Holy Ghost while you continued under the legal dispensation or since you embraced the Gospel and the faith of Christ and speaking afterwards of the state of the Jews 〈◊〉 the revelation of the Gospel says he before saith came we were kept under the Law i. e. before the Gospel came we were kept under the Discipline of the legal Oeconomy shut up unto the faith reserved for the discovery of the Evangelical dispensation which should afterwards in its due time be revealed to the World This in the following Chapter he discourses more at large Tell me ye that desire to be under the Law i. e. Ye Jews that so fondly dote upon the legal state Do ye not hear the Law i. e. Understand what your own Law does so clearly intimate and then goes on to unriddle what was wrapt up in the famous Allegory of Abraham's two Sons by his two Wives The one Ishmael born of Hagar the Bond-woman who denoted the Jewish Covenant made at Mount Sinai which according to the representation of her condition was a servile state The other Isaac born of Sarah the Free-woman was the Son of the promise denoting Jerusalem that is above and is free the mother of us all i. e. The state and covenant of the Gospel whereby all Christians as the spiritual children of Abraham are set free from the bondage of the Mosaic dispensation By all which it is evident that by Law and the works of the Law in this controversie the Apostle understands the Law of Moses and that obedience which the legal dispensation required at their hands 8. WE are secondly to enquire what the Apostle means by Faith and he commonly uses it two ways 1. More generally for the Gospel or that Evangelical way of justification and salvation which Christ has brought in in opposition to Circumcision and the observation of those Rites by which the Jews expected to be justified and this is plain from the preceding opposition where Faith as denoting the Gospel is frequently opposed to the Law of Moses 2. Faith is taken more particularly for a practical belief or such an assent to the Evangelical revelation as produces a sincere obedience to the Laws of it and indeed as concerned in this matter is usually taken not for this or that single vertue but for the intire condition of the New Covenant as comprehending all that duty that it requires of us than which nothing can be more plain and evident In Christ Jesus i. e. under the Gospel neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision 't is all one to Justification whether a Man be circumcised or no What then but Faith which worketh by love which afterwards he explains thus In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature a renewed and divine temper of mind and a new course and state of life And lest all this 〈◊〉 not be thought plain enough he elsewhere tells us that circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping the Commandments of God From which places there needs no skill to infer that that Faith whereby we are justified contains in it a new disposition and state both of heart and life and an observation of the Laws of Christ in which respect the Apostle does in the very same Verse expound believing by obeying of the Gospel Such he assures us was that very Faith by which Abraham was justified who against all probabilities of reason believed in God's promise he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong c. that is he so firmly believed what God had promised that he gave him the glory of his truth and faithfulness his infinite power and ability to do all things And how did he that by acting suitably in a way of intire resignation and sincere obedience to the divine will and pleasure so the Apostle elsewhere more expresly by Faith he obeyed and went out not knowing whither he went This Faith he tells us was imputed to Abraham for righteousness that is God by vertue of the New Covenant made in Christ was graciously pleased to look upon this obedience though in it self imperfect as that for which he accounted him and would deal with him as a just and a righteous Man And upon this account we find Abraham's faith opposed to a perfect and unsinning obedience for thus the Apostle tells us that Abraham was justified by faith in opposition to his being justified by such an absolute and compleat obedience as might have enabled him to challenge the reward by the strict Laws of Justice whereas now his being pardoned and accepted by God in the way of a mean and imperfect obedience it could not claim impunity much less a reward but must be intirely owing to the Divine grace and favour 9. HAVING thus cleared our way by restoring these words to their genuine and native sence we come to shew how the Apostle in his discourses does all along refer to the Original controversie between the Jewish and Gentile-Converts whether Justification was by the observation of the Mosaic Law or by the belief and practice of the Gospel and this will appear if we consider the persons that he has to deal with the way and manner of his arguing and that there was then no other controversie on foot to which these passages could refer The Persons whom he had to deal with were chiefly of two sorts pure Jews and Jewish Converts Pure Jews were those that kept themselves wholly to the Legal Oeconomy and expected to be justified and saved in no other way than the observation of the Law of Moses Indeed they laid a more peculiar stress upon Circumcision because this having been added as the Seal of that Covenant which God made with Abraham and the discriminating badge whereby they were to be distinguished from all other Nations they looked upon it as having a special efficacy in it to recommend them to the divine acceptance Accordingly we find in their Writings that they make this the main Basis and Foundation of their hope and confidence towards God For they tell us that the Precept of Circumcision is greater than all the rest and equivalent to the whole Law that the reason why God hears the Prayers of the Israelites but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gentiles or Christians is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the vertue and merit of Circumcision yea that so great is the power and efficacy of the Law of Circumcision that no man that is circumcised shall go to Hell Nay according to the idle and 〈◊〉 humour of these Men they fetch down Abraham from the Seat of the Blessed and place him as Porter at the Gates of Hell upon no other errand than to keep circumcised Persons from entring into that miserable place However nothing is more evident than that Circumcision was the Fort and Sanctuary wherein they ordinarily placed their security
concerning judgments or the administration of Justice that Judges and Magistrates should be appointed in every Place for the Order and Government of Civil Societies the determination of Causes and executing of Justice between Man and Man And that such there then were seems evident from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Job twice speaks of in one Chapter the judged iniquity which the Jewes expound and we truly render an iniquity to be punished by the Judges The seventh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the member of any live-creature that is as God expresses it in the Precept to Noah they might not eat the blood or the flesh with the life thereof Whether these Precepts were by any solemn and external promulgation particularly delivered to the Ante-deluvian Patriarchs as the Jewes seem to contend I will not say for my part I cannot but look upon them the last only excepted as a considerable part of Nature's Statute-law as comprizing the greater strokes and lineaments of those natural dictates that are imprinted upon the souls of Men. For what more comely and reasonable and more agreeable to the first notions of our minds than that we should worship and adore God alone as the Authour of our beings and the Fountain of our happiness and not derive the lustre of his incommunicable perfections upon any Creature that we should entertain great and honourable thoughts of God and such as become the Grandeur and Majesty of his being that we should abstain from doing any wrong or injury to another from invading his right violating his priviledges and much more from making any attempt upon his life the dearest blessing in this World that we should be just and fair in our transactions and do to all men as we would they should do to us that we should live chastely and temperately and not by wild and extravagant lusts and sensualities offend against the natural modesty of our minds that Order and Government should be maintained in the World Justice advanced and every Man secured in his just possessions And so suitable did these Laws seem to the reason and understandings of Men that the Jewes though the most zealous People under Heaven of their Legal Institutions received those Gentiles who observed them as Proselytes into their Church though they did not oblige themselves to Circumcision and the rest of the Mosaic Rites Nay in the first Age of Christianity when the great controversie arose between the Jewish and Gentile-Converts about the obligation of the Law of Moses as necessary to salvation the observation only of these Precepts at least a great part of them was imposed upon the Gentile-Converts as the best expedient to end the difference by the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem 4. BUT though the Law of Nature was the common Law by which God then principally governed the World yet was not he wanting by Methods extraordinary to supply as occasion was the exigencies and necessities of his Church communicating his mind to them by Dreams and Visions and other ways of Revelation which we shall more particularly remarque when we come to the Mosaical Oeconomy Hence arose those positive Laws which we meet with in this period of the Church some whereof are more expresly recorded others more obscurely intimated Among those that are more plain and obvious two are especially considerable the prohibition sor not eating blood and the Precept of Circumcision the one given to Noah the other to Abraham The prohibition concerning blood is thus recorded every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you but flesh with the life thereof which is the blood thereof shall you not eat The blood is the vehiculum to carry the spirits as the Veins are the channels to convey the blood now the animal 〈◊〉 give vital heat and activity to every part and being let out the blood presently cools and the Creature dies Not flesh with the blood which is the life thereof that is not flesh while it is alive while the blood and the spirits are yet in it The mystery and signification whereof was no other than this that God would not have Men train'd up to arts of cruelty or whatever did but carry the colour and aspect of a merciless and a savage temper lest severity towards Beasts should degenerate into fierceness towards Men. It 's good to defend the out-guards and to stop the remotest ways that lead towards sin especially considering the violent propensions of humane nature to passion and revenge Men commence bloody and inhumane by degrees and little approaches in time render a thing in it self abhorrent not only familiar but delightful The Romans who at first entertained the People in the 〈◊〉 only with wild Beasts killing one another came afterwards wantonly to sport away the Lives of the Gladiators yea to cast Persons to be devoured by Bears and Lions for no other end than the divertisement and pleasure of the People He who can please himself in tearing and eating the Parts of a living Creature may in short time make no scruple to do violence to the Life of Man Besides eating blood naturally begets a savage temper makes the spirits rank and fiery and apt to be easily inflamed and blown up into choler and fierceness And that hereby God did design to bar out ferity and to secure mercy and gentleness is evident from what follows after and surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it and at the hand of Man at the hand of every Man's brother will I require the life of man whoso sheddeth Man's blood by Man shall his blood be shed The life of a Beast might not be wantonly sacrificed to Mens humours therefore not Man 's the life of Man being so sacred and dear to God that if kill'd by a Beast the Beast it self was to dye for it if by man that man's life was to go for retaliation by man shall his blood be shed where by man we must necessarily understand the ordinary Judge and Magistrate or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jewes call it the lower Judicature with respect to that Divine and Superiour Court the immediate judgment of God himself By which means God admirably provided for the safety and security of Man's life and for the order and welfare of humane society and it was no more than necessary the remembrance of the violence and oppression of the Nephilim or Giants before the Flood being yet fresh in memory and there was no doubt but such mighty Hunters men of robust bodies of barbarous and inhumane tempers would afterwards arise This Law against eating blood was afterwards renewed under the Mosaic Institution but with this peculiar signification for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you upon the Altar to make an atonement for your souls for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul that is the blood might
his people and free liberty to go serve and worship the God of their Fathers And that he might not seem a mere pretender to Divine revelation but that he really had an immediate commission from Heaven God was pleased to furnish him with extraordinary Credentials and to seal his Commission with a power of working Miracles beyond all the Arts of Magick and those tricks for which the Egyptian Sorcerers were so famous in the World But Pharaoh unwilling to part with such useful Vassals and having oppressed them beyond possibility of reconcilement would not hearken to the proposal but sometimes downright rejected it otherwhiles sought by subtil and plausible pretences to evade and shift it off till by many astonishing Miracles and severe Judgments God extorted at length a grant from him Under the conduct of Moses they set forwards after at least two hundred years servitude under the Egyptian yoke and though 〈◊〉 sensible of his error with a great Army pursued them either to cut them off or bring them back God made way for them through the midst of the Sea the waters becoming like a wall of Brass on each side of them till being all passed to the other 〈◊〉 those invisible cords which had hitherto tied up that liquid Element bursting in sunder the waters returned and overwhelmed their enemies that pursued them Thus God by the same stroke can protect his friends and punish his enemies Nor did the Divine Providence here take its leave of them but became their constant guard and defence in all their journeys waiting upon them through their several stations in the wilderness the most memorable whereof was that at Mount Sinai in Arabia The place where God delivered them the pattern in the Mount according to which the form both of their Church and State was to be framed and modelled In order hereunto Moses is called up into the Mount where by Fasting and Prayer he conversed with Heaven and received the body of their Laws Three days the people were by a pious and devout care to sanctifie and prepare themselves for the promulgation of the Law they might not come near their Wives were commanded to wash their clothes as an embleme and representation of that cleansing of the heart and that inward purity of mind where with they were to entertain the Divine will On the third day in the morning God descended from Heaven with great appearances of Majesty and terror with thunders and lightnings with black clouds and tempests with shouts and the loud noise of a trumpet which trumpet say the Jews was made of the horn of that Ram that was offered in the room of Isaac with fire and smoke on the top of the Mount ascending up like the smoke of a Furnace the Mountain it self greatly quaking the people trembling nay so terrible was the sight that Moses who had so frequently so familiarly conversed with God said I exceedingly fear and quake All which pompous trains of terror and magnificence God made use of at this time to excite the more solemn attention to his Laws and to beget a greater reverence and veneration for them in the minds of the people and to let them see how able he was to call them to account and by the severest penalties to vindicate the violation of his Law 4. THE Code and Digest of those Laws which God now gave to the Jews as the terms of that National Covenant that he made with them consisted of three sorts of Precepts Moral Ecelesiastical and Political which the Jews will have intimated by those three words that so frequently occur in the writings of Moses Laws Statutes and Judgments By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laws they understand the Moral Law the notices of good and evil naturally implanted in mens minds By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Statutes Ceremonial Precepts instituted by God with peculiar reference to his Church By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Judgments Political Laws concerning Justice and Equity the order of humane society and the prudent and peaceable managery of the Commonwealth The Moral Laws inserted into this Code are those contained in the Decalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are called the ten words that were written upon two Tables of Stone These were nothing else but a summary Comprehension of the great Laws of Nature engraven at first upon the minds of all men in the World the most material part whereof was now consigned to writing and incorporated into the body of the Jewish Law I know the Decalogue is generally taken to be a complete System of all natural Laws But whoever impartially considers the matter will find that there are many instances of duty so far from being commanded in it that they are not reducible to any part of it unless hook'd in by subtilties of wit and drawn thither by forc'd and unnatural inferences What provision except in one case or two do any of those Commandments make against neglects of duty Where do they obligue us to do good to others to love assist relieve our enemies Gratitude and thankfulness to benefactors is one of the prime and essential Laws of Nature and yet no where that I know of unless we will have it implied in the Preface to the Law commanded or intimated in the Decalogue With many other cases which 'tis naturally evident are our duty whereof no footsteps are to be seen in this Compendium unless hunted out by nice and sagacious reasonings and made out by a long train of consequences never originally intended in the Commandment and which not one in a thousand are capable of deducing from it It is probable therefore that God reduc'd only so many of the Laws of Nature into writing as were proper to the present state and capacities of that people to whom they were given superadding some and explaining others by the Preaching and Ministery of the Prophets who in their several Ages endeavoured to bring men out of the Shades and Thickets into clear light and Noon-day by clearing up mens obligations to those natural and essential duties in the practice whereof humane nature was to be advanced unto its just accomplishment and perfection Hence it was that our Lord who came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil and perfect it has explained the obligations of the natural Law more fully and clearly more plainly and intelligibly rendred our duty more fixed and certain and extended many instances of obedience to higher measures to a greater exactness and perfection than ever they were understood to have before Thus he commands a free and universal charity not only that we love our friends and relations but that we love our enemies bless them that curse us do good to them that hate us and pray for them that despitefully use and persecute us He hath forbidden malice and revenge with more plainness and smartness obliged us not only to live according to the measures of sobriety but extended it to self-denial and taking
should cause the Sacrifice and the Oblation to cease At the time of Christ's death the veil of the Temple from top to bottom rent in sunder to shew that his death had revealed the mysteries and destroyed the foundations of the legal Oeconomy and put a period to the whole Temple-ministration Nay the Jews themselves confess that forty years before the destruction of the Temple a date that corresponds exactly with the death of Christ the Lot did no more go up into the right hand of the Priest this is meant of his dismission of the Scape-goat nor the scarlet Ribbon usually laid upon the forehead of the Goat any more grow white this was a sign that the Goat was accepted for the remission of their sins nor the Evening Lamp burn any longer and that the gates of the Temple opened of their own accord By which as at once they confirm what the Gospel reports of the opening of the Sanctum Sanctorum by the scissure of the veil so they plainly confess that at that very time their Sacrifices and Temple-services began to cease and fail As indeed the reason of them then ceasing the things themselves must needs vanish into nothing 10. THE third sort of Laws given to the Jews were Judicial and Political these were the Municipal Laws of the Nation enacted for the good of the State and were a kind of appendage to the second Table of the Decalogue as the Ceremonial Laws were of the first They might be reduced to four general heads such as respected men in their private and domestical capacities concerning Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants such as concerned the Publick and the Common-wealth relating to Magistrates and Courts of Justice to Contracts and matters of right and wrong to Estates and Inheritances to Executions and Punishments c. such as belong'd to strangers and matters of a soreign nature as Laws concerning Peace and War Commerce and Dealing with persons of another Nation or lastly such as secured the honour and the interests of Religion Laws against Apostates and Idolaters Wizards Conjurers and false Prophets against Blasphemy Sacriledge and such like all which not being so proper to my purpose I omit a more particular enumeration of them These Laws were peculiarly calculated for the Jewish State and that while kept up in that Country wherein God had placed them and therefore must needs determine and expire with it Nor can they be made a pattern and standard for the Laws of other Nations for though proceeding from the wisest Law-giver they cannot reasonably be imposed upon any State or Kingdom unless where there is an equal concurrence of circumstances as there were in that people for whom God enacted them They went off the Stage with the Jewish Polity and if any parts of them do still remain obligatory they bind not as Judicial Laws but as branches of the Law of Nature the reason of them being Immutable and Eternal I know not whether it may here be useful to remark what the Jews so frequently tell us of that the intire body of the Mosaick Law consists of DCXIII Precepts intimated say they in that place where 't is said Moses commanded us a Law where the Numeral Letters of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Law make up the number of DCXI. and the two that are wanting to make up the complete number are the two first Precepts of the Decalogue which were not given by Moses to the people but immediately by God himself Others say that there are just DCXIII letters in the Decalogue and that every letter answers to a Law But some that have had the patience to tell them assure us that there are two whole words consisting of seven letters supernumerary which in my mind quite spoils the computation These DCXIII Precepts they divide into CCXLVIII 〈◊〉 according to the number of the parts of man's body which they make account are just so many to put him in mind to serve God with all his bodily powers as if every member of his body should say to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make use of me to fulfil the command and into CCCLXV Negative according to the number of the days of the year that so every day may call upon a man and say to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oh do not in me transgress the Command Or as others will have it they answer to the Veins or Nerves in the body of man that as the complete frame and compages of man's body is made up of CCXLVIII Members and CCCLXV Nerves and the Law of so many affirmative and so many negative Precepts it denotes to us that the whole perfection and accomplishment of man lies in an accurate and diligent observance of the Divine Law Each of these divisions they reduce under twelve houses answerable to the twelve Tribes of Israel In the Affirmative Precepts the first House is that of Divine worship consisting of twenty Precepts the second the House of the Sanctuary containing XIX the third the House of Sacrifices wherein are LVII the fourth that of Cleanness and Pollution containing XVIII the fifth of Tithes and Alms under which are XXXII the sixth of Meats and Drinks containing VII the seventh of the Passeover concerning Feasts containing XX the eighth of Judgment XIII the ninth of Doctrine XXV the tenth of Marriage and concerning Women XII the eleventh of Judgments criminal VIII the twelfth of Civil 〈◊〉 XVII In the Negative Precepts the first House is concerning the worship of the Planets containing XLVII Commands the second of separation from the Heathens XIII the third concerning the reverence due to holy things XXIX the fourth of Sacrifice and Priesthood LXXXII the fifth of Meats XXXVIII the sixth of Fields and Harvest XVIII the seventh of Doctrine XLV the eighth of Justice XLVII the ninth of Feasts X the tenth of Purity and Chastity XXIV the eleventh of Wedlock VIII the twelfth concerning the Kingdom IV. A method not contemptible as which might minister to a distinct and useful explication of the whole Law of Moses 11. THE next thing considerable under the Mosaical Oeconomy was the methods of the Divine revelation by what ways God communicated his mind to them either concerning present emergences or future events and this was done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle tells us at sundry times or by sundry degrees and parcels and in diverse manners by various methods of revelation whereof three most considerable the Urim and Thummim the audible voice and the spirit of Prophecy imparted in dreams visions c. We shall make some brief remarks upon them referring the Reader who desires fuller satisfaction herein to those who purposely treat about these matters The Urim and Thummim was a way of revelation peculiar to the High Priest Thou shalt put on the breast-plate of Judgment the Urim and the Thummim and they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the
the doctrine which these men taught that though they were to love their neighbours that is Jewes yet might they hate their enemies In these and such like instances they had notoriously abused and evacuated the Law and in a manner rendred it of no effect And therefore when our Lord as the great Prophet sent from God came into the World the first thing he did after the entrance upon his publick Ministry was to cleanse and purifie the Law and to remove that rubbish which the Jewish Doctors had cast upon it He rescued it out of the hands of their poysonous and pernicious expositions restored it to its just authority and to its own primitive sence and meaning he taught them that the Law did not only bind the external act but prescribe to the most inward motions of the mind and that whoever transgresses here is no less obnoxious to the Divine Justice and the penalties of the Law than he that is guilty of the most gross and palpable violations of it he shewed them how infinitely more pure and strict the command was than these Impostors had represented it and plainly told them that if ever they expected to be happy they must look upon the Law with an other-guise eye and follow it after another rate than their blind and deceitful Guides did For I say unto you Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you can in no case enter into the Kingdome of God 20. THE other way by which they corrupted and dishonoured the Law and weakned the power and reputation of it was by preferring before it their Oral and unwritten Law For besides the Law consigned to Writing they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Law delivered by word of mouth whose pedigree they thus deduce They tell us that when Moses waited upon God Fourty Days in the Mount he gave him a double Law one in Writing the other Traditionary containing the sence and explication of the former being come down into his Tent he repeated it first to Aaron then to Ithamar and Eleazar his Sons then to the Seventy Elders and lastly to all the People the same Persons being all this while present Aaron who had now heard it four times recited Moses being gone out again repeated it before them after his departure out of the Tent his two Sons who by this had heard it as oft as their Father made another repetition of it by which means the Seventy Elders came to hear it four times and then they also repeated it to the Congregation who had now also heard it repeated four times together once from Moses then from Aaron then from his Sons and lastly from the Seventy Elders after which the Congregation broke up and every one went home and taught it his Neighbour This Oral Law Moses upon his Death-bed repeated to 〈◊〉 he delivered it to the Elders they to the Prophets the Prophets to the men of the great Synagogue the last of whom was Symeon the Just who delivered it to Antigonus Sochaeus and he to his Successors the wise Men whose business it was to recite it and so it was handed through several Generations the names of the Persons who delivered it in the several Ages from its first rise under Moses till above an Hundred Years after Christ being particularly enumerated by Maimonides At last it came to R. Jehuda commonly stiled by the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our holy Master the Son of Rabban Symeon who flourished a little before the time of the Emperour Antoninus who considering the unsetled and tottering condition of his own Nation and how apt these traditionary Precepts would be to be forgotten or mistaken by the weakness of Mens memories or the perversness of their wits or the dispersion of the Jews in other Countries collected all these Laws and Expositions and committed them to Writing stiling his Book Mishnaioth or the Repetition This was asterwards illustrated and explained by the Rabbines dwelling about Babylon with infinite cases and controversies concerning their Law whose resolutions were at last compiled into another Volume which they called Gemara or Doctrin and both together constitute the intire Body of the Babylonish Talmud the one being the Text the other the Comment The folly and vanity of this account though it be sufficiently evident to need no confutation with any wise and discerning Man yet have the Jewes in all Ages made great advantage of it magnifying and extolling it above the written Law with Titles and Elogies that hyperbolize into blasphemy They tell us that this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of the Law for whose sake it was that God entred into Covenant with the Israelites that without this the whole Law would lye in the dark yea be meer obscurity and darkness it self as being contrary and repugnant to it self and defective in things necessary to be known that it is joy to the heart and health to the bones that the words of it are more lovely and desirable than the words of the Law and a greater sin to violate the one than thé other that it 's little or no commendation for a Man to read the Bible but to study the Mishna is that for which a Man shall receive the reward of the other World and that no Man can have a peaceable and quiet conscience who leaves the study of the Talmud to go to that of the Bible that the Bible is like Water the Mishna like Wine the Talmud like spiced Wine that all the words of the Rabbins are the very words of the living God from which a Man might not depart though they should tell him his right hand were his left and his left his right nay they blush not nor tremble to assert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that to study in the holy Bible is nothing else but to lose our time I will mention but one bold and blasphemous sentence more that we may see how far these desperate wretches are given over to a spirit of impiety and infatuation they tell us that he that dissents from his Rabbin or Teacher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dissents from the Divine Majesty but he that believes the words of the wise men believes God himself 21. STRANGE that Men should so far offer violence to their reason so far conquer and subdue their conscience as to be able to talk at this wild and prodigious rate and stranger it would seem but that we know a Generation of Men great Patrons of Tradition too in another Church who mainly endeavour to debase and suppress the Scriptures and value their unwritten Traditions at little less rate than this But I let them pass This is no novel and upstart humour of the Jews they were notoriously guilty of it in our 〈◊〉 days whom we find frequently charging them with their superstitious observances of many little rites and usages derived from the Traditions of the Elders wherein they placed the main of
in that decorum which is most orderly and proportionate to his perfective End of a happy life which Christian Religion calls Sobriety and it is a prohibition of those uncharitable self-destroying sins of Drunkenness Gluttony and inordinate and unreasonable manners of Lust destructive of Nature's intendments or at least no ways promoting them For it is naturally lawful to satisfie any of these desires when the desire does not carry the satisfaction beyond the design of Nature that is to the violation of health or that happy living which consists in observing those Contracts which mankind thought necessary to be made in order to the same great End unless where God hath superinduced a restraint making an instance of Sobriety to become an act of Religion or to pass into an expression of Duty to him But then it is not a natural but a Religious Sobriety and may be instanced in fasting or abstinence from some kinds of meat or some times or manners of conjugation These are the three natural Laws described in the Christian Doctrine that we live 1. Godly 2. Soberly 3. Righteously And the particulars of the first are ordinarily to be determined by God immediately or his Vicegerents and by Reason observing and complying with the accidents of the world and dispositions of things and persons the second by the natural order of Nature by sense and by experience and the third by humane contracts and civil Laws 13. The result of the preceding discourse is this Man who was designed by God to a happy life was fitted with sufficient means to attain that End so that he might if he would be happy but he was a free Agent and so might chuse And it is possible that Man may fail of his End and be made miserable by God by himself or by his neighbour or by the same persons he may be made happy in the same proportions as they relate to him If God be angry or disobeyed he becomes our enemy and so we fail If our Neighbour be injured or impeded in the direct order to his happy living he hath equal right against us as we against him and so we fail that way An dif I be intemperate I grow sick and worsted in some Faculty and so I am unhappy in my self But if I obey God and do right to my Neighbour and confine my self within the order and design of Nature I am secured in all ends of Blessing in which I can be assisted by these three that is by all my relatives there being no End of man designed by God in order to his Happiness to which these are not proper and sufficient instruments Man can have no other relations no other discourses no other regular appetites but what are served and satisfied by Religion by Sobriety and by Justice There is nothing whereby we can relate to any person who can hurt us or do us benefit but is provided for in these three These therefore are all and these are sufficient 14. But now it is to be enquired how these become Laws obliging us to sin if we transgress even before any positive Law of God be superinduced for else how can it be a natural Law that is a Law obliging all Nations and all persons even such who have had no intercourse with God by way of special revelation and have lost all memory of tradition For either such persons whatsoever they do shall obtain that End which God designed for them in their nature that is a happy life according to the duration of an immortal nature or else they shall perish for prevaricating of these Laws And yet if they were no Laws to them and decreed and made sacred by sanction promulgation and appendent penalties they could not so oblige them as to become the Rule of Vertue or Vice 15. When God gave us natural Reason that is sufficient ability to do all that should be necessary to live well and happily he also knew that some Appetites might be irregular just as some stomachs would be sick and some eyes blind and a man being a voluntary Agent might chuse an evil with as little reason as the Angels of darkness did that is they might do unreasonably because they would do so and then a man's Understanding should serve him but as an instrument of mischief and his Will carry him on to it with a blind and impotent desire and then the beauteous order of creatures would be discomposed by unreasonable and unconsidering or evil persons And therefore it was most necessary that Man should have his appetites 〈◊〉 within the designs of Nature and the order to his End for a Will without the restraint of a superior power or a perfect Understanding is like a knife in a child's hand as apt for mischief as for use Therefore it pleased God to bind man by the signature of Laws to observe those great natural reasons without which man could not arrive at the great End of God's designing that is he could not live well and happily God therefore made it the first Law to love him and which is all one to worship him to speak honour of him and to express it in all our ways the chief whereof is Obedience And this we find in the instance of that positive Precept which God gave to Adam and which was nothing but a particular of the great general But in this there is little scruple because it is not imaginable that God would in any period of time not take care that himself be honoured his Glory being the very end why he made Man and therefore it must be certain that this did at the very first pass into a Law 16. But concerning this and other things which are usually called natural Laws I consider that the things themselves were such that the doing them was therefore declared to be a Law because the not doing them did certainly bring a punishment proportionable to the crime that is a just deficiency from the End of creation from a good and happy life 2. And also a punishment of a guilty Conscience which I do not understand to be a 〈◊〉 of Hell or of any supervening penalty unless the Conscience be accidentally instructed into such fears by experience or revelation but it is a malum in genere Rationis a disease or evil of the Reasonable faculty that as there is a rare content in the discourses of Reason there is a satisfaction an acquiescency like that of creatures in their proper place and definite actions and competent perfections so in prevaricating the natural Law there is a dissatisfaction a disease a removing out of the place an unquietness of spirit even when there is no monitor or observer Adeo facinora atque flagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant Neque frustra 〈◊〉 Plato sapientiae firmare solitus est si 〈◊〉 Tyrannorum mentes posse aspici laniatus 〈◊〉 quando ut corpora verberibus ita saevitia libidine malis consultis animus dilaceretur
said Tacitus out of Plato whose words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is naturally certain that the Cruelty of Tyrants torments themselves and is a hook in their nostrils and a scourge to their spirit and the pungency of forbidden Lust is truly a thorn in the flesh full of anguish and secret vexation Quid demens manifesta negas En pectus inustae Deformant maculae vitiisque inolevit imago said Claudian of Rusinus And it is certain to us and verified by the experience and observation of all wise Nations though not naturally demonstrable that this secret punishment is sharpned and promoted in degrees by the hand of Heaven the finger of the same hand that writ the Law in our Understandings 17. But the prevarications of the natural Law have also their portion of a special punishment besides the scourge of an unquiet spirit The man that disturbs his neighbour's rest meets with disturbances himself and since I have naturally no more power over my neighbour than he hath over me unless he descended naturally from me he hath an equal priviledge to defend himself and to secure his quiet by disturbing the order of my happy living as I do his And this equal permission is certainly so great a sanction and signature of the law of Justice that in the just proportion of my receding from the reasonable prosecution of my End in the same proportion and degree my own Infelicity is become certain and this in several degrees up to the loss of all that is of Life it self for where no farther duration or differing state is known there Death is ordinarily esteemed the greatest infelicity where something beyond it is known there also it is known that such prevarication makes that farther duration to be unhappy So that an affront is naturally punished by an affront the loss of a tooth with the loss of a tooth of an eye with an eye the violent taking away of another man's goods by the losing my own For I am liable to as great an evil as I infer and naturally he is not unjust that inflicts it And he that is drunk is a fool or a mad-man for the time and that is his punishment and declares the law and the sin and so in proportions to the transgressions of sobriety But when the first of the natural laws is violated that is God is disobeyed or dishonoured or when the greatest of natural evils is done to our Neighbour then Death became the penalty to the first in the first period of the World to the second at the restitution of the World that is at the beginning of the second period He that did attempt to kill from the beginning of Ages might have been resisted and killed if the assaulted could not else be safe but he that killed actually as Cain did could not be killed himself till the Law was made in Noah's time because there was no person living that had equal power on him and had been naturally injured while the thing was doing the assailant and the assailed had equal power but when it was done and one was killed he that had the power or right of killing his murtherer is now dead and his power is extinguished with the man But after the Floud the power was put into the hand of some trusted person who was to take the forfeiture And thus I conceive these natural reasons in order to their proper end became Laws and bound fast by the band of annexed and consequent penalties Metum prorsus noxam conscientiae pro foedere haberi said Tacitus And that fully explains my sence 18. And thus Death was brought into the world not by every prevarication of any of the Laws by any instance of unreasonableness 〈◊〉 in proportion to the evil of the action would be the evil of the suffering which in all cases would not arrive at death as every injury every intemperance should not have been capital But some things were made evil by a superinduced prohibition as eating one kinde of fruit some things were evil by inordination the first was morally evil the second was evil naturally Now the first sort brought in death by a prime sanction the second by degrees and variety of accident For every disobedience and transgression of that Law which God made as the instance of our doing him honour and obedience is an integral violation of all the band between him and us it does not grow in degrees according to the instance and subject matter for it is as great a disobedience to eat when he hath forbidden us as to offer to climb to Heaven with an ambitious Tower And therefore it is but reasonable for us to fear and just in him to make us at once suffer Death which is the greatest of natural evils for disobeying him To which Death we may arrive by degrees in doing actions against the reasonableness of Sobriety and Justice but cannot arrive by degrees of Disobedience to God or Irreligion because every such act deserves the worst of things but the other naturally deserves no greater evil than the proportion of their own inordination till God by a superinduced Law hath made them also to become acts of Disobedience as well as Inordination that is morally evil as well as naturally For by the Law saith S. Paul sin became exceeding sinful that is had a new degree of obliquity added to it But this was not at first For therefore saith S. Paul Before or until the Law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no Law meaning that those sins which were forbidden by Moses's Law were actually in the manners of men and the customs of the world but they were not imputed that is to such personal punishments and consequent evils which afterwards those sins did introduce because those sins which were only evil by inordination and discomposure of the order of man's end of living happily were made unlawful upon no other stock but that God would have man to live happily and therefore gave him Reason to effect that end and if a man became unreasonable and did things contrary to his end it was impossible for him to be happy that is he should be miserable in proportion But in that degree and manner of evil they were imputed and that was sanction enough to raise natural Reason up to the constitution of a Law 19. Thirdly The Law of Nature being thus decreed and made obligatory was a sufficient instrument of making man happy that is in producing the end of his Creation But as Adam had evil discourses and irregular appetites before he fell for they made him fall and as the Angels who had no Original sin yet they chose evil at the first when it was wholly arbitrary in them to do so or otherwise so did Man God made man upright and he sought out many inventions Some men were Ambitious and by incompetent means would make their brethren to be their
revealed and we shall remain ignorant for ever of many natural things unless they be revealed and unless we knew all the secrets of Philosophy the mysteries of Nature and the rules and propositions of all things and all creatures we are fools if we say that what we call an Article of Faith I mean truly such is against natural Reason It may be indeed as much against our natural reasonings as those reasonings are against truth But if we remember how great an ignorance dwells upon us all it will be found the most reasonable thing in the world only to enquire whether God hath revealed any such Proposition and then not to say It is against natural Reason and therefore an Article of Faith but I am told a truth which I knew not till now and so my Reason is become instructed into a new Proposition And although Christ hath given us no new moral Precepts but such which were essentially and naturally reasonable in order to the End of Man's Creation yet we may easily suppose him to teach us many a new Truth which we knew not and to explicate to us many particulars of that estate which God designed for Man in his first production but yet did not then declare to him and to furnish him with new Revelations and to signifie the greatness of the designed End to become so many arguments of indearment to secure his Duty that is indeed to secure his Happiness by the infallible using the instruments of attaining it 30. This is all I am to say concerning the Precepts of Religion Jesus taught us he took off those many superinduced Rites which God injoyned to the Jews and reduced us to the natural Religion that is to such expressions of Duty which all wise men and Nations used save only that he took away the Rite of sacrificing Beasts because it was now determined in the great Sacrifice of Himself which sufficiently and eternally reconciled all the world to God All the other things as Prayers and Adoration and Eucharist and Faith in God are of a natural order and an unalterable expression And in the nature of the thing there is no other way of address to God than these no other expression of his Glories and our needs both which must for ever be signified 31. Secondly Concerning the Second natural Precept Christian Religion hath also added nothing beyond the first obligation but explained it all Whatsoever ye would men should do to you do ye so to them that is the eternal rule of Justice and that binds contracts keeps promises affirms truth makes Subjects obedient and Princes just it gives security to Marts and Banks and introduces an equality of condition upon all the world save only when an inequality is necessary that is in the relations of Government for the preservation of the common rights of equal titles and possessions that there be some common term indued with power who is to be the Father of all men by an equal provision that every man's rights be secured by that fear which naturally we shall bear to him who can and will punish all unreasonable and unjust violations of Property And concerning this also the Holy Jesus hath added an express Precept of paying Tribute and all Caesar's dues to Caesar in all other particulars it is necessary that the instances and minutes of Justice be appointed by the Laws and Customs of the several Kingdoms and Republicks And therefore it was that Christianity so well combined with the Government of Heathen Princes because whatsoever was naturally just or declared so by the Political power their Religion bound them to observe making Obedience to be a double duty a duty both of Justice and Religion And the societies of Christians growing up from Conventicles to Assemblies from Assemblies to Societies introduced no change in the Government but by little and little turned the Commonwealth into a Church till the World being Christian and Justice also being Religion Obedience to Princes observation of Laws honesty in Contracts faithfulness in promises gratitude to benefactors simplicity in discourse and ingenuity in all pretences and transactions became the Characterisms of Christian men and the word of a Christian the greatest solemnity of stipulation in the world 32. But concerning the general I consider that in two very great instances it was remonstrated that Christianity was the greatest prosecution of natural Justice and equality in the whole world The one was in an election of an A postle into the place of Judas when there were two equal Candidates of the same pretension and capacity the Question was determined by Lots which naturally was the arbitration in questions whose parts were wholly indifferent and as it was used in all times so it is to this day used with us in many places where lest there be a disagreement concerning the manner of tithing some creatures and to prevent unequal arts and unjust practices they are tithed by lot and their sortuitous passing through the door of their sold. The other is in the Coenobitick life of the first Christians and Apostles they had all things in common which was that state of nature in which men lived charitably and without injustice before the distinction of dominions and private rights But from this manner of life they were soon driven by the publick necessity and constitution of affairs 33. Thirdly Whatsoever else is in the Christian Law concerns the natural precept of Sobriety in which there is some variety and some difficulty In the matter of 〈◊〉 the Holy Jesus did clearly reduce us to the first institution of Marriage in Paradise allowing no other mixture but what was first intended in the creation and first sacramental union and in the instance he so permitted us to the natural Law that he was pleased to mention no instance of forbidden Lust but in general and comprehensive terms of Adultery and Fornication in the other which are still more unnatural as their names are concealed and hidden in shame and secrecy we are to have no instructer but the modesty and order of Nature 34. As an instance of this Law of Sobriety Christ superadded the whole doctrine of Humility which Moses did not and which seem'd almost to be extinguished in the world and it is called by S. Paul sapere ad sobrietatem the reasonableness or wisdom of sobriety And it is all the reason in the world that a man should think of himself but just as he is He is deceived that thinks otherwise and is a fool And when we consider that Pride makes wars and causes affronts and no man loves a proud man and he loves no man but himself and his flatterers we shall understand that the Precept of Humility is an excellent art and a happy instrument towards humane Felicity And it is no way contradicted by a natural desire of Honour it only appoints just and reasonable ways of obtaining it We are not forbidden to
his thoughts determinate but stood long in deliberation and longer before he acted it because it was an invidious matter and a rigour He was first to have defam'd and accus'd her publickly and being convicted by the Law she was to die if he had gone the ordinary way but he who was a just man that is according to the style of Scripture and other wise Writers a good a charitable man found that it was more agreeable to Justice to treat an offending person with the easiest sentence than to put things to extremity and render the person desperate and without remedy and provoked by the suffering of the worst of what she could fear No obligation to Justice does force a man to be cruel or to use the sharpest sentence A just man does Justice to every man and to every thing and then if he be also wise he knows there is a debt of mercy and compassion due to the infirmities of a man's nature and that debt is to be paid and he that is cruel and ungentle to a sinning person and does the worst thing to him dies in his debt and is unjust Pity and forbearance and long-suffering and fair interpretation and excusing our brother and taking things in the best sence and passing the gentlest sentence are as certainly our duty and owing to every person that does offend and can repent as calling men to account can be owing to the Law and are first to be paid and he that does not so is an unjust person which because Joseph was not he did not call furiously for Justice or pretend that God required it at his hands presently to undo a suspected person but waved the killing letter of the Law and secured his own interest and his Justice too by intending to dismiss her privately But before the thing was irremediable God ended his Question by a heavenly demonstration and sent an Angel to reveal to him the Innocence of his Spouse and the Divinity of her Son and that he was an immediate derivative from Heaven and the Heir of all the World And in all our doubts we shall have a resolution from Heaven or some of its Ministers if we have recourse thither for a Guide and be not hasty in our discourses or inconsiderate in our purposes or rash in judgment For God loves to give assistances to us when we most fairly and prudently endeavour that Grace be not put to do all our work but to facilitate our labour not creating new faculties but improving those of Nature If we consider warily God will guide us in the determination But a hasty person out-runs his guide prevaricates his rule and very often engages upon error The PRAYER O Holy Jesu Son of the Eternal God thy Glory is far above all Heavens and yet thou didst descend to Earth that thy Descent might be the more gracious by how much thy Glories were admirable and natural and inseparable I adore thy holy Humanity with humble veneration and the thankful addresses of religious joy because thou hast personally united Humane nature to the Eternal Word carrying it above the seats of the highest Cherubim This great and glorious Mystery is the honour and glory of man it was the expectation of our Fathers who saw the mysteriousness of thy Incarnation at great and obscure distances And blessed be thy Name that thou hast caused me to be born after the fulfilling of thy Prophecies and the consummation and exhibition of so great a love so great mysteriousness Holy Jesu though I admire and adore the immensity of thy love and condescension who wert pleased to undergo our burthens and infirmities for us yet I abhor my self and detest my own impurities which were so great and contradictory to the excellency of God that to destroy Sia and save us it became necessary that thou shouldest be sent into the World to die our death for us and to give us of thy Life 2. DEarest Jesu thou didst not breath one sigh nor shed one drop of bloud nor weep one tear nor suffer one stripe nor preach one Sermon for the salvation of the Devils and what sadness and shame is it then that I should cause so many insufferable loads of sorrows to fall upon thy sacred head Thou art wholly given for me wholly spent upon my uses and wholly for every one of the Elect. Thou in the beginning of the work of our Redemption didst suffer nine months imprisonment in the pure Womb of thy Holy Mother to redeem me from the eternal servitude of Sin and its miserable consequents Holy Jesu let me be born anew receive a new birth and a new life imitating thy Graces and Excellencies by which thou art beloved of thy Father and hast obtained for us a favour and atonement Let thy holy will be done by me let all thy will be wrought in me let thy will be wrought concerning me that I may do thy pleasure and submit to the dispensation of thy Providence and conform to thy holy will and may for ever serve thee in the Communion of Saints in the society of thy redeemed ones now and in the glories of Eternity Amen SECT III. The Nativity of our Blessed Saviour JESVS The Birth of LESUS And she brought forth her first borne son and wrapped him in swadling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no roome sor them in the Inne Luk. 2. 7. The Virgin MOTHER S LUKE 11. 27 Blessed is the Womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast Sucked v. 28. Yea rather Blessed are they that heare the word of God and keep it 1. THE Holy Maid longed to be a glad Mother and she who carried a burthen whose proper commensuration is the days of Eternity counted the tedious minutes expecting when the Sun of Righteousness should break forth from his bed where nine months he hid himself as behind a fruitful cloud About the same time God who in his infinite wisdom does concentre and tie together in one end things of disparate and disproportionate natures making things improbable to cooperate to what wonder or to what truth he pleases brought the Holy Virgin to Bethlehem the City of David to be taxed with her Husband Joseph according to a Decree upon all the World issuing from Augustus Caesar. But this happened in this conjunction of time that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet Micah And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the Princes of Judah for out of thee shall come a Governour that shall rule my people Israel This rare act of Providence was highly remarkable because this Taxing seems wholly to have been ordered by God to serve and minister to the circumstances of this Birth For this Taxing was not in order to Tribute Herod was now King and received all the Revenues of the Fiscus and paid to Augustus an appointed Tribute after the manner of other Kings Friends and
dishonour and impiety in the world I mean of actions whose scene lies in the Body and disentitles us to all relations to God and vicinity to Vertue 5. Thirdly Now amongst actions which we are taught by Nature some concern the being and the necessities of Nature some appertain to her convenience and advantage and the transgressions of these respectively have their heightnings or depressions and therefore to kill a man is worse than some preternatural pollutions because more destructive of the end and designation of Nature and the purpose of instinct 6. Fourthly Every part of this Instinct is then in some sense a Law when it is in a direct order to a necessary End and by that is made reasonable I say in some sence it is a Law that is it is in a near disposition to become a Law It is a Rule without obligation to a particular punishment beyond the effect of the natural inordination and obliquity of the act it is not the measure of a moral good or evil but of the natural that is of comely and uncomely For if in the individuals it should fail or that there pass some greater obligation upon the person in order to a higher end not consistent with those means designed in order to the lesser end in that particular it is no fault but sometimes a vertue And therefore although it be an Instinct or reasonable towards many purposes that every one should beget a man in his own image in order to the preservation of nature yet if there be a superaddition of another and higher end and contrary means perswaded in order to it such as is holy Coelibate or Virginity in order to a spiritual life in some persons there the instinct of Nature is very far from passing obligation upon the Conscience and in that instance ceases to be reasonable And therefore the Romans who invited men to marriage with priviledges and punished morose and ungentle natures that refused it yet they had their chaste and unmarried Vestals the first in order to the Commonwealth these in a nearer order to Religion 7. Fifthly These Instincts or reasonable inducements become Laws obliging us in Conscience and in the way of Religion and the breach of them is directly criminal when the instance violates any end of Justice or Charity or Sobriety either designed in Nature's first intention or superinduced by God or man For every thing that is unreasonable to some certain purpose is not presently criminal much less is it against the Law of Nature unless every man that goes out of his way sins against the Law of Nature and every contradicting of a natural desire or inclination is not a sin against a law of Nature For the restraining sometimes of a lawful and a permitted desire is an act of great Vertue and pursues a greater reason as in the former instance But those things only against which such a reason as mixes with Charity or Justice or something that is now in order to a farther end of a commanded instance of Piety may be without errour brought those things are only criminal And God having first made our instincts reasonable hath now made our Reason and Instincts to be spiritual and having sometimes restrained our Instincts and always made them regular he hath by the intermixture of other principles made a separation of Instinct from Instinct leaving one in the form of natural inclination and they rise no higher than a permission or a decency it is lawful or it is comely so to do for no man can asfirm it to be a Duty to kill him that assaults my life or to maintain my children for ever without their own industry when they are able what degrees of natural fondness 〈◊〉 I have towards them nor that I sin if I do not marry when I can contain and yet every one of these may proceed from the affections and first inclinations of Nature but until they mingle with Justice or Charity or some instance of Religion and Obedience they are no Laws the other that are so mingled being raised to Duty and Religion Nature inclines us and Reason judges it apt and requisite in order to certain ends but then every particular of it is made to be an act of Religion from some other principle as yet it is but fit and reasonable not Religion and particular Duty till God or man hath interposed But whatsoever particular in nature was fit to be made a Law of Religion is made such by the superaddition of another principle and this is derived to us by tradition from Adam to Noah or else transmitted to us by the consent of all the world upon a natural and prompt reason or else by some other instrument derived to us from God but especially by the Christian Religion which hath adopted all those things which we call things honest things comely and things of good report into a law and a duty as appears Phil. 4. 8. 8. Upon these Propositions I shall infer by way of Instance that it is a Duty that Women should nurse their own Children For first it is taught to women by that Instinct which Nature hath implanted in them For as Favorinus the Philosopher discoursed it is but to be half a Mother to bring forth Children and not to nourish them and it is some kind of Abortion or an exposing of the Infant which in the reputation of all wise Nations is infamous and uncharitable And if the name of Mother be an appellative of affection and endearments why should the Mother be willing to divide it with a stranger The Earth is the Mother of us all not only because we were made of her Red clay but chiefly that she daily gives us food from her bowels and breasts and Plants and Beasts give nourishment to their off-springs after their production with greater tenderness than they bare them in their wombs and yet Women give nourishment to the Embryo which whether it be deformed or perfect they know not and cannot love what they never saw and yet when they do see it when they have rejoyced that a Child is born and forgotten the sorrows of production they who then can first begin to love it if they begin to divorce the Infant from the Mother the Object from the Affection cut off the opportunities and occasions of their Charity or Piety 9. For why hath Nature given to women two exuberant Fontinels which like two Rocs that are twins feed among the Lilics and drop milk like dew from Hermon and hath invited that nourishment from the secret recesses where the Infant dwelt at first up to the Breast where naturally now the Child is cradled in the entertainments of love and maternal embraces but that Nature having removed the Babe and carried its meat after it intends that it should be preserved by the matter and ingredients of its constitution and have the same diet prepared with a more mature and proportionable digestion If Nature
partakers of thy Purities give unto us tender bowels that we may suffer together with our calamitous and necessitous Brethren that we having a fellow-feeling of their miseries may use all our powers to help them and ease our selves of our common sufferings But do thou O Holy Jesu take from us also all our great calamities the Carnality of our affections our Sensualities and Impurities that we may first be pure then peaceable living in peace with all men and preserving the peace which thou hast made for us with our God that we may never commit a sin which may interrupt so blessed an atonement Let neither hope nor fear tribulation nor anguish pleasure nor pain make us to relinquish our interest in thee and our portion of the everlasting Covenant But give us hearts constant bold and valiant to confess thee before all the world in the midst of all disadvantages and contradictory circumstances chusing rather to beg or to be disgraced or 〈◊〉 or to die than quit a holy Conscience or renounce an Article of Christianity that we either in act when thou shalt call us or always in preparation of mind suffering with thee may also reign with thee in the Church Triumphant O Holy and most merciful Saviour Jesu Amen DISCOURSE X. A Discourse upon that part of the Decalogue which the Holy JESVS adopted into the Institution and obligation of Christianity 1. WHen the Holy Jesus had described the Characterisms of Christianity in these Eight Graces and Beatitudes he adds his Injunctions that in these Vertues they should be eminent and exemplar that they might adorn the Doctrine of God for he intended that the Gospel should be as Leven in a lump of dough to season the whole mass and that Christians should be the instruments of communicating the excellency and reputation of this holy Institution to all the world Therefore Christ calls them Salt and Light and the societies of Christians a City set upon a hill and a 〈◊〉 set in a candlestick whose office and energy is to illuminate all the vicinage which is also expressed in these preceptive words Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven which I consider not only as a Circumstance of other parts but as a precise Duty it self and one of the Sanctions of Christianity which hath so confederated the Souls of the Disciples of the Institution that it hath in some proportion obliged every man to take care of his Brother's Soul And since Reverence to God and Charity to our Brother are the two 〈◊〉 Ends which the best Laws can have this precept of exemplary living is enjoyned in order to them both We must shine as lights in the world that God may be glorified and our Brother edified that the excellency of the act may 〈◊〉 the reputation of the Religion and invite men to confess God according to the sanctions of so holy an Institution And if we be curious that vanity do not mingle in the intention and that the intention do not spoil the action and that we suffer not our lights to shine that men may magnifie us and not glorifie God this duty is soon performed by way of adherence to our other actions and hath no other difficulty in it but that it will require our prudence and care to preserve the simplicity of our purposes and humility of our spirit in the midst of that excellent reputation which will certainly be consequent to a holy and exemplary life 2. But since the Holy Jesus had set us up to be lights in the world he took care we should not be stars of the least magnitude but eminent and such as might by their great emissions of light give evidence of their being immediately derivative from the Sun of Righteousness He was now giving his Law and meant to retain so much of Moses as Moses had of natural and essential Justice and Charity and superadd many degrees of his own that as far as Moses was exceeded by Christ in the capacity of a Law-giver so far Christianity might be more excellent and holy than the Mosaical Sanctions And therefore as a Preface to the Christian Law the Holy Jesus declares that unless our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees that is of the stricter sects of the Mosaical Institution we shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven Which not only relates to the prevaricating Practices of the Pharisees but even to their Doctrines and Commentaries upon the Law of Moses as appears evidently in the following instances For if all the excellency of Christianity had consisted in the mere command of Sincerity and prohibition of Hypocrisie it had nothing in it proportionable to those excellent promises and clearest revelations of Eternity there expressed nor of a fit imployment for the designation of a special and a new Law-giver whose Laws were to last forever and were established upon foundations stronger than the pillars of Heaven and Earth 3. But S. Paul calling the Law of Moses a Law of Works did well insinuate what the Doctrine of the Jews was concerning the degrees and obligations of Justice for besides that it was a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of Faith and so the sence of it is formerly explicated it is also a Law of Works in opposition to the Law of the Spirit and it is understood to be such a Law which required the exteriour Obedience such a Law according to which S. Paul so lived that no man could reprove him that is the Judges could not tax him with prevarication such a Law which being in very many degrees carnal and material did not with much severity exact the intention and purposes spiritual But the Gospel is the Law of the spirit If they failed in the exteriour work it was accounted to them for sin but to Christians nothing becomes a sin but a failing and prevaricating spirit For the outward act is such an emanation of the interiour that it enters into the account for the relation sake and for its parent When God hath put a duty into our hands if our spirits be right the work will certainly follow but the following work receives its acceptation not from the value the Christian Law hath precisely put upon it but because the spirit from whence it came hath observed its rule the Law of Charity is acted and expressed in works but hath its estimate from the spirit Which discourse is to be understood in a limited and qualified signification For then also God required the Heart and interdicted the very concupiscences of our irregular passions at least in some instances but because much of their Law consisted in the exteriour and the Law appointed not nor yet intimated any penalty to evil thoughts and because the expiation of such interiour irregularities was easie implicite and involved in their daily Sacrifices without special trouble therefore the old Law
was a Law of Works that is especially and in its first intention But this being less perfect the Holy Jesus inverted the order 1. For very little of Christianity stands upon the outward action Christ having appointed but two Sacraments immediately and 2. a greater restraint is laid upon the passions desires and first motions of the spirit than under the severity of Moses and 3. they are threatned with the same curses of a sad eternity with the acts proceeding from them and 4. because the obedience of the spirit does in many things excuse the want of the outward act God always requiring at our hands what he hath put in our power and no more and 5. lastly because the spirit is the principle of all actions moral and spiritual and certainly productive of them when they are not impeded from without therefore the Holy Jesus hath secured the fountain as knowing that the current must needs be healthful and pure if it proceeds through pure chanels from a limpid and unpolluted principle 4. And certainly it is much for the glory of God to worship him with a Religion whose very design looks upon God as the searcher of our hearts and Lord of our spirits who judges the purposes as a God and does not only take his estimate from the outward action as a man And it is also a great reputation to the Institution it self that it purifies the Soul and secures the secret cogitations of the mind It punishes Covetouiness as it judges Rapine it condemns a Sacrilegious heart as soon as an Irreligious hand it detests hating of our Brother by the same aversation which it expresses against doing him 〈◊〉 He that curses in his heart shall die the death of an explicite and bold Blasphemer murmur and repining is against the Laws of Christianity but either by the remissness of Moses's Law or the gentler execution of it or the innovating or lessening glosses of the Pharisees he was esteemed innocent whose actions were according to the letter not whose spirit was conformed to the intention and more secret Sanctity of the Law So that our Righteousness must therefore exceed the Pharisaical standard because our spirits must be pure as our hands and the heart as regular as the action our purposes must be sanctified and our thoughts holy we must love our Neighbour as well as relieve him and chuse Justice with adhesion of the mind as well as carry her upon the palms of our hands And therefore the Prophets foretelling the Kingdom of the Gospel and the state of this Religion call it a writing the Laws of God in our hearts And S. Paul distinguishes the Gospel from the Law by this only measure We are all Israelites of the seed of Abraham heirs of the same inheritance only now we are not to be accounted Jews for the outward consormity to the Law but for the inward consent and obedience to those purities which were secretly signified by the types of Moses They of the Law were Jews outwardly their Circumcision was outward in the flesh their praise was of men We are Jews inwardly our Circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter and our praise is of God that is we are not judged by the outward act but by the mind and the intention and though the acts must sollow in all instances where we can and where they are required yet it is the less principal and rather significative than by its own strength and energy operative and accepted 5. S. Clemens of Alexandria saith the Pharisees righteousness consisted in the not doing evil and that Christ superadded this also that we must do the contrary good and so exceed the Pharisaical measure They would not wrong a Jew nor many times relieve him they reckoned their innocence by not giving offence by walking blameless by not being accused before the Judges sitting in the gates of their Cities But the balance in which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Christians is not only the avoiding evil but doing good the following peace with all men and holiness the proceeding from faith to faith the adding vertue to vertue the persevering in all holy conversation and godliness And therefore S. Paul commending the grace of universal Charity says that Love worketh no ill to his neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law implying that the prime intention of the Law was that every man's right be secured that no man receive wrong And indeed all the Decalogue consisting of Prohibitions rather than Precepts saving that each Table hath one positive Commandment does not obscurely verifie the doctrine of S. Clement's interpretation Now because the Christian Charity abstains from doing all injury therefore it is the fulfilling of the Law but because it is also patient and liberal that it suffers long and is kind therefore the Charity commanded in Christ's Law exceeds that Charity which the Scribes and Pharisees reckoned as part of their Righteousness But Jesus himself does with great care in the particulars instance in what he would have the Disciples to be eminent above the most strict Sect of the Jewish Religion 1. in practising the moral Precepts of the Decalogue with a stricter interpretation 2. and in quitting the Permissions and licences which for the hardness of their heart Moses gave them as indulgences to their persons and securities against the contempt of too severe Laws 6. The severity of exposition was added but to three Commandments and in three indulgences the permission was taken away But because our great Law-giver repeated also other parts of the Decalogue in his after-Sermons I will represent in this one view all that he made to be Christian by adoption 7. The first Commandment Christ often repeated and enforced as being the basis of all Religion and the first endearment of all that relation whereby we are capable of being the sons of God as being the great Commandment of the Law and comprehensive of all that duty we owe to God in the relations of the vertue of Religion Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one Lord and Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength This is the first Commandment that is this comprehends all that which is moral and eternal in the first Table of the 〈◊〉 8. The Duties of this Commandment are 1. To worship God alone with actions proper to him and 2. to love and 3. obey him with all our faculties 1. Concerning Worship The actions proper to the Honour of God are to offer Sacrifice Incense and Oblations making Vows to him Swearing by his Name as the instrument of secret testimony confessing his incommunicable Attributes and Praying to him for those Graces which are essentially annexed to his dispensation as Remission of sins Gifts of the Spirit and the grace of 〈◊〉 and Life
was necessary for Religion therefore to abstain from Suits of Law and servile works but such works as are of necessity and charity which to observe are of themselves a very good Religion is a necessary duty of the day and to do acts of publick Religion is the other part of it So much is made matter of duty by the intervention of Authority and though the Church hath made no more prescriptions in this God hath made none at all yet he who keeps the Day most strictly most religiously he keeps it best and most consonant to the design of the Church and the ends of Religion and the opportunity of the present leisure and the interests of his Soul The acts of Religion proper for the Day are Prayers and publick Liturgies Preaching Catechizing acts of Charity Visiting sick persons acts of Eucharist to God of Hospitality to our poor neighbours of friendliness and civility to all reconciling differences and after the publick Assemblies are dissolved any act of direct Religion to God or of ease and remission to Servants or whatsoever else is good in Manners or in Piety or in Mercy What is said of this great Feast of the Christians is to be understood to have a greater 〈◊〉 and obligation in the Anniversary of the Resurrection of the Ascension of the Nativity of our Blessed Saviour and of the descent of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost And all days festival to the honour of God in remembrance of the holy Apostles and Martyrs and departed Saints as they are with prudence to be chosen and retained by the Church so as not to be unnecessary or burthensome or useless so they are to be observed by us as instances of our love of the communion of Saints and our thankfulness for the blessing and the example 26. Honour thy Father and thy Mother This Commandment Christ made also to be Christian by his frequent repetition and mention of it in his Sermons and Laws and so ordered it that it should be the band of civil Government and Society In the Decalogue God sets this Precept immediately after the duties that concern himself our duty to Parents being in the consines with our duty to God the Parents being in order of nature next to God the cause of our being and production and the great Almoners of Eternity conveying to us the essences of reasonable Creatures and the charities of Heaven And when our Blessed Saviour in a Sermon to the 〈◊〉 spake of duty to Parents he rescued it from the impediments of a vain tradition and secured this Duty though against a pretence of Religion towards God telling us that God would not himself accept a gift which we took from our Parents needs This duty to Parents is the very 〈◊〉 and band of Commonwealths He that honours his Parents will also love his Brethren derived from the same loins he will dearly account of all his relatives and persons of the same cognation and so Families are united and 〈◊〉 them Cities and Societies are framed And because Parents and Patriarchs of 〈◊〉 and of Nations had regal power they who by any change 〈◊〉 in the care and government of Cities and Kingdomes succeeded in the power and authority of Fathers and became so in estimate of Law and true Divinity to all their people So that the Duty here commanded is due to all our Fathers in the sense of Scripture and Laws not onely to our natural but to our civil Fathers that is to Kings and Governours And the Scripture adds Mothers for they also being instruments of the blessing are the objects of the Duty The duty is Honour that is Reverence and Support if they shall need it And that which our Blessed Saviour calls not 〈◊〉 our Parents in S. Matthew is called in S. Mark doing nothing for them and Honour is expounded by S. Paul to be maintenance as well as reverence Then we honour our Parents if with great readiness we minister to their necessities and communicate our estate and attend them in sicknesses and supply their wants and as much as lies in us give them support who gave us being 27. Thou shalt do no Murther so it was said to them of old time He that kills shall be guilty of Judgment that is he is to die by the sentence of the Judge To this Christ makes an appendix But I say unto you he that is angry with his Brother without a cause shall be in danger of the Judgment This addition of our Blessed Saviour as all the other which are severer explications of the Law than the Jews admitted was directed against the vain and imperfect opinion of the Lawyers who thought to be justified by their external works supposing if they were innocent in matter of fact God would require no more of them than Man did and what by custome or silence of the Laws was not punishable by the Judge was harmless before God and this made them to trust in the letter to neglect the duties of Repentance to omit asking pardon for their secret irregularities and the obliquities and aversations of their spirits and this S. Paul also complains of that neglecting the righteousness of God they sought to establish their own that is according to Man's judgment But our Blessed Saviour tells them that such an innocence is not enough God requires more than conformity and observation of the fact and exteriour 〈◊〉 placing Justice not in legal innocency or not being condemned in judgment of the Law and humane judicature but in the righteousness of the spirit also for the first acquits us before man but by this we shall be held upright in judgment before the Judge of all the world And therefore besides abstinence from murther or actual wounds Christ forbids all anger without cause against our Brother that is against any man 28. By which not the first motions are forbidden the twinklings of the eye as the Philosophers call them the pro-passions and sudden and irresistible alterations for it is impossible to prevent them unless we could give our selves a new nature any more than we can refuse to wink with our eye when a sudden blow is offered at it or refuse to yawn when we see a yawning sleepy person but by frequent and habitual mortification and by continual watchfulness and standing in readiness against all inadvertencies we shall lessen the inclination and account fewer sudden irreptions A wise and meek person should not kindle at all but after violent and great collision and then if like a flint he sends a spark out it must as soon be extinguished as it shews and cool as soon as sparkle But however the sin is not in the natural disposition But when we entertain it though it be as 〈◊〉 expresses it cum voluntate non 〈◊〉 without a determination of revenge then it begins to be a sin Every indignation
must be severe in our discourses and neither lie in a great matter nor a small for the custom thereof is not good saith the son of Sirach I could add concerning this Precept That Christ having left it in that condition he found it in the Decalogue without any change or alteration of circumstance we are commanded to give true testimony in Judgment which because it was under an Oath there lies upon us no prohibition but a severity of injunction to swear truth in Judgment when we are required The securing of Testimonies was by the sanctity of an Oath and this remains unaltered in Christianity 41. Thou shalt not covet This Commandment we find no-where repeated in the Gospel by our Blessed Saviour but it is inserted in the repetition of the Second Table which S. Paul mentioned to the Romans for it was so abundantly expressed in the inclosures of other Precepts and the whole design of Christ's Doctrine that it was less needful specially to express that which is every-where affixed to many Precepts Evangelical Particularly it is inherent in the first Beatitude Blessed are the poor in spirit and it means that we should not wish our Neighbour's goods with a deliberate entertained desire but that upon the commencement of the motion it be disbanded instantly for he that does not at the first address and 〈◊〉 of the passion suppress it he hath given it that entertainment which in every period of staying is a degree of morose delectation in the appetite And to this I find not Christ added any thing for the Law it self forbidding to entertain the desire hath commanded the instant and present suppression they are the same thing and cannot reasonably be distinguished Now that Christ in the instance of Adultery hath commanded to abstain also from occasions and accesses towards the Lust in this hath not the same severity because the vice of Covetousness is not such a wild-fire as Lust is not inflamed by contact and neighbourhood of all things in the world every thing may be instrumental to libidinous desires but to covetous appetites there are not temptations of so different natures 42. Concerning the order of these Commandments it is not unusefully observed that if we account from the first to the last they are of greatest perfection which are last described and he who is arrived to that severity and dominion of himself as not to desire his Neighbour's goods is very far from actual injury and so in proportion it being the least degree of Religion to confess but One God But therefore Vices are to take their estimate in the contrary order he that prevaricates the First Commandment is the greatest sinner in the world and the least is he that only covets without any actual injustice And there is no variety or objection in this unless it be altered by the accidental difference of degrees but in the kinds of sin the Rule is true this onely The Sixth and Seventh are otherwise in the Hebrew Bibles than ours and in the Greek otherwise in Exodus than in Deuteronomy and by this rule it is a greater sin to commit Adultery than to Kill concerning which we have no certainty save that S. Paul in one respect makes the sin of Uncleanness the greatest of any sin whose scene lies in the body Every sin is without the body but he that commits Fornication sins against his own body The PRAYER O Eternal Jesus Wisdome of the Father thou light of Jews and Gentiles and the great Master of the world who by thy holy Sermons and clearest revelations of the mysteries of thy Father's Kingdom didst invite all the world to great degrees of Justice Purity and Sanctity and instruct us all in a holy Institution give us understanding of thy Laws that the light of thy celestial Doctrine illuminating our darknesses and making bright all the recesses of our spirits and understandings we may direct our feet all the lower man the affections of the inferiour appetite to walk in the paths of thy Commandments Dearest God make us to live a life of Religion and Justice of Love and Duty that we may adore thy Majesty and reverence thy Name and love thy Mercy and admire thy infinite glories and perfections and obey thy Precepts Make us to love thee for thy self and our neighbours for thee make us to be all Love and all Duty that we may adorn the Gospel of thee our Lord walking worthy of our Vocation that as thou hast called us to be thy Disciples so we may walk therein doing the work of faithful servants and may receive the adoption of sons and the gift of eternal glory which thou hast reserved for all the Disciples of thy holy Institution Make all the world obey thee as a Prophet that being redeemed and purified by thee our High Priest all may reign with thee our King in thy eternal Kingdom O Eternal Jesus Wisdom of thy Father Amen Of the Three additional Precepts which Christ superinduced and made parts of the Christian Law DISCOURSE XI Of CHARITY with its parts Forgiving Giving not Judging Of Forgiveness PART I. 1. THE Holy Jesus coming to reconcile all the world to God would reconcile all the parts of the world one with another that they may rejoyce in their common band and their common Salvation The first instance of Charity forbad to Christians all Revenge of Injuries which was a perfection and endearment of duty beyond what either most of the old Philosophers or the Laws of the Nations 〈◊〉 of Moses ever practised or enjoyned For Revenge was esteemed to unhallowed unchristian natures as sweet as life a satisfaction of injuries and the onely cure of maladies and affronts Onely Laws of the wisest Commonwealths commanded that Revenge should be taken by the Judge a few cases being excepted in which by sentence of the Law the injured person or his nearest Relative might be the Executioner of the Vengeance as among the Jews in the case of Murther among the Romans in the case of an Adulteress or a ravished daughter the Father might kill the Adulteress or the Ravisher In other things the Judge onely was to be the Avenger But Christ commanded his Disciples rather than to take revenge to expose themselves to a second injury rather offer the other cheek than be avenged for a blow on this For vengeance belongs to God and he will retaliate and to that wrath we must give place saith S. Paul that is in well-doing and evil suffering commit our selves to his righteous judgment leaving room for his execution who will certainly do it if we snatch not the sword from his arm 2. But some observe that our Blessed Saviour instanced but in smaller injuries He that bad us suffer a blow on the cheek did not oblige us tamely to be sacrificed he that enjoyned us to put up the loss of our Coat and Cloak did not signifie his pleasure to be that we should 〈◊〉
Humility of trust in God's providence it is therefore Pride and Murther and Injustice and infinite Unreasonableness and nothing of a Christian nothing of excuse nothing of honour in it if God and wise men be admitted Judges of the Lists And it would be considered that every one that fights a Duell must reckon himself as dead or dying for however any man flatters himself by saying he will not kill if he could avoid it yet rather than be killed he will and to the danger of being killed his own act exposes him now is it a good posture for a man to die with a sword in his hand thrust at his Brother's breast with a purpose either explicit or implicit to have killed him Can a man die twice that in case he miscarries and is damned for the first ill dying he may mend his fault and die better the next time Can his vain imaginary and phantastick shadow of Reputation make him recompence for the disgrace and confusion of face and pains and horrors of Eternity Is there no such thing as forgiving injuries nothing of the discipline of Jesus in our spirits are we called by the name of Christ and have nothing in us but the spirit of Cain and Nimrod and Joab If neither Reason nor Religion can rule us neither interest nor safety can determine us neither life nor Eternity can move us neither God nor wise men be sufficient Judges of Honour to us then our damnation is just but it is heavy our fall is certain but it is cheap base and inglorious And let not the vanities or the Gallants of the world slight this friendly monition rejecting it with a scorn because it is talking like a Divine it were no disparagement if they would do so too and believe accordingly and they would find a better return of honour in the crowns of Eternity by talking like a Divine than by dying like a fool by living in imitation and obedience to the laws of the Holy Jesus than by perishing or committing Murther or by attempting it or by venturing it like a weak impotent passionate and brutish person Upon this Chapter it is sometime asked whether a Virgin may not kill a Ravisher to defend her Chastity Concerning which as we have no special and distinct warrant so there is in reason and analogy of the Gospel much for the negative For since his act alone cannot make her criminal and is no more than a wound in my body or a civil or a natural inconvenience it is unequal to take a life in exchange for a lesser injury and it is worse that I take it my self Some great examples we find in story and their names are remembred in honour but we can make no judgement of them but that their zeal was reproveable for its intemperance though it had excellency in the matter of the Passion 8. But if we may not secure our Honour or be revenged for injuries by the sword may we not crave the justice of the Law and implore the vengeance of the Judge who is appointed for vengeance against evil doers and the Judge being the King's Officer and the King God's Vicegerent it is no more than imploring God's hand and that is giving place to wrath which S. Paul speaks of that is permitting all to the Divine Justice To this I answer That it is not lawful to go to Law for every occasion or slighter injury because it is very distant from the mercies forgiveness and gentleness of a Christian to contest for Trifles and it is certain that the injuries or evil or charges of trouble and expence will be more vexatious and afflictive to the person contested than a small instance of wrong is to the person injured And it is a great intemperance of anger and impotence of spirit a covetousness and impatience to appeal to the Judge for determination concerning a lock of Camel's hair or a Goat's beard I mean any thing that is less than the gravity of Laws or the solemnity of a Court and that does not out-weigh the inconveniencies of a Suit But this we are to consider in the expression of our Blessed Saviour If a man will sue thee at the Law and take thy Cloak let him have thy Coat also Which words are a particular instance in pursuit of the general Precept Resist not or avenge not evil The primitive Christians as it happens in the first fervours of a Discipline were sometimes severe in observation of the letter not subtlely distinguishing Counsels from Precepts but swallowing all the words of Christ without chewing or discrimination They abstained from Tribunals unless they were forced thither by persecutors but went not thither to repeat their goods And if we consider Suits of Law as they are wrapp'd in circumstances of action and practice with how many subtleties and arts they are managed how pleadings are made mercenary and that it will be hard to find right counsel that shall advise you to desist if your cause be wrong and therefore there is great reason to distrust every Question since if it be never so wrong we shall meet Advocates to encourage us and plead for it what danger of miscarriages of uncharitableness anger and animosities what desires to prevail what care and fearfulness of the event what 〈◊〉 temptations do intervene how many sins are secretly 〈◊〉 in our 〈◊〉 and actions if a Suit were of it self never so lawful it would concern the duty of a Christian to avoid it as he prays against temptations and cuts off the opportunities of a sin It is not lawful for a Christian to sue his brother at the Law unless he can be patient if he loses and charitable if he be wronged and can 〈◊〉 his end without any mixture of Covetousness or desires to prevail without Envy or can believe himself wrong when his Judge says he is or can submit to peace when his just cause is oppressed and rejected and condemned and without pain or regret can sit down by the loss of his right and of his pains and his money And if he can do all this what need he go to Law He may with less trouble and less danger take the loss singly and expect God's providence for reparation than disentitle himself to that by his own srowardness and take the loss when it comes loaden with many circumstances of trouble 9. But however by accident it may become unlawful to go to Law in a just cause or in any yet by this Precept we are not 〈◊〉 To go to Law for revenge we are simply 〈◊〉 that is to return evil for evil and therefore all those Suits which are for vindictive sentences not for reparative are directly criminal To follow a Thief to death for spoiling my goods is extremely unreasonable and uncharitable for as there is no proportion between my goods and his life and therefore I demand it to his evil and injury so the putting him to death
consideration is particular because there are fewer capacities of making sins to become national than personal and therefore if we understand when a sin is National we may the rather understand the meaning of God's hand when he strikes a People For National sins grow higher and higher not merely according to the degree of the sin or the intension alone but according to the extension 〈◊〉 to its being 〈◊〉 so it is productive of more or less mischief to a Kingdom Customary iniquities amongst the People do then amount to the account of National sins when they are of so universal practice as to take in well-near every particular such as was that of Sodom not to leave ten righteous in all the Countrey and such were the sins of the Old world who left but eight persons to escape the angry baptism of the Floud And such was the murmur of the children of Israel refusing to march up to Canaan at the commandment of God they all murmured but Caleb and 〈◊〉 and this God in the case of the Amalekites calls the fulfilling of their sins and a filling up the measure of their iniquities And hither also I reckon the defection of the Ten Tribes from the House of Judah and the Samaritan Schism these caused the total extirpation of the offending People For although these sins were personal and private at first yet when they come to be universal by diffusion and dissemination and the good People remaining among them are but like drops of Wine in a Tun of Water of no consideration with God save only to the preservation of their own persons then although the persons be private yet all private or singular persons make the Nation But this hath happened but seldome in Christianity I think indeed never except in the case of Mutinies and Rebellion against their lawful Prince or the attesting violence done in unjust Wars But God only knows and no man can say that any sin is national by diffusion and therefore in this case we cannot make any certain judgment or advantage to our selves or very rarely by observing the changes of Providence upon a People 9. But the next above this in order to the procuring popular Judgments is publick impunities the not doing Justice upon Criminals publickly complained of and demanded especially when the persons interested call for Justice and execution of good Laws and the Prince's arm is at liberty and in full strength and there is no contrary reason in the particular instance to make compensation to the publick for the omission or no care taken to satisfie the particular Abimelech thought he had reason to be angry with Isaac for saying 〈◊〉 was his Sister for one of the people might have ly'ne with thy wife and thou shouldst have brought 〈◊〉 upon us meaning that the man should have escaped unpunished by reason of the mistake which very impunity he feared might be expounded to be a countenance and encouragement to the sin But this was no more than his fear The case of the Benjamites comes home to this present article for they refused to do justice upon the men that had ravished and killed the Levite's Concubine they lost twenty five thousand in battel their Cities were destroyed and the whole Tribe almost extinguished For punishing publick and great acts of injustice is called in Scripture putting away the evil from the land because to this purpose the sword is put into the Prince's hand and he bears the sword in vain who ceases to protect his People and not to punish the evil is a voluntary retention of it unless a special case intervene in which the Prince thinks it convenient to give a particular pardon provided this be not encouragement to others nor without great reason big enough to make compensation for the particular omission and with care to render some other satisfaction to the person injured in all other cases of impunity that sin becomes National by forbearing which in the acting was personal and it is certain the impunity is a spring of universal evils it is no thank to the publick if the best man be not as bad as the worst 10. But there is a step beyond this and of a more publick concernment such are the Laws of Omri when a Nation consents to and makes ungodly Statutes when mischief is established as a Law then the Nation is engaged to some purpose When I see the People despise their Governours scorn and rob and disadvantage the Ministers of Religion make rude addresses to God to his Temple to his Sacraments I look upon it as the insolency of an untaught People who would as readily do the contrary if the fear of God and the King were upon them by good Examples and Precepts and Laws and severe executions And farther yet when the more publick and exemplar persons are without sense of Religion without a dread of Majesty without reverence to the Church without impresses of Conscience and the tendernesses of a religious fear towards God as the persons are greater in estimation of Law and in their influences upon the People so the score of the Nation advances and there is more to be paid for in popular Judgments But when Iniquity or Irreligion is made a Sanction and either God must be dishonoured or the Church exauthorated or her Rites invaded by a Law then the fortune of the Kingdom is at stake No sin engages a Nation so much or is so publick so solemn iniquity as is a wicked Law Therefore it concerns Princes and States to secure the Piety and innocency of their Laws and if there be any evil Laws which upon just grounds may be thought productive of God's anger because a publick misdemeanour cannot be expiated but by a publick act of Repentance or a publick Calamity the Laws must either have their edge abated by a desuetude or be laid asleep by a non-execution or dismembred by contrary proviso's or have the sting drawn forth by interpretation or else by abrogation be quite rescinded But these are National sins within it self or within its own Body by the act of the Body I mean diffusive or representative and they are like the personal sins of men in or against their own bodies in the matter of Sobriety There are others in the matter of Justice as the Nation relates to other People communicating in publick Entercourse 11. For as the Entercourse between man and man in the actions of commutative and distributive Justice is the proper matter of Vertues and Vices personal so are the Transactions between Nation and Nation against the publick rules of Justice Sins National directly and in their first original and answer to Injustice between man and man Such are commencing War upon unjust titles Invasion of neighbours territories Consederacies and aids upon tyrannical interest Wars against true Religion or Sovereignty Violation of the Laws of nations which they have consented to as the publick instrument of accord and negotiation
Breach of publick faith desending Pirates and the like When a publick Judgment comes upon a Nation these things are to be thought upon that we may not think our selves acquitted by crying out against Swearing and Drunkenness and Cheating in manufactures which unless they be of universal dissemination and made national by diffusion are paid for upon a personal score and the private infelicities of our lives will either expiate or punish them severely But while the People mourns for those sins of which their low condition is capable sins that may produce a popular Fever or perhaps the Plague where the misery dwells in Cottages and the Princes often have indemnity as it was in the case of David yet we may not hope to appease a War to master a Rebellion to cure the publick Distemperatures of a Kingdom which threaten not the People only or the Governours also but even the Government it self unless the sins of a more publick capacity be cut off by publick declarations or other acts of national Justice and Religion But the duty which concerns us all in such cases is that every man in every capacity should enquire into himself and for his own portion of the Calamity put in his own symbol of Emendation for his particular and his Prayers for the publick interest in which it is not safe that any private persons should descend to particular censures of the crimes of Princes and States no not towards God unless the matter be notorious and past a question but it is a sufficient assoilment of this part of his duty if when he hath set his own house in order he would pray with indefinite significations of his charity and care of the publick that God would put it into the hearts of all whom it concerns to endeavour the removal of the sin that hath brought the exterminating Angel upon the Nation But yet there are sometimes great lines drawn by God in the expresses of his anger in some Judgments upon a Nation and when the Judgment is of that danger as to invade the very Constitution of a Kingdom the proportions that Judgments many times keep to their sins intimate that there is some National sin in which either by diffusion or representation or in the direct matter of sins as false Oaths unjust Wars wicked Confederacies or ungodly Laws the Nation in the publick capacity is delinquent 12. For as the Nation hath in Sins a capacity distinct from the sins of all the People inasmuch as the Nation is united in one Head guarded by a distinct and a higher Angel as Persia by Saint Michael transacts affairs in a publick right transmits insluence to all particulars from a common fountain and hath entercourse with other collective Bodies who also distinguish from their own particulars so likewise it hath Punishments distinct from those infelicities which vex particulars Punishments proportionable to it self and to its own Sins such as are Change of Governments of better into worse of Monarchy into Aristocracy and so to the lowest ebb of Democracy Death of Princes Infant Kings Forein Invasions Civil Wars a disputable Title to the Crown making a Nation tributary Conquest by a Foreiner and which is worst of all removing the Candlestick from a People by extinction of the Church or that which is necessary to its conservation the several Orders and Ministeries of Religion and the last hath also proper sins of its own analogy such as are false Articles in the publick Confessions of a Church Schism from the Catholick publick Scandals a general Viciousness of the Clergy an Indifferency in Religion without warmth and holy fires of Zeal and diligent pursuance of all its just and holy interests Now in these and all parallel cases when God by Punishments hath probably marked and distinguished the Crime it concerns publick persons to be the more forward and importunate in consideration of publick Irregularities and for the private also not to neglect their own particulars for by that means although not certainly yet probably they may secure themselves from falling in the publick calamity It is not infallibly sure that holy persons shall not be smitten by the destroying Angel for God in such deaths hath many ends of mercy and some of Providence to serve but such private and personal emendations and Devotions are the greatest securities of the men against the Judgment or the evil of it preserving them in this life or wasting them over to a better Thus many of the Lord's champions did fall in battel and the armies of the 〈◊〉 did twice prevail upon the juster People of all Israel and the Greek Empire hath declined and shrunk under the fortune and power of the Ottoman Family and the Holy Land which was twice possessed by Christian Princes is now in the dominion of unchristened Saracens and in the production of these alterations many a gallant and pious person suffered the evils of war and the change of an untimely death 13. But the way for the whole Nation to proceed in cases of epidemical Diseases Wars great Judgments and popular Calamities is to do in the publick proportion the same that every man is to do for his private by publick acts of Justice Repentance Fastings pious Laws and execution of just and religious Edicts making peace quitting of unjust interests declaring publickly against a Crime protesting in behalf of the contrary Vertue or Religion and to this also every man as he is a member of the body politick must co-operate that by a Repentance in diffusion help may come as well as by a Sin of universal dissemination the Plague was hastened and invited the rather But in these cases all the work of discerning and pronouncing concerning the cause of the Judgment as it must be without asperity and only for designs of correction and emendation so it must be done by Kings and Prophets and the assistence of other publick persons to whom the publick is committed Josua cast lots upon Achan and discovered the publick trouble in a private instance and of old the Prophets had it in commission to reprove the popular iniquity of Nations and the consederate sins of Kingdomes and in this Christianity altered nothing And when this is done modestly prudently humbly and penitently oftentimes the tables turn immediately but always in due time and a great Alteration in a Kingdome becomes the greatest Blessing in the world and fastens the Church or the Crown or the publick Peace in bands of great continuance and security and it may be the next Age shall feel the benefits of our Sufferance and Repentance And therefore as we must endeavour to secure it so we must not be too decretory in the case of others or disconsolate or diffident in our own when it may so happen that all succeeding generations shall see that God pardoned us and loved us even when he smote us Let us all learn to fear and walk humbly The Churches of Laodicea and the Colossians suffered
Saul's seven sons were hanged for breaking the League of Gibeon and Ahab's sin was punished in his posterity he escaping and the evil was brought upon his house in his son's days In all these cases the evil descended upon persons in near relation to the sinner and was a punishment to him and a misery to these and were either chastisements also of their own sins or if they were not they served other ends of Providence and led the afflicted innocent to a condition of recompence accidentally procured by that infliction But if for such relation's sake and oeconomical and political conjunction as between Prince and People the evil may be transmitted from one to another much rather is it just when by contract a competent and conjunct person undertakes to quit his relative Thus when the Hand steals the Back is whipt and an evil Eye is punished with a hungry Belly Treason causes the whole Family to be miserable and a Sacrilegious Grandfather hath sent a Locust to devour the increase of the Nephews 8. But in our case it is a voluntary contract and therefore no Injustice all parties are voluntary God is the supreme Lord and his actions are the measure of Justice we who had deserved the punishment had great reason to desire a Redeemer and yet Christ who was to pay the ransome was more desirous of it than we were for we asked it not before it was promised and undertaken But thus we see that Sureties pay the obligation of the principal Debtor and the Pledges of Contracts have been by the best and wisest Nations slain when the Articles have been broken The Thessalians slew 250 Pledges the Romans 300 of the Volsci and threw the Tarentines from the Tarpeian rock And that it may appear Christ was a person in all sences competent to do this for us himself testifies that he had power over his own life to take it up or lay it down And therefore as there can be nothing against the most exact justice and reason of Laws and punishments so it magnifies the Divine Mercy who removes the punishment from us who of necessity must have sunk under it and yet makes us to adore his Severity who would not forgive us without punishing his Son for us to consign unto us his perfect hatred against Sin to conserve the sacredness of his Laws and to imprint upon us great characters of fear and love The famous Locrian Zaleucus made a Law that all Adulterers should lose both their eyes his son was first unhappily surprised in the crime and his Father to keep a temper between the piety and soft spirit of a Parent and the justice and severity of a Judge put out one of his own eyes and one of his Sons So God did with us he made some abatement that is as to the person with whom he was angry but inflicted his anger upon our Redeemer whom he essentially loved to secure the dignity of his Sanctions and the sacredness of Obedience so marrying Justice and Mercy by the intervening of a commutation Thus David escaped by the death of his Son God chusing that penalty for the expiation and Cimon offered himself to prison to purchase the liberty of his Father Miltiades It was a filial duty in Cimon and yet the Law was satisfied And both these concurred in our great Redeemer For God who was the sole Arbitrator so disposed it and the eternal Son of God submitted to this way of expiating our crimes and became an argument of faith and belief of the great Article of Remission of sins and other its appendent causes and effects and adjuncts it being wrought by a visible and notorious Passion It was made an encouragement of Hope for he that spared not his own Son to reconcile us will with him give all things else to us so reconciled and a great endearment of our Duty and Love as it was a demonstration of his And in all the changes and traverses of our life he is made to us a great example of all excellent actions and all patient sufferings 9. In the midst of two Thieves three long hours the holy Jesus hung clothed with pain agony and dishonour all of them so eminent and vast that he who could not but hope whose Soul was enchased with Divinity and dwelt in the bosom of God and in the Cabinet of the mysterious Trinity yet had a cloud of misery so thick and black drawn before him that he complained as if God had forsaken him but this was the pillar of cloud which conducted Israel into Canaan And as God behind the Cloud supported the Holy Jesus and stood ready to receive him into the union of his Glories so his Soul in that great desertion had internal comforts proceeding from consideration of all those excellent persons which should be adopted into the fellowship of his Sufferings which should imitate his Graces which should communicate his Glories And we follow this Cloud to our Country having Christ for our Guide and though he trode the way leaning upon the Cross which like the staffe of Egypt pierced his hands yet it is to us a comfort and support pleasant to our spirits as the sweetest Canes strong as the pillars of the earth and made apt for our use by having been born and made smooth by the hands of our Elder Brother 10. In the midst of all his torments Jesus only made one Prayer of sorrow to represent his sad condition to his Father but no accent of murmur no syllable of anger against his enemies In stead of that he sent up a holy charitable and effective Prayer for their forgiveness and by that Prayer obtained of God that within 55 days 8000 of his enemies were converted So potent is the prayer of Charity that it prevails above the malice of men turning the arts of Satan into the designs of God and when malice occasions the Prayer the Prayer becomes an antidote to malice And by this instance our Blessed Lord consigned that Duty to us which in his Sermons he had preached That we should forgive our enemies and pray for them and by so doing our selves are freed from the stings of anger and the storms of a revengeful spirit and we oftentimes procure servants to God friends to our selves and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven 11. Of the two Thieves that were crucified together with our Lord the one blasphemed the other had at that time the greatest Piety in the world except that of the Blessed Virgin and particularly had such a Faith that all the Ages of the Church could never shew the like For when he saw Christ in the same condemnation with himself crucisied by the Romans accused and scorned by the Jews forsaken by his own Apostles a dying distressed Man doing at that time no Miracles to attest his Divinity or Innocence yet then he confesses him to be a Lord and a King and his Saviour He confessed his own
Four Thousand debauched and profligate wretches The Apostle replied that he was a Jew of Tarsus a Free-man of a rich and honourable City and therefore begg'd of him that he might have leave to speak to the People Which the Captain readily granted and standing near the Door of the Castle and making signs that they would hold their peace he began to address himself to them in the Hebrew Language which when they heard they became a little more calm and quiet while he discoursed to them to this effect 7. HE gave them an account of himself from his Birth of his education in his youth of the mighty zeal which he had for the Rites and Customes of their Religion and with what a passionate earnestness he persecuted and put to death all the Christians that he met with whereof the High Priest and the Sanhedrim could be sufficient witnesses He next gave them an intire and punctual relation of the way and manner of his conversion and how that he had received an immediate command from God himself to depart Jerusalem and preach unto the Gentiles At this word the patience of the Jews could hold no longer but they unanimously cried out to have him put to death it not being fit that such a Villain should live upon the Earth And the more to express their fury they threw off their Clothes and cast dust into the Air as if they immediately designed to stone him To avoid which the Captain of the Guard commanded him to be brought within the Castle and that he should be examined by whipping till he confessed the reason of so much rage against him While the Lictor was binding him in order to it he asked the Centurion that stood by whether they could justifie the scourging a Citizen of Rome and that before any sentence legally passed upon him This the Centurion presently intimated to the Governor of the Castle bidding him have a care what he did for the Prisoner was a Roman Whereat the Governor himself came and asked him whether he was a free Denizon of Rome and being told that he was he replied that it was a great priviledge a priviledge which he himself had purchased at a considerable rate To whom S. Paul answered that it was his Birth right and the priviledge of the place where he was born and bred Hereupon they gave over their design of whipping him the Commander himself being a little startled that he had bound and chained a Denizon of Rome 8. THE next Day the Governor commanded his Chains to be knock'd off and that he might throughly satisfie himself in the matter commanded the Sanhedrim to meet and brought down Paul before them where being set before the Council he told them that in all passages of his life he had been careful to act according to the severest rules and conscience of his duty Men and Brethren I have lived in all good conscience before God untill this day Behold here the great security of a good man and what invisible supports innocency affords under the greatest danger With how generous a confidence does vertue and honesty guard the breast of a good man as indeed nothing else can lay a firm basis and foundation for satisfaction and tranquillity when any misery or calamity does overtake us Religion and a good conscience beget peace and a Heaven in the Man's bosome beyond the power of the little accidents of this World to ruffle and discompose Whence Seneca compares the mind of a wise and a good man to the state of the upper Region which is always serene and calm The High-Priest Ananias being offended at the holy and ingenuous freedom of our Apostle as if by asserting his own innocency he had reproached the justice of their Tribunal commanded those that stood next him to strike him in the Face whereto the Apostle tartly replied That GOD would smite him Hypocrite as he was who under a pretence of doing Justice had illegally commanded him to be punished before the Law condemned him for a Malefactor Whereupon they that stood by asked him how he durst thus affront so sacred and venerable a Person as Gods High Priest He calmly returned That he did not know or own Ananias to be an High Priest of God's appointment However being a Person in Authority it was not lawful to revile him God himself having commanded that no man should speak evil of the Ruler of the People The Apostle who as he never laid aside the innocency of the Dove so knew how when occasion was to make use of the wisdom of the Serpent perceiving the Council to consist partly of Sadduces and partly of Pharisees openly told them that he was a Pharisee and the Son of a Pharisee and that the main thing he was questioned for was his belief of a future Resurrection This quickly divided the Council the Pharisees being zealous Patrons of that Article and the Sadducees as stifly denying that there is either Angel that is of a spiritual and immortal nature really subsisting of it self for otherwise they cannot be supposed to have utterly denied all sorts of Angels seeing they own'd the Pentateuch wherein there is frequent mention of them or Spirit or that humane Souls do exist in a separate state and consequently that there is no Resurrection Presently the Doctors of the Law who were Pharisees stood up to acquit him affirming he had done nothing amiss that it was possible he had received some intimation from Heaven by an Angel or the revelation of the H. Spirit and if so then in opposing his Doctrine they might fight against God himself 9. GREAT were the dissentions in the Council about this matter in so much that the Governor fearing S. Paul would be torn in pieces commanded the Souldiers to take him from the Bar and return him back into the Castle That night to comfort him after all his frights and fears God was pleased to appear to him in a vision incouraging him to constancy and resolution assuring him that as he had born witness to his cause at Jerusalem so in despite of all his enemies he should live to bear his testimony even at Rome it self The next Morning the Jews who could as well cease to be as to be mischievous and malicious finding that these dilatory proceedings were not like to do the work resolved upon a quicker dispatch To which end above Forty of them entred into a wicked confederacy which they ratified by Oath and Execration never to eat or drink till they had killed him and having acquainted the Sanhedrim with their design they intreated them to importune the Governor that he might again the next day be brought down before them under pretence of a more strict trial of his case and that they themselves would lye in ambush by the way and not fail to dispatch him But that Divine providence that peculiarly superintends the safety of good men disappoints the devices of the crafty
of her incomparable beauty by the help of Simon the Magician a Jew of Cyprus ravished her from her Husbands bed and in defiance of all law and right kept her for his own Wife To these qualities he had added bribery and covetousness and therefore frequently sent for S. Paul to discourse with him expecting that he should have given him a considerable summ for his release and the rather probably because he had heard that S. Paul had lately brought up great summs of money to Jerusalem But finding no offers made either by the Apostle or his friends he kept him prisoner for two years together so long as himself continued Procurator of that Nation when being displaced by Nero he left S. Paul still in prison on purpose to 〈◊〉 the Jews and engage them to speak better of him after his departure from them 4. TO him succeeded Portius Festus in the Procuratorship of the Province at whose first coming to Jerusalem the High-Priest and Sanhedrim presently began to prefer to him an Indictment against S. Paul desiring that in order to his Trial he might be sent for up from Caesarea designing under this pretence that some Assassinates should lie in the way to murder him Festus told them that he himself was going shortly for Caesarea and that if they had any thing against S. Paul they should come down thither and accuse him Accordingly being come to Caesarea and sitting in open Judicature the Jews began to renew the Charge which they had heretofore brought against S. Paul Of all which he cleared himself they not being able to make any proof against him However Festus being willing to oblige the Jews in the entrance upon his Government asked him whether he would go up and be tried before him at Jerusalem The Apostle well understanding the consequences of that proposal told him that he was a Roman and therefore ought to be judged by their Laws that he stood now at Caesar's own Judgment-seat as indeed what was done by the Emperor's Procurator in any Province the Law reckoned as done by the Emperor himself and though he should submit to the Jewish Tribunal yet he himself saw that they had nothing which they could prove against him that if he had done any thing which really deserved capital punishment he was willing to undergo it but if not he ought not to be delivered over to his enemies who were before-hand resolved to take away his life However as the safest course he solemnly made his appeal to the Roman Emperor who should judge between them Whereupon Festus advising with the Jewish Sanhedrim received his appeal and told him he should go to Caesar. This way of appealing was frequent amongst the Romans introduced to defend and secure the lives and fortunes of the populacy from the unjust incroachments and over-rigorous severities of the Magistrates whereby it was lawful in cases of oppression to appeal to the people for redress and rescue a thing more than once and again setled by the Sanction of the Valerian Laws These appeals were wont to be made in writing by Appellatory Libels given in wherein was contained an account of the Appellant the person against whom and from whose Sentence he did appeal But where the case was done in open Court it was enough for the Criminal verbally to declare that he did appeal In great and weighty cases appeals were made to the Prince himself and that not only at Rome but in the Provinces of the Empire all Proconsuls and Governours of Provinces being strictly forbidden to execute scourge bind or put any badge of servility upon a Citizen or any that had the priviledge of a Citizen of Rome who had made his appeal or any ways to hinder him from going thither to obtain justice at the hands of the Emperor who had as much regard to the liberty of his Subjects says the Law it self as they could have of their good will and obedience to him And this was exactly S. Paul's case who knowing that he should have no fair and equitable dealing at the hands of the Governour when once he came to be swayed by the Jews his sworn and inveterate enemies appealed from him to the Emperor the reason why Festus durst not deny his demand it being a priviledge so often so plainly setled and confirmed by the Roman Laws 5. SOME time after King Agrippa who succeeded Herod in the Tetrarchate of 〈◊〉 and his Sister Bernice came to Caesarea to make a visit to the new-come Governour To him Festus gave an account of S. Paul and the great stir and trouble that had been made about him and how for his safety and vindication he had immediately appealed to Caesar. Agrippa was very desirous to see and hear him and accordingly the next day the King and his Sister accompanied with Festus the Governour and other persons of quality came into the Court with a pompous and magnificent retinue where the prisoner was brought forth before him Festus having acquainted the King and the Assembly how much he had been solicited by the Jews both at Caesarea and Jorusalem concerning the prisoner at the Bar that as a notorious Malefactor he might be put to death but that having found him guilty of no capital crime and the prisoner himself having appealed to Caesar he was resolved to send him to Rome but yet was willing to have his case again discussed before Agrippa that so he might be furnished with some material instructions to send along with him since it was very absurd to send a prisoner without signifying what crimes were charged upon him 6. HEREUPON Agrippa told the Apostle he had liberty to make his own defence To whom after silence made he particularly addressed his speech he tells him in the first place what a happiness he had that he was to plead before one so exactly versed in all the rites and customs the questions and the controversies of the Jewish Law that the Jews themselves knew what had been the course and manner of his life how he had been educated under the Institutions of the Pharisces the strictest Sect of the whole Jewish Religion and had been particularly disquieted and arraigned for what had been the constant belief of all their Fathers what was sufficiently credible in it self and plainly enough revealed in the Scripture the Resurrection of the dead He next gave him an account with what a bitter and implacable zeal he had formerly persecuted Christianity told him the whole story and method of his conversion and that in compliance with a particular Vision from Heaven he had preached repentance and reformation of life first to the Jews and then after to the Gentiles That it was for no other things than these that the Jews apprehended him in the Temple and designed to murder him but being rescued and upheld by a Divine power he continued in this testimony to this day asserting nothing but what was perfectly agreeable to Moses