to the knowledg of God This knowledg we must seek with all earnest diligence and store it up carefully in the treasurie of our hearts that knowing God we may love him and trust to him and fear him and honour him that as the Daughters of Ierusalem though before marvailing what ailed the Spouse of Christ to be so affectioned towards her beloved and so earnestly to seek after him as she did when they once came to take knowledg of his perfit beautie would then seek him with her So we knowing God specially in the face of Christ Iesus may so be ravished with love of his Majestie as to have our whole heart set to seek and find him in whose presence is satietie of joyes evermore CAP. II. Of Gods love GOd loveth himself first and most as the cheifest good and all other good things as he communicates with them lesse or more the effects of his own goodnesse And from this infinit love of his own infinit goodnesse is it that he so severely punisheth some Creatures though the Work of his own Hands which he alwaies loveth For first The Creature by sin violating Gods Holinesse and despising his authoritie in his righteous Commandments and so going on in impenitencie and unbelief and withall it being impossible that Gods love of his own Holinesse and Iustice and the honour of the same and the love of the Creatures happinesse so obstinatly dishonouring him should stand togither it cannot be but that the latter must give way to the former and greater and the Creature so sinning become miserable rather then God forgetfull of his own honour and glorie God reveales his glorious Majestie in the highest Heavens his fearfull Iustice in the Hell of the Damned His wise and powerfull Prouidence is manifest through-out the whole World but his gracious love and mercie in and unto his Church here upon Earth which he therefore hath chosen and taken near unto himself that in it might be seen the riches of his glorious grace And albeit all things in God are infinit and one yet are the effects of his love more wonderfull and excellent then of any other his Attributes as appeares in that his greatest and strangest work of giving his only begotten Son to the cursed death of the Crosse for his Enemies out of his love and mercie This the Scriptures and worthily call a great mysterie and which for the rarenesse of it was not onely hidden from the Sons of Men but also from the verie Angels in their perfection of created knowledg Which manifold grace and wisdom of God they therefore desire to look into and learn by the Church Love in the Creature ever presupposeth some good true or apparent in the thing loved by which that affection of union is drawn as the Iron by the Load-stone But the love of God on the contrarie causeth all good wrought or to be wrought in the Creature He first liveth vs in the free purpose of his will and thence worketh good for and in us and then loves us actually for his own good work for and in us and so still more and more for his own further work And hence ariseth the unchangablenesse of Gods love towards us because it is founded in himself and in the stablenesse of the good pleasure of his own will And although the arguments of comfort be great which we draw from the certain knowledg of our love to him yet are those infinitely greater which are taken from the consideration of his love to us as being not onely the ground of the other but in him also infinite and vnchangable And hereupon it was that the Sisters of Lazarus seeking help for their sick Brother sent Christ word not that he who loved him though that were not nothing but that he whom he loved was sick As by the hand of a friend reached unto us we are made partakers of the strength of his whole body to hold or help us up so by the hand of the love of God reached down from Heaven in the Gospel we become interessed in the most comfortable apprehension and happy use of all other his attributes whatsoeuer The more wise powerfull holy glorious eternall and infinite God is the more happy are we by means of his love and mercy in Christ which moveth him to use and improve them all for our good and to communicate them with us as his friends in their effects so far as serves for our happinesse He whom God loves though he know it not is an happy man He that knows it knows himself to be happy Which caused the Apostle to make in his own name and in the names of all the beloved of God that glorious insultation over all the enemies of his their happines that they could not seperate him or them not from the power or wisdom or holinesse but not from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus From this love of God as from a Spring head issueth all good both for grace and glory Yea by it which is more all evill by all Creatures intended or done against us is turned to good to us By it our afflictions work together with our election redemption vocation c. for our good By reason of it the stones of the Feild are at league with us the beasts of the Feild at peace with us yea even the very Sword that killeth us the Fire that burneth us and the Water that drowneth us is a kinde of Spirituall and invisible league with us to do us good Vpon the knowledg of this love of God shed abroad into our hearts by the Holy Ghost is laid the foundation and ground-work of whatsoever good thing we return again unto God with acceptation at his hands Vpon this we do build our Faith and confidence in him By this our cold and frozen hearts are not onely thawed but inflamed also with love again to him and to men for him As the Earth being heated by the beams of the Sun beating upon it reflecteth heat again towards the Heavens upon all the bodies between it and them Lastly from hence arise all the pleasing services wherewith we present his Majesty For howsoever we ow our selvs and whatsoever we are or can do vnto him as our gracious and powerfull Creatour absolute Lord yet can we do nothing heartily as we ought but from the Faith feeling of his love in Christ by the motion of the Spirit of a sound minde given unto us But being once drawn sweetly by the coards of Gods goodnes love we readily pleasingly follow after him as being debters and constrained not by necessity but w ch binds more strongly by love The tokens of this love of God in Christ are not onely by us highly to be prized but carefully to be discerned lest we bring our selves into a fools paradise and grow presumptuously secure which is the fore-runner of suddain and
the works of his worship but in those also of our conversation with men and putting our selvs in all our waies under his protection and that specially in the time of distresse or danger that as the bodily hand gets and gathers strength by being diligently used in works competent so may also the Spirituall hand do which Faith is Now as for our succesfull wrestling against the Rulers of the darknesse of this World and spirituall wickednesses in high places we must put on amongst other parcels of the Armour of God the Shield of Faith so must we not forget the Helmet of Salvation Hope whose strength is great to bear off all blows of temptation and that with chearfulnesse For what burthens of afflictions and temptations will not he cherfully undergo that expects undoubtedly their speedie ending in endlesse happinesse Alexander the Great meaning to invade Asia and giving away his riches aforehand being asked what he would reserv for himself answered Hope But what is the shadow to the substance He hoped for the Kingdom of Persia we of Heaven And what if his hope stretched it self to the Monarchy of the whole World It was but to this World wherein also it was frustrated and perished with him But the Anchour of our hope is cast within the veil and extendeth to the World to come being also firm and stedfast and which cannot be disappointed nor shall have other end then in being perfited in the end of all the full fruition and eternall possession of happinesse with God Were it not for hope the heart would break but we having this hope faint not but hold fast the profession thereof without wavering yea even glorie in afflictions under the hope of the glorie of God Lastly Touching Love as it is the affection of union so it makes after a sort the loving and loved one such being the force thereof as that he that loveth suffereth a kind of conversion into that which he loveth and by frequent meditation of it uniteth it with his understanding and affection Thus to love God is to become godly and to have the mind after a sort deified being made partakers of the Divine nature in its effects to love the World is to become a worldling and so of the rest Thus in the Parable of the Tares the Children of the Kingdom are called good Seed and Wheat as growing and becoming Wheat of the Wheat or Seed sowen in them as the Wheat ear groweth of the Wheat corn As on the contrarie ungodly men are said to have eyes full of Adulterie and the like and not onely to be sinfull but sin unrighteousnesse darknesse and beliall as being even metamorphized and transformed into the evils which they love and delight in Oh how happie is that man who by the sweet feeling of the love of God shed abroad into his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given him is thereby as by the most strong coards of Heaven drawn effectually and with all the heart to love God again who hath loved him first and so becomes one with him and rests upon him for all good and happinesse For this our love to God there is required not onely the positive affection of the heart aspiring unto union with God upon knowledg of him as the chiefest good both in himself and to us in Christ and a contentation in him so known and obtained but withall that we exercise prove and approve that our love to him in our love to such good persons and things as unto which he hath imparted some sparks of his goodnesse especially to his good Children and good Word and Ordinances He cannot love him that begetteth saith the Apostle who loveth not him and that in deed and truth who is begotten in truth of affection and in deed of action for his comfort and this with greater bent of both as the graces of God are more eminent in him Neither loves he God that loves not his Word and that both in affection of heart and effect of readie obedience to all his Commandments We must take heed of a shadowish love of goodnesse and pietie onely in the abstract and must love it in the concrete where both the person and good in him is visible in whom Hypocrites for the most part hate and persecute it He but pretends to others the love of goodnesse or imagines it in himself that loves not good men for it Lastly He that loves not his brother whom he sees how can he love God whom he sees not Not but that there is matter of love infinitely more then in any or all men but because for the loving of God we want the advantage of sense and motive of compassion by which our love to our distressed brethren is holpen This love is the fulfilling of the Law the love of God being the greatest Commandment and the love of our neighbour like unto it It is also that to which the Gospel in the end leads us by which Gospel or new Covenant God writes his Lawes in the mind and heart of his and so perfits the one in the other And so naturall to Christians is this brotherly love as that the Apostle makes account he needs not write to the Churches to teach them that which God taught them so many wayes By this we know our selvs to be raysed from death to life by it all others know us to be Christs Disciples if we love one another See said the Heathens pointing at the Christians how they love one another and see said the Christians of them how they hate another Oh that Heathens could not now say of Christians as they sometimes said of them If we were perfit in this Love we needed no other Law to rule us either in the duties towards God or our neighbours no more then do the Angels in Heaven and Souls of the Faithfull men departed who by the Law of Love alone do live both most perfit and most happie lives And indeed to love as we ought is a verie happie thing wherein we resemble God and the Angels as by the contrarie we complice with the Divel and wicked men who live in mallice and envie hatefull hating one another And howsoever naturally we desire rather to be beloved then to love yet is it incomparably a more both excellent and blessed thing to love then to be beloved as it is to give rather then to receav Besides Love is the Loadstone of Love And the most readie and compendious way to be beloved of others is to love them first They taking knowledg thereof will be effectually drawn to answerable good will if they be not harder then Iron and such as have cast off the chains and bonds of common humanitie for even Publicans and sinners love those that love them Yea admit thy love of them never come to their knowledg yet will God by the invisible
due in Religion we hust have him both for the Object and Appointer of our worship The Apostate Israelites of old and Antichristians since are said to have worshiped Divels not for that they did at least ordinarily direct their worship unto Divels but for that at least more commonly they followed their suggestions in the devised manner of worshiping though even the true God As in directing our worship unto him alone we honour and acknowledg his Majestie and Fatherhood as being our Father in heaven so in receaving it from him as the onely Institutor we honour and acknowledg both his love in providing and his wisdom in contriving and his authoritie in commanding the manner of his service and means of our salvation thereby This Religion is the means of Gods worship and withall of mans happinesse which two main ends God in great wisdom and mercie hath joyned togither inseperably that the desire of the latter might provoke to conscience of the former and the exercise of the former effectually promote and further the obtaining of the latter And this being the onely way to happinesse ought to be common to all men rude and skilfull base and honourable high and low And so all Chistians are one in Christ and Christ one in and unto them For though the terrene and worldly state of the persons who are Christians be verie different yet is their Spirituall estate of Christianitie all one There is one Lord Christ through whom and one Faith by which they are justified and that equally one Spirit by which they are sanctified though in different degrees One calling of God begun and perfited by the same Gospel and Ordinances thereof No mans highnesse of worldly estate can set him above the lowest part of it or them nor anyes mean-nesse keep him down from flying as high a pitch of Christianitie as any other An afflicted outward state stands in need of Religion to sustain it a prosperous to perfit it in eternall happinesse besides the moderating of it in the mean while And seeing our Religion is to God alone and onely the manifestation of it to men we ought to be alike grounded in it and resolved of it and zealous for it whether we enioy the fauour of the times or the contrarie All things requisite for the performance of Religious exercises are not parts of Religion but some are of naturall necessitie others for civill order and comlinesse The former need neither be taught nor commanded being imposed by absolute necessitie which is the strongest Law and most pressing Master that may be The other are such as without which all exercises of Religion would be confused and unorderly and like the Chaos which God made in the beginning void and without form and whose face darknesse covered For these the generall rules of the Word with common sence and discretion are sufficient Notwithstanding though things be not therefore comely and orderly because they are done of custom or commanded by authoritie but are therefore both used and commanded lawfully because they are comely and orderly yet if either custom commend or authoritie command things that are such indeed wise godly and peaceable men should hold themselvs even therefore the more bound unto them Religion is the best thing and the corruption of it the worst neither hath greater mischief and villanie ever been found amongst men Iewes Gentiles or Christians then that which hath marched under the Flag of Religion either intended by the seduced or pretended by Hypocrites The Iews in zeal of God such as it was persecuted Christ himself to the death and Saul in a kind of zeal of the Law was no lesse then a blasphemer persecuter and oppressor Pompey the Roman having erected that arcem omnium turpitudinum would not call it the stage or stews as it was but the Temple of Venus And what shall we think of the Spaniards Romish zeal who by their own Bishops relation in his first instance of Spanish cruelty hanged upon one Gallows thirteen innocent Indian women in honour of Christ and of his twelue Apostles But God is not pleased with good intentions exercised in evill actions much lesse either pleased or deceaved with the vizzards of impietie and inhumanitie But as he will repay unto the wicked according to their evill works of all kinds so will he render double vengeance unto them who under the liverie of Religion seek countenance for impietie and wickednesse A man hath in truth so much Religion as he hath between the Lord and himself in secret and no more what shews soever he makes before men and makes sound proof of his Religion both before God and men so far as he is forward and readie to everie good work especially to the works of mercie towards them that need Pure Religion and undefiled before God the Father is this to visit the fatherlesse and widows in their affliction and to keep a mans self unspotted from the World There are many civill Hypocrites who if they converse honestly and kindly with men presume of great acceptance from God though they have little care to know his will in his Word and lesse to observe his Precepts and Ordinances of Worship There are also Religious Hypocrites not a few who because of a certain zeal which they have for and in the duties of the first Table repute themselvs highly in Gods favour though they be far from that innocencie towards men specially from that goodnesse and love indeed which the Lord hath inseperably joyned with a truly-Religious disposition Such persons vainly imagine God to be like unto the most great men who if their followers be obsequious to them in their persons and zealous for them in the things which more immediately concern their honours and profits do highly esteem of them though their dealings with others specially meaner men be far from honest or good But God is not partiall as men are nor regards that Church and Chamber Religion towards him which is not accompanied in the House and Streets with loving kindnesse and mercie and all goodnesse towards men Such are also stuffed with self-selflove in their verie service of God and do but flatter him for their own advantage For if they love not and that in truth and deed their brother whom they see how can they love God whom they see not Besides they sacrilegiously divide the two Tables of the Law one from another making the two great Commandments which Christ saith are like one to another to be unlike in effect In these Pharisaism lives and Faith is dead who as they shame Christianitie and Christ in it what in them lyes so shall their recompence from him be answerable at that day when everie man shall receav honour or shame according to the works specially of mercie and goodnesse that way which he hath done or not done in the flesh The common saying As good never a whit as never the better
do hurt without worldly prejudice to himself therein the more carefull had he need be that he take not to himself any lawlesse liberty that way remembring alwayes that he hath also a master in heaven and that he who is higher then the highest regardeth who also may with more right and reason destroy him for ever then he how great soever do the least hurt to the sillyest worm that crawls upon the face of the earth They who use injurious dealings themselvs hate them in others and them that offer them as do they also who take knowledge of them For whom men fear they hate Now there is cause for all to fear him to his power that hurts any seeing in wronging one he threatens all that he hath power to hurt Yet if we will look upon things a litle spiritually such persons are more to be pittied then eyther hated or feared as being though cruell to others yet more to themselvs hurting others in their bodies and bodily states themselvs in their hearts and consciences before the Lord which is far the greatest damage And upon this ground it was that the ancient father desyred Scapula that he would pitty himself if he would not pittie the Christians whom he cruelly persequuted seeing the most hurt came to himself thereby When therefore we thus suffer any heynous injuries of any kinde by any we must pray the Lord both to deliver us out of their hands and them out of the divels whose instruments they are in so doing For any one man whosoever to offer injurie to any other whomsoever is unnaturall and inhumayn but especially odious in these four sorts of persons The first is Magistrates and men in authoritie whom God hath therefore furnished therewith that they might prevent and redresse injuries by others and exequute wrath upon evill doers Which if they become themselvs they transform the image of the Lords power and justice which they susteyn into the image of Gods enemy Sathan whom therein they resemble and become after a sort wickednesses in high places as the divels are The second are freinds whose office it is by help counsayl riches or otherwise to succour their wronged freinds and if no other way at least by condoling with them and comforting them A man that hath freinds should shew himself friendly sayth the wise man and for such a one to shew himself enemie-like is very greivous as we may see in Iobs and Davids case Now if it be here demanded whether the injuries offered by freinds or by others be lesse tolerable Answer must be made with distinction that some injuries are such and so notorious as cannot stand with a true freindly heart but do plainly discover an evil and enimious affection and of these by false freinds David and worthily complayns as more greivous then by strangers Some again are such as may scape him that truly loveth through negligence rashnes or other infirmitie Such the heat of love should digest And they who in this kinde will bear more at the hands of others then of freinds are unworthy of them A third sort are men religious whose professed pietie towards God promiseth honest dealing with men as on the contrary Abraham looked for all injurious dealing in that place where the fear of God was not The fourth and last are men themselvs oppressed by others specially lying under the injuries of the times When one poore man oppresseth another it is like a sweeping rayn which leaveth no food Yet is it found by certain experience that it oft rayns from this coast and that the poore by oppressing one another teach the rich to oppresse both and this not onely in bodily things but in spirituall also none being found more injurious and unmercifull then are some out of the favours of the times themselvs to others that are a litle more in their disgrace then they None of the heathens were so cruelly bent against the christians as the Iews though themselvs but scattered amongst the Heathens to be tolerated by them Such should think of the brethren of Ioseph who being themselvs in danger to be violently oppressed remembred and bewayled the violence and wrong which they had formerly offered to their brother Ioseph There are two things causing inordinate stirring and indignation at injuries offered the one naturall the other morall The naturall is the aboundance of hoat choler boyling in the veyns by which the blood and spirits are attenuated and so apt to be inordinately stirred and inflamed upon apprehension of a wrong done This cause may something be helped by naturall means and medicines and the effect by true wisdom and government which represseth all inordinate motions in the minde The morall cause is pride and self-love for men having themselvs in high estimation make account that if they be a litle wronged some great and heynous offence is committed and that at which there is just cause of high indignation The injury to such seems great because they seem great to themselvs whereas to him that is litle and lowly in his own eyes injuryes and wrongs seem lesse specially if he set this low price and valuation upon himself in conscience of his sins against God as it was with David What strange thing is it if an earthen pot get a crack or if a silly worme be troden upon or that he who is litle be litle set by It is wisdom in cases not to seem to take knowledge of an injurie as eyther when it is small and scarse worthy the myndeing and such the stately gravitie of some persons make many to be which to others seem intollerable witnesse Cato who being asked pardon of him that had given him a bob on the mouth answered that there was no injurie done and so no pardon needfull or when the greatnes and mallice withall of the injurious is such as that to expostulate a wrong is to provoke to the doubling of it to which purpose his answer fitted well that sayd he had grown old in a tyrants court by thanking men when he had received an injurie from them Sometimes again it is wisdom to let persons know that we account our selvs yll used by them and that cheifly when our expostulation is like to prove their warning by working eyther fear or shame in them If the commendation given of Caesar had not been by him who was too good a courtjer that he was wont to forget nothing but injuries he though a pagan might therein have been a mirrour to all Christians considering the mischeivousnes of our corrupt nature this way which is apter to remember a wrong done then any thing els specially then a benefit because as one sayth we account thanks a burden and revenge an ease In regard whereof it was not without cause that Christ our Lord in our directorie of prayer which we must dayly use reinforceth nothing but the condition of the fifth
are deemed to be before It is best therefore first not to suspect without good cause next not to bewray our suspicion except we have great hope to over-aw thereby the suspected person There are many unreasonably though not altogether unoccasioned transported from the one of the extreams formerly mentioned to the other who being at first credulous and light of beleif and thereby oft deceaved at length come to trust none but would burn as they say their shirt if they thought it knew their secrets therefore set it down for a rule to have al men in jealousie Such overwise men are like the fool that because the sive deceaved him and let his drink run out would not trust his dish with it afterwards Howsoever things fall out it is best to keep our byasse alwayes on the right side and to encline still to a better rayther then to a worse opinion of men then they deserv For though it be best of all to judg of others just as they are yet seeing that is alwayes hard and sometimes impossible we shall lesse offend God in judging of men too well though sometimes to our own damage then too ill with certain injurie to them and sin in our selvs in the violation of the law of charitie which is not suspicious The generall cause of suspicion is the want of this true love whose propertie is to beleev all things and to hope all things which with reason can be beleeved or hoped for and so men are in danger to presume of and promise to themselvs more good of their wives and children and friends whom they entirely love then there is cause rayther then otherwise Notwithstanding a very inordinate and doating affection also breeds causlesse jealousie Another generall cause of suspicion is the knowledge and consciousnes which persons have of their own inability and weaknes any way Of beasts and birds hares and doves and such impotent and unarmed creatures and of men women the childish weak silly and decrepit are most given to suspicion as being most subject to be circumvented or oppressed So it hath been observed how the Scythians and other barbarous nations have laboured to supply their defects of wisdom for prevention of hurt from enemyes by excesse of suspicion It is true that this disease sometimes befals very wise men But this aryseth from an other and worse cause to wit an evill conscience Men muse as they use and suspect others by themselvs as is common with all leaud persons He that is good himself doth not easily suspect an other to be evill nor the evill that an other is good Besides an evill conscience accusing men and women that they in truth deserv not love nor respect nor credit easily perswades them that they are not loved nor respected nor credited by others Lastly it is oftens a punishment from God that as a man in debt suspects that every bush which he sees is a sargeant to arrest him so they which are without true grace and assurance of the pardon of their sinns from him should be suspicious that every one would deceav or hurt them otherwise It was Gods curse upon Cain when he had killed his brother Abel to suspect and fear that every one that he mett with would kill him Notwithstanding all these things sometimes God sends a spirit of jealousie upon interessed persons for the discoverie of evils in others formerly hidden which out of probable suspicion come to be searched into and by searching are found out And alwaies we must strive for that discretion and wisdom as not to take our marks amisse by censuring any rashly as Eli did Hannah for druncken because her lips went and her voice was not heard nor yet to be so fondly charitable as not to see the spots of mens leprosie breaking out in their foreheads We are not onely by innocencie to prevent just blame but withall by christian care and wisdom to provide that we hurt not our good name by coming under colourable suspicion of evill We provide things honest before God by preserving innocency but before men by giving no probable cause of their suspecting us And so doing if yet God by his providence so order that we come under it we must bear it patiently as a burden layd upon us by him eyther to prove us as it was not the least tryall upon Iob to be suspected by his freinds and others of hypocrisy or it may be to warn us to take heed of some sin of which we are in danger though not guiltie it may be for our present peace and safety as it happened to David by being suspected of the Lords of the Phylistims or it may be for their just punishment by whom we are unjustly suspected as in the same Davids case in being suspected by king Saul of affecting the kingdom to his own great harm in wanting him and the worthyes with him in the battle with the Philistims CAP. XLIIII Of Appearances IT is the royall prerogative of Gods infinite wisdom to judg of persons things as in truth they are It is mens yea angels unperfit condition in comparison under which God hath humbled them to judg of the one and other according to outward appearances leaving to him alone and the persons themselvs the hidden things of the heaâ—â— To appear evill to a righteous judgment is alwaies evill whether the person be evill or good If evill his evill appearance is but his inward evil manifested to be as it is and his inside turned outward If good he slaunders himself in appearing evill He that makes an ill shew we may well account evil and corrupt ordinarily seeing all save in the case of some speciall temptation desire to seem as good as they are to put the fayrest side outward He that is once well known to me for good and vertuous I will alwayes esteem so except I come to take certeyn knowledg of his after-declyning to evill So on the contrarie if I have once rightly and certeynly branded a man for evil I shall not easily come to think good of him except his after-repentance as playnly appear to me The reason is because bare time makes none of evill good or of good evill but onely confirms men in that which they are whether the one or other Although it be not simply a sufficient warrant for our answerable judgment of or caryage towards persons or things that they appear good or evill unto us because we often err in our judgments about them through ignorance negligence or partialitie yet is it a certeyn rule that we must never proceed eyther in judgment or practise against appearances for in so doing we condemn our selvs in the thing which we approve if it appear good and yet we condemn it so do we also in the thing which we condemn by holding any course of approbation towards that which seems evill unto us Notwithstanding such is the force of outward appearances
certain destruction We must therefore in this scrutiny neither trust our selvs nor any other creature but God alone in the testimony of his Word Spirit which knows makes known the minde of God and by which we may unerringly learn First what the tokens of his love are and secondly who they are which partake of them and thirdly that we our selvs are of that blessed number Now amongst them all there is none so certain and infallible though those of feeling be more joifull as the gracious work of true repentance in the mortifying of the old man in his sinfull affections and in the quickning power of Christs Spirit to willing though weak obedience to all Gods Commandments As we may certainly know that the Sun shines by the beams and heat thereof below though we climbe not into Heauen to see so may we haue certain knowledge of Gods gracious love towards us without searching further then our own hearts and waies and by finding them truly and effectually turned from sin to God As God may so far hate some evill in a person for example the Adultrie of David and other sins accompanying it as to punish the same severely in this World and yet not hate the person himself so may he on the other side love some good in a man so far as to reward it highly in this life and neverthelesse not love but hate the person-in whom it is found as may be seen in the zeal of Iehu for the Lord against wicked Ahab and his House And if our narrow and partiall hearts can upon occasion hold and preserve this difference between persons and things how much more may and doth the same right well stand with the distribution of rewards and punishments made by the most holy and wise God As then when the Lord manifests some signes of his anger at us and hatred against the evils in us we must take heed we conclude not presently that therefore we in our persons are hated of him and cast-awaies except the evils raign in us without repentance so must we on the other side take more care considering how by selflove we are commonly in more danger thereof that we câ—oclude not of the love of God towards our persons from everie effect of some kinde of love and likeing of some particular good things in us and not except those good things be such as make us good also as Faith and holines do trans-forming us as it were into their Nature and kinde as in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares the good Seed is expounded the Children of the Kingdom because they grow of the good Seed of the Gospel and by their regeneration as it were turn verie Word and Spirit CAP. III. Of Gods promises THe promises of God are a kinde of midle thing between his purpose and performance of good unto them whom he loveth And as wicked Iezabel could not satisfie her hatred of Elyas the Prophet in intending evill to him and executing it upon him in time as she could unlesse with all she thundred out against him terrible threatnings in the mean while So much lesse can the love of our good God satisfie it self in a gracious purpose of good towards us in his heart and actuall performance of it accordingly in due time except with all he make it known unto us before hand both for our present comfort in the knowledg thereof and for the ground of our hope and expectation of the good things promised and accordingly to be receaved at his hands in their time He haveing by his promise bound over unto us both his love and truth and other Attributes for performance And herein the Lord provides verie graciously for his poore Servants who are oft-times brought into that distressed state both outward and inward as they have verie litle els save the promises of God wherewith to comfort themselvs Which yet are sufficient if we improve them as we ought considering first his love moveing him to promise and the unchangeablenesse of it secondly his wisdom directing him to promise nothing unfit thirdly his power enabling him and fourthly his truth bindeing him to all performance In regard whereof God hath made himself a debtor though not by receaving from us yet by promising unto us promise being as we say due debt God ever performeth what and as he promiseth and not one good thing for another as some think no not Heauenly for Earthly nor a greater good for a lesse For howsoever so to do might stand with his bountie and goodnesse yet his truth bindes him to his Word which is Truth Spirituall good things necessarily accompanying Salvation he promiseth absolutely unto his other good things ordinarily upon condition Which considering that through our abuse of them they may prove prejudiciall to our Spirituall man if so be the Lord should promise absolutely as the former it were many times indeed not to promise a benefit but to threaten a hurt rather And truly we may observe in the dangerous fals miscariages of the wise Salomon unto whom temporall good things were absolutely promised in the fullest measure and accordingly performed how graciously our wise and good God provides for our slipperie state in scantling his promise of good things of that kinde to our Spirituall skill and care of useing them for the advantage of our true and eternall happinesse We are therefore first to beware that we expect not absolutely temporall prosperitie lest by so doing we both wrong the Lords truth and our own Faith in the things promised indeed by doubting of them because we have failed of obtaining of other things by us presumed of but not promised by the Lord. Secondly We must as firmly beleeve and expect the performance of temporall promises as the Lord hath made them as of eternall For albeit his loue do not manifest it self in like degree in promiseing both yet his truth is alike bound to exhibit both being once promised Neither is that person in earnest with God who pretending Faith for eternall good things yet dare not trust his Word for temporall Such as despise Heavenly things and loue earthly usually pretend their trusting of God for the former of which they are indeed profanely secure but will trust themselvs and their own fingers for Earthly which in truth they set by I must therefore thus conclude with my self touching those matters Seeing God hath promised all good things to them that love him If this or that bodily good thing good in it self be indeed for my good I shall receave it from him in due time And if I receave it not it is a reall testimonie from him that indeed it is not good for me how much soever I desire it As Gods goodnesse shines most clearly in his promises so mans perversnesse abuseth and misapplieth them above all other parts of his Word A great many divide Gods promises from the other parts of his revealed
hand of his providence bend their hearts by mutuall affection unto thee at least so far as is good for thee and wherein they are inflexible and defective he will make supply out of the aboundance of his love and goodnesse that so it may be verified which is written With the same measure that ye meet with all it shall be measured to you again To conclude this point Let the grace of God herein specially triumph over our corruption that whereas by nature we would be loved of them whom we hate by grace we may love them Which hate us And this is a great work of grace in deed and yet most necessarie for all Christs Disciples We must not be like the Pharisees who in stead of enlarging their own affections streightned the Law of loving their neighbours unto such as loved them or dwelt within a certain compasse of them but we must account all our neighbours that need pittie or help from us and our Christian neighbours and brethren also if the Lord have receaved them though they be neither minded in all things as we are nor towards us as we are towards them Lastly as Faith is to rule Love that it prove not lust and Hope that it prove not presumption so also must it Reason and Sense in all their operations which it no way abolisheth but orders and sanctifies And as in Nature the denomination is from the predominant qualitie so is it in our course of life To live by Reason is to live the life of a man To live by Sense is to live the life of a beast But to live by Faith is to live the life of the Son of God and to be in its effects partaker of the Divine nature and that not onely in the reasonable but in the sensitive faculties also For these three Faith Reason and Sense being all Gods works in a man cannot be contrarie in their right use one to another neither can any thing be true in one which is false in another neither doth or can any one of them destroy another but use order and perfit it Reason Sense and Faith both Sense and Reason For Faith comes by hearing at the first and is nourished and encreased both by hearing and seeing and by the benefit of all other Senses afterwards Neither can it possibly either be begot or nourished or encreased but by the discourse of Reason ordered and sanctified by the Spirit of God Which Spirits work is so effectuall as it makes even the meanest powers of nature created in a man to serv effectually for the furthering of the highest works of supernaturall grace Sweet is the harmonie of all the powers and parts both of the Soul and bodie of a sanctified person Reason is that wherein man goes before all other earthly creatures and comes after God onely and the Angels in Heaven For whereas God and Nature hath furnished other Creatures some with horns some with hoovs others with other Instruments and weapons both defensive and offensive man is left naked and destitute of all those but may comfort himself in that one endowment of Reason and providence whereby he is enabled to govern them all Now who would not strive to excell other men in that wherein men excell all other Creatures How much more in that to which few men attain true faith and the life thereof CAP. XI Of Atheism and Idolatry SOme are Atheists in opinion others in affection but many more in conversation of life There are but few of the first coat and which can so wholy blot out the remainders of Gods Image written by Creation in their hearts as to leav them altogether emptie and devoyd of the knowledg conscience and reverence of a Divine Majestie and which come to conclude roundly in their hearts that there is no God Yet some without doubt in time and by degrees proceed from Atheism in conversation to Atheism in affection and from Atheism in affection to Atheism in opinion and judgment Men civilly honest seldom or never become Atheists in perswasion but lewd and flagitious persons do who being pursued by the furie of an accusing conscience for hainous evils wish and no marvail that there were no Iudg in Heaven to condemn them and so come at last to be perswaded in themselvs of that which they gladly would have true and are justly left of God to such horrible delusion that so sinning without fear they may perish without remedie And this is the reason why there are more Atheists in opinion in our dayes then of old even because so many are more bent upon mischief and liveing wickedly in this world bear themselvs in hand and so get to beleev that there is no justice in the world to come Another reason is the proportion of wit to which our Age is come above the former In regard hereof it is that Atheism though dissembled and concealed by the same ungracious wit which begets it is a thousand times more to be feared in the Land then Papism Men have too much wit to become Papists in any generallitie and just enough to fit them for Atheists if Gods powerfull hand restrain them not The verie simple dare not become Atheists but are more in danger to prove superstitious and to beleev everie thing the verie understanding hardly can but have by sound reason and sad thoughts will they nill they some acknowledgment of a Divine Majestie forced upon them But persons of froathy wit and vicious life are fitly tempered for the impression of Atheism for the Divel Atheism is incomparably worse and more odious then Idolatry as it is more intollerable in a State or Kingdom to enterprize the overthrow of all Kingly Power and Soveraigntie then to detract how much soever from the lawfull Kings or Magistrates due honour and to give it to a Stranger Besides whereas Idolaters and superstitious persons having in them some reverence of a Divine Power are thereby both restrained from many mischiefs and provoked to many good actions the Atheist wanting both this Divine restraint and motive both runs riot in wickednesse and villanie and is barren of all good things neither doing good nor forbearing evill further then for meer fear or shame of men Atheists use to be verie confident in their assertions as the Orator observs in Vellejus partly lest they should seem unto others to doubt or fear that there is a God who will punish heir impieties and partly to encourage themselvs in their wickednesse as fearing lest they should be drawn into some conscience and aw of Gods Majestie It is oft true in this case amongst others that the most cowards are the greatest boasters Idolatry either makes that to be God which is not or God to be that which he is not It is exercised either in intending Divine worship so known to be to that which is not God or in intending a devised worship to the true God
magnifie his mouth above measure and the weight of the matter and draw Hercules his hose upon a childes leg which the wise King counted no matter of commendation And besides affectation in which men strain the strings of their eloquence to make persons or things as good or bad or as great or small not as they are but as the speaker can I have known some by an abused benefit of nature and art so impotently eloquent as that they could hardly speak in prayse or disprayse of person or thing without doubling and trebling upon them superlative synonomies of honour or disgâ—â—â—e Such Oratours would make notable market-folk in crying up their own wares which they meant to sell and in making other mens which they would buy double nought Both length and shortnesse of speech may be used commendably in their time as Mariners sometimes sayl with larger-spread and sometimes with narrowergathered Sayls But as some are large in speech out of aboundance of matter and upon due consideration so the most multiply words either from weaknesse or vanitie Wise men suspect and examine their words ere they suffer them to passe from them and so speak the more sparingly But fools pour out theirs by talents without fear or wit Besides wise men speak to purpose and so have but some thing to say The other speak everie thing of everie thing and thereupon take libertie to use long wandrings Lastly they think to make up that in number or repetition of words which is wanting in weight But above all other motives some better some worse too many love to hear themselvs speak and imagining vainly that they please others because they please themselvs make long Orations when a little were too much Some excuse their tediousnesse saying that they cannot speak shorter wherein they both say untruly and shame themselvs also For it is all one as if they said that they have unbrydled tongues inordinate passions setting them a work I have been many times drawn so dry that I could not well speak any longer for want of matter but I ever could speak as short as I would Some have said that hurt never comes by silence but they may as well say that good never comes by speech for where it is good to speak it is ill to be silent Besides he that holds his tongue in a matter that concerns him is accounted as consenting Indeed lesse hurt comes by silence then by speech and so doth lesse good Some are silent in weaknesse and want either of wit to conceav what to speak or of courage to utter what they conceav or of utterance where the other defects are not They of the first sort are not desperately foolish seeing they are sensible of their own want which is half the way to mending it there being more hope of such a fool then of a man wise in his own conceipt that is thinking himself wiser then he is Besides such have the wit to cover their folly and a fool whilst he holds his tongue is accounted wise whereas a babâ—ing fool proclaims his foolishnesse For the second though it be a miserie for a man to be compelled to keep silence when he would speak and that the prison be strait where the verie tongue is tyed yet he wants not all wit who can for fear of danger hold his tongue and not make his lips the snare of his Soul Some again are silent in strength of wisdom and others of passion As deep streams are most still so are many of deepest judgment through vehement intention of mind upon weightie or doubtfull matters whereas the shallower are lowder and more forth-putting And here the testimonie which Spintharus gave of Epaminondus hath place that he met with no man in his dayes that knew more and spake lesse Again in some vehemencie of passion and affection dams up the passage of speech The grief is moderate which utters it self that which is extream is silent So Absolom hating his Brother Amnon to the death spake neither good nor evill to him Lastly there are who can bridle their tongue in discretion and know not onely how to take the time to speak but also the time to keep silence which surely is no small commendation in a wise able person And this the Phylosopher knew well who when all the rest of his fellows being ech to present the King with some notable sentence or other were forward to utter everie one his ware desired of the Kings messenger that it might be certified in his name that he had skill to hold his peace when others were forward to speak CAP. XXIII Of Books and Writings WRiting is the speech of the absent and even he that gives a writing into the hand of another to be read by him thereby after a sort sequesters his person from him and desires to speak with him being absent and that to his advantage if his personall presence and speech may endanger either contempt or offence The Lord God in providing that the Books of Holy Scriptures should be written effectually commended the writing and reading of other Books touching all subjects and sciences lawfull and lawfully handled For though the difference be ever to be held between Divine and humain writings so as the former may worthily challeng absolute credence and obedience as breathing out onely truth and godlinesse whereas the other are not onely to be learned but judged also yet even in humain writings the truth in its kind is taught commonly both more fully and more simply and more piously then by speech For howsoever the lively voyce more pierce the heart and be apter to move affection and that to the receaving of truth and goodnesse not onely by love and liking but by Faith also and assent for Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God yet men seldom take either the pains or time to lay down things in speech which they do for publike writings neither can any possibly either have the obportunitie to hear the tythe of that which he may read for information or take the time for the full understanding of things remarkeable spoken which in private reading he may do Besides men are commonly in their writings both freer from passion in themselvs and from partiall respect of others then in their speeches And hence it comes to be said of dead men that they are the best councellors to wit in their Books wherein they are freest from affection one way or other Lastly though the Father found some in his time who because Christ had said Thou shalt not swear thought they might do that in writing which they might not do in speech and confirm Idolatry with their hand so they professed it not with their tongue yet it is usually found otherwise and that men are or would seem to be more religious in writing then in speech Who ever shall finde a black-mouthed blasphemer
inwards of the man and with what heart and affection he undertakes any state or action so is the outward also because God is the God of order Also when a man knows himself to be orderly called to a condition of life he both sets himself more chearfully and roundly to the works thereof wherein he is assured he servs Gods providence by his order and appoyntment and with fayth expects a blessing from God upon his endeavours in that course of life in which his hand hath set him and with all bears with comfort the crosses befalling him therein as wee see in David whose sheild of comfort against all darts of danger was that God had selected him unto himself and annoynted him his king upon Sion the mountayn of his holynes Litle account is made by many of a lawfull outward calling whereas indeed it is that alone by which all states save those that are naturall and so are subject neyther to election nor change are both constituted and continued For what makes him who yesterday was none to day to be a magistrate in the common wealth minister in the Church steward in the family or any other officer or member in any orderly society but an orderly outward calling by them who have lawfull authority to confer that state upon him This being neglected opens a gap to all confusion in all states The gifts of a man enable him to his office his grace sanctifyes both the gifts and office to the person his inward calling perswades his heart to undertake the outward in desire to glorify God and in love to men his exequution of it in the works thereof presuppose it and testify his faythfulnes in it but onely the outward orderly calling confers the outward state and condition of life Abilitie for a mans calling is greatly to be desired for many reasons For first it is a thing well-pleasing in Gods sight specially in the most serviceable courses of life as we may see in Salomon who being called to the state of a King desired above all other things kingly endowments and therein pleased God greatly Secondly He whom God calls to a place or sets over a busines he enables accordingly as he did the same Salomon being set over a people many in number as the sand by the sea shore with wisdom and largenes of heart as the sand by the sea-shore Thirdly It is great case to a man when he is mayster of his place and course and able to play with it otherwise if he be compelled to strive continually with it it will both make his life burthensome and force him at some time or other to let fall the works thereof as unable to weild it Yet if such a one be willing and able to bear it out it is a good way for him to grow to great perfection by daily improveing his abilitie to the full as Milo by using to bear a calf every day proved able to bear him when he was grown an oxe Fourthly It is an honour to a man to be excellent in his faculty yea though it be mean in it self And so men excelling in mean trades or callings are more regarded then those who are mean in more excellent faculties One sayth truly that even plowmen and sheep-heards being excellent are applauded Lastly the unskilfulnes of the artisan dishonours the art it self how excellent soever in the eyes of many although in reason it should not so be seeing that the more excellent any profession is it finds the fewer whose worth can answer its excellencie Although callings most usefull and necessarie are most despised by prowd folks both because they are ordinary and common and followed by mean and ordinary persons yet it stands with a good conscience to provide that our course of life be such as in which we benefit humayne societyes And an uncomfortable thing it is to him that hath any either feare of God or love to men to spend his dayes and labour in such a course as by which more hurt then good comes to the world It is a good and godly course for a person diligently to read and seriously to meditate upon such places of holy Scripture as concern his or her speciall calling as for the magistrate diligently to read Deut. 1. 16. c. the minister 1 Tim. 3. and so for husband and wife father and childe mayster and servant and the rest that by so doing we may both more fully learn and better remember and conscionably practise the particular duetyes in which God would have us exercise our generall christian graces CHAP. XXVIII Of the use and abuse of things WE are said to enjoy God alone and to use the creatures because we are not to rest in them but in God onely to whom we are to be holpen by them And of the things which we use some of them we must use as though we used them not others as though we used them The World and all things serving for this life we ought to use with a kinde of indifferency and without setting the affections of our hearts upon it or them how busy soever our hands be about them spirituall good things on the contrary and which concern our eternall happines we ought to use as using them indeed with all earnest bent of affection upon them and as not suffering our selvs at any hand to be disappoynted of the fruit of them God sayth the wise man hath made every thing beautifull in his time and indeed every thing is good for something I mean every thing that God hath made for there are many vayn and leaud devises of men which are truly good for nothing as on the other side nothing is good for every thing And hereupon Prometheus told the Satyre when he would haue kissed the fire upon his first seeing it that if he did so it would burn his lips as not being for that use but to minister heat and light Some things alwayes bear as it were their use on their backs and cause also the right use of other things where they are found as the sanctifying graces of Gods spirit which yet some use more fully and faythfully then others and this is also a grace of God whereas all other things haue theyr good in theyr useing and not in their owning And a great poynt of wisdom and advantage for good it is to apply things to their right use and end whether great or smal He that can doe this spiritually is happy though he have receaved but one pound for others five or ten As on the other side how many were though not happy yet lesse miserable if they altogether wanted the wit learning riches and authority which they want grace to use according to the will of the giver A man hath that most and best whereof he hath the lawfull use And hereupon a follower of a great Lord was wont to say that he had in effect as much
put more confidence in their riches for their safetie and welfare then they do in Gods providence and by them promise themselvs all aboundance of happines This madnes befals not the but half-mad prodigals Thirdly The covetous doth good to none nor to himself neither many tymes wanting as well the things he hath as the things he hath not God not giving him power to eat of and use his riches Whereas the prodigall doth good to manie though not well Fourthly Covetousnes is a base and beggarlike vice Prodigalitie a worshipfull honourable and kingly sin Fiftly Povertie and want the fruits of prodigallitie prove oft times good scool-masters to the ding-thrift for his bettering as we see it fell out with the prodigall son But the effects of Covetousnes which are usually riches and plentie harden the hould-fast causing him to blesse himself the more in his wicked way The ryot of the prodigall drawes him dry but the gettings of the other serve to feed his disease which causeth him dropsie-like the more he hath to desire the more Ad we unto all these that whereas age is some remedie against other vices specially against prodigalitie which grows old and decayes with the person in whom it is Covetousnes then grows young so as they who are but thriftie in youth are usually covetous in age And though it seem and indeed be unreasonable that the lesse way men have to go they should be carefull for the more viandour and provision for their journey yet are there divers colourable occasions though no just causes of this maladie As first age being impotent and unable to susteyn it self is occasioned the more carefully to seek and gâ—t riches as a staffe to lean on But for this we shall never see any more greedie then such as have more then enough for many ages their aboundance no more quenching their lust then fuell doth the flame Secondly the aged are oft charged with families and freinds for whom they are to provide from which burden youth is free for children are not to lay up for the parents but parents for the children But for this also we see that a man though he be alone and have no second neyther child nor brother puts no end of labour to get nor is ever satisfyed with riches I have not in my life observed any more given to covetousnes then such as have not nor are like to have children to leave their goods to Thirdly the other lusts of prodigal youth languishing in age the heart not being set upon God and true goodnes which alone could fill and satisfy it findes onely the lust of coveting riches a fit guest to harbour in it wherewith the flesh mainteyns it self that it fall not wholly into decay So Symonides being accused of covetousnes answered that whereas the delight of all other pleasures was gone he nourished his age with that alone profitable pleasure And lastly which is worst of all though God have set religion and covetousnes at such variance that they can not possibly reign in one person None can serve God and mammon And again He that loveth this world the love of God dwelleth not in him yet we see it that religion working in persons a loathing of excesse in worldly vanities their flesh so works with it as it disposeth very manie to such a warines as between which and playn covetousnes there is too near affinitie Yea how many have I known who having passed the danger of the high-way ground and understood the word of God preached and professed the same and of the stonie ground too in undergoing some troubles and persequutions for the same yet nourishing in themsevs too much love and care of worldly riches have had all their goodnes choaked before the harvest by those dangerous thornes Against this so dangerous deceitfull and close-cleaving evill we are first to get into our hearts fayth in Gods providence as well and as much for the good things of the life present so far forth as they are good indeed as of that to come He that dares not in the use of good means trust God for this life doth not indeed trust him for life everlasting how oft soever he say over his creed Such a man mocks with God in making a shew of trusting him with that which in truth he profanely despiseth whereas for worldly good things which he desires in earnest he will trust God no further then he sees him Though the Lords love shew forth it self more in heavenly then in earthly things yet his truth bindes him alike to performance as he hath promised upon which he that dares not rest for the lesser makes but a shew of resting for the greater Secondly we must get contentation with that which we have seeing God hath said to us I will never leav thee nor forsake thee esteeming and saying with our selvs that this which we enjoy with a good conscience and by means lawfull diligently used is our alotment from God by the sanctified use whereof he will provide competently for our temporall state and further our eternall Thirdly considering how uncerteyn means of our good even for this life all earthly things are and how many times they become the very snare thereof as in the case of Naboth and how alwaies the coveting of them deprives of the hope of a better for the covetous is an idolater and hath no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God it is both sin and folly inordinately to affect the getting or keeping of them But as the Pharisees being covetous mocked at Christ when they heard him speak against their joyning the serving the mammon of unrighteousnes with the serving of God so men in all ages becomeing rich by covetousnes and proud by riches are ready to mock at whatsoever God or man can say against their gaynfull wickednes Considering how many poore people want and of those not a few the living members of Christ Iesus we ought to make great conscience eyther of spending prodigally or sparing covetously any thing lesse or more wherewith we might comfort them and shew them mercy how much more of that whereby we should deal justly with them in giving them their due which should first be done CHAP. XXXII Of Health and Phisick HEalth is the greatest bodily blessing which God bestows upon any in this life yet is it one of the least regarded partly by reason of its commonnes to al sorts of people poore and rich fools and wise the vilest and most excellent otherwise partly for that it is a naturall good thing which we bring for the most part into the world with us and so oftens preserv without any sensible change And accordingly we see that no man is the more honoured for his health which can scarse be sayd of any other good thing whatsoever The benefit of this most sweet sause of al other goods is scarsly
petition as we forgive them that trespasse against us the petition being Forgive us our trespasses adding therein that if we forgive not them that trespasse against us neyther will our heavenly father forgive us And this exhortation sayth one if we be not more hard then iron and steel cannot but soften us and make us appeasable and ready to remit offences considering how many and great our offences are against the Lord for which he both so justly might and so easily could take revengment upon us And since vengeance is the Lords and that he will repay we must beware we take it not further into our hands then God gives it us lest medling with edged-tools in Gods shop we surely cut our selvs deep howsoever they scape against whom we use them And besides the conscience of offending God by revenge in wish word or deed we may take instances of inducement to forgivenes from circumstances of all the persons that injurie us If it be a meaner person then our selvs that wrongs us let us forgive him in pittie of his weaknes If our superiour let us pittie and forgive our selvs the former in charitie the latter in wisdom Is he a malicious and unmerited enemy why should we marvayl if he do his kynde Have we hurt him before he but gives us our due and why should we not take it at his hands Is he a good man let us be ready to forgive him whom God forgives Is he wicked Alas we may well forgive him considering how fearfull vengeance if he repent not God will take on him for that and other his sins Many who think it divelish as indeed it is to offer an injurie think it but manly to requite it But it is sayth one evill as well to requite as to offer since God forbids both And there is sayth another onely this difference between them that he who offers the injury is before in mischief and he that requites it comes after therein as fast as he can With which two joyn a third witnesse saying that to render evil for evill is to make two divels for one Not to be revenged for an injury done is not alwayes to forgive it For this may be through want of power or of courage or in a kinde of haughtines of mynde when a man esteems himself above the wrong done or scorns to fyle his fingers with his adversarie Neyther yet is it sufficient though it be a great thing that we wish him no hurt who hath wronged us but we ought further also so to keep our hearts that they rejoyce not at his fall or slumbling by any other means least the Lord see and it displease him and he turn his wrath from him upon us All the other wayes we may be accessory before this way after the fact Notwithstanding we may have cause to be glad if the injurious and oppressours be restreyned by some work of Gods over-ruling providence that the fox being chayned up may no more worry the lambs But this is not to rejoyce for his hurt but for his good Lastly as God forgives injuries against him which all sins are if for the same he hate not the person so sinning though he both be angry at him and correct him and therein provide for the repayring of the honour of his majestie impeached by him so may men forgive injuries done against them in spirituall sense and holy manner if therefore they hate not nor wish hurt to the person that hath wronged them though in cases they provide for his due correction and also for the repayring of the damage susteyned by him in theyr body goods or good name by lawfull means CHAP. XXXV Of Patience IT is our sinfull condition that makes us subject to crosses our humayn that makes us sensible of them without which sense of them we were no more patient in bearing them then the stone is patient upon which the weight of the wall lyeth But in the bearing of such evils as are brought upon us or befall us with equanimitie and moderation true patience is seen The grace it self must be in us even without crosses and we by it in heart martyrs without fire or sword but so can not the use of it be no more then there is use of a salve where there is no soar And thereupon the Apostle sayth that affliction worketh patience that is occasions the exercise and increase of it And hence it is that men are most deceaved in the measure of this grace and esteem their inches eâ—ns till by tryall of evils they finde the contrarie But patience tryed by afflictions and found firm and good gives above other graces experimentall assurance of Gods love Whereupon the Apostle in the place forenamed gives it alone the honour of working experience And no marvayl seeing by it God gives a poore and feeble creature such experience of his powerfull grace and goodnes for the bearing and bearing out of those crosses and miseries both inward and outward which without this staf of supportance were intollerable Neyther is the work of Gods goodnes lost in them to whom he imparts this grace seeing by it if by any other they shew forth the vertues of God and honour him in so many of his attributes in the exercising of it As first of his will both commanding and approving it as Christ tels the church and Angell at Ephesus I know thy works and labour and patience Secondly of his justice as acknowledging really that all the afflictions which they suffer are lesse without comparison then their sins deserv Thirdly of his power and that both over them with which they struggle not but making a vertue of necessitie quietly bear what he layes upon them and also in them in susteyning them that they faynt not under their burden Fourthly of his wisdom in effectuall acknowledgment that he hath his good holy ends of his so dealing with them though oft times not so particularly known to them Lastly of his goodnes in dealing with them in their chastisements as with sons for their profit and that they might be partakers of his holynes without which last all the rest how honourable soever to God are uncomfortable unto man Vpon this goodnes of God we do in our afflictions specially exercise the two mayn graces of Fayth and Hope Fayth perswading our hearts that God loves us as well in our greatest afflictions as out of them and will do us nothing but good by them is as the foundation for this bulwork of patience Hope assureth us of happy issue out of them all which if we wanted what would it avayl us though we had the strength of men and angels to bear miseries Some Christians have sayd that Patience is a miserable remedy But how much better said the Heathen Byas that he onely is miserable that wants patience for the bearing of his misfortunes As
neither hammer nor ax nor tool of yron heard in the house As the spirit of a man doth not quicken any member of the body but as it is united to it so neyther doth the spirit of God any member of the Church but being united in the bond of peace God would have Christians if it be possible and as much as in them lyeth to have peace with all men But in some cases and specially where this cannot be done without sin on their part it lyeth not in them to have peace but in the other which would put upon them the necessitie of sinning And in such a case they must rayther want peace with men which is a crosse then with God which is a greater crosse and a sin also The Apostle that bids follow peace with all men adds in the same place and holynes without which no man shall see the Lord. Such may be the case as a man may see God without peace with men because it may be their fault and not his so can he not possibly without holynes of which no man fayls but by his own fault and sin The contention which makes us nearer God is better then the peace that separates us from him They are not most unpeaceable alwayes who dissent most from others whether in opinion or practise but they who eyther affect differences or carry them turbulently whether small or great when they fall in A feirce horse may be so whistled or yoaked as he may draw in the same waggon quietly with others eyther gentle or head-strong so may a violent and turbulent person go on in the same course quietly a long time because it pleases him or because he is strongly yoaked though without all true love of or earnest pursuit after peace But the Lord would have us not onely to be held in peace by others and to hold peace with others when we have it and to imbrace it when it is offered but to pursue and follow after it even when it seems to fly from us Many can cry aloud for peace and against peace-breakers and can speak very glorious things in commendation of so profitable and pleasant a good whereby to perswade others to it But what is this peace unto which not a few of those good oratours so earnestly and eloquently perswade Surely too often nothings els but eyther a cursed consent in evill or servile subjection to their or their masters wils and lusts without regard eyther of equitie or reason They would willingly have peace that is they would do what they list and have others do the same their lists also how unreasonable soever But this saith one is not to follow peace but to command it The divell himself would have such peace and hath with his when the strong man armed keeps his house all things that he hath are in peace and upon condition that he might rule in and over them after his wicked will But to follow after peace aright is clean an other and the same an excellent thing requiring at the least these three particular vertues First a truely affectioned heart unto it in conscience of God and love to men out of a due valuation of its excellencie as Elisha loving and reverencing his master Eliah would follow after him and not leave him The second is to deal justly and equally with all men without wronging any It is double injury to beat men causelesly till they cry and then to beat them for crying Thus many breed strife by injury and oppression and then cry out against it as Athalyah cryed out of treason There are two freinds sayth the Father Righteousnes and Peace He that will have the one must do the other All would have peace but all will not do righteousnes But he that puts the one away and loves not the freind of peace peace loves not him nor will come at him A third thing is forbearance of others what may be though in our own wrong For considering how ready all sorts of men are to wrong one another and withall how apt to think themselvs wronged when they are not yea often times when they themselvs do the wrong except we mingle with the former two such moderation and Christian forbearance as to bear and tolerate for peace sake persons and things not intollerable we follow strife in effect whatsoever we eyther pretend or intend otherwise It is ill when good men have not peace and unity amongst themselvs and as yll yea worse when there is peace amongst wicked and godles persons seeing thereby their strength in evill is encreased It is better the work of God go on weakly as it doth when peace among the good is wanting then the divels work strongly as it doth in the conspiracie of wicked men It is therefore a speciall work of Gods good and powerfull providence to cast a bone amongst such and to set them one against another that a fire may come out from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and from the men of Shechem and devour Abimelech by which God makes one of them the others exequutioner in his just judgment and therewith provides many times for the peace of his people whose utter ruine otherwise their accord in evill and violence against them would endanger CHAP. XXXVII Of Societie and Freindship GOD hath made man a sociable creature and hath not onely ordeyned severall societies in which persons are to unite themselvs for theyr mutuall welfare but withall so dispensed his blessings as that no man is so barren but hath something wherewith to profit others nor any so furnished but that he stands need of others to supply his wants The head cannot say to the foot much lesse the foot to the head I have no need of thee And the lesse need thou by reason of thine aboundance of bodily or spirituall endowments hast of others the more neede they have of thee and thy plentie To which purpose tended his saying who having many servants some better and some worse and being moved by one to disburden himself of such as were unprofitable and to keep the rest answered that he stood need of the better and the worse of him The king himself is served by the feild and stands need of the husbandman and so doth he of many of far meaner condition Some wrong humayn societies by being too divine many more and much more by being too bestiall By the former I understand such as in the profession of devotion towards God swallow up dissolv such naturall civill bonds as wherein God hath tyed them unto men by chusing solitarie and monasticall lives All Christians ought to have their conversation in heaven and to use this world as though they used it not And herein such as are called to the holy ministerie ought to be ensamples to others and to go before them but not to hide themselvs in holes from them
that we pray to the intent to inform God but our selvs both what our wants are which we desire supply of and from whom also we expect it nor yet to move God to doe that which before he purposed not as one man is moved by the importunity of another but to move our selvs and make our own hearts beleev the performance of that which God before both purposed and promised for therefore David found in his heart to pray unto God to establish his house because God had revealed unto him that he would build his house And if we look for this honour at our childrens hands that they should ask of us such things as they want and as we purpose to bestow upon them how much more is it agreeable to our duty and Gods right that we by prayer begg at his hands all good things both purposed and promised by him afore hand By this all things are sanctified to our use which are sanctified in themselvs by the word of God by it we have spirituall right to our dayly bread in what aboundance and by what naturall or civill right soever we possesse it before by it we obteyn many good things of all sorts at Gods hands unto which we could atteyn by no art or industry or other help as the favorites of kings get more by begging then any other can do by any other facultie Besides as by conversing with men we do by litle and litle learn their manners and have bred between them and us a certain mutuall affection so by our conversing with God in prayer we learn the manners of heaven and feel encrease both of love in us to God and of God to us Lastly by prayer we obteyn with the good things prayed for the confirmation of our fayth in Gods goodnes towards us whereof he giveth us testimonie in hearing and granting our requests put up unto his majestie And in this respect a good thing receaved by prayer hath a double good in it God is to be invocated not onely with the heart and with the tongue but as one speaks with the hand also as Asa and the men of Iudah prayed to God and fought with their enemies And for us to ask any thing at the hands of the Lord which withall we do not offer our selvs ready instruments to effect and bring to passe is to tempt Gods power and to abuse his goodnes To pray for that which we desire not is to mock with his majestie as Austin confesseth of himself that in his youth he begged of God chastitie and continencie but was affrayd lest he should be heard too soon of him All things live by heat and the life of prayer stands in the heat of earnest and fervent desire And how should we make account that God should hear us if we hear not our selvs or look that God should be mindefull of us if we our selvs mynde not with intention of thought and desire what we ask of him I sayth the Father prayed when I was litle with no litle affection that I might not be beaten in the school But how many grown men pray but with litle if any affection that they may not be beaten in hell Our prayers must be earnest as well for small things as great temporall as eternall but with difference of degrees of earnestnes according to the degrees of goodnes or necessity of the things prayed for But as for fayth our very degree should be the same whatsoever the thing be which we pray for according to Gods will seeing the truth of his promise upon which our fayth resteth is the same in all things small and great and alwayes infallible We ought as wel and as much to beleev a small thing as a great if God have promised it and as he hath promised because his truth and power are as great in performing all things though with different degrees of his love He hath not absolutely promised temporall good things in the particulars and so sometimes denyes them in love to his children as seeing them unfitting for them and sometimes again he grants the desires of his enemies in wrath and indignation as he did of the rebellious Israelites desiring quayls Besides if the Lord should not sometimes grant unto his that ask them the good things of this life even plenteously men would think they belonged not to him If he should grant them to all and alwayes it would be thought that for them and them alone he were to be served and so in serving him men should not be godly but covetous But above all things we must take heed we ask nothing evill of God for that were to transform and turn him what in us lyes into Sathan himself Whosoever sayth one will bring his enterprizes to good effect must begin with prayer to God and end with praysing of him And he that begins not his work in that manner specially being of any difficultie or weight is in danger if it succeed rayther to end in his own prayses then in Gods And if it succeed not he may thank his own prophanenes in passing by God And as we are to pray upon all occasions so specially in the time of trouble as children are alwayes running to their fathers but cheifly when they get hurt or fear danger Then even hypocrites are forced to God and this partly out of a naturall desire of releif and partly by a naturall perswasion of the power and goodnes of the creatour by which he is able and willing to help his distressed creature and so Ionahs maryners in the extremitie of the storm went every one to his God But as God is a sanctuarie to flye unto for his faithfull servants in the time of need whither he leads them by his holy spirit given them so is it not fayth but impudency for hypocrites and such as in their quiet prosperous estate have not hearkned to God speaking to them in his word and works to presse upon him in their affliction for help and succour without true and unfeyned repentance and sorrow as well yea more for sin then punishment accompanying it And though they call upon him he will not answer though they seek him early they shall not finde him And if he that stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poore shall crye himself and not be heard how much more he that stops his ears against the Lord calling and crying unto him in his word The prayers of such are abhominable and sin And how miserable must his state needs be unto whom that becomes sin by which the godly obteyn remedy against sin and all other miseryes A readines to pray earnestly to God for good things the same improved accordingly is a kinde of pawn from heaven to him that hath it that he shall receav the good things prayed for both because all true prayer is by the teachings
good his satisfaction to whom we swear and for the ending and not the beginning of strife els we prostitute Gods name eyther to our own or other mens lusts Common and light swearing argues such a degree of irreverence of Gods Majestie as we may truly boldly say that the heart of a common and customary swearer is voyd of all grace and true fear of God And in weighing with my self with admiration and horrour the customarie swearing amongst so many considering that there is nothing in it as in other sins eyther profitable or pleasant or of credit in the world or that brings eyther reasonable or sensuall good I have made account that besides imitation of one another and custom which makes it half naturall to some and a conscience guiltie of want of credit in others which moves many to swear that they may be beleeved and want of wit in not a few who strive by accessory oaths to supply their defect of matter or other inabilitie of speach there is in this swearing veyn a deeper mysterie of mischeif then ordinary and that indeed men take it up specially in the divels intention who sets them a work and not a litle in their own in direct opposition of God and because he in his law hath so severely prohibited it If God had not in his word so expresly and severely forbidden it as he hath done certeynly there would not be the least part of it used that is Gracelesse men seem therein to affect a professed contempt of God and withall an opinion from men that they fear nothing neyther God nor divell as they say But God will make them feel that fear not the guilt of taking his glorious name in vayn which all creatures ought to honour and reverence This sin being directly against Gods majestie he reservs by his providence the punishment of it ordinarily to himself spiritually by hardnes of heart and impenitencie in this life usually to the end thereof and both bodily and ghostly by hell-fire for ever Where it is also like that the divels and damned men do and will swear and curse in their utter rejection from God and intollerable torment and so make their sin and course of blaspheaming as endlesse as their punishment for it CHAP. L. Of Zeal ZEal is by some well defyned the heat and intention of all affections and not eyther any one simple affection or composition of divers I add of the understanding also So men meditate zealously and love zealously and hate zealously and rejoyce zealously and mourn zealously and with great intention of heart The like is to be sayd of all the rest of the affections As nothing lives without naturall heat so neyther lives he the life of Christ indeed who is destitute of christian zeal to warm him in his affections and actions specially in matter of Gods worship and service in which whether wrong or right luke-warmnes is odious and loathsom The Lord will spue out of his mouth the luke-warm whether wyne or water Worldly wise-men despise zeal as prejudiciall to wisdom discretion So Festus judged Paul mad Michall accounted David as one of the fools for the singular zeal of God which they manifested But even this foolishnes of God is wiser then men Yet is it certeyn that men of great knowledg and judgment do seldom make that manifestation of Zeal which weaker persons do The former have their spirits most in their brayns and are exercised specially in the disquisition and discerning of truth from falshood and of good from evill The latter have them most in their hearts and accordingly give themselvs to the affectionate pursuit of that which they conceav to be true and good and alike to the avoyding and impugning of the contrarie Some deceav others by the pretence of zeal which they put on for their advantage as stage-players do vizours till their part be played And thus Ismaell deceaved the fortie men of Samaria with his crocodiles tears Also there are not a few who deceav both others and themselvs by seeming to both eyther to have the Zeal of God which they wholly want or much more then they have And of this number was Iehu how loud soever he cryed to Ionadab Behold the zeal which I have for the house of the Lord whereas in truth that which most set him awork was zeal for his own house though it may be he thought not so Besides craftines in this Iehues zeal there are two other properties the one suspitious where it is found and the other odious The former is a furious march against evill without an answerable pursuit of and affection unto the contrarie good Many are vehemently carryed against Antichristian devises in truth or so appearing unto them in whom yet appears litle love and affection to that which is of Christ in their own judgment Such are rayther carried by their own flesh then led by the spirit of God The other is crueltie To be aright and truely zealous cannot but be good seeing so many and those wise men desire at times to seem so though they be not True zeal must be for God and from God and according to God and having God both for beginning and end and rule of direction it cannot but it self be good and godly It must be for the Lord and for the furtherance of his glorie in the obedience of his will and in mans salvation and not for our own or other mens by-purposes And if it so fall out that by one and the same thing Gods cause and our own profit credit or other worldly advantage be promoted we had need keep a jealous eye over our selvs that we serv not our turn on God by making his ends as it were a bridg to our own as Iehu did Secondly as the fire of the altar came from heaven so must our coal of zeal be fetched thence as being the work of Gods spirit in our hearts in the use of prayer meditation upon the word of God read and heard the examples of others godly as it were ryding in the fierie chariot of Elyas and the like holy means by which this divine fire is kindled and nourished in mens breasts Thirdly it must be according to God both for the qualitie of the matter and quantity of the intention of affection For the former It is good alwayes even then and then onely to be zealous in a good matter and that neyther lightly presumed nor partially conceipted so to be but certeynly known els we burn not sweet incense with holy fire but dirt and doung in stead thereof Our zeal also must be apportioned to the object and that not onely considered in it self but also in the circumstances attending upon it in regard whereof things not alwayes the most good or evill in themselvs may justly deserv at our hands a great bent eyther of love to them or hatred against them And amongst other circumstances we must be carefull
but which will quickly take a toy and indanger the overthrow of all As in a tempestuous sea the waves in the same place are sometimes lifted up and the depths at other times disclosed so in an unmortifyed and passionate heart one unlawfull inordinate passion often breaks into the contrarie as evill and inordinate as it as did Ammons inordinate love to his sister Thamar into as excessive hatred So some of extreamly prodigall become extreamly covetous of credulous suspitious of mad-merry sad without measure The cause is for that such persons are not led by the lore of reason or conscience but caryed headlong by pangs of passion and withall driven by the divell and so must needs go and run too though up and down the same way and forward and backward after his will As in a fish-pond some one great pike devours both the lesser fish of other kindes and of its own also so in divers some one affection is so predominate as it eats up not onely reason and conscience but with them almost all other affections Many are so sowred with discontentment and sorrow that they appear to have place left for nothing els in their heart some are set upon so merry a pin as if they had the image of laughter which Licurgus set up for the Lacedemonians ever before them Others again are so overgrown with anger as they seem to have no blood but choller running in their veyns If any danger be comeing towards them which all reason would teach them to fear specially they will pick a quarrell at something in or about it to set anger and indignation awork If God send greivous crosses upon them and thereby call them to mourning it shall go hard but they will finde what to be angry at in some person or other to turn the stream that way It is some disparagement ordinarily to the government of a wise man specially in their eyes who haue no share in the motive to make great manifestation of affection one or other therefore Ioseph when he would make himself known affectionately to his brethren commanded all the Egiptians out of the place So Zachariah foretelling the extream mourning which shall be by the familyes in Ierusalem when God shall pour upon them the spirit of grace shews that every family shall mourn apart and their wives apart Yet are there cases in which it stands as well with wisdom to manifest great affections as with grace or nature to have them And this David prudently considered and practised at Abners Funerall We should order our affections before we have any speciall provocations and set down with our selvs what may be before hand that if such or such a thing come to passe we will allow it such and such a measure of its compatible affection and no more that as feirce dogs though provoked by other mens voyces yet are quieted by their masters voyce to which they are used so the feirce motions of the minde may be by reasons voice with which they are formerly acquainted for that purpose made still and quiet These motions and affections are well ordered when they rise and fall according to the varietie and weight of objects To be greatly affected with small occurrences is womanlike weaknes litle with great matters stoicall blockâ—shnes And me-thinks he that hath a life to loose and considers it well should not easily come to fear excessively the losse of his goods nor he the losse of his bodily life who hath a soul to loose or save for ever And therefore Christ our Lord bids Fear not him that can kill the body and then hath shot his sting and can hurt no more but fear him who can cast both body and soul into hell As physitions fearing a mans over-bleeding at the nose open a veyn in the arm thereby to turn the course of the blood another way so we finding one affection or other inordinate in us and like to overflow if we cannot so rule and represse it as is meet by good reason shall do well to set some other affection a working by some moveing and lawfull object that so the stream being turned another way we may disappoint the passion which we cannot so well order For example If a man finde himself in danger of exoâ—bitancy in anger it is good for him to set afoote sorrow or fear by some such lawfull object as God offers him and so for other passions of the minde Or if the stream of the affection happ to run so strong as that we can not well turn it another way it is wisdom to get it upon some such object in the same way as wherein it may freely take its scope as the horse that can not be stayed yet may be guided into such a way as in which there is no great danger how fast soever he runs which may also be so heavie as will keep him from running fast in it Thus if sorrow fear or anger be like to work inordinately in us let us set them upon our sins and so the danger of all excesse will soon be over for the most part And indeed it is no small point of christian wisdom for a man to provide fit matter for his affections especially predominant in him to be exercised in Is any among you afflicted sayth the Apostle let him pray Is any merry let him sing Psalmes And by this means he shall neyther loose his own advantage for good nor further Sathans for evill by any passion or affection in him CAP. LV. Of Fear FEar hath onely evill for the object eyther evill in it self as is sin or to him that feareth as are the effects thereof temporall or eternall punishment and the anger of God inflicting them It is a base affection and the cognisance of the creatures infirmitie shewing him to be subject to evill from the fear whereof onely the creatour is absolutely free And so whereas courage and stoutnes of heart though none of the best procures unto men a kinde of respect in the eyes of others fear though better used makes them more contemptible A lyon is more regarded then many oxen though one oxe be of more use both for labour and meat and otherwise then many lyons But God loves rayther a good then a great heart And in the law Gods sacrifices were to be offered of lambs and kids and doves and pigeons fearfull creatures and innocent withall and not of Lyons and Eagles though they be the kings of beasts and birds There is in man a threefold fear of God arising from a threefold apprehension of his Majestie the first is of God as our glorious creatour and governour this is naturall The second as of a just and angry Lord which is servile The third as of our gratious Father in Christ called and being filiall All these are found in the true fearers of God in this life though the midle least which perâ—it love driveth out
pressed with great burdens of temptations in a kinde of abjectnes of minde to moulder away and make their gold litle better then drosse by undervaluing Gods goodnes towards them Such are unthankfull to God uncomfortable in themselvs and unprofitable unto others in comparison Besides there is an humble hypocrisy when men so subjâ—ct themsâ—lvs to others specially superiours as they reverence their viâ—es or suffer their reason more if their fayth and consciences to be captived to their lusts And hence comes the worshiping of Angels and other poynts of will worship in which the shâ—w of â—isdom in the inventers imposers and of humilitie in the followers bear â—wâ—y Lastly there is a desperate humilitie when out of an evill and accusing conscience a man knows and judges himself out of Gods favour and a vile person But now the most of this humilitie hath joyned with it no small pride That of the first kinde is very rare and the infinitely more common and dangerous disease is the overswelling of the heart through excesse of self-self-love and presumption Self-love disposeth a person to think himself and to desire to be thought of others to have the excellency which he hath not Herewith the minde is easily corrupted and vayn man induced to presume of that goodnes in himself which he wants and to be lifted up with that which he hath Many by stouping loose of their bodily height but few stoop too low in conceipt of themselvâ— Yet as Christ Iesus ceased not to be God though he humbled himself to the taking upon him the form of a servant so neyther is any man eyther in truth or account of God or good men the lesse but much the more excellent for his lowly appearance to himself or others Yea as the same Christ our Lord stepped from the shamefull crosse to the height of his glory and exaltation so he that will make any high building in christianitie must first think of and lay this low foundation of humilitie This lowlynes of minde is the mother of meeknes as Christ insinuates saying Learn of me for I am lowly and meek The humbly-mynded if a crosse come or injurie be offered bears them moderately as thinking moderately of himself yea meanly in regard of his sins and the miserie to which they expose him The proud through want of consciousnes hereof if he be a litle crossed is feirce and violent â—ove dignas concipit iras What He A man of his worth so to be used specially by such a one And as the boar wheâ—s and sharpens his â—uskes in his own foam so doth a proud person whet and sharpen his heart hands and tongue to indignation and revenge in the froathy and foamish imagination of his own worth Seeing that in evill dayes the meek and milde in spirit following Christs example who was as a lamb dumb before the shearer not opening his mouth are in danger not onely to be shorn but to be flayed also the most in the wisdom and lust of the flesh think it better to â—owl with the wolves and to byte too then by departing from evill specially by bearing wrongs patiently to make themselvs a pray But here fayth steps in and leads the meek to Gods promises that he shall inherit the earth and that God will arise to judgment to save all the meek of the earth and that he will see and hear and in due time right the wrongs of meek Moses though he passe them by and as a deaf man hears not But for the violent and self-avenger he puts himself out of Gods protection and goes upon his own hazzard As the stommack swels eyther with good meat excessively used or with winde and ill humours so there is â—carse any thing eyther so good or so evill but mans corrupt heart takes occasion of prydeing and puffing up its self by it The prophet speaks of some who boasted in evill and the Apostle of others whose glorying was in their shame If former ages have been bold ours is impudent this way in which it is hard to say whether the pride which persons take in good or in evill be greater Many shame not to boast of the evils practised by them which modest men are ashamed to hear of and some of the evils which they never did nor dare nor can doe thereby to get credit with vayn persons If pride in good be hatefull it is abhominable in evill specially when men bely themselvs to get matter of glorying in mischief as Austin confesseth he in his youth had done Fools glory in their moâ—ley coats and therein shew why they wear them But worse then mad are they who glory in sin and are lift up for that which cast the Angels from heaven Adam out of Paradise and Nabuchadnezzar out of his kingdom amongst the beasts of the feild and which will cast all into hell that delight in it As wicked men pride themselvs in their evils so are the good in danger to be enamoured of their goodnes And as he that beseigeth a cittie if he can neyther obteyn it by composition nor take it by assault nor constreyn it by hunger will in the last place if he can undermine and blow it up with gunpouder So our and Gods enemy Sathan when he cannot corrupt or destroy Gods servants otherwise attempts and that oft successively the lifting them up with vayn conceiptednes of themselvs and their own worth The holy Apostle was in danger to be exalted above measure with the number of revelations for the preventing whereof he needed a messenger of Sathan to buffet him So God for the keeping and driveing of pride from his servants sometimes brings great afflictions upon them and humbles them thereby and sometimes he doth this by suffering them to fall into other sins to remedy that greater sin of pride as men use to drive out a greater pin with another somewhat smaller How close doth this corruption cleav unto us and how dangerous is it withall for the purging out of which the Lord useth such a medicine There are in this pride many strange touches some being proud in and some of their humilitie Of the first sort were they who being vaynly puffed up by their fleshly mindâ— in voluntarie humblenes worshâ—ped Angels From a touch of this kinde Peter was not free when he so refrâ—ctâ—rily refused to suffer Christ to wash his feet There is also danger of being proud of not being proud nor â—oftie in caryage apparaell or contempt of inferiours and of being called rayther goodman then mayster and rayther mayster then Sir knight Besides all these many will goe on their tiptoes though barefoot being proud of no man knows what eyther within or without them and none more then they There want not also amongst the rest who put out pride to usurie that by forbearing it a while and uâ—ing for it humble and submissive appearances they might after
In wiveing and thriveing take counsayl of all the world and so men had need But in this busines affection so far over-rules reason in the most as they could willingly make their choyse without the counsayl of their nearest and wisest freinds Herein therefore freinds should be officious and forth putting and that both in love of their freinds and for their own sakes also who so oft as their freind marryes make an adventure and the same full of danger whether they shall not wholly or in a great measure loose their freind which is oftens seen Herein parents specially must both preserv the right which God and nature hath given them and do the dutie which the one and other hath layd upon them as accounting their children theirs most of all other things Whom if they this way bestow conveniently and in due time they provide well both for them and themselvs For them in preventing two dangerous evils uncleannes and unfit matching For themselvs according to the saying of Democritus that he who gets a good husband to his daughter findes another son as he looseth his daughter that gets an ill one The vertue of the wife is the housbands ornament so is the housbands the wives much more And therefore Philons wife being demanded why she alone went so plainly apparreled made answer that her housbands vertues were ornament sufficient for her If her practise were a rule and that housbands vertues were to be measured by their wives homelynes in atâ—yre eyther fewer housbands would be thought vertuous then are or more wives â—ound soberly apparreled then are After goodnes fitnes in maryage is most to be regarded that so much that as for a pare of gloves or yoak of oxen two alike though meaner both of them are fitter and better for use then if the one were more excellent So in this maryage pare and yoak the woman best qualifyed is not alwayes the best wife for every man nor every man the best qualifyed the fittest housband for every woman but two more alike though both meaner sort better usually And according to this Pittacus being demanded by a freind what kinde of wife he should marry answered one fit for him Fitnes of years is requisite that an old head be not set upon young shoulders nor the contrarie which is worse Fitnes in estate lest the excelling person despise the other or draw him to a course above his reach Fitnes for course of life and disposition unto it the dislike whereof in either by other breeds many discontentments Lastly agreement of affection and inclination what may be to all good persons and things Onely it is good if the one be too fierie-hoat and suddeynly moved that the other can cast on the more cold water of forbearance But now seeing there is seldom or never found such conformitie betweene man and wife but that differences will arise and be seen and so the one must give way and apply unto the other this God and nature layeth upon the woman rayther then upon the man although the man should not to much look for it nor use all his authoritie ordinarily at least which none but fools will doe As the glasse sayth one though never so rich of gold and pearl if it represent not the face of him that looks into it is not to be regarded so neyther is the wife how well endowed soever otherwise except she frame and compose her self what may be unto her housband in conformitie of manners Many common graces and good things are requisite both for housband and wife But more specially the Lord requires in the man love and wisdom and in the woman subjection The love of the housband to his wife must be like Christs to his church holy for qualitie and great for quantitie both intensively and extensively Her person and whatsoever is good in her he must love fervently mending or bearing if not intollerable what is amisse by the former of which two he makes her the better and himself by the latter And if her faylings and faults be great he by being inured to bear them patiently is the fitter to converse quietly and patiently with other perverse persons abroad as Socrates sayd he was by bearing the dayly home-brawlings of Zantippe Neyther sufficeth it that the housband walk with his wife as a man of love but before her also as a man of understanding which God hath therefore affoarded him and means of obteyning it above the woman that he might guide and goe before her as a fellow heyr of eternall life with him It is monstrous if the head stand where the feet should be and double pittie when a Naball and Abigail are matched together Yea experience teacheth how inconvenient it is if the woman have but a litle more understanding though he be not wholly without then her housband hath In the wife is specially required a reverend subjection in all lawfull things to her housband Lawfull I mean for her to obey in yea though not lawfull for him to require of her He ought to give honour to the wife as to the weaker vessell But now if he passe the bounds of wisdom and kindenes Yet must not she shake of the bond of submission but must bear patiently the burden which God hath layd upon the daughters of Eve The woman in innocency was to be subject to the man but this should have been without all wrong on his part or greif on hers But she being first in transgression hath brought her self under an other subjection and the same to her grevious in regard of her housband oftens unjust but in regard of God alwayes most just who hath ordeyned that her desire should be subject to her housband who by her seduction became subject to sin And albeit many proud women think it a matter of scorn and disgrace thus to humble themselvs to God and their housbands and even glory in the contrarie yet therein they but glory in their shame and in their housbands shame also and whilst they refuse a crosse chuse a sin of rebellion both against God and their housbands Which shall not escape unpunished from God though many fond housbands nourish them therein and by pampering and puffing them up by delicate fare costly apparrell and idlenes teach them to despise both them themselvs and all others Mariage hath divers ends that make it convenient and one that makes it necessarie for the most which is the preventing of that most foul and filthy sin of adulterie And this brand it deservs in speciall manner seeing he who coupleth himself with an harlot becomes one body with her which cannot be sayd of him that consorts with a theif or murderer or drunkard in their sins as also for that such a one sins against his own body Not that he sins not against his own soul too or that all others sinning sin not against both body and soul but in regard of
is an inureing of them from the first to such a meannes in all things as may rayther pluck them down then lift them up as by plain and homely dyet and apparrel sending them to school betimes and bestowing them afterwards as they are fit in some course of life in which they may be exercised diligently and the same rayther under then above their estate by not abetting them one against another nor against any specially before their faces without great cause nor by makeing them men and women before they become good boyes and girls How oft have I observed that parents who have neyther fayled in diligent instructing of their children nor in giving them good example nor in correcting them duely have onely by streyning too high this way eyther endangered or utterly overthrown their posteritie hereby lifting them up in their vayn hearts and teaching them to despise both mean things and persons and themselvs also many times amongst others thereby drowning them Icarus like in a sea of mischeif and misery by their flying too high a pâ—â—ch And this must be the more mynded because there is in men an inbred desire and that inordinate usually to hoyse up their children as high as may be so as they half think they do them wrong if they set them not higher or as high at least as themselvs almost whether God will or no. Yea what place affoards not some such as make themselvs their childrens slaves not careing how basely they themselvs grovell in the earth so they may set them on their tiptoes But first of all for childrens competent education specially for their disposeing in some particular course on which all are to settle at last though some libertie of stepping this way or that be given them for a while as a man though for his pleasure he see many places yet seeks his abode in some one in the end there is required in their parents a through discerning and right judgment of their disposition which is as difficult as necessarie The difficultie aryseth from the partiality of parents towards their own for that as the crow thinks her own bird fayrest so do they commonly their children towardlyer and better then they are or then any other indifferent judg doth This partiality in many is so grosse as they not onely deem small good things in them great and great evils small but oftens account the same things well becomeing them and commendable which in others they would censure as undecent and it may be enormous This perniâ—ous errour ariseth from self love For as in nature the object cannot be seen which is eyther too near the eye or too far from it so neyther can the disposition of that â—â—iâ—de be rightly discerned which lyeth too near his fathers heart And yet is the knowledg of this so necessarie that we build not eyther upon a vain or uncerteyn foundation with great hazzard of losse both of labour and expence in sorting our childe to his particular calling and course of life as all without it is but a verie rash adventure For as none is fit for everie course nor hardly any for many in any great degree so everie one is fit for one or other to which if his ability and disposition be applyed with any convenient diligence on his part and helps by others he may easily come to a mediocritie therein if not to some rarenes Hence was it that fathers in some places used to lead their children to the shops of all kinde of artificers to try how they could both handle their tools like their works that so they might bestow them accordingly Some wise men also have wished that there might be established by publique authoritie a course for the due tryall and choyce of wits for severall sciences And surely where there goes not before a naturall aptnes and morall disposition also for some callings there will follow nothing but losse losse of time losse of labour losse of charges and all as when the seed is cast into the barren ground And as the midwife how skilfull soever in her art cannot make the woman to be delivered that was not first with childe so neyther can the best maysters make their schollers or servants to bring forth sciences unlesse they have an aptnes thereunto first conceaved in their brayns There is running in the breasts of most parents a strong stream of partiall affection towards some one or other of their children above the rest eyther for its beautie or wit or likenes to themselvs or some other fancyed good in it which is alwayes dangerous and oft hurtfull Sometimes the Lord takes away such before the rest to punish the fathers fondnes And most commonly such if surviveing prove the worst of all the rest as growing hereby proud and arrogant in themselvs presumptuous upon their fathers love and contemptuous of the rest of their brethren and sisters as we may see in Esau Absolom and Adoniah their fathers darlings and in many mo in our dayly experience And though they in themselvs which they seldom are free from be not corrupted with pride yet will the rest seldom or never escape the infection of envy at it as is to be seen in Iosephs brethren It is naturall for parents tenderly to love all their children and best for them to be as equall towards all as may be reserving the bestowing of their best and greatest love till they see where God bestows his And if so be they cannot or will not command their inordinate affections as they should yet it is wisdom to conceal them from their children whom els they may hurt so many wayes as the ape is said many times to kill her young ones by too streyt embraceing them The Lord promises and affoards long life to such as honour father and mother whose dayes if he shorten in this life for their good he lengthens out with immortalitie in glory On the other side he cuts off from the earth stubborn and disobedient children suddeynly and sundry wayes And if he give them long life it is for a curse unto them They also oftens dye without children themselvs and if not their children oftener pay them that which is due and owing them from their parents The historie is note worthy of the father who being drawn by his son to the threshold of the house by the hayr of the head cryed to him to draw him no further for that he had drawn his father no further And how should they expect honour from their children who have dishonoured their parents or a happy life who despise the author of their life under God This honour is due not onely to them by whom we have our being but to them also by whom our well-being is furthered CHAP. LXI Of Youth and Old age THat cittie or common wealth sayth one flourisheth most where old mens counsayl and young mens swords are in request And a litle sayth another avail weapons abroad