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A03966
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Lot's little one. Or Meditations on Gen. 19. vers. 20 Being the substance of severall sermons sometimes delivered by William Ince Mr in Arts, late senior fellow of Trinitie Colledge Dublin. Published since his death, by R.I.
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Ince, William, d. 1635.
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1640
(1640)
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STC 14073; ESTC S119304
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53,982
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176
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neere him or hurt him Psa 91.7 c. and after a glorious victory of all miseries here Luk. 10.19 Rom. 2.7.10 he shall be crowned with glory and eternity hereafter Let us not then in a good cause be ever deterred by the vaine affrights of feare or danger The goodnesse of the cause ought to animate us in the evilnesse and hardnesse of the way to accomplish it If God be the author the devill cannot be the hinderer Honesty and goodnesse shoot in stright lines at the last and best end Gods glory and God will as certainly prosper the meanes as he doth propose the end Verum bonum convertuntur say the Schooles Truth and goodnesse are reciprocates there is no goodnesse without truth no truth without goodnesse Magna est veritas vincet great is truth and shall prevaile so all goodnesse in the strength of truth shall at last overcome The winds may blow the raine fall Matt. 7.24.25 the floods beat upon thee but thou shalt not fall for thou art grounded upon a rocke Hast thou begun then a noble a glorious action which redounds to Gods glory the Churches and Common-weal's good Incapisti benè quis impedivit Thou bast begun well Gal. 5.7 who hath hindred thee that thou continuest not If the action was evill why did you undertake it if the action was good why do you not hold on What if slanderers back-bite you and traduce you What if authority frowne what if envy maligne what if the multitude rage Psal 2.2 and the people imagine a vaine thing thou hast Gods commission say not then I cannot 't is but nè fortè malum capiat moriar but a lest some evill take me and I dye Thine owne cowardize thine owne weaknesse may conquer thee Psal 2 3. but all these though they take counsell together shall not be able to withstand thee If God set thee on worke he 'le beare thee through maugre the opposing fury of the devill and all his agents Go on then in the strength of the Lord and be victorious Psa 71.16 I tell thee if for the fortè there be an evill reall that threat thee Sicapiat if it take thee si moriare if thou die Rom. 14 8. yet know whether thou live or die Rom. 8.37 thou art more than conquerer It 's better fall in a good cause than prosper in an evill one Onely let not thy feare betray Gods cause to miscarriage If death it selfe be threatned to thee die Canst thou ever have a better end than to die for that end for which thou and all things were made Gods glory which grant O Lord that we may propose unto our selves in all our thoughts words and works that glorifying thee in this life we may receive eternall glory and felicity from and with thee in the life to come and that not for any merits â—four own but for his sake who hath dearly bought us to whom with the father and the holy Spirit be ascribed all honour praise and glory now and forever Amen GENES 19. VERS 20. Behold now this City is neere to flee unto and it is a little one O let me escape thither is it not a little one and my soule shall live IT is a property of Divinity not to erre Perfection is a White at which all of us ought to aime none may hope to hit The best men have their errours and imperfections Optimus ille est qui minimis urgetur he 's the best man that hath least he 's no man that hath no faults Let him be excepted that was without exception him that being man was more then man too CHRIST JESUS God and man in whom there was no fault neither was guile found in his lips All others are comprehended under the condition of sin which they shall never put off while they are clad in these robes of flesh The best of Gods Saints have had their slips and fals and to make them flye forth from themselves to a better and surer hold they have had often remembrances of their owne weakenesse in many grievous wounds and bitter derelictions have often fallen been wounded with the weak reed of their owne strength Wonder not then if you behold a David defiling his hands and heart with innocent blood 2 Sam. 12.9 and unlawfull pleasures David 2 Sam. 11.5 though a man after Gods owne heart 1 Sam. 13.14 was but a man Wonder not to behold a Solomon 1 Kin. 3.12 the wisest among the sonnes of men committing a double whoredome 1 Kin. 11.1.4 Spirituall and Corporall Solomon though so wise was but a man Wonder not that Peter so foully denyed and abjur'd his master Mar 14.66 67 c. unlesse you wonder that Peter was a man We receive with our birth and nature two inevitable conditions peccare mori to sin and to dye And though it hath beseemed the piety of the Churches children to justifie the Patriarkes against the bitter taunts of scaffing I shmaelites and uncircumcised Philistines and like the good sons of Noah to go backward with the vail of charity in their hands Gen. 9.23 and cover the nakednesse of their fathers yet must not that vaile of charity blindfold our judgement so that we altogether deny those faults to be which we would have concealed from the scorne of irreligious men Diminuit culpam excusatio non tollit God would have the errours and faults of his Saints as well to stand upon record as their vertues and therefore Seneca Nat. quaest lib. 6. cap. 23 as Seneca sayes of Alexander his murther of Calisthenes hoc est Alexand. crimen aeternum quod nulla virtus nulla bellorum faelicitas redimâ—t This is a blemish that shall eternally sticke on his faire name which no vertue of his nor the glory of all his victories shall redeeme quoties enim quis dixerit occidit Persarum multa millia opponetur Calisthenem quoties dictum erit occidit Darium opponetur Calisthenem quoties omnia Oceano tenus vicit ipsum quoque tentavit imperium c. opponetur sed occidit Calisthenem As often as it shall be said he slew many thousands of Persians yea but it shall be said againe he slew Calisthenes As oft as it shall be said he conquered Darius yea but he kill'd Calisthenes As often as it shall be reported to the renowne of his name he subdued all to the very Ocean and it too and removed his Kingdome from a corner of Thrace till it knew no other bounds but the same with the whole earth but as a check to all his glory it shall be said yea but he kill'd Calisthenes Thus it is in the blessed Scripture with many of the Lords worthies whose religious life and integrity deservedly cals upon our wonder to behold them but then againe lest they of themselves should entertaine too high an opinion or we of them desinit in
is the more cunning Why beleeve it he askes as much in a poriphrasis now he askes thee but this thy little he askes thy soule and aymes though he seeme to play at small games indeed at thy whole stock He askes thy soule but more slyly least thou shouldst deny him And therefore thou oughtest to be the more circumspect against his cheating modestie by how much there 's the more reall danger in his seeming lesse desire It is so farre from any care of thee that it is indeed but a cunning tolling of thee on by a seeming carelessenesse and the innocence of a little sinne For know undoubtedly that of these littles is made the devils skrew and the staires that lead to bell are winding Nemo repentè fit turpissimus No man at onst jumps into the extremity of sin Invenal Sat. 2. and the kingdome of hell like that of Heaven commeth not with observation Luk. 17.20 but by an insensible progresse we goe downeward and therefore are bid to remember from whence we are falne Rev 2.5 and the servants come to their Lord with wonder in their mouthes Matth. 13.27 Master didst not thou sow good seed in thy field from whence then hath it tares It escap't their notice for a long while even till the blade sprung up and the fruit appeared Thou seest here it is wisedome to be a precisian and that a nice and tender conscience is the best antidote against secretly insinuating poyson Had David before made a covenant with his eyes Iob. 31.1 he had not so neerely unmade his covenant with his God when he beheld Bathsheba from his tarras 2 Sam. 11.13.17 Little thought David that little thiefe lust that through the windowes of his eyes stole into his heart should have opened the doore to those two great sinnes adultery and murther 2 Sam. 12.9 Little thought he the fruitfulnesse of that sinne of lust would for one infant have doublely lost a man first in drink and then in bloud Little thought Peter when he ment at first Mark 14.66 67. c. with a plaine deniall handsomely to have shitted of the dangerous inquisition to 01 have runne into oaths and execrations By stepping but aside he little thought to have run so farre from Christ even further then they that before forsooke him and fled from him Matth. 26.56 You see then how one sinne ushers an other and like one wave cals another till at last the deepe waters goe over thy soule Canst thou pull one linke of a chaine and thinke the rest will not follow In that little sin thou art dejectus de statu gradu discomposed and disordered in thy posture so that thine enemie may close with thee Such is the fruitfulnesse and improvement of sin Since then it is sins method to winne upon us by little and little here a snatch and there let us be wise as serpents Matth. 10.16 and countermine against the policy of that grand serpent Let us arme our selves with a sacred jealousie and well wrought resolution which as Satan in vaine by force at onst should attempt to breake let us take heed that he never by his policie unravell Seneca and as Seneca counsells nobis quia regredi non est facile optimum est non progredi because we cannot easily return ' it s best way not to goe forward I have thus farre insisted out this argument of Lots in a three fold sense naturall morrall and theologicall In the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in way of essay I inquired into the reason why men are naturally compassionate and indulgent to little things Secondly I inquired what this is which we call little and whether i import any essence or quiddity positive and absolute or onely comparative and of relation In the morall sense of the words I endevoured by some Ethicall precepts to stop the voracitie and greedinesse of our desires both to God and man to cure men of that wolfe and to traine them up unto a discreet modesty in all requests that what we aske may be without a blush and given without a straine which will then be when like Lot of his Zoar we can say for our request it is a little one and nonne perexigua est is it not a very little one The Theologicall sense I have shewed might be twofold in regard of a twofold object that may be supposed Gods power or His justice 1. His power and then would the words involue an errour as dangerous as popular viz. that any thing were easier or harder to God whereas this is so onely in a measured and finite strength It is a little one is a good argument in that it implies our modestie but it is a little one is a bad argument if it looke at Gods power 2. The second sense supposing the second object which is Gods justice is likewise dangerous as confessing that Bela or Zoar a Citie of the plaines of Sodom doth partake with the rest of the Cities in the communitie of the same sinnes but it is but a little Citie and Gods justice cannot be impeached as partiall in sparing so few men so little a Citie Hitherto I have proceeded and though perhaps I have made much adoe about a little yet I am unwilling to let goe the same theme Who will not there most fortifie where he knowes his enemie will make the greatest battery It is this way and almost this way onely the devill winnes upon us The Serpent thus by little and little windes himselfe in He never delt with any except our Saviour Matth 4.6 to bid him cast down himselfe from the highest pinacle of the Temple it is his wont to us to cozen us by degrees from the height of our zeal and vertue as by winding stayres and this way he 's so much the more like to obtaine his end by how much we are lesse able to discerne either the declination or danger of the way I had almost vented a paradox and yet though I call it so I will adventure to expose it to the hazard of your censure and am much deceived if it be not acknowledged for more than halfe a truth and this it is Little sinnes or those sins which we take for little ones are many times of greater guilt and danger than those which we esteeme great ones Be pleased to suspend your censure till I acquaint you with two or three reasons First they are committed in greater numbers and so numero si non pondere valent their number will weigh against the others weight The fruit of this forbidden tree growes if not great in bulke yet in branches and clusters Secondly they are done with greater boldnesse and holdnesse is the very formale of a sinne that which dies in the deepest guilt and aggravates it beyond all excuse as if forsooth by the priledge of some extraordinary familiarity with God we might be borne out in a little boldnesse