Promises of God they are true but yet conditional and so they must ever be understood with a conditional clause The exception there to be understood is Repentance and the Condition here Obedience What God threatneth to do unto us absolutely in words the meaning is he will do it unless we repent and amend and what he promiseth to do for us absolutely in words the meaning is he will do it if we believe and obey And for so much as this Clause is to be understood of course in all God's Promises we may not charge him with breach of Promise though after he do not really perform that to us which the letter of his Promise did import if we break the condition and obey not Wouldst thou know then how thou art to entertain God's Promises and with what assurance to expect them I answer With a confident and obedient heart Confident because he is true that hath promised Obedient because that is the condition under which he hath promised Here is a curb then for those mens Presumption who living in sin and continuing in disobedience dare yet lay claim to the good Promises of God If such men ever had any seeming interest in Gods Promises the interest they had they had but by Contract and Covenant and that Covenant whether either of the two it was Law or Gospel it was conditional The Covenant of the Law wholly and à priori conditional Hoc fac vives Do this and live and the Covenant of the Gospel too after a sort and à posteriori Conditional Crede vives believe and live If then they have broken the Conditions of both Covenants and do neither Believe nor Do what is required they have by their Unbelief and Disobedience forfeited all that seeming interest they had in those Promises God's Promises then though they be the very main supporters of our Christian Faith and Hope to as many of us as whose Consciences can witness unto us a sincere desire and endeavour of performing that Obedience we have covenanted yet are they to be embraced even by such of us with a reverend fear and trembling at our own unworthiness But as for the unclean and filthy and polluted those Swine and Dogs that delight in sin and disobedience and every abomination they may set their hearts at rest for these matters they have neither part nor fellowship in any of the sweet Promises of God Let dirty Swine wallow in their own filth these rich Pearls are not for them they are too precious let hungry Dogs glut themselves with their own vomit the Childrens bread is not for them it is too delicious Let him that will be filthy be filthy still the Promises of God are holy things and belong to none but those that are holy and desire to be holy still For our selves in a word let us hope that a Promise being left us if with Faith and Obedience and Patience we wait for it we shall in due time receive it but withal let us fear as the Apostle exhorteth Heb. 4. lest a Promise being left us through disobedience or unbelief any of us should seem to come short of it Thus much of the former thing proposed the magnifying of God's Mercy and the clearing of his Truth in the revocation and suspension of threatned Iudgments by occasion of these words I will not bring the evil There is yet a Circumstance remaining of this general part of my Text which would not be forgotten it is the extent of time for the suspending of the Judgment I will not bring the evil in his days Something I would speak of it too by your patience it shall not be much because the season is sharp and I have not much sand to spend I will not bring the evil in his days The Judgment denounced against Ahab's house was in the end executed upon it as appeareth in the sequel of the story and especially from those words of Iehu who was himself the Instrument raised up by the Lord and used for that Execution in 4 King 10. Know that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord which the Lord spake concerning the house of Ahab for the Lord hath done that which he spake by his servant Elijah which were enough if there were nothing else to be said to justifie God's truth in this one particular That which Ahab gained by his humiliation was only the deferring of it for this time I will not bring the evil in his days As if God had said This wretched King hath provoked me and pulled down a Curse from me upon his house which it were but just to bring upon him and it without farther delay yet because he made not a scoff at my Prophet but took my words something to heart and was humbled by them he shall not say but I will deal mercifully with him and beyond his merit as ill as he deserveth it I will do him this favour I will not bring the Evil that is determined against his house in his days The thing I would observe hence is That when God hath determined a Iudgment upon any People Family or Place it is his great mercy to us if he do not let us live to see it It cannot but be a great grief I say not now to a religious but even to any soul that hath not quite cast off all natural affection to fore-think and fore-know the future Calamities of his Country and Kindred Xerxes could not forbear weeping beholding his huge Army that followed him only to think that within some few scores of years so many thousands of proper men would be all dead and rotten and yet that a thing that must needs have happened by the necessity of Nature if no sad Accident or common Calamity should hasten the Accomplishment of it The Declination of a Common-wealth and the Funeral of a Kingdom foreseen in the general corruption of manners and Decay of Discipline the most certain Symptoms of a tottering State have fetched Tears from the Eyes and Blood from the Hearts of heathen Men zealously affected to their Country How much more grief then must it needs be to them that acknowledge the true God not only to foreknow the extraordinary Plagues and Miseries and Calamities which shall befal their Posterity but also to fore-read in them God's fierce wrath and heavy displeasure and bitter vengeance against their own sins and the sins of their Posterity Our blessed Saviour though himself without Sin and so no way accessary to the procuring of the evils that should ensue could not yet but weep over the City of Ierusalem when he beheld the present security and the future ruine thereof A Grief it is then to know these things shall happen but some Happiness withal and to be acknowledged as a great Favour from God to be assured that we shall never see them It is no small Mercy in
Ver. 17. And I brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth Of these four in their order of the first first in these words I put on righteousness c. This Metaphor of cloathing is much used in the Scriptures in this notion as it is applyed to the soul and things appertaining to the soul. In Psalm 109. David useth this imprecation against his enemies Let mine adversaries be cloathed with shame and let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a Cloak And the Prophet Esay speaking of Christ and his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof Chap. 11. thus describeth it Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins Likewise in the New Testament Saint Paul in one place biddeth us put on the Lord Iesus Christ in another exhorteth women to adorn themselves instead of broidered hair and gold and pearls and costly aray with shamefac'dness and sobriety and as becoming women professing godliness with good works in a third furnisheth the spiritual Souldier with Shooes Girdle Breastplate Helmet and all necessary accoutrements from top to toe In all which and other places where the like Metaphor is used it is ever to be understood with allusion to one of the three special ends and uses of Apparel For we cloath our selves either first for necessity and common decency to cover our nakedness or secondly for security and defence against enemies or thirdly for state and solemnity and for distinction of Offices and Degrees Our Cloaks and Coats and ordinary suits we all wear to cover our nakedness and these are Indumenta known by no other but by the general name of Cloathing or Apparel Souldiers in the wars wear Morions and Cuiraces and Targets and other habiliments for defence and these are called Arma Arms or Armour Kings and Princes wear Crowns and Diadems inferiour Nobles and Judges and Magistrates and Officers their Robes and Furrs and Hoods and other Ornaments fitting to their several Degrees and Offices for solemnity of state and as ensigns or marks of those places and stations wherein God hath set them and these are Infulae Ornaments or Robes It is true Iustice and Iudgment and every other good vertue and grace is all this unto the soul serving her both for covert and for protection and for ornament and so stand both for the garments and for the Armour and for the Robes of the soul. But here I take it Iob alludeth especially to the third use The propriety of the very words themselves give it so for he saith he put righteousness and judgment upon him as a Robe and a Diadem and such things as there are worn not for necessity but state Iob was certainly a Magistrate a Iudge at the least It is evident from the seventh Verse and to me it seemeth not improbable that he was a King though not like such as the Kings of the earth now are whose dominions are wider and power more absolute yet possible such as in those ancient times and in those Eastern parts of the World were called Kings viz. a kind of petty Monarch and supreme Governour within his own Territories though perhaps but of one single City with the Suburbs and some few neighbouring Villages In the first Chapter it is said that he was the greatest man of all the East and in this Chapter he saith of himself that When he came in presence the Princes and the Nobles held their tongues and that He sate as chief and dwelt as a King in the Army and in this verse he speaketh as one that wore a Diadem or Ornament proper to Kings Now Kings we know and other Magistrates place much of their outward glory and state in their Diadems and Robes and peculiar Vestments these things striking a kind of reverence into the Subjects towards their Superiour and adding in the estimation of the people both glory and honour and Majesty to the person and withal pomp and state and solemnity to the actions of the wearer By this speech then of putting on Iustice and Iudgment as a Robe and Diadem Iob sheweth that the glory and pride which Kings and Potentates are wont to take in their Crowns and Scepters and Royal Vestments is not more than the glory and honour which he placed in doing justice and judgment He thought that was true honour not which reflected from these empty marks and ensigns of Dignity but which sprang from those vertues whereof these are but dumb remembrances If we desire yet more light into the Metaphor we may borrow some from David Psal. 109. where speaking of the wicked he saith ver 17. that he cloathed himself with cursing like a garment and by that he meaneth no other than what he had spoken in the next verse before plainly and without a Metaphor His delight was in Cursing By the Analogy of which place we may not unfitly understand these words of Iob as intimating the great love he had unto Iustice and the great pleasure and delight he took therein Joyn this to the former and they give us a full meaning Never ambitious usurper took more pride in his new gotten Crown or Scepter never proud Minion took more pleasure in her new and gorgeous Apparel than Iob did true glory and delight in doing Justice and Judgment He put on Righteousness and it cloathed him and Iudgment was to him what to others a Robe and a Diadem is honourable and delightful Here then the Magistrate and every Officer of Justice may learn his first principle and if I may so speak his Master-Duty and let that be the first Observation namely to do Iustice and Iudgment with delight and zeal and cheerfulness I call it his Master-duty because where this is once rightly and soundly rooted in the Conscience the rest will come on easily and of themselves This must be his primum and his ultimum the foremost of his desires and the utmost of his endeavours to do Justice and Judgment He must make it his chiefest business and yet count it his lightsom Recreation and make it the first and lowest step of his care and yet withal count it the last and highest rise of his honour The first thing we do in the morning before we either eat or drink or buckle about any worldly business is to put our clothes about us we say we are not ready till we have done that Even thus should every good Magistrate do before his private he should think of the publick Affairs and not count himself ready to go about his own profits his shop his ship his lands his reckonings much less about his vain Pleasures his jades his currs his kites his any thing else till first with Iob he had put on righteousness as a garment and clothed himself with judgment as with a Robe and a Diadem Nor let any man think his
there to beat themselves without help or remedy exposed to nothing but shame and contempt What then if God suffer those that hate him to prosper for the time and in their prosperity to Lord it over his heritage What if Princes should sit and speak against us without a cause as it was sometimes David's case Let us not fret at the injuries nor envy at the greatness of any let us rather betake us to David's refuge to be occupied in the statutes and to meditate in the holy Word of God In that holy Word we are taught that the hearts even of Kings how much more then of inferiour persons are in his rule and governance and that he doth dispose and turn them as seemeth best to his godly wisdom that he can refrain the spirit of Princes bind Kings in Chains and Nobles in links of Iron and though they rage furiously at it and lay their heads together in consultation how to break his bands and cast away his cords from them yet they imagine but a vain thing whilst they strive against him on earth he laugheth them to scorn in heaven and maugre all opposition will establish the Kingdom of his Christ and protect his people Say then the great ones of the World exercise their power over us and lay what restraints they can upon us our comfort is they have not greater power over us than God hath over them nor can they so much restrain the meanest of us but God can restrain the greatest of them much more Say our enemies curse us with Bell Book and Candle our comfort is God is able to return the curse upon their own heads and in despight of them too turn it into a blessing upon us Say they make warlike preparations against us to invade us our comfort is God can break the Ships of Tarshish and sâ—atter the most invincible Armadoes Say they that hate us be more in number than the hairs of our head our comfort is the very hairs of our head are numbred with him and without his sufferance not the least hair of our heads shall perish Say to imagine the worst that our Enemies should prevail against us and they that hate us should be Lords over us for the time our comfort is he that loveth us is Lord over them and can bring them under us again when he seeth time In all our fears in all our dangers in all our distresses our comfort is that God can do all this for us our care should be by our holy obedience to strengthen our interest in his protection and not to make him a stranger from us yea an enemy to us by our sins and impenitency that so we may have yet more comfort in a chearful confidence that God will do all this for us The Assyrian whose ambition it was to be the Catholick King and universal Monarch of the World stiling himself the great King thus saith the great King the King of Assyria when he had sent messengers to revile Israel and an Army to besiege and destroy Ierusalem yet for all his rage he could do them no harm the Lord brought down the stout heart of the King of Assyria put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips and made him return back by the way by which he came without taking the City or so much as casting a bank or shooting an arrow against it Nay he that is indeed the great King over all the children of pride and hath better title to the stile of most Catholick King than any that ever yet bare it whose Territories are large as the Earth and spacious as the Air I mean the Devil the Prince of this World he is so fettered with the chain of Gods power and Providence that he is not able with all his might and malice no not though he raise his whole forces and muster up all the powers of darkness and 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 protestatem 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 with-hold 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 Prophane 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 instead of planting Grace we can but root out Vice if instead 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 but do 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 Kingdom of Satan is diminished though not directly in the strength for he loseth never a Subject by it yet somewhat in the glory thereof
two distinct Natures in one Person That Virginity should Conceive Eternity be Born Immortality Die and Mortality rise from Death to Life That there should be a finite and mortal God or an infinite and immortal Man What are all these and many other more of like intricacy but so many Riddles 16. In all which that I may from the Premisses infer something of Use we should but cum ratione insanire should we go about to make our Reason the measure of our Faith We may as well think to grasp the Earth in our fists or to empty the Sea with a Pitcher as to comprehend these heavenly Mysteries within our narrow understanding Puteus altus the Well is deep and our Buckets for want of Cordage will not reach near the bottom We have use of our Reason and they are unreasonable that would deny us the use of it in Religion as well as in other things And that not only in Agendis in matters of Dâ—ty and Morality wherein it is of a more necessary and constant use as the standard to regulate our judgments in most cases but even in Credendis too in such points as are more properly of Faith in matters Doctrinal and Dogmatical But then she must be employed only as an handmaid to Faith and learn to know her distance Conferre and Inferre those are her proper tasks to confer one Scripture with another and to infer Conclusions and deduce Instructions thence by clear Logical Discourse Let her keep within these bounds and â—he may do very good service But we mar all if we suffer the handmaid to bear too great a sway to grow petulant and to perk above the Mistress 17. It hath been the bane of the Church and the Original of the most and the most pernicious Errors and Heresies in all Ages that men not contenting themselves with the simplicity of believing have doted too much upon their own fancies and made Reason the sole standard whereby to measure both the Principles and Conclusions of Faith It is the very fundamental error of the Socinians at this day No less absurdly than as if a man should take upon him without Mathematical Instruments to take the just dimensions of the heavenly bodies and to pronounce of Altitudes Magnitudes Distances Aspects and other appearances only by the scantling of the Eye Nor less dangerously than as if a Smith it is St. Chrysostoms comparison should lay by his tongs and take the Iron hot from the Forge to work it upon the Anvil with his bare hands Mysteries are not to be measured by Reason That is the first Instruction 18. The next is That forasmuch as there are in the Mystery of Christianity so many things incomprehensible it would be safe for us for the avoiding of Errors and Contentions and consequently in order to those two most precious things Truth and Peace to contain our selves within the bounds of Sobriety without wading too far into abstruse curious and useless speculations The most necessary Truths and such as sufficed to bring our fore-fathers in the Primitive and succeeding times to heaven are so clearly revealed in Scripture and have been so universally and constantly consented unto by the Christian Church in a continued succession of times as that to doubt of them must needs argue a spirit of Pride and Singularity at least if not also of Strife and Contradiction But in things less evident and therefore also less necessary no man ought to be either too stiff in his own private opinion or too peremptory in judging those that are otherwise minded But as every man would desire to be left to his own liberty of Iudgment in such things so should he be willing to leave other men to their liberty also at least so long as they keep themselves quiet without raising quarrels or disturbing the peace of the Church thereabouts 19. As for example Concerning the Entrance and Propagation of Original sin the Nature Orders and Offices of Angels The Time Place and Antecedents of the last judgment The Consistency both of Gods immutable decrees with the contingency of second Causes and of the efficacy of Gods grace with the freedom of Manswill c. In which and other like difficult points they that have travelled farthest with desire to satisfie their own curiosity have either dasht upon pernicious Errors or involved themselves in inextricable difficulties or by Gods mercy which is the happiest loose from such fruitless studies have been thereby brought to a deeper sense of their own ignorance and an higher admiration of the infinite Majesty and wisdom of our great God who hath set his Counsels so high above our reach made his ways so impossible for us to find out That is our second Instruction 20. There is yet another arising from the consideration of the greatness of this Mystery That therefore no man ought to take offence at the discrepancy of opinions that is in the Churches of Christ amongst Divines in matters of Religion There are men in the world who think themselves no babes neither so deeply possest with a spirit of Atheism that though they will be of any Religion in shew to serve their turns and comply with the Times yet they are resolved to be indeed of none till all men be agreed of one which yet never was nor is ever like to be A resolution no less desperate for the soul if not rather much more than it would be for the body if a man should vow he would never eat till all the Clocks in the City should strike Twelve together If we look into the large Volumes that have been written by Philosophers Lawyers and Phisicians we shall find the greatest part of them spent in Disputations and in the reciting and confuting of one anothers opinions And we allow them so to do without prejudice to their respective professions albeit they be conversant about things measurable by Sense or Reason Only in Divinity great offence is taken at the multitude of Controversies wherein yet difference of opinions is by so much more tolerable than in other Sciences by how much the things about which we are conversant are of a more sublime mysterious and incomprehensible nature than are those of other Sciences 21. Truly it would make a religious heart bleed to consider the many and great distractions that are all over the Christian world at this day The lamentable effects whereof scarce any part of Christendom but feeleth more or less either in open wars or dangerous seditions or at the best in uncharitable censures and ungrounded jealousies Yet the infinite variety of mens dispositions inclinations and aims considered together with the great obscurity that is in the things of God and the strength of corruption that is in us it is to be acknowledged the admirable work of God that these distractions are not even much more and greater and wider than they are and that amid so many Sects as are in the world there should be yet such
of both Laws Civil and Canon with the vast Tomes of Glosses Repertories Responses and Commentaries thereon and take in the Reports and year-books of our Common-Law to boot for Divinity get through a course of Councils Fathers School men Casuists Expositors Controversers of all sorts and Sects When all is done after much weariness to the flesh and in comparison thereof little satisfaction to the mind for the more knowledge we gain by all this travel the more we discern our own Ignorance and thereby but encrease our own sorrow the short of all is this and when I have said it I have done You shall evermore find try it when you will Temperance the best Physick Patience the best Law and A good Conscience the best Divinity I have done Now to God c. AD AULAM. The Tenth Sermon WHITE-HALL at a publick Fast JULY 8. 1640. Psal. 119. 75. I know O Lord that thy Iudgments are right and that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled 1. IN which words the holy Prophet in two several Conclusions giveth unto God the Glory of those two his great Attributes that shine forth with so much lustre in all the Works of his Providence his Iustice and his Mercy The glory of his Iustice in the former conclusion I know O Lord that thy judgments are right the glory of his Mercy in the latter And that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled And to secure us the better of the truth of both Conclusions because flesh and blood will be ready to stumble at both We have his Scio prefixed expresly to the former only but the speech being copulative intended to both I know O Lord that thy judgments are right and I know also that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled Our order must be to begin with the Conclusions first as they lie in the Text and after that to proceed to David's knowledg of them although that stand first in the order of the words In the former Conclusion we have to consider of Two things First what these judgments of God are that David here speaketh of as the Subject and then of the righteousness thereof as the Praedicate I know O Lord that thy judgments are right 2. What Iudgments first There are judicia oris and there are judici◠operis the judgments of Gods mouth and the judgments of Gods hands Of the former there is mention at Verse 13. With my lips have I been telling of all the judgments of thy mouth And by these Iudgments are meant nothing else but the holy Law of God and his whole written Word which every where in this Psalm are indifferently called his Statutes his Commandments his Precepts his Testimonies his Iudgments And the Laws of God are therefore amongst other reasons called by the name of Iudgments because by them we come to have a right judgment whereby to discern between Good and Evil. We could not otherwise with any certainty judg what was meet for us to do and what was needful for us to shun A lege tuâ intellexi at verse 104. By thy Law have I gotten understanding St. Paul confesseth Rom. 7. that he had never rightly known what sin was if it had not been for the Law and he instanceth in that of lust which he had not known to be a sin if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet And no question but these judgments these judicia oris are all right too for it were unreasonable to think that God should make that a rule of right to us which were it self not right We have both the name that of judgments and the thing too that they are right in the 19th Psalm Where having highly commended the Law of God under the several appellations of Law Testimonies Statutes and Commandments ver 7 and 8. the Prophet then concludeth under this name of Iudgments ver 9. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether 3. Besides these Iudicia Oris which are Gods judgments of directions there are also Iudicia Operis which are his judgments for correction And these do ever include aliquid poenale something inflicted upon us by Almighty God as it were by way of punishment something that breedeth us Trouble or Grief The Apostle saith Heb. 12. that every chastening is grievous and so it is more or less or else it could be to us no punishment And these again are of two sorts yet not distinguished so much by the things themselves that are inflicted as by the condition of the persons on whom they are inflicted and especially by the Affection and Intention of God that inflicteth them For all whether publick calamities that light upon whole Nations Cities or other greater or lesser Societies of men such as are Pestilences Famine War Inundations unseasonable Weather and the like or private Afflictions that light upon particular Families or Persons as sickness poverty disgraces injuries death of friends and the like All these and whatsoever other of either kind may undergo a two-fold consideration in either of both which they may not unfitly be termed the Iudgments of God though in different respects 4. For either these things are sent by Almighty God in his heavy displeasure as Plagues upon his Enemies intending therein their destruction Such as were those publick judgments upon the Old World swept away with the flood upon Sodom and the other Cities consumed with fire from Heaven upon Pharaoh and his Host over-whelmed in the Red Sea upon the Canaanites spewed out of the Land for their abominations upon Ierusalem at the final destruction thereof by the Romans And those private judgments also that befel sundry particular persons as Cain Absolon Senacherib Herod and others Or else they are laid by Almighty God as gentle Corrections upon his own Children in his Fatherly love towards them and for their good to chastise them for their strayings to bring them to repentance for their sins to make them more observant and careful of their duty thence-forward to exercise their Faith and Patience and other Graces and the like Such as were those distresses that befel the whole people of Israel sundry times under Moses and in the days of their Iudges and Kings and those particular Trials and Afflictions wherewith Abraham and Ioseph and Iob and David and Paul and other the holy Saints and Servants of God were exercised in their times 5. Both the one sort and the other are called Iudgments but as I said in different respects and for different reasons Those former Plagues are called Gods Iudgments because they come from God not as a loving and merciful Father but as a just and severe Iudg who proceeding according to course of Law giveth sentence against a malefactor to cut him off And therefore this kind of judgment David earnestly deprecateth Psal. 143. Enter not into judgment with thy servant for then neither can I nor any flesh living be
but every man also on the things of others as St. Paul elsewhere exhorteth then should we also agree with one mind and heart to follow the work close till we had got it up That for dispatch 36. But haste maketh waste we say It doth so and in building as much as in any thing It were good wisdom therefore to bring on the work so as to make it strong withal lest if we make false work for quicker dispatch we repent our over-hasty building by leisure To rid us of that fear know secondly that unity and concord serveth for strength too as well as dispatch Ever more vis unita fortior but division weakeneth A house divided against it self cannot stand and the wall must needs be hollow and loose where the stones stand off one from another and couch not close Now brotherly love and unity is it that bindeth all fast so making of loose heaps one entire piece I beseech you brethren saith the Apostle that there be no divisions among you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment 1 Cor. 1. Like-mindedness you see is the thing that joineth all together and in the well-joining consisteth the strength of structure In Eph. 4. therefore he speaketh of the bond of peace and in Col. 3. he calleth love the bond of perfectness 37. In Phil. 1. he hath another expression which also notably confirmeth the same truth That I may hear saith he of your affairs that ye stand fast in one spirit with one mind They never stand so fast as when they are of one mind There is a Greek word sometimes used in the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word which is commonly translated confusion and sometimes tumult Not unfitly for the sence either but in the literal notation it improveth a kind of unstableness rather or unsettledness when a thing doth not stand fast but shaketh and tottereth and is in danger of falling And this St. Paul opposeth to peace 1 Cor. 14. God is not the author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of confusion or unstableness but of peace By that very opposition intimating that it is mostly for want of peace that things do not stand fast but are ready to fall into disorder and confusion St. Iames speaketh out what St. Paul but intimateth and telleth us plainly that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the effect of discord and that contention is the mother of confusion For where envying and strife is saith he there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inconstancy unsettledness confusion and every evil work The builders make very ill work where the building is not like to stand but threatneth ruine and is ready to drop down again by that it be well up And yet such ill work doth envying and strife ever make it is concord only and unity that maketh good work and buildeth strong Let Ierusalem be built as a City at unity in it self and Ierusalem will be like to stand the faster and to stand up the longer 38. For a conclusion of all I cannot but once again admonish and earnestly entreat all those that in contending with much earnestness for matters of no great consequence have the glory of God ever and anon in their mouths that they would take heed of embarquing God and his glory so deep in every trifling business and such as wherein there is not dignus vindice nodus But since it clearly appeareth from this and sundry other Texts of holy Scripture that peace and love are of those things whereby our gracious Lord God taketh himself to be chiefly glorified that they would rather faithfully endeavour by their peaceable charitable and amiable carriage towards others especially in such things as they cannot but know to be in the judgment of sundry men both learned and godly accounted but of inferiour and indifferent nature to approve to God the World and their own Consciences that they do sincerely desire to glorifie God by pleasing their brethren for their good unto edification Which that we all unfeignedly may do I commend us and what we have heard to the grace and blessing of Almighty God dismissing you once again as I did heretofore with the Apostles Benediction in the Text for I know not where to fit my self better Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another according unto Christ That ye may with one mind and with one mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. To which God the Father and his Son Iesus Christ our Lord and the blessed Spirit of them both three Persons c. AD AULAM. Sermon XIV WOBURNE 1647. AUGUST Psal. 27. 10. When my Father and my Mother forsake me the Lord taketh me up 1. THings that have a natural weakness in them to bear up themselves do by a natural instinct lean towards and if they can find it clasp about something that may sufficiently support them but in default of such will catch and twine about whatsoever is next them that may be any little stay to them for any little time So a Hop for want of a strong Pole will wind it self about a Thistle or Nettle or any sorry weed The heart of man whilst it seeketh abroad for somewhat without it self to rest it self upon doth even thereby sufficiently bewray a secret consciousness in it self of its own insufficiency to stand without something to support it If it find not that which is the only true support indeed it will stay it self as long as it can upon a weak staff rather than none Chariots and Horses and Riches and Friends c. any thing will serve to trust in whilst no better appeareth 2. But that our hearts deceitful as they are delude us not with vain confidences we may learn from the Text where it is and where alone that we may repose our selves with full assurance of hope not to fail David affirmeth positively what he had found true by much experience that when all others from whom we expect help either will not or cannot God both can and will help us so far as he seeth it good for us if we put our trust in him When my Father and Mother forsake me the Lord will take me up The words import First a possibility of failing in all inferiour helps It is supposed Fathers and Mothers and proportionally all other friends and helps may forsake us and leave us succourless When my Father and my Mother forsake me Secondly a never-failing sufficiency of help and relief from God though all other helps should fail us Then the Lord will take me up The two points we are to speak to 3. Father and Mother First who are they Properly and chiefly our natural Parents of whom we were begotten and born to whom under God we owe our being and breeding Yet here not they only but by Synecdoche all other kinsfolks neighbours
of those that desire to live quiet in the land Devise not dilatory shifts to tug men on along in a tedious course of Law to their great charge and vexation but ripen their causes with all seasonable expedition for a speedy hearing In a word do what lieth in your power to the utmost for the curbing of Sycophants and Oppressors and the protecting of the peaceable and innocent use the Sword that God by his Deputy hath put into your hands for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise and safety of those that do well So shall the hearts of every good Man be enlarged towards you and their tongues to honour you and to bless you and to pray for you Then shall God pour out his blessings abundantly upon you and yours yea it may be upon others too upon the whole Land by your means and for your sakes The Lord by his Prophet more than once hath given us some comfortable assurance of such blessed effects to follow upon such premisses The words are worthy to be taken notice of If thou throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour if thou oppress not the stranger the fatherless and the widow and shed not innocent blood in this place Then will I cause you to dwell in this place for ever and ever Jer. 7. And in Ier. 22. Execute ye judgment and righteousness and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor and do no wrong do no violence to the stranger the fatherless nor the widow neither shed innocent blood in this place For if ye do this thing indeed then shall there enter in by the gates of this house Kings sitting upon the throne c. But if ye will not hear these words I swear by my self faith the Lord c. 32. Concerning which and other-like passages frequent in the holy Prophets I see what may be readily opposed True it is will some say where these things are constantly and generally performed a national Iudgment may thereby be removed or a Blessing procured But what are two or three of us if we should set our selves to it with all our strength able to do towards the turning away of God's Iudgments if there be otherwise a general neglect of the Duty in the Land There is something of truth I confess in this Objection for doubtless those passages in the Prophets aim at a general reformation But yet consider first we have to deal with a wonderful gracious and merciful God slow to anger and of great kindness and such a one as will easily be induced to repent him of the evil And who can tell but he may return and repent and leave a blessing behind him where but two or three in a whole Nation do in conscience of their duty and in compassion of the State set themselves unfeignedly to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God though the generality should be corrupt Especially since we have in the second place such excellent precedents of the riches of his Grace and Goodness in this kind upon record that we might not be without hope if we do our part tho we were left even alone God was ready to have spared the five Cities of old Gen. 18. if there had been in them to be found but twice so many righteous Men. But he did actually spare Israel by instantly calling in a great plague which he had a little before sent among them for their sin upon one single act of Iustice done by one single Man Phineas moved with an holy zeal did but stand up and execute judgment upon two shameless offenders and the plague was stayed Psal. 106. Add hereunto that most gracious Proclamation published Ier. 5. and you cannot want encouragement to do every Man his own part whatsoever the rest do Run to and fro through the streets of Ierusalem and see now and know and seek in the broad places thereof if you can find a Man if there be any that executeth Iudgment that seeketh the Truth and I will pardon it Or say thirdly that the sins of a Nation should be grown to that ripeness that the few righteous that are in it could not any longer adjourn the Iudgment for as there is a time of Mercy wherein the righteousness of one or a few may reprieve a whole Nation from destruction so when the appointed time of their fatal stroke is come tho Noah Job and Daniel should be in the midst of it they could prevail no farther than the delivery of their own souls yet even there those that have been faithful shall have this benefit that they shall be able to say with comfort either in the one sense or in the other Liberavi animam meam That is They shall either be preserved from being overwhelmed in the common destruction having their life given them for a prey and as a brand snatched out of the fire as Noah escaped when all the World was drowned and Lot from the deflagration of Sodom or if God suffer them to be involved in the publick calamities have this comfort to sustain their Souls withal that they were not wanting to do their part toward the preventing thereof But howsoever why should any Man fourthly to shift off his duty unseasonably obtrude upon us a new piece of Metaphysicks which our Philosophers hitherto never owned in abstracting the general reformation from the particulars For what is the general other than the particulars together And if ever there be a general reformation wrought the particulars must make it up Do not thou then vainly talk of Castles in the air and of I know not what general reformation but if thou truly desirest such a thing put to thy hand and lay the first stone in thine own particular and see what thy example can do If other particulars move with thee and so a general reformation follow in some good mediocrity thou hast whereof to rejoice that thou hadst thy part a leading part in so good a work But if others will not come on end chearfully so as the work do not rise to any perfection thou hast yet wherewithal to comfort thee that the fault was not thine 33. Thus have you heard sundry reasons and inducements to stir you up to the chearful performance of the duty contained in the Text of doing justice and shewing mercy in delivering the oppressed Some in respect of God who hath given us first his express command to which our obedience and secondly his own blessed example to which our conformity is expected Some in respect of our selves because first whatsoever power we have for the present it was given us for this end that we might therewithal be helpful to others and we know not secondly in what need we may stand hereafter of like help from others Some in respect of our poor distressed brethren who deserve our pity and best furtherance considering first the