done more then to escape the punishment of his Fathers follies If sin doth abound and evils by sin are derived from his Parents much more shall grace super abound and mercy by grace If he was in danger from the crimes of others much rather shall he be secured by his own piety For if God punishes the sins of the fathers to four generations yet he rewards the piety of fathers to ten to hundreds and to thousands Many of the Ancestors of Abraham were persons not noted for religion but suffered in the publike impiety and almost universal idolatry of their ages and yet all the evils that could thence descend upon the family were wiped off and God began to reckon with Abraham upon a new stock of blessings and piety and he was under God the Original of so great a blessing that his family for 1500. years together had from him a title to many favours and what ever evils did chance to them in the descending ages were but single evils in respect of that treasure of mercies which the fathers piety had obtained to the whole nation And it is remarkable to observe how blessings did stick to them for their fathers sakes even whether they would or no. For first his Grand-childe Esau proved a naughty man and he lost the great blessing which was intailed upon the family but he got not a curse but a lesse blessing and yet because he lost the greater blessing God excluded him from being reckoned in the elder time for God foreseeing the event so ordered it that he should first lose his birth-right and then lose the blessing for it was to be certain the family must be reckoned for prosperous in the proper line and yet God blessed Esau into a great Nation and made him the Father of many Princes Now the line of blessing being reckoned in Jacob God blessed his family strangely and by miracle for almost five generations he brought them from Egypt by mighty signes and wonders and when for sin they all died in their way to Canaan two onely excepted God so ordered it that they were all reckoned as single deaths the Nation still descending like a river whose waters were drunk up for the beauvrage of an army but still it keeps its name and current and the waters are supplied by showers and springs and providence After this iniquity still increased and then God struck deeper and spread curses upon whole families he translated the Priesthood from line to line he removed the Kingome from one family to another and still they sinned worse and then we read that God smote almost a whole tribe the tribe of Benjmin was almost extinguished about the matter of the Levites Concubine but still God remembred his promise which he made with their forefathers and that breach was made up After this we finde a greater rupture made and ten tribes fell into idolatry and ten tribes were carried captives into Assyria and never came again But still God remembred his covenant with Abraham and left two Tribes but they were restlesse in their provocation of the God of Abraham and they also were carried captive But still God was the God of their fathers and brought them back and placed them safe and they grew again into a Kingdom and should have remained for ever but that they killed one that was greater then Abraham even the Messias and then they were rooted out and the old covenant cast off and God delighted no more to be called the God of Abraham but the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As long as God kept that relation so long for the fathers sakes they had a title and an inheritance to a blessing for so saith Saint Paul As touching the election they are beloved for the Fathers sakes I did insist the longer upon this instance that I might remonstrate how great and how sure and how persevering mercies a pious Father of a family may derive upon his succeeding generations And if we do but tread in the footsteps of our Father Abraham we shall inherit as certain blessings But then I pray adde these considerations 1. If a great impiety and a clamorous wickednesse hath stained the honour of a family and discomposed its title to the Divine mercies and protection it is not an ordinary piety that can restore this family An ordinary even course of life full of sweetnesse and innocency will secure every single person in his own eternal interest but that piety which must be a spring of blessings and communicative to others that must plead against the sins of their Ancestors and begin a new bank of mercies for the Relatives that must be a great and excellent a very religious state of life A smal pension will maintain a single person but he that hath a numerous family and many to provide for needs a greater providence of God and a bigger provision for their maintenance and a small revenue will not keep up the dignity of a great house especially if it be charged with a great debt And this is the very state of the present question That piety that must be instrumental to take off the curse imminent upon a family to blesse a numerous posterity to secure a fair condition to many ages and to pay the debts of their Fathers sins must be so large as that all necessary expences and dutyes for his own soul being first discharged it may be remarkeable in great expressions it may be exemplar to all the family it may be of universal efficacie large in the extension of parts deep in the intension of degrees and then as the root of a tree receives nourishment not onely sufficient to preserve its own life but to transmit a plastick juice to the trunk of the tree and from thence to the utmost branch and smallest gem that knots in the most distant part So shall the great and exemplar piety of the father of a family not onely preserve to the interest of his own soul the life of grace and hopes of glory but shall be a quickning spirit active and communicative of ablessing not onely to the trunk of the tree to the body and rightly descending line but even to the collateral branches to the most distant relatives and all that shall claim a kinred shall have a title to a blessing And this was the way that was prescribed to the family of Eli upon whom a sad curse was intailed that there should not be an old man of the family for ever and that they should be beggers and lose the office of Priesthood by the counsel of R. Johanan the son of Zacheus all the family betook themselves to a great a strict and a severe religion and God was intreated to revoke his decree to be reconciled to the family to restore them to the common condition of men from whence they stood separate by the displeasure of God against the crime of Eli and his Sons Hophni and Phinehas This course is sure
yet it is onely our sin that makes death to be evil And I desire this to be observed because it is of great use in vindicating the Divine justice in the matter of this question The materiall part of the evil came from our father upon us but the formality of it the sting and the curse is onely by our selves 2. For the fault of others many may become miserable even all or any of those whose relation is such to the sinner that he in any sense may by such inflictions be punished execrable or oppressed Indeed it were strange if when a plague were in Ethiopia the Athenians should be infected or if the house of Pericles were visited and Thucydides should die for it For although there are some evils which as Plutarch saith are ansis propagationibus praedita incredibili celeritate in longinquum penetrantia such which can dart evil influences as Porcupines do their quils yet as at so great distances the knowledge of any confederate events must needs be uncertain so it is also uselesse because we neither can joyne their causes nor their circumstances nor their accidents into any neighbourhood of conjunction Relations are seldome noted at such distances and if they were it is certain so many accidents will intervene that will out-weigh the efficacy of such relations that by any so far distant events we cannot be instructed in any duty nor understand our selves reproved for any fault But when the relation is neerer and is joyned under such a head and common cause that the influence is perceived and the parts of it do usually communicate in benefit notices or infelicity especially if they relate to each other as superiour and inferiour then it is certain the sin is infectious I mean not onely in example but also in punishment And of this I shall shew 1. In what instances usually it is so 2. For what reasons it is so and justly so 3. In what degree and in what cases it is so 4. What remedies there are for this evil 1. It is so in kingdoms in Churches in families in politicall artificiall and even in accidentall societies When David numbred the people God was angry with him but he punished the people for the crime seventy thousand men died of the plague and when God gave to David the choice of three plagues he chose that of the pestilence in which the meanest of the people and such which have the least society with the acts and crimes of Kings are most commonly devoured whilest the powerfull and sinning persons by arts of physick and flight by provisions of nature and accidents are more commonly secured * But the story of the Kings of Israel hath furnished us with an example fitted with all the stranger circumstances in this question Joshuah had sworn to the Gibeonites who had craftily secured their lives by exchanging it for their liberties Almost 500. yeers after Saul in zeal to the men of Israel and Judah slew many of them After this Saul dies and no question was made of it But in the dayes of David there was a famine in the land three yeers together and God being inquired of said it was because of Saul his killing the Gibeonites What had the people to do with their Kings fault or at least the people of David with the fault of Saul That we shall see anon But see the way that was appointed to expiate the crime and the calamity David took seven of Sauls sons and hanged them up against the Sun and after that God was intreated for the land The story observes one circumstance more that for the kindnesse of Jonathan David spared Mephibosheth Now this story doth not onely instance in Kingdoms but in families too The fathers fault is punished upon the sons of the family and the Kings fault upon the people of his land even after the death of the King after the death of the father Thus God visited the sin of Ahab partly upon himself partly upon his sons I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Thus did God slay the childe of Bathsheba for the sin of his father David and the whole family of Eli all his kinred of the neerer lines were thrust from the priesthood and a curse made to descend upon his children for many ages that all the males should die young and in the flower of their youth The boldnesse and impiety of Cham made his posterity to be accursed and brought slavery into the world Because Amalek fought with the sons of Israel at Rephidim God took up a quarrell against the nation for ever And above all examples is that of the Jews who put to death the Lord of life and made their nation to be an anathema for ever untill the day of restitution His blood be upon us and upon our children If we shed innocent blood If we provoke God to wrath If we oppresse the poor If we crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame the wrath of God will be upon us and upon our children to make us a cursed family and who are the sinners to be the stock and original of the curse the pedigree of the misery shall derive from us This last instance went further then the other of families and kingdoms For not onely the single families of the Jews were made miserable for their Fathers murdering the Lord of life nor also was the Nation extinguished alone for the sins of their Rulers but the religion was removed it ceased to be God peoples the synagogue was rejected and her vail rent and her privacies dismantled and the Gentiles were made to be Gods people when the Jews inclosure was disparkâ—d I need not further to instance this proposition in the case of National Churches though it is a sad calamity that is fallen upon the al seven Churches of Asia to whom the spirit of God wrote seven Epistles by Saint John and almost all the Churches of Africa where Christ was worshipped and now Mahomet is thrust in substitution and the people are servants and the religion is extinguished or where it remains it shines like the Moon in an Eclipse or like the least spark of the pleiades seen but seldom And that rather shining like a gloworm then a taper enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse I shall adde no more instances to verifie the truth of this save onely I shall observe to you that even there is danger in being in evil company in suspected places in the civil societies and fellowships of wicked men Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vulgarit arcanae sub ijsdem sit trabibus fragilemque mecum solvat phaselum saepe Diespiter Neglectus in cesto addidit in tegrum And it hapned to the Mariners who carried Jonah to be in danger with a horrid storme because Jonah was there who had sinned against the Lord. Many times the
sin of one man is punished by the falling of a house or a wall upon him and then al the family are like to be crushed with the same ruine so dangerous so pestilential so infectious a thing is sin that it scatters the poison of its breath to all the neighbourhood and makes that the man ought to be avoided like a person infected with the plague Next I am to consider why this is so and why it is justly so To this I answer 1. Between Kings and their people Parents and their children there is so great a necessitude propriety and entercourse of nature dominion right and possession that they are by God and the laws of Nations reckoned as their Goods and their blessings The honour of a King is in the multitude of his people and children are a gift that cometh of the Lord and happy is that man that hath his quiver full of them and Lo thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord his wife shall be like the fruitful vine by the wals of his house his children like olive branches round about his Table Now if children be a blessing then to take them away in anger is a curse and if the losse of flocks and herds the burning of houses the blasting of fields be a curse how much greater is it to lose our children and to see God slay them before our eyes in hatred to our persons and detestation and loathing of our basenesse When Jobs Messengers told him the sad stories of fire from Heaven the burning his sheep and that the Sabeans had driven his Oxen away and the Chaldeans had stolne his Camels these were sad arrests to his troubled spirit but it was reserved as the last blow of that sad execution that the ruines of a house had crush'd his Sons and Daughters to their graves Sons daughters are greater blessings then sheep Oxen they are not servants of profit as sheep are but they secure greater ends of blesssing they preserve your Names they are so many titles of provision providence every new childe is a new title to Gods care of that family They serve the ends of honour of commonwealths and Kingdoms they are images of our souls and images of God and therefore are great blessings and by consequence they are great riches though they are not to be sold for mony and surely he that hath a cabinet of invaluable jewels will think himself rich though he never sells them Does God take care for Oxen said our blessed Saviour much more for you yea all and every one of your children are of more value then many Oxen when therefore God for your sin strikes them with crookednesse with deformity with foolishnesse with impertinent and caytive spirits with hasty or sudden deaths it is a greater curse to us then to lose whole herds of cattel of which it is certain most men would be very sensible They are our goods they are our blessings from God therefore we are striken when for our sakes they dye Therefore we may properly be punished by evils happening to our Relatives 2. But as this is a punishment to us so it is not unâ—ust as to them though they be innocent For all the calamities of this life are incident to the most Godly persons of the world and since the King of Heaven and earth was made a man of sorrows it cannot be called unjust or intolerable that innocent persons should be pressed with temporal infelicities onely in such cases we must distinguish the misery from the punishment for that all the world dyes is a punishment of Adams sin but it is no evil to those single persons that die in the Lord for they are blessed in their death Jonathan was killed the same day with his Father the King and this was a punishment to Saul indeed but to Jonathan it was a blessing for since God had appointed the kingdom to his neighbour it was more honourable for him to die fighting the Lords battel then to live and see himself the lasting testimony of Gods curse upon his Father who lost the Kingdom from his family by his disobedience That death is a blessing which ends an Honorable and prevents an inglorious life And our children it may be shall be sanctified by a sorrow and purified by the fire of affliction and they shall receive the blessing of it but it is to their Fathers a curse who shall wound their own hearts with sorrow and cover their heads with a robe of shame for bringing so great evil upon their house 3. God hath many ends of providence to serve in this dispensation of his judgements * 1. He expresses the highest indignation against sin and makes his examples lasting communicative and of great effect it is a little image of hell and we shall the lesse wonder that God with the pains of eternity punishes the sins of time when with our eyes we see him punish a transient action with a lasting judgement * 2. It arrests the spirits of men and surprises their loosenesses and restrains their gaiety when we observe that the judgements of God finde us out in all relations and turns our comforts into sadnesse and makes our families the scene of sorrows and we can escape him no where and by sin are made obnoxious not alone to personall judgements but that we are made like the fountains of the dead sea springs of the lake of Sodom in stead of refreshing our families with blessings we leave them brimstone and drought and poison and an evil name and the wrath of God and a treasure of wrath and their Fathers sins for their portion and inheritance * Naturalists say that when the leading goats in the Greek Islands have taken an Eryngus or sea holly into their mouths all the herd will stand still till the herds man comes and forces it out as apprehending the evil that will come to them all if any of them especially their Principals tast an unwholesome plant and indeed it is of a General concernment that the Master of a family or the Prince of a people from whom as from a fountain many issues do derive upon their Relatives should be springs of health and sanctity and blessing It is a great right and propriety that a King hath in his people or a Father in his children thaâ— even their sins can do these a mischiefe not onely by a direct violence but by the execution of Gods wrath God hath made strange bands and vessels or chanels of communication between them when even the anger of God shal be conveied by the conduits of such relations That would be considered It binds them neerer then our new doctrine will endure but it also binds us to pray for them and for their Holinesse and good Government as earnestly as we would be delivered from death or sicknesse or poverty or war or the wrath of God in any instance 3. This also will satisfie the fearfulnesse of such persons who
nothing is easier then to follow and to be obedient Sermon XXII Of Christian Prudence Part III. 7. AS it is a part of Christian prudence to take into the conduct of our soules a spiritual man for a guide so it is also of great concernment that we be prudent in the choice of him whom we are to trust in so great an interest Concerning which it will be impossible to give characters and significations particular enough to enable a choice without the interval assistances of prayer experience and the Grace of God He that describes a man can tell you the colour of his hair his stature and proportions and describe some general lines enough to distingush him from a Cyclops or a Saracen but when you chance to see the man you will discover figures or little features of which the description had produced in you no Phantasme or expectation And in the exteriour significations of a sect there are more semblances then in mens faces and greater uncertainty in the signes what is faulty strives so craftily to act the true and proper images of things and the more they are defective in circumstances the more curious they are in forms and they also use such arts of gaining Proselytes which are of most advantage towards an effect and therefore such which the true Christian ought to pursue and the Apostles actually did and they strive to follow their patterns in arts of perswasion not onely because they would seem like them but because they can have none so good so effective to their purposes that it follows that it is not more a duty to take care that we be not corrupted with false teachers then that we be not abused with false signes for we as well finde a good man teaching a false proposition as a good cause managed by ill men and a holy cause is not alwayes dressed with healthful symptomes nor is there a crosse alwayes set upon the doores of those congregations who are infected with the plague of heresy When Saint John was to separate false teachers from true he took no other course but to remark the doctrine which was of God and that should be the mark of cognisance to distinguish right shepheards from robbers and invaders every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God He that denieth it is not of God By this he bids his schollers to avoid the present sects of Ebion Cerinthus Simon Magus and such other persons that denied that Christ was at all before he came or that he came really in the flesh and a proper humanity This is a clear note and they that conversed with Saint John or believed his doctrine were sufficiently instructed in the present Questions But this note will signify nothing to us for all sects of Christians confesse Jesus Christ come in the flesh and the following sects did avoid that rock over which a great Apostle had hung out so plain a lantern In the following ages of the Church men have been so curious to signifie misbelievers that they have invented and observed some signes which indeed in some cases were true real appendages of false believers but yet such which were also or might be common to them with good men and members of the Catholick Church some few I shall remark and give a short account of them that by removing the uncertain we may fix our inquiries and direct them by certain significations lest this art of prudence turn into folly and faction errour and secular designe 1. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their adversaries doctrine new and of yesterday and certainly this is a good signe if it be rightly applyed for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church and the spirit enlarged or expounded and the Apostles delivered we are to begin the Christian aera for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching our account begins then and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false and whatsoever is besides what they taught is no part of our religion and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church the proposition is alwayes so uncertain that it s not to be admitted into the faith and therefore if it be old in respect of our dayes it is not therefore necessary to be believed if it be new it may be received into opinion according to its probabilitie and no sects or interest are to be divided upon such accounts This onely I desire to be observed that when a truth returns from banishment by a postliminium if it was from the first though the Holy fire hath been buried or the river ran under ground yet that we do not call that new since newnesse is not to be accounted of by a proportion to our short lived memories or to the broken records and fragments of story left after the inundation of barbarisme and war and change of Kingdoms and corruption of Authors but by its relation to the fountain of our truths and the birth of our religion under our Fathers in Christ the holy Apostles and Disciples a Camel was a new thing to them that saw it in the fable But yet it was created as soon as a cow or the domestick creatures and some people are apt to call every thing new which they never heard of before as if all religion were to be measured by the standards of their observation or country customs Whatsoever was not taught by Christ or his Apostles though it came in by Papias or Dionysius by Arius or Liberius is certainly new as to our account and whatsoever is taught to us by the Doctors of the present age if it can shew its test from the beginning of our period for revelation is not to be called new though it be pressed with a new zeal and discoursed of by unheard of arguments that is though men be ignorant and need to learn it yet it is not therefore new or unnecessary 2. Some would have false teachers sufficiently signified by a name or the owning of a private Appellative as of Papist Lutheran Calvenists Zuinglian Socinian think it is enough to denominat them not of Christ if they are called by the name of a man And indeed the thing is in it self ill but then if by this mark we shall esteem false teachers sufficiently signified we must follow no man no Church nor no communion for all are by their adversaries marked with an appellative of separation and singularity and yet themselves are tenacious of a good name such as they choose or such as is permitted to them by fame and the people and a natural necessity of making a distinction Thus the Donatist called themselves the flock of God and the Novatians called the Catholicks traditors and the Eustathians called themselves Catholikes and the worshippers of images made Iconoclast to be a name
told his disciples that they should sit upon twelve thrones they presently thought they had his bond for a kingdom and dreamt of wealth and honour power and a splendid court and Christ knew they did but did not disintangle his promise from the enfolded and intricate sence of which his words were naturally capable but he performed his promise to better purposes then they hoped for they were presidents in the conduct of souls Princes of Gods people the chief in sufferings stood neerest to the crosse had an elder brothers portion in the Kingdom of grace were the founders of Churches and dispensers of the mysteries of the kingdom and ministers of the spirit of God and chanels of mighty blessings under mediators in the Priesthood of their Lord and their names were written in heaven and this was infinitely better then to groan and wake under a head pressed with a golden crown and pungent cares and to eat alone and to walk in a croud and to be vexed with all the publick and many of the private evils of the people which is the sum Total of an earthly Kingdom When God promised to the obedient that they should live long in the land which he would give them he meant it of the land of Canaan but yet reserved to himself the liberty of taking them quickly from that land and carrying them to a better He that promises to lend me a staffe to walk withal and instead of that gives me a horse to carry me hath not broken his promise nor dealt deceitfully And this is Gods dealing with mankinde he promises more then we could hope for and when he hath done that he gives us more then he hath promised God hath promised to give to them that fear him all that they need food and raiment but he addes out of the treasures of his mercy variety of food and changes of raiment some to get strength and some to refresh something for them that are in health and some for the sick And though that skins of buls and stagges and foxes and bears could have drawn a vail thick enough to hide the apertures of sin and natural shame and to defend us from heat and cold yet when he addeth the fleeces of sheep and beavers and the spoiles of silk worms he hath proclaimed that although his promises are the bounds of our certain expectation yet they are not the limits of his loving kindnesse and if he does more then he hath promised no man can complain that he did otherwise and did greater things then he said thus God does but therefore so also must we imitating that example and transcribing that copy of divine truth alwayes remembring that his promises are yea and Amen And although God often goes more yet he never goes lesse and therefore we must never go from ur promises unlesse we be thrust from thence by disability or let go by leave or called up higher by a greater intendment and increase of kindnesse And therefore when Solyman had sworn to Ibrahim-Bassa that he would never kill him so long as he were alive he quitted himself but ill when he sent an Eunuch to cut his throat when he slept because the Priest told him that sleep was death His act was false and deceitful as his great prophet But in this part of simplicity we Christians have a most especiall obligation for our religion being ennobled by the most and the greatest promises and our faith made confident by the veracity of our Lord and his word made certain by miracles and prophecies and voices from heaven and all the testimony of God himself and that truth it self is bound upon us by the efficacy of great endearments and so many precepts if we shall suffer the faith of a Christian to be an instrument to deceive our brother and that he must either be incredulous or deceived uncharitable or deluded like a fool we dishonour the sacrednesse of the institution and become strangers to the spirit of truth and to the eternall word of God Our Blessed Lord would not have his disciples to swear at all no not in publick Judicature if the necessities of the world would permit him to be obeyed If Christians will live according to the religion the word of a Christian were sufficient instrument to give testimony and to make promises to secure a faith and upon that supposition oathes were uselesse and therefore forbidden because there could be no necessity to invoke Gods name in promises or affirmations if men were indeed Christians and therefore in that case would be a taking it in vain but because many are not and they that are in name oftentimes are so in nothing else it became necessary that man should swear in judgment and in publick courts but consider who it was that invented and made the necessitie of oaths of bonds of securities of statutes extents judgements and all the artifices of humane diffidence and dishonesty These things were indeed found out by men but the necessity of these was from him that is the father of lies from him that hath made many faire promises but never kept any or if he did it was to do a bigger mischief to cozen the more for so does the Devil He promises rich harvests and blasts the corn in the spring he tells his servants they shall be rich and fills them with beggerly qualities makes them base and indigent greedy and penurious and they that serve him intirely as witches and such miserable persons never can be rich if he promises health then men grow confident and intemperate and do such things whereby they shall die the sooner and die longer they shall die eternally He deceives men in their trust and frustrates their hopes and eludes their expectations and his promises have a period set beyond which they cannot be true For wicked men shall enjoy a faire fortune but till their appointed time and then it ends imperfect and most accomplished misery and therefore even in this performance he deceives them most of all promising and performing coloured stones and glasse-gems that he may cozen them of their glorious inheritance All fraudulent breakers of promises dresse themselves by his glasse whose best imagery is deformity and lies Sermon XXIV Of Christian Simplicity Part II. 4. CHristian simplicity teaches opennesse and ingenuity in Contracts and matters of buying and selling covenants associations and all such entercourses which suppose an equality of persons as to the matter of right and justice in the stipulation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the old Attick law and nothing is more contrary to Christian religion then that the entercourses of justice be direct snares and that we should deal with men as men deal with foxes and wolves and vermin do all violence and when that cannot be use all craft and every thing whereby they can be made miserable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are men in the world who love to smile but that smile is more dangerous then
strangely and carelesly without prayers without Sacraments without consideration without counsel and without comfort and to dresse the souls of our dear people to so saâ— a parting is an imployment we therefore omit not alwayes because we are negligent but because the work is sad and allay the affections of the world with those melancholy circumstances but iâ— God did not in his mercies make secret and equivalent provisions for them and take care of his redeemed ones we might unhappily meet them in a sad eternity and without remedy weep together and groan for ever But God hath provided better things for them that they without us that is without our assistances shall be made perfect Sermon XXVII The Miracles of the Divine Mercy Part III. THere are very many more orders and conjugations of mercies but because the numbers of them naturally tend to their own greatnesse that is to have no measure I must reckon but a few more and them also without order for that they do descend upon us we see and feel but by what order of things or causes is as undiscerned as the head of Nilus or a sudden remembrance of a long neglected and forgotten proposition 1. But upon this account it is that good men have observed that the providence of God is so great a provider for holy living and does so certainly minister to religion that nature and chance the order of the world and the influences of heaven are taught to serve the ends of the Spirit of God and the spirit of a man I do not speak of the miracles that God hath in the severall periods of the world wrought for the establishing his lawes and confirming his promises and securing our obedience though that was all the way the overflowing and miracles of mercy as well as power but that which I consider is that besides the extraordinary emanations of the Divine power upon the first and most solemn occasions of an institution and the first beginnings of a religion such as were the wonders God did in Egypt and in the wildernesse preparatory to the sanction of that law and the first covenant and the miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles for the founding and the building up the religion of the Gospel and the new covenant God does also do things wonderfull and miraculous for the promoting the ordinary and lesse solemn actions of our piety and to assist and accompany them in a constant and regular succession It was a strange variety of naturall efficacies that Manna should sâ—nk in 24. hours if gathered upon Wednesday and Thursday and that it should last till 48. hours if gathered upon the Even of the Sabbath and that it should last many hundreds of yeers when placed in the Sanctuary by the ministery of the high Priest but so it was in the Jews religion and Manna pleased every palate and it filled all appetites and the same measure was a different proportion it was much and it was little as if nature that it might serve religion had been taught some measures of infinity which is every where and no where filling all things and circumscribed with nothing measured by one Omer and doing the work of two like the crowns of Kings fitting the browes of Nimrod and the most mighty Warriour and yet not too large for the temples of an infant Prince And not onely is it thus in nature but in contingencies and acts depending upon the choice of men for God having commanded the sons of Israel to go up to Jerusalem to worship thrice every yeer and to leave their borders to be guarded by women and children and sick persons in the neighbourhood of diligent and spitefull enemies yet God so disposed of their hearts and opportunities that they never entered the land when the people were at their solemnity untill they desecrated their rites by doing at their Passeover the greatest sin and treason in the world till at Easter they crucified the Lord of life and glory they were secure in Jerusalem and in their borders but when they had destroyed religion by this act God took away their security and Titus besieged the City at the feast of Easter that the more might perish in the deluge of the Divine indignation To this observation the Jews adde that in Jerusalem no man ever had a fall that came thither to worship that at their solemn festivals there was reception in the Town for all the inhabitants of the land concerning which although I cannot affirm any thing yet this is certain that no godly person among all the tribes of Israel was ever a begger but all the variety of humane chances were over-ruled to the purposes of providence and providence was measured by the ends of the religion and the religion which promised them plenty performed the promise till the Nation and the religion too began to decline that it might give place to a better ministery and a more excellent dispensation of the things of the world But when Christian religion was planted and had taken root and had filled all lands then all the nature of things the whole creation became servant to the kingdom of grace and the Head of the religion is also the Head of the creatures and ministers all the things of the world in order to the Spirit of grace and now Angels are ministring spirits sent forth to minister for the good of them that fear the Lord and all the violences of men and things of nature and choice are forced into subjection and lowest ministeries and to cooperate as with an united designe to verifie all the promises of the Gospel and to secure and advantage all the children of the kingdom and now he that is made poor by chance or persecution is made rich by religion and he that hath nothing yet possesses all things and sorrow it self is the greatest comfort not only because it ministers to vertue but because it self is one as in the case of repentance and death ministers to life and bondage is freedom and losse is gain and our enemies are our friends and every thing turns into religion and religion turns into felicity and all manner of advantages But that I may not need to enumerate any more particulars in this observation certain it is that Angels of light and darknesse all the influences of heaven and the fruits and productions of the earth the stars and the elements the secret things that lie in the bowels of the Sea and the entrails of the earth the single effects of all efficients and the conjunction of all causes all events foreseen and all rare contingencies every thing of chance and every thing of choice is so much a servant to him whos 's greatest desire and great interest is by all means to save our souls that we are thereby made sure that all the whole creation shall be made to bend in all the flexures of its nature and accidents that it may minister to religion to the good
the case of conscience into little particles and swallowed the lie by crumbs so that no one passage of it should rush against the conscience nor do hurt until it is all got into the belly and unites in the effect for by that time two men are abused the Merchant in his soul and the Contractor in his interest and this is the certain effect of much talking and little honesty but he that means honestly must speak but once that is one truth and hath leave to vary within the degrees of just prices and fair conditions which because they have a latitude may be enlarged or restrained according as the Merchant please save onely he must never prevaricate the measures of equity and the proportions of reputation and the publike But in all the parts of this traffick let our words be the significations of our thoughts and our thoughts designe nothing but the advantages of a permitted exchange In this case the severity is so great so exact and so without variety of case that it is not lawfull for a man to tell a truth with a collateral designe to cozen and abuse and therefore at no hand can it be permitted to lie or equivocate to speak craftily or to deceive by smoothnesse or intricacy or long discourses But this precept of simplicity in matter of contract hath one step of severity beyond this In matter of contract it is not lawfull so much as to conceal the secret and undiscernable faults of the merchandize but we must acknowledge them or else affix prices made diminute and lessened to such proportions and abatements as that fault should make Caveat emptor is a good caution for him that buyes and it secures the seller in publike Judicature but not in court of conscience and the old lawes of the Romans were as nice in this affair as the conscience of a Christian. Titus Claudius Centimalus was commanded by the Augures to pull down his house in the Coelian mountain because it hindred their observation of the flight of birds he exposes his house to sale Publius Calpurnius buyes it and is forced to pluck it down But complaining to the Judges had remedy because Claudius did not tell him the true state of the inconvenience He that sels a house infected with the plague or haunted with evil spirits sels that which is not worth such a price which it might be put to if it were in health and peace and therefore cannot demand it but openly and upon publication of the evil To which also this is to be added that in some great faults and such as have danger as in the cases now specified no diminution of the price is sufficient to make the Merchant just and sincere unlesse he tels the appendant mischief because to some persons in many cases and to all persons in some cases it is not at all valuable and they would not possesse it if they might for nothing Marcus Gratidianus bought a house of Sergius Orata which himself had sold before But because Sergius did not declare the appendant vassalage and service he was recompenced by the Judges for although it was certain that Gratidianus knew it because it had been his own yet Oportuit ex bonâ fide denunciari said the law it concerned the ingenuity of a good man to have spoken it openly In all cases it must be confessed in the price or in the words But when the evil may be personal and more then matter of interest and money it ought to be confessed and then the goods prescribed lest by my act I do my neighbour injury and I receive profit by his dammage Certain it is that ingenuity is the sweetest and easiest way there is no difficulty or cases of conscience in that and it can have no objection in it but that possibly sometimes we lose a little advantage which it may be we may lawfully acquire but still we secure a quiet conscience and if the merchandise be not worth so much to me then neither is it to him if it be to him it is also to me and therefore I have no losse no hurt to keep it if it be refused but he that secures his own profit and regards not the interest of another is more greedy of a full purse then of a holy conscience and prefers gain before justice and the wealth of his private before the necessity of publike society and commerce being a son of earth whose centre is it self without relation to heaven that moves upon anothers point and produces flowers for others and sends influence upon all the world and receives nothing in return but a cloud of perfume or the smell of a fat sacrifice God sent justice into the world that all conditions in their several proportions should be equall and he that receives a good should pay one and he whom I serve is obliged to feed and to defend me in the same proportions as I serve and justice is a relative terme and supposes two persons obliged and though fortunes are unequal and estates are in majority and subordination and men are wise or foolish honoured or despised yet in the entercourses of justice God hath made that there is no difference and therefore it was esteemed ignoble to dismisse a servant when corn was dear in dangers of shipwrack to throw out an unprofitable boy and keep a fair horse or for a wise man to snatch a plank from a drowning fool or if the Master of the ship should challenge the board upon which his passenger swims for his life or to obtrude false moneys upon others which we first took for true but at last discovered to be false or not to discover the gold which the merchant sold for alchimy The reason of all these is because the collateral advantages are not at all to be considered in matter of rights and though I am dearest to my self as my neighbour is to himself yet it is necessary that I permit him to his own advantages as I desire to be permitted to mine Now therefore simplicity and ingenuity in all contracts is perfectly and exactly necessary because its contrary destroys that equality which justice hath placed in the affaires of men and makes all things private and makes a man dearer to himself and to be preferred before Kings and republicks and Churches it destroyes society and it makes multitudes of men to be but like heards of beasts without proper instruments of exchange and securities of possession without faith and without propriety concerning all which there is no other account to be given but that the rewards of craft are but a little money and a great deal of dishonour and much suspicion and proportionable scorn watches and guards spies and jealousies are his portion But the crown of justice is a fair life and a clear reputation an inheritance there where justice dwells since she left the earth even in the kingdome of the just who shall call us to judgement for every word
and render to every man according to his works and what is the hope of the hypocrite though he hath gained when the Lord taketh away his soul Tollendum esse ex rebus contrahendis omne mendacium That 's the sum of this rule no falshod or deceit is to be endured in any contract 5. Christian simplicity hath also its necessity and passes obligation upon us towards enemies in questions of law or war Plutarch commends Lysander and Philopaemen for their craft and subtilty in war but commends it not as an ornament to their manners but that which had influence into prosperous events just as Ammianus affirms nullo discrimine virtutis ac doli prosperos omnes laudari debere bellorum eventus whatsoever in war is prosperous men use to commend But he that is a good souldier is not alwayes a good man Callicratidas was a good man and followed the old way of downright hostility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Lysander was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a crafty man full of plots but not noble in the conduct of his armes I remember Euripides brings in Achilles commending the ingenuity of his breeding and the simplicity and noblenesse of his own heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The good old man Chiron was my Tutor and he taught me to use simplicity and honesty in all my manners It was well and noble But yet some wise men do not condemn all souldiers that use to get victories by deceit Saint Austin allows it to be lawful and Saint Chrysostome commends it These Good men supposed that a crafty victory was better then a bloody war and certainly so it is if the power gotten by craft be not exercised in blood But this businesse as to the case of conscience will quickly be determined Enemies are no persons bound by contract and society and therefore are not obliged to open hostilities and ingenuous prosecutions of the war and if it be lawful to take by violence it is not unjust to take the same thing by craft But this is so to be understood that where there is an obligation either by the law of nations or by special contracts No man dare to violate his faith or honour but in these things deal with an ingenuity equal to the truth of peaecfull promises and acts of favour and endearment to our relatives Josephus tells of the sons of Herod that in their enmities with their Vncle Pherora and Salome they had disagreeing manners of prosecution as they had disagreeing hearts some railed openly and thought their enmity the more honest because it was not concealed but by their ignorance and rude untutor'd malice lay open to the close designes of the elder brood of foxes In this because it was a particular and private quarrel there is no rule of conscience but that it be wholly laid aside and appeased with charity for the opennesse of the quarrel was but the rage and indiscretion of the malice and the close designe was but the craft and advantage of the malice But in just wars on that side where a competent authority and a just cause warrants the arms and turns the active opposition into the excuse and licence of defence there is no restraint upon the actions and words of men in the matter of sincerity but that the laws of nations be strictly pursued and all parties promises andcontracts observed religiously by the proportion of a private Christian ingenuity We finde it by wise and good men mentioned with honour that the Romans threw bread from the besieged Capitol into the stations of the Gauls that they might think them full of corn and that Agesilaus discouraged the enemies by causing his own men to wear crowns in token of a Navall victory gotten by Pisander who yet was at that time destroyed by Conon and that Flaccus said the city was taken by Emilius or that Joshua dissembled a flight at Ai and the Consul Quinctius told aloud that the left wing of the enemies was fled and that made the right wing fly or that Valerius Levinus bragged prudently that he had killed Pyrrhus and that others use the ensigns of enemies colours and garments concerning which sort of actions and words Agesilaus in Plutarch said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is just and pleasant profitable and glorious but to call a parley and fall in upon the men that treat to swear a peace and watch advantage to entertain Heralds and then to torment them to get from them notices of their party these are such which are dishonorable and unjust condemned by the laws of nations and essential justice by all the world and the Hungarian army was destroyed by a divine judgement at the prayer appeal of the Mahumet an enemy for their violating their faith and honour and prophaning the name of Christ by using it in a solemn oath to deceive their enemies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to dispise God when men first sware by him and then violate their oathes or leagues their treaties or promises In other cases liberty hath been taken by all men and it is reproved by no man since the first simplicity of fighting down right blows did cease by the better instructed people of the world which was as is usually computed about the end of the second Carthaginian war since that time some few persons have been found so noble as to scorn to steal a victory but had rather have the glory of a sharp sword then of a sharp wit But their fighting gallantry is extrinsecal to the Question of lawful or unlawful 6. Thus we see how far the laws of ingenuity and Christian simplicity have put fetters upon our words and actions and directed them in the paths of truth and noblenesse and the first degrees of permission of simulation is in the arts of war and the cases of just hostility But here it is usually inquired whether it be lawful to tell a lie or dissemble to save a good mans life or to do him a great benefit a Question which Saint Austine was much troubled withal affirming it to be of the greatest difficulty for he saw generally all the Doctors before his time allowed it and of all the fathers no man is noted to have reproved it but Saint Austin alone and he also as his manner is with some variety those which followed him are to be accounted upon his score and it relies upon such precedents which are not lightly to be disallowed for so Abraham and Isaac told a lie in the case of their own danger to Abimelech so did the Israelitish midwives to Pharaoh and Rachab concering the spies and David to the King of Gath and the prophet that anointed Saul and Elisha to Hazael and Solomon in the sentence of the stolen childe concerning which Irenaeus hath given us a rule that those whose actions the Scripture hath remarked yet not chastised or censured we are not without great reason and certain rule to