawfull yet it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine nor to doe any thing whereby a mans brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak Hitherto appertaineth that great and difficult common-place of scandal so much debated and disputed of by Divines The Questions and Cases are manifold not now to be rehearsed much less resolved in particular But the Position is plain in the general that in case of scandal for our weak brothers sake we may and sometimes ought to abridge our selves of some part of our lawfull Liberty Besides these two Sobriety and Charity there is yet one restraint more which ariseth from the duty we owe to our Superiours and from the bond of Civil obedience which if it had been by all men as freely admitted as there is just cause it should how happy had it been for the peace of this Church Concerning it let this be our Sixth position The determination of Superiours may and ought to restrain us in the outward exercise of our Christian liberty We must submit our selves to every Ordinance of man saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.13 and it is necessary we should doe so for so is the will of God Ver. 15. Neither is it against Christian liberty if we doe so for we are still as free as before rather if we doe not so we abuse our liberty for a cloak of maliciousnesse as it followeth there ver 16. And St. Paul telleth us we must needs be subject not only for fear because the Magistrate carrieth not the Sword in vain but also for Conscience sake because the powers that are are ordained of God This duty so fully pressed and so uniformly by these two grand Apostles is most apparent in private societies In a family the Master or Pater familias who is a kind of petty Monarch there hath authority to prescribe to his children and servants in the use of those indifferent things whereto yet they as Christians have is much liberty as he The servant though he be the Lords free-man yet is limited in his dyet lodging livery and many other things by his Master and he is to submit himself to his Masters appointment in these things though perhaps in his private affection he had rather his Master had appointed otherwise and perhaps withall in his private judgement doth verily think it fitter his Master should appoint otherwise If any man under colour of Christian liberty shall teach otherwise and exempt servants from the obedience of their Masters in such things S. Paul in a holy indignation inveigheth against such a man not without some bitterness in the last Chapter of this
Epistle as one that is proud and knoweth nothing as he should doe but doateth about questions and strife of words c. ver 3 5. Now look what power the Master hath over his servants for the ordering of his family no doubt the same at the least if not much more hath the supreme Magistrate over his subjects for the peaceable ordering of the Commonwealth the Magistrate being Pater Patriae as the Master is Pater familias Whosoever then shal interpret the determinations of Magistrates in the use of the Creatures to be contrary to the liberty of a Christian or under that colour shall exempt inferiours from their obedience to such determinations he must blame Saint Paul nay he must blame the Holy Ghost and not us if he hear from us that he is proud and knoweth nothing and doateth about unprofitable Questions Surely but that experience sheweth us it hath been so and the Scriptures have foretold us that it should be so that there should be differences and sidings and part-takings in the Church a man would wonder how it should ever sink into the hearts and heads of sober understanding men to deny either the power in Superiours to ordain or the necessity in Inferiours to obey Laws and constitutions so restraining us in the use of the Creatures Neither let any man cherish his ignorance herein by conceiting as if there were some difference to be made between Civil and Ecclesiastical Things and Laws and Persons in this behalf The truth is our liberty is equal in both the power of Superiours for restraint equal in both and the necessity of obedience in Inferiours equal to both No man hath yet been able to shew nor I think ever shall be a real and substantial difference indeed between them to make an inequality But that still as civil Magistrates have sometimes for just politick respects prohibited some trades and manufactures and commodities and enjoyned other-some and done well in both so Church-Governours may upon good considerations say it be but for order and uniformities sake prescribe the times places vestments gestures and other Ceremonial Circumstances to be used in Ecclesiastical Offices and assemblies As the Apostles in the first Council holden at Ierusalem in Acts 15. laid upon the Churches of the Gentiles for a time a restraint from the eating of blood and things sacrificed to Idols and strangled Thus we see our Christian liberty unto the Creatures may without prejudice admit of some restraints in the outward exercise of it and namely from the three respects of Christian Sobriety of Christian Charity and of Christian Duty and Obedience But now in the comparing of these together when there seemeth to be a repugnancy between one and another of them there may be some difficulty and the greatest difficulty and which hath bred most trouble is in comparing the cases of scandal and disobedience together when there seemeth to be a repugnancy between Charity and Duty As for example Suppose in a thing which simply and in it self we may lawfully according to the Liberty we have in Christ either use or forbear Charity seemeth to lay restraint upon us one way our weak brother expecting we should forbear and Duty a quite contrary way Authority requiring the use in such a case what are we to doe It is against Charity to offend a brother and it is against Duty to disobey a superiour And yet something must be done either we must use or not use forbear or not forbear For the untying of this knot which if we will but lay things rightly together hath not in it so much hardnesse as it seemeth to have let this be our seventh Position In the use of the Creatures and all indifferent things we ought to bear a greater regard to our publike Governours than to our private Brethren and be more carefull to obey them than to satisfie these if the same course will not in some mediocrity satisfie both Alas that our brethren who are contrary minded would but with the spirit of sobriety admit common Reason to be umpire in this case Alas that they would but consider what a world of Contradictions would follow upon the contrary opinion and what a world of confusions upon the contrary practice Say what can be said in the behalf of a Brother all the same and more may be said for a Governour For a Governour is a Brother too and something more and Duty is Charity too and something more If then I may not offend my Brother then certainly not my Governour because he is my Brother too being a man and a Christian as well as the other is And the same Charity that bindeth me to satisfie another Brother equally bindeth me to satisfie this So that if we goe no farther but even to the common bond of Charity and relation of Brotherhood that maketh them equal at the least and therefore no reason why I should satisfie one that is but a Private Brother rather than the publike Magistrate who that publike respect set aside is my Brother also When the Scales hang thus even shall not the accession of Magistracy to common Brotherhood in him and of Duty to common Charity in me be enough to cast it clear for the Magistrate Shall a servant in a Family rather than offend his fellow-servant disobey his Master And is not a double scandal against Charity and Duty both for Duty implyeth Charity greater than a single scandal against Charity alone If private men will be offended at our Obedience to publike Governours we can but be sorry for it We may not redeem their offence by our disobedience He that taketh offence where none is given sustaineth a double person and must answer for it both as the giver and the taker If offence be taken at us there is no woe to us for it if it doe not come by us Woe to the man by whom the offence commeth and it doth not come by us if we doe but what is our duty to doe The Rule is certain and equitable The respect of private scandal ceaseth where lawfull authority determineth our liberty and that restraint which proceedeth from special Duty is of superiour reason to that which proceedeth but from Common Charity Three Moderatours then of our Christian liberty to the Creatures we are to allow of Sobriety Charity and Duty unto every of which a just regard ought to be had Neither need we fear if we suffer Sobriety on one side and Charity on another and Duty on a third thus to abridge us in the use of our Christian liberty that by little and little it may be at length so pared away among them that there may be little or nothing left of it To remove this suspition let this be our Eighth and last Position No respect whatsoever can or ought to diminish the inward freedom of the conscience to any of the Creatures And this inward freedom is it wherein especially