are kept out by Porters yet they have free liberty to come into Gods House and though they have not accesse to rich mens tables yet they may have accesse to the Table of the Lord as well as the richest And though here the poor toile and take great pains to supply their wants yet this may be their comfort That God hath provided them if they serve him a place of rest hereafter and that the time is but short that they shall live in want and be forced thereby to toile and take paines for when they die they shall be freed from their wants and shall rest from their labours Rev. 14.13 And in the mean time though the poor do live in want yet as that holy Martyr said when some threatned to famish her Elizabeth Young If you saith she take away my meat I trust that God will take away my hunger So if the poor depend upon God for that which they want instead thereof he will give them contentment by taking away their desire of that which they want that they shall not need it And these things if the poorer sort considered it would make their poverty lesse evill to themselves and lesse hurtfull to others And as Agur here prayes That God would not give him poverty so likewise that God would not give him riches Give me saith he neither poverty nor riches To pray against poverty which many so fear is no more then the most will do but to pray against riches which the most so desire may be thought a Paradox But Agur here desiring rather to be good then great and fearing that riches would make him worse he praies that God would not give him riches Though riches be not evill in their own nature yet they may be as we heard before of poverty occasions of evill occasions of evill to him that is rich and of evill to others through his being rich First Of evill to him that is rich For riches do often make men proud and to forget God This Agur implies in the next verse by giving this reason why he desired that he might not be rich Least saith he I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord For none are so prone to forget God as they commonly are whom he hath blest with riches though their riches should make them the more to remember him as gifts call to mind the givers of them Therefore Moses gave a speciall Caveat to the Children of Israel to beware they forgat not the Lord when he had enricht them in the Land of Canaan Deut. 6.10 When the Lord thy God saith Moses Deut. 6. shall have brought thee into the Land to give thee great and goodly cities which thou buildest not and houses full of all good things which thou filledst not and wels digged which thou diggedst not vineyards and olive-trees which thou plantedst not when thou hast eaten and art full then beware lest thou forget the Lord. Deut. 8.11 And again Deut. 8. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God lest when thou hast eaten and art full and hast builded goodly houses and dwelt therein and when thy heards and thy flocks do multiply and when thy silver and gold and all that thou hast is multiplyed then thine heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord implying that then they would be most prone to forget him For riches by the fair shew they make do steal away mens hearts from God 2 Sam. 15.6 Psal 62.10 as Absolon by his fair shews to the people did steal away their hearts from David Therefore David gives rich men this counsell Psal 62. If riches increase set not your hearts upon them because if the heart be set upon riches then not upon God For no man saith our Saviour can serve two Masters Mat. 6.24 ye cannoâ— serve both God and riches no more then the eye as St. Augustine saith can both look up to heaven and down to the earth at the same time And as riches do steale mens hearts from God and make them not to regard him so sometimes they steale mens hearts from themselves that they regard themselves lesse then they do their riches and therefore toyle continually to get Wealth and yet are not satisfied though they have more then enough And therefore Agur in the 15. and 16. ver of this Chapter compares the covetous rich-man to those things that are the most insatiable of all other as to the Horse-leach which is ever crying give give which sucks the blood untill she be filled and then she fals off and yet presently after she fals to it a fresh and is as hungry of it as she was before To the grave that never cries it is enough but though it receive never so many dead bodies yet it consumes all and is still gaping as it were and opening the mouth that it may receive more To the earth that cannot be satisfied with water but though sometimes it be so glutted with raine and made as it were drunken so that it vomits it up againe that a man would thinke that it had taken such a surfet that it would brook rain the worse for a long time after yet ye know if it be but without showers for a while it will begin to chappe and chaune and be as thirsty thereof as it was before And so likewise to fire which is of so insatiable a nature that it cannot be exstinguisht with adding fewell unto it but the more fewell it has the more greedy it is catching hold of all that is round about it first of the chimney where it was first kindled then of the roof of the house then of the whole building and yet it will not stay there but will presently take hold of the house that is next it and so will still go further further till it have devour'd and consumed whatsoever is nere it Now as these are insatiable as the Horse-leach is not satisfyed with sucking blood the grave with the dead the earth with water nor the fire with fewell no more can a covetous rich-man be satisfied with riches though he have never so much Hence it is that such do make themselves drudges to the world to get wealth and yet grudge themselves any part thereof as unwilling to lessen that which they have For the more they have Viri divitiarum the more they desire their riches which should be a medicine to cure them of covetousnesse increasing their disease and making them more covetous and lesse willing to spend any thing upon themselves For Mammon doth commonly use his servants as Gardeners use their Asses in some Countries loading them to the Market with good herbes which are a burden to them and food for others and turning them when they have done to feed upon Thistles And thus doth Mammon deale with his followers loading them with wealth and not suffering them to injoy the benefit thereof but makes them to fare
killed him for so must Abraham It is noted by Suetonius that among other arguments of Caligula his great cruelty Sueton. Calig 27 Sect. this was one That Parents were often compelled by him to be present themselves at the execution of their children And when a father would have excused his absence from his sons execution in regard of his sicknesse we read there that Caligula sent him his horse-litter to bring him thither but we never read among all his cruelties that he forced any father to be his sons executioner There have been some saith Philo who for the safety and good of their Countrey Philo lib. de Abra. have suffered their children to be sacrificed to their gods but they in the mean time have either staied at home and would not be present when their children were sacrificed or if they were present they have turned away their eyes and covered their faces as unable to behold so sad a spectacle Thus when Iphigenia was to be sacrificed to Diana Agamemnon standing aloofe off when he saw his daughter to be brought to the Altar he could no longer endure it but as Euripides writes Euripid. in Iphig he turned away his head he drowned his eyes in tears he covered his face and all that he might not see his daughter sacrificed How then would he have endured if he himselfe should have done it for so must Abraham if God had put it to Abrahams choise whether he would have offered himselfe or his son no doubt he would have thought that God had dealt very graciously with him and that God had set Isaac but at too low a rate seeing he might purchase his life with the losse of his own for Abraham was old and therefore would willingly have yielded his life unto God which he must of necessity have yielded unto nature not long after But God will not be content with Abrahams death but with the death of his son for he knew it would be worse then death unto Abraham to live without Isaac but a thousand times more grievous when he himselfe should kill him For what might Abraham think with himselfe Cain was the first parricide that ever was and Abraham must be the second When Cain had murdred his brother Abel he thought he had committed such an abominable act that every one that saw him would be ready to kill him whosoever findes me saith Cain will slay me And Abraham might well imagine that this would make him odious among his neighbours and that every one would count him as an enemy to nature and as one that were not worthy to live among them If but any bruit beast saith Plutarch do kill their young we stand amazed at it we count it prodigious and that is portends some strange event we offer sacrifice to appease the Gods that they may defend us from it For we know saith he that nature hath taught them to love their young and not to destroy them And would not every man then exclaime against Abraham Is not this that Hebrew that murdred his son is not this he who as short a time as he hath so journed in our Land hath made the whole Countrey to ring of his cruelty are these his good works Lord how precise he seem'd amongst us how ready to reprove us of impiety and prophanesse and shall we harbour among us such a monster in nature as seems to make a scruple of the least sins and makes no conscience of murder Thus every one would be ready to crie out against Abraham and yet such was his obedience that he had rather become odious amongst his neighbours and shew himselfe cruell in killing his son then irreligious in disobeying God Scelus enim est saith Saint Augustine filium occidere sed Deum scelestius non audire It is a sin for a father to kill his son but a greater sin if he kill not his son when God commands him Doct. 2 The Doctrine which may be gathered from hence is this That God makes triall of our obedience according to the measure of his gifts and graces which he hath bestowed upon us For so we see he deals here with Abraham A light temptation had not been fit for so great a Patriarch and therefore as God had extraordinarily enricht him with the graces of his Spirit so he makes an extraordinary triall of his faith and obedience For God deals with us as a School-master is wont to deale with his schollars who examines not every one alike but according as they proceed and profit in learning so he still puts them to further exercises If God should lay any grievous triall upon those that are weak and not strengthened in faith it were enough to discourage them if light and easie upon those that were strong it were not enough to make manifest their virtues which lye hidden in them And therefore he proportions his trials of our faith to that measure of grace which he hath vouchsafed us When then we see what God here requires of Abraham we may admire Gods goodnesse and mercy towards us who spares our infirmity and makes not the like triall of our obedience For if God should lay the least of those trials upon us which he laid upon Abraham how unable were we to undergo the same And this we may see if we examine our selves as touching our obedience in smaller matters If God do but visite us with any tedious and long sicknesse or if he lay upon us any crosse or affliction by taking our goods or our children from us presently we fall into great impatience and we think that God deals very hardly with us How then would we bear it if he should make the like triall of us which he makes here of Abraham and if he should command us for the proofe of our obedience to kill our children with our own hands and to offer them unto him yet Abraham went willingly about the same If the loss of our goods will so overcome our patience as many times it doth what then would we say if God should lay upon us that which he laid upon Job when he took both his goods his children from him and when of all that ever he had he left him nothing yet Job blest God when he had taken away all The Lord saith he hath given Job 1.21 and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. In a word if a little pain in the time of our sicknesse will so bereave us of patience what then would we do if God should lay upon us that which he hath laid upon thousands of our betters I mean those Martyres in the time of persecution whereof some have had their flesh torne by piece-meale from their bodies with hot pincers some have had their bodies cut asunder with sawes and others have endured whatsoever the wit of man or the malice of Satan could invent against them and yet they have triumphed in the midst of their torments
that we dedicate it wholly to Gods service But I will passe this over and come to the fourth difficultie difficulty fourth The fourth difficultie in this Commandement is in regard of the place where he must sacrifice his Sonne namely in the land of Moriah upon one of the mountaines which God would shew him Morti destinatum citò occidere misericordia genus est It is a kinde of mercie if a man be condemned to die to dispatch him quickly and the reason is because the punishment is much augmented through the expectation of it the expectation of any evil being as ill or worse then the evil it selfe But God here the more as it may seeme to torment Abraham Commands him not onely to Sacrifice his Son but injoynes him a long and tedious journey before he must do it God might have appointed him First to go with his Son into the Land of Moriah and being come thither then he might have told him the cause of his coming But first he commands him to sacrifice his Son and then sends him to the place where he must perform the same and what is the Reason but onely this as Origen saith ut dum ambulat dum iter agit per totam viam cogitationibus discerpatur that all the while he is travelling with his Son he might ruminate upon that which he went about and be confounded in a manner with the remembrance of it Now concerning this place where Abraham was appointed to sacrifice his Sonne some of the Jewes report that Cain and Abel had offered their offrings upon the same Mountain St. Jerome writes that he had heard it for certain of some ancient Jewes that Isaac was offered in the very same place where afterwards our Saviour Christ was crucified St. Augustine addes that he had heard it reported that Christ was crucified in the very same place where Adam had been buried and therefore that it was called Calvaria locus the place of a dead mans skull quia caput humani generis ibi dicitur esse sepultum because the head of mankind lieth there buried The Saracens who will needes borrow their name from Sarah though they came of Hagar to make it more profitable that they sprang from Isaac they faine that the land of Moriah is a part of their Country and therefore when any stranger comes to their City of Mecha to see Mahomets Sepulcher hard by the City they do shew him the Mountain where on Abraham as they say did sacrifice his Sonne But the truth is that the Land of Moriah where Isaac was to be offered was the same which was afterward called Jerusalem as we may plainly gather out of the second of the Chronicles 2 Chron. 3. the third Chapter for there it is said in the first verse that Salomon built the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem in Mount Moriah So that the place where Isaac was to be offered was either the same or very near to the place where our Saviour was afterwards to be crucified And indeed it was not unfit that Isaac should be offred where our Saviour was to suffer because Isaac was a type and figure of our Saviour So saith St. Augustine Abraham quando filium suum obtulit typum habuit Dei Patris Isaac typum gessit Domini Salvatoris Abraham when he offered his Sonne represented God the Father Isaac when he was offered represented our Saviour the Son of God For many things which wore shadowed forth in Isaac were afterwards verefied in our Saviour Christ As the promises of God unto Abraham concerning his Son were often renewed and his birth foretold so were the promises and the birth of the Messias As Isaacs was named before he was borne so was also Christ As Isaacs Birth was strange and miraculous in regard that he was borne of Sarah that was barren so was also Christs being borne of a virgin As Isaac was Abrahams onely Son whom he so dearly loved so Christ was the onely begotten Son of God in whom alone he was wel pleased As Isaac was causeless to be put to death so was Christ being innocent As Isaac bore the wood wherewith he was to be sacrificed so Christ bore the Tree whereon he was to be crucified In a word as Isaac by yielding himself to be offred did testifie his obedience unto his Fathe and his Father his wonderful love unto God so Christ by submitting himself to the death declared his wonderfull obedience unto God and God his unspeakable love towards us And indeed beloved this is the most excellent use that can possibly be made of this whole History when we hear how Abraham did offer his Son we stand amazed at it we wonder how it was possible for a Father to do it And may we not much more admire the infinite love of God unto us in giving his onely begotten Son to be crucified for us When we hear how Isaac yielded himself to be bound and offered we cannot but wonder at his strange obedience and may we not much more wonder at the infinite obedience of our blessed Saviour who being equall with God yet humbled himself and became obedient â—ven to the death of the Crosse Abraham when he offered his Sonne unto God he did but restore unto God that which God had given him he might wel the rather be moved thereunto because God had been alwaies so gracious to him But when God gave his Son to be offered for us we were so far from having deserved any thing at his hands that we were his open and profest enemies Isaac when he yielded himself to be offered yet he yielded himself into his Fathers hands who was to present him for a sweet savour unto the Lord and so to put him to a kind of death which of all other might seene the most glorious But Christ when he yielded himself to be offered he yielded himself into the hands of his persecutors who he knew would not onely put him to the most ignominious death but for his further vexation even deride him in his torments When Abraham was to sacrifice his onely Sonne God was so moved with compassion and pitty that instead of his Sonne he provided a Ramme Indeed it was fitter that a Ram should dye if the death of a Ramme might ransome a Sonne But when Christ was to be offered the case was altered the Ramme was spared and the Sonne was sacrificed Nay the Sonne was therefore sacrificed that the Ram might be spared Read over all the Histories of Heathen Authours examine their writings search out all their antiquities and see if there were ever the like example of love For a man to die for his friend it is no small matter and but few have done it but if one should offer to dye for a stranger we would wonder at it O but for a man to dye for his enemy nay the Sonne of God to come down from Heaven even from his Fathers bosome to dye a most accursed death
that is into heaven keep the Commandements And heaven is called Psal 25. the land of the living I should saith David have utterly fainted but that I believe verily to see the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living that is in heaven for there they live eternally and never die In hell there is a quite contrary law that they die eternally Therefore it is said of the wicked Psal 49. They lie in hell like sheep and death gnawes upon them because there they suffer the second death which is everlasting And here upon earth there is a third law between them both Heb. 9.27 That every one living shall once suffer death Therefore saith the Apostle Heb. 9. It is appointed unto all men that they shall once dye not live here for ever as they do in heaven nor die for ever as they do in hell but once they must die and this is a law which all that live on the face of the earth are subject unto God hath given great priviledges to many of his servants and hath miraculously preserved them from many dangers Exed 34.28 1 King 19.8 Dan. 3.25 Mat. 14.29 Josh 10.12.13 some he hath preserved without any nourishment for many weeks together as Moses and Elius some he hath preserved in the midst of fire as the three children in the furnace some he hath inabled to walk upon the waters as Peter did some he hath inabled to stay the course of the Sun as Joshuah did but to stay and hinder the course of death and to free men from the same this is a priviledge which God never gave to any of his servants Therefore even they that lived before the deluge though some of them lived seven hundred years some eight hundred some nine hundred years and upwards yet they died in the end nature delaying more and more in them till it were quite spent as a candle being lighted wastes by little and little till it quite goes out Seeing then it is certain that we shall die this may therefore teach us to fit and prepare our selves against the coming of death by frequent meditation and remembrance thereof The oftner a man bethinks him of death the better he will be prepared for it as a man that foresees and expects a storm he will provide himself the better against it come And herein the Heathen themselves may be patterns unto us who though they knew not God nor the punishment of sin in the world to come yet knowing they should die they used many strange and memorable devises to put them in mind of their mortality Ortelius writes of a Countrey in the World where the people do use the bones of dead men in stead of their coin which being continually before their eyes they cannot but continually remember their ends Plutarch writes of Ptolomie the King of Egypt That alwayes when he made any sumptuous feast among the rest of his dishes the skull and bones of a dead man were brought in a platter and set before him and one was appointed to say thus unto him Plutarch in Conviv Sept. Sapientum Behold O King and consider with thy selfe this president of death that he whose skull and bones thou now seest was once like thy selfe and the time will come when thou shalt be like unto him and thy skull and bones shall be brought hereafter to the Kings table as now his are to thint Isodore writes That it was a custome in Constantinople that alwayes at the time of the Emperours Coronation among other Solemnities this was one A free Mason presented the Emperour with divers sorts of marble and asked him of which of them he should make his Tomb that so he might remember even then when he was in the height of his glory that he was but mortall Dion writes of Severus a Roman Emperour That while he lived he caused his Hearse to be made and was often wont to go in into it adding these words Thou O Herse as small as thou art must contain him whom now the whole world is searce able to contain If these who were Heathen were so mindfull of their ends what should we that are Christians We know that God hath made the end of our life the manner of our death and the place thereof to be unknown and uncertain that we might alwayes have it in expectation So saith Saint Augustine Latet ultimus dies ut observentur omnes dies Augustine Hom. 13. The last day of our lives is hidden from us that that day might be expected all the dayes of our lives And indeed the reason why we are not prepared for the comming of death is because we seldom or never think of dying for who of us almost have any thought thereof till either sicknesse or age the two Serjeants of death do come to arrest us or if at any other time we bethink us thereof it is only then when we hear the Bell to ring out for any or when we see some of our neighbours to lie upon their death-bed and past recovery Then it may be we think of our ends and that it is high time for us to prepare our selves for death that we may be in a readinesse against God shall call us But these meditations are but for a fit and they presently vanish I have seen somtimes when a Fowler coming to a Tree where there were store of birds and hath killed any one of them all the rest have immediately flown away but presently after forgetting the danger wherein they were before they have all of them returned to the same Tree And do not we resemble these silly birds when death comes to our houses and takes away any one of us we are all amazed and we presently think that the next course may be ours and therefore that it behooves us to reform our lives but presently after when the remembrance of death is out of our minds we return again to our former courses But he that will be provided against the coming of death must alwayes have death in his remembrance Tota vita sapientis debet esse meditatio mortis The whole life saith Gregory of a wise man ought to be a meditation of death That as the birth of sin was the death of man so the meditation of death may be the death of sin And as David here by comparing us to grasse and the flowers of the field implyeth thereby the certainty of our death that we shall as certainly die as we are sure that these shall fade and wither So he implyeth hereby the shortnesse of our life that we shall not live long but shall die soon as the grasse and flowers do fade and decay in a short time Theodorus Gaza tels us of a father that had twelve sons and each of those brethren had thirty children yet every one of them expired soon The father expired within the compasse of a year never a one of his sons but expired in a moneth and
shall the wicked escape Gods judgements Secondly Seeing God doth chasten those whom he loves 2. Vse this may therefore teach us to beware of censuring hardly of them that are in any distresse or affliction as if this were an argument that they are out of Gods favour and that God hath forsaken them We are prone to judge amisse of those that are in distresse If Job be afflicted Job 4.7.8 Acts 28.4 his friends will think that he is an Hypocrite If the Barbarians see a Viper hang on Pauls hand they will suspect him therefore to have been a murderer and if the Disciples see the man that was born blind John 9.2 they will judge that either he or his Parents had sinned as if they must needes be wicked persons that are afflicted The Samaritans as Josephus writes of them when they saw that matters went prosperously with the Jewes they were wont to say then that they were come of Abraham but when the Jewes were under the Crosse and suffered affliction they would then derive their Pedegree from Babel and other Nations and would not acknowledge them for Abrahams Children as if only the wicked and not the godly were subject to affliction But we see here that God chastens whom he loves and therefore that we are not to judge hardly of such as we see afflicted And thus much likewise for the second point the Patient or party that is chastned by God namely Gods beloved He chastens whom he loves I now proceed to the third and last the quality of the action in this word chastneth which implyeth as I said that God doth not torment and torture us like a tyranne but he doth onely chasten us as a Father doth chasten and correct his Children these chastisements do not proceed from God as an angry judge for our plague and punishment but as from a merciful and loving Father for our correction and amendment for herein he offers himself unto us as unto Sonnes as the Apostle saith So that these chastisements to the godly are signes of their adoption and pledges of Gods love and favour towards them which that we may understand the better I purpose to shew you two things First vvhat these chastisements are or how God doth chasten us And secondly To what end they are or why he doth chasten us Concerning the first these chastisements of God are sometimes called in the Scripture the judgements of God So they are called by the Apostle 1 Pet. 4. The time saith he is come that judgement must begin at the house of God 1 Pet. 4.17 That is to say the judgement of chastisement for the judgements of God are of two sorts judicia castigationis judicia vindicte condemnationis the judgements of chastisement or correction and the judgments of revenge and condemnation And this distinction is taken out of St. Paul 1 Cor. 11. When we saith he 1 Cor. 11.32 are judged we are chastned of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World So that there is a judgment of chastisement which lights upon the godly and a judgment of condemnation which lights upon the wicked And these judgements are sometimes publick and generall and sometimes private and particular Publick and generall as when a whole Land or Country is afflicted as either by Warre by Plague and Pestilence by Death and Famin and any other common and generall affliction Thus we see 1 Chron. 21. That when David had sinned against God by causing his people to be numbred God to chasten and correct him for it offers him his choise of three publick afflictions either a generall dearth and famin all over his Land 1 Chron. 21.12 for the space of three years or the Enemies to come and invade his Land and prevail against him for the space of three months or a Plague and Pestilence among his people for three dayes David being in this extremity did choose rather to fall into the hands of God then into the hands of men because there is mercy with the Lord in his chastisements and so there died of the Pestilence threescore and ten thousand in three dayes This was a generall or publick affliction Sometime again they are privat or particular as when any particular house or family or any privat man is chastned and afflicted and that either outwardly or inwardly outwardly as by the losse of goods by the losse of health by the losse of friends by the losse of liberty and the like And thus Gods Children are often afflicted Some are afflicted with want and poâ—erty as Lâ—zarus was Luke 16.21 some with the losse of their health as the Palâ—iâ—-mâ—â— was Mat. 9. 1 Sam. 2.23 Gen. 39.20 Job 16.2 Psal 59.1 some are crost in their Children as Eli was some are wronged in their good name and credit as Susanna was some restrained of their liberty as Iosâ—ph was some wronged by their friends as Iob was and some persecuted by their enemies as David was These are outward chastisements Sometimes again God doth inwardly chasten us as when either he leaves us for a time to our selves so that we fall into some actual sinnes and are afterwards grieved that we have offended God Thus Peter was afflicted when he had denied our Saviour and wept so bitterly for his denial Or when God withdrawes from us the feeling of his love and the comfort of his spirit Mat. 26.75 So that we doubt for a time that God hath forsaken us because we can find no inward comfort And thus David was afflicted when he complained so grievously Psal 77. Psal 77.7 Will the Lord absent himself for ever and will he shew no more favour hath he forgotten to be gratious and will he shut up his kindness in displeasure These are inward chastisements Now God in all his chastisements deales otherwise with the godly then he deales with the wicked The one he chastens in love and mercy the other he punisheth in his wrath and fury the one he sustaines by his gracious assistance and inables them to bear what he layes upon them the other he gives over to endless despaire to the one he brings a pruning knife to lop and purge them to the other the Axe of desolation to cut them down and destroy them And thus we see what these chastisements are Secondly We are to consider to what end they are or why he doth chasten us The end why God doth chasten his Children is partly for his own glory and partly for their good For his own glory two wayes especially First To shew how greatly he is displeased and offended with sinne insomuch that he doth not spare it in his own Children For this is most certain that if man had never committed sinne he should never have been subject unto any affliction but as soon as Adam had sinned against God then God by afflicting him made manifest how he is displeased and offended by sinne because saith God unto
thus with thy selfe It is too much that I have done already let me not therefore double my fault by my deniall of it but what I was not ashamed to do yet let me not be ashamed to confesse that God may pardon it So did David being reproved by the Prophet Nathan he did not deny but acknowledge his sinne and obtain'd pardon 2 Sam. 12.13 I have sinned against the Lord saith David and the Lord hath put away thy sinne saith the Prophet which question-lesse had not thus been put away if David had sought to have covered his sin by his deniall of it Secondly A man may be said to cover his sinnes by translating the fault Transferendo and shifting it off from himselfe to another And this is a sinne as old as Adam and committed first by him For Adam ye know being reproved by God for eating of the forbidden fruit to excuse himself he laid the blame upon Eve Gen. 3.12 The Woman that thou gavest me she gave me of the Tree And the Woman that the blame might not rest upon her Gen. 3.13 did lay it on the Serpent The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat And this shifting off the blame from our selves to others we have learned of them If Saul be reproved by the Prophet Samuel for transgressing the Commandment of the Lord in sparing the king of Amalek and the best of the cattell he will post it from himself 1 Sam. 15.20 21. and lay the blame on the people I obeyed the voice of the Lord but saith he the people took of the spoil And if Aaron be reproved by Moses for his sin in making the golden calf he will lay the fault on the people for it Thou knowest saith he this people that they are set on mischief And they said unto me Make us gods Exod. 32.22 And thus many when the fault which they have committed is so plain and evident that they cannot well deny it yet to excuse themselves they will lay the blame upon others This is a second kinde of covering of sin And hitherto may they be referred who to excuse themselves ascribe their sins unto fate or destinie as the Priscilianists did or that make God to be the Author of their sins as the Libertines did for these do hide and cover their sins by laying them on others Instead hereof what sin soever we have committed we must take the blame wholly upon our selves and not seek that others may bear the blame for what we have done If we do any thing which we think is praise-worthy and deserves commendation we would be loath that others should be sharers therein and would think our selves to be wrong'd by those who should take to themselves the praise of that which was done by us And therefore when we have done amisse great reason we should take the blame to our selves and not lay it on others So did Jonah when he had offended God by flying to Tarshish and God therefore punished him with a tempest on the Sea that they were all in danger to be cast away he took the blame wholly upon himself though it would cost him his life Take me up saith he Jon. 1.12 and cast me into the Sea for I know that for my sake this tempest is upon you And so did David when he had sinned against God by numbring the people and God therefore sent a pestilence on the Land which swept away many thousands and David saw the Angel which smote the people he took the blame wholly upon himself and said to the Lord Lo I have sinned I have done wickedly but these sheep what have they done let thy hand I pray thee be against me 2 Sam. 24.17 and my fathers house And thus must we do whensoever we have sinned we must take the blame wholly to our selves and not seek to hide and cover our sins by shifting them off from our selves to others Thirdly a man may be said to cover his sins by extenuating diminishing Extennando and lessning the sin Thus the harlot when she inticed the young man to commit folly with her she lessened the sin whereunto she inticed him Prov. 7.18 Come saith she let us take our fill of love and delight our selves in daliance giving it the name of love and daliance which indeed was whoredome And thus many will lessen and extenuate their sins making their sins to be lesse then they are and themselves lesse sinfull making great sins to be but little Luk. 16 6. and little sins to be none at all Ye know how the unjust steward did with the debts which were owing to his lord he lessened the summe setting down but fifty for an hundred So do many with their sins their debts unto God they lessen and diminish the summe of them making talents but pounds and pounds but pence and pence nothing This is a third kinde of covering of sin And hitherto may they be referr'd who lessen and extenuate the heinousnesse of sin making some sins as the Papists do to be but veniall and that they do not deserve eternall damnation For these do hide and cover their sins by their lessening of them Instead hereof we must aggravate our sins making our sins as indeed they are out of measure sinfull Ezra 98. the more to humble us So did Ezra O my God saith he I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee for our iniquities are increased over our heads and our trespasse is grown up to the heavens And so did St. Paul who because he had persecuted the Church of Christ though he did it of ignorance yet he aggravates his sin Act. 26.11 that he persecuted the Church of God above measure that he wasted or made havock of it that he punisht them often in every Synagogue that he compell'd them to blaspheme and that he was exceedingly mad against them Thus in extreame detestation of his sin he strives to make it extreamly heinous Ephes 3 8.1 lim 1.15 and thought himself for his sin not onely the least of all Saints but the greatest of all sinners So far was he from covering his sin by lessening the same Lastly a man may be said to cover his sins by justifying maintaining Justificando and defending of them Thus Jonah being angry for the gourd that withered when God asked him whether he did well to be angrie he justified his fault I do well saith he Jon. 4.6 to be angrie even to the death And thus many when they have no other evasion when they can neither deny the fact nor shift it off from themselves nor lessen the same yet they will justifie their faults and stand in defence of that which they have done So do they who when they have committed a sin will pretend very specious and plausible reasons why they did the same that so it may seem to be no sin in them We read of Dionysius the