in commendation that constancy and unswayedness in our lives and actions that Rock which no tempest can move that perpetual and habituated goodness which no hard fortune can dant no felicity can corrupt that to which our Saviour hath promised Salvation he that continues to the end shall be saved All this is contained in this word Dixi I am resolv'd Again from whence comes that main imperfection of our lives Vnsettledness and flitting from one thing to another frequent relapsing into sins once forsaken Whence are we so easily carried with every wind of Fear of Hope of Commodity All is because we have not yet learned our Dixi are not yet resolv'd we know not what to will or nill till present occasion take us we have not advisedly decreed set down before hand what we will follow in our lives in our conclusions And without that Dixi a man is but like a Ship without a Ballast easily overturn'd with every blast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways The kingdom of Iudah was full of such men for amongst twenty two Kings who sate in the Throne nine of them totally relaps'd and fell away to Idolatry and all the Priests and People with them But we need not go to fetch Examples so far so long since our own Kingdoms and latter times are able sufficiently to store us How easily were the branches of Popery lop'd under Hen. 8. and and the very stumps of it rooted up under Edw. 6. How easily did it recover again under Queen Mary both Top and Cut and yet with the same facility was it again lop'd rooted up under the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Certainly were Religion a matter of conscience and not of formality undertaken first with Dixi custodiam out of Love and Conscience it could not be that so often so easie so general a change could be made from one Religion to another The like we may see in all moral courses interrupted by inconstancy mutability and change He that can comply and peice in with all occasions and make an easie forfeiture of his honesty makes it a custom to relapse into sins formerly repented of may well impute it to this that he hath not taken up a resolution that he hath not made his Dixi custodiam like unto the Laws of Medes and Persians which alter not and without which a man is like the Sea moved and troubled with every wind that blows upon it For would he say the word this Dixi custodiam would quit him from the greatest part of his follies and sins too How said I would he but speak the word Nay I fear me most men think these two words Dixi custodiam a greater difficulty then so and more indeed then they have For first for Dixi It is not a word of such strange and unknown sound which we that are aliens by nature from the Covenant of Grace utter strangers to the language of God can never learn rightly to pronounce Are we able to sound it in our hearts throughly to take up this resolution Resp. I see no reason but that I may say We are able For first David did it not by any spirit peculiar to himself as that by which he Prophecied and did those things which lay not within the rule of common persons 2. David did it who was by nature as great a stranger to the Covenant of Grace as we 3. David did this for example to us and it is here recorded that we might learn to do the like But all this were labour lost if it were impossible to do it 2. Custodiam this is enough to prove Dixi feasible But yet there is a greater doubt for custodiam Having learn'd this language taken up this resolution are we able to stand to it to make it good Was there ever man who had so setled his resolution custodire vias but that he was sometimes constrained to leave his right way and wander in spite of all his custodiam careful watch he kept Resp. For answer to this question I must confess I am in a streight For me thinks 't is no good argument to say we know of none that have so kept their ways Therefore it is impossible they should be kept Yet if I should say it were possible whether I should offend the truth I cannot so easily pronounce but sure I am I should offend the times For many learned men can delight themselves in discoursing of the weakness of man's nature of the difficulty yet impossibility of keeping the Laws of God 2. Again on the contrary side should I say that we are bound to take up this Dixi custodiam Resolution with David but with reservation that in this life we can never be able to make it good I do not see what I could do more to dishearten to deter men from entertaining this lesson of Christian Resolution which above all lessons in the world I would have commended unto them For what wise man will attempt that which he knows before-hand to be impossible To those who enquire whether it be possible to bring this Dixi into Fieri make it good in practise I answer as the Angel doth Revel vj. Veni vide try and make experience an possibile For many things have been thought impossible till experience hath proved them possible It is observed by those who writ the Acts of Alexander the Great that he enterprized many things with good success which no man else would ever have attempted because they doubted of the possibility of the enterprise Let us be like Alexander and attempt impossibilities It may be experience will discover that to be possible which fear never could They are ill discoverers that think there is no Land where they can see nothing but Sea How many of late times have ventured their persons their purses by Sea and Land in new Discoveries and new Plantations of the good success whereof they have had little or no assurance before hand How much better and surer adventure were this whereof we now treat which if we attain unto the honour and profit is infinite If we fail of it the very missing of it cannot be without a great and rich return We read of a Father who dying commanded his sons to dig in his Vineyard for there they should find much Gold Accordingly they did so and Gold they found none yet the digging and moving of the earth about the roots of the Vine caused it to bring forth so abundantly that it yeilded them a rich revenue What if God do so by us Suppose he commands us to dig for Gold to keep his Laws which yet he knows we cannot yet the labour it self though it miss the end intended cannot but infinitely benefit us for our very endeavour in this kind is much set by Est aliquid prodire tenus He that by striving to keep all hath kept most hath done himself an happy turn And now lastly by so much the more
it lasted full three years and better Thirdly the time of the plague it fell long after the person offending was dead Fourthly whereas it is said in my Text That Bloud is cleansed by the Bloud of him that shed it here the Bloud of him that did this sin sufficed not to purge the Land from it that desperate and woful end that befell both Saul and his sons in that last and fatal Battel upon Mount Gilboa a man may think had freed the Land from danger of Bloud yet we see that the Bloud of the Gibeonites had left so deep a stain that it could not be sponged out without the Bloud of seven more of Saul's off-spring So that in some cases it seems we must alter the words of my Text The Land cannot be purged of Bloud but by the Bloud of him and his Posterity that shed it St. Peter tells us that some mens sins go before them unto judgment and some mens sins follow after Beloved here is a sin that exceeds the members of this division for howsoever it goes before or after us unto judgment yet it hath a kind of Vbiquity and so runs afore so follows us at the heels that it stays behind us too and calls for vengeance long after that we are gone Bloud unrevenged passes from Father to Son like an Heirlome or Legacy and he that dies with Bloud hanging on his fingers leaves his off-spring and his Family as pledges to answer it in his stead As an Engineer that works in a Mine lays a train or kindles a Match and leaves it behind him which shall take hold of the powder long after he is gone so he that sheds Bloud if it be not betimes purged as it were kindles a Match able to blow up not onely a Parliament but even a whole Land where Bloud lies unrevenged Secondly another circumstance serving to express unto us the greatness of this sin I told you was the difficulty of cleansing it intimated in those words cannot be cleansed but by the Bloud of him that shed it Most of other sins have sundry ways to wash the guilt away As in the Levitical Law the woman that was unclean by reason of Child-bearing might offer a pair of Turtle-doves or two young Pigeons so he that travels with other sins hath either a Turtle or a Pigeon he hath more ways then one to purifie him prayer unto God or true repentance or satisfaction to the party wronged or bodily affliction or temporary mulct But he that travels with the sin of Bloud for him there remains no sacrifice for sin but a fearful expectation of vengeance he hath but one way of cleansing onely his Bloud the Bloud of him that shed it The second general part which we considered in these words was that one mean which is left to cleanse Bloud exprest in the last words the bloud of him that shed it The Apostle to the Hebrews speaking of the sacrifices of the Old Testament notes that without Bloud there was no cleansing no forgiveness He spake it onely of the Bloud of beasts of Bulls and Goats who therefore have their Bloud that they might shed it in mans service and for mans use But among all the Levitical Sacrifices there was not one to cleanse the manslayer For the Bloud of the cattle upon a thousand hills was not sufficient for this yet was that sin to be purged with Bloud too and that by a more constant and perpetual Law then that of Sacrifices For the cleansing of other sins by Bloud is done away the date of it is out but to cleanse Bloud by bloud remains as a Law to our times and so shall unto the worlds end Sanguine quaerendi reditus out of Bloud no way to get but by Bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Basil hast thou shed Bloud wouldst thou be free from the guilt of it Thy best way is to be a Martyr and shed thy Bloud for Christ's sake Now that what I have to say may the better be conceived and lodged up in your memories I will comprehend and order all that I will speak under three heads First I will in general yet a little further breifly shew how great a sin the sin of Bloud is Secondly I will speak of the redress of some misorders very frequent in our age which give way to this sin especially private revenge and single combat Thirdly I will touch at the means of taking the guilt of Bloud away which here the holy Ghost commends to those which are set in Authority to that purpose And first of the greatness of the crime and sin of Bloud Of sins in holy Scripture there be two sorts recorded One sort is a silent dumb and quiet sin God doth as it were seek after it to find it as the people did after Saul when he was hidden amongst the stuff Of this nature are the ordinary sins of our life which do more easily find pardon at the hands of God but there is a second sort of sin which is a vocal and a crying sin a sin like that importunate widow in the Gospel that will not suffer the Judge to be quiet till he hath done justice and those are the more heavy and grievouser sins of our lives Of this second sort there are two sins to which the Scripture doth attribute this crying faculty First the sin of Sodom for so God tells Abraham The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is come up before me The second is the sin of which I am now to speak the sin of Bloudshed for so God tells Cain The voice of thy brothers bloud cries unto me from the earth The sin of Adam in Paradise doubtless was a great and heinous sin which hath thus made us all the children of death yet it seems to be but of the rank of mute sins and to have had no voice to betray it God comes unto Adam convents him examins him as if he had not known it and seems not to beleive any such thing was done till himself had confessed it But bloud is an unmannerly importunate and clamorous sin God shall not need to come and enquire after it it will come up unto him and cry as the souls do under the Altar in the Revelation How long Lord how long Nec patimur iracunda Deum ponere fulmina suffers not God to forget judgment or entertain a thought of mercy To satisfie therefore the cry of this importunate sin and to shew men the grievousness of it the Laws of God and men have wonderfully conspired in the avenging of bloud by what means or by what creature soever it were shed Beasts unreasonable creatures though whatsoever they do they cannot be said to sin for whatsoever they do they do by force of that natural instinct by which they are guided and led as by their proper Law yet man's bloud if they shed it is revenged upon them God himself is the Authour of this Law Gen. ix where he tells Noah
think is onely for certain private ends and purposes which the world doth not much hearken after He that shall provide for another world he that shall forget his body and care onely for the state of his soul such a man at the last shall find the profit of godliness But the man that thinks it meet to divide himself betwixt God and the world that thinks it not fit his Virgin should pass its time as the Apostle speaks but bethinks himself of matching into the world to such an one the studies of piety may rather seem a rub and hinderance then a profit and commodity For what carnal man is there that can perswade himself that piety will either improve his Wealth or increase his Honours or make him thrive in his Trade or any way better his Estate Is it not rather thought to be an hinderance to all these by curbing our ambition by moderating our over having desires by bounding us within certain limits of contentment of conscience of moderation and the like which cut the very nerves and sinews of all endeavour to grow extraordinarily great Nay doth not piety rather come unto us as the Angel of the Lord did unto Balaam forbidding us to do many things which if we did they would be highly for our honour and preferment yea if riches do offer themselves and by God's providence without our care come on abundantly doth it not teach us to lay them out for Christ's sake and not to lay them up for our own So that if a man would define and tell what Godliness is we might define it To be an Art teaching men not to be Rich not to be Great not to thrive in proportion to the rest of the world Yet notwithstanding all this it is most true that godliness is truly profitable many ways I will breifly acquiant you with some of them First of all in that gross and ordinary sense in which the world takes profit and commodity for it blesses our store it gives good success to our preferments it prospers all things that we take in hand For what is more usual in the Old Testament then promises unto the keeper of the Law of length of days of possession of the land of victory against their enemies of all those things which by the world it self are so much desired Neither were these promises made onely for fashions sake to draw them on but they were plainly and evidently made good unto the people to whom they were made For God promises his blessings in that style in which old Isaac speaks to Esau concerning Iacob I have blessed him yea and be shall be blessed For what is there of which the world doth make such store in which God's own people had not their greatest share Was there any people so victorious a gainst their enemies so long as they kept themselves unto their God Was there ever any Nation which had such store of all things made for the use of man It is almost an incredible thing to think that so little a span of Land as they inhabited should so abundantly bring forth all things requisite for the use of so mighty and populous a Nation For matchless strength of body and fears of Arms whom can the world oppose to Sampson to David and to his Worthies For wisdom and learning did not Moses and Solomon out-goe all the wisdom of the East yea all the wise men of the world besides Their Kingdom indeed was but little and herein onely that is in largeness of Dominion the Great Monarch of the World may seem to have gone beyond them But the reason of this we shall examine by and by when we shall come to consider what causes there are why many times the children of this world outgoe the children of the Kingdom in abundance of earthly good notwithstanding piety onely hath the promise of them and impiety nothing else but a curse Neither is this harvest of profit onely in the Old Testament as if the New were waxen barren The New Testament indeed is not so frequent in mentioning of earthly blessings and good reason why For many things in the New Testament are not so fully taught because they are supposed to be learn'd and known as being sufficiently stood upon in the Old In the Old Testament scarce any page is there which does not entitle good men to the possession of some temporal good and for this reason may seem the holy Ghost spares to be over-frequent and abundant in mentioning them in the New So then howsoever in our discourses unto you we many times commend unto you simplicity and lowliness and preach unto you poverty and patience and continual persecution for the Truth 's sake yet piety doth not require at our hands that we should be either short-witted or beggerly but hath its part in all the blessings of this world whether it be of soul or body or of goods That therefore which anciently the son of Syrach spake of these excellent men who liv'd before his time the same hath been true in Christian Common-wealths and our own eyes in part have seen it The noble famous men reigned in their Kingdoms they bare excellent rule in their wisdom wise sentences were found in their instructions They were rich also and could comfort they lived quietly at home Be it therefore Power Riches or Wisdom or Peace or any other of these Apples of Paradise which seem to the world so goodly and so much to be desired God hath not so rained them down upon the cities of men as that he left his own dry and unfurnished with them I will not dispute unto whom of right these blessings do belong whether unto the Reprobate or unto the Iust This is a question which none but God can determine yet hath the world been acquainted with some who taking upon them to examine the Title have given sentence for the Godly and pronounced that the right unto the world belongs unto the Iust which to do in my conceit is to do nothing else but as the old Romans did who when two Cities contending for a piece of ground had taken them for their Iudges wisely gave sentence on their own behalf and taking it from both the other Cities adjudged it unto themselves Let the Title to these things rest where it will thus much we may safely presume of That God in whom originally all the Right to these things is doth so bestow them as that they that are his cannot doubt of that portion of them which shall be sufficient for their use Onely my Brethren let us not mistake our selves in the means by which godliness becomes thus exceeding profitable unto us for it is not with us in regard of these things as it is with other men It is not our great care for them our early rising or late sitting up that brings them to us The best and surest way to provide our selves of these things is not to care for them not to
that by reason of their calling they debar themselves of many the thriving Arts of the world it must needs be that if riches do come upon them that God himself doth extraordinarily pour them on Wherefore good men must not consider how much or how little it is they have but the means by which it comes unto them All the Prophets and Apostles which were hungry had not that offer which St. Peter had all kind of flesh let down from heaven and free choice to eat of what they listed When Daniel was in Babylon in the Lions Den God sends his Angel into Iewry takes a Prophet by the hair of the head carries him into Babylon and all to carry but a mess of pottage for Daniel's dinner Daniel's fare is meaner then St. Peter's but the miracle is as great and the care of God is the same The righteous man that hath much is as St. Peter he that hath least is as Daniel the word and promise of God is alike made good unto them both And thus much of these two Errours of which the due avoiding shall keep us from mistaking of those promises and charging God foolishly Now because much of that which we have formerly spoken was spent in proving that God doth force the world many times even in a very eminent sort to serve the necessities and purposes of those that are his yet since ordinarily the case of good men in the things of this world is meaner then that of the world's children their riches are many times small if they be any at all and promotion looks little after them That we may a little the better content our selves and know in what case we stand give me leave to shew you how it comes about that the wicked though they have no promise yet have a larger portion in the world's blessings then the godly Where it shall appear that it cannot otherwise be except it should please God to alter the ordinary course of the world The first cause therefore that the sons of this world thus usually climb aloft above the sons of God and nest themselves in the tallest Cedars is their infinite and importunate Ambition From this root hath sprung forth both that infinite mass of wealth which private men and that boundless compass of Government which great princes have attain'd unto Nothing was ever more unjust then the raising of these great Kingdoms and if the Laws of equity and moderation might have taken place they had never been St. Austin saw no difference between the Roman Empire and Spartacus his conspiracy onely the one lasted a little longer and this makes no difference in the thing it self And hence it is that God gave limits and bounds unto the Kingdom which his people had and having poured out the vials of his wrath upon the usurping people that held the Land of promise from them to whom it was due he permitted not the Iews to grate too much upon the bordering Nations And this is the reason why the Iews that in all other respects went side by side or rather before the rest of the world onely in latitude of Kingdom yeilded to the Monarchs of the earth For the one made the will of God the other their own ambition the measure of their desires The most moderate and wisest kind of men are many times slowest in giving entertainment to these great thoughts of heart In Iotham's parable in the Book of Iudges where the Trees go forth to chuse a King the Olive would not leave his fatness nor the Vine his fruit nor the Fig-tree his sweetness no not for a Kingdom Onely the Brier the basest of all shrubs no sooner had the Trees made the motion to him but he is very apprehensive of it and thinks himself a goodly creature fit to make a King of Sober men who best understand the nature of business know well how great a charge extraordinary wealth◠and places of Authority bring with them There is none so poor but hath his time to make an account of were there nothing but this what a sum would this amount unto Add unto these our Words unto Words Actions unto all these Wealth and Ability and last of all Honour and Authority how do each of these successively like places in Arithmetick infinitely increase the sum of our accounts No marvel then if wise and considerate men are slow in tasking themselves so heavily and rather content themselves quietly at home Let the world go well or ill so it be not long of them The second thing that makes them come on in the world is their spacious wide and unlimited conscience which can enlarge it self to the swallowing of any means that bring gain and preferment with them he that once hath cauterized and seared his conscience and put on a resolution to gain by all occasions must needs quickly grow rich But good men are evermore shie and scrupulous what they do though there be no apparent occasion Evil is of a slie insinuating nature it will creep in at every little passage all the care and wariness we can possibly use to prevent it is too little When David had cut off the lap of Saul's garment the Scripture tells us that his heart smote him because he had done this thing I have often wondred with my self what it was that in an action so innocent and harmless done with so hohourable intent onely to bring a testimony of his innocency and righteousness might thus importunately trouble his conscience He intended no wrong unto Saul not so much as in his thought yet had he but a little advised himself through scruple and tenderness of conscience he would not have used so harmless a witness of his innocency Common reason told St. Paul that the labourer is worthy of his hire and by instinct of the holy Ghost himself learn'd and taught that it was but justice and equity that men that labour in the Gospel should live by the Gospel Who feeds a flock eats not the milk and clothes not himself with the wooll of it yet notwithstanding that he might take away all occasion of evil that lazie and idle drones who suck the sweet of other men's labours might not take example by him to live at other mens cost that he might make the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free without any charge that men that have no silver might come and buy and eat might come I say and buy the wine and milk of the Word without money that the Gospel might not be slandered as a means of gain he would not use that liberty that God and men gave him neither would he eat the milk or wear the wooll of his own flock but with his own hands and labours purchas'd himself his necessary maintenance What hope of these mens extraordinary thriving who are so nice and scrupulous of what they finger What then must we think of those that abuse godliness unto gain that refuse to do deeds of charity except