Ecclesiastical laws only whereas their arguments if they had any strength in them would as well conclude against the Political laws in the civil State and against domestical orders in private Families as against the Laws Ecclesiastical yet must these only be guilty and they innocent which is not equal Let them either damn them all or quit them all or else let them shew wherein they are unlike which they have not yet done neither can do Secondly when they condemn the things enjoyned as simply and utterly unlawful upon quite other grounds and yet keep a stir about Christian liberty for which argument there can be no place without supposal of indifferency for Christ hath left us no liberty to unlawful things how can they answer this their manifest partiality Thirdly if they were put to speak upon their consciences whether or no if power were in their own hands and Church affairs left to their ordering they would not forbid those things they now dislike every way as strictly and with as much imposition of necessity as the Church presently enjoyneth them I doubt not but they would say Yea and what equity is there in this dealing to condemn that in others which they would allow in themselves Fourthly in some things they are content to submit to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions notwithstanding their Christian liberty which liberty they stiffely pretend for their refusal of other some whereas the case seemeth to be every way equal in both all being enjoyned by the same authority and for the same end and in the same manner If their liberty be impeached by these why not as much by those or if obedience to those may consist with Christian liberty why not as well obedience to these In allowing some rejecting others where there is the same reason of all are they not very partial And now I come to answer their arguments or rather flourishes for they are in truth no better That first allegation that the determining of any thing in unam partem taketh away a mans liberty to it is not true For the liberty of a Christian to any thing indifferent consisteth in this that his judgement is throughly perswaded of the indifferency of it and therefore it is the determination of the judgement in the opinion of the thing not in the use of it that taketh away Christian liberty Otherwise not only Laws Political and Ecclesiastical but also all Vows Promises Covenants Contracts and what not that pitcheth upon any certain resolution de futuro should be prejudicial to Christian Liberty because they do all determine something in unam partem which before was free and indifferent in utramque partem For example if my friend invite me to sup with him I may by no means promise him to come because the liberty I had before to go or not to go is now determined by making such a promise neither may a young man bind himself an Apprentice with any certain Master or to any certain trade because the liberty he had before of placing himself indifferently with that Master or with another and in that trade or in another is now determined by such a contract And so it might be instanced in a thousand other things For indeed to what purpose hath God left indifferent things determinable both ways by Christian liberty if they may never be actually determined either way without impeachment of that liberty It is a very vain power that may not be brought into act but God made no power in vain Our Brethren I hope will wave this first argument when they shall have well examined it unless they will frame to themselves under the name of Christian liberty a very Chimera a non ens a meer notional liberty whereof there can be no use That which was alleaged secondly that they that make such Laws take upon them to alter the nature of things by making indifferent things to become necessary being said gratis without either truth or proof is sufficiently answered by the bare denyal For they that make Laws concerning indifferent things have no intention at all to meddle with the nature of them they leave that in medio as they found it but only for some reasons of conveniency to order the use of them the indifferency of their nature still being where it was Nay so far is our Church from having any intention of taking away the indifferency of those things which for order and comeliness she enjoyneth that she hath by her publick declaration protested the contrary wherewith they ought to be satisfieed Especially since her sincerity in that declaration that none may cavil as if it were protestatio contraria facto appeareth by these two most clear evidences among many other in that she both alloweth different rites used in other Churches and also teacheth her own rites to be mutable neither of which she could do if she conceived the nature of the things themselves to be changed or their indifferency to be removed by her Constitutions Neither is that true which was thirdly alleaged that where men are bound in conscience to obey there the conscience is not left free or else there would be a contradiction For there is no contradiction where the affirmative negative are not ad idem as it is in this case For Obedience is one thing and the Thing commanded another The Thing is commanded by the Law of man and in regard thereof the conscience is free but Obedience to men is commanded by the Law of God and in regard thereof the conscience is bound So that we are bound in conscience to obedience in indifferent things lawfully commanded the conscience still remaining no less free in respect of the things themselves so commanded then it was before And you may know it by this In Laws properly humane such as are those that are made concerning indifferent things the Magistrate doth not nor can say This you are bound in conscienee to do and therefore I command you to do it as he might say if the bond of obedience did spring from the nature of the things commanded But now when the Magistrate beginneth at the other end as he must do and saith I command you to do this or that and therefore you are bound in conscience to do it this plainly sheweth that the bond of obedience ariseth from that power in the Magistrate and duty in the subject which is of divine Ordinance You may observe therefore that in humane Laws not meerly such that is such as are established concerning things simply necessary or meerly unlawful the Magistrate may there derive the bond of obedience from the nature of the things themselves As for example if he should make a Law to inhibite Sacriledge or Adultery he might then well say you are bound in conscience to abstain from these things and therefore I command you so to abstain which he could not so well say in the Lawes made to inhibit the eating of flesh or the transportation of grain
And the reason of the difference is evident because those former Laws are rather Divine than humane the substance of them being divine and but the sanction only humane and so binde by their immediate vertue and in respect of the things themselves therein commanded which the later being meerly humane both for substance and sanction do not The consideration of which difference and the reason of it will abundantly discover the vanity of the fourth allegation also wherein it was objected that the things enjoyned by the Ecclesiastical Lawes are imposed upon men as of necessity to salvation Which is most untrue Remember once again that obedience is one thing and the things commanded another Obedience to lawful authority is a duty commanded by God himself and in his Law and so is a part of that holinesse without which no man shall see God but the things themselves commanded by lawful authority are neither in truth necessary to salvation nor do they that are in authority impose them as such Only they are the object and that but by accident neither and contingently not necessarily about which that obedience is conversant and wherein it is to be exercised An example or two will make it plain We know every man is bound in conscience to imploy himself in the works of his particular calling with faithfulnesse and diligence and that faithfulnesse and diligence is a branch of that holinesse and righteousnesse which is necessary unto salvation Were it not now a very fond thing and ridiculous for a man from hence to conclude that therefore drawing of wine or making of shooes were necessary to salvation because these are the proper imployment of the Vintners and Shoomakers calling which they in conscience are bound to follow nor may without sin neglect them Again if a Master command his servant to go to the market to sell his corn and to buy in provision for his house or to wear a livery of such or such a colour and fashion in this case who can reasonably deny but that the servant is bound in conscience to do the very things his master biddeth him to do to go to sâ—ll to buy to wear and yet is there any man so forsaken of common sense as thence to conclude that going to market selling of corn buying of meat wearing a blue coat are necessary to salvation or that the Master imposeth those things upon the servant as of necessity unto salvation The obligation of the servants conscience to do the things commanded ariseth from the force of that divine Law which bindeth servants to obey their masters in lawful things The master in the things he so commandeth hath no particular actual respect to the conscience of his servant which perhaps all that while never came within his thoughts but meerly respecteth his own occasions and conveniences In this example as in a glasse let the Objectors behold the lineaments and feature of their own argument Because kneeling standing bowing are commanded by the Church and the people are bound in conscience to obey the Lawes of the Church therefore the Church imposeth upon the people kneeling standing and bowing as necessary to salvation If that which they object were indeed true and that the Church did impose these rites and ceremonies upon the people as of necessity to salvation and require to have them so accepted doubtlesse the imposition were so prejudicial to Christian liberty as that every faithful man were bound in conscience for the maintenance of that liberty to disobey her authority therein and to confesse against the imposition But our Church hath been so far from any intention of doing that her self that by her foresaid publick declaration she hath manifested her utter dislike of it in others What should I say more Denique te ipsum concute It would better become the Patriarchs of that party that thus deeply but untruly charge her to look unto their own cloaks dive into their own bosoms and survey their own positions and practise if happily they may be able to clear themselves of trenching upon Christian liberty and ensnaring the consciences of their brethren and imposing upon their Proselytes their own traditions of kneel not stand not bow not like those mentioned Col. 2. of touch not taste not handle not requiring to have them accepted of the people even as of necessity unto salvation If upon due examination they can acquit themselves in this matter their accounts will be the easier but if they cannot they shall finde when the burden lighteth upon them that it will be no light matter to have been themselves guilty of that very crime whereof they have unjustly accused others As for consent with the Papists in their doctrine concerning the power that mens lawes have over the conscience which is the last objection it ought not to move us We are not ashamed to consent with them or any others in any truth But in this point we differ from them so far as they differ from the truth which difference I conceive to be neither so great as some men nor yet so little as other some men would make it They teach that Humane lawes especially the Ecclesiastical binde the consciences of men not only in respect of the obedience but also in respect of the things themselves commanded and that by their own direct immediate and proper vertue In which doctrine of theirs 3. things are to be misliked First that they give a preheminence to the Ecclesiastical lawes above the Secular in this power of binding We may see it in them and in these objectors how men will run into extremities beyond all reason when they give themselves to be led by corrupt respects As he said of himself and his fellow-Philosophers Scurror ego ipse mihi populo tu so it is here They of Rome carried with a wretched desire to exalt the Papacy and indeed the whole Clergy as much as they may and to avile the secular powers as much as they dare they therefore ascribe this power over the conscience to the Ecclesiastical lawes especially but do not shew themselves all out so zealous for the secular Ours at home on the contrary out of an appetite they have to bring in a new platform of discipline into the Church and for that purpose to present the established government unto the eyes and the hearts of the people in as deformed a shape as they can quarrel the Ecclesiastical lawes especially for tyrannizing over the consciscience but do not shew themselves so much agrieved at the secular Whereas the very truth is whatsoever advantages the secular powers may have above the Ecclesiastical or the Ecclesiastical above the secular in other respects yet as to the power of binding the conscience all humane lawes in general are of like reason and stand upon equal termes It is to be misliked secondly in the Romish doctrine that they subject the conscience to the things themselves also and not only tye
you as unto his first-born a double portion of his Spirit as Elisha had of Eliah's or perhaps dealing with you yet more liberally as Ioseph did with Benjamin whose messe though he were the youngest he appointed to be five times as much as any of his brethrens It is needfull that you of all others should be eft-soones put in remembrance that those eminent manifestations of the Spirit you have were given you First it will be a good help to take down that swelling which as an Aposteme in the body through ranknesse of blood so is apt to ingender in the soul through abundance of Knowledge and to let out some of the corruption It is a very hard thing Multum sapere and not altum sapere to know much and not to know it too much to excell others in gifts and not perk above them in self-conceipt S. Paul who in all other things was sufficiently instructed as well to abound as to suffer need was yet put very hard to it when he was to try the mastery with this temptation which arose from the abundance of revelations If you find an aptnesse then in your selves and there is in your selves as of your selves such an aptnesse as to no one thing more to be exalted above measure in your own conceipts boastingly to make ostentation of your own sufficiencies with a kind of unbecoming compassion to cast scorn upon your meaner brethren and upon every light provocation to fly out into those termes of defiance I have no need of thee and I have no need of thee to dispell this windy humour I know not a more soveraign remedy then to chew upon this meditation that all the Abilities and perfections you have were given you by one who was no way so bound to you but he might have given them as well to the meanest of your brethren as to you and that without any wrong to you if it had so pleased him You may take the Receipt from him who himself had had some experience of the infirmity even Saint Paul in the fourth of this Epistle What hast thou that thou hast not received and if thou hast received it why doest thou boast as if thou hadst not received it Secondly Every wise and conscionable man should advisedly weigh his own Gifts and make them his Rule to work by not thinking he doth enough if he do what Law compelleth him to do or if he do as much as other neighbours do Indeed where Lawes bound us by Negative Precepts Hitherto thou mayest go but further thou shalt not we must obey and we may not exceed those bounds But where the Lawes do barely enjoyne us to do somewhat lest having no Law to compell us we should do just nothing it can be no transgression of the Law to do more Whosoever therefore of you have received more or greater Gifts then many others have you must know your selves bound to do so much more good with them and to stand chargeable with so much the deeper account for them Crescunt dona crescunt rationes When you shall come to make up your accounts your receipts will be looked into and if you have received ten talents or five for your meaner brothers one when but one shall be required from him you shall be answerable for ten or five For it is an equitable course that to whom much is given of him much should be required And at that great day if you cannot make your accounts straight with your receipts you shall certainly find that most true in this sense which Salomon spake in another Qui apponit scientiam apponit dolorem the more and greater your gifts are unlesse your thankfulnesse for them and your diligence with them rise to some good like proportion thereunto the greater shall be your condemnation the more your stripes But thirdly though your Graces must be so to your selves yet beware you do not make them Rules to others A thing I the rather note because the fault is so frequent in practice and yet very rarely observed and more rarely reprehended God hath endowed a man with good abilities and parts in some kind or other I instance but in one gift onely for examples sake viz. an Ability to inlarge himself in prayer readily and with fit expressions upon any present occasion Being in the Ministry or other Calling he is carefull to exercise his gift by praying with his family praying with the sick praying with other company upon such other occasions as may fall out He thinketh and he thinketh well that if he should do otherwise or less than he doth he should not be able to discharge himself from the guilt of unfaithfulnesse in not employing the talent he hath received to the best advantage when the exercise of it might redound to the glory of the giver Hitherto he is in the right so long as he maketh his gift a Rule but to himself But now if this man shall stretch out this Rule unto all his brethren in the same Calling by imposing upon them a necessity of doing the like if he shall expect or exact from them that they should also be able to commend unto God the necessities of their families or the state of a sick person or the like by extemporary prayer but especially if he shall judge or censure them that dare not adventure so to do of intrusion into or of unfaithfulnesse in their Callings he committeth a great fault and well deserving a sharp reprehension For what is this else but to lay heavier burdens upon mens shoulders then they can stand under to make our selves judges of other mens consciences and our abilities Rules of their actions yea and even to lay an imputation upon our Master with that ungracious servant in the Gospel as if he were an hard man reaping where he hath not sown and gathering where he hath not strewed and requiring much where he hath given little and like Pharaoh's task-masters exacting the full tale of bricks without sufficient allowance of materialls Shall he that hath a thousand a year count him that hath but a hundred a Churl if he do not spend as much in his house weekly keep as plentifull a table and bear as much in every common charge as himself No less unreasonable is he that would bind his brother of inferiour gifts to the same frequency and method in preaching to the same readiness and copiousness in praying to the same necessity and measure in the performance of other duties whereunto according to those gifts he findeth in himself he findeth himself bound The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man let no man be so severe to his brother as to look he should manifest more of the Spirit then he hath received Now as for you to whom God hath dealt these spirituall gifts with a more sparing hand the freedome of Gods distribution may be a fruitfull meditation for you
profitable to his brethren and fellow-servants in Church and Common-wealth It is an old received Canon Beneficium propter officium No man seetteth a Steward over his house onely to receive his rents and then to keep the moneys in his hand and make no provision out of it for his Hines and servants but it is the office of a good and wise Steward to give every one of the houshold his appointed portion at the appointed seasons And who so receiveth a spirituall gift ipso facto taketh upon him the office and is bound to the duties of a Steward As every man hath received the gift even so minister the same one unto another as good stewards of the manifold graces of God 1 Pet. 4. It was not onely for orders sake and for the beautifying of his Church though that also that God gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers but also and especially for more necessary and profitable uses for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ Ephs. 4.11 12. The members of the body are not every one for it self but every one for other and all for the whole The stomach eateth not to fill it self but to nourish the Body the Eye seeth not to please it self but to espie for the Body the foot moveth not to exercise it self but to carry the Body the Hand worketh not to help it self but to maintain the body every joynt supplieth something according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part for the fit joyning together and compacting and encreasing of the body to the edifying it selfe in love Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular Now this necessity of employing spirituall gifts to the good and profit of others ariseth first from the will and the intent of the Giver my Text sheweth plainly what that intent was The manifestation of the Spirit was therefore given to every man that he might profit withall Certainly as Nature doth not so much lesse doth the God of Nature make any thing to no purpose or barely for shew but for use and the use for which all these things were made and given is edification He that hath an estate made over to him in trust and for uses hath in equity therein no estate at all if he turne the commodities of the thing some other way and not to those speciall uses for which he was so estated in it So he that employeth not his spirituall gift to the use for which it was given to the profit of the Church he hath de jure forfeited it to the giver And we have sometimes known him de facto to take the forfeiture as from the unprofitable servant in the Gospel Take the talent from him We have sometimes seen the experiment of it Men of excellent parts by slackning their zeal to have lost their very gifts and by neglecting the use to have lost the Principall finding a sensible decay in those powers which they were slothfull to bring into act It is a just thing with the Father of Lights when he hath lighted any man a candle by bestowing spirituall gifts upon him and lent him a candlestick too whereon to set it by providing him a stay in the Church if that man shall then hide his candle under a bushel and envy the light and comfort of it to them that are in the house either to remove his candlestick or to put out his candle in obscurity As the intent of the Giver so secondly the nature and quality of the gift calleth upon us for employment It is not with these spirituall gifts as with most other things which when they are imparted are empaired and lessened by communicating Here is no place for that allegation of the Virgins Ne non sufficiat Lest there be not enough for you and for us These graces are of the number of those things that communicate themselves by Multiplication not Division and by diffusion without waste As the seal maketh impression in the wax and as fire conveyeth heat into Iron and as one candle tindeth a thousand all without losse of figure heat or light Had ever any man lesse knowledg or wit or learning by teaching of others had he not rather more The more wise the Preacher was the more he taught the People Knowledge saith Salomon Eccles. 12. and certainly the more he taught them knowledge the more his own wisdome increased As the Widows oyle increased not in the vessell but by powring out and as the barly bread in the Gospel multiplyed not in the whole loaf but by breaking and distributing and as the grain bringeth increase not when it lyeth on a heap in the garner but by scattering upon the land so are these spirituall graces best improved not by keeping them together but by distributing them abroad Tutius in credito quà m in sudario the talent gathereth nothing in the napkin unlesse it be rust and canker but travelling in the bank besides the good it doth as it passeth to and fro it ever returneth home with increase Thirdly our own unsufficiency to all offices and the need we have of other mens gifts must enforce us to lend them the help and comfort of ours GOD hath so distributed the variety of his gifts with singular wisdome that there is no man so mean but his service may be usefull to the greatest nor any man so eminent but he may sometimes stand in need to the meanest of his brethren of purpose that whilest each hath need of other each should help none should despise other As in a building the stones help one another every lower stone supporting the higher from falling to the ground and every higher stone saving the lower from taking wet and as in the body every member lendeth some supply to the rest and again receiveth supply from them so in the spirituall building and mysticall body of the Church God hath so tempered the parts each having his use and each his defects that there should be no schism in the body but that the members should have the same care one for another Such a consent there should be in the parts as was between the blind and lame man in the Epigram mutually covenanting the Blind to carry the Lame and the Lame to direct the Blind that so the Blind might find his way by the others eyes and the Lame walk therein upon the others legs When a man is once come to that all-sufficiency in himself as he may truly say to the rest of his brethren I stand in no need of you let him then keep his gifts to himself but let him in the mean time remember he must employ them to the advantage of his master and to the benefit of his brother The manifestation of the spirit is
who can help it if a man will needs cherish an errour and persist in it But now if the conscience be onely doubtfull whether a thing be lawfull or no but have not as yet passed a peremptory judgement against it yea although it rather incline to think it unlawfull in that case if the Magistrate shall command it to be done the subject with a good conscience may do it nay he cannot with a good conscience refuse to do it though it be dubitante conscientiâ But you will yet say that in doubtfull cases the safer part is to be chosen So say I too and am content that rule should decide this question onely let it be rightly applyed Thou thinkest it safer where thou doubtest of the unlawfulnesse to forbear then to do as for example if thou doubtest whether it be lawfull to kneel at the Communion it is safest in thy opinion therefore for thee not to kneel So should I think too if thou wert left meerly to thine own liberty But thou dost not consider how thou art caught in thine own net and how the edge of thine own weapon may be turned upon thee point-blank not to be avoided thus If authority command thee to kneel which whether it be lawfull for thee to do or not thou doubtest it cannot choose but thou must needs doubt also whether thou maiest lawfully disobey or not Now then here apply thine own Rule In dubiis pars tutior and see what will come of it Judge since thou canst not but doubt in both cases whether it be not the safer of the two to obey doubtingly than to disobey doubtingly Tene certum demitte incertum is S. Gregory his rule where there is a certainty and an uncertainty let the uncertainty go and hold to that which is certain Now the generall is certain that thou art to obey the Magistrate in all things not contrary to the will of God but the particular is uncertain whether the thing now commanded thee by the Magistrate be contrary to the will of God I say uncertain to thee because thou doubtest of it Deal safely therefore and hold thee to that which is certain and obey But thou wilt yet alledge that the Apostle here condemneth the doing of any thing not onely with a gainsaying but even with a doubting conscience because doubting also is contrary to faith and he that doubteth is even for that condemned if he eat Oh beware of mis-applying Scripture it is a thing easily done but not so easily answered I know not any one gap that hath let in more and more dangerous errours into the Church than this that men take the words of the sacred Text fitted to particular occasions and to the condition of the times wherein they were written and then apply them to themselves and others as they find them without due respect had to the differences that may be between those times and cases and the present Sundry things spoken in Scripture agreeably to that infancy of the Church would sort very ill with the Church in her fulnesse of strength and stature and sundry directions very expedient in times of persecution and when believers lived mingled with Infidels would be very unseasonably urged where the Churc◠is in a peaceable and flourishing estate enjoying the favour and living under the protection of gracious and religious Princes Thus the Constitutions that the Apostles made concerning Deacons and Widowes in those primitive times are with much importunity but very importunely withall urged by the Disciplinarians And sundry other like things I might instance in of this kind worthy the discovery but that I fear to grow tedious Briefely then the Apostles whole discourse in this Chapter and so wheresoever else he toucheth upon the point of Scandals is to be understood onely in that case where men are left to their own liberty in the use of indifferent things the Romans Corinthians and others to whom S. Paul wrote about these matters being not limited any way in the exercise of their liberty therein by any over-ruling authority But where the Magistrates have interposed thought good upon mature advice to impose Laws upon those that are under them whereby their liberty is not infringed as some unjustly complain in the inward judgement but onely limited in the outward exercise of it there the Apostolical directions wil not hold in the same absolute manner as they were delivered to those whom they then concerned but only in the equity of them so far forth as the cases are alike with such meet qualifications mitigations as the difference of the cases otherwise doth require So that a man ought not out of private fancy or meerly because he would not be observed for not doing as others do or for any the like weak respects to do that thing of the lawfulness whereof he is not competently perswaded where it is free for him to do otherwise which was the case of these weak ones among the Romans for whose sakes principally the Apostle gave these directions But the authority of the Magistrate intervening so alters the case that such a forbearance as to them was necessary is to as many of us as are commanded to do this or that altogether unlawful in regard they were free we are bound for the reasons already shewn which I now rehearse not But you will yet say for in point of obedience men are very loth to yield so long as they can find any thing to plead those that lay these burdens upon us at leastwise should do well to satisfie our doubts and to inform our consciences concerning the lawfulnesse of what they enjoyn that so we might render them obedience with better cheerfulness How willing are we sinful men to leave the blame of our miscarriages any where rather than upon our selves But how is it not incongruous the while that those men should prescribe rules to their governours who can scarcely brook their governours should prescribe Laws to them It were good we would first learn how to obey ere we take upon us to teach our betters how to govern However what governours are bound to do or what is fit for them to do in the point of information that is not now the question If they fail in any part of their bounden duty they shall be sure to reckon for it one day but their failing cannot in the mean time excuse thy disobedience Although I think it would prove a hard task for whosoever should undertake it to shew that Superiours are alwayes bound to inform the consciences of their inferiours concerning the lawfulnesse of every thing they shall command If sometimes they do it where they see it expedient or needfull sometimes again and that perhaps oftner it may be thought more expedient for them and more conducible for the publick peace and safety onely to make known to the people what their pleasures are reserving to themselves the reasons thereof I am sure in the point
and he must pity the Poor as a father doth his children so pity them that he do something for them Princes and Iudges and Magistrates were not ordained altogether nor yet so much for their own sakes that they might have over whom to bear rule and to dominiere at pleasure as for the peoples sakes that the people might have to whom to resort and upon whom to depend for help and succour and relief in their necessities And they ought to remember that for this end GOD hath endued them with that power which others want that they might by their power help them to right who have not power to right themselves Hoc reges habent magnificum ingens c. Prodesse miseris supplices fido lare Protegere c. This is the very thing wherein the preeminence of Princes and Magistrates and great ones above the ordinary sort singularly consisteth and wherein specially they have the advantage and whereby they hold the title of Gods that they are able to do good and to help the distressed more than others are For which ability how they haue used it they stand accountable to him from whom they have received it and woe unto them if the accounts they bring in be not in some reasonable proportion answerable to the receipts Potentes potenter into whose hands much hath been given from their hands much will be required and the mighty ones if they have not done a mighty deale of good withall shall be mightily tormented And as they have received power from God so they do receive honours and services and tributes from their people for the maintenance of that power and these as wages by Gods righteous ordinance for their care and paines for the peoples good God hath imprinted in the naturall conscience of every man notions of fear and honour and reverence and obedience and subjection and contribution and other duties to be performed towards Kings and Magistrates and other superiours not onely for wrath but also for conscience sake and all this for the maintenance of that power in them by the right use whereof themselves are again maintained Now the same conscience which bindeth us who are under authority to the performance bindeth you who are in authority to the requitall of these duties I say the same Conscience though not the same wrath for here is the difference Both Wrath and Conscience bind us to our duties so that if we withdraw our subjection we both wound our own Consciences and incurre your just wrath but onely Conscience bindeth you to yours and not Wrath so that if ye withdraw your help we may not use wrath but must suffer it with patience and permit all to the judgement of your own consciences and of God the judge of all mens consciences But yet still in Conscience the obligation lyeth equally upon you and us As we are bound to give you honour so are you to give us safety as we to fear you so you to help us as we to fight for you so you to care for us as we to pay you tribute so you to do us right For For this cause pay we tribute and other duties unto you who are Gods ministers even because you ought to be attending continually upon this very thing to approve your selves as the ministers of God to us for good Oh that we could all superiours and inferiours both one and other remember what we owed each to other and by mutually striving to pay it to the utmost so endeavour our selves to God! But in the meane time we are still injurious if either we withdraw our subjection or you your help if either we cast off the duty of children or you the care of Fathers Time was when Iudges and Nobles and Princes delighted to be called by the name of Fathers The Philistims called their Kings by a peculiar appellative Abimelech as who say The King my Father In Rome the Senatours were of old time called Patres Fathers and it was afterwards accounted among the Romans the greatest title of honour that could be bestowed upon their Consuls Generals Emperours or whosoever had deserved best of the Common-wealth to have this addition to the rest of his stile Pater patriae a Father to his Country Naamans servants in 4 King· 5. call him Father My Father if the Prophet had commanded thee c. And on the other side David the King speaketh unto his Subjects as a Father to his children in Psal. 34. Come ye children c. and Solomon in the Proverbs every where My sonne even as Iob here accounteth himself a Father to the poor Certainly to shew that some of these had and that all good Kings and Governours should have a fatherly care over and bear a fatherly affection unto those that are under them All which yet seeing it is intended to be done in bonum universitatis must be so understood as that it may stand cum bono universitatis stand with equity and justice and with the common good For Mercy and Iustice must go together and help to temper the one the other The Magistrate and Governour must be a Father to the poor to protect him from injuries and to relieve his necessities but not to maintain him in idlenesse All that the Father oweth to the Child is not love and maintenance he oweth him too Education and he oweth him correction A Father may love his Childe too fondly and make him a wanton he may maintain him too highly and make him a prodigall But he must give him Nurture too as well as Maintenance lest he be better fed than taught and correct him too as well as love him lest he bring him most grief when he should reap most comfort from him Such a fatherly care ought the civil Magistrate to have over the poor He must carefully defend them from wrongs and oppressions he must providently take order for their convenient relief and maintenance But that is not all he must as well make provision to set them on work and see that they follow it and he must give them sharp correction when they grow idle stubborn dissolute or any way out of order This he should do and not leave the other undone There is not any speech more frequent in the mouthes of beggars and wanderers wherewith the Country now swarmeth then that men would be good to the poor and yet scarce any thing so much mistaken as that speech in both the termes of it most men neither understanding aright who are the poor nor yet what it is to be good to them Not he onely is good to the poor that delivereth him when he is oppressed nor is he onely good to the poor that relieveth him when he is distressed but he also is good to the poor that punisheth him when he is idle He is good to the poor that helpeth him when he wanteth and he
than they the great God of heaven and earth hath reposed in you and expecteth from you Chastise him with severe indignation if he begin and if he continue spit defiance in his face who ere he be that shall think you so base as to sell your freedome for a bribe Gird your sword upon your thigh keeping your selves ever within the compass of your Commissions and Callings as the Sun in the Zodiack go through stitch right on in the course of Iustice as the Sun in the firmament with unresisted violence and as a Giant that rejoyceth to run his race and who can stop him Bear not the sword in vain but let your right hand teach you terrible things Defend the poor and fatherless and deliver the oppressed from them that are mightier then he Smite through the loyns of those that rise up to do wrong that they rise not again Break the jaws of the wicked and pluck the spoyl out of his teeth Thus if you do the wicked shall fear you the good shall blesse you the poor shall pray for you posterity shall praise you your own hearts shall chear you and the great God of Heaven shall reward you This that you may do in some good measure the same God of Heaven enable you and give you and every of us grace in our severall places and callings to seek his glory and to endeavour the discharge of a good conscience To which God blessed for ever Father Sonne and Holy Ghost three Persons and one eternall invisible and onely wise God be ascribed all the Kingdome Power and Glory for ever and ever AMEN AD MAGISTRATUM The Second Sermon At the Assises at Lincoln 7 March 1624. at the request of William Lister Esq then high Sheriff of the County EXOD. 23. ver 1. 3. 1. Thou shalt not raise a false report put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness 2. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgement 3. Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause THere is no one thing Religion ever excepted that more secureth and adorneth the State than Iustice doth It is both Columna and Corona Reipublicae as a Prop to make it subsist firm in it selfe and as a Crown to render it glorious in the eyes of others As the Cement in a building that holdeth all together so is Iustice to the publick Body as whereunto it oweth a great part both of its strength for by it the throne is established in the sixteenth and of its height too for it exalteth a Nation in the 14th of the Proverbs As then in a Building when for want of good looking to the Morter getting wet dissolveth and the wals belly out the house cannot but settle apace and without speedy repaires fall to the ground so there is not a more certain symptome of a declining and decaying and tottering State than is the generall dissolution of manners for want of the due execution and administration of Iustice. The more cause have we that are Gods Ministers by frequent exhortations admonitions obsecrations expostulations even out of season sometimes but especially upon such seasonable opportunities as this to be instant with all them that have any thing to do in matters of Iustice but especially with you who are Gods Ministers too though in another kind you who are in Commission to sit upon the Bench of judicature either for Sentence or Assistance to do your God and King service to do your Country and Calling honour to do your selves and others right by advancing to the utmost of your powers the due course of Iustice. Wherein as I verily think none dare but the guilty so I am well assured none can justly mislike in us the choice either of our Argument that we beat upon these things or of our Method that we begin first with you For as we cannot be perswaded on the one side but that we are bound for the discharge of our duties to put you in mind of yours so we cannot be perswaded on the other side but that if there were generally in the greater ones that care and conscience and zeal there ought to be of the common good a thousand corruptions rife among inferiours would be if not wholly reformed at leastwise practised with lesse connivence from you confidence in them grievance to others But right and reason will that every man bear his own burthen And therefore as we may not make you innocent if you be faulty by transferring your faults upon others so far be it from us to impute their faults to you otherwise then as by not doing your best to hinder them you make them yours For Iustice we know is an Engine that turneth upon many hinges And to the exercise of judicature besides the Sentence which is properly yours there are diverse other things required Informations and Testimonies and Arguings and Inquests and sundry Formalities which I am neither able to name nor yet covetous to learne wherein you are to rest much upon the faithfulnesse of other men In any of whom if there be as sometimes there will be foul and unfaithfull dealing such as you either cannot spie or cannot help wrong sentence may proceed from out your lips without your fault As in a curious Watch or Clock that moveth upon many wheeles the finger may point a wrong hour though the wheel that next moveth it be most exactly true if but some little pinne or notch or spring be out of order in or about any of the baser and inferiour wheels What he said of old Non fieri potest quin Principes etiam valde boni iniqua faciant was then and ever since and yet is and ever will be most true For say a Iudge be never so honestly minded never so zealous of the truth never so carefull to do right yet if there be a spitefull Accuser that will suggest any thing or an audacious Witnesse that will sweare any thing or a crafty Pleader that will maintain any thing or a tame Iury that will swallow any thing or a craving Clerk or Officer that for a bribe will foist in any thing the Iudge who is tyed as it is meet he should to proceed secundum allegata probata cannot with his best care and wisdome prevent it but that sometimes justice shall be perverted innocency oppressed and guilty ones justified Out of which consideration I the rather desired for this Assise-Assembly to choose a Text as neer as I could of equall latitude with the Assise-Businesse For which purpose I could not readily think of any other portion of Scripture so proper and full to meet with all sorts of persons and all sorts of abuses as these three verses are Is there either Calumny in the Accuser or Perjury in the Witnesse or Supinity in the Iurer or
and so they are proper Remedies against Publick judgements To turne unto the Lord our God with all our heart and with Fasting and with Weeping and with Mourning to sanctifie a Fast and call a solemn assembly and gather the people and Elders together and weep before the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation and to let the Priests the Ministers of the Lord weep between the Porch and the Altar and to pray the Lord to spare his people and not be angry with them for ever Never did people thus humble themselves with true lowly penitent and obedient hearts who found not comfort by it in the meane time and in the end benefit And blessed be God who hath put it into the heart of our Moses with the consent of the Elders of our Israel by his royall example first and then by his royall command to lay upon us a double necessity of this so religious and profitable a course But as our Saviour told the young man in the Gospel who said he had kept the whole Law Unum tibi deest One thing is wanting so when we have done our best and utmost fasted and wept and prayed as constantly and frequently and fervently as we can unlesse you the Magistrates and Officers of justice be good unto us one thing will be wanting still One maine ingredient of singular vertue without which the whole receipt besides as precious and soveraign as it is may be taken and yet fail the cure And that is the severe and fearelesse and impartiall Execution of judgement Till we see a care in the Gods on earth faithfully to execute theirs our hopes can be but faint that the God of Heaven will in mercy remove his judgements If God send a famine into the land let holy David do what he can otherwise it will continue yeare after yeare so long as judgement is not done upon the bloody house of Saul for his cruelty in slaying the Gibeonites God will not be entreated for the land One known Achan that hath got a wedge of gold by sacriledge or injustice if suffered is able to trouble a whole Israel and the Lord will Not turn from the fiercenesse of his anger till he have deserved judgement done upon him If Israel have joyned himselfe unto Baal-Peor so as the anger of the Lord be kindled against them he will not be appeased by any meanes untill Moses take the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the Sunne If the Land be defiled with blood it is in vain to think of any other course when God himself hath pronounced it impossible that the Land should be Purged from the blood that is shed in it otherwise then by the blood of him that shed it Up then with the zeal of Phinehes up for the love of God and of his people all you that are in place of authority Gird your swords upon your thigh and with your javelins in your hand pursue the Idolater and the Adulterer and the Murtherer and the Oppressour and every known offender into his Tent and naile him to the Earth that he never rise again to do more mischief Let it appeare what love you bear to the State by your hatred to them and shew your pity to us by shewing none to them The destroying Angel of God attendeth upon you for his dispatch if you would but set in stoutly he would soon be gone Why should either sloth or feare or any partiall or corrupt respect whatsoever make you cruell to the good in sparing the bad or why should you suffer your selves for want of courage and zeal to execute judgement to lose either the opportunity or the glory of being the instruments to appease Gods wrath and to stay his plagues But for that matters appertaining to Iustice and Iudgement must passe through many hands before they come to yours and there may bee so much juggling used in conveighing them from hand to hand that they may be represented unto you many times in much different formes from what they were in truth and at the first That your care and zeale to execute Iustice and Iudgement faithfully according to your knowledge may not through the fault and miscarriage of other men faile the blessed end and successe that Phinehes found I desire that every of them also as well as you would receive the word of Exhortation each in his place and office to set himselfe uprightly and unpartially as in the sight of God to advance to the utmost of his power the due course and administration of Iustice. And for this purpose by occasion of this Scripture which pointeth us to the End of these Assemblies I shall crave leave to reflect upon another which giveth us sundry particular directions conducing to that End And it is that Scripture whereinto we made some entrance the last Assizes and would have now proceeded farther had not the heavie hand of God upon us in this his grievous visitation led me to make choice rather of this Text as the more seasonable That other is written in Exodus 23. the three first verses Thou shalt not raise a false report put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witnesse Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evill neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgement Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause Wherein were noted five speciall Rules shared out among five sorts of persons the Accuser the Witnesse the Iurer the Pleader the Officer I will but give each of them some brief intimation of their duty from their severall proper rules and conclude If thou comest hither then as a Plantiffe or other Party in a civil cause or to give voluntary Information upon a Statute or to prosecute against a Malefactor or any way in the nature of an Accuser Let neither the hope of gain or of any other advantage to thy self not secret malice or envie against thine adversary nor thy desire to give satisfaction to any third party sway thee beyond the bounds of truth and equity no not a little either to devise an untruth against thy neighbour of thine own head or by an hard construction to deprave the harmelesse actions or speeches of others or to make them worse than they are by unjust aggravations or to take advantage of letters and syllables to entrap innocency without a fault When thou art to open thy mouth against thy brother set the first Rule of that Text as a watch before the door of thy lips Thou shalt not raise a false report If thou comest hither secondly to be used as a Witnesse perhaps Graecâ fide like a down-right Knight of the post that maketh of an oath a jest and a pastime of a deposition or dealt withall by a bribe or suborned by thy Land-lord or great Neighbour or egged on with
punishment to awaken other from their security in sinne How should we send up Supplications and prayers and intercessions for Kings and for all that are in authority that God would incline their hearts unto righteous courses and open their ears to wholesom counsels and strengthen their hands to just actions when but a sinfull oversight in one of them may prove the overthrow of many thousands of us as David but by once numbring his people in the pride of his heart lessened their number at one clap threescore and ten thousand If Israel turn their backs upon their enemies up Iosuah and make search for the troubler of Israel firret out the thief and doe execution upon him one Achan if but suffered is able to undoe the whole hoast of Israel what mischief might he doe if countenanced if allowed The hour I see hath overtaken me and I must end To wrap up all in a word then and conclude Thou that hast power over others suffer no sin in them by base connivence but punish it thou that hast charge of others suffer no sinne in them by dull silence but rebuke it thou that hast any interest in or dealing with others suffer no sinne upon them by easie allowance but distaste it thou that hast nothing else yet by thy charitable prayers for them and by constant example to them stop the course of sinne in others further the growth of grace in others labour by all means as much as in thee lyeth to draw others unto God lest their sinnes draw Gods judgements upon themselves and thee This that thou mayest doe and that I may doe and that every one of us that feareth God and wisheth well to the Israel of God may do faithfully and discreetly in our several stations and callings let us all humbly beseech the Lord the God of all grace and wisdom for his Son Iesus sake by his holy Spirit to enable us To which blessed Trinity one only wise Immortal Invisible Almighty most gracious and most glorious Lord and God be ascribed by every one of us the kingdom the power and the glory both now and for ever Amen THE FOVRTH SERMON AD POPVLVM In S. Pauls Church London 4 Nov. 1621. 1 Cor. 7.24 Brethren let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God IF flesh and bloud be suffered to make the Glosse it is able to corrupt a right good Text. It easily turneth the doctrine of Gods grace into wantonnesse and as easily the doctrine of Christian liberty into licentiousness These Corinthians being yet but Carnal for the point of Liberberty consulted it seemeth but too much with this cursed glosse Which taught them to interpret their Calling to the Christian Faith as an Exemption from the duties of all other callings as if their spiritual freedom in Christ had cancelled ipso facto all former obligations whether of Nature or Civility The Husband would put away his Wife the Servant disrespect his Master every other man break the bonds of relation to every other man and all under this pretence and upon this ground that Christ hath made them free In this passage of the Chap. the Apostle occasionally correcteth this erour pincipally indeed as the present Argument led him in the particular of Marriage but with a farther and more universal extent to all outward states and conditions of life The sum of his Doctrine this He that is yoaked with a wife must not put her away but count her worthy of all love he that is bound to a Master must not despise him but count him worthy of all honour every other man that is tyed in any relation to any other man must not neglect him but count him worthy of all good offices and civil respects suitable to his place and person though Shee or He or that other be Infidels and Unbeleevers The Christian Calling doth not at all prejudice much less overthrow it rather establisheth and strengtheneth those interests that arise from natural relations or from voluntary contracts either domestical or civil betwixt Man and Man The general rule to this effect he conceiveth in the form of an Exhortation that every man notwithstanding his calling unto liberty in Christ abide in that station wherein God hath placed him contain himself within the bounds thereof and cheerfully and contentedly undergoe the dutiâ—s that belong thereto ver 17. As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one so let him walk And lest this Exhortation as it fareth with most other especially such as come in but upon the by as this doth should bee slenderly regarded the more fully to commend it to their consideration and practice he repeateth it once again verse 20. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called And now again once more in the words of this verse concluding therewith the whole discourse into which he had digressed Brethren let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God From which words I desire it may be no prejudice to my present discourse if I take occasion to entreat at this time of a very needfull argument viz. concerning the Necessity Choice and Use of particular callings Which whilst I doe if any shall blame me for shaking hands with my text let such know First that it will not be very charitably done to passe a hard censure upon anothers labour no nor yet very providently for their own good to slight a profitable truth for some little seeming impertinency Secondly that the points proposed are indeed not impertinent the last of them which supposeth also the other two being the very substance of this Exhortation and all of them such as may without much violence be drawn from the very words themselves at leastwise if we may be allowed the liberty which is but reasonable to take-in also the other two verses the 17. and the 20. in sense and for substance all one with this as anon in the several handling of them will in part appear But howsoever Thirdly which Saint Bernard deemed a sufficient Apology for himself in a case of like nature Noverint me non tam intendisse c. let them know that in my choice of this Scripture my purpose was not so much to bind my self to the strict exposition of the Apostolical Text as to take occasion there-from to deliver what I desired to speak and judged expedient for you to hear concerning 1. the Necessity 2. the Choice and 3. the Use of particular Callings Points if ever needfull to be taught and known certainly in these dayes most Wherein some habituated in idleness will not betake themselves to any Calling like a heavy jade that is good at bit and nought else These would be soundly spurred up and whipped on end Othersome through weakness doe not make a good choice of a fit Calling like a young unbroken thing that hath mettal and is free but is ever wrying the
sweat for it Secondly although it may not be gainsayed but that that injunction to Adam was given as a Curse yet the substance of the Injunction was not the thing wherein the Curse did formally consist Herein was the Curse that whereas before the fall the task which God appointed man was with pleasure of body and content of mind without sweat of brow or brain now after the fall he was to toyl and forecast for his living with care of mind and travel of body with weariness of flesh and vexation of spirit But as for the substance of the Injunction which is that every man should have somewhat to do wherein to bestow himself and his time and his gifts and whereby to earn his bread in this it appeareth not to have been a Curse but a Precept of divine institution that Adam in the time and state of innocency before he had deserved a Curse was yet enjoyned his Task To dress and to keep the Garden And as Adam lived himself so he bred up his children His two first born though heirs apparent of all the world had yet their peculiar employments the one in tillage the other in pasturage And as many since as have walked orderly have observed Gods Ordinance herein working with their hands the thing that is good in some kind or other those that have set themselves in no such good way our Apostle elswhere justly blaming as inordinate or disorderly walkers And how can such disorderly ones hope to find approvance in the sight of our God who is a God of Order He commandeth us to live in a Calling and woe to us if we neglect it But say there were no such expresse Command for it the very distribution of Gods gifts were enough to lay upon us this necessity Where God bestoweth he bindeth and to whom any thing is given of him something shall be required The inference is stronger than most are aware of from the Ability to the Duty from the Gift to the Work from the Fitting to the Calling Observe how this Apostle knitteth them together at the 17. Verse As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one so let him walk God hath distributed to every man some proper gift or other and therefore every man must glorifie God in some peculiar Calling or other And in Eph. 4. having alleged that of the Psalm He gave gifts unto men immediately he inferreth He gave some Apostles some Prophets c. as giving us to understand that for no other end God did bestow upon some Apostolical upon others Prophetical upon others gifts in other kinds but that men should imploy them some in the Apostolical some in the Prophetical some in Offices and Callings of other kinds And if we confesse that Nature doth not we may not think the God of Nature doth bestow abilities whereof he intendeth not use for that were to bestow them in vain Sith then he bestoweth gifts and graces upon every man some or other and none in vain let every man take heed that he receive them not in vain let every man beware of napkening up the talent which was delivered him to trade withall Let all As every one hath received the gift even so minister the same one to another as good Stewards of the manifold graces of God The manifestation of the Spirit being given to every man to profit withall he that liveth unprofitably with it and without a Calling abuseth the intent of the giver and must answer for his abuse Secondly the necessity of a Calling is great in regard of a mans self and that more wayes than one For man being by nature active so as he cannot be long but he must be doing he that hath no honest vocation to busie himself in that hath nothing of his own to doe must needs from doing nothing proceed to doing naught That saying of Cato was subscribed by the wiser Heathens as an oracle Nihil agendo malè agere disce◠Idleness teacheth much evil saith the wise son of Syrac nay all kind of evil as some copies have it It hath an ear open to every extravagant motion it giveth entertainment to a thousand sinfull fancies it exposeth the soul to all the assaults of her Ghostly enemies and whereas the Devils greatest businesse is to tempt other men the idle mans only businesse is to tempt the Devil Experience of all histories and times sheweth us what advantages the Devil hath won upon godly and industrious men otherwise as upon David in the matter of Uriah and many others onely by watching the opportunity of their idle hours plying them with suggestions of noysom lusts at such times as they had given themselves but some little intermission more than ordinary from their ordinary imployments How will he not then lead captive at his pleasure those whose whole lives are nothing else but a long vacation and their whole care nothing but to make up a number and to waste the good creatures of God There is no readier sanctuary for thee then good Christian when the Devil pursueth thee than to betake thy self at once to prayer and to the works of thy Calling flye thither and thou art safe as in a Castle Non licet is a very good and proper and direct answer when the Devil would tempt thee to sin it is evil and I may not doe it but yet Non vacat is the stronger answer and surer I am busie and I cannot do it That giveth him scope to reply and it is not safe to hold argument with the Devil upon any terms he is a cunning Sophister and thou mayest be circumvented by a subtilty before thou art aware But this stubborn and blunt answer cutteth off all reply and disheartneth the Tempter for that time It was Saint Hieroms advice to his friend Semper boni aliquid operis facito ut Diabolus te semper inveniat occupatum Be always doing something that the Devil may never finde thee at leisure There is no Crosse no Holy-water no Exorcism so powerful to drive away and to conjure down the Fiend as Employment is and faithfull labour in some honest Calling Thirdly Life must be preserved Families maintained the poor relieved this cannot be done without Bread for that is the staff of life and Bread cannot be gotten or not honestly but in a Lawfull vocation or Calling Which who ever neglecteth is in very deed no better than a very thief the Bread he eateth he cannot call his own We hear saith Saint Paul writing to the Thessalonians That there are some among you that walk inordinately and work not at all but are busie-bodies Them therefore that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Iesus Christ that they work with quietnesse and eat their own bread As if it were not their own bread if
consisteth our Christian liberty to the Creature This freedom we are all bound to maintain to the utmost of our powers and not to suffer our selves to be made the servants of men otherwise than in serving one another by love but to Stand fast in the liberty wherein Christ hath set us free Now this liberty consisteth in a certain resolution of judgement and a certain perswasion of conscience arising thence that all the Creatures of God are in themselves lawfull and free for us either to use or refuse as we shall see it expedient for us and that neither the use nor the forbearance of them doth of it self either commend or discommend us unto God or any way either please him as a part of his worship or offend him as a transgression of his Law The kingdom of God is not meat and drink saith Saint Paul Neither if we eat are we the better neither the worse if we doe not eat nor on the contrary Now here is the wickednesse and the usurpation of the High Priest of Rome that he challengeth to himself a spiritual power over the consciences of men which is the greatest tyranny that ever was or can be exercised in the world laying impurity upon the things he forbiddeth and annexing operative holinesse and power both satisfactory and meritorious to the things he injoyneth Which usurpation whosoever hateth not in him with a perfect hatred is justly unworthy of and shamefully unthankfull for that liberty and freedom which the blessed Son of God hath purchased for his Church But this inward freedom once established in our hearts and our consciences fully perswaded thereof let us thenceforth make no scruple to admit of such just restraints in the outward exercise of it as Christian Sobriety Charity and Duty shall require For we must know that the Liberty of a Christian is not in eating and wearing and doing what and when and where and how he list but in being assured that it is all one before God in the things themselves barely considered whether he eat or not eat wear or not wear doe or not doe this or that and that therefore as he may upon just cause eat and wear and doe so he may upon just cause also refuse to eat or wear or doe this thing or that Indeed otherwise if we well consider it it were but the empty name of liberty without the thing for how is it liberty if a man be determinately bound the one way and tied ad alterum partem contradictonis precisely and not left indifferent and equal to either If then the regards of Sobriety Charity or Duty do not require a forbearance thou knowest every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused thou hast thy liberty therefore and mayest according to that liberty freely use that Creature But if any of those former respects require thou shouldest forbear thou knowest that the Creature still is good and as not to be refused so not to be imposed thou hast thy liberty therefore here as before and oughtest according to that liberty freely to abstain from that Creature Both in using and refusing the Conscience is still free and as well the use as the refusal and as well the refusal as the use doe equally and alike belong to the true liberty of a Christian. We have seen now what liberty God hath allowed us and therein wee may see also his great goodnesse and bounty towards us in making such a world of Creatures and all of them good Every Creature of God is good and not envying us the free use of any of those good Creatures Nothing to be refused But where is our Duty answerable to this Bounty Where is our thankfullnesse proportionable to such receipts Let us not rejoyce too much in the Creatures goodness nor glory too much in our freedom thereunto unlesse there be in us withall a due care and conscience to perform the Condition which God requireth in lieu thereof neither can their goodness do us good nor our freedom exempt us from evil And that condition is the Duty of Thanksgiving expressed in the last clause of the verse If it be received with thanksgiving Forget this proviso and we undoe all again that we have hitherto done and destroy all that we have already established concerning both the goodness of the Creature and our liberty in the use thereof for without thanksgiving neither can we partake their goodness nor use our own liberty with comfort Of this therefore in the next place wherein the weight of the duty considered together with our backwardness thereunto if I shall spend the remainder of my time and meditations I hope my labour by the blessing of God and your prayers shall not be unprofitable and my purpose therein shall find if not allowance in your judgements at least in your Charity Excuse To speak of which Duty of thanksgiving in the full extent and by way of common place were to enter into a spacious field indeed a very sea of matter without bottom For mine own ease therefore and yours I shall confine my self to that branch of it which is most immediately pertinent to my Text viz. that tribute of Thanks which we owe unto God for the free use of his good Creatures forbearing to meddle with the other branches thereof otherwise than as they fall within the reach of this by way either of Proportion or Inference And first we are to know that by Thanksgiving in my Text is not meant only that subsequent act whereby we render unto God praise and thanks for the Creature after we have received it and enjoyed the benefit of it which yet is most properly Thanksgiving but we are to extend the word farther even to those precedent acts of prayer and Benediction whereby we beseech God to give his blessing to the Creature and to sanctifie the use of it to us For what in this verse is called Thanksgiving is in the next verse comprehended under the name of Prayer And we shall accordingly find in the Scriptures elsewhere the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one whereof signifieth properly Blessing the other Thanksgiving used oftentimes promiscuously the one for the other The blessing which our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ used at the consecration of the Sacramental bread S. Luke and S. Paul expresse by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Matth. and S. Mark by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Prayer of blessing used before the eating of common bread is by every of the four Evangelists in some places described by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And by three of them in other some places by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sometimes found in the writings of the Ancients for the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the more usual name whereof is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the