The Points then that arise from this part of my Text are these 1. Men do not always commit those evils their own desires or outward temptations prompt them unto 2. That they do it not it is from Gods restraint 3. That God restraineth them it is of his own gracious goodness and mercy The common subject matter of the whole three points being one viz. Gods restraint of mans sin we will therefore wrap them up all three together and so handle them in this one entire Observation as the total of all three God in his mercy oftentimes restraineth men from committing those evils which if that restraint were not they would otherwise have committed This Restraint whether we consider the Measure or the Means which God useth therein is of great variety For the Measure God sometimes restraineth men à Toto from the whole sin whereunto they are tempted as he with-held Ioseph from consenting to the perswasions of his Mistress sometimes only à Tanto and that more or less as in his infinite wisdom he seeth expedient suffering them perhaps but only to desire the evill perhaps to resolve upon it perhaps to prepare for it perhaps to begin to act it perhaps to proceed far in it and yet keeping them back from falling into the extremity of the sin or accomplishing their whole desire in the full and final consummation thereof as here he dealt with Abimelech Abimelech sinned against the eighth Commandement in taking Sarah injuriously from Abraham say he had been but her brother and he sinned against the seventh Commandement in a foul degree in harbouring such wanton and unchaste thoughts concerning Sarah and making such way as he did by taking her into his house for the satisfying of his lust therein but yet God with-held him from plunging himself into the extremity of those sins not suffering him to fall into the act of uncleanness And as for the Means whereby God with-holdeth men from sinning they are also of wonderful variety Sometimes he taketh them off by diverting the course of the corruption and turning the affections another way Sometimes he awaketh natural Conscience which is a very tender and tickle thing when it is once stirred and will boggle now and then at a very small matter in comparison over it will do at some other times Sometimes he affrighteth them with apprehensions of outward Evils as shame infamy charge envy loss of a friend danger of humane lawes and sundry other such like discouragements Sometimes he cooleth their resolutions by presenting unto their thoughts the terrors of the Law the strictness of the last Account and the endless unsufferable torments of Hell-fire Sometimes when all things are ripe for execution he denyeth them opportunity or casteth in some unexpected impediment in the way that quasheth all Sometimes he disableth them and weakeneth the arm of flesh wherein they trusted so as they want power to their will as here he dealt with Abimelech And sundry other ways he hath more than we are able to search into whereby he layeth a restraint upon men keepeth them back from many sins and mischiefs at least from the extremity of many sins and mischiefs whereunto otherwise Nature and Temptation would carry them with a strong current Not to speak yet of that sweet and of all other the most blessed and powerful restraint which is wrought in us by the Spirit of Sanctification renewing the soul and subduing the corruption that is in the Flesh unto the Obedience of the Spirit at which I shall have fitter occasion to touch anon In the mean time that there is something or other that restraineth men from doing some evils unto which they have not only a natural proneness but perhaps withal an actual desire and purpose might be shewn by a world of instances but because every mans daily experience can abundantly furnish him with some we will therefore content our selves with the fewer Laban meant no good to Iacob when taking his Brethren with him he pursued after him seven days journey in an hostile manner and he had power to his will to have done Iacob a mischief Iacob being but imbellis turba no more but himself his wives and his little ones with his flocks and herds and a few servants to attend them unable to defend themselves much more unmeet to resist a prepared enemy yet for all his power and purpose and preparation Laban when he had overtaken Iacob durst have nothing at all to do with him and he had but very little to say to him neither The worst was but this Thus and thus have you dealt with me And It is in the power of mine hand to do you hurt but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight saying Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad See the story in Gen. 31. The same Iacob had a Brother as unkinde as that Uncle nay much more despightfully bent against him than he for he had vowed his destruction The days of mourning for my Father are at hand and then I will slay my Brother Jacob and although the Mother well hoped that some few days time and absence would appease the fury of Esau and all should be forgotten yet twenty years after the old grudge remained and upon Iacobs approach Esau goeth forth to meet him with 400. men armed as it should seem for his destruction which cast Iacob into a terrible fear and much distressed he was good man and glad to use the best wit he had by dividing his Companies to provide for the safety at least of some part of his charge And yet behold at the encounter no use at all of the 400. men unless to be spectatours and witnesses of the joyful embraces and kinde loving complements that passed between the two brothers in the liberal offers and modest refusals each of others courtesies in the 32. and 33. of Genesis A good Probatum of that Observation of Solomon When a mans ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Balaam the Conjurer when the King Balac had cast the hook before him baited with ample rewards in hand and great promotions in reversion if he would come over to him and curse Israel had both Covetousness and Ambition enough in him to make him bite so that he was not only willing but even desirous to satisfie the King for he loved the wages of unrighteousness with his heart and therefore made tryal till he saw it was all in vain if by any means he could wring a permission from God to do it But when his eyes were opened to behold Israel and his mouth open that he must now pronounce something upon Israel though his eyes were full of Envy and his heart of Cursing yet God put a parable of Blessing into his mouth and he was not able to utter a syllable of any thing other than
directly and per se but obliquely and indirectly and in ordine ad spiritualia The Man himself though he pretend to be supreme infallible judge of all Controversies yet heareth both parties and taketh advantage of what either give him as best sorteth with his present occasions and suffereth them to fall foul each upon other these accounting them grosse flatterers and they again these wicked â—oliticians but dareth not for his life determine whether side is in the right lest if he should be put to make good his determination by sufficient proof both should appeare to be in the wrong and he lose all which whilest they quarrell he still holdeth It is a certain thing The spirituall Power conferred in Holy Orders doth not include the Power of Temporall jurisdiction If Phinehes here execute judgement upon a Prince of Israel it is indeed a good fruit of his zeal but no proper act of his Priesthood Let it go for a non sequitur then as it is no better because Phinehes a Priest or Priests sonne executed judgement that therefore the Priestly includeth a Iudicatory Power Yet from such an act done by such a Person at least thus much will follow that the Priesthood doth not exclude the exercise of Iudicature and that there is no such repugnancy and inconsistency between the Temporall and Spirituall Powers but that they may without incongruity concurre and reside both together in the same person When I find anciently that not onely among the Heathens but even among Gods own people the same man might be a King and a Priest Rex idem hominum Phoebique Sacerdos as Melchisedec was both a Priest of the most High God and King of Salem when I see it consented by all that so long as the Church was Patriarchall the Priestly and the Iudicatory Power were both setled upon one and the same Person the Person of the first-born when I read of Eli the Priest of the sonnes of Aaron judging Israel 40. yeares and of Samuel certainly a Levite though not as some have thought a Priest both going circuit as a Iudge itinerant in Israel and doing execution too with his own hands upon Agag and of Chenaniah and his sonnes Izharites and Hashabiah and his brethren Hebronites and others of the families of Levi appointed by King David to be Judges and Officers not onely in all the businesse over the Lord but also for outward businesse over Israel and in things that concerned the service of the King when I observe in the Church-stories of all ages ever since the world had Christian Princes how Ecclesiasticall persons have been imployed by their Soveraigns in their weightiest consultations and affairs of State I cannot but wonder at the inconsiderate rashnesse of some forward ones in these daies who yet think themselves and would be thought by others to be of the wisest men that suffer their tongues to runne riot against the Prelacy of our Church and have studied to approve themselves eloquent in no other argument so much as in inveighing against the Courts and the Power and the Iurisdiction and the Temporalties of Bishops and other Ecclesiasticall persons I speak it not to justifie the abuses of men but to maintain the lawfulnesse of the thing If therefore any Ecclesiasticall person seek any Temporall office or power by indirect ambitious and preposterous courses if he exercise it otherwise then well insolently cruelly corruptly partially if he claim it by any other then the right title the free bounty and grace of the supreme Magistrate let him bear his own burden I know not any honest Minister that will plead for him But since there is no incapacity in a Clergy-man by reason of his spirituall Calling but he may exercise temporall Power if he be called to it by his Prince as well as he may enjoy temporall Land if he be heire to it from his Father I see not but it behoveh us all if we be good Subjects and sober Christians to pray that such as have the power of Iudicature more or lesse in any kind or degree committed unto them may exercise that power wherewith they are entrusted with zeal and prudence and equity rather than out of envy at the preferment of a Church-man take upon us little lesse than to quarrel the discretion of our Soveraignes Phinehes though he could not challenge to execute judgement by vertue of his Priesthood yet his priesthood disabled him not from executing judgement That for the Person Followeth his Action and that twofold He stood up He executed judgement Of the former first which though I call it an Action yet is indeed a Gesture properly and not an Action But being no necessity to bind me to strict propriety of speech be it Action or Gesture or what else you will call it the circumstance and phrase since it seemeth to import some materiall thing may not be passed over without some consideration Then stood up Phinehes Which clause may denote unto us either that extraordinary spirit whereby Phinehes was moved to do judgement upon those shamelesse offenders or that forwardnesse of zeal in the heat whereof he did it or both Phinehes was indeed the High Priests sonne as we heard but yet a private man and no ordinary Magistrate and what had any private man to do to draw the sword of justice or but to sentence a malefactor to dye Or say he had been a Magistrate he ought yet to have proceeded in a legall and judiciall course to have convented the parties and when they had been convicted in a fair triall and by sufficient witnesse then to have adjudged them according to the Law and not to have come suddenly upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were acting their villany and thrust them thorow uncondemned I have elsewhere delivered it as a collection not altogether improbable from the circumstances of the originall story that Phinehes had warrant for this execution from the expresse command of Moses the supreme Magistrate and namely by vertue of that Proclamation whereby he authorized the Under-Rulers to slay every one his men that were joyned unto Baal-Peor Num. 25.5 And I since find that conjecture confirmed by the judgement of some learned men insomuch as an eminent Writer in our Church saith that By vertue of that Commission every Israelite was made a Magistrate for this execution But looking more neerly into the Text and considering that the Commission Moses there gave was first onely to the Rulers and so could be no warrant for Phinehes unlesse he were such a Ruler which appeareth not and secondly concerned onely those men that were under their severall governments and so was too short to reach Zimri who being himself a Prince and that of another Tribe too the Tribe of Simeon could not be under the government of Phinehes who was of the Tribe of Levi how probable soever
good need the very strongest of us all should remember it and take heed of despising even the very weakest This despising being hurtfull both to the strong and weak to the strong as a grievous sin and to the weak as a grievous scandall Despising first is a sin in the strong Admit thy weak brother were of so shallow understanding and judgement that he might say in strictnesse of truth what Agur said but in modesty and that with an Hyperbole too Prov. 30. that surely he were more brutish than any man and that he had not in him the understanding of a man yet the community of nature and the common condition of humanity should be sufficient to free him from thy contempt His body was formed out of the same dust his soul breathed into him by the same God as thine were and he is thy neighbour Let his weaknesse then be what it can be even for that relation of neighbour-hood as he is a man it is sin in thee to despise him He that despiseth his Neighbour sinneth Prov. 14. But that 's not all He is not onely thy Neighbour as a man but he is thy Brother too as a Christian man He hath imbraced the Gospell he believeth in the Son of God he is within the pale of the Church as well as thou though he be not so exquisitely seen in some higher mysteries nor so thorowly satisfied in some other points as thou art If it have pleased God to endow thee with a larger portion of knowledge thou oughtest to consider first that thou art bound to be so much the more thankfull to him that gave it and then secondly that it is expected thou shouldest do so much the more good with it and thirdly again that thou standest charged with so much the deeper account for it If the same God have dealt these abilities with a more sparing hand to thy brother in despising his weakness what other thing doest thou then even despise the good Spirit of God that bloweth where he listeth and giveth to every one as he listeth For though there be diversities of gifts both for substance and degree yet it is the same spirit 1 Cor. 12. And the contempt that is cast upon the meanest Christian reboundeth upwards again and in the last resolution reflecteth even upon GOD himself and upon his Christ. He that despiseth despiseth not man but GOD who hath given unto us his holy Spirit 1 Thess. 4. And when ye sinne so against the Brethren and wound their weak consciences ye sin against Christ 1 Cor. 8. Thus you see Despising is hurtfull to the despiser as a Sin it is hurtfull also as a Scandall to the despised And therefore our Saviour in Matth. 18. discoursing of not offending little ones anon varieth the word and speaketh of not despising them as if despising were an espciall and principall kind of offending or scandalizing And verily so it is especially to the Weak Nothing is more grievous to Nature scarce Death it selfe then for a man to see himself despised Ego illam anum irridere me ut sinam Satius est mihi quovis exitio interire could he say in the Comedy It is a thing that pierceth far and sinketh deep and striketh cold and lyeth heavie upon the heart flesh and blood will digest any thing with better patience The great Philosopher for this reason maketh Contempt the ground of all Discontent and sufficiently proveth it in the second of his Rhetoriques there being never any thing taken offensively but sub ratione contemptus nothing provoking to Anger but what is either truly a contempt or at leastwise so apprehended We all know how tenderly every one of us would take it but to be neglected by others to have no reckoning at all made of us to be so reputed as if we were not or not worth the looking after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Oracle said to the Megarenses And yet this is but the least degree of Contempt a privative contempt onely How tenderly then may we think a weak Christian would take it when to this privative he should find added a Positive contempt also when he should see his person and his weakness not only not compassionated but even taunted and stouted and derided and made a laughing stock and a jesting theme when he should see them strive to speak and do such things in his sight and hearing as they know will be offensive unto him of very purpose to vex and afflict and grieve his tender soul Certainly for a weak Christian newly converted to the Faith to be thus despised it were enough without Gods singular mercy and support to make him repent his late conversion and revolt from the Faith by fearefull and desperate Apostasie And he that by such despising should thus offend though but one of the least and weakest of those that believe in Christ a thousand times better had it been for him that he had never been born yea ten thousand times better that a Mill-stone had been hung about his neck and he cast into the bottome of the Sea ere he had done it Despising is a grievous sin in the despiser in the Strong and despising is a grievous scandall to the despised to the Weak Let not therefore the strong despise the Weak Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not And thus much for the former branch of Saint Pauls advice The other followeth Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth Faults seldome go single but by couples at the least Sinfull men do with sinfull provocations as ball-players with the Ball. When the Ball is once up they labour to keep it up right so when an offence or provocation is once given it is tossed to and fro the receiver ever returning it pat upon the giver and that most times with advantage and so betwixt them they make a shift to preserve a perpetuity of sinning and of scandalizing one another It is hard to say who beginneth oftner the Strong or the Weak but whether ever beginneth he may be sure the other will follow If this judge that will despise if that despise this will judge either doth his endeavour to cry quittance with other and thinketh himself not to be at all in fault because the other was first or more This Apostle willing to redresse faults in both beginneth first with the strong and for very good reason Not that his fault simply considered in it self is greater for I take it a certain truth that to judge one that is in the right is a far greater fault considered absolutely without relation to the abilities of the persons then to despise one that is in the wrong But because the strong through the ability of his judgement ought to yield so much to the infirmity of his weak brother who through the weaknesse of his judgement is not so well able
to discern what is fit for him to do What in most other contentions is expected should be done in this not he that is most in fault but he that hath most wit should give over first Indeed in reason the more faulty is rather bound to yield but if he will be unreasonable as most times it falleth out and not do it then in discretion the more able should do it As Abraham in discretion yielded the choice to his Nephew Lot upon the contention of their Heardsmen which in reason Lot should rather have yielded unto him But where both are faulty as it is not good to stand debating who began first so it is not safe to strain courtesie who shall end and mend first In the case of my Text both were faulty and therefore our Apostle would have both mend He hath school'd the Strong and taught him his lesson not to despise anothers infirmity Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not Now the Weak must take out his lesson too not to judge anothers liberty Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth I will not trouble you with other significations of the word to Iudge as it is here taken is as much to condemn and so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often taken in the worser sense for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tropically by a Synecdoche generis say Scholiasts and they say true But it is a Trope for which both in this and in divers other words we are not so much beholden to good Arts as to bad manners Things that are good or indifferent we commonly turn to ill by using them the worst way whence it groweth that words of good or indifferent signification in time degenerate so farre as to be commonly taken in the worst sence But this by the way The fault of these weak ones in the case in hand was that measuring other mens actions and consciences by the modell of their own understandings in their private censures they rashly passed their judgements upon and pronounced peremptory sentence against such as used their liberty in some things concerning the lawfulnesse whereof themselves were not satisfied as if they were loose Christians carnall professors nomine tenus Christiani men that would not stick to do any thing and such as made either none at all or else very little conscience of their actions This practice my Text disalloweth and forbiddeth and the rule hence for us is plain and short We must not judge others The Scriptures are expresse Iudge not that ye be not judged Matth. 7. Iudge nothing before the time c. 1 Corinth 4. Thou art inexcusable O man whosoever thou art that judgest Rom. 2. And If thou judgest thou art not a doer of the Law but a Iudge James 4. Not that it is unlawfull to exercise civill judgement or to passe condemning sentence upon persons orderly and legally convicted for such as have calling and authority thereunto in Church or Common-wealth for this publique politique judgement is commanded in the Word of God and Reason sheweth it to be of absolute necessity for the preservation of States and Commonwealths Not that it is unlawfull secondly to passe even our private censures upon the outward actions of men when the Law of God is directly transgressed and the transgression apparent from the evidence either of the fact it selfe or of some strong signes and presumptions of it For it is stupidity and not charity to be credulous against sense Charity is ingenuous and will believe any thing though more then Reason but Charity must not be servile to believe any thing against reason Shall any charity bind me to think the Crow is white or the Black-more beautifull Nor yet thirdly that all sinister suspicions are utterly unlawfull even there where there wanteth evidence either of fact or of great signes if our suspicions proceed not from any corrupt affections but onely from a charitable jealousie of those over whom we have speciall charge or in whom we have speciall interest in such sort as that it may concern us to admonish reprove or correct them when they doe amisse so was Iob suspicious of his sonnes for sinning and cursing God in their hearts But the judgement here and elsewhere condemned is either first when in our private thoughts or speeches upon slender presumptions we rashly pronounce men as guilty of committing such or such sins without sufficient evidence either of fact or pregnant signes that they have committed them Or secondly when upon some actions undoubtedly sinfull as blasphemy adultery perjury c. We too severely censure the persons either for the future as Reprobates and Castawayes and such as shall be certainly damned or at leastwise for the present as hypocrites and unsanctified and profane and such as are in the state of damnation not considering into what fearefull sinnes it may please God to suffer not onely his chosen ones before Calling but even his holy ones too after Calling sometimes to fall for ends most times unknown to us but ever just and gracious in him Or thirdly when for want either of charity or knowledge as in the present case of this Chapter we interpret things for the worst to our brethren and condemn them of sin for such actions as are not directly and in themselves necessarily sinfull but may with due circumstances be performed with a good conscience and without sinne Now all judging and condemning of our brethren in any of these kinds is sinfull and damnable and that in very many respects especially these foure which may serve as so many weighty reasons why we ought not to judge one another The usurpation the rashnesse the uncharitablenesse and the scandall of it First it is an Usurpation He that is of right to judge must have a calling and commission for it Quis constituit te sharply replyed upon Moses Exod. 2. Who made thee a Iudge and Quis constituit me reasonably alledged by our Saviour Luk. 12. Who made me a Iudge Thou takest too much upon thee then thou son of man whosoever thou art that judgest thus saucily to thrust thy self into Gods seat and to invade his Throne Remember thy self well and learn to know thine own rank Quis tu Who art thou that judgest another Iames 4. or Who art thou that judgest anothers servant in the next following verse to my Text. As if the Apostle had said What art thou or what hast thou to do to judge him that standeth or falleth to his own Master Thou art his fellow-servant not his LORD He hath another Lord that can and will judge him who is thy Lord too and can and will judge thee for so he argueth anon at verse 10. Why doest thou judge thy brother We shall all stand before the judgement-seate of CHRIST GOD hath reserved three Prerogatives royall to himself Vengeance
him His damnation is just We have the very case almost in terminis laid down and thus resolved in 2 Pet. 3. In which are some things hard to be understood observe the condition of the things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable observe also the condition of the persons unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures to their own destruction Where we have the matter of great difficulty hard to be understood the persons of small sufficiency unlearned and unstable and yet if men even of that weakness wrest and pervert truths though of that hardnesse they do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their own destruction saith Saint Peter there to their own just damnation saith S. Paul in my Text. This from the Censure in the first sense Take it in the other sense with reference to this ungodly resolution Let us do evil that good may come it teacheth us that no pretension of doing it in ordine ad Deum for Gods glory to a good end or any other colour whatsoever can excuse those that presume to do evil but that still the evil they do is damnable and it is but just with GOD to render damnation to them for it Whose damnation is just And thus understood it openeth us a way to the consideration of that main Principle whereof I spake and whereon by your patience I desire to spend the remainder of my time namely this We must not for any good do any evil For the farther opening and better understanding whereof since the rule is of infinite use in the whole practice of our lives that we may the better know when and where and how far to apply it aright for the direction of our Consciences and Actions we must of necessity unfold the extent of this word evil and consider the several kinds and degrees of it distinctly and apart We must not do evil that good may come First evil is of two sorts The evil of fault and the evil of punishment Malum delicti and Malum supplicii as Tertullian calleth them or as the more received terms are Malum Culpae and Malum Poenae The evil we commit against God and the evil God inflicteth upon us The evil we do unjustly but yet willingly and the evil we suffer unwillingly but yet justly In a word the evil of sin and the evil of pain Touching evils of pain if the Case be put when two such evils are propounded and both cannot be avoided whether we may not make choice of the one to avoid the other The resolution is common and good from the old Maxime E malis minimum we may incur the lesse to prevent the greater evil As we may deliver our purse to a Thief rather than fight upon unequal terms to save it and in a tempest cast our wares into the Sea to lighten the ship that it wreck not and indure the lancing and searching of an old sore to keep it from festering and spreading And this Principle in my Text is not a rule for that Case that being propounded concerning evils of pain whereas my Text is intended onely of the evils of sin We are herehence resolved that we are not to do any evil that good may come of it for all which yet we may suffer some evil that good may come of it Although to note that by the way the common answer è malis minimum even in the evils of pain is to be understood as most other practical conclusions are not as simply and universally but as commonly and ordinarily true For as one saith well perhaps there are Cases wherein two evils of Pain being at once propounded it may not be safe for us to be our own carvers But I must let passe the Questions concerning the evils of Pain as impertinencies The evils of sin are of two sorts Some are evil formally simply and per se such as are directly against the scope and purpose of some of Gods Commandements as Atheism against the first Idolatry against the second and so against the rest Blasphemy Profanenesse Disloyalty Cruelty Adultery Injustice Calumny Avarice and the like all which are evil in their own nature and can never positis quibuscunque circumstantiis be done well Othersome are evil onely respectively and by accident but otherwise in their own nature indifferent and such as may be and are done sometimes well sometimes ill To know the nature of which things the better since they are of singular use for the resolution of many Cases of Conscience we must yet more distinctly inquire into the different kinds or rather degrees of indifferent things and into the different means whereby things otherwise in nature indifferent become accidentally evil for their use Indifferent things are either equally or unequally such We may call them for distinctions sake and I think it not altogether unfitly indifferentia ad utrumlibet and indifferentia ad unum Indifferentia ad utrumlibet or equally indifferent things are such as barely considered are arbitrary either way and hang in aequilibrio between good and evil without turning the Scale either one way or other as not having any notable inclination or propension unto either rather than other as to drink fasting to walk into the fields or to lift up ones hand unto his head c. Now concerning such things as these if any man should be so scrupulous as to make a matter of conscience of them and should desire to be resolved in point of Conscience whether they were good or evil as namely whether he should do well or ill to walk abroad into the fields a mile or two with his friend the thing it self is so equally indifferent that it were resolution enough to leave it in medio and to answer him there were neither good nor hurt in it the Action of walking barely considered being not considerably either morally good or morally evil I say morally for in matter of health or civility or otherwise it may be good or evil but not morally and spiritually and in matter of conscience And I say withall barely considered for there may be circumstances which may make it accidentally evil As to walk abroad in the fields when a man should be at Divine service in the Church is by accident morally evil through the circumstance of Time as on the contrary not to walk if we have promised to meet a friend at such a time and in such a place who standeth in need of our present help is by accident morally evil through the obligation of that former promise But yet still these and other circumstances set aside barely to walk or barely not to walk and the like are Indifferentia ad utrumlibet things in their own nature and that equally indifferent Things unequally indifferent are such as though they be neither universally good nor absolutely evil yet even barely considered sway more or less rather the one way than
without Gods mercy the smallest will damne a man too But what will some reply In case two sins be propounded may I not do the lesser to avoid the greater otherwise must I not of necessity do the greater The answer is short and easie If two sins be propounded do neither E malis minimum holdeth as you heard and yet not alwaies neither in evils of Pain But that is no Rule for evils of sin Here the safer Rule is E malis nullum And the reason is sound from the Principle we have in hand If we may not do any evil to procure a positive good certainly much lesse may we do one evil to avoid or prevent another But what if both cannot be avoided but that one must needs be done In such a strait may I not choose the lesser To thee I say again as before Choose neither To the Case I answer It is no Case because as it is put it is a case impossible For Nemo angustiatur ad peccandum the Case cannot be supposed wherein a man should be so straitned as he could not come off fairely without sinning A man by rashness or feare or frailty may foully entangle himself and through the powerfull engagements of sin drive himself into very narrow straits or be so driven by the fault or injury of others yet there cannot be any such straits as should enforce a necessity of sinning but that still there is one path or other out of them without sin The perplexity that seemeth to be in the things is rather in the men who puzzle and lose themselves in the Labyrinths of sin because they care not to heed the clue that would lead them out if it were well followed Say a man through heat of blood make a wicked vow to kill his brother here he hath by his own rashnesse brought himself into a seeming strait that either he must commit a murther or break a vow either of which seemeth to be a great sin the one against the fifth the other against the third commandement But here is in very deed no strait or perplexity at all Here is a fair open course for him without sin He may break his vow and there an end Neither is this the choice of the lesser sinne but onely the loosening of the lesser bond the bond of charity being greater than the bond of a promise and there being good reason that in termes of inconsistencie when both cannot stand the lesser bond should yield to the greater But is it not a sin for a man to break a vow Yes where it may be kept salvis charitate justitia there the breach is a sin but in the case proposed it is no sin As Christ saith in the point of swearing so it may be said in the point of breach of vow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Never was any breach of vow but it was peccatum or ex peccato the breaking is either it self formally a sin or it argueth at least a former sin in the making So as the sin in the case alledged was before in making such an unlawfull vow and for that sin the party must repent but the breaking of it now it is made is no new sin Rather it is a necessary duty and a branch of that repentance which is due for the former rashnesse in making it because a hurtfull vow is and that virtute praecepti rather to be broken then kept The Aegyptian Midwives not by their own fault but by Pharaohs tyrannous command are driven into a narrow strait enforcing a seeming necessity of sin for either they must destroy the Hebrew children and so sin by Murther or else they must devise some hansome shift to carry it cleanly from the Kings knowledg and so sin by lying And so they did they chose rather to lye then to kill as indeed in the comparison it is by much the lesser sinne But the very truth is they should have done neither they should flatly have refused the Kings commandment though with hazard of their lives and have resolved rather to suffer any evil than to do any And so Lot should have done he should rather have adventured his own life and theirs too in protecting the chastity of his Daughters and the safety of his guests then have offered the exposall of his Daughters to the lusts of the beastly Sodomites though it were to redeeme his guests from the abuse of fouler and more abominable filthinesse Absolutely there cannot be a case imagined wherein it should be impossible to avoid one sin unlesse by the committing of another The case which of all other cometh nearest to a Perplexity is that of an erroneous conscience Because of a double bond the bond of Gods Law which to transgress is a sin and the bond of particular conscience which also to transgress is a sin Whereupon there seemeth to follow an inevitable necessity of sinning when Gods Law requireth one thing and particular conscience dictateth the flat contrary for in such a case a man must either obey Gods Law and so sin against his own conscience or obey his own conscience and so sin against Gods Law But neither in this case is there any perplexity at all in the things themselves that which there is is through the default of the man onely whose judgement being erroneous mis-leadeth his conscience and so casteth him upon a necessity of sinning But yet the necessity is no simple and absolute and unavoydable and perpetual necessity for it is onely a necessity ex hypothesi and for a time and continueth but stante tali errore And still there is a way out betwixt those sins and that without a third and that way is deponere erroneam conscientiam He must rectifie his judgement and reform the error of his Conscience and then all is well There is no perplexity no necessity no obligation no expediency which should either enforce or perswade us to any sin The resolution is damnable Let us do evil that good may come I must take leave before I pass from this point to make two instances and to measure out from the Rule of my Text an answer to them both They are such as I would desire you of this place to take due and special consideration of I desire to deal plainly and I hope it shall be by Gods blessing upon it effectually for your good and the Churches peace One instance shall be in a sin of Commission the other in a sin of Omission The sin of Commission wherein I would instance is indeed a sin beyond Commission it is the usurping of the Magistrates Office without a Commission The Question is whether the zealous intention of a good end may not warrant it good or at least excuse it from being evil and a sin I need not frame a Case for the illustration of this instance the inconsiderate forwardness of some hath made it to my hand You may read it
also First thou hast no reason whosoever thou art to grudge at the scantness of thy gifts or to repine at the Giver How little soever God hath given thee it is more then he owed thee If the distribution of the Spirit were a matter of justice or of debt God we know is no accepter of persons and he would have given to thee as to another But being as it is a matter of gift not of debt nor of justice but of grace take that is thine thankfully and be content withall He hath done thee no wrong may he not do as he will with his own Secondly since the manifestation of the Spirit is a matter of free gift thou hast no cause to envy thy Brother whose portion is greater Why should thy eye be therefore evil against him because God hath been so good unto him Shall the foot envy the hand or the ear the eye because the foot cannot work nor the ear see If the whole body were hand where were the going and if the whole were eye where were the hearing or if the whole were any one member where were the body If the hand can work which the foot cannot yet the foot can go which the hand cannot and if the eye can see which the ear cannot yet the ear can hearken which the eye cannot And if thy brother have some abilities which thou hast not thou art not so bare but thou hast othersome again which he hath not Say thine be meaner yet the meanest member as it hath his necessary office so it is not destitute of his proper comeliness in the Body Thirdly if thy gifts be mean thou hast this comfort withall that thy accounts will be so much the easier Merchants that have the greatest dealings are not ever the safest men And how happy a thing had it been for many men in the world if they had had lesse of other mens goods in their hands The less thou hast received the less thou hast to answer for If God have given thee but one single talent he will not require five nor if five ten Fourthly in the meaneness of thy gifts thou maist read thy self a daily lecture of humility and humility alone is a thing of more value than all the perfections that are in the world besides without it This think that God who disposeth all things for the best to those that are his would have given thee other and greater gifts if he had seen it so expedient for thee That therefore he hath holden his hand and with-holden those things from thee conceive it done either for thy former unworthiness and that should make thee humble or for thy future good and that should make thee also thankfull Lastly remember what the Preacher saith in Eccles. 10. If the Iron be blunt then he must put to the more strength Many men that are well left by their friends and full of money because they think they shall never see the bottome of it take no care by any employment to encrease it but spend on upon the stock without either fear or wit they care not what or how till they be sunk to nothing before they be aware whereas on the contrary industrious men that have but little to begin withall yet by their care and providence and pains-taking get up wonderfully It is almost incredible what industry and diligence and exercise and holy emulation which our Apostle commendeth in the last verse of this Chapter are able to effect for the bettering and increasing of our spirituall gifts provided ever we joyn with these hearty prayers unto and faithfull dependance upon God for his blessing thereupon I know no so lawfull usury as of these spirituall talents nor do I know any so profitable usury or that multiplieth so fast as this doth your use upon use that doubleth the principall in seven yeares is nothing to it Oh then cast in thy talent into the bank make thy returnes as speedy and as many as thou canst lose not a market or a tide if it be possible be instant in season out of season omit no opportunity to take in and put off all thou canst get so though thy beginnings be but small thy latter end shall wonderfully encrease But this meanes thou shalt not onely profit thy self in the encrease of thy gifts unto thy self but which no other usury doth besides thou shalt also profit others by communicating of thy gifts unto them Which is the proper end for which they were bestowed and of which we are next to speak The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withall To profit whom it may be Himself It is true If thou art wise thou shalt be wise for thy self said Salomon and Salomon knew what belonged to wisdome as well as another For Qui sibi nequam cui bonus He that is not good to himself it is but a chance that he is good to any body else When we seem to pity a man by saying He is no mans foe but his own or he is worst to himself we do indeed but flout him and in effect call him a fool and a prodigall Such a fool is every one that guiding the feet of others into the way of peace himself treadeth the paths that lead unto destruction and that preaching repentance unto others himself becometh a Castaway He that hath a gift then he should do well to look to his own as well as to the profit of others and as unto doctrine so as well and first to take heed unto himself that so doing he may save himself as well as those that heare him This then is to be done but this is not all that is to be done In Wisdome we cannot do lesse but in Charity we are bound to do more than thus with our gifts If our own profit onely had been intended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would have served the turn as well but the word here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which importeth such a kind of profit as redoundeth to community such as before in the 10. Chapter he professeth himself to have sought after Not seeking mine own profit he meaneth not onely his own but the profit of many that they may be saved We noted it already as the main and essentiall difference between those graces of sanctification and these graces of edification that those though they would be made profitable unto others also yet were principally intended for the proper good of the owner but these though they would be used for the owners good also yet were principally intended for the profit of others You see then what a strong obligation lyeth upon every man that hath received the Spirit conferre aliquid in publicum to cast his gifts into the common treasury of the Church to imploy his good parts and spirituall graces so as they may some way or other be
Either of them challenged the living child with a like eagernesse either of them accused other of the same wrong and with the same allegations neither was there witnesse or other evidence on either part to give light unto the matter yet Solomon by that wisdome which he had obtained from God found a meanes to search out the truth in this difficulty by making as if he would cut the child into halfes and give either of them one halfe at the mentioning whereof the compassion of the right mother betrayed the falshood of her clamorous competitor And we read in the Apocryphall Story of Susanna how Daniel by examining the two Elders severally and apart found them to differ in one circumstance of their relation and thereby discovered the whole accusation to be false Iudges for this reason were anciently called Cognitores and in approved Authors Cognoscere is as much as to doe the office of a Judge to teach Iudges that one chiefe point of their care should be to know the truth For if of private men and in things of ordinary discourse that of Solomon be true He that answereth a matter before he heareth it it is folly and shame unto him certainly much more is it true of publick Magistrates and in matters of Justice and Judgement by how much both the men are of better note and the things of greater moment But in difficult and intricate businesses covered with darknesse and obscurity and perplexed with many windings and turnings and cunning and crafty conveyances to finde a faire issue out and to spye light at a narrow hole and by wisdome and diligence to rip up a foule matter and search a cause to the bottome and make a discovery of all is a thing worthy the labour and a thing that will adde to the honour I say not onely of inferiour Governours but even of the supreme Magistrate the King It is the glory of God to conceale a thing but the honour of Kings is to search out the matter To understand the necessity of this duty consider First that as sometimes Democritus said the truth lyeth in profundo and in abdito dark and deep as in the bottom of a pit and it will ask some time yea and cunning too to find it out and bring it to light Secondly that through favour faction envy greedinesse ambition and otherwise innocency it self is often laden with false accusations You may observe in the Scriptures how Naboth Ieremy Saint Paul and others and you may see by too much experience in these wretched times how many men of faire and honest conversation have been accused and troubled without cause which if the Magistrate by diligent inquisition do not either prevent or help to the utmost of his endeavour he may soon unawares wrap himself in the guilt of innocent blood Thirdly that informations are for the most part partiall every man making the best of his owne tale and he cannot but often erre in judgement that is easily carried away with the first tale and doth not suspend till he have heard both parties alike Herein David failed when upon Ziba's false information he passed a hasty and injurious decree against Mephibosheth Solomon saith He that is first in his own tale seemeth righteous but then his neighbour cometh and searcheth him out Prov. 18. as we say commonly One tale is good till another be told Fourthly that if in all other things hastinesse and precipitancy be hurtfull then especially matters of justice would not be huddled up hand over-head but handled with mature deliberation and just diligent disquisition Cunctari judicantem decet imo oportet saith Seneca he that is to judge it is fit he should nay it is necessary he should proceed with convenient leisure Who judgeth otherwise and without this due search he doth not judge but guesse The good Magistrate had need of patience to heare and of diligence to search and of prudence to search out whatsoever may make for the discovery of the truth in an intricate and difficult cause The cause which I knew not I searched out That is the Magistrates third Duty There yet remaineth a fourth in these words I brake the jawes of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth Wherein Iob alludeth to ravenous and salvage beasts beasts of prey that lye in wait for the smaller Cattel and when they once catch them in their paws fasten their teeth upon them and teare them in pieces and devour them Such Lions and Wolfs and Bears and Tygers are the greedy great ones of this world who are ever ravening after the estates and the livelihoods of their meaner neighbours snatching and biting and devouring and at length eating them up and consuming them Iob here speaketh of Dentes and Molares Teeth and Iaws and he meaneth the same thing by both Power abused to oppression But if any will be so curiously subtill as to distinguish them thus he may doe it Dentes they are the long sharp teeth the fore-teeth Dentes eorum arma sagitâ—ae saith David Their teeth are speares and arrowes Molares à molendo so called from grinding they are the great double teeth the jaw-teeth Those are the Biters these the Grinders these and those together Oppressors of all sorts Usurers and prouling Officers and slye Merchants and errant Informers and such kinde of Extortioners as sell time and truck for expedition and snatch and catch at petty advantages these use their teeth most these are Biters The first I know not whether or no the worst sort of them in the holy Hebrew tongue hath his name from biting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naschak that is to bite and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neschek that is Usury Besides these Biters there are Grinders too men whose teeth are Lapidâ—s Molures as the over and the nether mill-stone Depopulators and racking Landlords and such great ones as by heavy pressures and burdens and sore bargains break the backs of those they deale withall These first by little and little grind the faces of the poor as small as dust powder and when they have done at length eat them up one after another as it were bread as the Holy Ghost hath painted them out under those very phrases Now how the Magistrate should deal with these grinders and biters Iob here teacheth him he should break their jawes and pluck the spoileÌ„ out of their teeth that is quell and crush the mighty Oppressor and deliver the Oppressed from his injuries For to break the jaw or the cheek-bone or the teeth is in Scripture-phrase as much as to abate the pride and suppresse the power and curb the insolency of those that use their might to overbeare right So David saith in the third Psalm that God had saved him by smiting his enemies upon the cheek-bone and breaking the teeth of the ungodly And in Psalm 58. he
judge of mens fitnesse by any demonstrative certainty all we can do is to go upon probabilities which can yield at the most but a conjecturall certainty full of uncertainty Men ambitious and in appetite till they have obtained their desires use to dissemble those vices which might make a stop in their preferments which having once gotten what they fished for they bewray with greater freedome and they use likewise to make a shew of that zeal and forwardnesse in them to do good which afterwards cometh to just nothing Absalom to steal away the hearts of the people though he were even then most unnaturally unjust in his purposes against a father and such a father yet he made shew of much compassion to the injured and of a great desire to do justice O saith he that I were made a Iudge in the Land that every man that hath any suite or cause might come unto me and I would do him justice And yet I doubt not but if things had so come to passe he would have been as bad as the worst When the Roman Souldiers had in a tumult proclaimed Galba Emperour they thought they had done a good dayes work every man promised himself so much good of the new Emperour But when he was in he proved no better than those that had been before him One giveth this censure of him Omnium consensu capax imperij nisi imperasset he had been a man in every mans judgement worthy to have been Emperour if he had not been Emperour and so shewed himself unworthy Magistratus indicat virum is a common saying and a true We may guesse upon likelyhoods what they will be when we choose them but the thing it self after they are chosen sheweth the certainty what they are But this uncertainty should be so farre from making us carelesse in our choice that it should rather adde so much the more to our care to put things so hazardous as neer as we can out of hazard Now those very Rules that must direct them to govern must direct us also to choose And namely an eye would be had to the four properties specified in my Text. The first a Zeal of Iustice and a Delight therein Seest thou a man carelesse of the common good one that palpably preferreth his own before the publick weale one that loveth his ease so well that he careth not which way things goe backward or forward so he may sit still and not be troubled one that would divide honorem ab onere be proud of the honour and title and yet loath to undergoe the envie and burthen that attendeth them set him aside Never think that mans robes will do well upon him A Iusticeship or other office would sit upon such a mans back as handsomely as Sauls armour did upon Davids unweildy and sagging about his shoulders so as he could not tell how to stirre and turn himself under it He is a fit man to make a Magistrate of that will put on righteousnesse as a garment and clothe himself with judgement as with a Robe and a Diadem The second property is Compassion on the poor Seest thou a man destitute of counsell and understanding a man of forlorne hopes or estate and in whom there is no help or one that having either counsell or help in him is yet a churle of either but especially one that is sore in his bargaines cruell in his dealings hard to his Tenants or an Oppressour in any kind Take none of him Sooner commit a flock of Sheep to a Wolf than a Magistracy or office of justice to an Oppressour Such a man is more likely to put out the eyes of him that seeth then to be eyes to the blind and to break the bones of the strong then to be legges to the lame and to turn the fatherlesse a begging then to be a Father to the poore The third property is Diligence to search out the truth Seest thou a man hasty and rash and heady in his own businesses a man impatient of delay or pains one that cannot conceale what is meet till it be seasonable to utter it but poureth out all his heart at once and before the time one that is easily possest with what is first told him or being once possest will not with any reason be perswaded to the contrary one that lendeth eare so much to some particular friend or follower as to believe any information from him not any but from him one that to be counted a man of dispatch loveth to make an end of a businesse before it be ripe suspect him He will scarce have the Conscience or if that yet not the wit or not the patience to search out the cause which he knoweth not The last Property is Courage to execute Seest thou a man first of a timorous nature and cowardly disposition or secondly of a wavering and fickle mind as we say of children wonne with an apple and lost with a nut or thirdly that is apt to be wrought upon or moulded into any forme with faire words friendly invitations or complementall glozes or fourthly that dependeth upon some great man whose vassall or creature he is or fifthly a taker and one that may be dealt withall for that is now the periphrasis of bribery or sixthly guilty of the same transgressions he should punish or of other as foul Never a man of these is for the turne not one of these will venture to break the jawes or tuskes of an oppressing Tygre or Boare and to pluck the spoile out of his teeth The timorous man is afraid of every shadow and if he do but heare of teeth he thinketh it is good sleeping in a whole skinne and so keepeth aloofe off for fear of biting The double minded man as Saint Iames saith is unstable in all his wayes he beginneth to do something in a sudden heat when the fit taketh him but before one jaw can be half broken he is not the man he was he is sorry for what is done and instead of breaking the rest falleth a binding up that which he hath broken and so seeketh to salve up the matter as well as he can and no hurt done The vain man that will be flattered so he get fair words himself he careth not who getteth foul blowes and so the beast will but now and then give him a lick with the tongue he letteth him use his teeth upon others at his pleasure The depending creature is charmed with a letter or message from his Lord or his honourable friend which to him is as good as a Supersede as or Prohibition The taker hath his fingers so oyled that his hand slippeth off when he should pluck away the spoyl and so he leaveth it undone The guilty man by no means liketh this breaking of jawes he thinketh it may be his own case another day You see when you are to chuse Magistrates here is refuse enough to be
Sophistry in the Pleader or Partiality in any Officer or any close corruption any where lurking amid those many passages and conveyances that belong to a judiciall proceeding my Text searcheth it out and enditeth the offender at the tribunall of that unpartiall Judge that keepeth a privie Sessions in each mans breast The words are so laid down distinctly in five Rules or Precâ—pts or rather being all negative in so many Prohibitions that I may spare the labour of making other division of them All that I shall need to do about them will be to set out the severall portions in such fort as that every man who hath any part or fellowship in this businesse may have his due share in them Art thou first an Accuser in any kind either as a party in a judiciall controversie or bound over to prosecute for the King in a criminall cause or as a voluntary informer upon some penall Statute here is something for thee Thou shalt not raise a false report Art thou secondly a Witnesse either fetched in by Processe to give publick testimony upon oath or come of good or ill will privately to speak a good word for or to cast out a shrewd word against any person here is something for thee too Put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witnesse Art thou thirdly returned to serve as a sworne man in a matter of grand or petty inquest here is something for thee too Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil Comest thou hither fourthly to advocate the cause of thy Client who flyeth to thy learning experience and authority for succour against his adversary and commendeth his state and suit to thy care and trust here is something for thee too Neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgement Art thou lastly in any Office of trust or place of service in or about the Courts so as it may sometimes fall within thy power or opportunity to do a suiter a favour or a spite here is something for thee too Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause The two first in the first the two next in the second this last in the third verse In which distribution of the offices of justice in my Text let none imagine because I have shared out all among them that are below the bench that therefore there is nothing left for them that sit upon it Rather as in dividing the land of Canaan Levi who had no distinct plot by himself having yet by reason of the universall use of his office in every Tribe something had in the whole all things considered a farre greater proporrion then any other Tribe had So in this Scripture the Iudge hath by so much a larger portion then any of the rest by how much it is more diffused Not concluded within the narrow bounds of any one but as the blood in the body temperately spread throughout all the parts and members thereof Which cometh to passe not so much from the immediate construction of the words though there have not wanted Expositors to fit the words to such construction as from that generall inspection and if I may so speak superintendency which the Iudge or Magistrate ought to have over the carriage of all those other inferiour ones A great part of whose duty it is to observe how the rest do theirs and to find them out and check and punish them as they deserve when they transgresse So that with your patience Honourable Worshipfull and dearly Beloved I have allowance from my Text if the time would as well allow it to speak unto you of five things Whereof the first concerneth the Accuser the second the Witnesse the third the Iurer the fourth the Lawyer and the fifth the Officer and every one of them the Magistrate Iudge and Iusticer But having no purpose to exceed the houre as I must needs do if I should speak to all these to any purpose whilest I speak to the first onely I shall desire the rest to make application to themselves so farre as it may concern them of every materiall passage which they may easily do and with very little change for the most part onely if they be willing To our first Rule then which concerneth the Accuser and the Iudge in the first words of the Text Thou shalt not raise a false report The Originall verb signifieth to take up as if we should read it Thou shalt not take up a false report And it is a word of larger comprehension then most Translatours have expressed it The full meaning is Thou shalt not have to do with any false report neither by raising it as the Author nor by spreading it as the Reporter nor by receiving it as an Approver But the first fault is in the Raiser and therefore our translations have done well to retain that rather in the Text yet allowing the Receiver a place in the Margent Now false reports may be raised of our brethren by unjust slanders detractions backbitings whisperings as well out of the course of judgement as in it And the equity of of this Rule reacheth even to those extrajudiciall Calumnies also But for that I am not now to speak of extrajudiciall Calumny so much as of that quae versatur in foro in judiciis those false suggestions and informations which are given into the Courts as more proper both to the scope of my Text and the occasion of this present meeting Conceive the words for the present as spoken especially or at leastwise as not improperly appliable to the Accuser But the Accuser taken at large for any person that impleadeth another in jure publico vel privato in causes either civil or criminal and these again either capital or penal No not the Accused or Defendant excepted who although he cannot be called in strict propriety of speech an Accuser yet if when he is justly accused he seek to defend himself by false unjust or impertinent allegations he is in our present intendment to be taken as an Accuser or as the Raiser and Taker up of a false report But when is a Report false or what is it to raise such a report and how is it done As we may conceive of falshood in a three-fold notion namely as it is opposed not onely unto Truth first but secondly also unto Ingenuity and thirdly unto Equity also accordingly false reports may be raised three wayes The first and grossest way is when we feign and devise something of our owne heads to lay against our brother without any foundation at all or ground of truth creating as it were a tale ex nihilo As it is in the Psalm They laid to my charge things that I never did and as Nehemiah sent word to Sanballat There are no such things as thou sayest but thou feignest them of thine own heart Crimen domesticum
cold to his heart and the Text saith He went away sorrowfull And ever mark it in something or other the Hypocrite bewrayeth himself what he is if not to the observation of others yet at least sufficiently for the conviction of his own heart if he would not be wanting to himself in the due search and triall of his heart A mans bloud riseth when he heareth a stranger swear an Oath but if the same man can hear his prentice lye and equivocate and cosen and never moove at it let him not be too brag of his zeal his coldnesse here discovereth the other to have been but a false fire and a fruit not of true zeal but of Hypocrisie A Iesuite maketh scruple of disclosing an intended treason revealed to him in confession but he maketh no bones of laying a powder-plot or contriving the Murther of an annointed King A Pharisee is very precise in Tithing Mint and Cummin but balketh justice and mercy One straineth at a Gnat and swalloweth a Camel maketh conscience of some petty sinnes neglecting greater Another casteth out a beam but feeleth not a moat maketh conscience of some greater sinnes neglecteth smaller Shame of the world the cry of people maketh him forbear some sins an eye had to his own private and secret ends other some fear of temporal punishment or it may be eternall other some hope of some advantage another way as in his credit profit c. other some the terrours of an affrighted conscience other some but if in the mean time there be no care nor scruple nor forbearance of other sins where there appeareth no hinderance from these or the like respects all is naught all is but counterfeit and damnable hypocrisie The rule never faileth Quicquid propter Deum fit aequaliter fit True obedience as it disputeth not the command but obeyeth cheerfully so neither doth it divide the command but obeyeth equally David had wanted one main assurance of the uprightnesse of his heart if he had not had an equal and universal Respect to all Gods Commandements That is the first note of Sincerity Integrity The other is Constancy continuance or lasting The seeming Graces of Hypocrites may be as forward and impetuous for the time as the true Graces of the sincere believer nay more forward oftentimes as in the stony ground the seed sprang up so much the sooner by how much it had the lesse depth of earth But the very same cause that made it put up so soon made it wither again as soon even because it wanted deepnesse of earth So the Hypocrite when the fit taketh him he is all on the spurre there is no way with him but a new man he will become out of hand yea that he will Momento turbinis But he setteth on too violently to hold out long this reformation ripeneth too fast to be right spiritual fruit As an horse that is good at hand but naught at length so is the Hypocrite free and fiery for a spurt but he jadeth and tyreth in a journey But true grace all to the contrary as it ripeneth for the most part by leisure so it ever lasteth longer as Philosophers say of Habits that as they are gotten hardly so they are not lost easily We heard but now that the Faith Repentance Reformation Obedience Ioy sorrow Zeal and other the graces and affections of Hypocrites had their first motion and issue from false and erroneous grounds as Shame Fear Hope and such respects And it thence cometh to passe that where these respects cease which gave them motion the graces themselves can no more stand than a House can stand when the foundation is taken from under it The Boy that goeth to his book no longer than his Master holdeth the rod over him the Masters back once turned away goeth the Book and he to play and right so is it with the Hypocrite Take away the rod from Pharaoh and he will be old Pharaoh still And Ahab here in this Chap. thus humbled before God at the voice of his Prophet this fit once past we see in the next Chap. regardeth neither God nor Prophet but through unbelief disobeyeth God and imprisoneth the Prophet Now then here is a wide difference between the Hypocrite and the godly man The one doth all by fits and by starts and by sudden motions and flashes whereas the other goeth on fairly and soberly in a setled constant regular course of humiliation and obedience Aristotle hath excellently taught us to distinguish between colours that arise from passion and from complexion The one he saith is scarce worth the name of a Quality or colour because it scarce giveth denomination to the subject wherein it is If Socrates be of a pale or an high-coloured complexion to the question Qualis est Socrates What a like man is Socrates it may be fitly answered saith Aristotle that he is a pale man or that he is an high-coloured man But when a man of another complexion is yet pale for fear or anger or red with blushing we do not use to say neither can we say properly that he is a pale man or a high-coloured man Accordingly we are to pronounce of those good things that sometimes appear in Hypocrites We call them indeed Graces and we do well because they seem to be such and because we in Charity are to hope that they be such as they seem but they are in true judgement nothing lesse than true graces neither should they indeed if we were able to discern the falsenesse of them give denomination to those Hypocrites in whom they are found For why should a man from a sudden and short fit of Repentance or Zeal or Charity or Religion be called a Penitent or a Zealous or a Charitable or a Religious man more than a man for once or twice blushing an high-coloured man Then are Graces true when they are habitual and constant and equal to themselves That is the second Note Constancy I will not trouble you with other Notes besides these Do but lay these two together and they will make a perfect good Rule for us to judge our own hearts by and to make tryall of the sincerity of those good things that seem to be in us Measure them not by the present heat for that may be as much perhaps more in an hypocrite than in a true believer but by their Integrity and Constancy A man of a cold complexion hath as much heat in a sharp fit of an Ague as he that is of a hot constitution and in health and more too his bloud is more enflamed and he burneth more But whether do you think is the more kindly heat that which cometh from the violence of a Fever or that which ariseth from the condition of a mans Temper No man maketh doubt of it but this is the more kindly though that may be more sensible and intense Well then a man
those temporal afflictions he inflicteth For as he rewardeth those few good things that are in evil men with these temporall benefits for whom yet in his Iustice he reserveth eternall damnation as the due wages by that Iustice of their grace-lesse impenitency so he punisheth those remnants of sin that are in Godly men with these temporal afflictions for whom yet in his mercy he reserveth Eternall salvation as the due wages yet by that mercy only of their Faith and repentance and holy obedience As Abraham said to the rich glutton in the Parable Luke 16. Son remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented As if he had said If thou hadst any thing good in thee remember thou hast had thy reward in earth already and now there remaineth for thee nothing but the full punishment of thine ungodlinesse there in Hell but as for Lazarus he hath had the chastisement of his infirmities on earth already and now remaineth for him nothing but the full reward of his godlinesse here in Heaven Thus the meditation of this Doctrine yieldeth good Comfort against temporal afflictions Here is yet a third Comfort and that of the three the greatest unto the godly in the firm assurance of their Eternal reward It is one of the Reasons why God temporally rewardeth the unsound obedience of natural carnal and unregenerate men even to give his faithfull servants undoubted assurance that he will in no wise forget their true and sound and sincere obedience Doth God reward Ahabs temporary Humiliation and will he not much more reward thy hearty and unfeined repentance Have the Hypocrites their reward and canst thou doubt of thine This was the very ground of all that comfort wherewith the Prodigal sonne sustained his heart and hope when he thus discoursed to his own soul If all the hired servants which are in my Fathers house have bread enough and to spare surely my Father will never be so unmindfull of me who am his Son though too too unworthy of that name as to let me perish for hunger Every temporal blessing bestowed upon the wicked ought to be of the child of God entertained as a fresh assurance given him of his everlasting reward hereafter Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his Concubines and sent them away but his onely son Isaac he kept with him and gave him all that he had Right so God giveth temporal gifts to Hypocrites and Cast-awayes who are bastards and not sonnes not sonnes of the free woman not sons of promise not born after the spirit and that is their portion when they have gotten that they have gotten all they are like to have there is no more to be looked for at his hands But as for the inheritance he reserveth that for his dear Children the godly who are Born after the spirit and Heires according unto promise on these he bestoweth all that ever he hath all things are theirs for on them he bestoweth his Son the heir of all things in whom are hid all the treasures of all good things and together with whom all other things are conveyed and made over unto them as accessories and appurtenances of him and on them he bestoweth Himself who is All in all In whose presence is fulnesse of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore To which joy unspeakable and glorious O thou the Father of mercies who hast promised it unto us bring us in the end for thy dear Sonnes sake Jesus Christ who hath purchased it for us and given into our hearts the earnest of his and thy holy Spirit to seal it unto us To which blessed Son and holy Spirit together with thee O Father three persons and one only wise gracious glorious Almighty and eternal Lord God be ascribed by us and all thy faithfull people throughout the world the whole kingdome power and glory for ever and ever Amen Amen THE SECOND SERMON AD POPVLVM At Grantham L inc Febr. 27. 1620 3. Kings 21.29 because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his dayes I Will not so farr either distrust your memories or straiten my self of time for the delivery of what I am now purposed to speak as to make any large repetition of the particulars which were observed the last time from the consideration of Ahabs person and condition who was but an Hypocrite taken joyntly with his present carriage together with the occasion and successe thereof He was humbled It was the voyce of God by his Prophet that humbled him Upon his humbling God adjourneth his punishment From all which was noted 1. that there might be even in Hypocrites an outward formal humiliation 2. the power and efficacy of the word of God able to humble an oppressing Ahab 3. the boundlesse mercy of God in not suffering the outward formal humiliation of an ungodly Hypocrite to passe altogether unrewarded All this the last time by occasion of those first clauses in the verse Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not We are now next to consider of the great Favour which it pleased God to shew to Ahab upon his humiliation what it was and wherein it consisted It was the Removal at least for a time that is the suspension of an heavy judgement denounced against Ahab and his house most deservedly for his bloody and execrable oppression Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days The Evil which God now promiseth he will not bring I will not bring the evil in his days is that which in verse 21. he hath threatned he would bring upon Ahab and upon his house Behold I will bring evil upon thee and will take away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and will make thy house like the house of Ieroboam the son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha the son of Abijah for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger and made Israel to sin A great judgement and an heavy but the greater the judgement is when it is deserved and threatned the greater the mercy is if it be afterwards forborn as some of this was But whatsoever becommeth of the judgement here we see is mercy good store God who is rich in mercy and delighted to be stiled the God of mercies and the Father of mercies abundantly manifesteth his mercy in dealing thus graciously with one that deserved it so little Here is mercy in but threatning the punishment when he might have inflicted it and more mercy in not inflicting the punishment when he had threatned it Here is mercy first in suspending the Punishment I will not bring
not gotten with the work of their own hands and in the sweat of their own faces And again writing to the Ephesians Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour c. If he will not steal he must labour and if he do not labour he doth steal steal from himself steal from his family steal from the poor He stealeth from himself and so is a kind of Felo de se. Spend he must and if there be no gettings to repair what is spent the stock will shrink and waste and beggary will be the end God hath ordained Labour as a Proper means whereby to obtain the good things of this life without which as there is no promise so ordinarily there is no performance of those blessings of plenty and sufficiency God hath a bountifull hand He openeth it and filleth all things living with plenteousnesse but unlesse we have a diligent hand wherewith to receive it we may starve No Mill we say no meal And he that by the sloth of his hands dissurnisheth himself of the means of getting he is as neer of kinne to a waster as may be they may call Brothers and it is but just if Gods curse light upon him and that he hath and bring him to want it to nothing He stealeth also from his Family which should eat the fruit of his labours The painfull house-wife see in what a happy case her husband is and her children and her servants and all that belong to her They are not afraid of hunger or cold or any such thing they are well fed and well clad and carefully looked unto Her Husband prayseth her and her servants and her children when they have kneeled down and asked her blessing arise up and call her blessed Prov. 31. But the idle man that for want of a course to live in impoverisheth himself and his family whom he is bound to maintain is a burden to his friends an eye-sore to his kindred the shame of his name the ruine of his house and the bane of his posterity He bequeatheth misery to his off-spring instead of plenty they that should fare the better for him are undone by him and he that should give his children Gods blessing and his pulleth upon himself Gods curse and theirs If any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house he hath denied the faith and is in that respect even worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 The very Infidels take themselves bound to this care Let not him that professeth the faith of Christ by his supine carelesnesse this way justifie the Infidel and deny the Faith He stealeth also which is the basest theft of all from the poor in robbing them of that relief which he should minister unto them out of his honest gettings the overplus whereof is their proper revenew The good housewife of whom we heard something already out of the 31. of the Proverbs Seeketh wooll and flax Layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distasâ—e But cui bono and to what end and for whose sake all this Not only for her self To make her coverings of tapestry though that also nor yet only for her houshold To cloath them in Scarlet though that also but withall that she might have somewhat in her hands To reach out to the poor and needy like another Dorcas to make coates and garments for them that their loynes might blesse her So every man should be painfull and carefull to get some of the things of this Earth by his faithfull labour not as a foolish worldling to make a Mammon of it but as a wise Steward to make him friends with it So Distributing it to the necessities of the poor Saints that it may redound also upon the by to his own advantage whilest sowing to them temporal things the comfort of his Almes he reapeth in recompence of it their spiritual things the benefit of their Prayers Saint Paul exhorteth the Ephesians by word of mouth and it was the very close of his solemn farewell when he took his last leave of them and should see their face no more that By their labour they ought to support the weak and minister to the necessities of others remembring the words of the Lord Iesus how he said It is more blessed to give than to receive And after his departure he thought it needfull for him to put them in mind of the same duty once again by letter Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour working with his hands the thing that is good that he may have to give to him that needeth Lay all this that I have now last said together and say if you know a verier thief than the Idle person that stealeth from himself and so is a foolish thief stealeth from his family and friends and so is an unnatural thief stealeth from the poor and so is a base thief Fourthly and lastly a Calling is necessary in regard of the Publike God hath made us sociable creatures contrived us into policies and societies and common-wealths made us fellow-members of one body and every one anothers members As therefore we are not born so neither must we live to and for our selves alone but our Parents and Friends and acquaintance nay every man of us hath a kind of right and interest in every other man of us and our Country and the Common-wealth in us all And as in the artificial body of a Clock one wheel moveth another and each part giveth and receiveth help to and from other and as in the natural body of a Man consisting of many members all the members Have not the same office for that would make a confusion yet there is no member in the body so mean or small but hath its proper faculty function and use whereby it becometh usefull to the whole body and helpfull to its fellow members in the body so should it be in the civil body of the State and in the Mystical body of the Church Every man should conferre aliquid in publicum put-to his helping hand to advance the common good employ himself some way or other in such sort as he may be serviceable to the whole body and profitable to his fellow-members in the body For which reason the ancient renowned Common-wealths were so carefull to ordain that no man should live but in some profession and to take district examination who did otherwise and to punish them some with fasting some with infamy some with banishment yea and some with death The care of the Indians Aegyptians Athenians and other herein Historians relate and I omit It were to be wished that Christian Commonwealths would take some greater care if but from their example to rid themselves of such unnecessary burdens as are good for nothing but to devour the fruits
of the Land and either force these droans to take pains for their living or else thrust them out of the Hives for their Idlenesse Which course if it were taken what would become of many thousands in the world quibus anima pro sale who like Swine live in such sensual and unprofitable sort as we might well doubt whether they had any living souls in their bodies at all or no were it not barely for this one argument that their bodies are a degree sweeter than carrion I mean all such of what rank and condition so ever they be as for want of a calling mis-spend their precious time bury their masters talent waste Gods good creatures and wear away themselves in idleness without doing good to themseves to their friends to humane society Infinite is the number of such unprofitable burdens of the earth but there are amongst other three sorts of them especially whereof the world ringeth and such as a man that hath to speak of this argument can scarce balk without some guilt of unfaithfullness It is no matter how you rank them for there is never a better of the three And therefore take them hand over head as they come they are Monks Gallants and Rogues First those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evil Beasts slow bellies stall-fed Monks and Friers who live mued up in their Cells and Cloysters like Boars in a frank pining themselves into Lard and beating down their bodies till their girdles crack I quarrel not the first institution and Original of these kind of men which was then excusably good the condition of those times considered and might yet be tollerably followed even in these times if those gross superstitions and foul abuses which in process of time have adhered and are by long and universal custom grown almost essential thereunto could be fairly removed But Monkery was not then that thing which it is now There was not then that opinion of sanctity and perfection in the choice that imposition of unlawfull unnatural and to some men impossible vowes in the Entrance that clogge of ridiculous habits and Ceremonies and regular irregular observances in the use that heavie note of Apostacy upon such as altered their course in the loose all which now there are Those by their fastings and watchings and devotions and charity and learning and industry and temperance and unaffected austerity and strictness of life won from many of the antient Fathers as appeareth in their writings ample and large testimonies of their vertue and piety And that most deservedly although their willingnesse out of a zealous desire to excite others to the imitation of their vertues to set forth their praises in the highest Panegyrick strains they could drew from their pens now and then such hyperbolical excesses in modo loquendi as gave occasion to those superstitions in after ages which they then never dreamed of But such were those Monks of old so good so godly Whereas these of later times by their affected absurd habits and gestures and rules by their grosse and dull ignorance by their insufferable pride though pretending humility and their more than Pharisaical overlooking of others by their insatiable avarice and palpable arts of getting into their hands the fattest of the earth that under colour of Religion and pretences of poverty by their sensual wallowing in all ease idleness and fulness of bread and the fruits of these in abominable and prodigious filthiness and luxury became as Proverbs and as by-words in the mouths pens of men of all sorts No sober writer almost of any note even in those darker times but noted and bewailed the corrupt estate of the Church and Clergy in that behalf for by this time you must know these droans had thrust themselves against all reason and common sense into the rank of Church-men and shrouded themselves under the title of the Clergy Diverse godly and learned men wrote against the abuses desired a reformation laboured to have Monkery reduced if not to the first Institution there seemed to be little hope of that things were so far out of course yet at least wise to some tolerable expression of it The Poets wanted no sport the while who made themselves bitterly merry with descanting upon the lean skuls and the fat paunches of these lasie gutlings there was flesh-hold enough for the riming Satyrists and the wits of those times whereon to fasten the sorest and the strongest teeth they had Not to insist upon other differences that which concerneth the point we have in hand argueth a manifest and wide declination in these kind of men men from their primitive purity The antient Monks lived upon the labour of their hands and thereby not only maintained themselves which they might doe with a very little in that course of abstinence and austerity wherein they lived but relieved many others and did many pious and charitable works out of that they had earned with their fingers And when about St Augustines and Saint Hieromes times Monks began to rellish ease and under pretence of reading and prayer to leave off working and to live upon the sweat of other mens browes both those good Fathers misliked it Saint Hierome to Rusticus alleging the laudable custom of the Monasteries in Aegypt which admitted none to be Monks but with expresse condition of labour and Saint Augustine in a just Treatise opposing it not without some bitterness rebuking them as contumacious and peevishly perverse who reading in the Scriptures that he that will not labour should not eat do yet resist the Apostles admonition and under pretence that they may have leisure to read refuse to obey what they do read But ease is pleasing to flesh and blood and will not be easily wrung from those that have any while given themselves to it especially when it can pretend the face and colour of religion So that for all this the humour still encreased and spred till at the length there grew whole Orders of disorderly Mendicants begging runnagate Friers who by their affected poverty diverting the Charity of well-minded people from those that were truly poor enriched themselves with the spoils of the poor and under colour of long prayers made a prey not now as those craving Pharisees of old whose simplicity they pity of widdows houses but of goodly Lordships and whole countries before them It is well known in this our Land how both Church and Common-wealth groaned under the burden of these heavy lubbers the Common-wealth whilst they became Lords of very little lesse by their computation who have travelled in the search than the one half of the Temporalties of the Kingdom and the Church whilst they ingrossed into their hands the fruits of most of the best Benefices in the Realm allowing scarce so much as the chaff towards the maintenance of those that trod out the corn Their profession is God be thanked now
Callings too As the Lord hath called every one vers 20. When therefore we speak of the choice of a Calling you are not so to understand it as if it were left free for us ever to make our choice where and as we list The choice that is left to us is no other but a conscionable enquiry which way God calleth us and a conscionable care to take that way So that if it shall once appear that God calleth us this way or that way there is no more place for choice all that we have to doe is to obey Obsequium sufficit esse meum The enquiries we are to make ordinarily are as you shall hear anon what lawfulnesse there is in the thing what abilities there are in us what warrant we have from without But all these must cease when God once expresseth himself and calleth us with an audible voice No more enquiry then into the thing how lawfull it is If God bid Peter kill and eat and send him to preach unto the Gentiles there is no answering 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not so Lord nor alleging the uncleannesse of the meat or the unlawfullnesse of going into the way of the Gentiles Injusta justa habenda what God will have clean he must not account common His very call to any thing maketh it lawfull No more enquiry into our selves how able we are If God call Moses one of a slow speech and not eloquent from the sheep-fold to plead for his people before a Tyrant or Gideon a mean stripling of a small family and Tribe from the threshing floor to deliver Israel out of the hands of their oppressors or Ieremy a very child and one that could not speak from his cottage in Anathoth to set him over nations and kingdoms to root out and to plant or Amos a plain countrey fruit-gatherer from the Herd in Tekoah to prophesie at Bethel and in the Kings Court it is a fruitlesse and unseasonable modesty to allege unsufficiency or unworthinesse Iuvat idem Qui jubet Where he setteth on work he giveth strength to goe through with it His very calling of any man maketh him able No more enquiry into outward means what warrant we have If God call Paul to be an Apostle and to bear his name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel it is needlesse to conferr with flesh and bloud or to seek confirmation at Ierusalem from them which were Apostles before him by the imposition of their hands Gods work in him supplyeth abundantly the want of those solemnities and Paul is as good an Apostle as the best of them although he be an Apostle not of men neither by man Gods calling any man to any office sealeth his warrant Non tutum renuisse Deo Away with all excuses and pretences and delayes when God calleth submit thy will subdue thy reason answer his Call as Samuel was taught to do Speak Lord for thy servant heareth If it were expedient for us that God should still deal with us as he did long with the Iewish and a while with the infant Christian Church by immediate inspirations and call us either by secret Enthusiasms or sensible insinuations as he did many of them into the way wherein he would have us walk the Rule for our Choice would be easie or rather there would need no Rule at all because indeed there would be left no choice at all but this only even to get up and be doing to put our selves speedily into that way whereunto he did point us But since the wisdom of GOD hath thought it better for us to take counsel from his written word which he hath left us for our ordinary direction in this and all other difficulties rather than to depend upon immediate and extraordinary inspirations it will be very profitable for us to draw thence some few Rules whereby to make reasonable judgement concerning any course of life whether that it be whereunto God hath called us or no. The Rules as I have partly intimated already may be reduced to three heads according as the enquiries we are to make in this businesse are of three sorts For they either concern the course it self or else our selves that should use it or else thirdly those that have right and power over us in it If there be a fail in any of these as if either the course it self be not lawful or we not competently fit for it or our superiours will not allow of us or it we may well think God hath not called us thither God is just and will not call any man to that which is not honest and good God is all-sufficient and will not call any man to that which is above the proportion of his strength God is wonderfull in his providence and will not call any man to that whereto he will not open him a fair and orderly passage Somewhat by your patience of each of these And first of the Course we intend Wherein let these be our Enquiries First whether the thing be simply and in it self lawful or no Secondly whether it be lawfull so as to be made a Calling or no Thirdly whether it will be profitable or rather hurtfull to the Common-wealth Now observe the Rules The first Rule this Adventure not on any course without good assurance that it be in it self lawful The ground of this Rule is plain and evident For it cannot be that God who hateth and forbiddeth and punisheth every sinne in every man should call any man to the practice of any sin Let him that stole steal no more saith S. Paul But rather let him labour with his hands the thing that is good Ephes. 4. If it be not something that is good it is good for him to hold his hands off let him be sure God never called him to labour in that and he were as good hold to his old trade and steal still as labour with his hands the thing that is not good If Diana of Ephesus be an Idol Demetrius his occupation must down he must make no more silver shrines for Diana though by that craft he have his wealth Tertullian excellently enlargeth himself in this argument in his Book de Idololatria strongly disapproving their practice who being Christians yet got their living by making Statues and Images and other ornaments to sell to Heathen Idolaters Offenders against this Rule are not only such as live by Stealing and Robbing and Piracy and Purse-cutting and Witch-craft and other such like ungodly practices as are made capital even by the Lawes of Men and punishable by death but all such also as maintain themselves by or get their living in any course absolutely condemned by the Law of God howsoever they may find amongst men either expresse allowance as Whores and Baudes do in the holy Mother Church of Rome or at least some kind of toleration by connivence as
course whereunto thou hast been so long in framing Thus possibly thou mayest in time make that cheerfull and delightfull unto thee which now is grievous and irksom And as for thy insufficiency if that dishearten thee which is indeed a main rubb doe thus Impute thy former non-proficiency to thine own sloath and negligence Think if after so long time spent in this course thou hast attained to no greater perfection in it how long it would be ere thou shouldest come to a tolerable mediocrity in another Resolve not to lose all that precious time forepast by beginning the world anew but rather save as much of it as is redeemable by adding to thy diligence Suspect that it commeth from thy pride that thou canst not content thy self with a Calling wherein thou mayest not be excellent and imagine that God of purpose to humble thee might divert thy education to another for which thou art lesse apt Observe what strange things past belief and such as have seemed insuperable have been conquered and subdued by the obstinacy and improbity of unwearied labour and of assiduity Doubt not but by Gods blessing upon thy faithfull industry to attain in time if not to such perfection as thou desirest and mightest perhaps have attained in some other course if thou hadst been bred up to it yet to such a competent sufficiency as may render thy endeavours acceptable to God comfortable to thy self and serviceable to community If by these and the like considerations and the use of other good means thou canst bring thy affections to some indifferent liking of and thy abilities to some indifferent mediocrity for that course which Education hath opened unto thee thou hast no more to doe There 's thy Course that 's thy Calling that 's the Work whereunto God hath appointed thee But if after long striving and pains and tryal thou canst neither bring thy mind to it nor doe any good upon it having faithfully desired and endeavoured it so that thou must needs leave the course of thy Education or which is another case if thy Education have left thee free as many Parents God knoweth are but too carelesse that way then Secondly thou art in the next place to consider of thy Gifts and Abilities and to take direction from them rather than from thine inclination And this Rule I take to be very sound not only from the Apostles intimation vers 17. As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one where he seemeth to make the choice of mens Callings to depend much upon the distribution of Gods Gifts but withall for two good Reasons One is because our Gifts and Abilities whether of body or mind being in the brain or hand are at a better certainty than our Propensions and Inclinations are which are seated in the Heart The heart is deceitfull above all things and there are so many rotten corruptions in it that it is a very hard thing for a man to discern his own Inclinations and Propensions whether they spring from a sound or from a corrupt root Whereas in the discerning of our Gifts and Abilities we are lesse subject to grosse Errours and mistakings I mean for the truth and reality of them howsoever we are apt to overvalue them for the measure and degree Now it is meet in the choice of our Callings we should follow the surer guide and therefore rather be led by our Gifts than by our Inclinations The other Reason is because our Inclinations cannot so well produce Abilities as these can draw on them We say indeed there is nothing hard to a willing mind and in some sense it is true Not as if a willing mind could make us doe more than we are able A man can doe no more than he can doe be he never so willing but because a willing mind will make us exerere vires stir up our selves to doe as much as we are able which we use not to doe in those things we goe unwillingly about Willingness then may quicken the strength we have but it doth not put any new strength into us But Abilities can produce Inclinations de novo and make them where they find them not As we see every other natural thing is inclinable to the exercise of those natural faculties that are in it so certainly would every man have strongest inclination to those things whereto he hath strongest abilities if wicked and untoward affections did not often corrupt our inclinations and hinder them from moving their own proper and natural way It is best then to begin the choice of our Callings from our Abilities which will fetch on Inclinations and not from our Inclinations which without Abilities will not serve the turn Concerning which gifts or abilities what they are and how to make true judgement of them and how to frame the choice of our Callings from them to speak punctually and fully would require a large discourse I can but touch at some few points therein such as are of daily use and proceed First by gifts and abilities we are to understand not only those of the Minde Judgement Wit Invention Memory Fancy Eloquence c. and those of the Body Health Strength Beauty Activity c. but also those which are without Birth Wealth Honour Authority Reputation Kinred Alliance c. generally any thing that may be of use or advantage unto us for any employment Secondly as our abilities on the one side so on the other side all our wants and defects which might disable us more or lesse for any employment are to be duly weighed and considered of and the one laid against the other that we may know how to make as near as we can a just estimate of our strength and sufficiency Thirdly it is the safer way to undervalue than to overprise our selves lest ignorantly confident we affect a Calling above our strength which were to flye with waxen wings and to owe the world a laughter Be we sure of this if God have not gifted us for it he hath not called us to it Fourthly in the judging of our Abilities we should have a regard to the outward circumstances of times and places and the rest Those gifts which would have made a sufficient Priest in the beginning of the Reformation in that dearth of learning and penury of the Gospel now the times are full of knowledge and learning would be all little enough for a Parish-Clerk Fifthly something would be yeelded to the judgments of other men concerning our Abilities It is either secret pride or base faintness of heart or dull sloath or some other thing and not true modesty in us if being excellently gifted for some weighty employment in every other mans judgement we yet withdraw our selves from it with pretensions of unsufficiency Sixthly and lastly let us resolve on that course caeteris paribus not only for which we are competently fit but for which we are absolutely fittest A
good Actor it may be could very sufficiently act any part in the play represent the majesty of a King or the humour of a Swaggerer or the pranks of a Bedlam or any thing but yet if he be notedly excellent at some part rather than another he would not willingly be put from that to act another Ergo histrio hoc videbit in scenâ quod non videbit sapiens in vitâ Shame we to let these men be wiser in their generations than we in ours And thus much for Abilities There is yet a doubt remaineth concerning a mans Inclination In case we have examined our gifts and find them in a good measure of competency for such or such a course and yet remain still averse from it and cannot by any possible means work over our affections to any tolerable liking of it in such a case what is to be done or how shall we judge what Calling is fittest for us to take whether that whereto our Abilities lead us or that whereto our Inclinations draw us As I conceive it in such a case we are to hold this order First if our Inclinations cannot be wonne over to that course for which our Abilities lye fittest we are to take a second surview of our Abilities to see if they be competently fit for that whereto our inclination swayeth us and if upon due unpartial examination we find they are we may then follow the sway of our Inclinations The reason this A mans inclination cannot be forced If it can be fairly wonne over well and good but violence it cannot endure at any hand And therefore if we cannot make it yeeld to us in reason there is no remedy we must in wisdom yield to it provided ever it be honest or else all is lost What ever our sufficiencies be things will not fadge that are undertaken without an heart there is no good to be done against the hair But then secondly if upon search we find our selves altogether unsufficient and unfit for that Calling whereunto our inclination is strongly and violently carried we are to oppose that inclination with a greater violence and to set upon some other Calling for which we are in some mediocrity gifted speedily and resolvedly and leave the successe to Almighty God The reason this It being certain that God never calleth any man but to that for which he hath in some competent measure enabled him we are to hold that for a pernicious and unnatural inclinaâ—ion at the least if not rather for a wicked and Diabolical suggestion which so stiffly exciteth us to a function whereto we may be assured God never called us But yet thirdly and I would commend it unto you as a principal good Rule and the fairest out-let of all other from amid these difficulties we should doe well to deal with these mutinous and distracting thoughts within us as wise Statists doe when they have have to deal with men divided in opinions and factions and ends How is that They use to bethink themselves of a middle course to reduce all the several opinions to a kind of temper so as no side be satisfied fully in the proposals they have tendred and yet every side in part as we commonly hold those to be the justest arbitrators and to make the best and the fairest end of differences between the parties for whom they arbitrate that by pleasing neither please both So here if our Educations Abilities and Inclinations look several ways and the Inclination be peremptory and stiff and will not condescend to either of the other two it will be a point of good wisdom in us if we can bethink our selves of some such meet temper as may in part give satisfaction to our Inclinations and yet not leave our gifts and educations wholly unsatisfied And that is easily done by proposing the full latitude of our Educations and Abilities as the utmost bounds of our choice and then leaving it to our Inclinations to determine our particular choice within those bounds For no mans education or gifts run so Mathematically and by the Line to that point whereto they direct him but that there is a kind of latitude in them and that for the most part By reason of the great variety and affinity of offices and imployments very large and spacious One instance shall serve both to exemplifie and illustrate this Rule A man designed by his parents to the Ministery and for that end brought up in the Vniversity studieth there Philosophy and History and the Arts and the Tongues and furnisheth himself with general knowledge which may enable him as for the work of the Ministery so for the exercise of any other profession that hath to doe with learning so as not only the Calling of the Ministery but that of the Lawyer too and of the Physician and of the Tutor and Schoolmaster and sundry other besides these do come within the latitude of his Education and Abilities Certainly if his mind would stand thereunto no course would be so proper for such a man as that which he was intended for of the Ministery But he proveth obstinately averse from it and cannot be drawn by any perswasion of friends or reason to embrace it It is not meet to force his Inclination quite against the bent of it and yet it is pity his Abilities and Education should be cast away This middle course therefore is to be held even to leave it free for him to make his choice of Law or Physick or teaching or any other profession that belongeth to a Scholar and cometh within his latitude which of them soever he shall find himself to have the strongest Inclination and Propension unto And the like course we are to hold in other cases of like nature by which means our Inclinations which cannot be driven to the Center may yet be drawn within the Circumference of our Educations and Abilities He that observeth these Rules I have hitherto delivered with due respect to his Education Abilities and Inclination and dealeth therein faithfully and unpartially and in the fear of God may rest secure in his Conscience of his Inward Calling But there must be an Outward Calling too else yet all is not right The general Rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let all things be done honestly and in order enforceth it There are some Callings which conscionably discharged require great pains and care but yet the profits will come in whether the duties be conscionably performed or no. Our calling of the Ministery is such and such are all those offices as have annexed unto them a certain standing revenue or annual fee. Now into such Callings as these every unworthy fellow that wanteth maintenance and loveth ease would be intruding as we of the Clergy find it but too true and there would be no order kept herein if there were not left in some others a power to keep back unsufficient men There are again divers Callings necessary for
admirable and inexpressible and unconceivable perfections that are in him There is no beholding of the body of this Sun who dwelleth in such a Glorious light as none can attain unto that glory would dazle with blindnesse the sharpest and most Eagly eye that should dare to fixe it self upon it with any stedfastnesse enough it is for us from those rayes and glimmering beams which he hath scattered upon the Creatures to gather how infinitely he exceedeth them in brightness and glory De ipso vides sed non ipsum We see his but not Him His Creatures they are our best indeed our only instructers For though his revealed word teach us what we should never have learned from the Creatures without it yet fitted to our capacity it teacheth no otherwise than by resemblances taken from the Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Saint Paul calleth it Rom. 1. the whole Latitude of that which may be known of God is manifest in the Creatures and the invisible things of God not to be understood but by things that are made St. Basil therefore calleth the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very School where the knowledge of God is to be learned and there is a double way of teaching a two-fold method of trayning us up into that knowledge in that school that is to say Per viam negationis and per viam Eminentiae First Viâ negationis look whatsoever thou findest in the Creature which â—avoureth of defect or imperfection and know God is not such Are they not limited subject to change composition decay c Remove these from God and learn that he is infinite simple unchangeable eternal Then Viâ Eminentiae look whatsoever perfection there is in the Creature in any degree and know that the same but infinitely and incomparably more eminently is in God Is there Wisdom or Knowledge or Power or Beauty or Greatness or Goodness in any kind or in any measure in any of the Creatures Affirm the same but without measure of God and learn that he is infinitely wiser and skilfuller and stronger and fairer and greater and better In every good thing so differently excellent above and beyond the Creatures as that though yet they be good yet compared with him they deserve not the name of good There is none good but one that is God Mar. 10. None good as he simply and absolutely and essentially and of himself such The creatures that they are good they have it from him and their goodness dependeth upon him and they are good but in part and in some measure and in their own kinds Whensoever therefore we find any good from or observe any goodness in any of the creatures let us not bury our meditations there but raise them up by those stairs as it were of the Creatures to contemplate the great goodness of him their Creator We are unhappy truants if in this so richly furnished school of GODS good creatures we have not learned from them at the least so much knowledge of him and his goodness as to admire and love and depend upon it and him Look upon the workmanship and accordingly judge of the workman Every Creature of God is good surely then the Creator must needs excel in goodness Thirdly there is in men amongst other cursed fruits of self-love an aptness to measure things not by the level of exact truth but by the model of their own apprehensions Who is there that cannot fault anothers work The Cobler could espy something amisse in Apelles his master-piece because the picture was not drawn just according to his fancy If a thousand of us hear a Sermon scare one of that thousand but he must shew some of that little wit he hath in disliking something or other There the Preacher was too elaborate here too loose that point he might have enlarged contracted this he might have been plainer there shewed more learning here that observation was obvious that exposition enforced that proof impertinent that illustration common that exhortation needless that reproof unseasonable one misliketh his Text another his Method a third his style a fourth his voice a fifth his memory every one something A fault more pardonable if our censures stayed at the works of men like our selves and Momus-like we did not quarrel the works of God also and charge many of his good Creatures either with manifest ill or at leastwise with unprofitableness Why was this made or why thus what good doth this or what use of that It had perhaps been beter if this or that had never been or if they had been otherwise Thus we sometimes say or think To rectifie this corruption remember this first clause of my Text Every Creature of God is good Perhaps thou seest not what good there is in some of the creatures like enough so but yet consider there may be much good which thou seest not Say it giveth thee no nourishment Possibly it may doe thee service in some other kind Say it never yet did that yet it may doe hereafter Later times have found out much good use of many Creatures whereof former ages were ignorant and why may not after times find good in those things which doe us none Say it never did nor ever shall doe service to man although who can tell that yet who knoweth but it hath done or may doe service to some other Creature that doth service to man Say not that neither yet this good thou mayst reap even from such Creatures as seem to afford none to take knowledge of thine own ignorance and to humble thy self thereby who art so far from comprehending the essence that thou canst not comprehend the very works of God The most unprofitable Creatures profit us at least this way Visu si non usu as Bernard speaketh if not to use them yet to see in them as in a glasse Gods wisdom and our own ignorance And so they do us good if not cedendo in cibum if not exhibendo ministerium in feeding and serving us yet exercendo ingenium as the same Bernard speaketh in exercising our wits and giving us a sight of our ignorance But yet those creatures which are apparently hurtfull to us as Serpents and Wild-beasts and sundry poysonous plants but above all the Devils and cursed Angels May we not say they are ill and justly both blame and hate them Even these also are good as they are the creatures of God and the workmanship of his hands It is only through sin that they are evil either to us as the rest or in themselves as the Devils These now wicked Angels were glorious Creatures at the first by their own voluntary transgression it is that they are now the worst and the basest And as for all the other creatures of God made to doe us service they were at first and still are good in themselves if there cleaveth to
our selves truly thankfull we should take notice so far as possibly we could and in the species at least of all Gods blessings small and great and bring them all before him in the Confession of praise We should even Colligere fragmenta gather up the very broken meats and let nothing be lost those small petty blessings as we account them and as we think scarce worth the observation Did we so how many baskets full might be taken up which we daily suffer to fall to the ground and be lost Like Swine under the Oaks we grouze up the Akecornes and snouk about for more and eat them too and when we have done lye wrouting and thrusting our noses in the earth for more but never lift up so much as half an eye to the tree that shed them Every crum we put in our mouths every drop wherewith we coole our tongues the very ayre we continually breath in and out through our throats and nostrils a thousand other such things whereof the very commonness taketh away the observation we receive from his fulness and many of these are renewed every morning and some of these are renewed every minute And yet how seldome doe we so much as take notice of many of these things How justly might that complaint with GOD maketh against the unthankfull Israelites be taken up against us The Oxe knoweth his Owner and the Asse his Masters crib but Israel doth not know my people doth not consider The second degree of our Unthankfullness to God and that also for want of faithfull Acknowledgement is in ascribing the good things he hath given us to our own deserts or indeavours or to any of thertâ—ing or Creature either in part or in whole but only to him Such things indeed we have and we know it too perhaps but too well but we bestirred our selves for them we beat our brains for them we got them out of the fire and swet for them we may thank our good friends or we may thank our good selves for them Thus doe we Sacrifise unto our own nets and burn incense to our drag as if by them our portion were fat and our meat plenteous And as Pilate mingled the bloud of the Galileans with their own sacrifices so into these spiritual Sacrifices of Thanksgiving which we offer unto GOD we infuse a quantity of our own swinke and sweat of our own wit and fore-cast of our own power and friends still some one thing or other of our own and so rob God if not of all yet of so much of his honour This kind of unthankfulness God both fore-saw and forbad in his own people Deu. 8. warning them to take heed verse 17. lest when they abounded in all plenty and prosperity They should forget the Lord and say in their hearts my power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth The very saying or thinking of this was a forgetting of God But saith Moses there Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God for it is hee that giveth thee power to get wealth c. The whole Chapter is none other but a warn-word against unthankfulnesse All glorifying in our selves all vain boasting of the gifts of God or bearing our selves high upon any of his blessings is a kind of smothering of the receipt and argueth in us a kind of loathness to make a free acknowledgement of the Givers bounty and so is tainted with a spice of unthankfulness in this degree If thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it saith my Apostle elsewhere He that glorifieth in that for which he even giveth thanks doth by that glorying as much as he dareth reverse his thanks The Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other men did even then and by those very thanks but bewray his own wretched unthankfulnesse Besides a faithfull Recognition in freely acknowledging the benefit received there is required unto thankfulnesse a just Estimation of the benefit in valuing it as it deserveth Wherein we make default if either we value it not at all or under value it The third Degree then of our Ingratude unto God is the Forgetfulnesse of his benefits When we so easily forget them it is a sign we set nought by them Every man readily remembreth those things he maketh any reckoning of insomuch that although old age be naturally forgetfull yet Tully saith He never knew any man so old as to forget where he had hid his gold or to whom he had lent his monies In Deut. 8. Moses warneth the people as you heard to beware lest being full they should forget the Lord that had fed them and David stirreth up his soul in Psal. 103. to bless the Lord and not to forget any of his benefits Wee all condemn Pharaohs Butler of unthankfulness to Ioseph and so we may well do for he afterwards condemned himself for it in that having received comfort from Ioseph when they were fellow-Prisoners he yet forgat him when he was in place where and had power and opportunity to requite him How inexcusable are we that so condemn him seeing wherein we judge him we condemn our selves as much and much more for we do the same things and much worse He forgat Ioseph who was but a man like himself we forget God He had received but one good turn we many It is like he had none about him to put him in mind of Ioseph for as for Ioseph himself we know he lay by it and could have no accesse we have God himself daily rubbing up our memories both by his word and Ministers and also by new and fresh benefits He as soon as a fair occasion presented it self confest his fault and remembred Ioseph thereby shewing his former forgetfulnesse to have proceeded rather from negligence than Wilfulnesse we after so many fresh remembrances and blessed opportunities still continue in a kind of wilfull and confirmed resolution still to forget Well may we forget these private and smaller blessings when we begin to grow but too forgetfull of those great and publick Deliverances GOD hath wrought for us Two great Deliverances in the memory of many of us hath God in his singular mercy wrought for us of this Land such as I think take both together no Christian age or Land can parallel One formerly from a forein Invasion abroad another since that from an hellish Conspiracy at home both such as we would all have thought when they were done should never have been forgotten And yet as if this were Terra Oblivionis the land where all things are forgotten how doth the memory of them fade away and they by little and little grow into forgetfulnesse We have lived to see Eighty-eight almost quite forgotten and buried in a perpetual Amnesty God be blessed who hath graciously prevented what we feared herein God grant that we nor ours ever live to see
Novembers fifth forgotten or the solemnity of that day silenced A fourth Degree of unthankfulnesse is in undervaluing Gods blessings and lessening the worth of them A fault whereof the murmuring Israelites were often guilty who although they were brought into a e good Land flowing with milk and honey and abounding in all good things both for necessity and delight yet as it is in Psal. 106. They thought scorn of that pleasant Land and were ever and anon and upon every light occasion repining against God and against Moses alwayes receiving good things from GOD and yet alwayes discontent at something or other And where is there a man among us that can wash his hands in innocency and discharge himself altogether from the guilt of unthankfulnesse in this kind Where is there a man so constantly and equally content with his portion that he hath not sometimes or other either grudged at the leannesse of his own or envied at the fatnesse of anothers lot We deal with our God herein as Hiram did with Salomon Salomon gave him twenty Cities in the land of Galilee but because the Country was low and deep and so in all likelihood the more fertile for that they pleased him not and he said to Salomon What Cities are these thou hast given me and he called them Cabul that is to say dirty So we are witty to cavil and to quarrel at Gods gifts if they be not in every respect such as we in our vain hopes or fancies have ideated unto our selves This is dirty that barren this too solitary that too populous this ill-wooded that ill-watered a third ill-ayred a fourth ill-neighboured This grudging and repining at our portions and faulting of Gods gifts so frequent among us argueth but too much the unthankfulnesse of our hearts The last thing required unto Thankfulnesse after a faithfull Acknowledgement of the receipt and a just Valuation of the thing received is Retribution and Requitall And that must be real if it be possible but at the least it must be votal in the Desire and Endeavour And herein also as in both the former there may be a double-fail if having received a benefit we requite it either not at all or ill Not to have any care at all of Requital is the fifth degree of Unthankfulnesse To a Requital as you heard Iustice bindeth us either to the party himself that did us the good turn if it may be and be either expedient or needfull or at the least to his David retained such a gratefull memory of Ionathans true friendship and constant affection to him that after he was dead and gone he hearkened after some of his friends that he might requite Ionathans love by some kindnesse to them Is there yet any left of the house of Saul that I may shew him kindnesse for Jonathans sake and surely he were a very unthankfull wretch that having been beholden to the Father as much as his life and livelyhood is worth would suffer the Son of so well-deserving a Father to perish for want of his help and would not strain himself a little even beyond his power if need were to succour him Indeed to God as we heard we can render nothing that is worthy the name of Requital we must not so much as think of that But yet somewhat we must do to expresse the true and unfeigned thankfulnesse of our hearts which though it be nothing lesse yet it pleaseth him for Christs sake to interpret as a Requital And that to Him and His To Him by seeking his glory to His by the fruits of our Christian Charity We adventure our states and lives to maintain the honour and safety of our Kings in their just warrs from whom perhaps we never received particular favour or benefit other than the common benefit and protection of subjects And are we not then foulely ingratefull to God to whose goodnesse we owe all that we have or are if for the advancement of his glory and the maintenance of his truth we make dainty to spend the best and most precious things we have yea though it be the dearest heart-bloud in our bodies But how much more ungratefull if we think much for his sake to forgoe liberty lands livings houses goods offices honours or any of these smaller and inferiour things Can there be greater unthankfulnesse than to grudge him a small who hath given us all In these yet peaceable times of our Church and state God be thanked we are not much put to it but who knoweth how soon a heavy day of trial may come we all know it cannot come sooner or heavier than our sinnes have deserved wherein woe woe to our unthankfulnesse if we do not freely and cheerfully render unto GOD of those things he hath given us whatsoever he shall require of us But yet even in these peaceable times there want not opportunities whereon to exercise our Thankfulnesse and to manifest our desires of requital though not to him yet to his To his servants and children in their afflictions to his poor distressed members in their manifold necessities These opportunities we never did we never shall want according to our Saviours prediction or rather promise Pauperes semper habebitis The poor you shall alwaies have with you as my Deputy-receivers but me in person ye shall not have alwaies And what we do or not do to these whom he thus constituted his Deputies he taketh it as done or not done unto himself If when God hath given us prosperity we suffer these to be distressed and comfort them not or victuals to perish and feed them not or cloathing to starve and cover them not or power to be oppressed and rescue them not or ability in any kind to want it and relieve them not Let us make what shewes we will let us make what profession we will of our thankfulnesse to God what we deny to these we deny to him and as we deal with these if his case were theirs as he is pleased to make their case his we would so deal with him And what is to be unthankfull if this be not And yet behold unthankfulnesse more and greater than this unthankfulnesse in the sixth and last and highest and worst degree We requite him evil for good In that other we were unjust not to requite him at all but injurious also in this to requite him with ill It sticketh upon King Ioash as a brand of infamy for ever that he slew Zachary the son of Iehoiada the High Priest who had been true and faithfull to him both in the getting of the kingdom and in the administration of it recorded to all posterity 2 Chron. 24. Thus Ioash the King remembred not the kindnesse which Iehoiada the Father had done him but slew his sonne and when he died he said The Lord look upon it and require it And it was not long before the Lord did indeed look upon it and require it
blessings we grudge at his gentle corrections judging these too heavy those too light We think our very peace a burden and complain of plenty as some would do of scarcity and undervalue the blessed liberty we have of treading in his Courts and partaking his holy Ordinances and all this because by his great goodness we have so long injoyed them and this is our guise in every other thing proportionably Did we but feel a while the miseries of our Neighbour Countries who want the blessings which we thus slight or could we but fore-think what our misery should be if we as they had our Throats ever before the sword or were wasted with extreme famines and pestilences or lived either in thick darkness without the Gospel or under cruel persecution for it Did we thus though our hearts were as hard and cold as stones it could not be but those thoughts would foften them and enflame them to magnifie and bless the holy name of God for our long and present peace for that measure of plenty what ever it be which we yet have and for the still continued liberty of his glorious Gospel and sincere worship among us God grant that from our wretched unthankfulness he take not just occasion by taking these great blessings from us to teach us at once both how to use them better and how to value them better Consider fifthly thy Importunity with God when thou wantest any thing and according to that proportion thy thanks when thou hast it I remember what Bernard writeth of the Popes servants and Courtiers in his time Importuni ut accipiant inquieti donec acceperint ubi acceperint ingrati When Suiters come to the Popes Court with their businesses the Courtiers and Officers lie in the wind for them greedily offering their service and never quiet with them till they have got something but by that they have got the money they have forgot the man and having first served their own turn they then leave the business to go which way it will Not much unlike is our dealing with God When we would have something some outward blessing conferred or some outward calamity removed for thankless devotions seldome look farther than after these outward things we are as Saint Chrysostome speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very eager and earnest with God we must have no Nay we wrastle with him and that stoutly as if we would out-wrestle Iacob for a blessing and we will not let him go till we have obtained it But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome there When our turn is served and we have what we would have by and by all our devotion is at an end we never think of thanks All the ten Lepers begged hard of Christ for a cleansing the Text saith They lift up their voyces they were all lowd enough whilest they were suitors Sed ubi novem there returned not to give God thanks for their cleansing of the whole ten any more than barely one single man It is our case just When we want any of the good Creatures of God for our necessities we open our mouths wide till he open his hand and fill them with plenteousness but after as if the filling of our mouths were the stopping of our Throats so are we speechless and heartless Shame we to be so clamorous when we crave from him and so dumb when we should give him thanks Consider lastly how freely God hath given thee what he hath given thee Dupliciter gratis saith Bernard Sine merito sine labore Freely both waies freely without thy desert and freely without so much as thy pains Freely first without thy desert Iacob a man as well deserving as thou yet confest himself Not worthy of the least of all Gods mercies And Saint Paul cutteth off all challenge of desert by that interrogatory Who hath first given him and it shall be recompenced him as who should say No man can challenge God as if he owed him ought If he have made himself a debtor to us by his Promise and indeed he hath so made himself a debtor to us yet that is still gratis and for nothing because the promise it self was free without either debt in him or desert in us Nay more God hath been good to us not only when we had not deserved it but which still more magnifieth his bounty and bindeth us the stronger to be thankfull when we had deserved the quite contrary And how is it possible we should forget such his unspeakable kindness in giving us much good when we had done none nay in giving us much good when we had done much ill And as he gave it sine merito so sine labore too the Creature being freely bestowed on us as on the one side not by way of reward for any desert of ours so neither on the other side by way of wages for any labour of ours To shew that God giveth not his blessings for our labour meerly he sometimes giveth them not where they are laboured for and again he giveth them somtimes where they are not laboured for If in the ordinary dispensation of his Providence he bestow them upon them that labour as Solomon saith The diligent hand maketh rich and seldom otherwise for He that will not labour it is fit he should not eat yet that labour is to be accounted but as the means not as a sufficient cause thereof And if we dig to the root we shall still find it was gratis for even that power to labour was the gift of God It is God that giveth thee power to get wealth Yea in this sence nature it self is grace because given gratis and freely without any labour preparation disposition desert or any thing at all in us All these considerations the Excellency of the Duty the Continuance of Gods blessings our future Necessity our Misery in wanting our Importunity in Craving his free Liberality in bestowing should quicken us to a more conscionable performance of this so necessary so just so religious a Duty And thus having seen our uâ—thankfullness discovered in six points and heard many Considerations to provoke us to thankfulness it may be we have seen enough in that to make us hate the fault and we would fain amend it and it may be we have heard enough in this to make us affect the duty and we would fain practice it may some say but we are yet to learn how The Duty being hard and our backwardness great what good course might be taken effectually to reform this our so great backwardness and to perform that so hard a Duty And so you see my second Inference for exhortation breedeth a third and that is for direction which for satisfaction of those men that pretend willingness but plead ignorance I should also prosecute if I had so much time to spare Wherein should be discovered what be the principal causes of
of the power and liberty even still to intimate unto the sonnes of men the knowledge of his will and the glory of his might by Dreams Miracles or other like supernatural manifestations if at any time either in the want of the ordinary means of the Word Sacraments and Ministery or for the present necessities of his Church or of some part thereof or for some other just cause perhaps unknown to us he shall see it expedient so to do He hath prescribed us but he hath not limited himself Fifthly that because the Devil and wicked spirits may suggest Dreams probably foretell future events foreseen in their causes and work many strange effects in nature applicando activa passivis which because they are without the sphere of our comprehension may to our seeming have fair appearances of Divine Revelations or Miracles when they are nothing less for the avoiding of strong delusions in this kind it is not safe for us to give easie credit to Dreams Prophecies or Miracles as Divine untill upon due tryal there shall appear both in the End whereto they point us a direct tendance to the advancement of GODS Glory and in the Means also they propose us a conformity unto the revealed Will of GOD in his written word Sixthly that so to observe our ordinary Dreams as thereby to divine or foretell of future contingents or to forecast therefrom good or ill-luck as we call it in the success of our affairs is a silly and groundless but withall an unwarranted and therefore an unlawfull and therefore also a damnable superstition Seventhly that there is yet to be made a lawfull yea and a very profitable use even of our ordinary Dreams and of the observing thereof and that both in Physick and Divinity Not at all by foretelling particulars of things to come but by taking from them among other things some reasonable conjectures in the general of the present estate both of our Bodies and Souls Of our Bodies first For since the predominancy of Choler Bloud Flegm and Melancholy as also the differences of strength and health and diseases and distempers either by dyet or passion or otherwise do cause impressions of different forms in the fancy our ordinary dreams may be a good help to lead us into those discoveries both in time of health what our natural constitution complexion and temperature is and in times of sickness from the ranckness and tyranny of which of the humours the malady springeth And as of our Bodies so of our Souls too For since our Dreams for the most part look the same way which our freest thoughts encline as the Voluptuous beast dreameth most of pleasures the Covetous wretch most of profits and the proud or ambitious most of praises preferments or revenge the observing of our ordinary Dreams may be of good use for us unto that discovery which of these three is our Master sin for unto one of the three every other sin is reduced The Lust of the flesh the Lust of the eyes or the Pride of Life But concerning Revelations and Dreams it shall suffice to have only proposed these few Conclusions without farther enlargement the manner of Gods revealing his will here to Abimelech by Dream being but an incidental circumstance upon the bye and not belonging to the main of the present story We will therefore without more ado proceed to the substance of Gods reply in the rest of the verse and therein begin with the former general part which But concerning Revelations and Dreams it shall suffice to have only proposed these few Conclusions without farther enlargement the manner of Gods revealing his will here to Abimelech by Dream being but an incidental circumstance upon the bye and not belonging to the main of the present story We will therefore without more adoe proceed to the substance of Gods reply in the rest of the verse and therein begin with the former general part which is Gods admission of Abimelechs Plea and Apology for himself The ground of whose Plea was Ignorance and the thing he pleaded his own Innocency and the integrity of his heart and God who is the searcher of all hearts alloweth the allegation and acknowledgeth that integrity Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart The Original word here translated Integrity is rendred by some Truth by others Purity and by others Simplicity and it will bear them all as signifying properly Perfection or Innocency You would think by that word that Abimelech had in this whole businesse walked in the sight of God with a pure and upright and true and single and perfect heart But alas he was far from that God plagued him and his for that he had done and God doth not use to punish the carcasse for that wherein the heart is single Again God with-held him or else he would have done more and worse and it is a poor perfection of heart where the active power only is restrained and not the inward corruption subdued Besides Sarah was taken into the house and there kept for lewd purposes and how can truth and purity of heart consist with a continued resolution of sinful uncleannesse Abimelech then cannot be defended as truly and absolutely innocent though he plead Innocency and God himself bear witnesse to the Integrity of his heart For had his heart been upright in him and sincere in this very matter of Sarah he would never have taken her into his house at all as he did But that he pleadeth for himself is that in this particular wherewith it seemed to him God by so threatning him did charge him in wronging Abraham by taking his wife from him his conscience could witnesse the Innocency of his heart how free he was from any the least injurious purpose or so much as thought that way It was told him by them both that she was his Sister and he knew no other by her than so when he took her into his house supposing her to be a single Woman if he had known she had been any mans Wife he would not for any good have done the man so foul an injury nor have sinned against his own soul by defiling anothers bed In the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands he did what he had done This is the substance of his allegation and God approveth the integrity of his heart so far viz. as free in this particular from any intent either to injure Abraham or to sin against the light of his own Conscience by committing adultery with anothers wife The meaning of the words thus cleared we may observe in them three things First the fact for which Abimelech pleadeth and that was the taking of Sarah who was anothers wife into his house Secondly the ground of his plea and that was his Ignorance he knew not when he took her that she was anothers wife Thirdly the thing he pleadeth upon that
Is it any thanks to our selves Nor that neither we have neither number to match them nor policy to defeat them nor strength to resist them weak silly little flock as we are But to whom then is it thanks As if a little flock of sheep escape when a multitude of ravening Wolves watch to devour them it cannot be ascribed either in whole or in part either to the sheep in whom there is no help or to the Wolf in whom there is no mercy but it must be imputed all and wholly to the good care of the shepherd in safe guarding his sheep and keeping off the Wolf so for our safety and preservation in the midst and in the spight of so many Enemies Not unto us O Lord not unto us whose greatest strength is but weaknesse much lesse unto them whose tenderest mercies are cruel but unto thy Name be the glory O thou Shepheard of Israel who out of thine abundant love to us who are the flock of thy Pasture and the sheep of thy hands hast made thy power glorious in curbing and restraining their malice against us Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodnesse and declare the wonders that he doth for the children of men Wonders we may well call them indeed they are Miracles if things strange and above and against the ordinary course of Nature may be called Miracles When we read the stories in the Scriptures of Daniel cast into the den among the Lions and not touched of the three children walking in the midst of the fiery furnace and not scorched of a viper fastning upon Pauls hand and no harm following we are stricken with some amazement at the consideration of these strange and supernatural accidents and these we all confesse to be miraculous escapes Yet such Miracles as these and such escapes God worketh daily in our preservation notwithstanding we live encompassed with so many fire-brands of hell such herds of ravening Wolves and Lions and Tygers and such numerous generations of vipers I mean wicked and ungodly men the spawn of the old Serpent who have it by kinde from their father to thirst after the destruction of the Saints and servants of God and to whom it is as natural so to do as for the fire to burn or a viper to bite or a Lion to devour Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for this his goodnesse and daily declare these his great wonders which he daily doth for the children of men Secondly since this restraint of wicked men is so only from God as that nothing either they or we or any Creature in the world can do can with-hold them from doing us mischief unlesse God lay his restraint upon them it should teach us so much wisdome as to take heed how we trust them It is best and safest for us as in all other things so in this to keep the golden mean that we be neither too timorous nor too credulous If wicked men then threaten and plot against thee yet fear them not God can restrain them if he think good and then assure thy self they shall not harm thee If on the other side they colloague and make shew of much kindnesse to thee yet trust them not God may suffer them to take their own way and not restrain them and then assure thy self they will not spare thee Thou maist think perhaps of some one or other of these that sure his own good nature will hold him in or thou hast had trial of him heretofore and found him faithfull as heart could wish or thou hast some such tye upon him by kindred neighbourhood acquaintance covenant oath benefits or other natural or civil obligation as will keep him off at least from falling foul upon thee all at once Deceive not thy self these are but slender assurances for thee to abide upon Good nature alas where is it since Adam fell there was never any such thing in rerum natura if there be any good thing in any man it is all from Grace nature is all naught even that which seemeth to have the preheminence in nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is stark naught We may talk of this and that of good natured men and I know not what But the very truth is set grace aside I mean all grace both renewing and restraining grace there is no more good nature in any man than there was in Cain and in Iudas That thing which we use to call good nature is indeed but a subordinate means or instrument whereby God restraineth some men more than others from their birth and special constitution from sundry outragious exorbitancies and so is a branch of this restraining Grace whereof we now speak And as for thy past Experience that can give thee little security thou knowest not what fetters God layed upon him then nor how he was pleased with those fetters God might full sore against his will not only restrain him from doing thee hurt but also constrain him to do thee good as sometimes he commanded the Ravens to feed Eliah a bird so unnatural to her young ones that they might famish for her if God did not otherwise provide for them and therefore it is noted in the Scripture as a special argument of Gods providence that he feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him But as nothing that is constrained is durable but every thing when it is constrained against its natural inclination if it be let alone will at length return to his own kinde and primitive disposition as these Ravens which now fed Eliah would have been as ready another time to have pecked out his eyes so a Natural man is a natural man still howsoever ouer-ruled for the present and if God as he hath hitherto by his restraint with-held him shall but another while withhold his restraint from him he will soon discover the inbred hatred of his heart against good things and men and make thee at the last beshrew thy folly in trusting him when he hath done thee a mischief unawares And therefore if he have done thee seven courtesies and promise fair for the eighth yet trust him not for there are seven abominations in his heart And as for whatsoever other hanck thou maiest think thou hast over him be it never so strong unlesse God manacle him with his powerful restraint he can as easily unfetter himself from them all as Sampson from the green wit hs and coards wherewith the Philistines bound him All those fore-mentioned relations came in but upon the bye and since whereas the hatred of the wicked against goodness is of an ancienter date and hath his root in corrupt nature and is therefore of such force that it maketh void all obligations whether civil domestical or other that have grown by vertue of any succeeding contract It is a ruled case Inimici domestici A mans enemies may be
they of his own house Let not any man then that hath either Religion or Honesty have any thing to do with that man at least let him not trust him more than needs he must that is an Enemy either to Religion or Honesty So far as common Humanity and the necessities of our lawful Occasions and Callings do require we may have to do with them and rest upon the good providence of God for the success of our affairs even in their hands not doubting but that God will both restrain them from doing us harm and dispose them to do us good so far as he shall see expedient for us but then this is not to trust them but to trust God with them But for us to put our selves needlesly into their hands and to hazard our safety upon their faithfulness by way of trust there is neither wisdom in it nor warrant for it Although God may do it yet we have no reason to presume that he will restrain them for our sakes when we might have prevented it our selves and would not and this we are sure of that nothing in the world can preserve us from receiving mischief from them unless God do restrain them Therefore trust them not Thirdly if at any time we see wickedness set aloft bad men grow to be great or great men shew themselves bad sinning with an high hand and an arm stretched out and God seemeth to strengthen their hand by adding to their greatness and encreasing their power if we see the wicked devouring the man that is more righteous than he and God hold his tongue the whilest if we see the ungodly course it up and down at pleasure which way soever the lust of their corrupt heart carryeth them without controul like a wilde untamed Colt in a spacious field God as it were laying the rains in the neck and letting them run in a word when we see the whole world out of frame and order we may yet frame our selves to a godly patience and sustain our hearts amid all these evils with this comfort and consideration that still God keepeth the rains in his own hands and when he seeth his time and so far as he seeth it good he both can and will check and controul and restrain them at his pleasure as the cunning Rider sometimes giveth a fiery horse head and letteth him fling and run as if he were mad he knoweth he can give him the stop when he list The great Leviathans that take their pastime in the Sea and with a little stirring of themselves can make the deep to boyl like a pot and cause a path to shine after them as they go he can play with them as children do with a bird he suffereth them to swallow his hook and to play upon the line and to roll and tumble them in the waters but anon he striketh the hook through their noses and fetcheth them up and layeth them upon the shore there to beat themselves without help or remedy exposed to nothing but shame and contempt What then if God suffer those that hate him to prosper for the time and in their prosperity to Lord it over his heritage What if Princes should sit and speak against us without a cause as it was sometimes Davids case Let us not free at the injuries nor envy at the greatness of any let us rather betake us to Davids refuge to be occupied in the statutes and to meditate in the holy Word of God In that holy Word we are taught that the hearts even of Kings how much more then of inferiour persons are in his rule and governance and that he doth dispose and turn them as seemeth best to his godly wisdom that he can refrain the spirit of Princes binde Kings in chains and Nobles in links of Iron and though they rage furiously at it and lay their heads together in consultation how to break his bands and cast away his cords from theÌ„ yet they imagin but a vain thing whilst they strive against him on earth he laugheth them to scorn in heaven and maugre all opposition will establish the Kingdom of his Christ and protect his people Say then the great ones of the world exercise their power over us and lay what restraints they can upon us our comfort is they have not greater power over us than God hath over them nor can they so much restrain the meanest of us but God can restrain the greatest of them much more Say our enemies curse us with Bell Book and Candle our comfort is God is able to return the curse upon their own heads and in despight of them too turn it into a blessing upon us Say they make warlike preparations against us to invade us our comfort is God can break the Ships of Tarshish and scatter the most invincible Armadoes Say they that hate us be more in number than the hairs of our head our comfort is the very hairs of our head are numbred with him and without his sufferance not the least hair of our heads shall perish Say to imagine the worst that our Enemies should prevail against us and they that hate us should be Lords over us for the time our comfort is â—e that loveth us is Lord over them and can bring them under us again when he seeth time In all our fears in all our dangers in all our distresses our comfort is that God can do all this for us our care should be by our holy obedience to strengthen our interest in his protection and not to make him a stranger from us yea an enemy unto us by our sins and impenitency that so we may have yet more comfort in a cheerful confidence that God will do all this for us The Assyrian whose ambition it was to be the Catholick King and universal Monarch of the world stiling himself the Great King thus saith the Great King the King of Assyria when he had sent messengers to revile Israel and an Army to besiege and destroy Ierusalem yet for all his rage he could do them no harm the Lord brought down the stout heart of the King of Assyria put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips and made him return back by the way by which he came without taking the City or so much as casting a bank or shooting an arrow against it Nay he that is indeed the great King over all the children of pride and hath better title to the stile of most Catholick King than any that ever yet bare it whose Territories are large as the Earth and spacious as the Air I mean the Devil the Prince of this world he is so fettered with the chain of Gods power and providence that he is not able with all his might and malice no not though he raise his whole forces and muster up all the powers of darkness and
Hell into one band to do us any harm in our souls in our bodies in our children in our friends in our goods no not so much as our very Pigs or any small thing that we have without the special leave and sufferance of our good God He must have his Dedimus potestatem from him or he can do nothing Fourthly since this restraint is an act of Gods mercy whom we should strive to resemble in nothing more than in shewing mercy let every one of us in imitation of our Heavenly Father and in compassion to the souls of our brethren and for our own good and the good of humane society endeavour our selves faithfully the best we can to restrain and withhold and keep back others from sinning The Magistrate the Minister the Housholder every other man in his place and calling should do their best by rewards punishments rebukes incouragements admonitions perswasions good example and other like means to suppress vice and restrain disorders in those that may any way come within their charge Our first desire should be and for that we should bend our utmost endeavours that if it be possible their hearts might be seasoned with grace and the true fear of God but as in other things where we cannot attain to the full of our first aims Pulchrum est as he saith in secundis tertiisve consistere so here we may take some contentment in it as some fruit of our labours in our Callings if we can but wean them from gross disorders and reduce them from extremely debaucht courses to some good measure of Civility It ought not to be it is not our desire to make men Hypocrites and a meer Civil man is no better yet to us that cannot judge but by the outward behaviour it is less grief when men are Hypocrites than when they are Profane Our first aim is to make you good yet some rejoycing it is to us if we can but make you less evil Our aim is to make you of Natural holy and Spiritual men but we are glad if of dissolute we can but make you good Moral men if in stead of planting Grace we can but root out Vice if in stead of the power of Godliness in the reformation of the inner-man we can but bring you to some tolerable stayedness in the conformity of the outward-man If we can do but this though we are to strive for that our labour is not altogether in vain in the Lord. For hereby first mens sins are both less and fewer and that secondly abateth somewhat both of the number and weight of their stripes and maketh their punishment the easier and thirdly there is less scandal done to Religion which receiveth not so much soil and dis-reputation by close hypocrisie as by lewd and open prophaneness Fourthly the Kingdome of Satan is diminished though not directly in the strength for he loseth never a Subject by it yet somewhat in the glory thereof because he hath not so full and absolute command of some of his subjects as before he had or seemed to have Fifthly much of the hurt that might come by evil example is hereby prevented Sixthly the people of God are preserved from many injuries and contumelies which they would receive from evil men if their barbarous manners were not thus civilized as a fierce Mastiffe doth least hurt when he is chained and muzled Seventhly and lastly and which should be the strongest motive of all the rest to make us industrious to repress vicious affections in others it may please God these sorry beginnings may be the fore-runners of more blessed and more solid graces My meaning is not that these Moral restraints of our wilde corruption can either actually or but virtually prepare dispose or qualifie any man for the grace of Conversion and Renovation or have in them Virtutem seminalem any natural power which by ordinary help may be cherished and improved so far as an Egge may be hatched into a Bird and a kirnel sprowt and grow into a tree far be it from us to harbour any such Pelagian conceipts but this I say that God being a God of order doth not ordinarily work but in order and by degrees bringing men from the one extream to the other by middle courses and therefore seldom bringeth a man from the wretchedness of forlorn nature to the blessed estate of saving grace but where first by his restraining grace in some good measure he doth correct nature and moralize it Do you then that are Magistrates do we that are Ministers let all Fathers Masters and others whatsoever by wholesome severity if fairer courses will not reclaim them deter audacious persons from offending break those that are under our charge of their wills and wilfulness restrain them from lewd and licentious practises and company not suffer sin upon them for want of reproving them in due and seasonable sort snatch them out of the fire and bring them as far as we can out of the snare of the Devil to God-ward and leave the rest to him Possibly when we have faithfully done our part to the utmost of our power he will set in graciously and begin to do his part in their perfect conversion If by our good care they may be made to forbear swearing and cursing and blaspheming they may in time by his good grace be brought to fear an Oath If we restrain them from grosse prophanations upon his holy-day in the mean time they may come at length to think his Sabbath a delight If we keep them from swilling and gaming and revelling and rioting and roaring the while God may frame them ere long to a sober and sanctified use of the Creatures and so it may be said of other sins and duties I could willingly inlarge all these points of Inferences but that there are yet behinde sundry other good Uses to be made of this restraining Grace of God considered as it may lye upon our selves and therefore I now passe on to them First there is a root of Pride in us all whereby we are apt to think better of our selves than there is cause and every infirmity in our brother which should rather be an item to us of our frailty serveth as fuel to nourish this vanity and to swell us up with a Pharisaical conceit that forsooth we are not like other men Now if at any time when we see any of our brethren fall into some sin from which by the good hand of God upon us we have been hitherto preserved we then feel this swelling begin to rise in us as sometimes it will do the point already delivered may stand us in good stead to prick the bladder of our pride and to let out some of that windy vanity by considering that this our forbearance of evill wherein we seem to excell our brother is not from nature but from grace not from our selves but from God And here a little let me close with
strength though it be never so great that he shall be able to avoid any sin though it be never so foul When a Heathen man prayed unto Iupiter to save him from his Enemies one that overheard him would needs mend it with a more needful prayer that Iupiter would save him from his Friends he thought they might do him more hurt because he trusted them but as for his Enemies he could look to himself well enough for receiving harm from them We that are Christians bad need pray unto the God of Heaven that he would not give us up into the hands of our professed enemies and to pray unto God that he would not deliver us over into the hands of our false-hearted Friends but there is another prayer yet more needful and to be pressed with greater importunity than either of both that God would save us from our selves and not give us up into our own hands for then we are utterly cast away There is a wayward old-man that lurketh in every of our bosoms and we make but too much of him than whom we have not a more spightful enemy nor a more false friend Alas we do not think what a man is given over to that is given over to himself he is given over to vile affections he is given over to a reprobate sense he is given over to commit all manner of wickednesse with greedinesse It is the last and fearfullest of all other judgements and is not usually brought upon men but where they have obstinately refused to hear the voice of God in whatsoever other tone he had spoken unto them then to leave them to themselves and to their own counsels My people would not hear my voice and Israel would none of me so I gave them up unto their own hearts lust and let them follow their own imaginations As we conceive the state of the Patient to be desperate when the Physician giveth him over and letteth him eat and drink and have and doe what and when and as much as he will without prescribing him any diet or keeping back any thing from him he hath a minde unto Let us therefore pray faithfully and fervently unto God as Christ himself hath taught us that he would not by leaving us unto our selves lead us into temptation but by his gracious and powerful support deliver us from all those evils from which we have no power at all to deliver our selves Lastly since this Restraint whereof we have spoken may be but a common Grace and can give us no sound nor solid comfort if it be but a bare restraint and no more though we ought to be thankful for it because we have not deserved it yet we should not rest nor think our selves safe enough till we have a well grounded assurance that we are possessed of an higher and a better grace even the grace of sanctification For that will hold out against temptations where this may fail We may deceive our selves then and thousands in the world do so deceive themselves if upon our abstaining from sins from which God with-holdeth us we presently conclude our selves to be in the state of Grace and to have the power of godlinesse and the spirit of sanctification For between this restraining Grace whereof we have now spoken and that renewing Grace whereof we now speak there are sundry wide differences They differ first in their fountain Renewing grace springeth from the special love of God towards those that are his his in Christ restraining grace is a fruit of that general mercy of God whereof it is said in the Psalm that his mercy is over all his works They differ secondly in their extent both of Person Subject Object and Time For the Person restraining Grace is common to good and bad Renewing Grace proper and peculiar to the Elect. For the Subject Restraining Grace may binde one part or faculty of a man as the hand or tongue and leave another free as the heart or ear Renewing Grace worketh upon all in some measure sanctifieth the whole man Body and soul and spirit with all the parts and faculties of each For the Object Restraining Grace may withhold a man from one sin and give him scope to another Renewing Grace carrieth an equal and just respect to all Gods Commandements For the Time Restraining Grace may tye us now and by and by unloose us Renewing Grace holdeth out unto the end more or lesse and never leaveth us wholly destitute Thirdly they differ in their Ends. Restraining Grace is so intended chiefly for the good of humane society especially of the Church of God and of the members thereof as that indifferently it may or may not do good to the Receiver but Renewing Grace is especially intended for the Salvation of the Receiver though Ex consequenti it do good also unto others They differ fourthly and lastly in their Effects Renewing Grace mortifieth the corruption and subdueth it and diminisheth it as water quencheth fire by abating the heat but Restraining Grace only inhibiteth the exercise of the corruption for the time without any real diminution of it either in substance or quality as the fire wherein the three Children walked had as much heat in it at that very instant as it had before and after although by the greater power of God the natural power of it was then suspended from working upon them The Lions that spared Daniel were Lions still and had their ravenous disposition still albeit God stopped their mouthes for that time that they should not hurt him but that there was no change made in their natural disposition appeareth by their entertainment of their next guests whom they devoured with all greedinesse breaking their bones before they came to the ground By these two instances and examples we may in some measure conceive of the nature and power of the restraining grace of God in wicked men It bridleth the corruption that is in them for the time that it cannot break out and manacleth them in such sort that they do not shew forth the ungodly disposition of their heart but there is no reall change wrought in them all the while their heart still remaining unsanctified and their natural corruption undiminished Whereas the renewing and sanctifying Grace of God by a reall change of a Lion maketh a Lamb altereth the natural disposition of the soul by draining out some of the corruption begetteth a new heart a new spirit new habits new qualities new dispositions new thoughts new desires maketh a new man in every part and faculty compleatly New Content not thy self then with a bare forbearance of sin so long as thy heart is not changed nor thy will changed nor thy affections changed but strive to become a new man to be transformed by the renewing of thy minde to hate sin to love God to wrastle against thy secret corruptions to take delight in holy duties to subdue thine understanding and
restraint And if he justly censured them as men of abject mindes that would for any consideration in the world willingly forgo their civil and Roman liberty what flatness of spirit possesseth us if we wilfully betray our Christian and spiritual liberty Whereby besides the dishonour we do also which is the fifth reason and whereunto I will adde no more with our own hands pull upon our own heads a great deal of unnecessary cumber For whereas we might draw an easie yoak carry a light burden observe commandements that are not grievous and so live at much hearts ease in the service of God and of Christ by putting our selves into the service of men we thrust our necks into a hard yoak of bondage such as neither we nor any of our fathers were ever able to bear we lay upon our own shoulders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heavy and importable burdens and subject our selves to ordinances which are both grievous and unprofitable and such are so far from preserving those that use them from perishing that themselves perish in the using Now against this liberty which if we will answer the trust reposed in us and neither wrong Christ nor dâ—shonour God nor yet dâ—base and encomber our selves where we should not we must with our utmost power maintain The offenders are of two sorts to wit such as either injuriously encroach upon the liberty of others or else unworthily betray away their own The most notorious of the former sort are the Bishops of Rome whose usurpations upon the consciences of men shew them to be the true successors of the Scribes and Pharisees in laying heavy burdens upon mens shoulders which they ought not and in rejecting the Word of God to establish their own traditions rather than the successors of S. Peter who forbiddeth dâ—minatum in Cleris in the last chapter of this Epistle at verse 3. To teach their own judgements to be infallible To make their definitions an universal and unerring rule of faith To stile their decrees and constitutions Oracles To assume to themselves all power in heaven and earth To require subjection both to their laws and persons as of necessity unto salvation To suffer themselves to be called by their parasites Dominus Deus noster Papa and Optimum maximum supremum in terris numen all which and much more is done and taught and professed by the Popes and in their behalf if all this will not reach to S. Pauls exaltari supra omne quod vocaâ—ur Deus yet certainly and no modest man can deny it it will amount to as much as S. Peters dominari in Cleris even to the exercising of such a Lordship over the Lords heritage the Christian Church as will become none but the Lord himself whose heritage the Church is Besides these that do it thus by open Assault I would there were not others also that did by secret underminings go about to deprive us of that liberty which we have in Christ Jesus even then when they most pretend the maintenance of it They inveigh against the Church Governours as if they Lorded it over Gods heritage and against the Church orders and constitutions as if they were contrary to Christian liberty Wherein besides that they do manifest wrong to the Church in both particulars they consider not that those very accusations which they thus irreverently dart at the face of their Mother to whom they owe better respect but miss it do recoil part upon themselves and cannot be avoided For whereas these constitutions of the Church are made for order decency and uniformity sake and to serve unto edification and not with any intention at all to lay a tye upon the consciences of men or to work their judgements to an opinion as if there were some necessity or inherent holiness in the things required thereby neither do our Governors neither ought they to press them any farther which is sufficient to acquit both the Governors from that Lording and the Constitutions from that trenching upon Christian liberty wherewith they are charged Alas that our brethren who thus accuse them should suffer themselves to be so far blinded with prejudices and partial affections as not see that themselves in the mean time do really exercise a spiritual Lordship over their disciples who depend in a manner wholly upon their judgements by imposing upon their consciences sundry Magisterial conclusions for which they have no sound warrant from the written Word of God Whereby besides the great injury done to their brethren in the impeachment of their Christian liberty and leading them into error they do withall exasperate against them the mindes of those that being in authority look to be obeyed and engage them in such sufferings as they can have no just cause of rejoycing in For beloved this we must know that as it is injustice to condemn the innocent as well as it is injustice to clear the guilty and both these are equal abominable to the Lord so it is superstition to forbid that as sinful which is in truth indifferent and therefore lawful as well as it is superstition to enjoyn that as necessary which is in truth indifferent and therefore arbitrary Doth that heavy woe in Esay 5. appertain think ye to them only that out of prophaneness call evil good and nothing at all concern them that out of preciseness call good evil Doth not he decline out of the way that turneth aside on the right hand as well as he that turneth on the left They that positively make that to be sin which the Law of God never made so to be how can they be excused from symbolizing with the Pharisees and the Papists in making the narrow waies of God yet narrower than they are in teaching for doctrines mens precepts and so casting a snare upon the consciences of their brethren If our Church should presse things as far and upon such grounds the one way as some forward spirits do the other way if as they say it is a sin to kneel at the Communion and therefore we charge you upon your consciences not to do it so the Church should say it is a sin not to kneel and therefore we require you upon your consciences to do it and so in all other lawful yet arbitrary ceremonies possibly then the Church could no more be able to acquit her self from encroaching upon Christian liberty than they are that accuse her for it Which since they have done and she hath not she is therefore free and themselves only guilty It is our duty for the better securing of our selves as well against those open impugners as against these secret underminers to look heedfully to our trenches and fortifications and to stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free lest by some device or other we be lifted out of it To those that seek to enthrall us we should
in something to be done maketh an Active if in something to be suffered a Passive obedience Our Active Obedience to God is the keeping his Commandements and the doing of his will as the people said Iosh. 24. The Lord our God will we serve and his voice will we obey And this must be done in auditu auris upon the bare signification of his pleasure without disputing or debating the matter as the Centurions servant if his Master did but say Do this without any more ado did it So Abraham the servant of the Lord when he was called to go out into a place which he should receive for an inheritance obeyed and went out though he knew not whither Nor only so but in the greatest tryal of Obedience that ever we read any man any meer man to have been put unto being commanded to sacrifice his only begotten Son of whom it was said That in Isaac shall thy seed be called he never stumbled as not at the promise through unbelief so neither at the command through disobedience but speedily went about it and had not failed to have done all that was commanded him had not the Lord himself when he was come even to the last act inhibited him by his countermand If mortal and wicked men look to be obeyed by their servants upon the warrant of their bare command in evil and unrighteous acts When I say unto you Smite Amnon then kill him fear not have not I commanded you saith Absalon to his servants 2 Sam. 13. Ought not the express command of God much more to be a sufficient warrant for us to do as we are bidden none of whose commands can be other than holy and just That is our Active obedience We must give proof of our Passive obedience also both in contenting our selves with his allowances and in submitting our selves to his corrections He that is but a servant in the house may not think to command whatsoever the house affordeth at his own pleasure that is the Masters prerogative alone but he must content himself with what his Master is content to allow him and take his portion of meat drink livery lodging and every other thing at the discretion and appointment of his Master Neither may the servant of God look to be his own carver in any thing neither ought he to mutter against his Master with that ungracious servant in the Parable complaining of his hardness and austerity if his allowances in some things fall short of his desire but having food and rayment be it never so little never so course â—he should be content with it nay though he should want either or both he should be content without it We should all learn of an old experienced servant of God Saint Paul what grace and long experience had taught him In whatsoever state we are to be therewith content We are to shew our Obedience to our heavenly Master yet further by submitting to his wholesome discipline when at any time he shall see cause to give us correction Our Apostle a little after the Text would have servants to be subject even to their froward Masters and to take it patiently when they are buffetted undeservedly and without fault How much more ought we to accept the punishment of our iniquity as we have the phrase Levit. 26. and with patience to yeeld our backs to the whip when God who hath been so gracious a Master to us shall think fit to exercise some little severity towards us and to lay stripes upon us Especially since he never striketh us First but for our fault such is his justice nor Secondly such is his mercy but for our good And all this belongeth to that Obedience which the servant of God ought to manifest both by doing and suffering according to the will of his Master The third and last general duty is Fidelity Who is a faithful and wise servant Well done thou good and faithful servant As if both the wisdom and goodnesse of a servant consisted in his faithfulnesse Now the faithfulnesse of a servant may be tryed especially by these three things By the heartinesse of his service by being tender of his Masters honour and profit and by his quicknesse and diligence in doing his businesse A notable example whereof we have in Abrahams servant Gen. 24. in all the three particulars For first being many miles distant from his Master he was no lesse solicitous of the businesse he was put in trust withall then he could have been if he had been all that while in the eye of his Master Secondly he framed himself in his speeches and actions and in his whole behaviour to such a discreet carriage as might best set forth the credit and honour of his Master Thirdly he used all possible diligence and expedition losing not any time either at first for the delivery of his message or at last for his return home after he had brought things to a good conclusion Such faithfulnesse would well become us in the service of God in all the aforesaid respects The first whereof is Heartinesse in his service There are many servants in the world that will work hard and bustle at it lustily for a fit and so long as their Masters eye is upon them but when his back is turned can be content to go on fair and softly and fellow-like Such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostle condemneth Col. 3. and elsewhere admonishing servants whatsoever they do to do it heartily and to obey their Masters not with eye-service but in singlenesse of heart Towards our heavenly Master true it is if we had but this eye-service it were enough because we are never out of his eye his eyes are in all the corners of the earth beholding the evil and the good and his eye-lids try the children of men he is about our beds and about our paths and spyeth out all our goings And therefore if we should but study to approve our selves and our actions before his sight it could not be but our services should be hearty as well as handy because our hearts are no lesse in his sight than our hands are We cannot content our Master nor should we content our selves with a bare and barren profession in the service of God neither with the addition of some outward performances of the work done But since our Master calleth for the heart as well as the hand and tongue and requireth truth in the inward parts no lesse rather much more than shew in the outward let us but joyn that inward truth of the heart unto the outward profession and performance and doubtlesse we shall be accepted Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart 1 Sam. 12. Secondly we must shew our faithfulnesse to our Master by our zeal in his behalf A faithful servant will not endure an evil word spoken of
his Master behinde his back but he will be ready upon every occasion to vindicate his credit and to magnifie him unto the opinion of others He will make much of those that love his Master and set the lesse by those that care not for him And as to his credit principally so he hath an eye also in the second place to the profit of his Master He will have a care to save his goods the best he can it will grieve his very heart to see any of them vainly wasted or imbeazeled by his fellow servants yea and it will be some grief to him if any thing under his hand do but chance to miscarry though it be without his fault See we how far every of us can apply all this to our own selves in the service of God If we have no heart to stand up in our rank and place for the maintenance of Gods truth and worship when it is discountenanced or overborn either by might or multitudes If our bloud will not appear a little when cursed miscreants blast the honour of God with their unhallowed breath by blaspheming oaths fearful imprecations scurrile prophanations of Scripture licentious and bitter sarcasms against the holy Ordinances of God If a profound drunkard and obscene rimer and habituated swearer a compleat roarer every loose companion and professed scorner of all goodnesse that doth but peep out with a head be as welcome into our company and finde as full and free entertainment with us as he that carryeth the face and for any thing we know hath the heart of an honest and sober Christian without either prophanenesse or precisenesse If we grieve not for the miscarriages of those poor souls that live neer us especially those that fall any way under our charge what faithfulnesse is there in us or what zeal for God to answer the title we usurp so often as we call our selves the servants of God Thirdly if we be his faithful servants we should let it appear by our diligence in doing his businesses No man would willingly entertain an idle servant that is good at bit and nothing else one of those the old riming verse describeth Sudant quando vorant frigescant quando laborant such as can eat till they sweat and work till they freeze O thou wicked and slothful servant saith the Master in the parable to him that napkined up his talent Mat. 25. they are rightly joyned wicked and slothful for it is impossible a slothful servant should be good The Poets therefore give unto Mercury who is interpres divûm the messenger as they faign of Iupiter and the other gods wings both at his hands and feet to intimate thereby what great speed and diligence was requisite to be used by those that should be imployed in the service of Princes for the managing of their weighty affairs of State Surely no lesse diligence is needful in the service of God but rather much more by how much both the Master is of greater majesty and the service of greater importance Not slothful in businesse fervent in spirit serving the Lord saith S. Paul Let all those that trifle away their precious time in unconcerning things or poast off the repentance of their sins and the reformation of their lives till another age or any other way slack their bounden service unto God either in the common duties of their general or in the proper works of their particular calling tremble to think what shall become of them when all they shall be cursed that have done the Lords work in what kinde soever negligently We see now what we are to do if we will approve our selves and our services unto the Lord our heavenly Master What remaineth but that we be willing to do it and for that end pray to the same our Master who alone can work in us both the will and the deed that he would be pleased of his great goodnesse to give to every one of us courage to maintain our Christian liberty inviolate as those that are free wisdom to use it right and not for a cloak of maliciousnesse and grace at all times and in all places to behave our selves as the servants of God with such holy reverence of his Majesty obedience to his will faithfulnesse in his imployments as may both procure to us and our services in the mean time gracious acceptance in his sight and in the end a glorious reward in his presence even for Jesus Christ his sake his only Son and our alone Saviour FINIS A Table of the places of Scripture to which some light more or less is given in the foregoing Fourteen Sermons Chap. Ver. Pag. Gen. III. 4 5 131 15 241.351 16 241 19 241 IV 2 242 VI 6 200 IX 25 221 XV 15 210 XVIII 20 137 32 212 XIX 8 40 9 212 16 211 XX s VI 323 c. XXIIII 12 c. 400 XXXI 29 346 XXXII 6 c. 346 XXXIII 4 c. 346 Exod. II. 14 10 X 26 369 XI 5 6 224 XIIII 4 179 XX 5 224.231.234 XXIII s I III. 125 c. Lev. 26. 21 399 23 399 26 c. 335.301 Num. 22. 27 282 XXIII 19 200 XXV 5 156 Deut. 8. 3 300 14 306 17 306  18 316 XV 4 250 XVII 4 109 XXXII 15 310 Ios. 24. 15 394  24 398 Iudg. 3. 9 10 157 V 7 157 XIX 30 109 1 Sam. 2. 30 396 IV 18 155 XII 24 400 XV 15 377 2 Sam. 13. 28 399 XV 4 117 XXI 14 166 2 King 2. 9 102 X 20 112 XXI 13 377 s XXIX 173 c. 1 King 3. 9 62 VI 25-26 228 VIII 27 226 X 10 209 30 222 XXII 20 210 1 Chron. 26. 29-31 155 2 Chron. 19. 6 114 XXIIII 22 310 Nehem. 5. 15 140 Iob 1. 2 100 5 10 20 224 IX 33 2 XIII 7 36 XXII 30 212 XXIX 9 100 s 14 17. c. 97 c. Psalm 2. 11 398 III 7 112 IV 6-7 301 XIIII 4 111 XVIII 44 398 XIX 12 335.343 13 360 XXXIIII 11 106 XXXVI 3 336 6 215 XXXVII 1 193 XXXIX 11 219 XLV 6 7 102 L 22 213 LI 6 400 12 367 LII 2 4 131 LVII 4 111 LVIII 5 336 6 112 LXXIII 2 3 217 17 217 LXXV 2 4 114.170 LXXVI 10 348 12 348 LXXXI 12 361 LXXXII 6 105.114 CIII 1 2 298 CV 14 351 CVI 6 235 s XXX 149 c. 31 156 CVII 8 352 CIX 14 235 16 101 CXVI 12 299 16 393 CXIX 6 183 94 396 141 4 CXLIII 12 396 CXLV 8 206 16 244 CXLVII 1 312 9 353 Prov. 1. 13 135 III 3 107 XII 13 162 XIV 21 6 XV 8 190 17 301 XVI 12 170 XVII 16 261 XVIII 7 135 9 244 13 110 17 136 XX 25 294 XXI 1 348 XXIIII 26 102 XXV 2 110 XXVI 13 162 25 353 XXVIII 13 335 XXIX 7 137 12 142 XXX 1 6 33 130 XXXI 20 244 Eccles. 1. 4 222 18 337 VIII 11 162 IX 1 179
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
wrong way These would be fairly checkt turned into the right way and guided with a steddy and skilfull hand A third sort and I think the greatest through unsetledness or discontentedness or other untoward humour walk not soberly and uprightly and orderly in their Calling like an unruly Colt that will over hedge and ditch no ground will hold him no fence turn him These would be well fettered and side-hanckled for leaping The first sort are to be taught the Necessity of a Calling the second to be directed for the Choice of their Calling the third to be bounded and limited in the Exercise of their Calling Of which three in their order and of the First first the Necessity of a calling The Scriptures speak of two kinds of Vocations or Callings the one ad Foedus the other ad Munus The usual known terms are the General and the Particular Calling Vocatio ad Foedus or the General Calling is that wherewith God calleth us either outwardly in the ministery of his Word or inwardly by the efficacy of his Spirit or joyntly by both to the faith and obedience of the Gospel and to the embracing of the Covenant of grace and of mercy and salvation by Iesus Christ. Which is therefore termed the General Calling not for that it is of larger extent than the other but because the thing whereunto we are thus called is one and the same and common to all that are called The same duties and the same promises and every way the same conditions Here is no difference in regard of Persons but One Lord one Faith one baptism one body and one spirit even as we are all called in one hope of our Calling That 's the General Calling Vocatio ad Munus Our Particular Calling is that wherewith GOD enableth us and directeth us and putteth us on to some special course and condition of life wherein to employ our selves and to exercise the gifts he hath bestowed upon us to his glory and the benefit of our selves and others And it is therefore termed a Particular Calling not as if it concerned not all in general for we shall prove the contrary anon but because the thing whereunto men are thus called is not one and the same to all but differenced with much variety according to the quality of particular persons Alius sic alius vero sic Every man hath his proper gift of God one man on this manner another on that Here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some called to be Magistrates some Ministers some Merchants some Artificers some one thing some another as to their particular Callings But as to the General Calling there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Salvation all called to the same State of being the servants and children of God all called to the performance of the same duties of servants and to the expectation of the same inheritance of children all called to be Christians Of both which Callings the General and Particular there is not I take it any where in Scripture mention made so expresly and together as in this passage of our Apostle especially at the 20 ver Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called Where besides the matter the Apostles elegancy is observable in using the same word in both significations the Noun signifying the Particular and the Verb the General Calling Let every one abide in the same calling wherein he was called bearing sense as if the Apostle had said Let every man abide in the same Particular Calling wherein he stood at the time of his General Calling And the same and no other is the meaning of the words of my Text. Whence it appeareth that the Calling my Text implyeth and wherein every man is here exhorted to abide is to be understood of the Particular and not of the General Calling And of this Particular Calling it is we now intend to speak And that in the more Proper and restrained signification of it as it importeth some setled course of life with reference to business office and imployment accordingly as we say a man is called to be a Minister called to be a Lawyer called to be a Tradesman and the like Although I cannot be ignorant that our Apostle as the stream of his argument caryed him here taketh the word in a much wider extent as including not only such special courses of life as refer to imployment but even all outward personal states and conditions of men whatsoever whether they have such reference or no as we may say a man is called to Marriage or to single life called to riches or poverty and the like But omitting this larger signification we will hold our selves either only or principally to the former and by Calling understand a special setled course of life wherein mainly to employ a mans gifts and time for his own and the common good The Necessity whereof whilst we mention you are to imagine not an absolute and positive but a conditional and suppositive necessity Not as if no man could be without one de facto dayly experience in these dissolute times manifesteth the contrary but because de jure no man should be without one This kind of Calling is indeed necessary for all men But how Not as a necessary thing ratione termini so as the want thereof would be an absolute impossibility but virtute praecepti as a necessary duty the neglect whereof would be a grievous and sinfull enormity He that will doe that which he ought and is in conscience bound to doe must of necessitity live in some calling or other That is it we mean by the Necessity of a Calling And this Necessity we are now to prove And that First from the Obedience we owe to every of Gods Ordinances and the account we must render for every of Gods Gifts Amongst those Ordinances this is one and one of the first that in the sweat of our faces every man of us should eat our bread Gen. 3. The force of which precept let none think to avoid by a quirk that forsooth it was layed upon Adam after his transgression rather as a Curse which he must endure than as a Duty which he should perform For first as some of Gods Curses such is his goodness are promises as well as Curses as is that of the Enmity between the Womans seed and the Serpents so some of Gods Curses such is his Iustice are Precepts as well as Curses as is that of the Womans subjection to the Man This of eating our bread in the sweat of our face is all the three it is a Curse it is a Promise it is a Precept It is as Curse in that God will not suffer the earth to afford us bread without our sweat It is a promise in that God assureth us we shall have bread for our sweat And it is a Precept too in that God enjoyneth us if we will have bread to