that we might fear him and he addeth which brought thee out of the land of Egypt that we might love him And in lege precandi he teacheth us to say Our Father that we might love him and he addeth which art in Heaven that we might fear him And in lege credendi we are taught to say I believe in God the Father that we might love him and to add Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth that we might fear him And besides all this we find that these two Graces Fear and Love 1. Are injoyned by the same Law 2. Do proceed from the same Cause 3. Do produce the same Effects And 4. Shall obtain the same Reward For 1. Moses that was faithful in all Gods house saith And now Israel What doth the Lord thy God require of thee Deut. 10.12 but to fear the Lord thy God to walk in his wayes and to love him Where you see fear and love so equally required that whosoever neglecteth the fearing of him though he should love him or omitteth the loving of him though he should fear him if he could do the one and not the other yet he is a transgressor and liable to the breach of this Commandment 2. As none denieth but mercy should procure love therefore Moses after he had rehearsed the great mercies of God towards the Israelites Deut. 10.11 21 22. Josh 23.9 11. Psal 130.4 addeth Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God And Joshua doth the like so David after he had considered his own vileness saith With thee there is mercy therefore shalt thou be feared Where you see the mercy of God is the foundation of this fear of God as well as of the love of God And as the mercy of God so the justice of God produceth both â—ffects the one as well as the other For my flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgements saith the Prophet And though justice seems as oil to continue the burning of this lamp of fear and as water to quench the fire of love yet as lime which is naturally cold doth notwithstanding retain a fiery quality ex aqua incenditur ex qua omnis ignis extinguitur and is inflamed by water which doth extinguish all fire So the love of the Saints is kindled by the judgements of God Therefore the Prophet saith Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgements Psal 119.164 Psal 119.52 And again I remembred thy judgements of old and have received comfort 3. As love inflameth the desire to do what is acceptable unto God so fear hateth to do what is abominable unto him and as love keepeth his Precepts so fear loatheth to break his Commandments and as love mitigateth the sorrow which fear causeth so fear qualifieth the joy which love produceth And as S. John saith God is love so Jacob calleth him the fear of his father Isaac And as S. Paul saith Love is the fulfilling of the Law Gal. 6.2 Eccles 12. So Solomon saith The end of all things is the fear of God and the keeping of his Commandments 4. As the mercy of God is shewed upon thousands of them that love him Exod. 20. Luke 1.50 and keep his Commandments So it is no lesse upon them that fear him But as the Psalmist saith Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord he shall be mighty upon earth Gloria divitae in domo ejus And as the son of Sirach saith Timor Domini gloria gloriatio laetitia corona exultationis Because as the Prophet saith Dat haereditatem timentibus nomen suum Yea Psal 61.5 Psal 145.19 he will fulfil the desire of them that fear him and look whatsoever they do it shall prosper And as eternal life is promised to them that love God So eternal death shall never seize on them that fear God And in brief whatsoever attendeth the one becometh a follower of the other and no marvel because that in love fear is included and in fear love is implied And while we are in this world both grow together in the heart of every true Believer And as the Poet saith of another kind of love so I may more truly say of this Divine love Res est soliciti plena timoris Amor. This love of God is full not of distrustful but of careful fear Quia timentes Deum non erunt incredibles verbo Illius saith the son of Sirach Ecclus. 2. But the wicked have neither true fear nor perfect love For though Cain Esau and Judas had a kind of fear yet was it false because it wanted love And though the Pharisees and Simon Magus had a kind of love yet was it but counterfeit because it wanted fear for if the former had had love they would have desired favour and should have obtained grace and if the other had had fear they would have aimed at Gods glory and not have sought their own praise which did work their own confusion And therefore well might S. Peter enjoyn every Saint that loveth God to fear God And as the love of God so the fear of God is sometimes put for a part of Gods Service and sometimes for the whole Service of God and so it is in this place as in the first of Job and in Luke 1.50 and in the Psalms in many places As where he saith Come ye children hearken unto me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord where the fear of God signifieth the whole Worship of God to honour him obey him trust in him pray unto him and what duty soever else we owe unto him And thus the fear of God is the rarest Jewel and the most excellent thing in the World No riches no honour no preferment like unto it No evil shall happen to them that fear the Lord but God shall preserve them in temptation liberabit eos à malis Ecclus 33. saith Siracides And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation but mischief and unhappinesse and all evil shall continually attend and overtake them that fear not God to bring them to shame beggary and confusion as you may see it manifested in the Story of the sons of Israel who while they feared God were replenished with a thousand blessings preserved from a thousand misfortunes and delivered out of the Egyptian slavery by a thousand prodigies the Lord dividing the Sea to make way for them and closing the same again to destroy their enemies Drawing waters out of the Rocks to quench their thirst and feeding them with the food of Angels But when they did cast off the fear of God then God sent flying Serpents and stirred up enemies and powred down his vengeance upon their heads still plaguing them more and more untill they should be either quite consumed or happily reduced to embrace the fear of God again And not to search farre for any further presidents How happy weâ—e
her will No force can prevail against the will and actual sins have so much dependency upon the hearts approbation as that the same alone can either vitiate or excuse the action and no outward force hath any power over mine inward mind unless my self do give it him as all the power of the Kingdome cannot force my heart to hate my King or to love his enemies they may tear this poor body all to pieces but they can never force the mind to do but what it will And yet such is the deceit of our own flesh that if the devil should be absent from us our own frailties would be his tempting deputies and when we have none other foe we will become the greatest foes unto our selves as Apollodorus the Tyrant dreamd that he was flead by the Scythians and that his heart thrown into a boyling caldron should say unto him That it was the cause of all his miseries and so every man that is undone hath indeed undone himself for Perditio tua exte thy destruction is from thy self saith the Prophet yea the very best men Hos 13.9 by whomsoever wronged yet wrong themselves as now it is with our gracious King for as Valentine the Emperour when he cut off his best Commander and demanding of his best Counselour what he thought of it had this answer given him That he had cut off his own right arm with his left hand so when the good King seduced and over-perswaded gave way though against his will to make an Everlasting Parliament he then gave away the Sword out his own hand So I could tell you of a very good man that is brought to very great exigency by parting with his owne strength and giving his sword out of his own hand and when he excluded the Bishops out of the House of Peers he parted with so much of his own strength and brought himself thereby to be weaker then he was before and so it will be with every one of us and it may be in a higher misprision then with our King if we look not well unto our selves and take heed lest in seeking to preserve our bodies we destroy our own souls or to save our estates we make shipwrack of our faith or especially to uphold an earthly Rule or Kingdome we expose to ruine the spiritual Kingdome of Christ which is the Church of God as you know how the Parliament do it at this day And therefore the Spaniards prayer is very good Dios mi guarda mi de mi O my God defend me from my self that I do not destroy my self and Saint Augustine upon the words of the Psalmist Deliver me from the wicked man demanding who was that wicked man Answ it was a seipso and so the wisest Philosophers have given us many Precepts to beware of our selves And he that can do so Latius regnat avidum domando Spiritum Horatius quam si lybiam remotis Gadibus jungat uterque paenus Serviat uni doth more and ruleth better then he that reigneth from the Southern Lybia to the Northern Pole so hard it is for man under all the cope of Heaven to find any one that truly loves him But God is Verax veritas true and the truth it self and as Hugo saith Veritas est sine fallacia faelicitas sine miseria he is Truth without Deceit that neither can deceive not be deceived and as this our Apostle saith God is love and the Fountain of all true love and he is sweet he is wise and he is strong 1 John 4.8 How God loveth us and how sweet and gracious his love is therefore S. Bern. saith that he loveth sweetly wisely and strongly Dulciter quia carnem induit sapienter quia culpam cavit fortiter quia mortem sustinuit sweetly because he was made man to have a fellow-feeling of our miseries wisely because he did avoid sin that he might be able to help us and strongly because his love was as strong as death when rather then he would lessen his love unto us he would lose his life for us And therefore of all that pretend to love us God alone is the onely pure and truly perfect lover 2. For the affection it is love for God loved us and love 2 The affection Love comprehendeth three things as it is in the creatures is a passion better perceived by the lover then it can be expressed by any other and it comprehendeth three things 1. A liking to the thing beloved 2. A desire to enjoy it And 3. A contentment in it as when the Father saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as others think of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to be fully and perfectly satisfied in the thing loved as Phavorinus testifieth And so though the affection of love is not the same in God as it is in us because he is a Spirit most simple without passion and we are often-times transported and swallowed up of this affection yet in the love of God we finde these three things most perfectly contained 3 Things contained in the love of God 1. An Eternal benevolence or purpose to do good unto his creatures 2. An Actual beneficence and performance of that good unto them 3. A Delightful complacency or contented delight in the things beloved as the Lord loveth him that followeth after righteousness that is he taketh delight and pleasure in all righteous livers and as he hateth the ungodly so he loveth the righteous and taketh delight in them and in their just and righteous dealing But because love is an inward affection that can hardly be discerned without some outward demonstration of the same and that as S. Gregory saith Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis the trial of our love is seen by our actions which testifie our love far better then our words How God imanifesteth his love many wayes when we see too too many that profess to love us when they labour to destroy us as the rebels pray for the King when they fight against him so finely can the Devil deceive us therefore God manifested his love by many manifold arguments As 1. Way 1 By screating things of nothing and making them so perfectly good that when himself had considered them all he saw that they were all exceeding good 2. Way 2 By preserving all things that they return not to nothing Quia fundavit Deus mundum supranihilum ut mundus fundaret se supra Deum because God laid the foundations of the world upon nothing that the world might wholly rely upon God who is the basis that beareth up all things with his mighty word and more particularly in preserving not onely the righteous but even the wicked also from many evils both of Sin and Punishment for did not God withhold and restrain the very reprobates even
save us from all our sins And thus the true Saints that do hate their sins and lay hold on Christ do only love the Lord and the wicked that delight in sin and perceive not the sweetness of their Saviour cannot be said to love God for as the whole have no need of the Physitian and give no thanks for his Physick so they that feel not the sense of their own miseries and perceive not their Obligation to their Deliverer can have no love to God their Saviour Therefore seeing as the Poet saith Quod latet ignotum est ignoti nulla cupido And as S. Bern. saith non potes aut amare quem non noveris aut habere quem non amaveris we cannot love whom we know not nor enjoy whom we love not it behoveth us to search into our spirits to look into our own states to consider the multitude of our own sins and to bethink our selves in what need we stand of a Deliverer to see if this will not bring us in love with God our Saviour And then I beseech you Two special Points to be considered let us consider 1. What manner of Love we ought to have 2. How great a love it ought to be towards him And 1. I presume theâ—e is no man in this Assembly but he would think himself much injured 1 What manner of Lovewe ought to have if it were but imagined that he did not love God his Saviour and iâ— is not my desire to dishearten any when I wish from my heart that every the least sparke of your love to God might prove a Glorious Flame Yet I fear there be very many men that come into the world they know not why and live therein they care not how and go out of it again they cannot tell where but do live in it without a God and then die without any hope And others there be that dream of happiness and their hopes being but dreams they do therein but deceive themselves like those that dream they are at a pleasant Banquet yet when they awake their soul is hungry For as the Jews in our Saviours time did indeed persecute him because they were so blinded that they could not apprehend him to be the Son of God but for God himself they made full account that they alone and none but they did love him and for Moses vvhose very Name vvas the Glory of their Nation they professed to love him beyond measure so that vvhosoever spake any blasphemous vvords against Moses vvas thought vvorthy to be stoned to death Acts 6.11 John 5.42 V. 45. And yet our Saviour tels them I know you that you have not the love of God in you and that Moses in vvhom they trusted should accuse them before God So many Christians at the last day shall profess that they have prophesied in Christ's Name cast out Devils done many wonderful works in his Name rebelled against their ovvn King and killed their own Brethren and starved their own Shepherds and hazarded their own Lives for his sake and yet he shall protest unto them I never knew you i. e. to love me or to do these things for my sake but for your own ends and to satisfie your own desires and therefore depart from me ye Workers of Iniquity And the reason is Two sorts of the Lovers of Christ 1. Formal 2. Real that there are two sorts of the lovers of Christ and two kinds of professors of Christianity 1. General 2. Special That formal this real that in shew this in deed that ingendred by Education by Country by Custome by conformity to the Laws and Fashions of them with whom they live and by a common sence of Gods outward favours for Christ his sake unto them and this infused by an inward operation of Gods Spirit in the heart in all sincerity and truth and is continually preserved and encreased by a lively sence of Gods special favour unto them through Jesus Christ And you know that S. Paul tells us he is not a Jew which is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that which appeareth outwardly in the flesh i.e. which is but only born and bred a Jew of the seed of Abraham of the visible Synagogue and partaker of all the external Covenants of grace but he only is the right Jew which is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inwardly in the secrets of the heart so he is not a Christian that is but only born a Christian and doth but outwardly profess Christianity to come to the Church to hear Sermons to receive the Sacraments Who is the true Christian and to accustome himself to all the outward formalities of Christianity but he is the true Christian that is so made by his second birth and by that internal grace which is indeed invisible unto others but most sensible unto himself and who as the Evangelist saith John 1.13 is born not of bloud nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God And therefore seeing God is not mocked and that he requireth truth in the inward parts and the exactest kind of love that can be imagined let us not mock our selves by any presumptuous conceits of our love to God and so deceive our own hearts and betray our own souls which is the usual practice of too too many men for if we love God as we ought then our love must be as the Apostle speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in purity in simplicity or as the word signifieth in incorruption i.e. such as neither the most honourable nor the most profitable nor the most delectable things in this world can ever be able to lessen or diminish the least jot of our love to God when with the Apostle we disesteem our preferments and our honours and whatsoever else the world could confer upon us and account them all but as dung in comparison of our love to God and the discharging of that duty which we owe unto him for so Abraham forsook his Country neglected his honour and was ready to facrifice his only Son in obedience to the commands of God and so will all they do that do truly love the Lord as they out to love him 2. For the extent and quantity of our love to God S. Augustine saith Aug. de moribus Ecclesiae that Modus diligendi Deum est ut diligatur quantum potest diligi quanto plus diligitur tanto est dilectio melior And St. Bernard saith that Modus diligendi Deum est sine modo The measure of our love to God should be beyond measure so much that we should prefer his Love his Honour and his Service before our Father or Mother or Wife or Husband or Children or Pleasure or Profit or any other thing in this World yea before our own life which we should be ready and willing to lay down for the love of him and the defence of his truth and service Qui
the Lord and then to set up the service of Baal to persecute the true Prophets and then to magnify the false teachers 400 of them must be royally fed on Jezabels table when she would not entertain one true Prophet 1 King 18.19 And when as the Prophet saith corruit in platea veritas truth is fallen and shall be troden down as mire in the streets then lies and falshoods errors and heresies and all blasphemies shall be generally apprehended and the broachers thereof not worthy the name of Preachers shall be liberally maintained as they were by Queen Jezabel and are now by our Parliament-governours in every place Therefore though the Prophet saith It was a wonderfull and a horrible thing Jer. 5.30 that the Prophets should Prophesy falsly yet I think it was a greater wonder for the people to love to have it so to hire them so dearly and maintain them so bountifully for Prophesying falsly and teaching lies unto them For if Ahab and Jezabel had not magnified and so bountifully maintained those false Prophets and the people had not loved to hear them Prophesying lies and falshoods unto them it is like enough they would not have been so ready to broach so many errors and heresies unto them But what wonder is it for men to wander when they love to wander and to erre when they desire to erre for as Theognis saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So we may as truly say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as another saith Quisquis amat ranam ranam putat esse Dianam He that loves a Black-moore thinks her to be as fair as Venus he that loves an Idol makes it his good god and he that loves lies errors and heresies embraceth them for divine verities But is it not a wonderful and a horrible thing that men endued with reason and understanding and men that pretend and seem to be wise and religious should notwithstanding be so brutish and sottish as to love to wander and love to be deceived and guided out of the service of God to follow after the vain fancies of the false Prophets Yet you see our Prophet tells us it is so with this people Why the people love to follow their false teachers rather then the true Preachers and you shall find it so with many more for as the wicked love the world better then the godly do love the Lord so the Schismatick and Heretick the Quaker the Anabaptist the Presbyterians the Independants and the Papists are more ready to maintain and more affectionate in their love to the false teachers then the true Protestants are to relieve the true and faithful Preachers And the reason hereof is two-fold 1. Because the false Prophets are more sedulous to gain Proselytes Reason 1 then the true Preachers are to make Christians for so our Saviour tells us that while the husband-man slept the envious man sowed tares Matth. 13.25 and while the faithful disciples slumbered the traytor Judas was very watchful and ran from Christ to the high Priests and from them back again into the garden and never rested untill he had finished his intended treason and delivered the King of heaven into the hands of his own sinfull subjects to be crucified And the second reason of this their more eager desire Reason 2 and more earnest love to errour then love to truth is because as our Saviour saith The children of this world are wiser in their generation then the children of light For though as our Prophet saith This people were foolish and sottish children that had no understanding to do good yet they were wise to do evill Je. 4.22 And so are all the children of this world and that makes them more secret in their plots more studious in their doings and more subtle in all their actions then are the children of God and when they have done any foul fact and committed some great offence then as the Tragedian saith Scelera sceleribus tuenda their horrible acts are upheld by far more horrible projects and as thieves to conceal their robberies do commit murder and lyars to justifie their lies will forswear themselves so will all wicked men uphold and maintain their wickedesse by greater wickednesse and as Medea saith Quae scelere pacta est scelere rumpatur fides the covenant which they have wickedly made they will as wickedly break and the faith which they have deceitfully given they will as readily frustrate And thus as Demodicus said of the Milesians that they were no fools but they did the very same things that fools did so the wicked politicians and the hypocritical Saints of this world they are no Jews but they do the verie same things that those Jews did they wander and erre from the truth because they love to wander And I would to God we would take as much pains to go to heaven as they do to run to hell and that we would as zealously love the true service of God as they love to wander from this right worship of God 3. For the manner of their doings it is set down in the word thus 3 The manner of their doings or after this sort and it is likewise implyed in this word wanders for he that wanders stands not still but still goeth on from the thickets unto the briers and from the briers unto the bogges and so from one errour unto another So you see we are here in a wilderness where this people went astray and I must follow them with the best Method I can to declare unto you their wandring courses but as Moses sets down only their principal stations and not every step that they made in the wildernesse of Sinai so will I follow his example and shew you only their principal aberrations in the wilderness of sin and because their sin is morbus complicatus a twisted and a decompound wickednesse containing many severall branches I will rank them into these three heads 1. Their aberrations principally consisted in three things Their abuse of Gods service 2. Their rebellion against their Governours 3. Their injuries unto their neighbours The which threefold sin is circulus diaboli the very circle of the devil wherein he driveth the wicked to run their round 1. 1 The abuse of Gods service Their abuse of Gods service was in their idolatry and idolatrous worship of God for so the Prophet saith According to the number of thy Cities were thy gods O Juda and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem Jer. 11.13 have ye set up altars to that shameful thing Where you may observe That as there is but one God so this God should be served in every City and in every street of every city and as God is the same in every place That the same God should have the same worship in all places in every city and in every street of the city so should his service be the same in every place And to
and therefore I say that the bond of this Christian fraternity which we are commanded to retain and to love all that are comprehended within it though it be woven like Josephs coat Gen. 27.3 with some diversity of thred and threds of many colours yet ought it not to be easily broken and soon cut in sunder and the mercies of God should not be too narrowly contracted for why should men be more rigid then God or why should any errour exclude men from the Churches Communion which will not deprive them of eternal salvation and we find that in the Apostles time the Corinthians denied the Resurrection of the flesh which is a principal Article of our Christian faith and the Galathians erred as fowly in one of the chiefest and most fundamental points of Christianity which was the point of our justification so far that S. Paul tells them if they be circumcised as many of them would be that is after they had embraced the truth of the Gospel they were fallen away from grace and Christ should profit them nothing and many other foul errours they had amongst them and yet the holy Apostle in regard of their profession to be Christians and their Christian conversation to lead a just and an upright life calleth them Saints brethren his children and the Churches of God Chillings p. 220. And so the seven famous Churches of Asia were infected with many errours and accused of foul corruptions and yet the holy Ghost denieth them not to be Christians and disdaineth not to call them the Churches of God And therefore I say though the Papists and Puritans Anabaptists and Brownists and the like differ from us that are the true Protestants in many particular points of our Religion yet while they professe to believe in Christ What are the chiefest points of charity and to live like Christians in the fear of God in true obedience to their King and in unfeigned love and charity towards their neighbours which I conceive to be the chiefest points of Christianity and the parts and parcels of our wedding garment I say they are our brethren and to be deemed our Christian brethren and we ought to love them and are obliged to live in peace with them and to suffer them unwronged to live peaceably with us and not to do as in the madnesse of their misguided zeal too too many men are bent on either side to hate persecute rob and murder one another because they will not be of the same opinion as we are or they are of which is a thing impossible in nature because Faith cannot be compelled either to believe what I list not or not to believe what I list as Lactantius saith and it is inconsistent with the very Principle of our profession that we should rob men and take away their estatesâ—s because they will not professe the same Faith and Religion that we do for compulsion may make men hypocrites but not Saints and you know the chiefest points of our Christian Religion are Faith Hope and Charity and the Apostle tells us the greatest of these is Charity because our love and our charity as they are of a far greater perpetuity so they should be of a far greater latitude and extent then our Faith and Hope can be And therefore What we are to hate and what to love in all Sectaries and professors of Religion though my knowledge and my judgment will not suffer me to be of the same Faith either with the Papists Puritans Anabaptists or the like erroneous Sectaries but perswadeth me to hate and detest both their Positions and their Practices yet my Religion teacheth me to love their persons and in my conversation to live in Peace and to joyn the right hand of Christianity with them and rather desire to exceed them in all the Offices of love then any wayes to shew the least hatred or do the least injury to any one of them all and withall to pray for them and to use all loving means to bring them to repentance for their errours and to embrace the truth This which I professe is the readiest way to winne them for as the Scripture saith Prov. 10.12 Hatred stirreth up strife but love covereth a multitude of sins and is the readiest way to convert the sinner And I think if men did this and not break the bond of love nor straighten the extent of this brotherhood they might the sooner be reduced to imbrace the same truth and to be united in the same faith because true love is the most attractive thing in the world and the want of love is the cause that so much wickednesse doth abound even as our Saviour testifieth And therefore it is most requisite that we should be very earnest and very often to insist upon these points and to urge these duties to honour all men and to love the brotherhood And so having heard that no Christian that is baptized and professeth the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be excluded from this Brother-hood We are now to confider wherein the love of this Brother-hood consisteth and what this Extensive love includeth in it and upon survey we shall find it to comprehend 1. An Vnfained affection of good-will unto them without dissimulation to wish them all happiness and prosperity not only in words but even from our very hearts 2. An Earnest endeavour to procure them all the good that their necessity requireth so far as it lyeth in our power to help them As 1. To pray for them that God would bless them and preserve them from all evil and save them even as S. Paul saith Brethren Rom. 10.1 my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved 2. Most cheerfully to administer to their necessities in all that lieth in our abilities for that is the Apostle's meaning both in his Epistle to the Romans chap. 12.13 And in this 1 Tim. 6.17 18. Chrysost in loc as S. Chrysostom sheweth saying Non solum pecuniis sed verbis rebus corpore aliis quibuscunque modis vult nos juvare egenos the Apostle would have us to help the needy not only with our purses but also with our words in speaking for them and with our labours to do them good and to preservs them from all manner of damage in their estates yea Rom. 12.20 without any difference of friends or foes for so the Apostle bids us If thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink And so the Lord saith if thou meet est thine enemyes Oxe or his Ass going astray thou shalt surely bring hem back again to him Exod. 23.5.6 and if thou seest the Ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden and thou wouldst forbear to help him thou shalt surely help him or leave thy business to help him O most heavenly and divine love how happy were we if we were filled with such love and how
bond or free Nahum 1.7 so God knoweth them that trust in him saith the Prophet and he shall say of them I know them and I will acknowledge them to be mine my sheep and my servants wheresoever they are and in what state or condition soever they be And therefore they follow me and study to be holy as I am holy which is their sanctification and the third part of these words 3. Christ told his Apostles at the first that if any man would be his Disciple Tertia part they follow me Luke 9.23 The following of Christ twofold 1. In suffering Esay 53.3 and so his sheep to hear his voice and to learn of him he must take up his cross and follow him And this following of him as you see by these words must be twofold 1. In patiendo in suffering as he suffered 2. In agendo in doing as he did For 1. Our Shepherd Christ was vir dolorum a man of sorrows as the Prophet calls him that had experience of infirmities and his whole life from his Cradle to his Cross was but a life of suffering the scornful reproofs of the wealthy and the despitefulness of the proud who did all that either tongues or hands could do against him and yet as a Lamb before his shearer is dumb so he opened not his mouth V. 7. but forgave them all their indignities and prayed for them that crucified him which was an example of suffering without example and beyond all examples And our Saviour tells us the Disciple must not be above his Master he must not look to walk on flowers when his Master walks through the bryars but where the Master goeth before the servant should follow after And yet we may justly say with S. Bernard Quam pauci O Domius Jesu post te ire volunt cum tamen ad te pervenire nemo sit quinesit hoc scitutibus cunctis qua delectationes in dextratnausque ad finem How few O Lord Jesu there are which will come after thee when as to come unto thee there is no man but is willing because where thou art and in thy right hand there is fulness of joy and abundance of pleasures for evermore Et propterea saith that Father Volâ—â—t omnes te frai at non ita intitari conregnare cupiunt sed non compati And therefore all men would enjoy thee but not so as to follow thee they would Reign with thee but they will not suffer with thee they can be concented with the Apostle to build Tabernacles and to abide with him on mount Tabor where he was transfigured in Glory but they can all forsake him on mount Calvarie when he was overwhelmed with sorrow and confusion went over his face This is the common course of the world to follow him close in prosperity and to seem zealous of his honour and of his service Cum benefecerit illis when as the Prophet David saith Their corn and wine and oyle encreaseth and they prosper in their successes but if they should be ejected suppressed and persecuted for serving him then will they start aside like a broken bow and like the children of Ephraint that being harnessed and carrying bowes and so being enabled by their learning wealth and friends to do God good service do turn their backs to him in the day of battel when there is most need of their help and they could most chiefly follow him But the true sheep of Christ and the faithfull servants of God will follow him Per mare per saxa per ignes and will say Who shall separate us from the love of Christ or withdraw us from the service of our God and following after our Shepherd or shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword No sure in all these things they are more then Conquerours through him that loved them so that neither Death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor Things present Rom. 8.35 v. 38.39 nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate them from the love of God and from following their Master Jesus Christ our Lord. And they that cannot truly say thus or they that love Father or Mother or Son or Daughter or any other thing in this world even their own life more then Christ they are not worthy of Christ Mat. 10.37 as Christ himself doth testifie And therefore seeing that to suffer with Christ and for Christ his Service is an especial gift and grace of God Phil 1.29 1 Pet. 3.14 Mat. 5.11 as the Apostle sheweth and that they are happy and blessed that suffer persecution for righteousness sake and when men shall revile them and say all manner of evil against them falsly for Christ his sake I say with the Poet Componite mentes Lucan Phars Ad magnae virtutis opus magnosque labores And as our Saviour saith when you suffer all that can be suffered and all that your enemies can impose upon you Mat. 11. v. 12. rejoice and be glad yea and be exceeding glad because your reward shall be great in heaven and let not your sufferings trouble you Nec enim fortuna querenda Ovid Met. l. ulâ— sab 44. Sola tua est similes aliorum respice casus Mitius istaferes For this is not your case alone but if you look what happened to other men you shall finde that as our Saviour saith So persecuted they the Prophets that were before you and so are many of your brethren persecuted as well as you and perhaps more then you which should teach you Mitius ista ferre to follow Christ in his sufferings the more patiently and contentedly without any manner of muttering 2. 2 In Doings As we are to follow our Shepherd Christ in his Sufferings so we are to follow him in his Doings that is to imitate him in our actions and to make him the Exemplar and the Pattern of all our doings for though we should live by Rules and not by Examples yet the Example of Christ is beyond all Rules Et validior est vox operis quam oris Bern in Cant. Ser. 59. and morall operations are more forcible then all the logicall demonstrations in the world But you must understand that the Acts and Doings of Christ are of two sorts 1. Unimitable 2. Imitable And The first he did as God to approve his Office and to confirm our Faith that we might believe him to be the Son of God and the Messias that should come to be the Saviour of the world for so he saith himself The works that I doe do testifie and beare witnesse of me And herein we are not required to follow him and we are not able to imitate him neither should we attempt to doe it for when he saith Learn of me he meaneth not saith Saint Augustine that thou shouldst learn of him Aut mundos fabricare aut mortuos suscitare
from many sins they would fall into most fearfull abominations and did not he sustain them with his hand they would pull down many mischiefs and kindle many plagues upon their own heads 3. Way 3 By bestowing many gifts and favours upon his creatures as sending them raine and fruitfull seasons Acts 14.17 making the Sun to shine both upon the good and upon the bad and filling our hearts with food and gladness by giving us Health Wealth and Prosperity 4. Way 4 By that which is above all and beyond all the rest in giving his onely Son to redeem us when we were captives and to save us when we were utterly lost Seneca saith we esteem our selves too highly if we suppose our selves worthy that the revolution of Winter and Summer should be done for us But alas good Philosopher if thou thinkest it strange that the world should hold his course for our sake what wouldst thou think if thou knewest as much as we that God for our sake should send his only Son to suffer the most ignominious death of the cross to deliver us from everlasting death The inexpressable greatness of Gods love in sending his Son to redeem us for this love is so full of all bottomlesse Mysteries so transcendently infinite that all the other multitudes of his blessings heaped upon us in our creation and preservation are not worth the talking of or so much as to be once named in comparison of this blessing but as the light of the Sun obscureth all the light of the Starres so the consideration of this benefit swalloweth up all the memory of all other benefits whatsoever And therefore this is ever and anon shewed and urged as the chiefest argument of Gods love and as the most royal Present whereby the King of Heaven did so exemplarily commend his love towards the sons of men 1 Johon 4.9 for as the Apostle saith in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was manifested the love of God towards us that he sent his onely begotten Son into the world Why this benefit exceedeth all other benefits that we might live through him And the reason why this benefit transcendeth and excelleth all other benefits seemeth to be two-fold 1. Reason 1 Because That before our creation we had done nothing that had displeased God or opposed his purpose to produce us but before our redemption we had every way offended his Majesty rejected his grace and refused his favours towards us nay we had not onely slighted his love but we had also in all hostile manner done as we see others do now unto us rendered to him evil for good and for all his grace and loving favours we offered Wars and all despightful Indignities unto him Reason 2 2. Because in our Creation Dixit facta sunt he spake the world and they were made commanded and they stood fast but in working our redemption Multa dixit magna fecit dira tulit he spake many excellent Sermons he did many admirable Works and he suffered many intolerable Things and yet Solus homo non compatitur pro quo solo Deus patitur of all Gods creatures The exceeding greatness of the Mystery of our Redemption by the Incarnation Passion of Christ Col 1.26 1 Pet. 1.10 12. man alone regards not all this for whom alone God did all this And therefore this work alone was that astonishing project wherewith the invisible God blessed for ever intended in the fullest measure to glorifie all his Attributes even at once and to make himself far more admirably known by this then he was either by the Creation or the preservation of all the things of this world And this was that unsearchable Mystery that was hidden from the Ages and the Generations before in which God would make known the riches of his glory and which the holy men of God for many ages together longed to see and the Angels themselves desired 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most heedfully to pry into it So you see that God by innumerable wayes and specially by this superlative argument of his love to mankind doth sufficiently testifie that he loveth 3. For the extent and object of Gods love the Apostle saith that he loveth us 3 The Parties loved us Love what it is The extent of is The extent of Gods Love 1. Himself 2. All that he made and S. Austin defineth love to be a motion of the heart delighting it self in any thing And the better we conceive the thing to be the more is our heart inflamed to love it and therefore God being the chiefest good he must needs in the first place love himself best as the Father loveth the Son the Son in like manner loveth the Father and both of them equally love the holy Spirit and the Spirit them And besides himself God loveth all things that he made because all that he made were good Sin he made not therefore he loves it not but hateth the same with a perfect hatred But though God loveth every thing which he hath made That of all Creatures God loved Mankind best yet he loveth not all things equally alike for we finde that he shewed more evident testimonies of far greater love to mankind then he did to any other creature whatsoever for though he loveth his Angels with a very great and singular love when he maketh them his Ministers and these Ministers flames of fire that do continually burn with the love of his Sacred Majesty yet we do not read that he stileth himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of Angels as he termeth himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of men as Zanchy well observeth out of Tit. 3.4 And this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his love to man more then to any other creature appeareth more manifestly by the manifold effects of his love As 1. In creating man alone after his own Image 2. In giving to him alone dominion over the rest of his creatures over all the works of his hands 3. In predestinating his onely begotten Son to take upon him our flesh thereby to exalt the humane nature alone above all other creatures whatsoever for though the Angels were of a pure simple and unspotted being and we of a terrene corrupted substance yet as the Apostle well observeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 2.16 he took not upon him the Angels but he took the seed of Abraham And therefore the Prophet David considering these many many testimonies of the divine love to man crieth out with admiration O God what is man that thou art so mindfull of him or the son of man that thou so regardest him thou madest him a little lower then the Angels but it was to crown him with glory and worship Psal 8 5. Gods love to men not equally alike to all men Prov. 8. Exod. 20. Psal 11.6 And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here hath an emphasis that God loved us men or mankind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more and above all other his creatures whatsoever And here you must observe also that amongst men as the glory of all Starres or the beauty of all Flowers is not the same when as every Star is not a Phoebus and every Flower is not a Lilly so the love of God doth not appear alike to all men for I love them that love me and I will shew mercy on them that love me and keep my commandements saith the Lord but the ungodly and him that delighteth in wickedness doth his soul abhor And thus not onely the Elect are beloved better then the Reprobates and the Saints better then Sinners but among the very chosen Saints God loveth some better then others for every like loveth his like and therefore God embraceth them with a greater love whom he vouchsafeth to make and findeth them willing and most yielding to be the more like unto himself and so he loveth those that are the better more then those that are less good as the more we excell in Vertue and Goodnesse the more dearly doth God love us so he loved Abraham among the Patriarchs Moses among the Prophets David among the Kings and this beloved Disciple among the Apostles more as it seemeth then any other and so the blessed Virgin whom all generations shall call blessed was highly beloved and loved more then any of all the daughters of men And of this gradation of Gods love S. Aug. saith Omnia diligit Deus quae fecit God loveth all that he made and among them he loveth rather the reasonable creatures and of these he loveth them more which are the members of his Son and most of all his onely begotten Son And this greater love of God to some men more then to others besides those internal graces of Faith Hope Love Patience and the like which he giveth to the Elect Mark 4.11 and not to the Reprobates Quia vobis datum est because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdome of heaven but to others not because they will not accept of them when they are offered God manifesteth the same to all men by two outward infallible demonstrations 1. The donation of his graces 2. The preservation of their persons For 1. There is no man but might consider how God hath bestowed more excellent gifts and graces on himself 1 God giveth his Gifts and Graces severally and differently then he hath done to many others as either Health or Wealth or Honour or some other gift that the meanest man hath which many others have not or if not yet seeing God out of his greater love to some men more then to others bestoweth on some five Talents when he bestoweth on others but two or but one and maketh some men Princes and others Peasants or indueth some men with Learning and Knowledge when he leaveth others ignorant and foolish and so maketh some men rich when as many others are very poor Why should our eyes be evil because he is good For Cum huic fit misericordia tibi non fit injuria when as herein he doth but shew mercy unto one and injury unto none Why should we not rather consider that he may love whom he will and shew mercy on whom he will have mercy and so do what he will with his own especially seeing we know not why he doth what he doth 2. God doth guide some men with his counsel that they run not with the wicked Ps 37.24 Rom. 1. into the same excess of riot as they do for seeing by nature we are all equally indifferent and equally inclined to all sins Repleti omni injustitia saith the Apostle How comes it to pass that some men abstain from odious Rebellions and other impious abominations and abominable impieties that many wicked men do perpetrate Is it from out selves and from the goodness of our Natures or the sweetness of our dispositions No no it is from God that giveth his grace and holy Spirit unto some that are willing and ready to receive it when God offereth it unto them rather then to others that refuse to answer when he calleth and to accept his gifts and graces when he offereth the same unto them so God preserved Noah from partaking with the wickedness of the old world Lot from following after the abominations of the Sodomites Joseph from consenting to the lewd inticements of his Mistress and the like and so he doth preserve them that he loves from imitating the wicked in their odious sins because these men love God again are ready and willing to be preserved by God for did not the blessed God work this happy change in our souls and the Father of Lights illuminate our minds with a more distinct knowledge of his grace we might have groped and flumbled in a thicker mist of stupidity then now befools our unnurtured brethren and whatsoever is either odious or ridiculons in them might have beene farre more prodigious in us And so S. Aug. doth most excellently confess it saying tentator defuit Satan was away and time and place was wanting to do the deed but this was thy doing to preserve me the Tempter came in time and place convenient Aug. Soliloqu L. 16. but then thou withheldest me from consenting So when I had a will I wanted ability and when I had ability I wanted opportunity and all this was from thy blessed Spirit that preserved me And this preservation of us from evil Prov. 1. is offered by the goodness of God unto the wicked but that they refuse it as the wise man sheweth and the Scripture testifieth in many places And as God preserveth those that he loveth from the sins so he delivereth them also from the punishments of sin for though misfortune shall slay the ungodly yet as the Prophet saith God preserveth the righteous And though the plagues of God shall range and rage so far against the wicked that thousands of them shall fall besides the godly and ten thousands on his right hand yet it shall not come nigh him because God giveth his Angels charge over those that he loveth and they do preserve them in all their wayes that they dash not their foot against a stone And here in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the persons on whom God shewed so many testimonies of his abundant love to some more then to others I may and must put our selves before many thousands of others that perhaps deserved the same far better then we do For whereas all other places that had the truth of the Protestant Religion amongst them have now their Candlesticks removed and the true publick service of God metamorphosed and corrupted with lyes heresies and blasphemies we alone of all our Kings Dominion have the true light and the publick service of God shining in the right Candlestick and with Authority maintained And I humbly beseech Almighty God that our sins unthankfulness and unworthiness do not ere long deprive us
saith Lex non justior ulla est Quam necis Artifices arte perire sua There cannot be a juster Law 2 In retaliation of good for good then for him that diggeth a Pit to fall into it himself or that he that loveth War should perish in the War and he that sheddeth mans Blood should have his Blood shed by man so in the retaliation of good for good the same Law holdeth most just and more especially 1. In Giving 2. In Suffering 3. In Loving For For 1. 1 In giving Is it not just that we should give to him that hath given all to us And what have we that we have not received from God Why then should we think much either to give the Tenth to God or our Almes unto the Poor when the Lord himself professeth he that giveth unto the poor lendeth unto the Lord and whatsoever you do to these you do to Him 2. 2 In suffering Is it not as just that we should be ready to suffer for him that hath suffered so much for us The Apostle saith that Christ exinanivit seipsum though he thought it no Robbery to be equal with God Phil. 2.6 yet he emptied himself of all his Royal Dignities and suffered all the Indignities that could be laid upon him for our sake and shall we grudge to suffer the Losse of a little Worldly Trash or the bearing of some Light Affliction for him and for the Defence of his Truth and True Service that hath suffered all Sufferings for us No no when we suffer any thing for the Faith of Christ or our Loyalty to our King let us but consider what Christ hath suffered for us and what our good King hath suffered for the Defence of our Faith because he will not yield to deface the Church of Christ and to destroy the True Service of God and this will support us in all our Sufferings we suffer a little for him that suffered much for us 3. Because all men have not wealth to give 3 In loving and all men have not the patience to suffer yet all men have hearts to love God and they can have no excuse if they love him not because he hath so dearly loved them for if you consider all the Motives and procurements of Love which are very many as Beauty Benignity Bounty Wisdom Valour and the like yet there is none of these nor all these nor any other thing in the world so powerful to beget Love as Love it self neither is there any thing so available to encrease or to continue Love as Love it self Therefore the Poets feign that when Venus the Goddess of Love brought forth her first begotten Son she called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love and when she saw he thrived not but was still lean meager and bloodless How Venus consulted with Themis about her son Eros she consulted with Themis the Goddess of Justice which was Mother to Minerva the Goddess of Wisdom to know the reason of the sad condition of her Son and she told her that she must bring forth another Son which she did and called him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. Love for Love and then both her Children prospered and became exceeding beautiful and lovely So among men when we prosecute any one with Love it is impossible that Love should be lasting if at no time in no measure it should be requited with Love again for as the Coales Conjoyned will preserve the heat but when they are scattered will be soon extinguished so debet amor laesus irasci love when it is deserted and forsaken or left alone will be soon lost And therefore if we desire the Love of God to continue towards us we must resolve to shew our Love to God again for I will love them that love me and shew mercy unto Thousands of them that loue me saith the Lord Prov. 8.17 And so the Apostle saith we love him because he loved us first that is seeing he hath loved us therefore we are bound to love him where you may observe 1. The Persons We. We love him 2. The Act Love We love him 3 Parts 3. The Object Him We love him 1. The persons here said to love God are not the Angels 1 The persons that love God We. though they do exceedingly love him when as the Script saith He maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire where you may see three most admirable and transcendent excellencies of the Angels as 1. Purity of substance because they are Spirits 2. Readiness of obedience because they are his Angels and his Ministers Three excellent properties of the Angels and such as for their swift execution of Gods commands are compared to the wings of the wind 3. Ferventness of charity or burning love not only of one towards another but especially towards God because they are flames of fire but the persons here meant are men we love him i.e. we that are the sons of Adam do love him seeing mans love to God is but Radius divini amoris erga homines in deum reflexus a beam of Gods love towards man reflected from man to God again as Zanchius saith and seeing that where so powerfull a cause doth exist the subsequent effect must needs follow Therefore seeing God loveth all men it must needs be that all men How all men do love God Acts 17. in some measure do love God again that is as God is their Creator Preserver and Cause in whom they live and move and have their being and from whom they have and do receive all the good that they have so the Jews Turks and Heathens Worldlings Rebels and Traytors and all the wicked men in the world doe love God But seeing this love is too general and too base for all Christians scarce worthy of the name of love it will not serve the turn to make us happy but will deceive and destroy those lovers that have none other love to God but this poor confused general love Therefore 2. To proceed unto the stricter discussion of the act or the affection of love 2 The act love The Original cause of love twofold 1. General We love him you must note the same to be according to the original cause and ground thereof And that is two-fold 1. General as the many manifold benefits that we continually receive from God as he is the faithful Creator a wise Preserver and a bountiful Bestower of abundance of all good gifts upon his Creatures So the Reprobates love God 2. Special and in this respect the very Reprobates as I told you cannot chuse but love the Lord that is their Creator and Preserver 2. Special as the serious apprehension of our own infinite wants and miseries and of those Miracles of Love and Mercies which God hath performed to cure our souls from those Miseries Thus the Saints only love God by sending his only Son to
all these things pass I dare appeal to any impartial Reader that neither Eusebius nor Socrates nor Thuanus nor Chammier nor any other Hystorian Ecclesiastical or Prophane that have written of Persecutions or of the cruelty of Antichrist can shew me any King since the King of the Jews that by his own Subjects and for no vice of his own that malice it self can tax him but only in reality whatsoever is otherwise pretended for the defence of Christ his faith and the true service of God the protection of all faithfull Preachers and the upholding of the Fundamental Laws of his Kingdom hath or could suffer more unkingly indignities by any Antichrist than our gracious King hath done by his own ungraciaus Subjects of these three Kingdoms But stay and let us consider that although these Persecutions be exceeding great yet our sins and transgressions are far greater and God in all this is most just and as Ezra saith Ezra 9 13. Punisheth us less than our iniquities deserve for certainly we must confess what the world seeth that we have sinned with our Fathers we have done amiss and dealt wickedly and therefore as Eusebius confesseth the iniquities of the Primitive Christians to have pulled upon them those Heathen Persecutions so must we acknowledge this Antichristian Tyranny to have most justly fallen upon us And not only so but seeing we have so justly deserved it let us submit our selves under the mighty hand of God repent and be sorry for whatsoever we have done amiss and pray to God for grace and strength to suffer what shall be laid upon us either for the punishment of our sins or the trial of our Faith to God and our Loyalty to our King not only the loss of all worldly things but even of our life it self because that in so suffering unto death we shall be sure to have the Crown of life which the Lord grant unto us for Jesus Christ his sake to whom be all glory and honour for ever and ever Amen I have spent two hours in treating of this one verse already and because here is magnum in parvo abundance of treasure in this little mine I must crave leave to spend one hour more and with that I hope I shall finish all that I have to say on these words You may remember I told you the words contain 1. Gods love to Man 2. Mans love to God The first I handled in my first Sermon And In the second I shewed you three parts that is to say 1. The Persons We 2. The Act Love 3. The Object him We love him 3 The Object of our love God The two first in my last Sermon And now because I love neither Tautologies nor to stand long upon repetitions I will proceed unto the object of our love where the Apostle saith We love him that is God And I would to God that we did all love him quia actus distinguitur per objectum because it is not our love that doth hurt us but the object of our love maketh or marreth all for as St. Augustine saith Duas civitates duo faciunt amores our love to God buildeth up Jerusalem Aug. super Psal 64. the Church and City of God and our love to the world and these worldly things buildeth up Babylon the Synagogue of Satan And therefore this is the errour of the sons of men The errour of men not that we are subject unto Passions and endued with the affections of Fear Hate Love and the like but that we misguide our Passions and misorder our affections by misplacing them where they ought not to be setled for we may fear so it be him that can cast both body and soul into hell fire we may hate so it be the thing that is evill and we may love so it be what we ought and as we ought to love But this is that which God cannot endure that we should fear men more than God or fear temporal losses goods or lands more than the loss of our souls and the wounding of a good conscience or that we should hate our brethren and not their sins which we cherish in our selves though we detest them in all others or that we should love the world and not God or any thing in the world more than God or so much that it should any waies lessen our love to God And therefore here I may stop my course and stay a while to reprove those many millions of men that are as the Philosophers said The Citizens of the world and do freely bestow their loves not on God but either upon the vain pleasures The love of vain things choaketh our love to God or the vile profits of this wicked world And it is a strange thing to see how one affecteth Honour another Beauty a third Authority and most of us some one kind of vanity or other that either drowneth or driveth away and so lesseneth much our love to God And above all things the love of Riches choaketh this divine love in all worldly men For as Apolonius Tyanaeus saith That he hath seen a stone called Pantaura which is the Queen of all other stones and hath in it all the vertues that are to be found in all the other pretious stones So to this stone do some men compare riches Kiches what they are like because they suppose riches to contain in them the force and vertue of all other things and are able to bring mighty things to pass as the fiercest beasts are made tame by them the fairest Ladies are won by them as Jupiter prevailed with Danae What great things wealth and riches have done when as the Poets feign he came unto her in a golden showre The greatest Kings are subdued by them when as no weapons can overcome the shields of Gold and Rome it self might have been bought if Jugurth had had wealth enough to purchase it as he said when he passed out of Rome And you see the Fishes of the Sea that are overwhelmed with water and drowned in the Deep cannot escape the force of Riches and the Fowls of the air though of the swiftest Wings yet can they not fly from their Empire yea what Altitudes have not Riches abated What difficulties have they not vanquished What improbabilities I will not say impossibilities have they not facilitated And what things have they desired that they have not obtained Therefore St. Augustine shewing the folly of the Pagans about their selected gods Aug. de Civit. Dei l. 7. c. 3. wondreth that if wise men were their Selectors why Venus was preferred before the Lady Vertue or if Venus deserveth her enhansement because more do affect her than those that love vertue then why was not Lady Money more famous than Minerva seeing that in all sorts of men there are more that love coyn better than knowledge and all Trades aime at Money and say with the Poet Quaerenda pecunia primum est virtus
he devised the way to depose her and to set the Crown upon the right Heirs Head whose example we ought all to follow when opportunity serveth Or were I not so that we must renounce usurped power how shall we protect and maintain the just and lawful authority 2 Sam. 15 16. surely the people that followed Abso lon when he had the power to trample Justice under foot to possesse the royal City and to drive the lawful King to flie from place to place and the followers of those perfideous Rebels of Killkenney that so barbarously massacred the poor Protestants and so foully so falsely deluded both the good King and all the Kings friends and have now as themselves pretend the great power in this Kingdom may well be justified not to have offended if this doctrine may be defended that usurped authority is not to be resisted but to be obeyed when its power is most prevalent But the Apostle tells us plainly Rom. 14.2 that whatsoever is not of faith is sin and with what faith I pray you can I obey that power and submit my self to that authority which my conscience tells me to be against truth and without Justice But Tertull. ad Scapulam makes this most clear where he sheweth how tender the Christians were to preserve the right to the lawful Emperours and therefore though Albinus was most powerful in the West and Pisen Niger in the East yet the Christians would be nec Albiniani nec Cassiani nec Nigriani Yet this much I must tell you that where the right heir is not apparent as it was not amongst many of the Primitive Emperours who were often lifted up to that royal dignity by none other right than the Sword of the tumultuous Souldiers and unconstant cohorts and were therefore obeyed by the good Christians because they knew not of any other that had any better right unto the Empire the same as yet being unsetled to continue in any hereditary line or when the just Title to the Crown is not cleered as perhaps it was not to all the Subjects in the time of Hen. 4. Edw. 4. and Rich. 3. and the like doubtful claimes then it is not for every private mechanick or ignorant Rustick to determine the right to the Crown and decide the equity or the iniquity of such powers but as the Apostle saith and as it was most learnedly handled by a most Reverend and a most learned Prelate of our Church not long since in this place they ought to study to be quiet to follow their own Trades 1 Thes 4 11. and to do their own business and not to polupragmatize in matters so transcendent and so metaphysical to their Mechanick and Rustick capacities And in this qualified sence you must understand and not mistake the meaning of the same most Reverend Prelate in this place upon our last Kings day that when it is doubtful to whom the right of the Soveraign Power should belong or who hath right unto the Soveraignty then all ignorant and private men are excused though they resist not the Government that hath the present power over them but do obey the same especially by their passive obedience and likewise by their active obedience in all honest and lawful demands All which with all that I said before I say to clear the integrity of the said Reverend Prelates intention from any sinister apprehension of misunderstanding hearers But where the right is indubitable and the soveraignty not to be questioned whose it is as it is with our most gracious King whom all the Irish Rebels of Kilkenny and all the other Rebels of these three Kingdoms deny not to be their lawful Soveraign I say that what Power soever exalteth it self above him or against him which the Parliament of England doth not when it challengeth only a kind of co-ordination with him we are not to yield any obedience unto the same especially if the same command or require any thing contrary to his commands because as the Son of Syrach saith We are to stand with the right and in the truth and as our Saviour saith To continue faithful therein unto death if we desire to enjoy the Crown of life And therefore though the dumb devil may hold my tongue Rev. 2.10 so that I shall be able to say nothing of what truth should be delivered yet all the power of hell shall never open my mouth and cause me to say that untruth which my conscience telleth me cannot be justified because this love to the truth of Scripture is a singular Testimony of our love to God 3. The next sign of the love of God is to love the honour of God without which we cannot be said to love God 2 To love Gods honour 4. The next sign is to love Gods Image that is Man 5. To observe Gods Precepts 6. To hate Sin 7. A longing desire to be with God to have an Union and Communion with him for it is an impregnable property of a person loving to desire to be united to the person loved and therefore Pyramus loving Thisbe cries out to the wall that hindered them to meet together Invide dicebat paries quid amantibus obstas Many other signs of Gods love I should shew unto you and the impediments that hinders us to love God such as are 1. The ignorance of the incomprehensible sweetness and unspeakable goodness of God 2. The too much love of our selves and of our carnal desires 3. The bewitching allurements of the pleasures profits and other vanities of this present world and the like that do hinder blind and suffocate our love to God And then last of all I should shew unto you the helps and furtherances to beget and to nourish the love of God in us such as are 1. The continual meditation of Gods goodness towards us and his excellencies in himself 2. The daily reading and hearing of Gods Word and the reading of other godly Books that do incite and invite us to love the Lord above all the things of this World 3. Continual Prayers to God for Grace and the assistance of his Holy Spirit to encline our hearts to love him 4. Often discourse and conference with good and holy men about the goodness of God and heavenly things and the like All which I should more fully and amply inlarge unto you but that the time binds me to defer the same to a fitter opportunity and in the interim to pray to God for grace to abandon the love of this World and to love God and to encrease in our love to him more and more through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom be Glory and Honour and Thanks now and for evermore Amen Jehovae Liberatori THE DECLARATION OF THE Just Judgments of GOD. THE Man that was according to God's own heart the best Subject that ever we read of and the greatest Ring that ever Israel saw David the Son of Jesse saith that the LORD is righteous in
Crucifie him 5. When to so milde a King that said none otherwise to his servant Math. 26 6â— So they beheaded King Charles where they used the baiting of Bears and other beasts in the common-way that arch-traytor which betrayed him but Friend wherefore art thou come they shall scornfully say to him The Prisoner or this fellow 6. When they carry him out to Golgotha a place fitter to bait beasts than to execute Kings there in a common high-way to lose his life 7. When as they go to Golgotha they cause him that was whipped and scourged and wearied in posting of him from place to place to carry his own heavy cross upon his shoulders 8. When they not only numbred him among the wicked but also crucified him betwixt two thieves in the midst of the wicked as if he had been the chiefest of all wicked men When the Colonel that brought him to his execution commanded his Souldiers to shoot any one that pâ—lled off his hâ—â— or shewed any reverence or spake any word for the honour of the King 3 How he was spit upon Joh. 19.29 And thus they bespitted King Charles with all kind of calumnies that had none but the wicked on every side of him 9. When as now disrobed of all Royalties and fastned to an accursed cross where he was induring intolerable pains not one that loved him durst speak a word but his enemies flouted him and wagged their heads at him and when he thirsted for our salvation they filled his mouth with sharp Vinegar as they did his ears with shameless taunts 10. When after he was dead they would not afford him a place of burial but he must be laid in another mans Sepulcher And were not all these and much more that might be collected most spightful usages of an innocent man and a glorious King Yet the Evangelist adds one thing more that I must not omit that they would spit upon him a note of the thing that we do most abominate as it seems their King was the chiefest thing that they did most hate and abhor But a man may be said to be spit upon figuratively when his enemies spit out their venome against him even bitter words And so Christ their King was most shamefully spit upon when by their Declarations and Remonstrances and other scurrilous Pamplets they proclaimed him to the World to be a Deceiver of the trust reposed in him and a Traytor because he perverted the people and drew them on to their destruction So they called him a Samaritane a Drunkard a Demoniak an upholder of Sinners a breaker of the Sabbath a Conjurer and what not Their tongues were swords that killed his Honour before they crucified his Person and they were the poyson of Aspes that spat out all these slanderous calumnies upon their King And this was bad enough and too much indignitie for a King Yet the Souldiers did not only thus Rhetorically spit upon him but Grammatically disgorged the scum of their ulcerous lungs in his glorious face and it is reported that a Souldier going under the name of a Christian did the like to a most Christian King which if true let him repent lest God should spue him out of his mouth And though it be the rule of the very Heathens De mortuis nil nisi bene We ought to speak nothing but good of the dead because as the Poet saith Livor post fata quiescit Yet these beasts like devils Saeva sed in manes manibus arma dabant degenerating from mankind are not content to kill their King but will murder him again and again after that he is both dead and buried and that not only in his Lovers and Followers whom they are resolved not to extenuate but to extirpate but especially in his fame his glory and his honour which is to all good men as the savour of the sweetest perfume that is made by the art of the Apothecarie and which they like stinking flies endeavour by all means to corrupt and defame and to destroy all those that truly preach or publish any truth redounding to his honour as you may plainly see it in the acts of his Apostles whom they threatned and terrified for speaking any good of him Though as the Poet saith Tu ne cede malis sed contrà audentior ito So the more these murderers sought to hinder it the more the glory and goodness of this King was spread abroad to their indelible shame throughout all the World when as the vertues of every just and pious man are as the palme-trees the more forcibly they are suppressed the more gloriously they will be exalted So you see how spightfully and how trayterously and bloodily and basely these miscreant Jews have used and abused killed and murdered their own King Now 2. 2 How causelessely they condâ—mned him John 10.32 You are to consider how causelessely and how unjustly they did all this unto him for the Prophet in the person of this King saith Oderunt me gratis They hated me indeed but without a cause and himself saith unto the Jews Many good works have I shewed you from my father For which of them do you now go about to kill me So in truth there was great cause to love and honour this good King that had done so much good unto them but no cause why they should either hate or abuse much lesse to kill or murder this their own King Yet we find several causes set down by the Evangelists that moved these Jews to kill their King and they are of two sorts 1. Pretended to the people 2. Real to themselves And 1. 1 The pretended causes to murder their King Their pretended cause is specially twofold 1. Cultus Dei 2. Salus populi the usual pretences of all Traytors and if they were true there could not be better And therefore this fair colour deceives the buyers of this bad cloth and these pretences made the people to commit on Christ this execrable Fact to hate and crucifie the son of God their own King But to proceed to examine these fair colours 1. As generally the raisers of any people to rebellion 1 Innovation of Religion taxe their Governours with innovation or destruction of Religion because all men even the superstitious and licentious and prophane worlding would fain seem to embrace the true Religion so these perswade the silly vulgar that this their King closely and cunningly laboureth to alter and innovate the true service of God as 1. That he was too loose in observing the Sabbath 2. Too strict in the reverence to be shewed in the material Temple Mark 2.24 Matth. 21.12 c 19. The very same things were objected against King Charles Matth. 5.17 1. Objection answered Mark 2.27 3. Too severe in abridging them the liberty of divorces and the like But to this our King answereth first in generall that they do wrong him by this their unjust charge and accusation because he came
the seduced followers of the Scribes Pharisees and Presbyters cryed for Justice Justice Crucifie him Crucifie him yet seeing all the rest of the honest people that had well observed his meekness and his sweet carriage amongst them and had received so much justice and so many favours from this good King did exceedingly love him and said He did all things weâ—l and were ready to venture their lives for him the Priests and Presbyters durst not venture to delay his execution till that day were past lest they should attempt to rescue him and so to save his life on that day So you see the subtilty of the crafty foxes and the greediness of these Bloody-hounds to take away the life of their good King and to hinder al others to preserve his life Reason 2 2. They would not have him to suffer on their Feast day lest they should be defiled John 18.28 a most damnable hypocrisie that stumble at a straw and leap over a block that fear to be defiled on their Holy day and yet fear not the shedding of innocent blood the blood of their King and of the Son of God on any other day Just like our hypocritical Saints that cannot endure to misie the hearing of two Sermons on the Lords day and care not to deceive and destroy 200. of their neighbours if they can do it upon any other day And therefore these holy Saints are none of Gods Saints but do belong to that Angel of darkness The great hypocrisie of these holy murderers that can so finely transform himself as these men do into an Angel of Light And so you see how speedily they executed their King and the main Reasons why they did so And this speedy execution of his death doth exceedingly aggravate the heynousness of the action for after they had him in their hands their feet were swift to shed his blood and they ended all proceedings in few dayes their unsatiable thirst for blood can never suffer these Blood-bounds to rest until their thirst be quenched But you will say He was almost four years amongst them after he was Baptized A Question and began to dresse his Vineyard and to sway the Scepter of his Dominion if they were so greedy of his extirpation Why stayed they all this while before they executed their intention I answer Not because they wanted will but by reason of some remora's The Answer for three Reasons Luke 22.2 that hindered their desires and they were especially these three 1. The love of the people who for his justice innocency and fair carriage towards all men and the great good he did to many men did for many years exceedingly love him and apologise for him until these subtile Foxes by their Remonstrances and Aspersions had wrought this unstable multitude that understood nothing right to a jealous and a causeless suspition of this Just King and a wicked compliance with these unjust murderers 2. The want of fit opportunity made that they could not so safely do it until the people at the Passeover were drawn up to the Metropolis Hierusalem where by the Law they were to convene at this Feast and whereby you may see how their subtilty made way for their villany 3. The factions and oppositions that were among themselves and especially betwixt their chief Commanders Pilate the Roman Commander and Herod the head-Ruler of the Jews stayed their purposes till these differences were composed and these two great Opponents made great Friends and this assoon as ever done they presently do what they intended and never rest till all be finished 5. When they had thus devilishly condemned 5 The Attendants that followed Christ to the place of execution Math. 27.33 So was King Charles beheaded in the High-way where they used to bait Bears Bulls and thus speedily resolved to kill their King I pray you mark the place where they carried him to be executedâ—â— and that place where they would have him to be executed I told you before was Golgotha that is to say A place of a skull the most infamous place about Hierusalem where their Malefactors were hanged and their bones were scattered and gnawn of Dogs A fit place think you for a King to end his life And then 6. Consider the attendants that accompanied this great King to this despicable place of Execution and we shall find them to be Either 1. His friends Or 2. His foes And 1. Of his friends I find but very few that durst be seen to follow him 1 How few of his friends Joh. 19.26 Chap. 18.15 not any man that I find recorded but only one and that was the Disciple that our Saviour loved and that Disciple was known unto the High Priest and therefore the bolder to follow him whom he loved The rest I presume loved him well but they saw the malice of his persecutors was so great not only against their King but also against all those that loved him How cruel the enemies of Christ were to all that loved him that if they were seen to follow him or heard to speak a word in his behalf they had presently been taken for Malignants and most severely punished as most haynous Delinquents And therefore all the rest of his Apostles and Disciples and all others that loved him were so mightily terrified that they durst neither be heard nor seen So cruel were these Subjects even unto their King Some Women indeed that loved him well were permitted to be present at his death their Sex was their only warrant but these Women and the rest that knew him were fain to stand afar off and durst not come near him and it seems they durst not speak one word either of him or to him but smote their breasts and returned Luke 23.48 But 2. For his foes we read of enough that followed him 2 How many of his foes a guard of Souldiers for fear he should be rescued and the Rulers that derided him and the foolish people that were the flatterers of those lewd Leaders saying He saved others let him save himself if he be Christ the Son of God Luc. 23.25 and some no doubt were present that betrayed him Such villany and impudence had covered the foreheads of these monsters of men yet one of these bloody Souldiers that were the chief actors in the execution of this King received here the benefit of this Kings prayer and was inlightened by his Spirit to say Math. 27.54 Truly this was the Son of God But for the Priests and Presbyters the Scribes and Rulers of the people they could bring him to his death and mocked him upon the Cross when humanity should have rather taught them to pity him than to scoffe at him not one of them notwithstanding all the wonders that were then shewed as the rising of many that were dead the rending of the vail of the Temple and the great Earth quake that immediately followed his death had the grace
death in any other Country where they should be but like Jonas among the Ninivites meer strangers Yet thus was Jeremy used and thus are we 3. This our Prophet was not only a Jew preaching unto the Jews 3 He was a dear lover of them for so many a man as Cateline among the Romans Vortigern among the Britains Speed l. 7. c. 4. and Simon Jason and others among the Jews and some others nearer home have betrayed their own Country 2 Machab. 4. the trust that their Country reposed in them but he was a faithful Patriot a hearty lover and no hater of his people Tertullian noteth how dearly Moses loved this Nation of the Israelites when rather than God should destroy them he earnestly requested that his own name might be blotted out of the Book of Life S. Paul sheweth the like love unto the Jews when he saith he could wish himself accursed from Christ Rom. 9.3 for his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh And this our Prophet sheweth no lesse love unto them than the other as you may easily see by this his Prophesie and his Preaching to them and his Lamentation for them Yet all the love of these men and put all together was not comparable to the love of Christ who gave himself for them and prayed for them when they Crucified him And therefore well might he say Greater love than this hath no man John 15.13 that a man lay down his life for his friends which none of all the Prophets nor of the Apostles nor of the Martyrs that died all for themselves and suffered death for their own sins did lay down their life for others as our Saviour Christ did lay down his life not for himself but for his enemies and yet they loved them very much and very dear as I shewed to you before And so must all the Messengers of Christ and Preachers of God's Word How the Ministers and Preachers of Gods Word should love their people imitate these holy men to love Gods people for that the people can hardly reap any good from them whom they perceive not to love them but as we suspect the gifts of an enemy to be as the Belt of Ajax was to Hector and Hectors Sword to him in like sort the death of each other So we dis esteem and regard not the words of them that love us not But you see how the true Prophets and Servants of God loved this people and laboured all that ever they could for the good of the people to bring them unto God and to turn away Gods anger from them And what reward did this people render to these and to the rest of Gods Messengers and Teachers for all the love that they shewed unto them and the pains they had undertaken for them The very Heathen tells us that Amor amoris magnes durus est qui amorem non rependit Love is a Loadstone to draw love again and if we will do nothing else yet we can do no lesse than love them that do so dearly love us The very publicans and sinners do the same Yet behold The ingratitude of the Jews O Heavens and wonder O Earth at this ungrateful people who rendered to Gods Messengers evil for good and instead of loving them stoned them For they murmured against Moses rebelled against David persecuted Elias beheaded John the Baptist and as our Saviour saith they killed the Prophets Luke 13.34 and stoned them that were sent unto them And it is no strange thing for us to find many men walking in the same wayes and treading in the same steps as these Jews have done but it were very strange that we should be used any better than those better Messengers that were sent before us Luke 10.3 For our Saviour tells us with an Ecce Behold and consider it well I send you forth as lambs into the midst of wolves And you know the Fable how the silly lamb procul infrà bibens for drinking far enough below the wolfe was notwithstanding torn all to pieces by that cruel wolfe upon pretence that he stopt the current which was impossible for him to do 2. 2 The parties to whom this Message was sent The Parties to whom the Message was sent are shewed in these words this people and that is the people of the Jews that were then flos florum medulla mundi the choisest and the noblest of all the people of the world for You only have I known that is acknowledged for mine own people Amos 3.2 and mine own peculiar inheritance of all the families of the earth saith the Lord. And God shewed his great love towards them by the wonderful works that he had done for them For as the Prophet saith He eased their shoulders from their burdens Psal and their hands from making the pots and he delivered them out of that Egyptian-bondage and from the tyranny of cruel Pharaoh The great favours of God unto the Jews Then he gave them such Laws so holy and so just as neither Solon nor Lycurgus nor any other Nation of the World had the like And he fed them in the Wildernesse 40. years together with Manna that was the bread of Heaven and the Angels food and after that he thrust out 7. other Nations to make room for them and he gave them the labours of the people in possession and planted them in Canaan which was a Land that flowed with milk and honey and there he hedged them about as we were of late hedged here with all kind of blessings beneficia nimis copiosa most ample benefits And as the Schools say Privativa positiva for they had plenty in peace and victory in war and what was it not that this people had not And yet this people this peculiar people of God must hear this hard Message and they must undergo this sharp censure For as the Lord saith of Coniah Jeremy 22.24 were he as the signet upon my right hand yet would I pluck him thence and give him into the hands of those that seek his life So will he do with this people and with any other when they do prevaricate and offend him He will cut them off and cast them from him were they formerly never so precious in his sight How God dealeth with his dearest children when they depart from his service for no priviledge no prerogative no former piety can prevail with God to prevent his judgements when with this people they love to wander and refrain not their feet from their evil wayes But as these his dearly beloved people the Jews were cast off when they did cast off the true service of God and as those seven Churches of Asia Ephesus Smyrna Pergamos Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea that were planted by the Apostles and watered with the blood of Martyrs had their Candlesticks removed and themselves delivered up to groan under the Turkish tyranny
and to have the blasphemous Alcoran of that accursed false Prophet Mahomet for their Bible instead of the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ and all this because they had forsaken their First-love to the true service of their God So will the just and jealous God do with any other Church or people that seems never so dear unto him when they are so wavering and so ready to wander with this people from the true service of God and to forsake their first-love with those Asiatick Churches and to derogate from the first faith that they have received And as the Jews protestation that they did all for the worship of God and therefore cryed The Temple of the Lord Jer. 7.4 three times re-iterated in the same Chapter could not preserve them from this just judgement So the pretence of erecting a Gospel-discipline and the gathering of pure Churches out of Christ his Church contrary to the Doctrine of the true Church will hardly serve the turn to turn away Gods anger from us when upon these and the like pretended shews of sanctity more than ordinary we love to wander from the old way of Gods true Worship 3. The Person that is the sender of this Message is the Lord for 3 The Person that is the sender of this Message thus saith the Lord unto this people and that is the Lord which professeth himself to be slow to anger and abundant in goodness and in truth and that his mercy endureth for ever and is like the boundless and the bottomless Ocean that cannot be drawn dry Yet here this gracious God doth as it were disrobe himself of his mercy and lay aside his loving kindness and put on judgement as a garment that he might render vengeance to them that abuse his patience and prefer their own humours before his holy Worship and like the Scribes and Pharisees perswade themselves and the world that they are the only Saints when Christ knows they are the only hypocrites and so the vilest in Gods sight of all other sinners whatsoever as it appeareth by those many woes that Christ denounceth against these holy hypocrites more than against all the Publicans and Sinners which though they be open and apparent offenders yet are they sooner converted and brought to Christ and shall sooner obtain mercy at the hands of God than these outward Saints that inwardly are Devils That as our Saviour saith do come unto you in sheeps-cloathing with fair speeches and nothing but Scripture-phrases in their mouths but inwardly they are ravening wolves and devour the poor the fatherless and the widows under these holy shews But here as we know the Lord is merciful in his judgements and Ezra 9.13 as Ezra saith punisheth us less than our iniquites deserve and is also just in his mercies because he is righteous in all his works and holy in all his wayes So we must remember and we may assure our selves the Judge of all the earth will do right and will not destroy the righteous with the wicked Gen. 18 25. And therefore you must understand 1. Cui bonus to whom the Lord sheweth himself merciful and gratious 2. Cui justus to whom he will shew himself angry and just For To whom God sheweth himself merciful and to whom just As Christ saith that we must not give the childrens bread unto dogs nor a Scorpion to those children that call for Fish nor a Stone to them that desire Bread but we must give to every one his own portion and that in due season that is mercy and favour to the godly and to pardon the penitent sinner and so in like manner indignation and wrath and the heavy judgement of God upon the oppressors of their brethren and upon those that offend of malicious wickedness and that with this people here spoken of do love to wander out of the right way of Gods service to worship him after the new Mode and direction of the false Prophets And this may serve for an exceeding comfort unto the godly and constant worshippers of God that the Lord is so gratious and so just How God preserveth his servants in the midst of judgements as not to to destroy the righteous with the wicked But as he preserved Noah when all the World perished and delivered Lot out of Sodom when he rained fire and brimstone upon it and upon the other Cities So when a thousand shall fall besides thee and ten thousands on thy right hand yet will he give his Angels charge over thee Ps 91.11 and they shall keep thee in all thy waies that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone Or if it be as it somtimes happeneth that the good and godly men living among the wicked do partake of some punishments and afflictions with the wicked The different effects of Gods punishments upon the godly and upon the wicked as the good and bad sayling in the same Ship must be liable to the same Tempest yet the same troubles crosses and afflictions whether they be Plague Famine War or the like do not proceed from God either in the same manner or for the same end against the godly as they do against the wicked for they are but his fatherly chastisements unto his children but they are the signall testimonies of his wrath and fury against the wicked and therefore they drive the Godly to repentance and amendment of life or do translate them to everlasting happiness but they fill the wicked with rage and fury and drive them with despaire from one sin to another untill they descend to eternall torments 4. 4 The message comprehendeth two things The message that God sendeth unto this people containeth two speciall things 1. The doings of this people 2. The doome of this people 1. 1 The doings of this people In their doings you may observe these four particulars 1. Their Errors and transgressions they wandred 2. Four things wherein are considerable Their Love of Errors they loved to wander 3. The Manner of their wandering thus that is from one sin to another from one error to another from bad to worse from worse to worst of all 4. Their Greediness to proceed without any stop or stay in their wicked waies They refrained not their feet 1. 1 Their wandering Diligrunt evagari saith Tremelius And a vagrant is he that knoweth not where he is nor whither he goeth diligunt errare saith the vulgar Latin they love to erre And Errare est extra viam ire to wander is to walk or to run out of the way and I take the word wandering here in the largest sense What M. Calvin takes their wandering to be and not restrain it as M. Calvin doth to one particular sin which he understands to be their wavering minds and unconstancy in Gods service now serving him after the old manner set down by Moses and prescribed by God himself and by and by serving him after the new
from those great treasures and possessions which they had suddenly attained unto And therefore let not the righteous that rightly serveth God fret himself because of the ungodly neither let him be envious against the evil-doers when he seeth them in such prosperity for when God seeth the time Psal 37.1.2 they shall soon be cut down like the grass and be withered even as the green herb But as the Poet saith animum servate secundis And as the Prophet saith Let them that serve God put their trust in the Lord and tarry the Lord's leisure and pray with the words of our rejected Liturgy O God make speed to save us O Lord make haste to help us And in his good time he will deliver us out of all our troubles Amen THE FIFTH TREATISE 1 Pet. 2.17 Honour all men Love the brother-hood Fear God Honour the King IT is an old received Rule consented unto by all and contradicted by none that all the Commandments of God are 1. Brevia 2. Levia 3. Vtilia That is 1. Few and short 2. Leight and easie 3. Sweet and profitable For 1. They are not many like our Laws or the precepts of the Alcoran or the Popes Canons that are multiplied above number for these are but ten in all But two but one Ten saith Moses Two saith Christ One saith S. Paul and all say the truth For the Ten Precepts of Moses contain nothing else but First our duty to God And Secondly our duty towards our Neighbours as our Saviour saith And both these duties are comprised in this one act and affection of Love as S. Math. 22.37 John 15.12 1 Cor. 13. Rom. 12.10 Paul saith For thy duty to God is to love him with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and if you love me keep my Commandments saith our Saviour Christ and my Commandment is That ye love one another And love worketh no ill to his neighbour saith S. Paul therefore is love the fulfilling of the Law So all the Commands that God gives unto us is but one word one syllable Love So he gave to Adam but one Precept to abstain from one Tree and therefore you need not burden your memories nor take the pains to learn the Art of Memory for fear you should forget it God hath thus provided to prevent this excuse That the multitude of Precepts have caused you to forget your duties And as God so all good and wise men imitating God herein have given short Precepts and brief Rules unto their Schollars which we call Aphorisms or Dicta sapientum The words of the wise as the seven wise men of Greece left seven brief Sentences unto their Followers For Dicta septem sapientum 1. Cleobulus said Keep the mean 2. Chilon said Know thy self 3. Periander used to say Restrain wrath 4. Pittacus said Nothing too much 5. Solons wise saying was Remember the end 6. Bias was wont to say The wicked are many 7. Thales's saying was Flee suretiship And Solomon useth the same Method of teaching men in his Proverbs and Book of the Preacher which is Eclesiastes And so doth S. Peter here in this first Epistle to the dispersed Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His Sentences are very short but exceeding pithy Inest quoque gratia parvis and abundance of worth may lie in a little thing as you see a little Diamond is of a great value And therefore as Democharis saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ne despice parva Slight not the smallest things Nam verbum sapienti sat est A word is enough to the wise And the longest Sermons do little or no good to the wicked 2. 2 The Commandments of God very easie and light Math. 11.30 1 Joh. 5.3 Psal 119. As the Commandments of God are short so they are leight and easie for my yoke is easie and my burden leight saith our Saviour And Mandata ejus gravia non sunt saith S. John His Commandments are not grevious but they are so leight and so easie that the Prophet David saith I will run the way of thy Commandments And S. Paul saith he can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth him And our God is not so tyrannical as to give such Commandments as are impossible to be observed especially in the outward acts and the inward also if we consider the aid and assistance of Gods Spirit that Christ giveth to them that seek it And therefore if our hearts be indued with grace and we desire the Spirit of Christ we need not murmur and lie down with Balaam's Asse for the great weight that is upon our backs or complain of the heavy yoke that Christ hath laid upon our necks and say with those drones in the Gospel Durus est hic sermo Love makes all labours easie This is a hard saying Who is able to endure it For if Leander did so much for the love of Hero and Pyramus for Thisbe then certainly the Commandments of God are leight and sweet enough to every one that loveth God Da amantem sentit quid dico And if you bring me one that truly loveth God he will confesse this truth saith S. Augustine Even as the Prophet David doth Psal 119. And such are all the Precepts of this our Apostle you may observe them without pain without losse without abating your strength and without wasting your wealth And 3. 3 The comman dments of God bring great profit to them that keep them Psal 119. They are not so leight and so easie in themselves as they are beneficial and profitable to those that observe them for Great is the reward of those that keep thy Laws O God saith the Prophet David and Moses setteth down the many many blessings of the Israelites if they would observe Gods Commandments And so these short Sentences of S. Peter and these leight Precepts of our Apostle have abundance of wisdom in them and do bring an infinite deal of commodity and profit unto the true observers thereof And therefore if nothing else yet the benefits of keeping Gods Commandments should perswade us all to be ready to hear and willing to obey these Precepts of the Apostle which he delivereth from the Spirit of God for we are naturally given to love our own profit And as the Poet saith Et reditus jam quisque suos amat sibi quid sit Vtile sollicitis computat articulis Every man respecteth his own advantage and loveth his own benefit And I do assure you there is nothing in the world that any of you all can do and let him do what he can that shall bring him more profit than the right observance of these few Precepts Honour all men c. Wherein you see there are four special Precepts And these four Precepts are like unto the four Rivers of Eden that watered the Garden of Paradise to make the same both profitable and pleasant The 1. concerneth all men
our brethren the more conformable we shall be to God who loveth all men as they are his creatures and doth good to all men by making his Sun to shine upon the good and upon the bad and sending rain upon the just and upon the unjust and so they that imitate God in loving all men and doing all the good they can unto all men do hereby shew themselves to be the children of their Father which is in heaven as our Saviour saith Matth. 5.45 And therefore seeing we are all brethren Aug. habetur 24. q. corripiuntur and the same God is the father of us Sic affici debemus charitatis affectu ut omnes velimus salvos fieri we ought so charitably to affect all men as not to separate our selves from them and to exclude them from our Churches or societies but to wish the health and salvation of all men and to do our best help and furtherance to save and to relieve every man which is as the Apostle saith To honor all men And this our love honor and esteem of all men The love and honor that we owe to all men 2 waies to be considered must be especially considered 1. In respect of the manner of it for 2. In respect of the matter of it for 1. It must be shewed really and truly from the heart without Hypocrisie and not as worldlings and wicked men do that 1 In respect of the manner of it as the Poet saith fronte politi Astutam vapido servant sub pectore vulpem That is in the Prophets words do speak friendly unto their brethren and imagine mischief in their hearts like Joab that said to Amasa Is it peace my brother and while the tongue thus annointed him with oyl the hand stab'd him to the heart for we should love our neighbours as our selves that is as truly and in as true a manner though not in as great a measure as we love our selves yea this is the commandment that I give unto you Joh. 13.34 How Christ hath loved us ut diligatis invicem sicut ego dilexi vos that ye love one another even as I have loved you And how hath Christ loved us 1. It was Amore vehementi non mediocri with no small nor mean love but with the greatest affection that could be Joh. 15.13 Rom. 5.10 for greater love then this hath no man that a man should give his life for his friend saith our Saviour and he gave his life for his enemies saith the Apostle 2. It was Amore vero non ficto with a true sincere love and not with a seeming affection and a dissembling heart And 3. It was Amore perseveranti non finienti with a continuall and lasting love for whom he loved he loved unto the end and not for a short space And therefore our love to one another should be great true and lasting love and not like the worldlings love that seems fair and full while we are in prosperity but will fall away like water when we fall into adversity and so verify the Poets saying Donec eris faelix multos numerabis amicos Nullus ad amissas ibit amicus opes 2. This true honor and unfaigned love 2 In respect of the matter of it which is two fold that we owe and are injoyned to shew and render unto all men in respect of the matter consisteth in two things 1. No waies to hurt or wrong them 2. Every way to assist and to help them 1. 1 No waies to hurt them He that offereth injury unto his neighbour or doth wrong to any man An injury what it is doth contrary to the rules of nature saith Cicero Et injuria est verbo vel facto cum aâ—iquo injustè agere and an injury is to deal unjustly with any one either in word or deed saith Isidorus and you know that besides the breach of natures law such a one as either of these waies wrongs his neighbour breaketh the commandment of the Almighty God who doth expressely forbid us to defraud or oppress or any waies to wrong one another or the stranger that is amongst us as you may see it in Moses and Jeremy ful y expressed for Moses saith Thou shalt not steal nor deal falsly nor defraud thy neighbour and the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night untill the morning Lev. 19.11.13 and the Prophet Jeremy saith Thus saith the Lord Execute ye judgment and righteousness and deliver the spoyled out of the hand of the oppress r Jer. 22.3 and do no wrong do no violence to the stranger the fatherless nor the widow neither shed innocent blood for the very heathen Poet can tell you that Quaelibet extinctos injuria suscitat ignes Ovid. l. 3. de arte amandi Wrong and injuries stir up striffes and do kindle the flames of unquenchable fire and though as Aristotle saith Melius est injuriam pati quà m alteri nocere it is better to suffer wrong then to hurt another and as the Comick saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That man is to be deemed most excellent which knoweth how to suffer most injuries yet because the frailty of flesh and blood is such that as the proverb goeth Scribit in marmore laesus they that register benefits and good turns done unto them in the sands will ingrave all wrongs and injuries done to them in marble never to be blotted out of memory and Solomon tels us Eccl. 7.7 that oppression maketh a wise man mad and if wise men can so hardly brook to be oppressed then surely fools and simple men will be stark mad to see themselves injured and will be ready to be revenged upon every advantage And therefore we ought to take great heed that we do no injustice nor offer any wrong to any man because dealing righteously one with another is the mother and preservative of love amongst neighbours Esay 32.17 and of peace amongst all men Injustice and wrongs the cause of all mischief for as the Prophet saith The works of righteousness shall be peace and the effects of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever Whereas injustice oppression and wrongs are the causes of Laws Murders Wars and all Mischiefs And yet I demand if any thing in the world be now so common and so publick as wrongs injuries and oppressions Especially of them whom we ought most of all to honor and to love for though S. Paul bids us to esteem our Governors and our Teachers that are over us 1 Thes 5.13 How fairly Pharaoh dealt with the Priest Gen. 47.22 and do admonish us very highly in love for their works sake and the very heathens did no less for when Pharaoh bought all the Lands of the Egyptians throughout the whole Kingdom of Egypt he bought not the Lands of the Priests but assigned a portion of corn to sustain them so
〈◊〉 the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble much more blessed shall he be that helpeth and relieveth the oppressed and especially those that have formerly wronged and oppressed him he shall be doubly blessed 1. Because he relieveth his wants And 2. Because he remitteth his faults and revengeth not his own wrongs And so you see how we are to honor to esteem and to love all men 2. As we are to honor all men in generall 2 What love we owe to the Brother-hood so more especially we are to love the Brother-hood in particular where observe 1. The Act. 2. The Extent 1. The Act is love and love saith the Schoolman is Bene velle amato but that is no more then Amor affectivus and the Apostle speaks not here de amore affectivo tantum sed de amore effectivo simul of the inward affection only but also of that love which is declared by the effects in outward actions and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Aethic l. 9. c. 5. To love is to will that which we esteem good to any one and to the uttermost of our power to procure that good unto him as Aristotle saith So that this our love to the brother-hood comprehendeth 1. An hearty affection without dissimulation 1 Joh. 3.18 not only in tongue and in word but in deed and verity i. e. from the heart 2. An actuall performance of all the good that we can do unto them as praying for them comforting them and administring to their necessities not only with our purses but also with our words with our labours Crysost in Ro. 12. ho. 21. and with any thing that lieth in our power to stand them in any stead This is the act that we are to do And 2. For the Extent of it we are to do it most especially saith the Apostle to the Brother-hood Touching which point of Fraternity or Brother-hood you must observe that there is a two fold Brother-hood whereof you must hate the one and love the other That there is a two fold fraeternity As The 1. Is in Evil and from the Devil The 2. Is in Good and from God For 1. Simeon and Levi were brethren but it was in the evil 1 The evill Brother-hood saith the Scripture when the instruments of cruelty were in their habitations and therefore cursed was their brother-hood Gâ—n 49.5 7.7 and their unity was to be divided in Jacob and to be scattered in Israel And so the wicked at all times Faciunt unitatem coutra unitatem do as S. Augustine saith unite themselves together against verity and against the unity that should be among Cristians Psal 2.1 2. which is the unity of faith and religion and as the Prophet David saith the Heathen do furiously rage together How the wicked like the Scots and the Parliament do combine and covenant together and the people do imagine a vain thing and all take counsell together and plot against the Lord and against his annointed so Pilate and Herod though at ods among themselves for other things yet they can be reconciled and agree together to crucify Christ And so Solomon tels us how the Congregation of the ungodly do confederate and Covenant as now they do together to strengthen themselves in their wickedness saying one to anothe Come let us cast our lots together let us have but one purse that is one common treasure amongst us all Prov. 1.11 14. and let us undergo the same fortune be the same good or bad And therefore it is no new thing for Traytors Rebels and Robbers and other the like wicked men though of different sects and severall opinions yet to unite themselves together and to take oathes and make covenants confederacies and conspiracies against the professors of the true Religion and against those that they are bound Salust Conjurat Caâ—el X â—â—â—phâ—n de ascend Cyri. by former oaths to obey as it was in the conspiracy of Cateline which Salust relateth and in the confederacy of the Grecians when they went up with Cyrus the younger against Artaxerxes which Zenophon setteth down at large and the covenant of the holy leaguers of France against their King and the like But you must remember to do what God commandeth you to do in such confederacies saying My son walk not thou in the way with them resrain thy fâ—ot from their path Prov. 1.15 for their feet run to evil and make hast to shed blood as you may read in the foresaid Authors what abundance of innocent blood those wicked covenants and confederacies have caused to be spilt And therefore this being not the Brother-hood that you should love if you love God and your own souls you must hate the same as you do the gates of hell because that as the Psalmist saith in covenanting against right and against the truth they are confederates against thee O God and against thy servants And what created power under Heaven How hard it is to escaâ—e the mischief of subtile confederates is able to unty that knot and to escape that malice which villany subtilty and cruelty have combined to bring to pass Or what man is able to withstand a multitude of united enemies that have strength and wealth enough and have covenanted and sworne to fight against him untill they have destroyed him Surely when their plots are so subtile their power so great their wealth of Gold and Silver so much and the confederates of sworne brethren so many it is impossible to prevent their mischief and to escape out of their hands if the Lord himself doth not stand to help his servants and as the Prophet saith if he that dwelleth in heaven laugheth not these covenanters to scorne if the Lord have them not in derision yea if he speaks not to them in his wrath and vexeth them in his sore displeasure 2. 2 The good Brother-hood The other brother-hood is good among the good and in good in faith to God in obedience to our King and in love towards all men and this brother-hood is many fold as specially 1. Is four fold Naturall 2. Nationall 3. Politicall 4. Spirituall 1. 1 The naturall Brother-hood Naturall brethren begotten of the same parents bred in the same house and after the same manner should not be like the off-spring of Cain that killed his own and his only brother Abel and as Romulus killed his own brother Remus and Antoninus murdered his brother Geta in his mother's lap 2 Chr. 21.4 and King Joram slew six of his own naturall brethren the sons of Jehosaphat Jâ—seph de Ant. l. 14. c. 2. deinceps with the sword when as such miscreants are unworthy to live on earth neither should they jar hate or envy one another as Jacob and Esau did and Jacobs children did their brother Joseph and as the dissention of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus made way for
Herod an Idumean to become King of Jurie The great love and humility of Scipio Africanus to his younger brother Lucius Scipio but they should live like Moses and Aaron and should love one another as Plutarch relateth P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus and his brother Lucius Scipio did for notwithstanding he was the African by name that had overcome Hannibal and had triumphed over the Carthaginians and excelled all others in the praise of Martiall discipline yet of his own good nature he made himself inferior and was contented to be Lieutenant to his younger brother Plutarch in vitâ Scip. Afr. that his brother might have the honor of obtaining the Government of that Province from Laelius that was his fellow Consul and the like love or rather more fervent we find to be in Castor and Pollux for when Castor was slain by Ida How deerly brethren loved one another in former times Pollux besought Jupiter that he might impart half his own life unto his brother which being granted the Poet saith Sic fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit And these celestial signs that have their denomination from these brethren do shine in heaven Alternis vicibus by turns as the Astrologers do observe in token of that great love of these brethren And if the time would give me leave I could tell you of two Roman Brethren whereof the one was in Sertorius Army and the other in the adverse Party and of many others that did so exceedingly love one another in former times that each of them loved the other as himself But now Rara est concordia fratrum in our time the love of Brethren is waxen cold and so frozen that many of them are degenerated and become most unnatural one towards another that it is even a shame to see it 2. There is a National Brother-hood a brotherly love 2 The National Brother-hood Exod. 2.11 betwixt those men that are born and bred in the same Country and are as it were sprung from the same Stock for so Moses is said to have gone to see his Brethren and spying an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew one of his Brethren he slew the Egyptian and when he saw an Hebrew striving with an Hebrew he said Sirs Act. 7.26 you are brethren Why do ye wrong one to another And the Lord sheweth that all the children of Israel though strangers one to another yet were they Brethren for he saith If thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee then thou shalt relieve him yea though he be a stranger Levit. 25.35 36.39 Deut. 23.19 or a sojourner that he may live with thee And so in many-many places the Lord calleth all the Jews and all the Israelites Brethren And the very Heathens deemed their Countrymen that were of the same Nation to be Brethren and loved one another even as Brethren And the Romans held the Trojans to be their Brethren because they were descended from them And Scipio Africanus esteemed better of him that preserved the life of one Roman his Countryman than of him that had slain ten of his enemies that were Barbarians And what a shame is it then for men of the same Country of the same Nation yea and of the same kindred to be set as the Scripture speaketh of an Egyptian against an Egyptian or as the Souldiers in Senacheribs Army when the Angel caused them to bathe their swords in the blood of each other Is it not a pitiful thing to see an Irish man killing Irish-men or an English-man making his sword drunk in the blood of English-men Surely any War is lamentable and as the Poet saith heu miseri qui bella gerunt They are wretched men that do wage War But of all Wars Lucan Pharsal l. 2. And therefore Claudian saith Cum Gallica valgo Praelia jactaret tacuit Pharsalica Caesar Namque inter socias acies cognataque signa Vt vinci miser m nunquam vicisse decâ—rum Claud de 6. consulat Honorii 3. The Political Brother-hood Summum Brute nesas civilia bella fatemur That is the worst and most lamentable when a Kingdom is divided against it self and the men of the same Nation shall fight and kill one another like enemies that should love and live together like brethren And therefore what pretences soever they have I know not how those men in our Kingdoms that to make themselves great have and do involve these Nations in their own-blood will answer for it Cum surrexerit ad judicandum Deus When God shall come and shall make inquisition for all the blood that they have caused to be unjustly spilt 3. The Political Brother-hood is when either two or three or more Friends or Cities or Nations shall covenant and confederate to help and assist one another in all just and honest things against all those that shall seek unjustly to wrong them and oppresse them And this is a commendable Brother-hood and ought to be loved and inviolably to be observed as it was by Damon and Pythias Pylades and Orestes and by the Ancient Romans to all their Colleagues and Confederates 4. 4 The Spiritual Christian Brother-hood The last best and chiefest Brother-hood is that which is spiritual and which therefore ought to be preferred and loved rather than any other Brother-hood whatsoever For as there are degrees and difference in Gods love when though he loveth all the things that he hath made yet he loveth Man better than any of all the things that he made yea better than he loved the Angels when he is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but is no where found to be termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And among men though he loveth them all as they are his creatures and the works of his hands yet he loveth the godly far better than all the rest that are wicked and of all that are godly he loveth best his well-beloved Son in whom he is well pleased and next to him he loves them best We ought to order our love as God loveth that are most conformable to the Image of his Son that is in goodness in holiness and righteousness So we ought to order our love towards all men and to each Brother-hood that they may have the best share in our love which ought to have the best and that is the Brother-hood which is spiritual For though the Apostle bids us to do good unto all men and so to love each Brother-hood yet he tells us that we ought to do it more especially Galat. 6.10 to them that are of the houshold of faith that is to relieve the good sooner than the bad a Christian before a Pagan and a Saint rather than a sinner And therefore though we may and ought to love each of the foresaid Brother-hoods that is in good and especially the Brother-hood of flesh and blood which nature teacheth every man to do when they are like Hypocrates Twins and should have idem velle and idem
nolle and the Scripture sheweth how good and joyful a thing it is for to see such brethren to love one another and to live together in unity yet the Brother-hood whereof the Apostle speaketh and is to be loved above all other Brother-hoods whatsoever Christians ought to love one another better than natural brethren that are not Christians is to be understood de fraternitate Spiritus of our spiritual Brother-hood whereby we are regenerated and made all the sons of God and so Brethren by adoption and grace For this fraternity of the Spirit unites men more and tyeth them better to love one another than the fraternity of flesh and blood Because as S. Augustine saith The natural Brother-hood similitudinem corpor is refert sheweth the likeness and coherence of the body but this Brother-hood of the Spirit unanimitatem cordis demonstrat declareth the unity and unanimity of the heart and that is interdum sibi inimica sometimes breaking out to deadly hate as it did betwixt Cyrus the younger and Artaxerxes But this is sine intermissione pacificâ alwayes remaining in perfect love And therefore ut Religio derivatur à religando as Religion is so termed because Religion tyeth all that are of the same Religion to love one another it tyeth and knitteth men together by fervent love among themselves and by a constant faith to God So we find that men of the same Faith and Religion have loved and relieved one another and stuck together better and firmer than any other kind of men whatsoever And so they are here required and commanded to do by the Apostle Love the Brother-hood that is love them especially and above all others that are of the same faith and do profess the same Religion of Jesus Christ as you do For you see all Hereticks and Sectaries and the professors of false religions do so and why should not you that are true Christians and do professe the true Religion of Christ much rather do the same But here we ought to be very careful A special Observation and to take special heed that we be not too censorious and too rash judges to set down the bounds of this Brother-hood and so straighten the extent and diminish the number of the Brethren by our determining who be those sons of God in Christ which we may and ought to love and relieve rather than the rest of men which we suppose we are not to love so well For you must know which our precise Saints will not know that the Brother-hood which the Apostle meaneth here Who are here understood by this Brother-hood and those that S. Paul termeth the houshold of faith and in other places the Saints of God is to be understood of all Christians and doth comprehend all those that were baptized and did professe the Gospel of Jesus Christ And these might then as they may also now be easily discerned and distinguished from the rest of the Pâ—gans and Infidels that did not believe the Gospel of God Because the one sort had the Fathers name written in their foreheads when they were baptized and so received the outward sign and badge of Christianity Revelat. 14.1 which they professed and were not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ Rom. 1. And the other sort refused the profession of Christ and would not embrace the Gospel and receive the badge of Christianity but either persecuted the Christians or at best slighted and rejected the Faith of Christ But where all men are baptized and do professe to believe the Gospel and to do service unto Christ to distinguish the sound branches of the true Vine and the faithful members of Christs body from the rotten boughs and hypocritical professors and so to determine which are the Brother hood and which not is such a presumption of men as can no wayes be warranted by the Word of God for Conscientiae latebras hominibus scire non permissum est We cannot search into the hearts of men and God suffereth not men to know the thoughts of other men and the secrets that are lurking in their consciences which is the proper work of God who only is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierom. epist 5. The searcher of the heart and reins saith S. Hierom. And therefore we must confesse that as the Apostle saith 2 Tim. 2.19 The Lord only knoweth who are his and can discriminate the lively branches from the rotten boughes and the truly regenerated Brother-hood from the soly outward professors of the Faith of Christ And we can judge no otherwise of any men than by their fruits that is by their actions and outward appearance We are often deceived by the outward appearance of things and that appearance when we judge of inward things by the outward doth oftentimes deceive us when as Multa sunt quae non videntur ita multa videntur quae non sunt Many things are which are not seen so many things are seen to be which are not As the falling-Stars seem to be Stars and yet are not And the hypocrites that like Water-men do row one way and look another way seem to be good Christians and yet are not So many men have the fear of God in their hearts and do love God and are the true children of God though these graces are not seen but are as we see the Sun is sometimes over-clouded with those sins that proceed from the frailty of the flesh And therefore our Saviour bids us not to judge according to the outward appearance that is not to judge of the inward things by the outward John 7.24 but to judge righteous judgement But you will say How can that be Quest or how can we judge righteous judgement if we can judge no further than the outward appearance or if Interiora non cognoscuntur per exteriora The inward things may not be known by the outward signs I answer That many times indeed Respon the inward things do cohere with the outward appearance as the heat sheweth there is a fire which we see not but this is not alwayes and therefore not infallible And I say that when our Saviour bids us to judge righteous judgement he meaneth not hereby that we should enter into the hidden things of the heart How we ought not to judge of our Brethren or search into the secrets of God and so positively and rightly to determine and judge as our Gnostick Sectaries seem to do who are Gods chosen Saints and who are wicked Reprobates Who are the Brother hood that are to be loved and who are the limbs of the Beast that are to be rejected which we cannot do But he meaneth that we should not judge of inward hidden and secret things by the superficial shew of outward things Or that we should not judge of the secret intention of the heart when we see but the outward action of the hand or as Saint Augustine saith he willeth that we should not
scientiam zelati sunt sacriligi extiterunt in filium Dei they perswaded themselves that they had the love and zeal of the honour of God but because their zeal was not according to knowledge they became sacrilegious against the Son of God and their fiery zeal to Gods Worship became as Saint Ambrose saith A bloody Zeal unto Death and like unto a Ship under faile without a Pilate that will dash it self against the Rocks all to pieces so it is when we rob and spoyl and persecute the true Servants of Christ for being as we suppose the limbs of the Antichrist But such and so great is the malice and subtilty of Satan towards mankind that he cares not which wayes he brings man to destruction so he may bring him any way either in being too zealous without knowledge and so persecute the good for bad or too careless with all our knowledge and so bless the bad for the good either by hating the superstitious Papist The continual practice of the Devil beyond all reason or loving the malicious Sectary contrary to all reason either by falling into the fire on the right hand or into the water on the left hand either by making the whole Service of God to consist onely of preaching and hearing Sermons and neglect the Prayers and all other Christian duties or using the Prayers onely with the Service of the Church and omit the preaching of Gods Word for this hath been alwayes the Devils practise To separate those whom God would have joyned together and to joyn those together whom God would have kept asunder And therefore we should be very careful to joyn Knowledge and Discretion with our Zeal and desire to do God service if we desire to follow Christ 2. 2 The matter wherein we are to follow Christ For the Matter Points or wayes wherein the Sheep of Christ are to follow him they are very many but the chiefest of them are reducible into these three principal Heads 1. The works of Piety Joh. 2.17 2. The works of Equity 3. The works of Charity Jam. 2.16 Eph. 5.1 2. In all which we are to do our best endeavour to imitate and to follow Christ Actu ciffectu Bern. in Cant. S. 50. and therein we shall do the things that are most acceptable unto God and most profitable for our selves For the first none doubts of it but that these things are most acceptable in the sight of God And for the second we may be sure of it that it is better for us to build Churches to maintain Preachers and to erect Hospitals then to raise our Families and we shall receive more comfort to do Justice and to protect the Innocent and to relieve the Poor then by gaining Naboths Vineyard or heâ—ping Dives his Treasures unto our selves The time will not give me leave to prosecute these particulars any further but I pray God give us grace to prosecute the performance and doing of them throughout all our lives to the glory of God the discharging of our Duties and the eternall comfort of our own souls through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour To whom with the Father and the holy Spirit be all Glory and Honour for ever and ever Amen Amen Jehovae Liberatori THE SEVENTH TREATISE 1 John 4.19 We love him because he first loved us THis text you see is a text of love a Theam that filleth Sea and Land Heaven and Earth and as the Poets feign Hell it self Claudian de raptu Proserpinae when as the King thereof Tumidas exarsit in iras did swell with rage because he might not enjoy his love in hell as Jupiter did in heaven And yet the scarcity and want of true love causeth such plenty of great evils in every place for we love not God we love not our neighbours we love not our own selves for if we loved God we would keep his Commandments if we loved our neighbours we would neither wrong them nor oppress them and if we loved our selves then we would love God if not for his own sake which is the right love yet for our own good and our neighbours for Gods sake But for Gods Commandements I may truly say it with Nehemiah Nehem. 9.34 Neither have our Kings our Princes our Priests nor our Fathers kept his Laws nor hearkned unto his Commandments but as Ezra saith Ezra 9.7 We have all been in a great trespass unto this day and for our iniquities have we our King our Priests our Bishops our Judges and all of us been delivered to the sword to the spoil to confusion of face and to all these miseries as it is this day And for wronging one another if we consider all the oppressions that are done under the Sun nay that were done in these Kingdomes and the tears of such as were oppressed and had no Comforter when the oppressors had such power that none durst speak against them then as Solomon saith we may most justly praise the dead which are already dead more then the living which are yet alive Eccles 4.1 2 3 and him better then both which hath not yet been to see the great evils that are done amongst us And for our own selves we do just as the wise man saith seek our own death in the errour of our life and Sampson-like pull down the house upon our own heads as you may remember that when we had plenty of peace and prosperity then as the children of Israel murmured against Moses that delivered them out of the Aegyptian bondage and loathed Manna that came down from heaven so were we discontented at every trifle and so weary of peace and such murmurers against our happiness When the Articles of peace were published we were so discontented and murmured so much thereat that the ear of jealousie which heareth all things heard the same and was pleased to satisfie our discontents and to send us our own desires such plenty of wars and fulness of all miseries plagues famines and oppressions as our Fathers never knew the like and are like to continue amongst us until God seeth us more in love with his goodness towards us and our repentings move him to repent him of the evils that he intendeth against us that have so justly deserved them from him Therefore to ingender and beget love where it is not to encrease it where it is but little and to rectifie it where it is amiss either towards God or our neighbours or our selves I will by Gods help and your patience with as much brevity as I can How the created Trinity fell and may be reunited to the uncreated Trinity express the plenty of these few words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mellifluous S. Bern. whose laborious work is like a pleasant garden that is replenished with all sorts of the most odoriferous flowers saith that in the Unity of Gods Essence there is a Trinity of persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost
and in the unity of the souls substance there is a trinity of faculties the reason the will and the memory which being created in holiness fell away from the uncreated goodness of God And in the unity of Christian Religion there is a trinity of invaluable grace Faith Hope and Love whereby the relapsed trinity of mans soul is reunited unto the blessed favour of the Eternal Trinity of Gods Essence And these three graces I find most excellently delivered and explained by three of the chiefest Apostles the three worthiest Pillars of Gods Church S. The three chiefest graces exprest by the three chiefest Apostles 1. Faith expressed by S. Peter Peter S. Paul and S. John for as Faith is radix omnium virtutum the root of all virtues as S. Ambrose saith and prima quae subjugat animam Deo and as S. Hierome saith the first grace that bends and brings our souls to God and the foundation of all other graces from whence as from the root of a tree those fair and fruitful branches of hope and love do spring So S. Peter was the first of all the Apostles and his confession 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou art Christ the Son of the living God was the Rock whereupon the whole frame of Christian Religion was established as both S. Ambr. and S. Aug. testifie And as hope is quasi columna quae totum spirituale aedificium sustentat 2 Hope explained by S. Paul as Laurentius Justinianus saith like the Pillar that beareth and upholdeth faith and love or the Anchor that preserveth the little ship of Gods Church in all storms as the Apostle calleth it and is indeed the only Nurse that feedeth inlargeth and maintaineth the very life of these graces So the blessed Apostle S. Paul was the greatest Inlarger and Cherisher of the Doctrine of Christ that we can read of for he caused the same by his own indefatigable pains to be planted and watered preached and published in abundance of places as you may see in the Table of his Peregrination collected out of his own writings and the Acts of the blessed Apostles and as love is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfection and complement of all virtues indeficiens thesaurus gratiarum an unexhaustible treasure of graces unguentum suave quo pestes animi sanantur oculi cordis illuminantur and that sweet precious oyntment which healeth all the sores of our souls enlighteneth the eyes of our understanding and sweetneth all those fruits that proceed from Faith and Hope 3 Love amplified by S. John Iohn 3. as S. Basil saith So that heavenly Evangelist and best beloved Apostle S. John is the best and chiefest expressor of Gods love to man and the most careful exacter and requirer of mans love to God again for what else doth he chiefly aim at in all his Gospel but to shew how God loved the world that he gave his only begotten and his dearly beloved Son coequal and coessential unto himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this Son was the Word and that Word was God saith S. Basil that whosoever believed in him John 3. should not perish but should have everlasting life And what else doth he in all his Epistles in every Chapter and almost in every verse but as the Prophet David in the 119. Psalm doth continually touch upon the strings of Gods Law so doth he as sweetly play upon the strings of Gods Love his love to us and that love which we owe and are so many wayes bound to render unto him And to his dying day when he could not go he would be carried to the Church in a Chair and when he was able to say no more his whole Sermon was ut diligatis invicem that they would love one another And no marvel for he was indeed the Disciple which our Saviour loved above the rest and before all the rest of the Apostles he was the chiefest child of Love as S. Aug. calleth S. Paul the best Child of Grace And therefore as S. Paul gave himself principally to magnifie the free grace of God so doth S. John wholly dedicate himself to amplifie the great love of God and as he doth the same in all his works so he doth it especially in this my Text which I may well call the Epitome of all his writings and it containeth these two things which contain the sum of all Divinity 1. Gods love to Man The sum of all Divinity two-fold 2. Mans love to God For what Is the end of the Law and the substance of the Gospel but to shew how God loved us and to teach us why and how we should love God again and manifest this our love to God by loving one another For to love God with all our hearts is the great command of the Law and to love one another as Christ hath loved us is the new Command of the Gospel In these two hang all the Law and the Prophets and in these are comprehended all our duties and all this is contained in these few words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quia causae precedit effectum Wherein the Apostle doth principally aim at the main ground and chiefest cause why we do and should love our God This is the sum of the whole expressed in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore must be first treated of Indeed if we do contemplate of those infinitely amiable excellencies and transcendent beauties that are so accumulated and resplendent in the Essence of God which is that light in whom is no darkness at all We shall find that as Nazian saith of Christ he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wholly desiderable and wholly delectable so fully invested with such attractive excellencies as are easily able to confound the senses and to ravish the desires of all that truly consider them Worthy men worthily loved for when we hear Abraham so highly commended for his Faith David for his Valour Solomon for his Wisdome Hercules Achilles Alexander Hannibal Caesar and the like such glorious Heroes celebrated and admired for their eminencies above other men we cannot chuse but deem them worthy of love when so many wise men as have written of them thought them worthy of admiration and reputed them the Worthies of the world So when we consider the glory of nature and the beauty of bodies which is nothing else but an apt proportion and a just correspondence of the parts and colours of these visible creatures they do so intice our senses captivate our affections and ravish our minds that our hearts are more present in their desires with such bodies that they like and love then with our own wherein they sojourn and live But what are all the Mights and Monarchs of the World compared unto God No excellency any wayes comparable to the excellencies of God but as Lambs among Lyons or as the leaves that are driven away with the wind blown down from their Regal Thrones
consumed to ashes and reduced to nothing their power weakness their prudence folly and their excellency base in respect of that boundless Omnipotencie infinite Wisdome and incomprehensible transcendent excellencies of God For if he is not barren that imparteth fecundity unto others nor he poor that can make many rich then surely he must needs be most beautiful that can adorn the poor Lilies of the field with a far more glorious mantle then any of those choicest robes that covered the body of the wisest Solomon For though fields and gardens and Palaces and the bodies of men and women and so the Heavens and the Angels and the whole frame of this Universe which the Grecians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is so admirably beautified and composed in number weight and measure are all innamelled with abundance of beauty yet all these beauties proceeds from him and reside in him and are comprized in him in a far more eminent degree of excellency How eminently all perfections are in God then they are in the best of these creatures themselves because that in these creatures they are all limited in Essence and hedged within the narrow bounds of natural perfections But in God all the Attributes of his bounty simplicity verity charity justice mercy benignity and all other amiable colours and most glorious beauties of his perfections which the Angels rejoyce to behold the blessed Saints contemplate and we poor wandring Pilgrimes do all aspire to see are all illimited infinite and boundless And befides all this if we consider him truly he is whatsoever is desirable or can be desired by any one as Omnipotency to him that affecteth power Omnisciency to him that desireth knowledge and the Antient of daies to him that desighteth in antiquity And as S. Ambrose saith Siesuris ipse est panis if thou art hungry he is the Bread of Life Whatsoever we desire we may have the same in God if thou art thirsty he is the Fountain of Living Water if thou art naked he is the Garment of Righteousness if thou art sick he is a heavenly Physitian if thou art in prison he is with thee as he was with Joseph if thou art in danger he is a present help in trouble if thou beest dead he can restore thee to life for he is life which is of all things so infinitely desired and he is light which is so much admired he is truth which is so much commended he is the God of Peace which is the Mother of all plenty he is the God of Unity which is the honour of all Brethren he is the God of Constancy which is the Crown of all Friendship and he is the God of Wisdome which is the glory of every man And to be brief all things that are good are in him and derived from him who is goodness it self And therefore causa diligendi Deum Deut est this only consideration that he is God and such a God is a sufficient cause of loving God as S. Bern. saith because these are excellencies enough to attract love from the stoniest hearts quae genuere ferae which the most salvage men have produced if they did but truly consider them And yet this is not that which the Apostle setteth down here to be the ground and cause of our loving God but seeing our weakness could not ascend so high as to conceive the excellent brightness of this everlasting glory therefore his goodness was pleased to descend so low as to express that which is neerer unto us and doth more feelingly concern our selves Whom men do naturally love best that is the love of God towards us and the great good that we receive from that love for the Apostle knew that all men were naturally inclined to love their benefactors and to love them best which do profit them most And albeit very often this kind of love is but base and vitious yet being guided with reason Iob 1. and ruled by charity it may prove good and virtuous therefore as the devil maliciously suggested of holy Job that he served not God for nought so the Apostle wisely doth here intimate that we love not God without cause especially if we consider that great and real love of God which hath and doth continually so infinitely profit us for we love him because he loved us first Touching which words though our love to God is first set down in the series of these words yet seeing by the order of nature causa precedit effectum the cause doth ever precede the effect I will by Gods help speak 1. Of that great love which God hath shewed unto us 2. Of that love which in requital thereof we owe unto God And the first shall be the subject of my whole discourse at this time wherein you may observe as many parts 1 In Gods love to us four things observable as there be words 1. The Lover he He loved us first 2. The affection loved He loved us first 3. 1 The Lover Divers pretend to love us The beloved us He loved us first 4. The time first He loved us first 1. Who is this He that loveth us for there be very many that pretend to love us and yet in very deed do love us not at all especially 1. The Devil 1 How the Devil professeth to love us 2. The World 3. Our own selves 1. In the third of Hosea v. 1. Diabolus Dicitur amicus saith a Father Satan is said to be the lover of the seduced soul even as the lascivious loves the Harlot for the Devil comes unto us as he came unto Adam and saith You shall be as gods and I will make you happy and you shall be victorious when he means to plunge us into all miseries and to hurl us headlong into hell And to that end we can intend nothing nor resolve upon any good action What manner of love the Devil beareth to us wherein this dissembling Lover is not alwayes ready to intrap us as Progne did to Tereus proponendo quod delectabile supponendo quod exitiale by giving us like the Whore of Babylon a drink of deadly poyson in a golden Cup to teach us Heresies out of the holy Scriptures to set up a meer Anarchy under the glorious title of a Gospel-Government and to raise a most odious rebellion under the name of King and Parliament and under the pretence of Faith and Religion But O good God is it possible that tantum potuit Religio suadere malorum No no God will tell us this is nothing else but Satans plot who desires our ruine and he desires not only thus to fill us up with evil but also to infect all our good for if we pray he casteth wandring thoughts into our minds and when our hearts should think most of God he will guide our eyes to withdraw them to some other object as S. Hierom confesseth of himself that while his tongue was talking with God in
his private Closet his mind was wandring among the Wantons in the Galleries of Rome If we hear Sermons he will poyson our Opinions and prejudicate our minds with some ill conceit of the Preacher if we do well he will infect our best deeds with Pharisaical pride tum superbia destruit quicquid justitia aedificat pride destroyeth whatsoever righteousness buildeth if we do ill he will perswade us to persevere therein And so in all things else though he professeth love yet is it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like the gift of an enemy as was Ajax Sword that he received from Hector wherewith he kill'd himself a most deadly love worse then any open hate 2. Passing over all dissembling flatterers and all flattering friends 2 How the world professeth to love us perditissimos homines and those villanous men as Cicere terms them which can give a stab to the smile of an innocent and perfidiously deceive them qui laesi non essent nisi credidissent which had been safe if they had not trusted them The whole world is the Devils Ape and imitates him to a hair like the Courtlie Mountebank that is composed of nothing else but Complements and can promise golden Mountains but perform dirty Dales and deal with us as Laban did with Jacob Gen. 29.24 when he had served seven years for beautiful Rachel to thrust into his bed and to his bosome bleer-ey'd Leah It is like Dalila able to betray the strongest Sampson and like Circe powerful enough to bewitch the Wisest Solomon And if I had time to relate unto you the Tragedies of Mar. Attilius Regulus Cheops King of Egypt that erected the Pyramides Croesus King of Lydia Darius King of Persia Manius Acilius the Roman Consul Belisarius the brave General of Justinian who in his old age begged Date obolum Belisario Iob 30.4 quem virtus exaltavit fortuna depressit malitia excaecavit O give one half-peny to him whom virtue raised fortune spoiled and malice made him a poor blind begger And those thirty Emperours or thereabouts that died not sicca Morte but were killed from Julius Caesar to Charlemaigne and especially that notable example of Hebraim Bassa chief Councellor and of greatest power with Solyman the Great Turk whom Paulus Jovius termeth the greatest Minion of the worlds inconstancy because he was so intirely beloved of Solyman that he entreated his Master not to make so much of him lest being elevated with Haman too high he might have like him too great a fall and the Emperour swore he would never take away his life while he lived yet afterwards for some distaste of his insolent carriage Solyman being informed by a Talisman or Turkish Priest that a man asleep cannot be counted among the living sent an Eunuch into his Chamber who with a sharp Razor cut his throat as he was quietly sleeping in his bed And likewise Pope Baltazar Cossa who called himself John the XXIV that being thrown out of his Popedome by the Council of Constance 1417. made these verses of himself Qui modo summus eram gandens nomine Prasul Tristis Abjectus nunc mea Fata gemo Excelsus solio nuper versabar in alto Cunctaque Gens pedibus oscula prona dabant Nunc ego paenarum fundo devolvor in imo Vultum deformem quemque videre piget Omnibus eterris Aurum mihi sponte ferebant Sed nec Gaza juvat nec quis amicus adest Sic varians Fortuna vices adversa secundis Subdit ambiguo nomine ludit atrox And a thousand like examples that might be produced of some men that as Job saith cut up mallows by the bushes and Juniper roots for their meat children of fools yea children of base men that were viler then the earth whose Fathers we would have disdained to have eaten with the dogs of our flocks are now keepers of Castles and Commanders of whole Countryes Camer l. 4. c. 7.246 And others that from the highest honor were suddenly thrown down to the lowest misery compell'd to change their scarlet robes for rugs it would plainly appear unto us that the lovers of this world which relie upon the Worlds love Camerarius l. 3. c. 5.162 are greater fools then Heliodorus the Carthaginian who caused this Epitaph to be ingraven upon his Tomb hard by the straight of Gibralter I Heliodorus Reliodorus his Epitaph a fool of Carthage have ordained by my last will to be buried in this place in the remotest part of the world to see if any man more foolish then my self would come thus far to see me And therefore the best way to escape the deceits of the World is to follow the counsel of the Epicarmus How we ought to deal with the world that is semper diffidere alwayes to distrust it and never to believe it but with Ulysses to tye our selves unto the main Mast of our ship i.e. to sound reason or rather to true Religion that teacheth us to deal with this World as the worldlings deal with God to stop our ears like the deaf Adder that layeth one ear close to the earth and clappeth her tail in the other and so never listneth to the voice of the Charmer charm he never so wisely 3. 3 How we love our selves 2 Tim. 3.2 The Comique tells us verum idesse vulgo quod dici solet that every man loves himself better then another And Euripides saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every one loves himself better then his friend and the Apostle saith that in the last times men should be lovers of themselves And yet there was not a sounder truth uttered by the mouth of any Phylosopher then nemo laditur nisi a seipso no man is wounded but by himself because as Aquinas saith inordinatus amor sui est causa omnis peccati Sin is the cause of all our miseries and the inordinate love of our selves That our self love is the cause of all our sins and of all our miseries is the chiefest cause of all sins And Plato calleth this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons omnium malorum the root and fountain of all mischief And experience tells us that intus est equus Trojanus every mans greatest enemy lodgeth within his own bosome otherwise if we had the true reins of our own passions and could bridle our own affections then outward occasions might well exercise our virtue but not much injure our actions because others cannot draw us into any great inconveniences if we do not some way help our selves forward As the Adulterers cannot bereave us of the chastity of our bodies if there be not an Adulterer lodging within our souls and the Fornicator cannot take away the chastity of a Virgin if her corrupted heart doth not some way yield consent and therefore the Law saith of the ravished woman that she shall be freed and no cause of death shall be in her because the fact was committed against
of it And whereas this day five years past all the Protestants in this Kingdome and we especially of this City were destined to be sacrificed and slaughtered and sent as an Holâ—â—â—st or whole burnt-offering from the holy Father to the infernal God as many thousands of our Brethren were then and since yet by the love of God towards us we are still preserved alive that we might serve him and love him again And what more shall I say but cry out with the Psalmist O how plentiful is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee Psal 31.21 and that thou hast prepared for them that put their trust in thee even before the Sons of men for thou hast shewed us Marvellous great kindness I cannot say in a strong City but I say in a weak City and delivering us from strong Enemies whose Subtilty and Cruelty Treachery and Perfidiousness would require the head of the best experienced converted Jesuite to express it I had rather preach of Gods Love than treat of their Malicâ— and to talk of his Goodness rather than their wickedness and that great goodness The Lord Marquess of Ormond which he hath so lately shewed in delivering our most Excellent Governour so often from that malicious wickedness of the Sons of Belial so perfidiously intended against him is not the least Testimony of Gods Love to us all especially if we consider that what was intended this day 5 years had now questionless been executed if God had not broken the Snare of the Fowler and by delivering him redeemed us all from the Sword of Malice and from the Jawes of death and therefore this ought to be rightly weighed and duly remembred in our Thanksgiving among the many great undeserved and unexpected Preservations that our good God hath wrought for us And because his Excellency trusteth not in Lying Vanities but putteth his Trust in the Lord and in the Mercy of the Most High therefore he shall not miscarry But indeed this Love of God to us hath been so great and his Blessings in our Deliverances have been so many that if I should go about to enumerate them I might as well tell the Stars for as the Prophet saith they are more in number than I am able to expresse and therefore I will now conclude with our hearty thanks and Praise unto our good God for all his Love and Favours and Deliverances that he hath shewed unto us through Jesus Christ our Lord who is blessed for evermore Labilis memoria hominis How easily and how soon men forget good things the memory of man is very frail and slippery especially in the retention of all good things for though as the Poet saith Scribit in marmore laesus we write injuries in marble and never forget nor forgive the least ill turn that is done against us yet we write all benefits and all good instructions in the sands where the waves of forgetfulness do soon wash all away as the children of Israel regarded not the wonders that God wrought in Aegypt neither kept they his great goodness in remembrance Psal 106.7 13 21. but soon forgot his works yea and forgat God their Saviour which had done so great things in Aegypt wondrous works in the Land of Ham and fearful things by the Red Sea therefore lest you should forget the first part of this text before you heard the second I thougt it high time to proceed to those points which the time prevented me to inlarge not the last time I was in this place but the last time I treated of this verse and I hope you do remember that I told you this text was a text of love and of a twofold love 1. The love of God to man And 2. The love of man to God And In the first I noted these four things 1. The lover God 2. The affection Love He loved us first 3. The beloved Us. 4. The time First And I have done with the first three and therefore not to stand upon any further repetition I am now to proceed to shew you the fourth point that is the time when he loved us 4 The time when God loved us first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he loved us first i.e. before we would or could love him for love is one of the affections and the affections are seated in the heart and the heart is placed in the midst of the body and the body could not contain the heart nor the heart cast forth the affections nor the affections produce love before our loves Jer. 31.3 God loved us from everlasting before our Creation and affections and hearts and bodies had their being But God loved us before we were created and before we could have the least thought of our very being for I have loved thee with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee saith the Lord and this love was everlasting as well a parte ante from the time past as a parte post for the time to come and this love will appear the greater if we consider how freely and how undeservedly he hath loved us for the object of love is good either that which is really so indeed or seeming so to be And S. Aug. reasoneth most truly that antequam creati eramus nihil boni merebamur before we were made we could do no good we could merit no reward we could deserve no love And yet before we had received any being the love of God towards us had received a beginning and when our souls were unbreathed our bodies unframed and all this glorious structure laid in the dust before ever we beheld the light or the light was brought out of darkness or the darkness was upon the face of the deep our bodies and our souls were affected by God and we had a deep interest in the love of God when as then the earth was created for our habitation the creatures were produced for our service and the heavens were appointed for our comfort So God loved us before our Generation before we were before we had our being and after our transgression God loved us after our transgression John 8. when as God had made us his sons like himself and we had made our selves like our Father the devil there was cause enough of hate but none of love for then we found a way to run away from God we invented garments to hide our shame and to cover our nakedness from the eyes of men but to make us most loathsome in the eyes of God and we became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haters of God that laboured with the old Gyants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fight and war with God to unthrone him and to ungod him when we desired to make our selves like Gods nay the only Gods and he should be no God at all unless we might have our wills and not his will to be done in heaven as we do in earth Yet then when
we were thus filled with malice swelled with enmity and opposite to all amity to all verity to all goodness when we lay polluted in our own blood as the Prop. Ezek. saith Ez. 6.6 were enemies unto God and were as the Ap. speaketh dead in trespasses sins having hearts but no hearts to love him having souls Eph. 2.1 but no souls to long for him and having bodies but no bodies to serve him but such as were breathing out slaughters against him as Saul was breathing the like against the Church Acts 9.1 and when we were no more willing to yield him any the least jot of true love or holy affection then dead bodies are able to perform the most honourable action God then pittied our miseries and had compassion of our unworthiness and as S. Aug. saith etiam non dilectus dilexit out of his abundant goodness without any other motive he loved us when we thus hated wronged and abused him continually provoking him to anger with our continual abominations and yet he doth not say with the Poet Odero si potero si non invitus amabo I love them against my will but indignos amavi I have freely loved them that are so worthy of my hate and so unworthy of my love And therefore here is love and the love of loves and the wonder of all wonders to prosecute them with love that persecuted him with hate and so mercifully to give his only Son to save their lives that so causlesly and maliciously put his Son whom he so dearly loved to a most direful and a most shameful death And therefore as David directeth his 45. Psalm which is Epithalamium Christi sponsae or Canticum amicanum a Song of Loves to the chief Musitian upon Shoshannim or to him that excelleth in Musick So must I leave this great love of God to be amplified by him that is vates amorum the Disciple of Love not he that termed himself so but he that was so indeed the Disciple which our Saviour loved And so I will descend unto the second part of this text which is Pars 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nos diligimus eum as Catharinus Calv. Beza Tremel and abundance more do read it or diligamus eum as the Vulg. Lat. Aquinas Justinianus Corn. a Lapide and all those that follow the vulgar translation do expound it which in effect is all one the Holy Ghost purposely using that word which in the original is both the Indicative and the Subjunctive Mood to reach us that what the holy men of God do all men should do the same that is to love him which is the second part of my Text far different from the former that being high and excellent this low and but indifferent that very great and more then can be expressed this very very little and less then should be imagined and therefore I can speak but a little of it and for that little I beseech you to consider these two points The 1. From the consideration of Gods love that he loved us 2. From the consideration of the time that he loved us first The first point teacheth us to love God again Quia amor amoris magnes 1 VVhat the first Point teacheth us i.e. to love God a-again De Lege Talionis Res dare pro rebus pro verbis verba solemus Pro bufis bufas pro trufis reddere trufas Buffets with blowes and mocks with mowes Dalton p. 180. Mat. 7.12 1. In retaliation of evil for evil Exod. 21.22 durus est qui amorem non rependit and Lextalionis The Law of like doth require no less then that we should love him that loveth us for even reason sheweth that Lex non justior ullaest there cannot be a juster Law in the world then the Law of Retaliation and so our Saviour testifieth With the same measure ye meat it shall be measured to you again and Nature it self teacheth us the same Lesson Quod tibi fieri velis aliis hoc fieri videto Quod tibi fieri nolis aliis hoc fieri caveto And the Eternal Verity saith Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets And this Law holdeth good not only in general but also in the particular retribution 1. Of evil for evil 2. Of good for good As 1. Moses that was Faithful in all Gods House saith If men strive and any mischief follow then thou shalt give Life for Life Eye for Eye c. which is to be understood not of private revenge but to be executed by him that is justly deputed to execute vengeance upon the evil doers And so we find it executed both by God and men for the Old world that filled the Earth with a Deluge of all wickedness God brought a Deluge of Water to wash the same clean away and the Sodomites that burned with the fire of unlawful Lusts were consumed with Fire and Brimstone for the same and the Egyptians that drowned all the Male Children of the Israelites were themselves drowned in the Red Sea and the Children of Israel when they took Adonibezek cut off his Thumbes and his Great Toes and he said Judges 1.6 7. Threescore and ten Kings having their Thumbes and their Great Toes out off gâ—thered their meat under my Table and now as I have done so God hath required me So when Perillus made his Brazen Bull to torment others Phalaris thought it just that himself which made it should first tast of his own Invention And when Egypt wanted the wonted Inundation of Nilus and Thracius told Busiris that the Wrath of the gods would be appeased by the Sacrificing of a Strangers Blood and the King understanding by his own Confession that he was an Alien Illi Busiris fies Jovis Hostia primus Inquit Aegypto tu dabis hospes aquam He thought it the justest act to offer him first unto the gods So we read that those Lords which first called the Moores into Spain to suppresse their King Rodericke whom they hated were themselves and their Families destroyed by the means of those Moores and the Britains that rejected their Just and Lawful King Aurel. Ambrosius Speed l. 7. c. 12. and sent for the Saxons Hengist and Horsus to aid Vortigerne and his Associates that were Intruders were driven by the Saxons into the Rocky Mountains where they remain exiled from their own Right to this very day and because the God of Long Patience is a God of Great Justice that will render to every man according to his deeds and holds it very just that those rebellious people which call any other Nation to suppresse their own Lawful King should at one time or other either by that very Nation or some other be subdued and destroyed themselves therefore Subjects ought to think of Gods Justice before they cast off the Yoke of their Allegiance And 2. As the Poet
amori nostri placide ac benigne pro nobis mori dignatus est which for the purchasing of our Salvation did most chearfully and readily vouchsafe to suffer a most shameful death for us for so much only we do love God as we love him more than we love any thing else though the same should be never so lovely And in very deed our love to his honour and our care of his service and the maintaining of his truth can never be near so much performed as we ought to do Therefore let others laugh at our too-much love to God and our too hot zeal to promote his truth and to maintain his service yet I shall never condemn the nature of those men that with the zeal Phinees and the boldness of St. Peter are sometimes violent and vehement in these proceedings but I shall blame them that know not when and wherein it is fitting to be so for in this our love to God if it be directed to the right end though we should fail in the manner We cannot love God too much nor near so much as we ought tō love him yet we can never fail in the measure of loving God because as when the subject of our hatred is sin it cannot be too deep So when the Object of our love is God it cannot be too high and they that with the Laodiceans are but warm when God requireth them to be hot can never be freed from sin when their moderation is become a transgression and their Sobriety is belied into a Vertue which had it been done by Elias John Baptist and the rest of the Prophets and Apostles and the Fathers of the Primitive Church we had been deprived of much truth and they had failed of the Crown of Martyrdom Yet I deny not but a man may eat too much honey and in Solomons sence Men may be too precise a man may be righteous overmuch and make himself over-wise that is if I might expound it make those things to be sins to be superstitious to be Idolatrous to be Popish which are not so as the English Rebels throughout all Ingland now do and to make that for Gods service and teach those things for truths which are not so As the Romish Priests throughout all this Kingdom do but to love God too much to be too careful to obey Gods Precepts or too vehement to publish what we know to be a truth most necessary to be known it is the Sophistry of Satan to say this is too much And yet I say not that every Christian doth or can love God in so great a measure as is required of him or as many others have and do love him for as there are degrees of faith That there are divers degrees as of Faith so of Love so there are degrees of love and every degree of spiritual love proceeds from a proportionable act of saving faith And therefore as our faith so our love is subject to all variations and changes ebbings and flowings according to the strength of our perswasions or the violence of our desertions And as some men are indued with a greater measure of faith than others be when as some have no more than a grain of mustard seed and that mixed with much anxiety and others are strong in faith like Abraham that doubted nothing of Gods Promise notwithstanding all the impediments that might cross it so some men have but an ordinary love to God and others are indued with a more eminent and heroical love And such was the love of the Primitive Christians when the rage of the Pagans was so great against them Eus l. 4. c. 15. l. 5. c. 1. that to be a Christian was a sufficient accusation to draw them to their execution as it appeareth by those two memorable examples of Attalus and Polycarpus for as they made Attalus to walk about the Amphitheater of the Lions there was a little Tablet born before him wherein those four words were only written Eus l. 4. c. 15. l. 5. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is Attalus the Christian and when Polycarpus was led to his Execution the Governour commanded the Cryer to make Proclamation that Polycarpus had confessed himself to be a Christian And yet such was their Constancy and so great was their love to Christ that they did not only say with Ignatius Ure tunde divelle Burn me kill me tear me to pieces yet thou shalt never draw me from my Saviour Christ but they did also suffer the most exquisite torments that could be invented with such incredible patience that the sight thereof was so far from terrifying the beholding Christians that it rather enflamed them to undergo the like tortures The great love of the Primitive Christians unto God for as they were leading Ptolomaeus an honourable person to a most dishonourable death only because he had confessed himself to be a Christian Lucius another Christian seeing this injustice of Urbicius the Governour goeth unto him and demands What reason is it that thou shouldst put Ptolomaeus to death for confessing himself to be a Christian seeing he hath not committed Adultery nor Murder and thou canst not prove him a Thief or a Ravisher or guilty of any crime or iniquity therefore thy Sentence doth no credit unto the Emperour Antoninus the meek nor to his Son nor to the Senate of Rome To whom Urbicius answered nothing but only asked Lucius if he was a Christian Who replyed Yes that I am and was therefore presently led to his execution For which injustice he joyfully thanked Urbicius that by this means he should be delivered out of the hands of such cruel Masters and should go to God his most loving Father And albeit in the time of the Apostles and the Primitive Fathers the Persecutions raised against the Christians were thus cruel Isidor de summo bono l. 1. c. 28. and so tyrannical that many good minds cannot read or remember the same without weeping Yet Isidorus tells us That in the time of Antichrist and towards the end of the world the Synagogue of Satan and the wordly Senate shall more furiously rage against the Church of Christ and the City of God than ever he did in the Primitive times for Satan was to be bound for a thousand years Rev. 20.2 whereby his malice was chained and his power abridged that the Church might have some refreshment and therefore if the devil saith he when he was fast bound handled the Martyrs so cruelly then surely he will do much more when he shall be unchained which shall be and now is in the time of Antichrist Thumus Hist l. 6. C ham de crudel Antich l. 16. c. 15. Mr. Fox And truly I think that whosoever readeth Thuanus and Chamier and the book of the Martyrs of our Church and consider the Massacres of those Christians that within this last Century of years have suffered in France Germany Spain Italy
post nummos Haec Janus summus ab imo perdocet Haec recinunt juvenes dictata senesque Which made Euripides to present one in an humor that neglected all things and all reproaches for wealth because said he men seld om or never ask how good or how honest is such a one but how rich is he and each man is that which he possesseth and is so esteemed according as he is worth and no more And therefore most men I mean worldly men love their gold as their God and this God hath their love And yet riches in their own nature have neither honour nor knowledge nor power nor valour nor any other good nor evil in themselves more than that whereunto they that do possesse them do direct them but they are like the water Riches like the waters of Feneo of the lake Feneo whereof the Arcadians do report that whosoever drinketh of it in the night he falleth sick but whosoever taketh it in the day time he becometh well so riches used for the works of darknesse to oppresse the poor to subdue our Prince to uphold pride to maintain Idolatry rebellion and the like are very poyson unto our Souls but if we imploy them for the deeds of light How riches do evil and how they may do good to uphold the right to relieve the poor to defend the innocent they are as antidotes against all evil for neither is the rich man condemned nor the poor man saved because the one is rich and the other poor but as both may be saved so beth may be condemned because the rich man abuseth his wealth and the poor man his poverty And as most men hunt after riches so I might shew you how others affect authority and others are drunk with the desire of honours but the time would be too short for me to go about to cut off the head of this monstrous Hydra of misordered love and most men do professe to know that as S. John saith 1 Joh. 2.15 Whosoever loveth the World the love of the Father is not in him and that this world is full of snares and thorns and vanities and vexation of spirit and that the lovers of this world are none other than the Servants of the Devil and they do likewise confesse that God hath done and doth all those great things for them which we have set down and therefore that they are no worldlings but do love God with all their hearts and do think themselves much wronged if they should be otherwise suspected Yet because 2 Thes 3.2 as the Apostle saith all men have not faith so all men have not love What we must do if we love God especially such love as they ought to have therefore lest we should deceive our selves herein and so destroy our Souls we must know that God is truth and therefore he that loves God loves truth and whosoever loves lies and falsehoods loves not God and God is Justice therefore he that loves God loves that which is right and just and he that loves to do wrong loves not God and so God is Wisdom and God is Mercy and therefore he that loves God loves Wisdom and sheweth mercy and they that are foolish as all the wicked are and do shew cruelty unto their brethren as do the blood thirsty men that do now seaze and kill and slay the innocent that never offended them cannot be said to love God But for the fuller manifestation of our love to God 1. Two things to be done I will set down some of the most infallible signs of this true love of God the best of them that are collected 2. Lest upon the discussion of these truths we find our selves destitute of this love I will briefly and as the time will give me leave shew the impediments and set down the furtherances of our love to God 1 The infallible signs of our true love of God The Image of of Love how anciently painted And why And 1. I find amongst the Antient Hieroglyphicks that the Image of Love was painted in the shape of a beautiful woman cloathed in a green vesture wherein was written these two words prope procul far and nigh in the breast were ingraven life and death in the borders of her garment were set Winter and Summer and in her side a wound so wide and so largely opened that all her inward parts were transparent And those Sages that pourtrayed Love thus did it for these reasons 1. In the shape of a woman to shew the vehemencie of this affection The explanation of the hierogliphick 2 Sam. 1.26 because women by reason of their weaknesse to bridle their passions as they are more violent in their hate so are they more fervent in their love and more vehement in all their desires than men therefore David expressing the great love of Jonathan towards him saith that his love passed the love of women 2. Of a beautiful woman to shew that Love is an alluring subject and is sweet and delectable even to them that are troubled with Love 3. In a green vesture to shew that true love ought alwayes to be fresh and fair and never withered nor waxen old because it never faileth 1 Cor. 13.8 as the Apostle testifieth 4. In the words far and nigh that were set in the forehead of that Image was signified that contrary to the common practice of the world to follow that old Proverb Qui procul ab oculis procul est a limine cordis Out of sight out of mind true love remaineth firm as well in the absence as in the presence of them that we love when as neither length of time nor distance of place can any wayes alter the constancie or lessen the affection of a true Lover 5. In life and death that were ingraven on the breast was shewed that Cant. 8.6 as Solomon saith love is as strong as death Ecl. 49.1 and cannot be extinguished even by death it self but we will love the very names and memories of them whom we loved as the Son of Syrach saith of Josias 6. By the Winter and Summer that were set in the borders of her garment was signified that true love is permanent and durable as well in adversity as in prosperity for though as the Poet saith of worldly lovers Donec eris felix While prosperity lasteth and thy table is well furnished thou shalt want no friends nor misse of any guests but if adversity cometh thy friends will fail and thy guests will be gone so the Prophet tells us there be many men that will love God and praise him too cum lucrum accidit illis when they receive any benefit from him and when as David saith their corn and wine and oyl increaseth Psal 4.8 Job 1.11 but if any great losse or sud calamity should happen unto them then what the Devil said falsely of holy Job may be truely said of these worldly men they will
curse God to his face and therefore God may justly say to them as S. Augustine saith of the like you have shewed me love indeed and in some things kept my commandments but it was for your own profits sake non quia me pure diligebatis Aug. despeculo humanae miseriae sed quia a me lucrari volebatis not because you did Sincerely love me but because you desired to be inriched and exalted by me like those Jews that followed Christ not because they saw his miracles and were edified by his heavenly doctrine but because they did eat of the loaves and were filled i. e. for his temporal blessings John 6.26 and not for the love of his spiritual graces or like S. Peter that would build tabernacles unto Christ upon Mount Tabor where he was transfigured in glory but did forsake him on Mount Calvary when he was oppressed with calamities and overladed with injuries just like too many of the servants of our now gracious King that could serve and extoll him in White-hall while he sate on his throne of Majestie and yet now serve and magnifie his oppressors and opponents when he is compassed with afflictions which is to love in Summer and not in the cold of Winter yet I say the true lovers of God will as truely love him in the Winter of adversity and persecution Job 2.10 as in the Summer of prosperity and exaltation and will say with holy Job shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evill or shall we rejoyce at our advancement and shall we not be contented at our abasement 7. And lastly by the wound that she had opened in her side is shewed that true love revealeth the very secrets of the heart to his beloved so will they that love God confesse all their sins with Daniel and lay open all their wants with David unto God and they need not be ashamed to confesse them when as before their confession they are all patent to his eyes as the Apostle sheweth But because all these are signes of any true love to any object therefore I will shew you some more proper signs of our love to God and The 1. Acts 7.48 is to love Gods house for though as S. Steven saith God dwelleth not in houses made wiah hands but as the Poet saith Enter praesenter The chiefest Signs of our Love to God 1. To love Gods House Deus est ubique potenter That is in the Prophets phrase he filleth all places yet as he chooseth a Seventh day for his service when as all dayes are his and challengeth a tenth part of our goods for his servants when as all we have is at his disposing so he requireth a Church and a material house to be served in when as all the houses and all the places in the World Psal 27.4 Psal 84.2 cannot comprehend his Majesty therefore the Prophet David saith one thing have I required of God which I will desire that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life and again my Soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord Hag. 1.4 and the Prophet doth extreamly tax them that dwell themselves in seiled houses and suffer the house of God to be wast fit for nothing but as I see it now in many places to lodge beasts and birds and they may be as much and more blamed that neglecting his consecrated house do think their polluted barns to be good enough to serve our God Secondly 2 To love Gods Word Psal 119.79 47. 72. VVhat we understand by Gods word To love Gods Word is another sign of our love to God therefore the Prophet David saith O how do I love thy Law my delight is in thy Commandements and again thy testimonies are better unto me than thousands of gold and silver But here you must observe that because every one pretendeth to love Gods Word as they do professe to love God by Gods Word we understand not the bare Written letter but the truth of the holy Scripture for as the Hereticks in Tertull. time credebant Scripturis ut crederent adversus Scripturas believed not the Scripture but what themselves pleased out of the Scriptures so now and oftentimes alwayes the Word of God is perverted and mis-interpreted especially by two sorts of men as S. Peter noteth 1. 2 Pet. 3.16 Two sorts of men pervert Gods word Those that are unlearned and have not knowledge enough to undestand the truth of these high Mysteries 2. Those that are unstable and unconstant and therefore change the sense of Scriptures as they see the times and occasions change As for example 1. Mat. 20.26 27 The words of Christ whosoever will be great among you let him be your Minister and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your Servant the Presbyterians allegde them to prove a parity of orders and an equality amongst all the Ministers of Gods Church and yet the very same words are produced by all the Fathers and all the most learned Divines to shew the diversity of our callings and the superiority of some of them above the others which is indeed the very truth because otherwise he would never have said whosoever will be chief but he would have told them plainly and briefly they were all equal and none was chief or none was greater than the rest but in saying whosoever will be chief let him be your Servant he sheweth the duty and humility that should be in him which was to have the priority and doth sufficiently confirm the superiority of some above the rest 2. Mat. 26.26 The words of the consecration of the Eucharist take eate this is my body are interpretd by Bellarm. and all the Church of Rome that quote the Authors of all ages to prove the Transubstantiation of that holy bread into the very body of Christ and yet the very same words are expounded by the Lutherans to prove their consubstantiation and by the Fathers rightly understood as they are amply quoted by Pet. Martyr and by the most learned of our Church do prove not the oral or corporal eating but the spiritual and sacramental eating of the body of Christ by Faith which is indeed there really but ineffably eaten and should be so believed to be without any further searching into these Divine Mysteries lest with the men of Bethshemesh we be justly smitten for peeping too narrowly into the Ark of the Lord. 3. The very same Scriptures to the number of forty places were alleged by the Arians to prove their Damnable Heresie that Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the like nature with his Father as were produced by the Orthodox to prove him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same essence with God 4. That Scripture which commandeth us Matth. 22.21 to render unto Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is Gods is truly
Death of the King we do see and must acknowledg the just Judgment of God and that he spareth not his dearest Children if they do offend but though Coniah were as the Signet upon his right-hand when he transgresseth God will cut him off so in this very Judgment of God The great goodness of God towards King Charles seen we may plainly see Mercie ana Truth met together Righteousness and Peace kissing each other yea we may clearly see the great love and mercie of God towards this good and godly King both in his Death and in the consequents of his Death as specially 1. In his Friends 2. In his Honour 3. In his Posterity 4. In his Felicity for First In his death touching his Death it is a true saying Qui non vult in vita praevidere mortem non potest in morte videre vitam and as another saith Turpe est eo statu vivere in quo non statuas mori therefore did King Charles live so Justly so innocently so Religiously and so Christianlike that he might well say nec pudet vivere nec timeo mori I am neither ashamed to live nor afraid to die for he lived like a Saint and died a Martyr like a good Christian yea so Christianlike that although I would not wish it for a World to be where I fear many of his Enemies are yet next to my being with Christ I would wish nothing of God sooner or rather then to be where I assure my self King Charles is Nec dubito qui sic vixit sic mortuus idem est Qui n sit apud Superos nobilis umbra Deos. Secondly 2 In the Consequents of his death 1. In his Friends Claud. 2. Stilicon For the Consequents of his death and First For his Friends as Claudian saith Haec amicitias lengo post tempore firmat Mansuróque adamante ligat nec mobile mutat Ingenium parvae strepitu nec vincula noxae Dissolvi patitur nec fastidire priorem Allicitur veniente novo Or as Solomon saith fortis est ut mors dilectio Love is as strong as death So they verified all this in testifying to the World that although his Enemies took him out of the World and his Picture which with all reverent respect to Christ be it spoken was in my judgment the likest that ever I saw to that Picture and Description of our Saviour that Publius Lentulus sent to the Senate of Rome out of our houses yet they never were nor ever shall be able to take him or our loves to him out of our Hearts the hearts of all us that truly knew him quia igneti nulla cupido and therefore loved him and so loved him that neither Life nor Death nor all the malice of his Foes could or can lessen our love and honour that we bare to him or blot out the goodness of this King and the Sweetness of his disposition from our thoughts and memories but as the Son of Sirach saith of good Josias so we say of good King Charles In Honour and good name Ovid in Ibin Antut Anaxaâ—chus pila minuaris in alta The remembrance of King Charles is like the composition of perfume that is made by the art of the Apothecarie the more you stir it the Sweeter it smelleth and therefore Secondly He is happie in his honour and good name that shall continue Famous and Blessed among all Posterities for evermore for though Anaxarchus-like that for his Detracting tongue was Pestled to death in a Brasen Morter his Enemies say with malicious Juno Non sic abibunt odia vivaces aget violentus iras animus saevúsque dolor aeterna bella pace sublatâ geret Their hatred to him shall never die yet as Solomon saith Memoria justi erit in benedictionibus the remembrance of this just man and good King shall be blessed for ever Indeed the malice of his enemies hath been and still is such and so great as that to falsifie the Saying of the Poet Pascitur in vivis livor post fata quiescit that tells us we hate the living onely and our hatred dieth with death they never cease to stain his good name and obscure his honour with apparent lies and scandalous aspersions for their hate to him is immortal and unexplicable seeking to burie his honour with himself yea and before himself was buried even while he was alive they dealt with him as the Jews did with his Master Christ saying that he was a Blasphemer a Glutton a Drunkard a Sabbath-breaker a Traytor unto Caesar and a Seducer of the people that had a Devil and did cast out Devils through Beelzebub the chief of the Devils and what not so do these like those Jews say that King Charles was an Hypocrite making onely an outward profession of honesty and piety that he was a Tyrant and a Traytor which both are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most inconsistible when as a Tyrant as Claudian describes him Jnstat terribilis vivis morientibus baeres Claudian De bello Gildico Virginibus raptor thalamis obscoenus adulter Quisquis vel locuples pulchra vel conjuge notus Crimine pulsatur falso si crimina desunt For which I think the Devil could not have the face to tax King Charles with any of all these things for we all know that he was so mercifull a Prince as seldom if ever he took the advantage of the rigor of any Law but lessened and sweetened that same many times and in many things neither do I believe that Juno her self had she been his Queen could have suspected him for any false Play so Chast a Prince was King Charles beyond the fair carriage of Alexander towards the Wife and Daughters of Darius And that he should be a Traytor is a thing that the like was never heard of because Treason is as you know crimen laesae Majestatis an offence against the Supreme Majestie which was solely and fully resident in himself and would he think you be a Traytor to himself Indeed he was when too confidently he trusted himself into the hands of those perfidious Gentlemen the Scots that worse then Judas sold him and delivered him to be crucified by his grand enemies of the Parliament and other treason I am confident can no ways be fixed on him But quid miror quid opus est verbis what need we say any more When men laid to Christ his charge the things that he never knew and taxed him with what he never did nor said what wonder is it if they slander the Foot-steps of his Anointed Yet all they do is to no purpose for as Plutarch saith Plutarch in Numa Omnes bonos justosque viros major post mortem sequitur laus invidia non multum post illos temporis supervivente non nunquam etiam ante exitum eorum moriente the greatest praise and honour will follow good and just men after they are dead envy and malice not living long after them but sometimes dying before them even
are not able to seed the poor ' nor scarce our selves and some for other longer time reserving onely some small rent for the succeeding Bishops as in my Diocess theat Lordship was set for 10. l. yearly that is well-nigh worth a 200. l. and that was set for 4. l. that is worth a 100. l. and the like And therefore seeing the Bishops themselves did so unjustly destroy their succeeding Bishops what wonder is it that the just God should suffer the haters of the Bishops and the Enemies of all goodness to destroy them And therefore not to do my self what I blame in others lest God should justly condem me out of mine own mouth I have resolved and do pray to God continually to give me the grace to perform it and do hope that God will grant it me That I will take no Fine for any Lands or Lordships belonging to my Bishoprick while I live that I may not wrong any of my succeeding Bishops nor lessen the Revenue of the Church of Christ but to take heed and beware of covetousness which is the cause of much and many evils especially in all Church-men as you see it was the root that sprang to the destruction of Judas and to cause Demas to apostatize from the Ministery of Christ Secondly For the discharging of the Episcâ—pal duties which is a very great charge onus Angelicis humeris formidandum as a Father calls it if Revelat. ii 14. with the Church of Ephesus we have not forsaken our first love and grown cold in our care to promote the gospel of Christ yet I fear the Bishops had amongst them those that held the Doctrine of Balaam who taught Balac to set a stumbling-block before the Children of Israel that is as the Apostle expoundeth it to love the wages of unrighteousness and for the love of worldly honour wealth and other sinister respects to grow cold in the love of truth which made a Preacher at Paul's cross to pray that God would be pleased to make the Lords Temporal more spiritual and the Lords Spiritual less temporal and it grieves me much to set down how the Bishops Courts were generally complained of how justly or how unjustly I cannot tell as the greatest Oprressours of the People and the publique grievance of the Kingdom their delays unsufferable their excommunications unreasonable Corn. Agâ—ippa De vanitâ—ue Scientâ—arum cap. 61. their Fees intolerable and often times their injustice no ways to be excused which made the Lay people to exclaim against the Bishops and their Courts as much and in like manner as Cornelius Agrippa and our Presbyterians do against the Romish Bishops And if they say as they do the Courts belonged to their Chancellours that were learned men Doctours of the Civil and Canon Laws and of honourable repute among all Nations and what they did should not be imputed to the Bishop's fault It may be answered Qui facit per alium idem est quasi faceret per seipsum he that offends by his Proctor shall suffer by himself And we must confess the Courts were the Bishops Courts and the Chancellours were but their Deputies and they should have rectified the Abuses of their own Courts Yet I must ingenuously confess that I can accuse none of the Bishops for this fault but that this is the complaint of the People how truly I know not unless the Chancellour might say to the Bishop as it was said to the Pope of the like Officer Vendere jure potest emerat ille prius He had paid him dear for his place therefore he must take great Fees and sell justice or he shall lose much by the Bargain for indeed he cannot sell cheap that buyeth dear and be a saves thereby nor can he prove but very seldom an upright Judge that hath bought his office and by corruption obtained his place and therefore this selling of the Chancellour's office and other places in the Bishops Courts was the root of all the corruption that were of those Courts and so the Bishops that did this even for these faults besides the neglect to redress their other abuses can not in my judgement be any ways excused But I will shew you yet To ordain unworthy persons to be Priests a great fault to the shame of some greater Abomination which I have often bemoaned when I considered how some of the Bishops not following Saint Paul's counsel in the ordination of Priests and Deacons to lay hands on no man rashly but to see the Persons to be admitted to Holy Orders should be no Novices and no ways unworthy of that high Calling but every way qualified both for life and doctrine so as the word of God doth require have notwithstanding Vide Englands Reprover pag. 67. either by the solicitation of friends or for some other respects and perhaps worser corruption many times made young Novices illiterate men and which is worse men of corrupt minds and bad life the Priests of the most high Gods to wait at his Altar that were not worthy to wait on our Tables and therefore as the Bishops that did this did herein falsifie their faith to God and betrayed his Service to these unworthy men so the just God hath most rightly suffered these perfidious men to betray their Makers to spit in their Father's faces and to combine with the Enemies of God to destroy the Bishops of Christ and so as the Poët saith in another kind Ignavum fucos pecus à praesepibus arcent Neither was this all the Bishops fault to ordain these to drive away themselves but as it was said of old Rector eris praestò Men obtained their livings four manner of ways de sanguine Praesulis esto or as another saith Quattuor Ecclesias portis intratur in omnes Prima patet magnis nummatis altera tertia charis Quarta sed paucis solet patere Dei So to put weapons into their hands to enable them to war with their Bishops it was the practice of some of the Bishops if we may believe the common report of the Country Mercury to bestow Livings Rectories Prebends and other preferments not on such worthy Scholars and Academicks as best deserved them but either upon their own Friends Children Kinsmen or Servants or on such as according to the old riddle could tell them who was Melchisedec's Father and his Mother too and could say Saint Peter's Lesson Aurum argentum non est mihi the clean contrary way And this very practice of those Bishops that did so bred ill blood and many corrupt humours against the Episcopal function as especially First A disdain of them amongst those worthy men that were so carelessly neglected Secondly A neglect of God's People and leaving them untaught and unguided by those unworthy men that were thus promoted Thirdly A general distast of the people against all the Bishops when they resented these distempers that were onely caused by very few And all these things cryed to God for redress and
the Presbyterian way I am confident and sure that God never approveth of their courses nor for a man to accept of his own right by an indirect way and therefore I finde not that he blessed any of the Scots designs but as Nahum saith of Niniveh Nahum 3.13 so we may say of them thy people in the midest of thee are Women the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies and the fire shall devour thy barrs and I think they have found it true themselves through their Kingdom when the Lion and his Bears the Tyrant and his Whelps came amongst them And therefore this deliverance of the Prince being of the like nature as those wonderful deliverances that God wrought for other good Princes which are set down by Camerar libro secundo capite decimo being such a special act of God's favour and so wonderful in our eyes and as I believe with these former praecedentia fore-passed things will be a warning to him and to all others to amend future things and to detest and abandon this Presbyterian way which I am confident the Lord hateth and do assure my self will never bless it nor them that cordially follow it if they do rightly understand it howsoever he may in his secret Counsel suffer them as he doth many other Sinners and great offendours for a time to tyrannise over his children and to prosper in this World which is but as the Prophet saith a slippery station when as Claudian speaking of Ruffinus and his confederates saith tolluntur in altum Vt lapsu graviori ruant God lifteth them up to throw them down which makes their overthrow the greater by how much their exaltation is the higher for Qui jacet in terra non habet unde cadat He that walketh upon the ground can have no great fall but as Horace saith Saepius ventis agitatur ingens pinus celsae graviori casu decidunt turres feriuntque summos ful◠ura montes And so I believe their fall will be ere long which now ride on other men's palfreys and jet it up and down in pride in their Brethren's garments because as Job saith Job 20.5 27. The triumphing of the Wicked is but short and the joy of the Hypocrite is but for a moment when as the heavens shall reveile his iniquity and the earth shall rise up against him Secondly for the rest of the Scottish nation Mr. Hall a Counsellour for the Common-Wealth of England The trial of Mr. Love pag 76. How the Scots have been always avers and great enemies to the English-Nation in the triall of Mr. Love saieth that Master Love held Intelligence with the Scottish-Nation which truely saith he I do conceive hardly an English man that had the blood of an English man running in his Veins would joyn in confederacy with that Nation of all the Nations in the World against the Common-Wealth a Nation that hath been known to have been a constant enemy to this nation in all ages through the memory of all Histories whereby * If this be true you may guess how worthy they are to have an union with this Nation and how wisely we do to submit our selves by an indissoluble Covenant to their Scottish-discipline and therefore touching the now distressed and subdued subjects of Scotland especially those that Covenanted with the Parliament of England to overthrow the established Government of our Church and to set up the beggerly Presbytery I may most truely say lex non justior ulla Quam Artifices tales arte perire suâ Never Nation was more justly dealt withall then they be by what Crumwell brought upon them for though according to the Apostles warrant saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cretians are always lyars I might justly say there are national sins as well as personal and you know that punica fides Titus 1.12 grew to be a Proverb among the Romans to note out a perfidions person so I might truely tell you that from Fergusius the renowned King of the Scots that first entred Ireland and afterwards was drowned at Carreg-fergus now corruptly called Knoc-fargus in that Kingdom their own Chronicles do testify how this Nation have been always such as Saint Stephen saith the Jews were a stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears that have allways resisted the Holy Ghost even as their Fathers did so did they so were the Scots a stiff-necked stubborn and rebellious people that have always resisted their own lawful Princes by deposing some and killing others whom they disliked and whom I could easily name if it were not for fear to be too tedious unto you out of their own Chronicles And though they had many brave Commanders and gallant Soldiers amongst them and some great Schollars as furious Knox Antimonarchical Buchanan That the Scots have been ever a most rebellious Nation in his Junius Brutus and De Jure regni apud Scotos and the like not a few yet as a little colloquintida spoileth all the whole pot of pottage so their treachery and Rebellion against their Kings obscureth all the good parts that can be in them It is a rare commendation that Quintus Curtius gives unto the Persians for their love and faithfullness unto Darius their King in his dejected Fortunes when they would rather lose their own lives then betray their King and Damianus a Goes tells us that many Infidels among the Indians were not inferiours to the best nations in their Obedience and Loyalty to their Kings and yet the Scots of all other Nations are as they say clean contrary for to go no further then our times it is not unknown to both Kingdoms how many signal favours were conferred upon men of all sorts both the nobles Gentles and Plebeyans of Scotland by King James that made himself poor How liberal and bountiful King James hath been unto the Scots to make them rich and many times emptied his own Exchequer to fill their purses and how King Charles never imposed any heavy burthen upon them but was no small benefactour to them preferring them in his own house to places of the greatest honour and best profit and those that came with their staff like Jacob over the Tweed and in their blew Bonnets into England they were in a short space enriched Knighted and ennobled in the King 's Court. But least that this Commemoration of benefits should be taken for an exprobration as the Comick speaketh I will not name those great persons that have been made great by this good King and that I could have set down for unthankful retributours of such great favours yet in general I would that all men knew how they have all rewarded their deserving Prince for that blessed man in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith The Scots are a Nation The King in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How lovingly King Charles used the Scots upon whom I have not onely tyes of nature sovereignty and bounty with my Father of blessed
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Honour all men The 2. concerneth all Christian men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love the Brother-hood The 3. belongs to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fear God The 4. belongs to the King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Honour the King That is Honour all men in general Love all Christian men more especially than any others Fear God above all things And Honour your King next to God And if you do these few things these easie things you shall never fail but you shall be for ever happy The first Precept is Honour all men touching which two things are to be observed 1. The Act. 2. The Extent And 1. this word Honour doth properly signifie that reverence and respect which we owe and do render to any one for any cause And because there are many things for which we yield and exhibite honour What is meant by Honour it followeth that this word Honour doth not signifie the same thing in all places But pro diversitate diversae materiae diversa significat it signifieth divers things according to the diversity of the subject matter As Among prophane Authors it is taken many wayes 1. Sometimes for the beauty and comeliness of any thing as where the Poet saith Frigidus sylvis Aquilo decussit honorem The cold Northren wind shook off all the honour that is all the beauty and grace of the Wood. 2. Sometimes it is used for that Observance and worship that we yield unto our Superiours for the good that we receive from them as when the Poet saith Semper honore meo semper celebrabere donis I will alwayes worship or serve and respect you 3. Sometimes it is taken for the reward that is given for any thing as where it is said Ipsis praecipuè ductoribus addit honores And specially he rewarded the Captains and Commanders And 4. Sometimes it is put for the Rites and Ceremonies of our Funerals as where Virgil saith Cernit ibi maestos mortis honore earentes Virgil. Aeneid 6. And there he beheld them sad that wanted the due Rites and honour of their Burials which now many Worthy men do want among our new Prognosticks So in the holy Scripture it is likewise taken several wayes As 1. Sometimes for esteem and worth as where the Apostle saith Those Ceremonies Touch not Taste not Handle not are not in any honour Colos 2.23 that is of any worth 2. Sometimes for an honest care and provision for one as where S. Peter saith That the Husband should give honour to the wife that is to care and provide for her as for the weaker vessel 1 Pet. 3.7 3. Rom. 13.7 Sometimes it is put for that reverence worship and service which is due to our governours and magistrates as where S. Paul saith render to all their dues honour to whom honour belongeth that is render to every one that honour which is due to him and is not due to another and so it is taken here in the last Precept Honour the King that is with such an honour as is due to the King and is not due to all others because all men are not to be honoured alike and to have the like honour as well the one as the other otherwise the King or the Father the Pastor or the Master is to have no more honour then a beggar and therefore when the Apostle saith Honour all men he doth not mean 1 Tim. 5.17 that all men should be honoured alike when the Apostle tels us The Elders that rule well are worthy of double honour And 4. Sometimes this word Honour signifieth any kind of duty reverence obedience relief quaelibet charitatis officia and all other offices of love and charity Rom. 12.10 as where the Apostle saith Be kindly affectionated one to another with brotherly love in honour preferring one another And so here 1 We are to help all that are in need of our help honour all men signifieth esteem love aid and help all men that have need of help so far forth as you are able to help them comfort those that mourn relieve those that want instruct them that are ignorant and so help all that are in need of your help for as Boetius saith Omne hominum genus in terris Simili surgit abortu Vnus enim rerum pater est Boetius de cons l. 3. Vnus cuncta ministrat Ille dedit Phaebo radios Dedit cornua lunae God at first made but one man and all the generation of men proceeded from that one man to teach us what unity and love ought to be among all men Cicero de Offic l. 1. Quia homines hominum causa generati sunt ut ipsi inter se alii aliis prodesse possent because men are born not for themselves but for mens sake that they might help and benefit one another among themselves and even Nature it self teacheth this saith the Orator Vt homo homini quicunque sit ob eam ipsam causam tantum Idem l. 3. quòd homo sit consultum velit that a man should not be strange to any man but should help him and further him in any thing that he can only for this cause though there were none other that he is a man that is Lactant. divin instit l. 6. c. 10. of the same nature as himself is and therefore Lactantius saith that Lucretius erred not when he said Denique caelesti sumus omnes semine oriundi Omnibus ille idem Pater est That we are all sprung from the same caelestial seed and are all brethren that have the same God the same Father of us all Et ita conjunctiores animis quà m corporibus and so more neerly allyed in respect of our minds and soules then of the form and shape of our bodies And this was the ground of Jobs respect unto his servants Job 31.13 saying Did not he that made me in the womb make him And this is the argument the Prophet useth against the deceitfulnesse of men one towards another saying Have we not all one Father hath not God created us And why then do we deal treacherously every one against his brother Mal. 2.20 Yea rob and kill his brother And therefore Lactantius concludeth that those men are to be deemed pro belluis immanibus qui contra jus humanitatis homines spoliant exterminant no better then brute beasts or savage creatures which contrary to the rules of nature and the rights of humanity do spoil and rob and root men their brethren by creation out of house and home And if nature teacheth this and meer men that had no more knowledge but what the light of nature taught them do thus perswade us to this duty what wonder is it that grace and the children of God much more should teach us to love honour help and esteem well of all men for the more universall our love and our kindnesse is to
suppress sin Prov. 3. Chap. 15. Chap. 16. so we may know where the fear of God resideth by the fruits that it bringeth I will name but only two that are the inseparable effects of the fear of God 1. Per timorem Domini declinat omnis à malo The fear of the Lord expelleth sin which can no more stand with the fear of God than light and darknesse can agree together or the Ark and Dagon can stand upon the same Table for sin is like a deluge and the fear of God is like the bank of a River which hindereth sin to overflow in any man Or sin is like drosse or stubble and the fear of God is like the flames of fire for so the very Pagans depainted fear like unto love invironed about with fiery-flames because all fear as well Divine as Humane scorcheth and consumeth us as long as it remains within us And therefore as the fire consumeth all drosse rectifieth the crooked and purifieth all Mettals so the fear of God driveth away all unlawful lusts cleanseth our hearts and maketh straight all our wayes For so Joseph saith he would not wrong his Brethren because he feared God And so Job would not injure the fatherless and the widow because he feared God Wherefore if with their tongues the Rebels have used deceit if their feet are swift to shed blood and if they have not and will not know the way of peâ—ce but refuse all the fair offers of a most gracious King then I may truly conclude with the Psalmist and I have S. Paul to justifie it that there is no fear of God before their eyes let them pretend to do what service they please unto God 2. Qui timet Deum facit bona mandata Dei observat nihil negligit 2 To do all good Ecclus. chap. 15. Chap. 12. Chap. 7. The fear of God doth all good saith the son of Sirach Because as S. Gregory saith Timere Deum est nulla mala quae fugienda sunt facere nulla quae facienda sunt bona praeterire The fear of God doth none of those evil things that are to be shunned but doth all and neglecteth none of those good things that are commanded And what are those good things that are commanded which the fear of God neglecteth not I answer They are very many and yet the fear of God will have a special respect unto them all As the Prophet David testifieth I have respect unto all thy Commandments Psal 119.6 For he that feareth God must not do as Agrippa did almost to become a Christian or as Herod did to hear John gladly and in many things to follow his counsel But as Moses when Pharaoh yielded the children of Israel should go to sacrifice unto God so they would leave their cattel behind them answered That one hoof should not be left behind He would not condition to omit the least jot of Gods Precept or to leave the least Command unobeyed So he that feareth God will not purchase peace nor compasse his own desire though it were with the Israelites to be freed out of bondage or with David to gain a Kingdom with the least transgression of Gods Will or the connivence with the least breach of Gods Precepts or the least alteration in Gods own Ordinances And therefore if these men fear God they will prefer his wayes before their own and they will have a special care to all his Precepts I will only name those that are contained in my Text. Honour all men Love the Brother-hood which I have already handled And Honour the King Which I shall by Gods help treat of by and by and without which we cannot be said to fear God because these are as inseparably joyned together to make a Christian-man as the soul and body are to make a natural man as you may see in Hos 10.4 where the people say We have no King because we fear not the Lord. Therefore as S. John saith He cannot love God which be hath not seen that loveth not his neighbour which he seeth So he cannot be said to fear God who is the King of kings that doth not honour the King who is the Vice Roy and the Livetenant of God And now I demand how they have performed these things For if that to rob pillage imprison and kill be to Honour men and to love the Brotherhood and if to rail slander rebel and fight against our Soveraign be to Honour the King then do they truly fear God if otherwise I may truly conclude with the Psalmist They are corrupt and become abominable and there is no fear of God before their eyes But it may be they will object Ob. that they are commanded to love God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind and S. Math. 22.37 1. John 4.18 John saith There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear and he that feareth is not made perfect in love Therefore these perfect Saints that râ—b their neighbours kill their brethren and fight against their King for the great love they bear to God and because the King will not suffer them to have what they list they need not fear God's wrath nor be afraid of his judgement I answer Sol. That some Divines say the true love of God casteth out the servil-fear which is only the fear of punishment but doth not cast out the filial reverence and the awful fear of losing Gods favour But I think rather the time is to be distinguished and not the fear because the Apostle saith Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgement and then addeth that perfect love casteth out fear But our love is not nor cannot be perfect until the Day of Judgement We may strive and labour for perfection but cannot possibly attain unto it while we are in this vale of misery otherwise then that which is termed Perfectio viae and which is indeed but imperfecta perfectio therefore our love cannot be without fear as well the fear of his wrath and vengeance as the fear of losing his love and favour For if I lose his favour I may fear his wrath and where there is a commission of any sin there must need be a diminution of love and where there is an extenuation of love there must of necessity follow an occasion of fear But as it was said of old that Religio peperit divitias filia devoravit matrem So we may say That sin bringeth forth the fear of Gods judgements and the fear of Gods judgements doth in all the godly prevent and cast out sin And therefore not only to the wicked but also to his dearest servants God doth usually expresse himself by those titles and epithets which might work in them as well a fear of his Majesty as a love to his goodness as in lege operandi in the Decalogue he saith I am Jehova thy God