affliction may reduce them As David Psal 9. wisht a terror upon the Nations that they might know themselves to be but men From hence then we shall receive a speedy satisfaction to those three questions which are only material 1. penes quos est in whose power this power of cursing lies 2. ad quos attinet on whose shoulders it will fall 3. in quantum praevalet with what burthen it presses there is infinite distance between all these here is abyssus abyssum invocans one deep calling upon another only a powerfull hand from heaven can throw down vengeance only a sinners neck can bear it and if this thunderbolt be not stopt only the pit of hell can bound it From heaven it comes whether immediately from God himself or from his Delegates The first can make that serpent lick the dust of the earth which but just now aspired to the Scepter of Heaven he can make Cain a Runnegate in his own land and fear the stroak of death from man when he and his father summed up for ought we know the total number of mankind The other have it by Commission and that Commission they had need take care should be well signed or else their arrows will recoyl upon their own bosoms and they will provoke God to blesse by their malitious curses Some good expositors are of opinion that all the curses denounced in the old Law shall rather be interpreted for propheticae praedictiones then imprecationes maledicae But what ever power they had I am sure 't is now limited there is an Evangelical temper if we believe Christ that speaks it when James and John would have been a flashing in the clouds and followed Elias in the Law for fire from Heaven on the Village of the Samaritans Christ cooles their furious zeal with another Spirit Luke 9. he rebukes them saying ye know not what manner of Spirits ye are of Foâ—bear such legal threats if you follow me your Master I came to save the World not to destroy it For Ananias and Saphira's judgment 't is true it came from heaven but unlesse you enterline the Text and read it with spectacles to make it bigger it will no way appear to be caused by Peters Curse So that if we compare St. Pauls precept Rom. 12. blesse and curse not with his anathematizing Text 1 Cor. 16. we shall soon find the Church has no keyes left to shut up Heaven but those which Christ left as a Legacy in that sacred ordination of his Apostles But secondly this curse is only due for sin that being the adequate object of the wrath of God Hence does St. Paul think 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doing good will be an undoubted shield against the power So that Bellarmines Uteunque ferit will prove but a blunt push his excommunication undeserved is but a bull without hornes crackers tyed upon a line flash they may but wound they cannot Lastly to Hell it goes if not prevented The Royall prophet in the 37. Psalm sayes that they that be cursed of God shall be cut off Cut off from the Earth first as Pharoah and his crew of persecutors after they had blunted the arrows of God with often wounding though they could never yet pierce their hardned hearts his final destruction is threatned Exod 9.15 he will cut them off from the face of the Earth But 2. cut them down or a passage for them down to hell too witness Corah and his rebellious Conspirators quibus dum non essent digni vivere sayes Optatus nec mori concessum est not deserving to live they were not vouchsafed to dye sepulti sunt priusquam mortui they which had made a seperation from their Fathers may not be suffered to be gathered to their Fathers but go down quick to Hell This is the effect of a curse a curse arising from a just cause proceeding from a just Judge If this be the cause of Meroz let her beware and sure it is for her judge is just that speaks it the Angel sayes Curse ye Meroz and her inhabitants We are come to the Persons upon whom the censure falls Meroz and her inhabitants Where I will not make you sport to tell you what pains Rupert takes although he cite St. Hierom for it to make Meroz the praesident Angel of the Canaanites and the inhabitants to be the people under his protection Gerrae germanae it is not worth confuting Here is no Labyrinth that needs a clue or if there did expositors with one mouth assure me that this village Meroz was a place adjoyning to the field of battle which must now be made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a piaculum a sacrifice to Gods curse to expiate the degenerate backwardness of the neutrall tribes Well may the gates of the Temple be made of Cedar trees Cedars so fat so joyfull all Hieroglyphicks of Gods mercy when as the gates of Heaven for ought we find here were open to an offending multitude and only shut against this handfull of the people Thus God is pleased sometimes to decimate his malefactors in paucos vindicta transit in plures monitio he sets up Lots Wife as a pillar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Scholiast a Trophie to turn the hearts of the backsliding generations for as he is a fire to burn the chaff so he is a fan to separate it from the purer wheat When fawning Absolom had seduced the people to a great rebellion promising a freer course of justice if he might raign 't is true a slaughter of the Israelites was made in the wood of Ephraim but still the surviving rebels were suffered to return with David whilst the justice of God contented it self with the head of Absolom hanging now as his counsels formerly had done between Heaven and Hell But still as Meroz was but one place yet a place it was and a place very considerable With great disadvantage must Deborah fight when the villages about her were confaederate with her enemies Put case that God had defeated her before her enemy as indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A just cause does not alwayes inherit victory what place was left to retreat to from the bloody Mountain what refreshment could be given to the fainting Souldiers What disheartning found the remoter tribes when the place they marched to for fresh supplies upon occasion proved the quarters of their enemies As God gives to Men so he accepts from Men their opportunities Rehekah was known to be a fit wife for Isaac by her ready letting down her pitcher and that soul that would be espoused to Christ must discover it self by a seasonable and willing service Yet mark one step farther yet together with the inhabitants Meroz herself the very fabrick bears a burthen in the curse The Eagles nest is brought down from the Stars that the young ones may be destroyed Oba 4. Thus when by Gods permission the Israelites accursed for one mans pillaging found a repulse at the great
and well there is so good authority If this blazing starr from Heaven had not pointed out this judgment holy Deborah would have blessed her enemies and prayed for them that used her thus despitefully I will not trouble you here with the Schoolmens quarrels what this Angels name was or of what Order in the Heavens whether he defended visibly or motu Angelico insensibly pretty cobwebs these are to catch flies in Or whether this Angel were her confederate Barak inspired by Heaven with a Prophetick soul which Peter Martyr thinks a probable conjecture be it one or other in idem res rediit this we know that in times past there was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divers wayes and manners how God spoake to our forefathers by the Prophets Saul it seems 1 Sam. 28 Made tryal of them all he sought God by dreams and visions by Urim and the Prophets but finding Heaven inflexible Acheronta movet a witch at Endor must do the feat and raise up the Divel in Samuels mantle to inform him which Necromantick Religion I would to God it descended not down to these our dayes Too many I fear me finding their dreams grown ridiculous and their visions blinded and disdaining the Urim the pretious stones of the high Priests breastplate and the Prophets have but one refuge left some old woman which can raise up Samuels Ghost a Divil in a Prophets likeness which without the wages of Balaak or the expectation of an Angel of God can make every Cupboards side or tables-end the top of Pisgah and the top of Peor from whence they spit out their poyson upon the host of Israel Nos autem Christum non sic didicimus if any Man amongst us be thus contentious we have no such custom nor the Church of Christ Deborah was a Prophetess yet durst not she strain her authority thus farr but signatim dicit least this curse should pretend to a morality and prove a leading case to all succeeding ages she shews her patent and produces her authority The Angel of the Lord sayes it And let us give Gods Angel this honour to affoord him 1. A Credendum 2. A Tremendum 3. A Cavendum Credendum 1. Gods Angel is but his messenger and shall God speak it and the thing not come to pass T is confirmation enough to me that Meroz fell under this bitter curse because neither sacred Scripture nor humane writer that I can find did ever since make mention of it And indeed Sirs le ts take heed there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Angels upon the Earth still The Church has Angels saies St. John and the Woman of Tekoah thought the King of Israel was at least 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Angel of the Lord Thus when the Angel of the Church curses shall our souls be so irreligiously incredulous as to call it brutum fulmen a squib in the air or if the Angel of the state curses to call it fulmen brâ—ti Hannibals fagots on his bulls hornes to make them roar the lowder Experience will be a sharp a Mistriss when we shall one day feel the Burthen of that which we would not believe But 2. Tremendum Manoahs Wife thought the face of the Angel very terrible and at that time when he comes to comfort her Judges 13. and shall not Meroz tremble when he comes to curse her This is most truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eclipsing of the Sun the blacking over the face of Heaven Vaenobis saies St. Bernard si quando provocati sancti Angeli peccatis negligentiis indignos nos judicaverint praesentia vifitatione sua Unhappy Sodome when her daring sins put Lot and his Angels to flight but infinitely more unhappy when they came armed with fire and brimstone to destroy it Our good God created them Ministring Spirits partly for the use of Men ore whom he gave them charge though all that time he never lessens their joys of Heaven there is exterius Ministerium sayes Gregory but still there is interior contemplatio But when our guardidians prove our executioners when the Sheepheards which should quarrel with the wolves devour the flock when the Cherub that defends the garden of Eden brandishes a flaming sword to drive out Adam let us fear and tremble Lastly Cavendum if we fear that curse beware that sin which caused it when Jonathan shoots an arrow o're Davids head t is enough to make David fly the place to beware his Fathers vvrath Here is one arrow shot over us and it lights on Meroz but the bow is bent still and armed with as great a curse a curse for cursing if not for not going out to help the Lord I am sure for going to fight against the Lord this vvas particular here and occasionall the other is generall and eternall God speaks that the Angel of God speaks this Curse ye Meroz sayes the Angel of the Lord yea curse yee bitterly the inhabitants thereof We are novv come to the sentence Curse yee yea curse ye bitterly that is curse ye with a cursing in the originall in vvhich I will not so farr interest my self as to think to teach you that it is a Hebraisme yet thus far give me leave to note that these ingeminations are either used asse â—erando as a note of confirmation as that in Genesis 2. in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye moriendo morieris or intendendo as a screw to set it higher as this here execrationibus execramini curse ye bitterly What a curse is I shall satisfie my self and you too I hope in a plain Narration from Aquihas Idem est maledicere sayes he malum dicere in his 76. Question 2.2 cursing is the same with speaking or wishing evill And so a man may curse as many wayes as he speaks which is either Enuntiative declaring what is done Thus Deborah in this song may be said to curse Sisera in that Rhetorical Catastrophe which Jael brought upon his life At her feet he bowed he fell he lay down at her feet he bowed he fell where he bowed there he fell down dead or 2ly Imperative by commanding what should be done which none can challenge but they which have soveraignty as God or his Messengers like the Angell here or 3ly Optative by wishing what might be done as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most execrations are The first is in it self indifferent neither good nor evil unlesse detraction accompany it The two last are alwayes evill unlesse some occasion of a greater good do invite them And this good is double 1. Either that of justice thus God may curse immundum mundum the unclean World Elisha may curse the reviling brats and the Church may curse the bastard of spring of Sectaries which like the Mices birthday fill the mountain with abundant squeeking in the bringing forth but then nascuntur ridiculi you may know they are empty vessels because they sound so much or secondly the good of profit that
some time in the descant in which every one of us must bear a part And I cannot but begin with a just indignation against those who have abused the words and made them speak their own crazy humours and frantick dreams Like Men troubled with an Hydrophobia bitten with a mad dog and now raging they think all things before them look like water like the froth of their own brains Indeed Scripture shall be no longer Scripture if it do not please them Being in this like the old Tyrians who were wont to whip their Gods if they crossed them with a misfortune till they made them better Thus came they armed to the Pulpit with as brave a resolution as Hannibal to the Alps aut viam invenient aut facient Where they find no tracke before them they will adventure first and are grown so daringly presumptuous as to slight these texts which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do in plain rerms cross their trayterous position and tell you it was doctrine fit for those times the Apostles lived in I my self have heard it were they upon the Earth now when Christians knew their own strength they would write in another strain Blasphemous wretches is the blessed Spirit of God a servant or the times Is that eternal goodnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unchangeably constant and for ever more the same become the Idoll fortune and dances he upon a wheel Never Musselman thought thus of his lawgiver Mahomet never Heathen of the rule of Nature Yet that they may shew some commixture of madness and wit sometimes they will prove ingeniously wicked and like a conjurer cast a mist before your eyes till you think you see the face of these times presented you in the glass of prophesie which once perswaded what ever language came from the top of Ebal is a Charientismus a message of peace compared with theirs Thus Deborah the Church shall fall a cursing Meroz the friends to the crown because they came not out to help the Lord against Siseras host the royall Army 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here le ts joyn hands Good sirs instruct me whose person bore distressed Deborah was it not the supream and are there or can there be 2. supreams She was a Mother a Judg a Captain in Israel And can any order that is a primo primus derived from the first be equall to it Had Jabin been a King to Deborah I am sure she had too religious a soul to have cursed him For what was Sisera Was he not a stranger One of another line another claim another religion another God one commanded by God long since to be expeld the Land and his inheritance devided amongst the Tribes Make you your selves an Analogy between the stories and see what an apt proportion they have left But one nice distinction will stop this gap We can cut an hair between the King and his forces The King is a good King a well meaning King and so he is in spite of their bold faced detractions but his Siseras his Generals his Commanders they are none of ours No and yet within these three years the reverend Fathers of our Church were quarreld at by these very Men for leaving their names out of our divine service book But are we grown such experienced artificers to devide between the squirrel and the tail that hides the back The fable makes a pretty dialogue between the wolf and the dog The wolf bids him go home and sleep quietly why should he expose himself to the winters frosts and the summers heat to watch his flock There was no emnity between them true sayes the dog but when thou hast worried my sheep and art grown fat and lusty with their flesh thou maist seize upon my throat next But closer yet for I would faine follow my text however they leave it Neither has the Angel said it to them nor have they power to curse nor have they cutsed Meroz nor curse they for not helping of the Lord nor in their sense does the Lord need any help against the mighty First an Angel has not said it whatever visions they pretend or if he should though an Angel from Heaven deliver any other doctrine then what the Scripture has preached let him be accursed I Gal. I. the Divine revelations and Angelicall descentions which the Anabaptists glory of are things grown too naked to delude us any longer They sound like the story of Mahomets dove Since Christs ascension into Heaven he left the holy Spirit as a Legacy to his Church that Spirit which shall guide it into all truth and so it will notwithstanding all these impostures When their writings are ad thus scombros alligata made as they are wastpaper St. Peter and St. Paul will be true and sound divinity And yet I know t is no new thing for Satan to transform himself into an Angel of light and become a lying Spirit in the mouths of such as would be accounted Prophets We know when he perswaded a Nation to go to warr to its own destruction May our good God defend us from the like mischief But 2ly they have no power to curse no commission for their execrations a Christians office is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12.10 speak friendly to their persecutors Marke the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well to them and well of them too not pump hell for language and arme the tongue with such Rhetorick that it cutteth like a razor The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Septuagint uses here for cursing signifies pray ye barkward if ye will for so the Scholiast tels me that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the theme in Homers time signified humble prayers but being abused in the succeeding ages who turned their prayers into curses the interpretation of the word changed too and it signifide an execration and indeed in this art of praying backward we are too good proficients If that be to pray we can learn our lessons quickly By the abuse of time it comes that we have changed the genuine meaning of the word For in the dayes of old before Religion was adulterated the reverend Fathers in the primitive times were wont to bless the patience of Christian Souldiers bless them for their loyalty bless them for their service performed to their most cruel blood-sucking persecutors When they behaved themselves like the stoutest Champions in the causes of the Emperors they were incouraged with an Euge sic decet Christianos you shew now that yee serve the Lord of Heaven by obeying his vice-roys upon earth But alas the ditty is chang'd in our dayes if any true hearted piety dare be so bold as to stand in the just defence of that Soveraignty which the law of God the laws of Nations our oathes and protestations binds us to there is an Ito maledicta passed upon it it is cursed and cursed bitterly But though they curse yet God will blesse It is not the name malignant can exclude us out of
of their rebellion That so long as the altar has a being Men may learn from thence that no Man may take that honour to himself but he that was called of God as was Aaron 5 Heb. 4. And sure the love of God was such that he would choose none but the best of Governments for his Church Had all the Princes of the tribe of Levi had an equall share they by an Aristocrasy would have bred an emulation had all the People injoyed a parity their Democrasie would have brought in confusion but exalting Aaron in the high Priests chair and disposing of the rest in subordinate offices under him God maintained so blessed a Harmony in his Church as that it was an imperfect shadow of that blessed Harmony in heaven But 3. It was Aarons rod for the house of Levi upon whom the priesthood was entailed The Reubenites thought they had a fair plea for it because they were the first born of their Father Jacob and the other tribes wished well toward it witness the rods which every tribe put into the lottery in hopes it might be taken But God which is constant to all his purposes had chosen Levi of all the Tribes of Israel to be his Priest as the Man of God testifies 1 Sam. 2.28 To offer upon his altar and to burn incense before him And it is well that this honour was once esteemed so great that all the tribes were ambitious of it When the Ephod and the imbroydered coat were esteemed glorious The dregs of Jeroboams corruptions have a greater influence upon our times who made Priests of the lowest of the people and when God requires the most comely bodies and proportionable countenances for his service If any by nature be made so decrepit that he be unfit for any other imployment he will come and crouch and say put me into the Priests office that I may eat a morsel of bread Yet this Act of God which made the Priesthood Levi's impropriation as it debars others from affecting of it witness the destruction of the Reubenites Dathan Abiram and their Confederates or so much as intermedling with it vvhich cost poor Uzziah dear 2 Sam. 6.7 Who going to uphold the arke vvas smitten down so neither does it priviledge the Levites themselves to perform his service after their ovvn fancy If Aarons own sons Nahab and Abihu shall presume to offer up any other fire then that which descended from Heaven upon Gods Altar that fire which should consume their sacrifices shall devour themselves The service of the Sanctuary must be intire It will admit of no Mechanicks to officiate nor yet must the fiery zeal of Clergymen themselves coyne any new fangled formes of services and worship which God has not prescribed Both are enemies to Aarons rod here for as the one break it in pieces or steal it away and clap their own in the room so the other bow it to their humor and make it crooked after their own fancy Hitherto we have beheld the rod withered and dead let us now consider it in the miracle and see what fruit it bears which is branched in 3. degrees it budded it blossomed it brought forth Almonds Every tribe in Israel had provided his rod and every rod was strip'd alike and had the name of the Prince of the tribe ingraven on it Aarons rod had no more sap in it no more earth about it Onely it had Aarons name upon it Where God has made a secret choice he will make an open difference They go to the wrong end of the ladder which climb up into Gods breast first and there trace out those unsearchable points of his election and from thence ground themselves upon their impossibility of barrennesse and falling off and by consequence their necessity of budding and blossoming and bearing fruit Would such a course as this have comforted Aaron or satisfied the other tribes What difference between a Log and a Tree before it spring again But then is salvation sure when you work it out Then faith is alive when it is manifested by its works Then is Aaron declared to be Gods chosen when his rod quickens And quicken it must or else he cannot be the chosen of God No surer token of the life of grace then fruitfulness Barrenness was banished at the first creation out of his garden of the World Increase and multiply says he to all his creatures and if any fall short cut it down why combreth it the ground And he that is not marr'd by the Divel is always thus increasing he is alwayes going forward either budding new or ripening his last blossom'd fruit It was a curse laid upon avarice Esaiah 5.10 that ten acres of Vines should yeild but one bath and the seed of an Homer should yeild but an Ephah but one part for ten sure that is an incumbrance not a crop and those Vines are fitter for winters fire then summers vintage Nor yet will standing still in the same condition serve the turne as they say an Oak will for an hundred years together T is a true saying in Divinity qui Deo non progreditur regreditur he that goes not forward to God goes backward to the Devill It was no excuse to the idle servant that had hid his talent although he had buried it up for fear of losing ' ont and put it in a napkin for fear of rusting of it It was taken from him for his negligence he had gained nothing to it Yet who is there here present that cannot strike upon his heart and say Lord I am in a worse condition He was idle I am sinfull He hid his talent and brought it to light again I have spent mine and can shew no portion of it He did not ripen his blossoms I have made strip and wast of mine My beauty I have abused to voluptuousness my wealth to luxury my wit to knavery my zeal to hypocrysy my natural ingeny to maintain schism and heresy Utinam nescirem literas O that thou hadst given me no talent that having little I might had the lesse required The heat of thy spirit has sometimes quickened in me the buds of grace but the coldnesse of my devotion has nipp'd them Or if the warmth the sunshine of thy mercy or the fire of thy judgments has thaw'd my frozen heart and made it vigorous enough to bring forth blossoms the Prince of this ayr has mildewed them Or if the fruit has been set it has either been blown down by the storms of Affliction or wormeaten in the sunshine my prosperity and grown rotten at the Core Thus have our rods which should bud and blossom and bring forth fruit turned like the sorcerers to Serpents and stung us to death Observe yet farther as Aarons rod had three degrees of fruitfulness budding blossomming and bearing fruit so those three degrees met at one season spring summer ana harvest was joyn'd together as the one fed his hopes so the other confirmed his assurance