part in them as much as may be so if we look into a Christian man as he is proposed to us in the Gospel we may justly marvel to what purpose God hath planted in him this faculty and passion of anger since he hath so little use of it and the Gospel in a manner doth spiritually diet and physick him for it and endeavours much to abate if not quite to purge out that quality Beloved we have hitherto seen who Iacob is and what manner of man the Christian is that is described unto us in holy Scripture Let us a little consider his brother Esau the Christian in passage and who commonly in the account of the world goes for one Is he so gentle and tractable a creature Is his countenance so smooth his body so free from gall and spleen To try this as the Devil sometimes spake unto Iob Touch him in his goods touch him in his body and see if he will not curse thee to thy face so touch this man a little in his goods touch him in his reputation and honour touch him in any thing that he loves for this is the onely way to try how far these commands of peace and forbearance and long suffering prevail with us and see if he will not forget and loose all his patience Which of us is there that understands the words and precepts of our Saviour in their litteral sense and as they lie The precepts of suffering wrong rather then to go to Law of yeilding the coat to him that would take the cloak of readiness to receive more wrongs then to revenge one these and all the Evangelical commands of the like nature Interpretamento detorquemus we have found out favourable interpretations and glosses restrictions and evasions to wind our selves out of them to shift them all off and put them by and yet pass for sound and currant Christians We think we may be justly angry continue long Suits in Law call to the Magistrate for revenge yea sometimes take it into our own hands all this and much more we think we may lawfully and with good reason do any precept of Christ to the contrary notwithstanding And as it usually comes to pass the permitting and tolerating lesser sins opens way to greater so by giving passage and inlet to those lesser impatiences an discontents we lay open a gap to those fouler crimes even of murther and bloudshed For as men commonly suppose that all the former breaches of our patience which but now I mentioned may well enough stand with the duties of Christians so there are who stay not here but think that in some cases it may be lawful yea peradventure necessary at least very pardonable for Christians privately to seek each others bloud and put their lives upon their swords without any wrong to their vocation out of this have sprung many great inconveniences both private and publick First Laws made too favourable in case of bloudshed Secondly a too much facility and easiness in Princes and Magistrates sometimes to give pardon and release for that crime Thirdly and cheifly for it is the special cause indeed that moved me to speak in this Argument an over promptness in many young men who desire to be counted men of valour and resolution upon every sleight occasion to raise a quarrel and admit of no other means of composing and ending it but by sword and single Combat Partly therefore to shew the grievousness and greatness of this sin of Bloudshed and partly to give the best counsel I can for the restraint of those conceits and errours which give way unto it I have made choice of these few words out of the Old Testament which but now I read In the New Testament there is no precept given concerning Bloudshed The Apostles seem not to have thought that Christians ever should have had need of such a prohibition For what needed to forbid those to seek each others Bloud who are not permitted to speak over hastily one to another When therefore I had resolved with my self to speak something concerning the sin of Bloud-shed I was in a manner constrain'd to reflect upon the Old Testament and make choise of these words And the Land cannot be purged of Bloud that is shed in it but by the Bloud of him that shed it In which words for my more orderly proceeding I will observe these two general parts First the greatness of the sin Secondly the means to cleanse and satisfie for the guilt of it The first that is the greatness of the sin is expressed by two circumstances First by the generality extent and largeness of the guilt of it and secondly by the difficulty of cleansing it The largeness and compass of the guilt of this sin is noted unto us in the word Land and the Land cannot be purged It is true in some sense of all sins Nemo sibi uni errat no man sins in private and to himself alone For as the Scripture notes of that action of Iepthe when he vowed his daughter unto God That it became a Custom in Israel so is it in all sins The errour is onely in one person but the example spreads far and wide and thus every man that sins sins against the whole Land yea against the whole world For who can tell how far the example and infection of an evil action doth spread In other sins the infection is no larger then the disease but this sin like a plague one brings the infection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but thousands die for it yet this sin of Bloud diffuses and spreads it self above all other sins for in other sins noxa sequitur caput the guilt of them is confined to the person that committed them God himself hath pronounced of them The son shall not bear the sins of the father the soul that sinneth shall die the death But the sin of Bloud seems to claim an exception from this Law if by time it be not purged like the frogs of Egypt the whole land stank of them it leaves a guilt upon the whole land in which it is committed Other sins come in like Rivers and break their banks to the prejudice and wrong of private persons but this comes in like a Sea raging and threatning to overwhelm whole Countreys If Bloud in any land do lie unrevenged every particular soul hath cause to fear lest part of the penalty fall on him We read in the Books of Kings that long after Saul's death God plagued the Land of Iewry with three years famine because Saul in his life-time without any just cause shed the Bloud of some of the Gibeonites neither the famine ceased till seven of Saul's nephews had died for it In this story there are many things rare and worth our observation First the generality and extent of the guilt of Bloud-shed which is the cause for which I urged it it drew a general famine on the whole Land Secondly the continuance and length of the punishment
by yeilding not by fighting but by dying Pilate had heard that he was a King it was the accusation which was fram'd against him that he bear himself as King of the Iews but because he saw no pomp no train no guard about him he took it but as an idle report To put him therefore out of doubt our Saviour assures him that he is a King but of such a Kingdom as he could not skill of My Kingdom is not of this world c. For the better unfolding of which words first we will consider what the meaning of this word Kingdom is for there lies an ambiguity in it Secondly we will consider what Lessons for our instruction the next words will yeild Not of this world First of this word Kingdom Our Saviour is a King three manner of ways and so correlatively hath three distinct several Kingdoms He is first King in the largest extent and meaning which can possibly be imagined and that is as he is Creatour and absolute Lord of all creatures Of this Kingdom Heaven Earth and Hell are three large Provinces Angels Men and Devils his very enemies every creature visible and invisible are subjects of this Kingdom The glory and strength of this Kingdom consists least of all in men and man is the weakest part of it for there is scarcely a creature in the world by whom he hath not been conquer'd When Alexander the Great had travell'd through India and over-ran many large Provinces and conquer'd many popular Cities when tidings came that his Soldiers in Grece had taken some small Towns there he scorn'd the news and in contempt Me-thinks said he I hear of the Battel of Frogs and Mice Beloved if we look upon these huge Armies of Creatures and consider of what wonderful strength they are when the Lord summons them to Battel all the Armies of men and famous Battels of which we have so large Histories in the comparison of these what are they but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Homer's tale a Battel of Frogs and Mice Infinite Legions of Angels attend him in Heaven and every Angel is an Army One Angel in the Book of Kings is sent out against the Army of the Assyrians and in one night fourscore thousand persons die for it Base and contemptible creatures when God calls for them are of strength to conquer whole Countreys He over-runs Egypt with his Armies of Frogs and Flies and Lice and before his own people with an Army of Hornets chases the Canaanites out of the Land Nay the dull and senseless Elements are up in Arms when God summons them He shoots his Hail-shot with his Hail-stones from Heaven he destroys more of the Canaanites then the Israelites can with their swords As for his Armies of Fire and Water what power is able to withstand them Every creature when God calls is a soldier How great then is the glory of this Kingdom of which the meanest parts are invincible Secondly again our Saviour is a King in a more restrain'd and confin'd sense as he is in Heaven attended on by Angels and Archangels Powers Principalities and all the heavenly Hosts For though he be Omni-present and fills every place both in Heaven and Earth yet Heaven is the Palace Throne of this Kingdom there is he better seen and known there with more state and honour served and therefore more properly is his Kingdom said to be there And this is called his Kingdom of glory The Rules and Laws and admirable Orders of which Kingdom could we come to see and discover it would be with us as it was with the Queen of Saba when she came to visit Solomon of whom the Scripture notes that when she heard his wisdom and had seen the order of his servants the attendance that was given him and the manner of his table There was no more spirit left in her Beloved Dum Spiritus hos regit artus whilst this Spirit is in us we cannot possibly come to discern the Laws and Orders of this Kingdom and therefore I am constrain'd to be silent Thirdly our Saviour is a King in a sense yet more impropriated For as he took our nature upon him as he came into the world to redeem mankind and to conquer Hell and Death so is there a Kingdom annext unto him A Kingdom the purchase whereof cost him much sweat and Bloud of which neither Angels nor any other creature are a part onely that remnant of mankind that Ereptus titio that number of blessed Souls which like a brand out of the fire by his death and passion he hath recovered out of the power of sin and all these alone are the subjects of that Kingdom And this is that which is called his Kingdom of Grace and which himself in Scripture every where calls his Church his Spouse his Body his Flock and this is that Kingdom which in this place is spoken of and of which our Saviour tells Pilate That it is not of this world My Kingdom is not of this world Which words at the first reading may seem to savour of a little imperfection for they are nothing else but a Negation or denial Now our Books teach us that a Negative makes nothing known for we know things by discovering not what they are not but what they are yet when we have well examin'd them we shall find that there could not have been a speech delivered more effectual for the opening the nature of the Church and the discovery of mens errours in that respect For I know no errour so common so frequent so hardly to be rooted out so much hindring the knowledge of the true nature of the Church as this that men do take the Church to be like unto the World Tully tells us of a Musician that being ask'd what the Soul was answered that it was Harmony is saith he à principiis artis suae non recescit He knew not how to leave the principles of his own Art Again Plato's Scholars had been altogether bred up in Arithmetick and the knowledge of Numbers and hence it came that when afterward they diverted their studies to the knowledge of Nature or Moral Philosophy wheresoever they walked they still feigned to themselves somewhat like unto Numbers the World they supposed was framed out of Numbers Cities and Kingdoms and Common-wealths they thought stood by Numbers Number with them was sole Principle and Creatour of every thing Beloved when we come to learn the quality and state of Christ's Kingdom it fares much with us as it does with Tullie's Musician or Plato's Scholars difficulter à principiis artis nostrae recedimus Hardly can we forsake those principles in which we have been brought up In the world we are born in it we are bred the world is the greatest part of our study to the true knowledge of God and of Christ still we fancy unto us something of the world It may seem but a light thing that I shall say yet
to arise in heat and fury with a resolution for bloud but it pleased God in the way to make him relent and change the purpose of revenge into the action of cutting off his skirt and that this smiting of David's heart was nothing else but his repenting himself for giving over-hasty entertainment to such a rebellious thought But Beloved who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect David's thoughts were onely known to God and himself Since therefore God gives not this as a reason of David's remorse but another thing far be it from me that I should wrong David so far as to burden him with that with which none but God can charge him I rather chuse to follow St. Basil's rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let the Scriptures be understood as they lie The Scripture tells us David's heart smote him because he cut off the skirt of Saul's garment and not because he had conceiv'd against Saul any thought of bloud But what cause then shall we give of David's remorse none other Beloved but that religious and careful jealousie which still he had over his own thoughts which made him pietatis affectu etiam quae tuta sunt formidare Hier. To suspect all things be they never so safe and never to think himself secure from the contagion of sin It was with David as it was wont to be with men that are often troubled with sicknesses and diseases Suspicionibus inquietantur medicisque jam sanâ— manum porrigunt omnem calorem corporis sui calumniantur Senec. Disquiet themselves with every little alteration in their bodies repair to the Physician when they are well and think every heat to be an Ague-fit Horum corpus non est parum sanum sed sanitati parum assuevit these men are not sick but they do not know what it is to be in health In the same state is David he had been often infected with spiritual weakness and disease and therefore he suspects every motion of his heart and takes every thought to be a temptation Hujus animus non erat parum sanus sed sanitati parum assuevit His soul was not sick of any sin but he did not know what it was to be in spiritual health For us and for our use hath the holy Ghost registred this example of scruple and tenderness of conscience Let us return to ourselves and see what lessons we may learn hence for our behoof Men usually are either grown old in sin and therefore their eye-sight is decayed they cannot easily see and discern smaller sins or else as Hagar in the Book of Genesis laid Ismael afar off from her that she might not be greiv'd with the sight of him so we labour to lay our sins far out of kenn that the memory and sight of them might not exasperate and trouble us For the cure of both these infirmities I have borrowed out of the Lord's treasury a Spectacle of Optick Glass which if we use it will restore our decayed eye-sight and quicken and make us read our sins in the smallest print and let them lie never so far from us yet will it present them unto us in their true quantity and greatness Towards the better use of which spiritual Glass one lesson would I especially commend unto you To be perpetually jealous and suspicious of your thoughts and to be quick-scented easily to trace the footing of sin to be easily sensible of it when we think our selves to have done amiss a lesson naturally arising as I take it out of David's example commended unto us in this place Now how absolutely behooâ—eful it is for us to hold a perpetual Watch over our hearts and be jealous of such thoughts as spring out of them it will appear by these reasons First because that sin is of such a slie insinuating nature that it will privily creep in and closely cleave to our thoughts and inâ—tents though we perceive it not For as waters though of themselves most pure will relish and savour of the earth and soithrough which they pass so thoughts in themselves good pasâ—sing through the corrupt and evil ground of our hearts canno but receive some tincture some dye some relish from them When David had an intent to build God an house he doubtless conceived no otherwise of this his intent then of a religious and honourable purpose and in outward appearance there was no cause why he should doubt of God's acceptance yet we see this purpose of his misliked by God and rejected and the reason given quia vir sanguinum es tu because thou art a man of bloud How shall we then secure our selves of any thought if such an intent as this so savouring of zeal of sanctification of love unto the glory of God have such a flaw in it as makes it unprofitable and how necessary is it that we bring all our imaginations and intents to the fire and to the refining pot so throughly to try them and bring them to their highest point of purity and perfection Be it peradventure that the action be in it self good if it be liable to any suspicion of evil it is enough to blast it It is the holy Ghost's rule given by the blessed Apostle that we abstain from all shew and appearance of evil that we refrain as much as possible from all such actions as are capable of misconstruction What is more lawful then for the labourer to have his hire then for those that labour in the Gospel to live by the Gospel Yet we see St. Paul refused this liberty and chose rather to work with his own hands onely for this reason because he would not give occasion to any that would misinterpret his action to live at others cost and feed on the sweat of others brows What befalls Princes many times and great Persons that have abused their Authority the people rise and suppress them deface their Statues forbid their Coin put away all things that bear any memory of them So seems our blessed Apostle to deal here look what actions they be which bear any inscription any image and title any shew or spot of sin these hath he thought good even to banish and quite prohibit Our prophane Stories tell us that when Iulius Caesar had divorc'd his wife being ask'd why he did so since nothing was brought against her to prove his dishonest his answer was that she that will be wife of Caesar must not onely be free from dishonesty but from all suspicion of it Beloved St. Paul tells the Corinthians that he had espoused them unto one husband that he might deliver them as a chaste Virgin unto Christ and God every where in Scripture compares his Church unto an espoused Wife and himself unto an Husband a Husband far more jealous then ever Caesar was How careful then must that Soul be that intends to marry it self to such a jealous Husband to abstain not onely from all pollution of sin but from all suspicion of
it lasted full three years and better Thirdly the time of the plague it fell long after the person offending was dead Fourthly whereas it is said in my Text That Bloud is cleansed by the Bloud of him that shed it here the Bloud of him that did this sin sufficed not to purge the Land from it that desperate and woful end that befell both Saul and his sons in that last and fatal Battel upon Mount Gilboa a man may think had freed the Land from danger of Bloud yet we see that the Bloud of the Gibeonites had left so deep a stain that it could not be sponged out without the Bloud of seven more of Saul's off-spring So that in some cases it seems we must alter the words of my Text The Land cannot be purged of Bloud but by the Bloud of him and his Posterity that shed it St. Peter tells us that some mens sins go before them unto judgment and some mens sins follow after Beloved here is a sin that exceeds the members of this division for howsoever it goes before or after us unto judgment yet it hath a kind of Vbiquity and so runs afore so follows us at the heels that it stays behind us too and calls for vengeance long after that we are gone Bloud unrevenged passes from Father to Son like an Heirlome or Legacy and he that dies with Bloud hanging on his fingers leaves his off-spring and his Family as pledges to answer it in his stead As an Engineer that works in a Mine lays a train or kindles a Match and leaves it behind him which shall take hold of the powder long after he is gone so he that sheds Bloud if it be not betimes purged as it were kindles a Match able to blow up not onely a Parliament but even a whole Land where Bloud lies unrevenged Secondly another circumstance serving to express unto us the greatness of this sin I told you was the difficulty of cleansing it intimated in those words cannot be cleansed but by the Bloud of him that shed it Most of other sins have sundry ways to wash the guilt away As in the Levitical Law the woman that was unclean by reason of Child-bearing might offer a pair of Turtle-doves or two young Pigeons so he that travels with other sins hath either a Turtle or a Pigeon he hath more ways then one to purifie him prayer unto God or true repentance or satisfaction to the party wronged or bodily affliction or temporary mulct But he that travels with the sin of Bloud for him there remains no sacrifice for sin but a fearful expectation of vengeance he hath but one way of cleansing onely his Bloud the Bloud of him that shed it The second general part which we considered in these words was that one mean which is left to cleanse Bloud exprest in the last words the bloud of him that shed it The Apostle to the Hebrews speaking of the sacrifices of the Old Testament notes that without Bloud there was no cleansing no forgiveness He spake it onely of the Bloud of beasts of Bulls and Goats who therefore have their Bloud that they might shed it in mans service and for mans use But among all the Levitical Sacrifices there was not one to cleanse the manslayer For the Bloud of the cattle upon a thousand hills was not sufficient for this yet was that sin to be purged with Bloud too and that by a more constant and perpetual Law then that of Sacrifices For the cleansing of other sins by Bloud is done away the date of it is out but to cleanse Bloud by bloud remains as a Law to our times and so shall unto the worlds end Sanguine quaerendi reditus out of Bloud no way to get but by Bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Basil hast thou shed Bloud wouldst thou be free from the guilt of it Thy best way is to be a Martyr and shed thy Bloud for Christ's sake Now that what I have to say may the better be conceived and lodged up in your memories I will comprehend and order all that I will speak under three heads First I will in general yet a little further breifly shew how great a sin the sin of Bloud is Secondly I will speak of the redress of some misorders very frequent in our age which give way to this sin especially private revenge and single combat Thirdly I will touch at the means of taking the guilt of Bloud away which here the holy Ghost commends to those which are set in Authority to that purpose And first of the greatness of the crime and sin of Bloud Of sins in holy Scripture there be two sorts recorded One sort is a silent dumb and quiet sin God doth as it were seek after it to find it as the people did after Saul when he was hidden amongst the stuff Of this nature are the ordinary sins of our life which do more easily find pardon at the hands of God but there is a second sort of sin which is a vocal and a crying sin a sin like that importunate widow in the Gospel that will not suffer the Judge to be quiet till he hath done justice and those are the more heavy and grievouser sins of our lives Of this second sort there are two sins to which the Scripture doth attribute this crying faculty First the sin of Sodom for so God tells Abraham The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is come up before me The second is the sin of which I am now to speak the sin of Bloudshed for so God tells Cain The voice of thy brothers bloud cries unto me from the earth The sin of Adam in Paradise doubtless was a great and heinous sin which hath thus made us all the children of death yet it seems to be but of the rank of mute sins and to have had no voice to betray it God comes unto Adam convents him examins him as if he had not known it and seems not to beleive any such thing was done till himself had confessed it But bloud is an unmannerly importunate and clamorous sin God shall not need to come and enquire after it it will come up unto him and cry as the souls do under the Altar in the Revelation How long Lord how long Nec patimur iracunda Deum ponere fulmina suffers not God to forget judgment or entertain a thought of mercy To satisfie therefore the cry of this importunate sin and to shew men the grievousness of it the Laws of God and men have wonderfully conspired in the avenging of bloud by what means or by what creature soever it were shed Beasts unreasonable creatures though whatsoever they do they cannot be said to sin for whatsoever they do they do by force of that natural instinct by which they are guided and led as by their proper Law yet man's bloud if they shed it is revenged upon them God himself is the Authour of this Law Gen. ix where he tells Noah