then laid aside she might not have lawfully so done or why the things so retained should have been accounted Popish The plain truth is this The Church of England meant to make use of her liberty and the lawful power she had as all the Churches of Christ have or ought to have of ordering Ecclesiastical affairs here yet to do it with so much prudence and moderation that the world might see by what was laid aside that she acknowledg'd no subjection to the See of Rome and by that was retained that she did not recede from the Church of Rome out of any spirit of contradiction but as necessitated thereunto for the maintenance of her just liberty The number of Ceremonies was also then very great they thereby burdensome and so the number thought fit to be lessened But for the Choice which should be kept and which not that was wholly in her power and at her discretion Whereof though she were not bound so to do yet hath she given a clear and satisfactory account in one of the Prefaces usually prefixed before the Book of Common Prayer § XVI Besides this of Popish they have bestowed also upon the Ceremonies the Epithet of Superstitious Which is a word likewise as the former of late very much extended and standeth in need of a boundary too and a definition as well as it But howsoever they do with the words I must set bounds to my discourse lest I weary the Reader The point of Superstition I have had occasion to touch upon more then once as I remember in some of these Sermons and proved that the Superstition lieth indeed at their dore not ours They forbid the things commanded by the Church under the Obligation of sin and that Obâ—igation arising not from their forbidding them but from the things themselves which they judge to be unlawful and thence impose upon all men a necessity of not using them which is Superstition Whereas the Church required obedience indeed to her commands and that also under the obligation of sin but that obligation arising not at all from the nature of the things themselves alwayes held and declared Indifferent but immediately from the authority of the Superiour commanding the thing and originally from the ordinance of God commanding Obedience to Superiours as already hath been said and this is not Superstition For further satisfaction therefore in this matter referring the Reader to the Sermons themselves I shall only by way of addition represent to the Objectors S. Pauls demeanor at Athens Where finding the City full of Idols or wholy given to Idolatry he doth not yet fall foul upon them nor exclaim against them in any reproachful manner no nor so much as call them Idolaters though they were such and that in a very high degree but tempering his speeches with all lenity and condescension he telleth them only of their Superstition and that in the calmest manner too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the comparative degree in such kind of speaking being usually taken for a diminnent terme How distant are they from his Example with whom every thing they mislike is presently an Idol Christmas day an Idol the Surplice an Idol the Cross after Baptism a great Idol the Common-Prayer-Book an abominable Idol When yet if the worst that can be said against them were granted the most it could amount to is but Superstition and till that be granted which must not be till it be well proved it is more childish then manly to cry out Superstition Superstition § XVII Their next is a Suspicion rather then Objection and that upon no very good ground But charity is easily suspicious nor without cause Wherein I have somewhat to say in behalf of my self and other my Brethren and somewhat by way of return to them For my self I had a desire I may truly say almost from my very childhood to understand as much as was possible for me the bottome of our Religion and particularly as it stood in relation both to the Papists and as they were then stiled Puritanes to inform my self rightly wherein consisted the true differences between them and the Church of England together with the grounds of those differences For I could even then observe which was no hard matter to do that the most of mankind took up their Religion upon trust as Custome or Education had framed them rather then choise It pleased God in his goodness to afford me some opportunities sutable to that my desire by means whereof and by his good blessing I attained to understand so much of the Romish Religion as not only to dislike it but to be able to give some rational account why I so do And I doubt not but these very Sermons were there nothing else to do it will sufficiently free me from the least suspicion of driving on any design for Rome As for those other regular sons of the Church of England that have appeared in this controversie on her behalf how improbable and so far forth uncharitable the suspicion is that they should be any way instrumental towards the promoting of the Papal interest may appear amongst other by these few considerations following 1. That those very persons who were under God the instruments of freeing us from the Roman yoke by casting Popery out of the Church and sundry of them martyred in the cause those very persons I say were great favourers of these now accounted Popish Ceremonies and the chief authors or procurers of the Constitutions made in that behalf Hae manus Trojam erigent II. That in all former times since the beginning of the Reformation our Arch-Bishops and Bishops with their Chaplains and others of the Prelatical party many of them such as have written also in defense of the Church against the Puritanes were the principal I had almost said the only Champions to maintain the Cause of Religion against the Papists III. That even in these times of so great distraction and consequently thereunto of so great advantage to the factors for Rome none have stept into the gap more readily nor appeared in the face of the Enemy more openly nor maintained the Fight with more stoutness and gallantry then the Episcopal Divines have done as their late learned writings testifie Yea and some of them such as beside their other sufferings have layen as deep under the suspicion of being Popishly-affected as any other of their Brethren whosoever IIII. That by the endeavours of these Episcopal Divines some that were bred Papists have been gained to our Church others that began to waver confirmed and setled in their old Religion and some that were fallen from us recovered and reduced notwithstanding all the disadvantages of these confused times and of each of these I am able to produce some instance But I profess sincerely as in the presence of God and before the world that I have not known at least I cannot call to remembrance to much as one single example of
of the power and liberty even still to intimate unto the sonnes of men the knowledge of his will and the glory of his might by Dreams Miracles or other like supernatural manifestations if at any time either in the want of the ordinary means of the Word Sacraments and Ministery or for the present necessities of his Church or of some part thereof or for some other just cause perhaps unknown to us he shall see it expedient so to do He hath prescribed us but he hath not limited himself Fifthly that because the Devil and wicked spirits may suggest Dreams probably foretell future events foreseen in their causes and work many strange effects in nature applicando activa passivis which because they are without the sphere of our comprehension may to our seeming have fair appearances of Divine Revelations or Miracles when they are nothing less for the avoiding of strong delusions in this kind it is not safe for us to give easie credit to Dreams Prophecies or Miracles as Divine untill upon due tryal there shall appear both in the End whereto they point us a direct tendance to the advancement of GODS Glory and in the Means also they propose us a conformity unto the revealed Will of GOD in his written word Sixthly that so to observe our ordinary Dreams as thereby to divine or foretell of future contingents or to forecast therefrom good or ill-luck as we call it in the success of our affairs is a silly and groundless but withall an unwarranted and therefore an unlawfull and therefore also a damnable superstition Seventhly that there is yet to be made a lawfull yea and a very profitable use even of our ordinary Dreams and of the observing thereof and that both in Physick and Divinity Not at all by foretelling particulars of things to come but by taking from them among other things some reasonable conjectures in the general of the present estate both of our Bodies and Souls Of our Bodies first For since the predominancy of Choler Bloud Flegm and Melancholy as also the differences of strength and health and diseases and distempers either by dyet or passion or otherwise do cause impressions of different forms in the fancy our ordinary dreams may be a good help to lead us into those discoveries both in time of health what our natural constitution complexion and temperature is and in times of sickness from the ranckness and tyranny of which of the humours the malady springeth And as of our Bodies so of our Souls too For since our Dreams for the most part look the same way which our freest thoughts encline as the Voluptuous beast dreameth most of pleasures the Covetous wretch most of profits and the proud or ambitious most of praises preferments or revenge the observing of our ordinary Dreams may be of good use for us unto that discovery which of these three is our Master sin for unto one of the three every other sin is reduced The Lust of the flesh the Lust of the eyes or the Pride of Life But concerning Revelations and Dreams it shall suffice to have only proposed these few Conclusions without farther enlargement the manner of Gods revealing his will here to Abimelech by Dream being but an incidental circumstance upon the bye and not belonging to the main of the present story We will therefore without more ado proceed to the substance of Gods reply in the rest of the verse and therein begin with the former general part which But concerning Revelations and Dreams it shall suffice to have only proposed these few Conclusions without farther enlargement the manner of Gods revealing his will here to Abimelech by Dream being but an incidental circumstance upon the bye and not belonging to the main of the present story We will therefore without more adoe proceed to the substance of Gods reply in the rest of the verse and therein begin with the former general part which is Gods admission of Abimelechs Plea and Apology for himself The ground of whose Plea was Ignorance and the thing he pleaded his own Innocency and the integrity of his heart and God who is the searcher of all hearts alloweth the allegation and acknowledgeth that integrity Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart The Original word here translated Integrity is rendred by some Truth by others Purity and by others Simplicity and it will bear them all as signifying properly Perfection or Innocency You would think by that word that Abimelech had in this whole businesse walked in the sight of God with a pure and upright and true and single and perfect heart But alas he was far from that God plagued him and his for that he had done and God doth not use to punish the carcasse for that wherein the heart is single Again God with-held him or else he would have done more and worse and it is a poor perfection of heart where the active power only is restrained and not the inward corruption subdued Besides Sarah was taken into the house and there kept for lewd purposes and how can truth and purity of heart consist with a continued resolution of sinful uncleannesse Abimelech then cannot be defended as truly and absolutely innocent though he plead Innocency and God himself bear witnesse to the Integrity of his heart For had his heart been upright in him and sincere in this very matter of Sarah he would never have taken her into his house at all as he did But that he pleadeth for himself is that in this particular wherewith it seemed to him God by so threatning him did charge him in wronging Abraham by taking his wife from him his conscience could witnesse the Innocency of his heart how free he was from any the least injurious purpose or so much as thought that way It was told him by them both that she was his Sister and he knew no other by her than so when he took her into his house supposing her to be a single Woman if he had known she had been any mans Wife he would not for any good have done the man so foul an injury nor have sinned against his own soul by defiling anothers bed In the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands he did what he had done This is the substance of his allegation and God approveth the integrity of his heart so far viz. as free in this particular from any intent either to injure Abraham or to sin against the light of his own Conscience by committing adultery with anothers wife The meaning of the words thus cleared we may observe in them three things First the fact for which Abimelech pleadeth and that was the taking of Sarah who was anothers wife into his house Secondly the ground of his plea and that was his Ignorance he knew not when he took her that she was anothers wife Thirdly the thing he pleadeth upon that
Fourteen SERMONS Heretofore Preached IIII. AD CLERVM III. AD MAGISTRATVM VII AD POPVLVM By ROBERT SANDERSON D.D. Sometimes Fellow of LINCOLNE Colledge in OXFORD and Rector of Botheby Paynel Linc. The Fourth Impression Qui amici poterant esse veritatis sine labore ut peccent laborant Gregor de curâ pastorali LONDON Printed by R. N. for HENRY SEILE over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet Anno Dom. 1657. THE PREFACE To the Reader HOW these Sermons will be looked upon if at all looked upon by the Men of the Times is no very hard matter to conjecture I confess they are not Alamode nor fitted to the Palate of those men who are resolved before-hand without tasting or tryall to nauseate as unsavoury and unwholsome whatsoever shall be tendered unto them from the hand of an Episcopal Divine And therefore the republishing of them in this state of Church-affairs now the things so much contended for in some of them are worne out of date and thrown aside will be deemed at least a very unseasonable undertaking to as much purpose perhaps it will be said as if a man would this year reprint an Almanack for the last For the latter part of the Objection at the peril be it of those that had the hardiness to adventure upon a new Edition Mihi istic nec seritur nec metitur All I had to do in the business was but the drudgery of reviewing the old Copy to correct the Errata of the former Impressions and of looking over the sheets as they were wrought off from the Press and sent me down to note the oversights escaped in the printing and to make the Index of the Scripture-quotations As to the other part of the Crime such as it is to wit the unseasonableness of this after-publication there need not much be said If the Sermons thought not unseasonable in some former times be now become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as things brought forth into the world again out of due time that cannot I help They are the same they were when they were first preached and the same they were when they were last printed and so am I. If either they or I find worse entertainment now then we did then and any blame be due for that let not us bear it who are guiltless but the Times For it is They are changed not We. Howsoever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now they are abroad they must take their lot as it falleth out Which be it better be it worse this yet we shall gain thereby that if any shall charge these Papers with unseasonableness no very huge crime he shall ipso facto by that very act and the verdict of his own conscience fully discharge and for ever acquit them of the guilt of Time-serving a crime I trow of a vaster magnitude and wherewith Discourses of this nature were wont to be so frequently that I say not unjustly aspersed whilest the Times looked more favourably upon them § II. But of this enough I expect to meet with far heavier Censures then these from the ungoverned spirits and tongues of the more zealous that is to say if rightly interpreted the more clamorous and lesse knowing among them Who knoweth not that as empty vessels give the loudest sound and shallow brooks run with a fiercer current and make a greater noise then deeper Rivers do So they that are the least able to judge are ever the most forward to pass sentence and when they so do the most rigid and peremptory therein But the heaviest doom I suppose will proceed from those men who being themselves of late years fallen out grievously fallen out for what cause I know not with the Ancient Government Liturgy and Ceremonies of the Church are angry with all those that retain any good opinion of them Whereunto yet themselves when time was seemed to be and if they dissembled not which we are unwilling to believe were indeed reasonably well affected For they submitted to the Government used the Liturgy and observed the Ceremonies appointed according to Law and Order and their own professed approbation of the same as well by express words from their mouths as by subscription under their hands yet remaining upon record What hath wrought this change in them Evidence of Reason or worldly Interest and how farr it hath wrought upon them in reality or but in complyance and in what order too by immediate assault upon their judgment or by dealing underhand first with the affections themselves do or should best know It highly concerneth them even as much as the peace of their consciences is worth and much more then so to be well assured that their hearts are upright in this affair And in order thereunto not to content themselves with a slight and overly examination There is more wickedness and deceitfulness in the hearts of all men then most men are aware of but to make the most diligent district and unpartial search possible into the true causes and motives of this change And for so much as Fears and Hopes have been ever found the fittest and the readiest Engins to work such feats to enquire particularly what influence or operation either the Fear of losing what they had or the Hope of getting more might have in this work towards the producing of such an effect It will best become others to judge as charitably as they may but doubtless it would be safest for them to be very jealous over themselves lest so great a change could not have been wrought in so short a space without a strong infusion either of the one or the other or both into the medicine that wrought it Especially since the conjuncture of the time wherein this change hapned may very probably raise some suspicion that the Fear of the Sword might have and the visible advantage some have found thereby since as probably that the Hope of gaine had some cooperation at least with whatsoever was the principal Cause of this so suddain a Metamorphosis If nor so nor so but that they finde themselves clearly convinced in their judgments of their former Errour and that they are fully perswaded they are now in a better way then that wherein they formerly walked it is happy for them and I doubt not but they will finde matter of rejoycing in it if they be not mistaken a thing not impossible in the triall of their own hearts Of the sincerity whereof the likelyest way to give satisfaction to the world and to adde some strengthening withall to their own assurance is by shewing compassion to those their Brethren that cannot yet tell how to recover themselves out of the snare of the same common Error from which they are so happily escaped At leastwise so far as not to despise them nor to pass their censures upon them with so much freedome and severity as some have done If it be a fault sure it is a very pardonable one for a man in the change of times to
any of this done by any of our Antiâ—Ceremonian Brethren whether Presbyterian or Independent § XVIII But I have somewhat to return upon these our Brethren who thus causelesly suspect us Possibly it will not please them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I must speak it out both for the truths sake and theirs To wit that themselves are in truth though not purposely and intentionally whereof in my own thought I freely acquit them yet really and eventually the great promoters of the Roman Interest among us and that more wayes then one These three among the rest are evident First by putting to their helping hand to the pulling down of Episcopacy It is very well known to many what rejoycing that Vote brought to the Romish party How even in Rome it self they sang their Io Paeans upon the tidings thereof and said triumphantly Now the day is ours Now is the fatal blow given to the Protestant Religion in England They who by conversing much with that Nation were well acquainted with the fiery turbulent spirits of the Scottish Presbyterians knew as well how to make their advantage thereof and handled the matter with so much cunning by fomenting their discontents underhand till they had framed them and by their means some of the same party here to become the fittest instruments for the carrying on of their great design And this I verily believe was the very Master-piece of the whole plot They could not but foresee as the event hath also proved that if the old Government a main pillar in the building were once dissolved the whole fabrick would be sore shaken if not presently shattered in pieces and ruined things would presently run into confusion distractions and divisions would certainly follow And when the waters should be sufficiently troubled and mudded then would be their opportunity to cast in their nets for a draught Some who have undertaken to discover to the world the great plot the Papists had of late years for the introducing of Popery in the several parts of it might have done well to have taken some little notice of this also I wonder how they could look beside it being so visible and indeed the fundamental part of the plot Without which neither could the sparks of Errors and Heresies have been blown to that height nor that Libertinisme and some other things therewith mentioned have so soon overspread the whole face of the Land as now we finde they have done Secondly they promote the interest of Rome by opposing it with more violence then reason Which ought not to seem any strange thing to us since we see by daily experience the like to happen in other matters also Many a man when he thought most to make it sure hath quite marred a good business by over-doing it The most prudent just and in all likelihood effectual way to win upon an adversary is by yielding him as much as with safety of truth can be yielded who if he shall finde himself contradicted in that which he is sure is true as well as in that which is indeed false will by a kinde of Antiperistasis be hardned into more obstinacy then before to defend all true and false with equal fierceness It hath been observed by some and I know no reason to question the truth of the observation that in those Counties Lancashire for one where there are the most and the most rigid Presbyterians there are also the most and the most zealous Roman-Catholicks Thirdly they promote the interest of Rome and betray the Protestant Cause partly by mistaking the Question a very common fault among them but especially through the necessity of some false principle or other which having once imbibed they think themselves bound to maintain Some of them especially such as betook themselves to preaching betimes and had not the leisure and opportunity to look much into Controversies understand very little as it is impossible they should much of the true state of the Question in many controverted points and yet to shew their zeal against Popery are for ward enough to be medling therewithall in the Pulpit But with so much weakness and impertinency not seldome that they leave the Question worse then they found it and the Hearer if he brought any doubts with him to go from Sermon more dis-satisfied then he came The rest of them that have better knowledge are yet so bound up by some false Principle or other they have received that they cannot without deserting the same and that they must not do whatsoever betideth them treat to the satisfaction of a rational and ingenuous adversary Among those false Principles it shall suffice for the present to have named but this one That the Church of Rome is no true Church The disadvantages of which assertion to our Cause in the dispute about the visibility of the Church besides the falseness and uncharitableness of it their Zeal or Prejudice rather will not suffer them to consider With what out-cries was Bp. Hall good man who little dream't of any peace with Rome pursued by Burton and other Hot spurs for yielding it a Church Who had made the same concession over and over again before he was Bishop as Iunius Reynolds and our best Controversy-Writers generally do and no notice taken no noise made of it You may perceive by this one instance where the shoe wringeth § XIX In their next that they may not appear so uncharitable as to suspect their Brethren without cause they tell us upon what ground they so do viz. these two the Endeavours of Reconciliation in the Sixth and the pressing of Ceremonies in the Seventh Objection As to the former First All endeavours of Peace without loss of Truth are certainly commendable in the undertakers prove the event as it will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12. is every mans warrant for that If any particular private man have made overtures of peace in this kinde upon other termes then he ought let him answer it as he can what is that to us Admit Secondly which I fear is too true that there is little hope scarce a possibility of reconcilement if we well preserve as we are are in conscience bound the truth and purity of our religion yet ought not that fear to hinder any man fitted with abilities and opportunities for it from such Endeavours whereof whatsoever the success be otherwise these a good effects will follow 1. It will be some comfort to him within his own bosome that he hath done what was his duty to do to his utmost power And it will appear to the world where the business stuck and through whose default most the Endeavour proved â—ruitless Thirdly though there be little hope and since the Trent Councel less then before of bringing things to a perfect agreement yet methinks it should be thought worth the while Est quodum prodire tenus si non datur ultra to bring both sides to as near an agreement and reduce the
such is every sinne Another reason is grounded upon that Principle Bonum ex caâ—sa integra Malum ex partiali Any partiall or particular defect in Object End Manner or other Circumstance is enough to make the whole action bad but to make it good there must be an universall concurrence of all requisite conditions in every of these respects As a disfigured eye or nose or lippe maketh the face deformed but to make it comely there is required the due proportion of every part And any one short Clause or Proviso not legall is sufficient to abate the whole writ or instrument though in every other part absolute and without exception The Intention then be it granted never so good is unsufficient to warrant an Action good so long as it faileth either in the object or manner or any requisite circumstance whatsoever Saul pretended a good end in sparing the fat things of Amalek that he might therewith do sacrifice to the Lord but God rejected both it and him 1 Sam. 15. We can think no other but that Vzzah intended the safety of Gods ark when it tottered in the cart and he stretched out his hand to stay it from falling but God interpreted it a presumption and punished it 2 Sam. 6. Doubtlesse Peter meant no hurt to Christ but rather good when he took him aside and advised him to be good to himself and to keep him out of danger yet Christ rebuked him for it and set him packing in the Divels name Get thee behind me Satan Matth. 16. But what will we say and let that stand for a third reason if our pretended good intention prove indeed no good intention And certainly be it as fair and glorious as we could be content to imagine it such it will prove to be if it set us upon any sinfull or unwarranted meanes indeed no good intention but a bad For granted it must be that the Intention of any end doth virtually include the meanes as in a Syllogisme the Premises do the Conclusion No more then can the choice of ill means proceed from a good intention then can a false Conclusion be inferred from true Premises and that is impossible From which ground it is that the Fathers and other Divines do oftentimes argue from the intention to the action and from the goodnesse of the one to the goodnesse of both to that purpose applying those speeches of our Saviour in the twelfth and in the sixth of Matthew Either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt And if thine eye be single the whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darknesse The light of the body is the eye and of the work the intention No marvell when the eye is evil if the whole body be dark and when the intention is evil if the whole work be naught That which deceiveth most men in judging of good or bad intentions is that they take the end and the intention for one and the same thing betwixt which two there is a spacious difference For the end is the thing propter quid for which we work that whereat we aime in working and so hath rationem causae finalis but the intention is the cause à qua from which we work that which setteth us on working and so hath rationem causae efficientis Now between these two kinds of causes the finall and the efficient there is not onely a great difference but even a repugnancy in such sort as that it is impossible they should at any time coincidere which some other kindes of causes may do It is therefore an error to think that if the end be good the intention of that end must needs be good for there may as well be a bad intention of a good end as a bad desire of a good object Whatsoever the end be we intend it is certain that intention cannot be good which putteth us upon the choice of evil meanes Methinkes the Church of Rome should blush if her forehead died red with the blood of GODS Saints were capable of any tincture of of shame at the discovery of her manifold impostures in counterfeiting of Reliques in coyning of Miracles in compiling of Legends in gelding of good Authors by expurgatory Indexes in juggling with Magistrates by lewd Equivocations c. Practises warrantable by no pretense Yet in their account but piae fraudes for so they terme them no lesse ridiculously than fasly for the one word contradicteth the other But what do I speak of these but petty things in comparison of those her lowder impieties breaking covenants of truce and peace dissolving of lawfull and dispensing for unlawfull marriages assoyling Subjects from their Oaths and Allegiance plotting Treasons and practising Rebellions excommunicating and dethroning Kings arbitrary disposing of Kingdomes stabbing and murthering of Princes warranting unjust invasions and blowing up Parliament-houses For all which and divers other foul attempts their Catholick defence is the advancement forsooth of the Catholick Cause Like his in the Poet Quocunque modo rem is their Resolution by right or wrong the State of the Papacy must be upheld That is their unum necessarium and if heaven favour not rather than faile help must be had from hell to keep Antichrist in his throne But to let them passe and touch neerer home There are God knoweth many Ignorants abroad in the world some of them so unreasonable as to think they have sufficiently non-plus't any reprover if being admonished of something ill done they have but returned this poore reply Is it not better to doe so than to doe worse But alas what necessity of doing either so or worse when Gods law bindeth thee from both He that said Doe not commit adultery said also Doe not kill and he that said Doe not steale said also Doe not lye If then thou lye or kill or doe any other sinne though thou thinkest thereby to avoâ—d stealth or adultery or some other sinne yet thou art become a transgressour of the Law and by offending in one point of it guilty of all It is but a poore choyce when a man is desperately resolved to cast himself away whether he should rather hang or drown or stab or pine himself to death there may be more horror more paine more lingring in one than another but they all come to one period and determine in the same point death is the issue of them all And it can be but a slender comfort for a man that will needs thrust himself into the mouth of hell by sinning wilfully that he is damned rather for lying than for stealing or whoring or killing or some greater crime Damnation is the wages of them all Murther can but hang a man and without favour Petty Larceny will hang a man too The greatest sinnes can but damne a man and
things no superiour power having determined his liberty therein then although he may not do any of these things by reason of the contrary perswasion of his conscience without sin yet he may without sin leave them undone As for example Say a man should hold it utterly unlawfull as some erroneously do to play at cards or dice or to lay a wager or to cast lots in triviall matters if it be in truth lawfull to do every of these things as I make no question but it is so they be done with sobriety and with due circumstances yet he that is otherwise perswaded of them cannot by reason of that perswasion do any of them without sin Yet forsomuch as they are things no way necessary but indifferent both in their nature and for their use also no superiour power having enjoyned any man to use them therefore he that judgeth them unlawfull may abstain from them without sinne and so indeed he is in conscience bound to do so long as he continueth to be of that opinion But now on the other side if the things so mis-judged to be unlawfull be any way necessary either in respect of their own nature or by the injunction of authority then the person is by that his error brought into such a straite between two sinnes as he can by no possible meanes avoid both so long as he persisteth in that his errour For both if he do the thing he goeth against the perswasion of his conscience and that is a great sinne and if he do it not either he omitteth a necessary duty or else disobeyeth lawfull authority and to do either of both is a sinne too Out of which snare since there is no way of escape but one which is to rectifie his judgement and to quit his pernicious errour it concerneth every man therefore that unfeignedly desireth to do his duty in the fear of God and to keep a good conscience not to be too stiffe in his present apprehensions but to examine well the principles and grounds of his opinions strongly suspecting that winde that driveth him upon such rocks to be but a blast of his own fancy rather than a breathing of the holy Spirit of truth Once this is most certain that whosoever shall adventure to do any thing repugnant to the judgement of his own conscience be that judgement true or be it false shall commit a grievous sin in so doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it cannot be of faith and whatsoever is not of faith is sin That is now where the conscience apparently inclineth the one way But say the scales hang even so as a man cannot well resolve whether way he should rather take Now he is in one mind by and by in another but constant in neither right Saint Iames his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a double minded man This is it we call a doubting conscience concerning which the second question is what a man ought to do in case of doubtfulnesse Perfect directions here as in most deliberatives would require a large discourse because there are so many considerable circumstances that may vary the case especially in respect of the cause from which that doubtfulnesse of mind may spring Many times it ariseth from meere ficklenesse of mind or weaknesse of judgement as the lightest things are soonest driven out of their place by the wind Even as St. Iames saith a double minded man is wavering in all his wayes and S. Paul speaketh of some that were like children off and on soon wherryed about with every blast of doctrine Sometimes it proceedeth from tendernesse of Conscience which is indeed a very blessed and gracious thing but yet as tender things may soon miscarry if they be not the more choisely handled very obnoxious through Sathans diligence and subtilty to be wrought upon to dangerous inconveniencies Sometimes it may proceed from the probability of those reasons that seem to stand on either side betwixt which it is not easie to judge which are strongest or from the differing judgements and opinions of learned and godly men thereabout and from many other causes But for some generall resolution of the Question what is to be done where the conscience is doubtfull I answer First that if the doubtfulnesse be not concerning the lawfulnesse of any of the things to be done considered simply and in themselves but of the expediency of them as they are compared one with another as when of two things proposed at once whereof one must and but one can be done I am sufficiently perswaded of the lawfulnesse of either but am doubtfull whether of the two rather to pitch upon in such a case the party ought first to weigh the conveniencies and inconveniencies of both as well and advisedly as he can by himself alone and to do that which then shall appeare to him to be subject to the fewer and lesser inconveniencies Or if the reasons seem so equally strong on both sides that he cannot of himselfe deside the doubt then secondly if the matter be of weight and worth the while he should doe well to make his doubts known to some prudent and pious man especially to his own spirituall Pastor if he be a man meetly qualified for it resolving to rest upon his judgement and to follow his direction Or if the matter be of small moment he may then thirdly do whether of both he hath best liking to as the Apostle saith in one particular case and it may be applied to many more Let him do what he will he sinneth not resting his conscience upon this perswasion that so long as he is unfeignedly desirous to do for the best and hath not been negligent to use all requisite diligence to inform himself aright God will accept of his good intention therein and pardon his errour if he shall be mistaken in his choice But secondly if the question be concerning the very lawfulnsse of the thing it self whether it may be lawfully done or no and the conscience stand in doubt because reasons seem to be probable both pro and contra there are learned men as wel of the one opinion as of the other c. as we see it is for instance in the question of Usury and of second marriage after divorce and in sundry other doubtfull cases in morall divinity in such a case the person if he be sui juris is certainly bound to forbear the doing of that thing of the lawfulnesse whereof he so doubteth and if he forbear it not he sinneth It is the very point the Apostle in this verse intendeth to teach and for the confirming whereof he voucheth this Rule of the Text He that doubteth saith he is damned if he eat he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned of his own conscience because he doth that willingly whereof he doubteth when he hath free liberty to let it alone no necessity urging him thereunto And the reason why he ought rather to
cast by But by that all these be discarded and thrown out of the bunch possibly the whole lump will be neer spent and there will be little or no choyce left Indeed if we should look for absolute perfection there would be absolutely no choyce at all There is none that doth good no not one We must not be so dainty in our choyce then as to find one in every respect such as hath been charactred We live not in Republica Platonis but in faece seculi and it is well if we can find one in some good mediocrity so qualified Amid the common corruptions of mankind he is to be accounted a tolerably good man that is not intolerably bad and among so many infirmities and defects as I have now reckoned we may well voyce him for a Magistrate not that is free from them all but that hath the fewest and least And we make a happy choyce if from among those we have to chuse of we take such a one as is likely to prove in some reasonable mediocrity zealous of justice sensible of the wrongs of poor men carefull to search out the truth of causes and resolute to execute what he knoweth is just That for Direction I am next to infer from the four duties in my Text a just reproof withall a complaint of the common iniquity of these times wherein men in the Magistracy and in offices of Iustice are generally so faulty and delinquent in some or all of these duties And first as for zeal to justice alas that there were not too much cause to complain It is grief to speak it and yet we all see it and know it there is grown among us of this Land within the space of not many years a generall and sensible declination in our zeal both to Religion and Iustice the two main pillars and supporters of Church and State And it seemeth to be with us in these regards as with decaying Merchants almost become desperate who when Creditors call fast upon them being hopelesse of paying all grow carelesse of all and pay none so abuses and disorders encrease so fast among us that hopeless to reform all our Magistrates begin to neglect all and in a manner reform nothing How few are there of them that sit in the seat of justice whose consciences can prompt them a comfortable answer to that Question of David Psal. 58. Are your minds set upon righteousnesse O ye congregation Rather are they not almost all of Gallio's temper Act. 18. who though there were a foul outrage committed even under his nose and in the sight of the Bench yet the Text saith he cared for none of those things as if they had their names given them by an Antiphrasis like Diogenes his man Manes à manendo because he would be now and then running away so these Iustices à justitia because they neither do nor care to do Iustice. Peradventure here and there one or two in a whole side of a Countrey to be found that make a conscience of their duty more then the rest and are forward to do the best good they can Gods blessing rest upon their heads for it But what cometh of it The rest glad of their forwardnesse make onely this use of it to themselves even to slip their own necks out of the yoke and leave all the burden upon them and so at length even tire out them too by making common packhorses of them A little it may be is done by the rest for fashion but to little purpose sometimes more to shew their Iusticeship then to do justice and a little more it may be is wrung from them by importunity as the poor widow in the parable by her clamorousnesse wrung a piece of justice with much ado from the Iudge that neither feared God nor regarded man Alas Beloved if all were right within if there were generally that zeal that should be in Magistrates good Laws would not thus languish as they do for want of execution there would not be that insolency of Popish Recusants that license of Rogues and wanderers that prouling of Officers that enhaunsing of fees that delay of suits that countenancing of abuses those carkases of depopulated towns infinite other mischiefs which are the sins shall I say or the plagues it is hard to say whether more they are indeed both the sins and the plagues of this land And as for Compassion to the distressed is there not now just cause if ever to complain If in these hard times wherein nothing aboundeth but poverty and sin when the greater ones of the earth should most of all enlarge their bowels and reach out the hand to relieve the extreme necessity of thousands that are ready to starve if I say in these times great men yea and men of justice are as throng as ever in pulling down houses and setting up hedges in unpeopling towns and creating beggars in racking the backs and grinding the faces of the poor how dwelleth the love of GOD how dwelleth the spirit of compassion in these men Are these eyes to the blind feet to the lame and fathers to the poor as Iob was I know your hearts cannot but rise in detestation of these things at the very mentioning of them But what would you say if as it was said to Ezekiel so I should bid you turn again and behold yet greater and yet greater abominations of the lamentable oppressions of the poor by them and their instruments who stand bound in all conscience and in regard of their places to protect them from the injuries and oppressions of others But I forbear to do that and chuse rather out of one passage in the Prophet Amos to give you some short intimation both of the faults and of the reason of my forbearance It is in Amos 5. v. 12 13. I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins they afflict the just they take a bribe and they turne aside the poor in the gate from their right Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time for it is an evil time And as for searching out the truth in mens causes which is the third Duty First those Sycophants deserve a rebuke who by false accusations and cunningly devised tales 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of purpose involve the truth of things to set a faire colour upon a bad matter or to take away the righteousnesse of the innocent from him And yet how many are there such as these in most of our Courts of justice Informing and promoting and pettifogging make-bates Now it were a lamentable thing if these men should be known and yet suffered but what if countenanced and encouraged and underhand maintained by the Magistrates of those Courts of purpose to bring Moulter to their own Mills Secondly since Magistrates must be content for they are but men and cannot be every where at once in many things to see with other mens eyes and
money and Balaam spare his paines there is no need of hiring or being hired to curse Whoremongers and Idolaters These are two plaguy sinnes and such as will bring a curse upon a people without the help of a Conjurer When that God who is a jealous God and jealous of nothing more then his honour shall see that people whom he had made choyce of from among all the nations of the earth to be his own peculiar people and betrothed to himself by an everlasting Covenant to break the Covenant of Wedlock with him and to strumpet it with the daughters and Idols of Moab what can be expected other then that his jealousie should be turned into fury and that his fierce wrath should break in upon them as a deluge and overwhelme them with a sudden destruction His patience so far tempted and with such an unworthy provocation can suffer no longer But at his command Moses striketh the Rulers and at Moses his command the under-rulers must strike each in their severall regiments those that had offended and he himself also striketh with his own hand by a plague destroying of them in one day three and twenty thousand If that Plague had lasted many dayes Israel had not lasted many dayes But the people by their plague made sensible of their sinne humbled themselves as it should seem the very first day of the plague in a solemn and generall assembly weeping and mourning both for Sinne and Plague Before the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation And they were now in the heat of their holy sorrow and devotions when loe Zimri a Prince of a chiefe house in one of their Tribes in the heat of his Pride and lust cometh openly in the face of Moses and all the Congregation and bringeth his Minion with him Cosbi the daughter of one of the five Kings of Midian into his Tent there to commit filthinesse with her Doubtlesse Moses the Captain and Eleazar the Priest all Israel that saw this shamelesse prank of that lewd couple saw it with grief enough But Phinehes enraged with a Pious indignation to see such foul affront given to God and the Magistrate and the Congregation at such a heavy time and in such open manner and for that very sinne for which they then lay under Gods hand thought there was something more to be done then bare weeping and therefore his blood warmed with an holy zeale he starteth up forthwith maketh to the Tent where these two great personages were and as they were in the act of their filthinesse speedeth them both at once and nayleth them to the place with his Javeline And the next thing we heare is God well pleased with the zeal of his servant and the execution of those malefactors is appeased toward his people and withdraweth his hand and his plague from them And of that deliverance my Text speaketh Then stood up Phinehes and executed judgement and so the Plague was stayed The Person the instrument to work this deliverance for Israel was Phinehes He was the sonne of Eleazar who was then High Priest in immediate succession to his father Aaron not long before deceased and did himselfe afterward succeed in the High-priesthood unto Eleazar his Father A wise a godly and a zealous man employed afterwards by the State of Israel in the greatest affaires both of War and Ambassie But it was this Heroicall act of his in doing execution upon those two great audacious offenders which got him the first and the greatest and the lastingst renowne Of which Act more anon when we come to it In his Person we will consider onely what his calling and condition was and what congruity there might be between what he was and what he did He was of the Tribe of Levi and that whole Tribe was set apart for the service of the Tabernacle And he was of the sonnes of Aaron so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Family and Linage of the High Priests and the Priests office was to offer sacrifices and to burn incense and to pray and make atonement for the People Neither Levite nor Priest had to intermeddle with matters of Iudicature unlesse in some few causes and those for the most part concerning matters either meerly or mixtly Ecclesiasticall but neither to give sentence nor to do execution in matters and causes meerly Civil as by any right or vertue of his Leviticall or Priestly office The more unreasonable is the High Priest of Rome to challenge to himself any temporall or Civil jurisdiction as virtually annexed to his spirituall Power or necessarily derived thence Templum and Praetorium the Chaire and the Throne the Altar and the Bench the Sheephook and the Scepter the Keyes and the Sword though they may sometimes concurre upon the same person yet the Powers remaine perpetually distinct and independant and such as do not of necessity inferre the one the other Our Saviours Vos autem non sic hath fully decided the Controversie and for ever cut off all claime of temporall jurisdiction as by any vertue annexed to the Keyes If the Bishops of Rome could have contented themselves to have enjoyed those Temporalties wherewith the bounty of Christian Emperours had endowed that Sea whether well or ill whether too much or no I now inquire not but if they could have been content to have holden them upon the same termes they first had them without seeking to change the old tenure and to have acknowledged them as many of their fellow-Bishops do to have issued not at all by necessary derivation from their spirituall Power but meerly and altogether from the free and voluntary indult of temporall Princes the Christian Church had not had so just cause of complaint against the unsufferable tyrannies and usurpations of the Papacy nor had the Christian world been embroyled in so many unchristian and bloudy quarrels as these and former ages have brought forth Yet the Canonists and they of the Congregation of the Oratory like down-right flatterers give the Pope the Temporall Monarchy of the world absolutely and directly as adhering inseparably to his Sea and as a branch of that Charter which Christ gave to Peter when he made him Head of the Church for himself and his successors for ever The Iesuites more subtle than they not daring to deny the Pope any part of that Power which any other profession of men have dared to give him and yet unable to assert such a vast power from those inconveniencies which follow upon the Canonists opinion have found out a meanes to put into the Popes hands the exercise of as much temporall power as they bluntly and grossely give him and that to all effects and purposes as full and in as ample manner as they yet by a more learned and refined flattery as resulting from his spirituall Power not
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
if we should but observe the conditions of some families in a long line of succession might we not espie here and there even whole generations of Drunkards generations of Swearers and generations of Idolaters and generations of Worldlings and generations of seditious and of envious and of riotous and of haughty and of unclean persons and of sinners in other kinds This ungodly King Ahab see how all that come of him taste of him and have some spice and relish of his evil manners Of his son Ahaziah that next succeeded him in the kingdom of Israel the Text saith in the next Chapter that He walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother And another Ahaziah king of Iudah the grand-child of Iehosaphat by the fathers side and of Ahab by the mothers drew infection from the mother and so trod in the steps rather of this his wicked Grandfather Ahab than of his good Grandfather Iehosaphat and of him therefore the Scripture saith remarkably in 4 Kings 8. He walked in the way of the House of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the Lord as did the House of Ahab for he was the Son-in-law of the House of Ahab Little doth any man think what hurt he may doe unto and what plague he may bring upon his posterity by joyning himself or them in too strict a bond of nearnesse with an ill or an Idolatrous House or Stock Here we see is Ahab's house taxed and not his person onely even the whole family and brood and kinn of them branch and root And that Iehoram also who is the son here spoken of and meant in my Text did Patrisare too as well as the rest of the kinred and take after the father though not in that height of impiety and idolatry as his father is plain from the sequel of the Story And so doing and partaking of the Evils of sinne with his father why might not he also in justice partake of the Evils of punishment with his father Secondly the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children sometimes as possessours of something which their fathers left them with Gods curse cleaving unto it As in the Law not onely he that had an issue of uncleannesse made them unclean that touched him but even the saddle or stool he sate upon the cloathes he wore the bed whereon he lay any vessel of earth or of wood that he did but touch was enough to bring legal pollution and uncleanness upon any other person that should but touch them So not only our fathers sins if we touch them by imitation but even their lands and goods and houses and other things that were theirs are sufficient to derive Gods curse upon us if we do but hold them in possession What is gotten by any evil and unjust and unwarrantable means is in Gods sight and estimation no better than stollen Now stollen goods we know though they have passed through never so many hands before that man is answerable for in whose hands they are found and in whose custody and possession they are God hateth not sinne only but the very monuments of sinne too and his curse fasteneth not only upon the agent but upon the brute and dead materials too And where theft or oppression or perjury or sacrilege have laid the foundation and reared the house there the Curse of God creepeth in between the walls and seelings and lurketh close within the stones and the timber and as a fretting moath or canker insensibly gnaweth asunder the pinns and the joynts of the building till it have unframed it and resolved it into a ruinous heap for which mischief there is no remedy no preservation from it but one and that is free and speedy Restitution For any thing we know what Ahab the father got without justice Iehoram the son held without scruple We doe not finde that ever he made restitution of Naboths vineyard to the right heir and it is like enough he did not and then between him and his father there was but this difference the father was the thief and he the receiver which two the Law severeth not either in guilt or punishment but wrappeth them equally in the same guilt and in the same punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And who knoweth whether the very holding of that vineyard might not bring upon him the curse of his fathers oppression it is plain that vineyard was the place where the heaviest part of that curse overtook him But that which is the upshot of all and untieth all the knots both of this and of all other doubts that can be made against Gods justice in punishing one for another ariseth from a third consideration which is this That the children are punished for the fathers sins or indefinitely any one man for the sins of any other man it ought to be imputed to those sins of the fathers or others not as to the causes properly deserving them but only as occasioning those punishments It pleaseth God to take occasion from the sinnes of the fathers or of some others to bring upon their children or those that otherwise belong unto them in some kind of relation those evils which by their own corruptions and sins they have justly deserved This distinction of the Cause and Occasion if well heeded both fully acquitteth Gods justice and abundantly reconcileth the seeming Contradictions of Scripture in this Argument and therefore it will be worth the while a little to open it There is a kind of Cause de numero efficientium which the learned for distinctions sake call the Impulsive Cause and it is such a cause as moveth and induceth the principal Agent to do that which it doth For example A Schoolmaster correcteth a boy with a rod for neglecting his book Of this correction here are three distinct causes all in the rank of efficients viz. the Master the Rod and the boys neglect but each hath its proper causality in a different kind and manner from other The Master is the Cause as the principal Agent that doth it the Rod is the Cause as the Instrument wherewith he doth it and the boys neglect the impulsive cause for which he doth it Semblably in this judgement which befell Iehoram the principal efficient cause and Agent was God as he is in all other punishments and judgements Shall there be evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it Amos 3. and here he taketh it to himself I will bring the evil upon his house The Instrumental Cause under God was Iehu whom God raised up and endued with zeal and power for the execution of that vengeance which he had detetmined against Ahab and against his house as appeareth in 4 Kings 9. and 10. But now what the true proper impulsive cause should be for which he was so punished and which moved God at that time and in that sort to punish
him that is the point wherein consisteth the chiefest difficulty in this matter and into which therefore we are now to enquire viz. whether that were rather his own sin or his father Ahabs sin Whether we answer for this or for that we say but the truth in both for both sayings are true God punished him for his own and God punished him for his Fathers sin The difference only this His own sins were the impulsive cause that deserved the punishment his fathers sin the impulsive cause that occasioned it and so indeed upon the point and respectively to the justice of God rather his own sins were the cause of it than his fathers both because justice doth especially look at the desert and also because that which deserveth a punishment is more effectually and primarily and properly the impulsive cause of punishing than that which only occasioneth it The terms whereby Artists expresse these two different kinds of impulsive causes borrowed from Galen and the Physicians of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would be excellent and full of satisfaction if they were of easie understanding But for that they are not so especially to such as are not acquainted with the terms and learning of the Schools I forbear to use them and rather than to take the shortest cut over hedge and ditch chuse to lead you an easier and plainer way though it 's something about and that by a familiar example A man hath lived for some good space in reasonable state of health yet by grosse feeding and through continuance of time his body the whilst hath contracted many vitious noisome and malignant humours It happeneth he had occasion to ride abroad in bad weather taketh wet on his feet or neck getteth cold with it commeth home findeth himself not well falleth a shaking first and anon after into a dangerous and lasting fever Here is a fever and here are two different causes of it an antecedent cause within the abundance of noisom and crude humours that is causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the evident cause ah extra his riding in the wet and taking cold upon it and that is Galens causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us go on a little and compare these causes The Physician is sent for the sick mans friends they stand about him and in commeth the Physician among them and enquireth of him and them how he got his fever They presently give him such information as they can and the information is both true and sufficient so far as it reacheth they tell him the one cause the occasional cause the outward evident cause Alas Sir he rode such a journey such a time got wet on his feet and took cold upon it and that hath brought him to all this That is all they are able to say to it for other cause they know none But by and by after some surview of the state of the body he is able to inform them in the other cause the inward and original cause whereof they were as ignorant before as he was of that other outward one and he telleth them the cause of the malady is superfluity of crude and noysom humours ranknesse of bloud abundance of melancholy tough flegm or some other like thing within Now if it be demanded which of these two is rather the cause of his sickness The truth is that inward antecedent cause within is the very cause thereof although perhaps it had not bred a fever at that time if that other outward occasion had not been For by that inward hidden cause the body was prepared for an ague only there wanted some outward fit accident to stir and provoke the humours within and to set them on working And the parties body being so prepared might have fallen into the same sickness by some other accident as well as that as over heating himself with exercise immoderate watching some distemper or surfeit in diet or the like But neither that nor any of these nor any other such accident could have cast him into such a fit if the humours had not been ripe and the body thereby prepared to entertain such a disease So as the bad humours within may rather be said to be the true cause and that cold-taking but the occasion of the Ague the disease it self issuing from the hidden cause within and the outward accident being the cause not so much of the disease it self why the Ague should take him as why it should take him at that time rather than at another and hold him in that part or in that manner rather than in another From this example we may see in some proportion how our own sins and other mens concurr as joynt impulsive causes of those punishments which God bringeth upon us Our own sinnes they are the true hidden antecedent causes which deserve the punishments our Fathers sins or our governours sins or our neighbours sins or whatsoever other mans sins that are visited upon us are only the outward evident causes or rather occasions why we should be punished at this time and in this thing and in this manner and in this measure and with these circumstances And as in the former Example the Patients friends considered one cause and the Physician another they the evident and outward he the inward and antecedent cause so respectively to God's Iustice our own sins only are the causes of our punishments but in respect of his Providence and Wisdom our Fathers sins also or other mens For Iustice looketh upon the desert only and so the punishments are ever and only from our own personal sins as we learned from our third Certainty but it is Providence that ordereth the occasions and the seasons and the other circumstances of Gods punishments Hence may we learn to reconcile those places of Scipture which seem to Cross one another in this Argument In Ezekiel and Ieremy it is said that Every man shall be punished for his own sinnes and that the Children shall not bear the iniquity of the Fathers and yet the same Ieremy complaineth as if it were otherwise Lam. 5. Our fathers have sinned are not and we have born their iniquities Yea God himself proclameth otherwise I am a jealous God visiting the sins of the Fathers upon the Children Nor only doth he visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children but he visiteth also the sins of Princes upon their Subjects as Davids people were wasted for his sin in numbring them yea and he visiteth sometimes the sins even of ordinary private men upon publick societies Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespasse in the accursed thing and wrath fell upon all the Congregation of Israel and that man perished not alone in his iniquity Now how can all this stand together Yes very well even as well as in the act of punishing Gods Iustice and his Wisedome can stand together Mark then wheresoever the
posterity together with thy estate the wrath and vengeance and curse of God which is one of those appurtenances Haddest thou not a faithfull Counsellor within thine own brest if thou wouldest but have conferred and advised with him plainly and undissemblingly that could have told thee thou hadst by thy oppression and injustice ipso facto cut off the entail from thy issue even long before thou haddest made it But if thou wouldest leave thy posterity a firm and secure and durable estate doe this rather Purchase for them by thy charitable works the prayers and blessings of the poor settle upon them the fruits of a religious sober and honest education bequeath them the legacie of thy good example in all vertuous and godly living and that portion thou leavest them besides of earthly things be it much or little be sure it be well gotten otherwise never look it should prosper with them A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and sowreth it and a little iâ—l gotten like a gangrene spreadeth through the whole estate and worse than aqua fortis or the poysoned shirt that Deianira gave Hercules cleaveth unto it and feedeth upon it and by little and little gnaweth and fretteth and consumeth it to nothing And surely Gods Iustice hath wonderfully manifested it self unto the world in this kinde sometimes even to the publike astonishment and admiration of all men that men of antient Families and great estates well left by their Ancestors and free from debts legacies or other encombrances not notedly guilty of any expencefull sinne or vanity but wary and husbandly and carefull to thrive in the world not kept under with any great burden of needy friends or charge of children not much hindred by any extraordinary losses or casualties of fire theeves suretiship or sutes that such men I say should yet sink and decay and runne behind hand in the world and their estates crumble and milder away and come to nothing and no man knoweth how No question but they have sinnes enough of their own to deserve all this and ten times more than all this but yet withall who knoweth but that it might nay who knoweth not that sometimes it doth so legible now and then are Gods judgements come upon them for the greediness and avarice and oppression and sacrilege and injustice of their not long foregoing Ancestors You that are parents take heed of these sinnes It may be for some other reasons known best to himself God suffereth you to goe on your own time and suspendeth the judgements your sins have deserved for a space as here he did Ahab's upon his humiliation but be assured sooner or later vengeance will overtake you or yours for it You have Coveted an evil covetousness to your house and there hangeth a judgement over your house for it as rain in the clouds which perhaps in your sons perhaps in your grand-childs daies some time or other will come dashing down upon it and over-whelm it Think not the vision is for many descents to come de male quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres seldom doth the third scarce ever the fourth generation passe before God visit the sinnes of the Fathers upon the Children if he doe not in the very next generation In his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Secondly if not onely our own but our fathers sinnes too may be shall be visited upon us how concerneth it us as to repent for our own so to lament also the sins of our forefathers and in our confessions and supplications to God sometimes to remember them that he may forget them and to set them before his face that he may cast them behind his back We have a good president for it in our publike Letany Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers A good and a profitable and a needfull prayer it is and those men have not done well nor justly that have cavilled at it O that men would be wise according to sobriety and allow but just interpretations to things advisedly established rather than busie themselves nodum in scirpo to pick needlesse quarrels where they should not What unity would it bring to brethren what peace to the Church what joy to all good and wise men As to this particular God requireth of the Israelites in Lev. 26. that they should confesse their iniquity and the iniquity of their Fathers David did so and Ieremy did so and Daniel did so in Psal. 106. in Ierem. 3. in Dan. 9. And if David hought it a fit curse to pronounce against Iudas and such as he was in Psal. 109. Let the wickednesse of his fathers be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord and let not the sinne of his mother be done away why may we not nay how ought we not to pray for the removal of this very curse from us as well as of any other curses The present age is rise of many enormous crying sinnes which call loud for a judgement upon the land and if God should bring upon us a right heavy one whereat all ears should tingle could we say other but that it were most just even for the sinnes of this present generation But if unto our own so many so great God should also adde the sinnes of our forefathers the bloudshed and tyranny and grievous unnatural butcheries in the long times of the Civil warrs and the universal idolatries and superstitions covering the whole land in the longer and darker times of Popery and if as he sometimes threatned to bring upon the Iews of that one generation all the righteous bloud that ever was shed upon the earth from the bloud of the righteous Abel unto the bloud of Zacharias the sonne of Barachias so he should bring the sinnes of our Ancestors for many generations past upon this generation of ours who could be able to abide it Now when the security of the times give us but too much cause to fear it and the regions begin to look white towards the harvest is it not time for us with all humiliation of Soul and Body to cast down our selves and with all contention of voice and spirit to lift up our prayers and to say Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers neither take thou vengeance of our sinnes Spare us good Lord spare the people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious bloud and be not angry with us for ever Spare us good Lord. Thirdly Since not only our fathers sinnes and our own but our Neighbours sinnes too aliquid malum propter vicinum malum but especially the sinnes of Princes and Governours delirant reges plectuntur Achivi may bring judgements upon us and enwrap us in their punishments it should reach every one of us to seek his own private in the common and publike good and to endeavour if but for our own security from
holy Eucharist And we in our ordinary manner of speech call as well the Blessing before meat as the Thanksgiving after by the common name of Grace or saying of Grace Both these then together Grace before meat and Grace after meat a Sacrifice of Prayer before we use any of the good Creatures of God and a Sacrifice of Praise after we have used them the Blessing wherewith we blesse the Creature in the Name of God and the Blessing wherewith we blesse the Name of God for the Creature both these I say together is the just extent of that Thanksgiving whereof my Text speaketh and we are now to entreat Concerning Meats and Drinks unto which our Apostle hath special reference in this whole passage this duty of Thanksgiving hath been ever held so congruous to the partaking thereof that long and ancient custome hath established it in the common practice of Christians not only with inward thankfulnesse of heart to recount and acknowledge Gods goodnesse to them therein but also outwardly to expresse the same in a vocal solemn form of Blessing or Thanksgiving that which we call Grace or saying of Grace Which very phrases whether or no they have ground as to me it seemeth they have from those words of our Apostle 1 Cor. 10. For if I by Grace be a partaker why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks I say howsoever it be with the phrase sure we are the thing it self hath sufficient ground from the examples of Christ and of his holy Apostles From whom the custome of giving Thanks at meals seemeth to have been derived throughout all succeeding ages even to us Of Christ himself we read often and in every of the Evangelists that he blessed and gave thanks in the name of himself and the people before meat in the 14. and 15. of Matthew in 6. and 8. of Mark in 9. of Luke and in 6. of Iohn And in Matthew 26. that after meat also when Supper was ended he and his Disciples sang an hymne before they departed the room And S. Luke relateth of S. Paul Acts 27. when he and his company in the ship who were well toward 300 persons were to refresh themselves with food after a long fast that he took bread and first Gave thanks to God in the presence of them all and then after brake it and began to eat yea S. Paul himself so speaketh of it Rom. 14. as of the known practice of the Church among Christians of all sorts Weak and Strong He that was strong in the faith and knew the liberty he had in Christ to eat indifferently of all kinds of meats flesh as well as herbs did eat of all indifferently and gave God thanks for all The weak Christian too who made scruple of some kinds of flesh or other meats and contented himself with herbs and such like things yet gave God thanks for his herbs and for whatsoever else he durst eat He that eateth eateth to the Lord saith he there at verse 6. for he giveth God thanks and he that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not and giveth God thanks too Notwithstanding they differed in their judgements and opinions and consequently in their practice concerning the lawfull or unlawfull use of some meats yet they consented most sweetly and agreed both in their judgement and practice in the performance of this religious service of Thanksgiving So then giving of Thanks for our meats and drinks before and after meales in an outward and audible form is an ancient a commendable an Apostolical a Christian practice ordinarily requisite as an outward testimony of the inward thankfulnesse of the heart and therefore not to be omitted ordinarily neither but in some few cases There being the like necessity of this duty in regard of inward thankfulnesse as there is of vocal prayer in regard of inward Devotion and of outward Confession in regard of inward belief and look what exceptions those other outward duties may admit the very same mutandis mutatis and in their proportion are to be admitted here But not only meats and drinks but every other good Creature also of God whereof we may have use ought to be received with a due measure of thankfulnesse And if in these things also so often as in good discretion it may seem expedient for the advancing of Gods glory the benefiting of his Church or the quickning of our own Devotion we shall make some outward and sensible expression of the thankfulnesse of our hearts for them we shall therein do an acceptable service unto God and comfortable to our own souls For for this cause God instituted of old among his own people divers solemn feasts and sacrifices together with the Sanctifying of the first fruits and of the first born and divers other ordinances of that nature as on the other side to be fit remembrancers unto them of their duty of thankfulnesse so to be as well good testimonies and fit expressions of their performance of that duty But if not alwayes the outward manifestation thereof yet God ever expecteth at least the true and inward thankfulnesse of the heart for the use of his good creatures Whatsoever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Iesus giving thanks unto God and the Father by him Col. 3. Be carefull for notbing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God Phil. 4. Blesse the Lord O my soul saith David in Psal. 103. and all that is within me praise his holy name Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Forget not all his benefits as much as to say by an ordinary Hebraism forget not any of all his benefits He summoneth all that is in him to blesse God for all he hath from him he thought it was necessary for him not to receive any of the good Creatures of God without Thanksgiving Which necessity of Thanksgiving will yet more appear if we consider it either as an act of Iustice or as an act of Religion as it is indeed and truly both It is first an Act of Iustice. The very law of Nature which containeth the first seeds and principles of Iustice bindeth every man that receiveth a benefit to a thankfull acknowledgement of it first and then withall ability and opportunity supposed to some kind of retribution The best Philosophers therefore make gratitude a branch of the Law of Nature and so account of it as of a thing than which there is not any office of vertue more necessary as nor any thing on the contrary more detestable than Ingratitude You cannot lay a fouler imputation upon a man nor by any accusations in the world render him more odious to the opinions of all men than by charging him with unthankfulnesse Ingratum dicas omnia dixeris do but say
our so great Unthankfulness which taken away the effect will instantly and of it self cease Now those Causes are especially as I conceive these five viz. 1. Pride and Self-love 2. Envy and Discontentment 3. Riotousness and Epicurism 4. Worldly Carefulness and immoderate desires 5. Carnal Security and foreslowing the time Now then besides the application of that which hath already been spoken in the former Discoveries and Motives for every Discovery of a fault doth virtually contain some means for the correcting of it and every true Motive to a duty doth virtually contain some helps unto the practice of it besides these I say I know not how to prescribe any better remedies against unthankfulness or helps unto thankfulness than faithfully to strive for the casting out of those sins and the subduing of those Corruptions in us which cause the one and hinder the other But because the time and my strength are near spent I am content to ease both my self and you by cutting off so much of my provision as concerneth this Inference for Direction and desire you that it may suffice for the present but thus to have pointed at these Impediments and once more to name them They are Pride Envy Epicurisme Carefulnesse Security I place Pride where it would be the formost because it is of all other the principal impediment of Thankfulness Certainly there is no one thing in the World so much as Pride that maketh men unthankfull He that would be truly thankfull must have his eyes upon both the one eye upon the Gift and the other upon the Giver and this the proud man never hath Either through self-love he is stark-blind and seeth neither or else through Partiality he winketh on one eye and will not look at both Sometimes he seeth the Gift but too much and boasteth of it but then he forgetteth the Giver he boasteth as if he had not received it Sometimes again he over-looketh the Gift as not good enough for him and so repineth at the Giver as if he had not given him according to his worth Either he undervalueth the Gift or else he overvalueth himself as if he were himself the Giver or at least the deserver and is in both unthankfull To remove this Impediment who ever desireth to be thankfull let him humble himself nay empty himself nay deny himself and all his deserts confess himself with Iacob less than the least of Gods mercies and condemn his own heart of much sinfull sacrilege if it dare but think the least thought tending to rob God of the least part of his honour Envy followeth Pride the Daughter the Mother a second great impediment of thankfulness The fault is that men not content only to look upon their own things and the present but comparing these with the things of other men or times instead of giving thanks for what they have repine that others have more or better or for what they now have complain that it is not with them as it hath been These thoughts are Enemies to the tranquillity of the mind breeding many discontents and much unthankfullness whilest our eyes are evill because God is good to others or hath been so to us To remove this impediment who ever desireth to be truly thankfull let him look upon his own things and not on the things of other men and therein consider not so much what he wanteth and fain would have as what he hath and could not well want Let him think that what God hath given him came from his free bounty he owed it not and what he hath denied him he with-holdeth it either in his Iustice for his former sins or in his Mercy for his farther good that God giveth to no man all the desire of his heart in these outward things to teach him not to look for absolute contentment in this life least of all in these things If he will needs look upon other mens things let him compare himself rather with them that have lesse than those that have more and therein withall consider not so much what himself wanteth which some others have as what he hath which many others want If a few that enjoy Gods blessings in these outward things in a greater measure than he be an eye-sore to him let those many others that have a scanter portion make him acknowledge that God hath dealt liberally and bountifully with him We should do well to understand that saying of Christ not barely as a Prediction but as a kind of Promise too as I have partly intimated before The poor you shall alwaies have with you and to think that every Beggar that seeketh to us is sent of God to be as well a Glass wherein to represent Gods bounty to us as an Object whereon for us to exercise ours And as for former times let us not so much think how much better we have been as how well we are that we are not so well now impute it to our former unthankfulness and fear unless we be more thankfull for what we have it will be yet and every day worse and worse with us Counsell very needfull for us in these declining times which are not God knoweth and we all know as the times we have seen the leprous humour of Popery secretly stealing in upon us and as a leprosie spreading apace under the skinne and penury and poverty as an ulcerous sore openly breaking out in the very face of the Land Should we murmure at this or repiningly complain that it is not with us as it hath been God forbid that is the way to have it yet and yet worse Rather let us humble our selves for our former unthankfulnesse whereby we have provoked GOD to with-draw himself in some measure from us and blesse him for his great mercy who yet continueth his goodnesse in a comfortable and gracious measure unto us notwithstanding our so great unworthinesse and unthankfulnesse Thousands of our brethren in the world as good as our selves how glad would they be how thankfull to God how would they rejoyce and sing if they enjoyed but a small part of that peace and prosperity in outward things and of that liberty of treading in Gods Courts and partaking of his ordinances which we make so little account of because it is not every way as we have known it heretofore The third Impediment of Thankfulnesse is Riot and Epicurism that which the Prophet reckoneth in the Catalogue of Sodoms sins Fulnesse of bread and abundance of Idlenesse This is both a Cause and a Sign of much unthankfulnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fulnesse and Forgetfulnesse they are not more near in the sound of the words than they are in the sequel of the things When thou hast eaten and art full Then beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God Deut. 8. It much argueth that we make small account of the good
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
Hell into one band to do us any harm in our souls in our bodies in our children in our friends in our goods no not so much as our very Pigs or any small thing that we have without the special leave and sufferance of our good God He must have his Dedimus potestatem from him or he can do nothing Fourthly since this restraint is an act of Gods mercy whom we should strive to resemble in nothing more than in shewing mercy let every one of us in imitation of our Heavenly Father and in compassion to the souls of our brethren and for our own good and the good of humane society endeavour our selves faithfully the best we can to restrain and withhold and keep back others from sinning The Magistrate the Minister the Housholder every other man in his place and calling should do their best by rewards punishments rebukes incouragements admonitions perswasions good example and other like means to suppress vice and restrain disorders in those that may any way come within their charge Our first desire should be and for that we should bend our utmost endeavours that if it be possible their hearts might be seasoned with grace and the true fear of God but as in other things where we cannot attain to the full of our first aims Pulchrum est as he saith in secundis tertiisve consistere so here we may take some contentment in it as some fruit of our labours in our Callings if we can but wean them from gross disorders and reduce them from extremely debaucht courses to some good measure of Civility It ought not to be it is not our desire to make men Hypocrites and a meer Civil man is no better yet to us that cannot judge but by the outward behaviour it is less grief when men are Hypocrites than when they are Profane Our first aim is to make you good yet some rejoycing it is to us if we can but make you less evil Our aim is to make you of Natural holy and Spiritual men but we are glad if of dissolute we can but make you good Moral men if in stead of planting Grace we can but root out Vice if in stead of the power of Godliness in the reformation of the inner-man we can but bring you to some tolerable stayedness in the conformity of the outward-man If we can do but this though we are to strive for that our labour is not altogether in vain in the Lord. For hereby first mens sins are both less and fewer and that secondly abateth somewhat both of the number and weight of their stripes and maketh their punishment the easier and thirdly there is less scandal done to Religion which receiveth not so much soil and dis-reputation by close hypocrisie as by lewd and open prophaneness Fourthly the Kingdome of Satan is diminished though not directly in the strength for he loseth never a Subject by it yet somewhat in the glory thereof because he hath not so full and absolute command of some of his subjects as before he had or seemed to have Fifthly much of the hurt that might come by evil example is hereby prevented Sixthly the people of God are preserved from many injuries and contumelies which they would receive from evil men if their barbarous manners were not thus civilized as a fierce Mastiffe doth least hurt when he is chained and muzled Seventhly and lastly and which should be the strongest motive of all the rest to make us industrious to repress vicious affections in others it may please God these sorry beginnings may be the fore-runners of more blessed and more solid graces My meaning is not that these Moral restraints of our wilde corruption can either actually or but virtually prepare dispose or qualifie any man for the grace of Conversion and Renovation or have in them Virtutem seminalem any natural power which by ordinary help may be cherished and improved so far as an Egge may be hatched into a Bird and a kirnel sprowt and grow into a tree far be it from us to harbour any such Pelagian conceipts but this I say that God being a God of order doth not ordinarily work but in order and by degrees bringing men from the one extream to the other by middle courses and therefore seldom bringeth a man from the wretchedness of forlorn nature to the blessed estate of saving grace but where first by his restraining grace in some good measure he doth correct nature and moralize it Do you then that are Magistrates do we that are Ministers let all Fathers Masters and others whatsoever by wholesome severity if fairer courses will not reclaim them deter audacious persons from offending break those that are under our charge of their wills and wilfulness restrain them from lewd and licentious practises and company not suffer sin upon them for want of reproving them in due and seasonable sort snatch them out of the fire and bring them as far as we can out of the snare of the Devil to God-ward and leave the rest to him Possibly when we have faithfully done our part to the utmost of our power he will set in graciously and begin to do his part in their perfect conversion If by our good care they may be made to forbear swearing and cursing and blaspheming they may in time by his good grace be brought to fear an Oath If we restrain them from grosse prophanations upon his holy-day in the mean time they may come at length to think his Sabbath a delight If we keep them from swilling and gaming and revelling and rioting and roaring the while God may frame them ere long to a sober and sanctified use of the Creatures and so it may be said of other sins and duties I could willingly inlarge all these points of Inferences but that there are yet behinde sundry other good Uses to be made of this restraining Grace of God considered as it may lye upon our selves and therefore I now passe on to them First there is a root of Pride in us all whereby we are apt to think better of our selves than there is cause and every infirmity in our brother which should rather be an item to us of our frailty serveth as fuel to nourish this vanity and to swell us up with a Pharisaical conceit that forsooth we are not like other men Now if at any time when we see any of our brethren fall into some sin from which by the good hand of God upon us we have been hitherto preserved we then feel this swelling begin to rise in us as sometimes it will do the point already delivered may stand us in good stead to prick the bladder of our pride and to let out some of that windy vanity by considering that this our forbearance of evill wherein we seem to excell our brother is not from nature but from grace not from our selves but from God And here a little let me close with
liberty we have in Christ and of the respects we owe unto men we must evermore remember our selves to be and accordingly behave our selves as those that are Gods servants but as the servants of God The sum of the whole three points in brief this We must be careful without either infringing or abusing our liberty at all times and in all things to serve God Now then to the several points in that order as I have proposed them and as they lye in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As free Which words have manifest reference to the exhortation deliâ—vered three verses before the text as declaring the manner how the duty there exhorted unto ought to be performed yet so as that the force of them stretcheth to the exhortations also contained in the verses next after the text Submit your selves to publick governours both supreme and subordinate be subject to your own particular masters honour all men with those proper respects that belong to them in their several stations But look you do all this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as slaves but as free doe it without impeachment of the liberty you have in Christ. Of which liberty it would be a profitable labour but that I should then be forced to omit sundry other things which I deem needful to be spoken and more neerly pertinent to the points proposed to discover at large the nature and parts and causes and effects and adjuncts that we might the better understand the amplitude of that dower which Christ hath setled upon his Church and thence learn to be the more careful to preserve it But I may not have time so to do it shall therefore suffice us to know that as the other branches of our liberty whether of glory or grace whether from the guilt of sin in our justification or from the dominion of sin in our sanctification with the several appendices and appurtenances to any of them so this branch of it also which respects the use of indifferent things First is purchased for us by the bloud of Christ and is therefore usually called by the name of Christian liberty Secondly is revealed unto us outwardly in the preaching of the Gospel of God and of Christ which is therefore called the law of liberty And thirdly is conveighed unto us inwardly and effectually by the operation of the Spirit of God and of Christ which is therefore called a free spirit O stablish thou me with thy free spirit because where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 Now this liberty so dearly purchased so clearly revealed so firmly conveyed it is our duty to maintain with our utmost strength in all the parts and branches of it and as the Apostle exhorteth to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and not to suffer our selves either by the devises of other men or by our own sloth and wilful default to be intangled again with the yoak of bondage And namely in this particular branch whereof we now speak whatsoever serviceable offices we do to any of our brethren especially to those that are in authority we must perform our duty therein with all cheerfulness of spirit and for Conscience sake but still with freedom of spirit with liberty of Conscience as being servants to God alone and not to men We finde therefore in the Scriptures a peremptory charge both ways that we neither usurp mastership nor undergo servitude A charge given by our Saviour Christ to his Disciples in the former behalf that they should not be called Rabbi neither Masters Matth. 23. and a charge given by the Apostle Paul to all believers in the latter behalf that they should not be servants of men 1 Cor. 7. God forbid any man of us possessed with an Anabaptistical spirit or rather frenzy should understand either of those passages or any other of like sound as if Christ or his Apostle had had any purpose therein to slacken those sinews and ligaments and to dissolve those joynts and contignations which tye into one body and claspe into one structure those many little members and parts whereof all humane societies consist that is to say to forbid all those mutual relations of superiority and subjection which are in the world and so to turn all into a vast Chaos of Anarchy and Confusion For such a meaning is contrarious to the express determination of Christ and to the constant doctrine of S. Paul in other places and we ought so to interpret the Scriptures as that one place may consist with another without clashing or contradiction The true and plain meaning is this that we must not acknowledge any our supreme Master nor yeeld our selves to be wholly and absolutely ruled by the will of any nor enthral our Iudgements and Consciences to the sentences or laws of any man or Angel but only Christ our Lord and Master in Heaven And this interpretation is very consonant to the Analogy of Scripture in sundry places In Ephes. 6. to omit other places there are two distinctions implyed the one in the 5. the other in the 7. verses both of right good use for the reconciling of sundry texts that seem to contradict one another and for the clearing of sundry difficulties in the present argument Servants saith S. Paul there be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh Which limitation affordeth us the distinction of Masters according to the flesh only and of Masters after the spirit also Intimating that we may have other Masters of our flesh to whom we may and must give due reverence so far as concerneth the flesh that is so far as appertaineth to the outward man and all outward things But of our spirits and souls and consciences as we can have no fathers so we may have no Masters upon earth but only our Master and our Father which is in heaven And therefore in Mat. 23. Christ forbiddeth the calling of any man upon earth Father as well as he doth the calling of any man Master And both the prohibitions are to be understood alike and as hath been now declared Again saith S. Paul there with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men which opposition importeth a second distinction and that is of Masters into supreme and subordinate those are subordinate Masters to whom we do service in ordine ad alium and as under another Those are supreme Masters in whom our obedience resteth in the final resolution of it without looking farther or higher Men may be our Masters and we their servants the first way with subordination to God and for his sake And we must do them service and that with good will but with reservation ever of our bounden service to him as our only supreme soveraign and absolute Master But the later way it is high sacriledge in any man to challenge and it is high
in the Scribes and Pharisees to tye heavy burdens upon other mens shoulders which they would not touch with one of their fingers but if they should without superstition and upon reasonable inducements have laid such burdens upon themselves and not imposed them upon others for any thing I know they had been blameless There are many things which in my conscience are not absolutely and in Thesi necessary to be done which yet in Hypothesi for some personal respects I think so fit for me to do that I should resolve to undergo some inconveniency rather than omit them still reserving to others their liberty to do as as they should see cause There are again many things which in my conscience are not absolutely and in Thesi unlawful to be done which yet in Hypothesi and for the like personal respects I think so unfit for me to do that I should resolve to undergo some inconvenience rather than do them yet still reserving to others the like liberty as before to do as they should see cause It belongeth to every sober Christian advisedly to consider not only what in it self may lawfully be done or left undone but also what in godly wisdom and discretion is fittest for him to do or not to do upon all occasions as the exigence of present circumstances shall require He that without such due consideration will do all he may do at all times under colour of Christian liberty he shall undoubtedly sometimes use his liberty for a cloak of maliciousness And that is the second way by using it excessively It may be done a third way and that is by using it uncharitably which is the case whereon I told you Saint Paul beateth so often When we use our liberty so as to stumble the weak consciences of our brethren thereby and will not remit in any thing the extremity of that right and power we have in things of indifferent nature to please our neighbour for his good unto edâ—fication at least so far as we may do it without greater inconvenience we walk not charitably and if not charitably then not Christianly Indeed the case may stand so that we cannot condescend to his infirmity without great prejudice either to our selves or to the interest of some third person As for instance when the Magistrate hath positively already determined our liberty in the use of it the one way we may not in such case redeem the offence of a private brother with our disobedience to superiour authority in using our liberty the other way and many other like cases there may be But this I say that where without great inconvenience we may do it it is not enough for us to please our selves and to satisfie our own consciences that we do but what we lawfully may but we ought also to bear one another burdens and to forbear for one anothers sakes what otherwise we might do and so to fulfil the Law of Christ. S. Paul who hath forbidden us in one place to make our selves the servants of any man 1 Cor. 7. hath yet biâ—dden us in another place by love to serve one another Gal. 5.13 And his practise therein consenteth with his doctrine as it should do in every teacher of truth for though he were h free from all and knew it and would not be brought under the power of any yet in love he became servant to all that by all means he might win some It was an excellent saying of Luther Omnia libera per fidem omnia serva per charitatem We should know and be fully perswaded with the perswasion of faith that all things are lawful and yet withal we should purpose and be fully resolved for charity sake to forbear the use of many things if we finde them inexpedient He that will have his own way in every thing he hath a liberty unto whosoever shall take offence at it maketh his liberty but a cloak of maliciousness by using it uncharitably The fourth and last way whereby we may use our liberty for a cloak of maliciousness is by using it undutifully pretending it unto our disobedience to lawful authority The Anabaptists that deny all subjection to Magistrates in indifferent things do it upon this ground that they imagine Christian liberty to be violated when by humane laws it is determined either the one way or the other And I cannot but wonder that many of our brethren in our own Church who in the question of Ceremonies must argue from their ground or else they talk of Christian liberty to no purpose should yet hold off before they grow to their conclusion which to my apprehension seemeth by the rules of good discourse to issue most naturally and necessarily from it It were a happy thing for the peace both of this Church and of their own consciences if they would in calm bloud review their own dictates in this kind and see whether their own principle which the cause they are ingaged in maketh them dote upon can be reasonably defended and yet the Anabaptists inference thence which the evidence of truth maketh them to abhor be fairly avoided Yet somewhat they have to say for the proof of that their ground which if it be â—ound it is good reason we should subscribe to it if it be not it is as good reason they should retract it Let us hear therefore what it is and put it to trial First say they Ecclesiastical Constitutions for there is the quarrel determine us precisely ad unum in the use of indifferent things which God and Christ have left free ad utrumlibet Secondly by inducing a necessity upon the thing they enjoyn they take upon them as if they could alter the nature of things and make that to become necessary which is indifferent which is not in the power of any man but of God only to do Thirdly these Constitutions are so far pressed as if men were bound in conscience to obey them which taketh away the freedom of the conscience for â—f the conscience be bound how is she free Nor so only but fourthly the things so enjoyned are by consequence imposed upon us as of absolute necessity unto salvation forasmuch as it is necessary unto salvation for every man to do that which he is bound in conscience to do by which device kneeling at the Communion standing at the Gospel bowing at the name of Jesus and the like become to be of necessity unto salvation Fifthly say they these Constitutions cannot be defended but by such arguments as the Papists use for the establishing of that their rotten Tenet that humane laws binde the conscience as well as divine Then all which premises what can be imagined more contraâ—ious to true Christian liberty In which Objections before I come to their particular answer I cannot but observe the unjust I would we might not say unconscionable partiality of the Objecters First in laying the accusation against the