displeasure and that if any thing will bring us 29. Thirdly we are full of worldly-mindedness Adhaesit pavimento as David speaketh in this Psalm so may we say but quite in another sence Our soul cleaveth to the dust We all complain the world is naught and so it is God mend it totus in maligno nothing but vanity and wickedness and yet as bad as it is our hearts hanker after it out of all measure And the more we prosper in it the more we grow in love with it the faster riches or honours or any of these other vanities encrease the more eagerly do we pursue them and the more fondly set our hearts upon them Only afflictions do now and then take us off somewhat and a little embitter the lushiousness of them to our taste That we have any apprehension at all of the vanity of the world we may thank for it those vexations of spirit that are enterwoven therewithal Loving it as we do being so full of those vexations as it is how absurdly should we doat upon it if we should meet with nothing in it to vex us 30. Lastly we are full of In-compassion Our brethren that are in distress though they be our fellow-members yet have we little fellow feeling of their griefs but either we insult over them or censure them or at best neglect them especially when our selves are at ease When we stretch our selves upon ivory beds eat the fat and drink the sweete and chaunt it to the vyals live merry and full it is great odds the afflictions of Ioseph will be but slenderly remembred no more then Lazarus was at the rich mans gates where he found no pity but what the dogs shewed him But then when it cometh to be our own case when we fall into sicknesses disgraces or other distresses our selves Non ignara mali Then do our bowels which before were crusted up begin to relent a little towards our poorer brethten and our own misery maketh us the more charitable Then we remember those that are in bonds whom we forgat before as Pharaohs butler forgat Ioseph when we our selves are bound with them and those that are in adversity when we finde and feel that we our selves are but flesh Thus God out of very faithfulness causeth us to be troubled as for our good many other wayes so particularly in purging out thereby some of that Pride and Security and Worldliness and Incompassion besides sundry other corruptions that abound in us 31. That for the End Next God manifesteth his faithfulness to his servants in their troubles by the proportion he holdeth therein whether we compare therewith their deservings their strength or their comforts very measurably in all First our sufferings are far short of our deservings He doth ever chasten us citra condignum He dealeth not with us after our sins neither rewardeth us after our iniquities Psal. 103. After what then even after his own loving kindness and fatherly affection towards us Even as a father pittieth his own children as it there followeth And how that is every father can tell you Pro magnâ culpâ parum supplicij satis est patri When we for drinking in iniquity like water had deserved to drink off the cup of fury to the bottome dregs and all he maketh us but sip a little overly of the very brim And when he might in justice lash us with scorpions he doth but scourge us with rushes The Lord promised his people Ier. 30. that though he could not in justice nor would leave them altogeâ—her unpunished yet he would correct them in measure and not make a full end of them And he did indeed according to his promise they found his faithfulness therein and acknowledged it seeing that our God hath punished less then our iniquities deserve Ezr. 9. Iacob confessed that he was less then the least of Gods mercies and we must confess that we are more then the greatest of his corrections 32. Secondly he proportioneth our sufferings to our strength As a discreet Physitian considereth as well as the malignity of the disease the strength of the patient and prescribeth for him accordingly both for the ingredients and dose Abraham and Iob and David and S. Paul the Lord put them to great trials because he had endowed them with great strength But as for most of us God is careful to lay but common troubles upon us because we have no more but common strength as Iacob had a good care not to overdrive the weaker cattel If he shall hereafter think good to send such a messenger of Satan against us as shall buffet us with stronger blowes doubtless if we be his friends and do but seek to him for it he will give us such an addition of strength and grace as shall be sufficient for our safety The Apostle both observeth Gods thus dealing with us and imputeth it also to his faithfulness 1 Cor. 10. God is faithfull who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able Either Cain said not truly or if he did the fault was in himself not in God when he complained that his punishment was greater then he could beare God is not so hard a Master to us for all we are so slack and untoward in our service as either to require that of us which he will not enable us to doe or lay that upon us which he will not enable us to beare if we will but lay our hands and our shoulders thereunto and put out our strength and endeavours to the utmost 33. Thirdly he proportioneth us out also comforts sutable to our afflictions every whit as large as they and more effectuall to preserve us from drooping and to sustain our soules in the midst of our greatest sufferings For as the smallest temptation would foile us if God should with-hold his grace from us but if he vouchsafe us the assistance of that we are able to withstand the greatest so the least afflictions would over-whelme our spirits if he should with-hold his comforts from us but if he afford us them we are able to beare up under the greatest And God doth afford unto his children in all their distresses though not perhaps always such comforts as they desire yet ever such as he knoweth and they finde to be both meet and sufficient Spiritual comforts first and they are the chiefest the testimony of a good Conscience from within and the light of Gods favourable Countenance from above These put more true joy into the heart then the want of Corne or Wine or Oyle or any outward thing can sorrow And by these our inner man is so renewed and strengthened that yet we faint not whatsoever becometh of our outward man no not though it should perish David had troubles multitude of troubles troubles that touched him at the very heart but the comforts of God in his soule gave him
Brotherhood of Grace by profession of the faith of Christ as we are Christian men As men we are members of that great body the World and so all men that live within the compass of the World are Brethren by a more general communion of Nature As Christians we are members of that mystical body the Church and so all Christian men that live within the compass of the Church are Brethren by a more peculiar communion of Faith And as the Moral Law bindeth us to love all men as our Brethren and partakers with us of the same common Nature in Adam so the Evangelical Law bindeth to love all Christians as our Brethren and partakers with us of the same common faith in Christ. 25. In which later notion the word Brother is most usually taken in the Apostolical writings to signifie a professor of the Christian Faith and Religion in opposition to heathen men and unbeleevers The name of Christian though of commonest use and longest continuance was yet but of a later date taken up first at Antioch as we finde Act. 11. whereas believers were before usually called Disciples and no less usually both before and since Brethren You shall read very often in the Acts and Epistles of the holy Apostles How the Brethren assembled together to hear the Gospel preached to receive the Sacrament and to consult about the affairs of the Church How the Apostles as they went from place to place to plant and water the Churches in their progress every where visited the Brethren at their first coming to any place saluting the Brethren during their abode there confirming the Brethren at their departure thence taking leave of the Brethren How collections were made for relief of the Brethren and those sent into Iudea from other parts by the hands of the brethren c. S. Paul opposeth the Brethren to them that are without and so includeth all that are within the Church What have I to do to judg them that are without 1 Cor. 5. As if he had said Christ sent me an Apostle and Minister of the Churches and therefore I meddle not but with those that are within the pale of the Church as for those that are without if any of them will be filthy let him be filthy still I have nothing to do to meddle with them But saith he if any man that is within the Christian Church any man that is called a Brother be a fornicator or drunkard or rayler or otherwise stain his holy profession by scandalous living I know how to deal with him let the censures of the Church be laid upon him let him be cast out of the assemblies of the Brethren that he may be thereby brought to shame and repentance 26. So then Brethren in the Apostolical use of the word are Christians and the Brotherhood the whole society of Christian men the systeme and body of the whole visible Church of Christ. I say the visible Church because there is indeed another Brotherhood more excellent then this whereof we now speak consisting of such only as shall undoubtedly inherit salvation called by some of the ancients The Church of Gods Elect and by some later writers the Invisible Church And truly this Brotherhood would under God deserve the highest room in our affections could we with any certainty discern who were of it and who not But because the fan is not in our hand to winnow the chaff from the wheat Dominus novit The Lord onely knoweth who are his by those secret characters of Grace and Perseverance which no eye of man is able to discern in another nor perhaps in himself infallibly we are therefore for the discharge of our duty to look at the Brotherhood so far as it is discernable to us by the plain and legible characters of Baptism and outward profession So that whosoever abideth in areâ Domini and liveth in the communion of the visible Church being baptized into Christ and professing the Name of Christ let him prove as it falleth out chaff or light corn or wheat when the Lord shall come with his fan to purge his floor yet in the mean time so long as he lieth in the heap and upon the floor We must own him for a Christian and take him as one of the Brotherhood and as such an one love him For so is the Duty here Love the Brotherhood 27. To make Love compleat Two things are required according to Aristotle's description of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Affectus cordis and Effectus operis The inward affection of the heart in wishing to him we love all good and the outward manifestation of that affection by our deed as occasion is offered in being ready to our power to do him any good The heart is the root and the seat of all true love and there we must begin or else all we do is but lost If we do never so many serviceable offices to our brethren out of any by-end or sinister respect although they may possibly be very usefull and so very acceptable to him yet if our heart be not towards them if there be not a sincere affection within it cannot be truly called Love That Love that will abide the test and answer the Duty required in the Text must be such as the Apostles have in several passages described it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfained love of the brethren 1 Pet. 1. Love out of a pure heart 1 Tim. 1. Love without dissimulation Rom. 12. 28. Of which inward affection the outward deed is the best discoverer and therefore that must come on too to make the love perfect As Iehu said to Ionadab Is thy heart right If it be then give me thy hand As in the exercises of our devotion towards God so in the exercises of our charity towards men heart and hand should go together Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis Good works are the best demonstrations as of true Faith so of true love Where there is life and heate there will be action There is no life then in that Faith S. Iames calleth it plainly a dead faith Iam. 2. nor heate in that Love according to that expression Matth. 24. the love of many shall wax cold that doth not put forth it self in the works of righteousness and mercy He then loveth not the Brotherhood indeed whatsoever he pretend or at least not in so gracious a measure as he should endeavour after That doth not take every fit opportunity of doing good either to the souls or bodies or credits or estates of his Brethren That is not willing to do them all possible services according to the urgency of their occasions and the just exigence of circumstances with his countenance with his advice with his pains with his purse yea and if need be with his very life too This is the Non ultra farther then this we cannot goe in the expressing of our love Greater love
then this hath no man that a man lay down his life for his friend and thus far we must goe if God call us to it So far went Christ for our redemption and so far the Scriptures press his example for our imitation Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the Brethren 1 Joh. 3. 29. To recollect the premises and to give you the full meaning of the precept at once To Love the Brotherhood is as much as to bear a special affection to all Christians more then to Heathens and to manifest the same proportionably by performing all loving offices to them upon every fit occasion to the utmost of our powers A duty of such importance that our Apostle though here in the Text he do but only name it in the bunch among other duties yet afterwards in this Epistle seemeth to require it in a more speciall manner and after a sort above other duties Above all things have fervent charity among your selves Chap. 4. And S. Iohn upon the performance hereof hangeth one of the strongest assurances we can have of our being in Christ. We know that we are passed from death to life because we love the brethren 1 Joh. 3.14 30. Now of the Obligation of this duty for that is the next thing we are to consider there are two main grounds Goodness and Neerness First we must love the Brotherhood for their goodness All goodness is lovely There groweth a Love due to every creature of God from this that every creature of God is good Some goodness God hath communicated to every thing to which he gave a beeing as a beame of that incomprehensible light and a drop of that infinite Ocean of goodness which he himself is But a greater measure of Love is due to man then to other Creatures by how much God hath made him better then them And to every particular man that hath any special goodness in him there is a special Love due proportionable to the kinde and measâ—re thereof So that whatsoever goodness we can discern in any man we ought to love it in him and to love him for it whatsoever faults or defects are apparently enough to be found in him otherways He that hath good natural parts if he have little in him that is good besides yet is to be loved even for those parts because they are good He that hath but good moralities only leading a civil life though without any probable evidences of grace appearing in him is yet to be loved of us if but for those moralities because they also are good But he that goeth higher and by the goodness of his conversation sheweth forth so far as we can judge the graciousness of his heart deserveth by so much an higher room in our affections then either of the former by how much Grace exceedeth in goodness both Nature and Morality Sith then there is a special goodness in the Brethren quatenùs such in regard of that most holy faith which they profess and that blessed name of Christ which is called upon them we are therefore bound to love them with a special affection and that eo nomine under that consideration as they are brethren over and above that general love with which we are bound to love them as men or that which belongeth to them as men of parts or as Civil men 31. The other ground of Loving the Brotherhood is their Neerness The neerer the dearer we say and there are few relations neerer then that of brotherhood But no brotherhood in the world so closely and surely knit together and with so many and strong tyes as the fraternity of Christians in the communion of Saints which is the Brotherhood in the Text. In which one brotherhood it is not easy to reckon how many brotherhoods are conteined Behold some of many First we are Brethren by propagation and that ab utroque parente 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Children of the one Eternal God the common father of us all and of the one Catholick Church the common mother of us all And we have all the same Elder brother Jesus Christ the first born among many brethren the lively image of his fathers person and indeed the foundation of the whole Brotherhood for we are all as many of us as have been baptised into Christ the children of God by faith in Christ Iesus Therefore as Ioseph loved Benjamin his brother of the whole bloud more affectionately then the other ten that were his brethren but by the fathers side only so we ought with a more special affection to love those that are also the sons of our mother the Church as Christians then those that are but the sons of God only as Creatures 32. Secondly we are Brethren by education 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Foster-brethren as Herod and Manahon were We are all nursed with the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sincere milk of the word in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament which are ubera matris Ecclesiae the two brests whence we sucked all that wholsome nourishment by which we are grown up to what we are to that measure of stature of strength whatsoever it is that we have in Christ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle and common experience sheweth it so to be They that have been nursed or brought up together in their childehood for the most part have their affections so seasoned and setled then that they love one another the better while they live 33. Thirdly we are Brethren by Covenant sworn brothers at our holy Baptism when we dedicated our selves to Gods service as his Souldiers by sacred and solemn vow Do we not see men that take the same oath pressed to serve in the same Wars and under the same Captains Contuâ—ernales and Comrades how they do not only call Brothers but hold together as Brothers and shew themselves marvelous zealous in one anothers behalf taking their parts and pawning their credits for them and sharing their fortunes with them If one of them have but a little silver in his purse his brother shall not want whiles that lasteth Shame we with it that the children of this world should be kinder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 towards those of their own generation then we are in ours 34. Fourthly we are Brethren by Cohabitation We are all of one house and family not strangers and forrainers but fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God What a disquietness and discredit both is it to a house where the children are ever jarring and snarling and fighting one with another but a goodly sight Ecce quam bonum when they dwell together in love and unity Even so a sad thing it is and very grievous to the soule of every good man when in the Church which is the house of God Christians
that call themselves brethren fall soule upon one another not only girding at and clashing against but biting and nipping and devouring one another as if they were bent to consume and destroy one another But a most blessed thing on the other side pleasant as the holy oyle distilling from Aarons head upon his beard and garments and rejoycing the heart as the dew upon the mountains refresheth the grass when there is nothing done in the house through strife or vain glory but such an accord amongst them that all the Brethren are of one minde and judgment or if not alwayes so yet at leastwise of one heart and affection bearing the burdens and bearing with the infirmities one of another and ready upon all occasions to do good as to all men generally and without exception so especially to their Brethren that are of the same houshold of faith with them 35. Lastly we are Brethren by partnership in our Fathers estate Coparceners in the state of Grace all of us enjoying the same promises liberties and priviledges whereof we are already possessed in common and Coheirs in the state of Glory all of us having the same joy and everlasting blisse in expectancy and reversion For being the sonnes of God we are all heirs and being brethren all joynt-heirs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one and the same glorious inheritance reserved for us in the heavens which St. Iude therefore calleth the common salvation It argueth a base wrangling spirit in us having such goodly things in reversion enough for us all so as heart can wish no more to squabble and fall out for such poore trifles as the things of this world are We that have by Gods goodness competent sustenance for our journey and full sacks to open at our coming home as Iosephs brethren had when they came out of Egypt to return to their own land shall we fall out among our selves and be ready to mischief one another by the way 36. Having all these Obligations upon us and being tied together in one Brotherhood by so many bands of unity and affection I presume we cannot doubt de Iure but that it is our bounden duty thus to love the Brotherhood There remaineth now no more to be done but to look to our performances that they be right wherein the main thing we are to take heed of besides what hath been already applyed is Partiality I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ and the elect Angels that thou observe these things without preferring one before another doing nothing by Partiality It was S. Pauls charge to Timothy in another businesse but may suit very well with this also 27. Not but that we may and in most cases must make a difference between one brother and another in the measure and degree of our Love according to the different measures and degrees either of their goodness considered in themselves or of their neerness in relation to us those two considerations being as you heard the grounds of our Love So David loved Ionathan as his own soule his heart was knit to him both because he was a good man and had withall approved himself his trusty friend Yea our blessed Saviour himself shewed a more affectionate Love to Iohn then to any other of his disciples the disciple whom Iesus loved for no other known reason so much as for this that he was neer of kin to him his own mothers sisters son as is generally supposed No reasonable man among us then need make any question but that we may and ought to bear a greater love unto and consequently to be readier to do good unto caeteris paribus our Countrymen our neighbours our kindred our friends then to those that are strangers to us and stand in no such relation And so no doubt we may and ought in like manner upon that other ground of Goodness more to love and to shew kindness sooner to a sober discreet judicious peaceable humble and otherwise orderly and regular man caeteris paribus then to one that is light-headed or lazy or turbulent or proud or debauched or heretical or schismatical 38. But still that proviso or limitation which I now twice mentioned caeteris paribus must he remembred for there may such a disparity arise by emergent occasions as may render a meer stranger a heathen a notoriously vitious person a fitter object of our compassion help or relief pro hîc nunc then the most pious Christian or our dearest friend or ally In cases of great extremity where the necessities of the party importune a present succour and will admit no delay Cedat necessitudo necessitati the former considerations whether of Neerness or Goodness must be waved for the present and give way to those Necessities He is most our neighbour and brother in a case of that nature that standeth in most need of our help as our Saviour himself hath clearly resolved it in the case of the wounded traveller in the parable Luke 10. Nor doth this at all contradict what hath been already delivered concerning the preferring of the brethren before others either in the affection of love or in the offices which flow therefrom For the affection first it is clear that although some acts of compassion and charity be exercised towards a stranger yea even an enemy that hath great need of it rather then towards a friend or brother that hath either no need at all or very little in comparison of the other it doth not hinder but that the Habit or affection of love in the heart may notwithstanding at the very same time be more strongly carried towards the brother or friend then towards the enemy or stranger as every mans own reason and experience in himself can tell him And as for the outward acts and offices of love it is with them as with the offices of all other vertues and gracious habits or affections which not binding ad semper as the graces and habits themselves do are therefore variable and mutable as the circumstances by which they must be regulated vary pro hic nunc And therefore the rules given concerning them must not be punctually mathematically interpreted but prudentially and rationally and hold as we use to say in the Schools communiter but not universaliter that is to say ordinarily and in most cases where circumstances do not require it should be otherwise but not absolutely and universally so as to admit of no exception 39. This rub then thus removed out of the way it may yet be demanded where is this partiality to be found whereof we spake or what is it to have the faith of our Lord Iesus Christ with respect of persons if this putting of a difference in our love between brother and brother which we have now allowed of be not it I answer It is no partiality to make such a difference as we have hitherto allowed so long as the said difference
be carried away Greater is he that is in you saith S. Iohn that is Christ then he that is in the world that is the Devil Christ came into the world on purpose to destroy the works of the Devil and he did atchieve what he came for he hath destroyed them And amongst his other works he hath destroyed this Purchase also wrung the evidences out of his hand even the handwriting that was against us and having blotted defaced and cancell'd it took it out of the way nayling it to his Cross. 28. Such was his Power his Love secondly not less which made him as willing as he was able to undertake this work of our redemption In his love and in his pitty he redeemed them Esay 63.9 There is such a height and depth and length and bredth in that Love such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in every dimension of it as none but an infinite understanding can fathom Sic Deus dilexit So God loved the world But how much that so containeth no tongue or wit of man can reach Nothing expresseth it better to the life then the work it self doth That the Word should be made Flesh that the holy one of God should be made sin that God blessed for ever should be made a curse that the Lord of life and glory should suffer an inglorious death and poure out his own most precious blood to ransom such worthless thankless graceless Traitors as we were that had so desperately made our selves away and that into the hands of his deadliest enemy and that upon such poore and unworthy conditions O altitudo Love incomprehensible It swalloweth up the sence and understanding of Men and Angels fitter to be admired and adored with silence then blemished with any our weak expressions 29. I leave it therefore and go on to the next his Right When de facto we sold our selves to Satan we had de jure no power or right at all so to do being we were not our own and so in truth the title is nought and the Sale void Yet it is good against us however we may not plead the invalidity of it for so much as in reason no man ought to make advantage of his own act Our act then barreth us But yet it cannot bar the right owner from challenging his own wheresoever he finds it And therefore we may be well assured God will not suffer the Devil who is but malae fidei possessor an intruder and a cheater quietly to enjoy what is Gods and not his but he will eject him we have that word Iohn 12.21 Ejicietur now is the Prince of this world cast out and recover out of his possession that which he hath no right at all to hold 30. Sundry inferences we might raise hence if we had time I may not insist yet I cannot but touch at three duties which we owe to God for this Redemption because they answer so fitly to these three last mentioned assurances We owe him Affiance in respect of his Power in requital of his Love thankfulness and in regard of his Right Service First the consideration of his Power in our Redemption may put a great deal of comfort and confidence into us that having now redeemed us if we do but cleave fast to him and revolt not again he will protect us from Sin and Satan and all other enemies and pretenders whatsoever O Israel fear not for I have redeemed thee Esay 43. If then the Devil shall seek by any of his wiles or suggestions at any time to get us over to him again as he is an unwearied sollicitor and will not lose his claim by discontinuance Let us then look to that Cornu salutis that horn of salvation that God hath raised up for us in Christ our Redeemer and flie thither for succour as to the horns of the Altar saying with David Psalm 119. I am thine oh save me and we shall be safe In all inward temptations in all outward distresses at the hour of death and in the day of judgment we may with great security commit the keeping of our souls to him both as a faithful creator and as a powerful Redeemer saying once more with David Into thy hands I commend my spirit for thou hast redeemed me O Lord thou God of truth Psalm 31.6 31. Secondly the consideration of his love in our Redemption should quicken us to a thankful acknowledgment of his great and undeserved goodness towards us Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from the hand of the enemy Psal. 107. Let all men let all creatures do it but let them especially If the blessings of corn and wine and oyl of health and peace and plenty of deliverance from sicknesses pestilences famines and other calamities can so affect us as to provoke at least some overly and superficial forms of thanksgiving from us how carnal are our minds and our thoughts earthy if the contemplation of the depth of the riches of Gods mercy poured out upon us in this great work of our Redemption do not even ravish our hearts with an ardent desire to pour them out unto him again in hymns and Psalms and songs of thanksgiving with a Benedictus in our mouths Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people 32. Thirdly the consideration of his Right should bind us to do him service We were his before for he made us and we ought him service for that But now we are his more then before and by a new title for he hath bought us and paid for us and we owe him more service for that The Apostle therefote urgeth it as a matter of great equity you are not your own but his therefore you are not to satisfie your selves by doing your own lusts but to glorifie him by doing his will When Christ redeemed us by his bloud his purpose was to redeem us unto God Rev. 5.9 and not to our selves and to redeem us from our vain conversation 1 Pet. 1.18 and not to it And he therefore delivered us out of the hands of our enemies that we might the more freely and securely and without fear serve him in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our lives Luke 1. which being both our bounden duty and the thing withall so very reasonable we have the more to answer for if we do not make a conscience of it to perform it accordingly He hath done his part and that which he was no way bound unto in redeeming us and he hath done it to purpose done it effectually Let it be our care to do our part for which there lie so many obligations upon us in serving him and let us also do it to purpose do it really and throughly and constantly 33. Thus is our Redemption done effectually it is also done freely which is the only point now remaining Not for price nor
charitable toward the Strong both Weak and Strong more patient and moderate and more respective either of other in all brotherly mutual condescensions 35. It is our fault too most an end We are partial to those on that side we take to beyond all reason ready to justifie those enterprises of theirs that look very suspiciously and to excuse or at least to extenuate their most palpable excesses and as ready on the other side to misconstrue the most justifiable actions of the adverse part but to aggravate to the utmost their smallest and most pardonable aberrations Thus do we sometimes both at once either of which alone is an abomination to the Lord justifie the guilty and condemn the innocent Whilest partial affections corrupt our judgments and will not suffer us to look upon the actions of our brethren with an equal and indifferent eye But let us beware of it by all means for so long as we give our selves to be carried away with partialities and prejudices we shall never rightly perform our duties either to God or man That therefore the agreement may be as it ought to be we must resolve to be patient not towards some but towards all men 1 Thes. 5. to be gentle not unto some but unto all men 2 Tim. 2. to shew all meekness not to some but to all men Titus 3.2 The concord should be Vniversal 36. It should likewise be Mutual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importeth that also either part being ready for charity sake to contemperate and accommodate themselves to other so far as reason requireth But herein also as in the former mens corrupt partiality bewraieth it self extremely The strong Romans like enough could discern a censorious spirit in the weaker one and the weak ones perhaps as easily a disdainful spirit in them But neither of both it is to be doubted were willing enough to look into the other end of the wallet and to examine throughly their own spirits We use to say If every man would mend one all would be well Ey would How cometh it to pass then that all hath not been well even long ago For where is the man that is not ready to mend one One said I yea ten yea a hundred why here it is every man would be mending one but not the right one He would be mending his brother but he will not mend himself Vt nemo in sese tentat descendere O saith the strong we should soon agree but that he is so censorious and yet himself flouteth as freely as ever he did We should hit it very well saith the weak were not he so scornful and yet himself judgeth as deeply as ever he did Oh the falsness and hypocrisie of mens hearts blinded with self-self-love how it abuseth them with strong delusions and so filleth the world with divisions and offences 37. For this our blessed Saviour who hath best discovered the malady hath also prescribed the best remedy The disease is Hypocrisie The Symptomes are One to be cat-eyed outward in readily espying somewhat the smallest moat cannot escape in a brothers eye another to be bat-eyed inward in not perceiving be it never so great a beam in a mans own eye a third a forwardness to be tampering with his brothers eye and offering his service to help him out with the moat there before he think a thought of doing any thing towards the clearing of his own eye The Remedy is to begin at home do but put the things into their right order and the business is done Tu conversus confirma fratres Strengthen thy brethren what thou canst it is a good office and would not be neglected But there is something more needful to be done then that and to be done first and before that and which if it be first done thou wilt be able to do that much the better then shalt thou see clearly and that is to reform thy self be sure first thy self be converted and then in Gods name deal with thy weak brother as thou seest cause and strengthen him 38. Let them that are so forward to censure the actions of others especially of their Superious and are ever and anon complaining how ill things are carried above but never take notice of their own frauds and oppressions and sacriledges and insolencies and peevishnesses and other enormities let them turn their eye homeward another while observe how their own pulses beat and go learn what that is Thou hypocrite cast out first the beam out of thine own eye We deal not like Christians no nor like reasonable men if we expect all men should come to our bent in every thing and we our selves not relent from our own stiffness in the least matter for their sakes Believe it we shall never grow to Christian Vnanimity in any tolerable measure so long as every man seeks but to please himself only in following his own liking and is not desirous withall according to our Apostles exhortation verse 2. to please his neighbour also by condescending to his desires where it may be for his good in any thing that is not either unlawfull or unreasonable The inclinations to agreement should be mutual that so we might be like-minded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 49. And then all this must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the other qualification in the Text and now only remaineth to be spoken of According to Christ Iesus Which last clause is capable of a double interpretation pertinent to the scope of the Text and useful for our direction in point of practise both and therefore neither of both to be rejected Some understand it as a Limitation of that Vnity which was prayed for in the former words and not unfitly For lest it should be conceived that all the Apostle desired in their behalf was that they should be like-minded one towards another howsoever he might intend by the addition of this clause to shew that it was not such an Vnity as he desired unless it were according to Truth and Godliness in Christ Jesus There may be an agreement in falso when men hold together for the maintenance of one and the same Common Error Such as is the agreement of Hereticks of Schismaticks of Sectaries among themselves And there may be an agreement in malo when men combine together in a confederacy for the compassing of some mischievous designe as did those forty and odde that bound themselves with a curse to destroy Paul Such is the agreement of Theeves of Cheaters of Rebels among themselves Such agreements as these no man ought to pray for indeed no man need to pray for The wisdom of the flesh and cunning of the Devil will bring men on fast enough to those cursed agreements without which he and his know well enough his kingdom cannot stand The servants of God have rather bent themselves evermore by their prayers and endeavours to dissolve the glue
him outwardly so as he is at a kinde of peace with them or howsoever sustaineth no harm by them Either of which when it is done it is thirdly Mutatio dexterae excelsi it is meerly the Lords doing and it may well be marvelous in our eyes It is he that maketh a mans enemies to be at peace with him 22. The scope of the whole words is to instruct us that the fairest and likeliest way for us to procure peace with men is to order our wayes so as to please the Lord. You shall therefore finde the favour of God and the favour of men often joyned together in the Scriptures as if one were and so usually it is a consequent of the other so it is said of our blessed Saviour Luke 2 that he encreased in favour with God and men My son let not mercy and truth forsake thee c. so shalt thou finde favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man saith our Solomon Prov. 3. And S. Paul Rom. 14. he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men In all which places favour and acceptation with God goeth before favour and approbation with men followeth after 23. You may see the proof of it in the whole course of the sacred story wherein the lords dealing with his own people in this kinde is remarkable When they started aside to walk after their own counsels displeased him how he stirred them up enemies round about them how he sold them into the hands of those that spoiled them how he hardned the hearts of all those that contended with them that they should not pitty them Againe on the other side when they believed his word walked in his wayes and pleased him how he raised them up friends how he made their enemies to bow under them how he enclined the hearts of strangers and of Pagans to pitty them Instances are obvious and therefore I omit them 24. Of which Effect the first and principall cause is none other then the overruling hand of God who not only disposeth of all outward things according to the good pleasure of his will but hath also in his hands the hearts of all men even of the greatest Kings as the rivers of water to turn them which way soever he will as our Solomon speaketh at the 21th ch of this Book The original there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Palge maijm as you would say the divisions of waters Which is not to be understood of the great rivers though the greatest of them all even the wide and great Sea also is in the hands of God to turne which way soever he will as he turned the waters of the red sea backwards to let his people goe through and then turned them forward again to overwhelme their enemies But the allusion there is clearly to the little trenches whereby in those drier Eastern countries husbandmen used to derive water from some fountain or cistern to the several parts of their gardens for the better nourishing of their herbs and fruit-trees Now you know when a gardner hath cut many such trenches all over his garden with what ease he can turne the water out of any one into any other of those channels suffering it to runne so long in one as he thinketh good and then stopping it thence and deriving it into another even as it pleaseth him and as he seeth it most conducible for the necessities of his garden With much more ease can the Lord stop the current of any mans favour and affections in the course wherein it presently runneth and turne it quite into another channel drying it up against one man and deriving it upon another even as it seemeth good in his sight and as will best serve other his holy and just purposes whether he intend to chastise his children or to comfort them or to exercise any other part or passage of his blessed providence upon them Thus he gave his people favour in the sight of the Egyptians so as they lent them all their precious things at their departure who but a little before had consulted the rooting out the whole generation of them And thus after that in his just displeasure against them for their sins he had given them over into captivity into their enemies hands when he was pleased again with their humiliations he not only pittied them himself according to the multitude of his mercies but he turned the hatred of their enemies also into compassion and made all those that had led them away captives to pitty them as it is in Psalm 106. 25. The Lord is a God of power and therefore can work such effects as he pleaseth for our peace without any apparent means on our parts But being withall a God of order for the most part therefore and in the ordinary course of his providence he worketh his own purposes by second causes and subordinate means At least he hath so tied us to the use of probable means for the bringing about of what he hath promised that although we ought to be perswaded he can yet we may not presume he will work our good without our endeavours Now the subordinate means to be used on our part without which we cannot reasonably expect that God should make our enemies to be at peace with us is our faire and amiable conversation with others For who will harme you if ye be followers of that which is good saith S. Peter As if he had said so long as you carry your selves graciously and wisely if the hearts of your enemies will not be so far wrought upon as to love and affect you yet their mouths will be muzled and their hands manacled from breaking out into any outragious either tearms or actions of open hostility so as you shall enjoy your peace with them in some measure Though they meane you no good yet they shall doe you no harme 26. But it may be objected both from scripture and experience that sundry times when a mans wayes are right and therefore pleasing unto God his enemies are nothing less if not perhaps much more enraged against him then formerly they were Our Saviour often foretold his Disciples that they should be hated of all men for his sake And David complaineth in Psalm 38. of some that were against him eo nomine and for that very reason because he was a follower of that which was good What a seeming distance is there between the Prophets and the Apostles speeches or else how may they be reconciled Who is he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good saith the one Yea saith the other there are some agaiâ—st me even therefore because I follow that which is good As if by seeking to please God he had rather lost his friends then gained his enemies 27. There are sundry considerations that may be of good use to us
to be jealous over our selves with a godly jealousie would not only work in us a due consideration of our wayes that so we might amend them if there be cause but would be also of right use to prevent two notable pieces of sophistry two egregious fallacies wherewith thousands of us deceive our selves The former fallacy is that we use many times especially when our enemies do us manifest wrong to impute our sufferings wholy to their iniquity whereof we should do wiselier to take some of the blame upon our selves Not at all to excuse them whose proceedings are unjust and for which they shall bear their own burthens But to acquit the Lords proceedings who still is just even in those things wherein men are unjust Their hearts and tongues and hands are against us only out of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that superfluity of maliciousness wherewith their naughty hearts abound and for to serve their own cursed ends which is most unjust in them But the Lord sundry times hardneth their hearts and whetteth their tongues and strengtheneth their hands against us in such sort to chasten us for some sinfull error neglect or lust in part still remaining in us unsubdued which is most just in him 32. For as I touched in the beginning a mans heart may be right in the main and his wayes well-pleasing unto God in regard of the general bent and intention of them and yet by wrying aside in some one or a few particulars he may so offend the Lord as that he may in his just displeasure for it either raise him up new enemies or else continue the old ones As a loving father that hath entertained a good opinion of his son and is well pleased with his behaviour in the generality of his carriage because he seeth him in most things dutifull and towardly may yet be so far displeased with him for some particular neglects as not only to frown upon him but to give him sharp correction also Sic parvis componere magna Not much otherwise is it in the dealing of our heavenly Father with his children We have an experiment of it in David with whom doubtless God was well pleased for the main course of his life otherwise he had never received that singular testimony from his own mouth that he was secundum cor a man after his own heart yet because he stepped aside and that very foulely in the matter of Vriah The Text saith 2 Sam. 11. that the thing that David had done displeased the Lord and that which followed upon it in the ensuing chapters was the Lord raised up enemies against him for it out of his own house 33. The other fallacy is when we cherish in our selves some sinful errors either in judgement or practice as if they were the good wayes of God the rather for this that we have enemies and meet with opposition as if the enmity of men were an infallible mark of a right way The words of the Text ye see seem rather to incline quite the other way Indeed the very truth is neither the favour or disfavour of men neither their approving nor opposing is any certain mark at all either of a good or of a bad way Our Solomon hath delivered it positively and we ought to believe him Eccl. 9. that no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them It is an error therefore of dangerous consequence to think that the enmity of the wicked is an undoubted mark either of truth or goodness Not only for that it wanteth the warrant of truth to support it which is common to it with all other errors but for two other especial reasons besides The one is because through blinde selfe-love we are apt to dote upon our own opinions more then we ought How confidently do some men boast out their own private fansies and unwarranted singularities as if they were the God! The other reason is because through wretched uncharitableness we are apt to stretch the title of the wicked further then we ought How freely do some men condemne all that think or do otherwise then themselves but especially that any way oppose their courses as if they were the wicked of the world and Persecutors of the godly 34. For the avoiding of both which mischiefs it is needful we should rightly both understand and apply all those places of Scripture which speak of that Opposition which is sometimes made against truth and goodness which opposition the holy Ghost in such like places intended not to deliver as a mark of godliness but rather to propose as an Antidote against worldly fears and discouragements That if in a way which we know upon other and impregnable evidences to be certainly right we meet with opposition we should not be dismaid at it as if some strange thing had befallen us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beloved think it not strange saith S. Peter concerning all such trials as these are as if some strange thing had hapned because it is a thing that at any time may and sometimes doth happen But now to make such opposition a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mark whereby infallibly to judge of our wayes whether they be right or no as some out of the strength of their heat and ignorance have done is to abuse the holy Scriptures to pervert the meaning of the Holy Ghost and to lead men into a maze of uncertainty and error We had all of us need therefore to beware that we doe not like our own wayes so much the better because we have enemies it is much safer for us to suspect lest there may be something in us otherwise then should be for which the Lord suffereth us to have enemies 35. And now the God of grace and peace give us all grace to order our wayes so as may be pleasing in his sight and grant to every one of us First perfect peace with him and in our own consciences and then such a measure of outward peace both publick and private with all our enemies round about us as shall seem good in his sight And let the peace of God which passeth all understanding keep our hearts and mindes in the knowledge and love of him and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord And let the blessing of God Almighty the Father the Son and the holy Ghost be upon us and upon all them that hear his word and keep it at this present time and for evermore Amen Amen AD AULAM. Sermon III. NEWARKE 1633. 1 Pet. 2.17 Honour all men Love the Brotherhood 1. WHen the Apostles preached the Doctrine of Christian liberty a fit opportunity was ministred for Satans instruments to work their feats upon the new-converted Christians false Teachers on the one side and false Accusers on the other For taking advantage from the very name of Liberty the Enemies of their Souls were ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to teach them under that pretence
my self contented with his alotment whatsoever it be and to have a sufficiency within my self though in never so great a deficiency of outward things Not that I speak in respect of want for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content 6. The words contain a Protestation and the reason of it First because his commendation of their Charity to him might be obnoxious to mis-construction as if he had some low covetous end therein to prevent all evil suspicion that way he disavoweth it utterly by protesting the contrary in the former part of the verse Not that I speak in respect of want And then to make that Protestation the more credible he assigneth as the Reason thereof the Contentedness of his minde For I have learned saith he in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content Concerning which Contentedness in the later part of the verse he giveth a touch what a manner of thing it was and withall acquainteth us how he came by it giving us some hint in that of the Nature in this of the Art of true Contentment Which are the two things indeed mainly to be insisted upon from the Text. Yet would not the Protestation be wholy slipt over sith from it also may be deduced sundry profitable Inferences Some of which I shall first minde you of with convenient brevity and then pass on to the main 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not that I speak in respect of want 7. Hence learn first what a base and unworthy thing it is indeed for any man for a Christian man much more most of all for a Church-man to be covetously minded Would our Apostle be so careful to quit himself but of the suspicion if the crime it self were any whit tolerable Nor doth he it here only but upon every needful occasion otherwhere also using the like preventions and protestations To the Ephesians I have coveted no mans silver or gold or aparel To the Corinthians I have not written these things that it should be so done to me I was not neitâ—er will I be burthensome to you for I seek not yours but you To the Thessalonians Neither at any time used we a cloak of covetousness God is witness He calleth God in to be his compurgator which sure he would not do nisi dignus vindice nodus if it did not much concern him to stand clear in the eye of the world in that behalf And he speaketh there of a cloak of covetousness too for who indeed shameth not to wear it outwardly No man will profess himself covetous be he never so wretchedly sordid within but he will for very shame cast as handsome a cloak as he can over it Frugality good Husbandry Providence some cloak or other to hide the filthiness of it from the sight of other But filthy it is still be it cloaked never so honestly Still God abhorreth it as a filthy thing He speaketh well of the covetous whom God abhorreth To it in a more peculiar manner hath the very name of Sordidness been appropriated of old and still is in every mans mouth Our Apostle hath set a brand of Filthiness upon it more then once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calling it filthy lucre Yea so unfit he holdeth it to be found among the Priests that he would not have it if it were possible so much as once named at least not with allowance not without some stigma upon it among the Saints 8. There is an honest care to be had I confess of providing for a mans self and those that depend upon him no less requisite in a Church-man then in every other man if not in some respects even much more and verily he wanteth either wit or grace or both whoever neglecteth it Yea further sith God hath assigned by his own ordinance wages to him that laboureth in his work and if he be a faithful labourer he is well worthy of it he may without injustice not only expect it but even exact it of those that would unconscionably defraud him therein But why may not all this be done and that effectually too without either bearing inwardly or betraying outwardly a greedy and covetous minde Whether then we provide for our own by well husbanding what we have or whether we look for our own by requiring our dues from others still still let our conversation be without covetousness Take heed and beware of Covetousness saith our Saviour doubling his charge that we should double our circumspection Which if we do not and that with more then ordinary heedfulness the love of the world will creep upon us and by little and little get within us and steal away our hearts ere we can think it Take heed and beware of Covetousness It is an evil spirit but withal a subtile and can slily winde it self in at a little hole But having once made entrance and gotten possession it is not so easily outed again Rather it will quickly set open a wide door to seven more and in time to a whole legion of other evil spirits I cannot say worse then it self for there are not many such but certainly bad enough to render the end of that man much worse then the beginning For the love of money is the root of very many and even almost of all evill which while some have coveted after they have erred from the faith made shipwrack of their consciences and entangled themselves in a world of piercing cares and sorrows But thou O man of God flye from these things flye covetousness Observe how careful the Apostle is every where to disclaim it and be thou as careful evermore to avoid it 9. Observe hence secondly what an aptness there may be even in very good men through the remainders of natural corruption to mis-interpret the speeches and actions of their spiritual Fathers as if in much of what they said or did they aimed most at their own secular advantage That these Philippians had charitable hearts if there were no other proof their great bounty both to our Apostle and others so often by him remembred were evidence enough Yet surely if he had not withall known those dregs of Uncharitableness that as the sediments of depraved nature lurke in the hearts of the most charitable men he might have saved the labour that sometimes he is put upon of his own purgation Hard the mean while is the straite men of our cloath are often put unto If we let all go and permit it to mens consciences how they will deal with us resolving to suffer and say nothing besides that we expose our selves both to loss and scorn we also betray Gods and the Churches right and are also unfaithful in the work of our calling in suffering sin upon our neighbour for want of a rebuke But if we look better about us and require what of right belongeth to us then do men set their mouthes wide open against us straight And covetous
is in the first person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am Limited secondly in respect of the time it must be a mans present estate The verb here is of the present tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I AM. But thirdly for the kinde high or low for the Quantity great or small for the Quality convenient or inconvenient and in every other respect altogether indifferent and unlimited So it be a mans own and present estate it mattereth not else what it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indefinitely In whatsoever estate In these three joyntly consisteth the nature of true contentment in any of which who ever faileth is short of St Pauls learning That man only hath learned to be content that can suffice himself with his own estate with the present estate with any estate Of these three therefore in their order And first of the Limitation in respect of the person That a man rest satisfied with his own estate 15. The very thing to my seeming principally intended in the last Commandement of the Decalogue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which forbiddeth expresly the coveting of our neighbours house his wife his cattle and proportionably the coveting of his farm his office his honour his kingdom and generally the coveting of any thing that is anothers Which is as much in effect as to require every man to rest fully satisfied with that portion of outward things which God hath been pleased by fair and justifiable wayes in his good providence to derive upon him without a greedy desire of that which is anothers They who conceit the thing in that Commandement properly forbidden to be the Primi motus those first motions or stirrings of sin which we call Concupiscence arising in the sensual appetite corrupted through Adam's fall as all other Faculties of the soul are before any actual deliberation of the Understanding thereabout or actual consent of the Will thereunto I must confess do not satisfie me For those motions or stirrings supposing them sinful are according to their several objects so far as they can be supposed sinful forbidden in every of the Ten Commandements respectively even as the Acts are to which they refer and from which they differ not so much in kind as in degree I much rather incline to their judgment who think the thing properly and principally there forbidden to be an inordinate desire after that which by right or property is anothers not ours 16. And then these words of the Apostle Heb. 13. may serve for a short but full commentary upon that last Commandement both in the Negative and in the Affirmative part thereof Let your conversation be without Covetousness the Negative and be content with such things as ye have the Affirmative When we endeavour or desire to get from another that which is his by any fraudulent oppressive or other unjust course we are then within the compass of the eight Commandement Thou shalt not steal as is evident from the Analogy of our Saviours expositions upon the other Commandements wherein Murder and Adultery are forbidden Matth. 5. But the last Commandement Thou shalt not covet cometh more within us condemning every inordinate desire of what is not ours albeit we have no actual intention to make it ours by any unlawful either violent or fraudulent means The bare wishing in our hearts that what is our neighbours were Ours his wife house servant beast or his any thing Ours without considering whether he be willing to part with it or no or whether it be meet for him so to do or no is a cursed fruit of corrupt self-self-love a direct breach of the holy Law of God in that last Commandement and flatly opposite to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-sufficiency wherein true contentment consisteth 17. Ahabs sin was this when first his teeth began to water after Naboths vineyard He went indeed afterwards a great deal farther He brake the eighth Commandement Thou shalt not steal and he brake the sixth Commandement also Thou shalt not kill when he took Naboths both life and vineyard from him by a most unjust and cruel oppression All this came on afterwards But his first sin was meerly against the last Commandement in that he could not rest himself satisfied with all his own abundance but his mind was set on Naboths plot and unless he might have that too lying so conveniently for him to lay to his demesnes he could not be at quiet He had not as yet for any thing appeareth in the story any setled purpose any resolved design to wrest it from the owner by violence or to weary him out of it with injust vexations So he might but have it upon any fair termes either by way of Sale he would give him full as much for it as it could be worth of any mans money or by way of exchange he would give him for it a better plot of ground then it was either way should serve his turn Naboth should but speak his own conditions and they should be performed Many a petty Lord of a Hamlet with us would think himself disparaged in a Treaty of Enclosure to descend to such low capitulations with one of his poor neighbours as the great King of Israel then did with one of his subjects and to sin but as modestly as Ahab yet did Here was neither fraud nor violence nor so much as threatning used but the whole carriage outwardly square enough and the proposals not unreasonable All the fault as yet was within The thing that made Ahab even then guilty in the sight of God was the inordinancy of his desire after that vineyard being not his own which inordinancy upon Naboths refusal of the offered conditions he farther bewrayed by many signs the effects of a discontented minde For in he cometh heavy and displeased taketh pet and his bed looketh at no body and out of fullenness forsaketh his meat Had he well learned this piece of the lesson in the Text to have contented himself with his own both his body had been in better temper and his mind at better quiet and his conscience at better peace then now they were 18. Abraham it seemeth had learnt it Who was so far from all base desire of enriching himself with the King of Sodoms goods that he utterly refused them when he might have taken them and held them without any injustice at all He had or might have had a double Title to them They were his Iure belli by the Law of arms and of Nations having won them in the field and in a just warr and they might have been his jure donationis by the Kings free donation Give me the persons take the goods to thy self if he had been minded to accept the offer But Abraham would none contenting himself with what the Lord had blessed him withall he did not desire neither would he take from a thred a to shoo-latchet of any thing that appertained to the King of Sodom
sinner he giveth travail to gather and to heap up The sinner possibly may gather as much together as the godly or more and raise to himself more and greater heaps of worldly treasure but when he hath done he hath but his travel for his pains He hath not wisdom and knowledge to understand the just valuation and the right use of that which he hath gathered together he taketh no joy he taketh no comfort in those heaps he findeth nothing in them but cares and disquietness and vexation of spirit All his dayes are sorrows and his travel grief yea his heart taketh not rest in the night It is not thefore without cause that our Apostle so speaketh of contentment as of the handmaid unto godliness But godliness with contentment is great gain 1 Tim. 6. 4. The truth whereof will yet farther appear unto us if we shall consider of these two grounds First that in all other things there is an unsufficiency and Secondly that there is a sufficiency in the grace of God to work Contentment We cannot conceive any other things besides the Grace of God from which Contentment can be supposed to spring but those three Nature Morality and Outward things All which in the triall will appear to be altogether insufficient to work this effect First Nature as it is now corrupt inclineth our hearts and affections strongly to the world the inordinate love whereof first breedeth and then cherisheth our discontent Whiles between the desire of having and the feare of wanting we continually pierce our selves thorough with a thousand cares and sorrows Our lusts are vast as the sea and restless as the sea and as the sea will not be bounded but by an almighty power The horseleach hath but two daughters but we have I know not how many craving lusts no less importunately clamorous then they Till they be served incessantly crying Give Give but much more unsatisfied then they for they will be filled in time and when they are full they tumble off and ther 's an end But our lusts will never be satisfied like Pharaohs thin kine when they have eaten up all the fat ones they are still as hungry and as whining as they were before We are by nature infinitely covetous we never think our selves rich enough but still wish more and we are by nature infinitely timerous we never think our selves safe enough but still feare want Neither of both which alone much less both together can stand with true Contentment This flower then groweth not in the garden of corrupt Nature which is so rankly over-grown with so many and such pestilent and noysome weeds 5. But perhaps the soyle may be so improved by the culture of Philosophy and the malignity of it so corrected by moral institution as that Contentment may grow and thrive in it No that will not do the deed neither True it is that there are to be found in the writings of heathen Orators Poets and Philosophers many excellent and acute sentences and precepts tending this way and very worthy to be taken notice of by us Christians both to our wonder and shame To our wonder that they would espy so much light as they did at so little a peep-hool but to our shame withall who enjoying the benefit of divine revelation and living in the open sun-shine of the glorious Gospel of truth have profited thereby in so small a proportion beyond them But all their sentences and precepts fall short of the mark they could never reach that solid Contentment they levelled at Sunt verba voces as he said and he said truer then he was aware of for they are but words indeed empty of truth and reality The shadow of contentment they might catch at but when they came to grasp the substance Nubem pro Iunone they ever found themselves deluded As the blinded Sodomites that beset Lots house they fumbled about the door perhaps sometimes stumbled at the threshold but could not for their lives either finde or make themselves a way into the inner rooms The greatest Contentments their speculations could perform unto them were but aegri somnia Not a calm and soft sleep like that which our God giveth his beloved ones but as the slumbring dreams of a sick man very short and those also interrupted with a medley of cross and confused fancies Which possibly may be some small refreshing to them amid their long weary fits but cannot well be called Rest. Now the very true reason of this unsufficiency in whatsoever precepts of Morality unto true Contentment is because the topicks from whence they draw their perswasions are of too flat and low an elevation As being taken from the dignity of man from the baseness of outward things from the mutability of fortune from the shortness and uncertainty of life and such like other considerations as come within their own spear Vseful indeed in their kind but unable to bear such a pile and roof as they would build thereupon But as for the true grounds of sound Contentment which are the perswasions of the special providence of God over his children as of a wise and Loving father whereby he disposeth all things unto them for the best and a lively faith resting upon the rich and precious promises of God revealed in his holy word they were things quite out of their element and such as they were wholly ignorant of And therefore no marvel if they were so far to seek in this high and holy learning 6. But might there not in the third place be shaped at least might there not be imagined a fitness and competency of outward things in such a mediocrity of proportion every way unto a mans hopes and desires as that contentment would arise from it of it self and that the party could not chuse but rest satisfied therewithall Nothing less For first experience sheweth us that contentment ariseth not from the things but from the minde even by this that discontents take both soonest and sorest of the greatest and wealthiest men Which would not be if greatness or wealth were the main things required to breed Contentment Secondly those men that could not frame their hearts to contentment when they had less will be as far from it if ever they shall have more For their desires and the things will still keep at a distance because as the things come on so their desires come on too As in a coach though it hurry away never so fast yet the hinder wheeles will still be behind the former as much as they were before And therefore our Apostle in the next verse maketh it a point of equall skill and of like deep learning to know how to be full as well as how to be hungry and how to abound as well as how to suffer need Thirdly it is impossible that Contentment should arise from the things because contentment supposeth a sufficiency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 supposeth to 〈◊〉
thirsting after the Mammon of unrighteousness whereas the hunger and thirst of a through-Christian should be after Christ and the righteousness of his kingdom is a certain symptome of a mind not truly contented And so are those carking and disquieting cares likewise which our Saviour so much condemneth Mat. 6. The Apostle therefore so speaketh of Covetousness and Contentment as of things that stand in direct opposition to other Let your conversation be without covetousness saith he and be content with such things as ye have Heb. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a studious care to walk faithfully and diligently in the duties of our vocations and a moderate desire of bettering our estates by our providence in a fair way without the injuring of others and are not lawful and expedient in themselves but are also good signs of a contented mind yea and good helps withall to the attainment of a farther degree of Contentment But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a desire that will not be confined within reasonable bounds and a sollicitous anxious care whereby we create to our selves a great deal of vexation to very little purpose with taking thought for the success of our affairs are the rank weeds of an earthly minde and evident signs of the want of true Contentment 17. And so is also thirdly that pinching and penurious humor which because it is an evidence of a heart wretchedly set upon the world we commonly call miserableness and the persons so affected Misers When a man cannot find in his heart to take part of that which God sendeth for his own moderate comfort and for the convenient sustenance of his family and of those that belong to him in some measure of proportion sutably both to his estate and rank Servorum ventres modio castigat iniquo Ipse quoque esuriens For whereas the contented man that which he hath not he wanteth not because he can live without it this wretch on the contrary wanteth even that which he hath because he liveth beside it He that is truly contented with what God hath lent him for his portion can be also well content to use it as becometh him and as his occasions require because that which God intended it for when he lent it him was the use not the bare possession Not that the owner should behold it with his eyes and then neither receive farther good from it nor do farther good with it but that it should be used and employed to the glory of the giver and the comfort of the receiver and others with all thankfulnesse and sobriety and Charity 18. And do we not also fourthly too often and too evidently bewray the discontentedness of our minds by our murmuring and repining at the wayes of Gods providence in the dispensation of these outward things when at any time they fall out cross to our desires or expectations The Israelites of old were much to blame this way and the Lord often plagued them for it insomuch that the Apostle proposeth their punishment as a monitory example for all others to take warning by 1 Cor. 10. Neither murmure ye as some of them murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer In Egypt where they had meat enough they murmured for want of liberty and in the wilderness where they had liberty enough they murmured for want of meat There by reason of the hard bondage they were in under Pharaoh and his cruel officers they would have exchanged their very lives had it been possible for a little Liberty Here when they wanted either bread or water or flesh they would have exchanged their liberty again for the Onions and Garlike and fleshpots of Egypt Like wayward children that are never well full nor fasting but always wrangling so were they And as they were then so have ever since been and still are the greatest part of mankind and all for want of this holy learning Whereas he that is well versed in this Art of Contentation is ever like himself the same full and fasting alwayes quiet and alwayes thankful 19. Ey and charitable too in the dispensation of the temporals God hath bestowed upon him for the comfortable reliefe of the poor distressed members of Jesus Christ which is another good sign of a Contented mind For what should make him sparing to them who feareth no want for himself As the godly man is described in Psal. 112. His heart is fixed and established and his trust is in the Lord and thence it is that he is so cheerfully disposed to disperse abroad and to give to the poor Some boast of their Contentedness as other some do of their Religiousness and both upon much like slender grounds They because they live of their own and do no man wrong these because they frequent the house of God and the holy assemblies Good things they are both none doubteth and necessary appendices respectively of those two great vertues for certainly that man cannot be either truly Contented that doth not the one or truly Religious that neglecteth the other But yet as certain it is that no man hath either more Contentment or more Religion then he hath Charity You then that would be thought either contented or religious now if ever shew the truth of your Contentation and the power of your Religion by the works of Mercy and Compassion The times are hard by the just judgment of God upon a thankless Nation and thousands now are pinched with famine and want who were able in some measure and in their low condition to sustain themselves heretofore By this opportunity which he hath put into your hands the Lord hath put you to the test and to the triall and he now expecteth and so doth the world too that if you have either of those graces in you which you pretend to you should manifest the fruits of them by refreshing the bowels of the needy If now you draw back and do not according to your abilities and the necessities of the times seriously and seasonably bring forth out of your treasures and dispense out of your abundance and that with more then ordinary liberality somewhat for the succour of those that stand in extreme need how dwelleth the love of God in you how dare you talk of Contentedness or make semblance of Religion Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and widdows in their afflictions and to keep ones self unspotted of the World The same will serve as one good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among others whereby to make trial of the truth of our Contentedness also 20. Lastly it is a good signe of Contentedness when a man that hath any while enjoyed Gods blessings with comfort can be content to part with them quietly and with patience when the Lord calleth for them back again The things we have are not properly data
but commodata When God lent us the use of them he had no meaning to forgoe the property too and therefore they are his goods still and he may require them at our hands or take them from us when he will and dispose of them as he pleaseth I will return and take away my corn and my wine in the season thereof and will recover my wooll and my flax Osee 2. What we have we hold of him as our creditor and when he committed these things to our trust they were not made over to us by covenant for any fixed term Whensoever therefore he shall think good to call in his debts it is our part to return them with patience shall I say ey and with thankfulness too that he hath suffered us to enjoy them so long but without the least grudging or repining as too often we do that we may not hold them longer Non contristor quòd recepisti ago gratias quòd dedisti Thus did Iob when all was taken from him he blessed the name of the Lord still and to his wife tempting him to impatience gave a sharp but withall a most reasonable and religious answer Thou speakest like a foolish woman Shall we receive good things at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil also As who say shall we make earnest suite to him when we would borrow and be offended with him when we are called on to pay again We account him and so he is an ill and unthankful debter from whom the lender cannot ask his own but he shall be like to lose a friend by it Add yet how impatiently oftentimes do we take it at our Lords hand when he requireth from us but some small part of that which he hath so freely and so long lent us 21. Try thy self then Brother by these and the like signes and accordingly judge what progress thou hast made in this so high and useful a part of Christian learning 1. If thou scornest to gain by any unlawfull or unworthy means 2. If thy desires and cares for the things of this life be regular and moderate 3. If thou canst finde in thy heart to take thy portion and to bestow thereof for thine own comfort 4. And to dispense though but the superfluities for the charitable relief of thy poor neighbours 5. If thou canst want what thou desirest without murmuring and lose what thou possessest without impatience then mayest thou with some confidence say with our Apostle in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content But if any one of these particular signes be wholy wanting in thee thou art then but a truant in this learning and it will concern thee to set so much the harder to it and to apply thy self more seriously and diligently to this study hereafter then hitherto thou hast done 22. Wherein for the better guiding of those that are desirous of this learning either to make entrance thereinto if they be yet altogether to learn which may be the case of some of us or to proceed farther therein if they be already entred as the best-skilled of us all had need to do for so long as we are in the flesh and live in the world the lusts both of flesh and world will mingle with our best graces and hinder them from growing to a fulness of perfection I shall crave leave towards the close of this discourse to commend to the consideration and practise of all whether novices or proficients in this Art of Contentation some usefull Rules that may serve as so many helps for their better attaining to some reasonable abilities therein The general means for the obtaining of this as of every other particular grace we all know are fervent Prayer and the sincere love of God and goodness Which because they are general we will not now particularly insist upon it shall suffice without farther opening barely to have mentioned them 23. But for the more special means the first thing to be done is to labour for a true and lively Faith For Faith is the very basis the foundation whereupon our hearts and all our hearts-content must rest the whole frame of our contentment rising higher or lower weaker or stronger in proportion to that foundation And this Faith as to our present purpose hath a double Object as before was touched to wit the Goodness of God and the Truth of God His Goodness in the dispensation of his special providence for the present and his Truth in the performance of his temporal promises for the future First then labour to have thy heart throughly perswaded of the goodness of God towards thee That he is thy Father and that whether he frown upon thee or correct thee or howsoever otherwise he seem to deal with thee he still beareth a Fatherly affection towards thee That what he giveth thee he giveth in love because he seeth it best for thee to have it and what he denieth thee he denieth in love because he seeth it best for thee to want it A sick man in the extremity of his distemper desireth some of those that are about him and sit at his bed-side as they love him to give him a draught of cold water to allay his thirst but cannot obtain it from his dearest wife that lieth in his bosome nor from his nearest friend that loveth him as his own soul. They consider that if they should satisfie his desire they should destroy his life they will therefore rather urge him and even compel him to take what the Doctor hath prescribed how unpleasant and distastful soever it may seem unto him And then if pain and the impotency of his desire will but permit him the use of his reason he yieldeth to their perswasions for then he considereth that all this is done out of their love to him and for his good both when he is denied what he most desireth and when he is pressed to take what he vehemently abhorreth Perswade thy self in like sort of all the Lords dealings with thee If at any time he do not answer thee in the desire of thy heart conclude there is either some unworthiness in thy person or some inordinacy in thy desire or some unfitness or unseasonableness in the thing desired something or other not right on thy part but be sure not to impute it to any defect of love in him 24. And as thou art stedfastly to beliéve his goodness and love in ordering all things in such sort as he doth for the present so oughtest thou with like stedfastness to rest upon his truth and faithfulness for the making good of all those gracious promises that he hath made in his word concerning thy temporal provision and preservation for the future Only understand those promises rightly with their due conditions and limitations and in that sense wherein he intended them when he made them and then never doubt the performance
For say in good sooth art thou able to charge him with any breach of promise hitherto Hast thou ever found that he hath dealt unfaithfully with thee or didst thou ever hear that he hath dealt unfaithfully with any other There is no want of Power in him that he should not be as big as his word there it no want of love in him that he should not be as good as his word He is not as man that he should repent or as the son of man that he should call back his word There is no lightness or inconstancy in him that there should he Yea and Nay in his promises but they are all Yea and Amen Thy heart can tell thee thou hast often broken vow and promise with him and dealt unfaithfully in his covenant but do not offer him that indignity in addition to all thy other injuries as to measure him by thy self to judg of his dealings by thine and to think him altogether such a one as thy self so false so fickle so uncertain as thou art Far be all such thoughts from every one of us Though we deny him yet he abideth faithful and will not cannot deny himself We are fleeting and mutable off and on to day not the same we were yesterday and to morrow perhaps like neither of the former dayes yet Ego Deus non mutor he continueth yesterday to day and the same for ever Roll thy self then upon his providence and repose thy self with assured confidence upon his promises and Contentment will follow Upon this base the Apostle hath bottomed Contentation Heb. 13. be content with such things as ye have for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee 25. The next thing we are to look after in this business is Humilty and Poverty of spirit It is our pride most that undoeth us much of our discontent springeth from it We think highly of our selves thence our envy fretting and pining away when we see others who we think deserve not much better then we do to have yet much more then we have wealth honour power ease reputation any thing Pride and Beggery sort ill together even in our own judgments so hateful a thing is a proud beggar in the opinion of the world that proverbs have grown from it We think he better deserveth the stocks or the whip then an almes that beggeth at our doors and yet taketh scornfully what is given him if it be not of the best in the house Can we hate this in others towards our selves and yet be so blinded with pride and self-self-love as not to discern the same hateful disposition in our selves towards our good God Extreamly beggerly we are Annon mendicus qui panem petis Are we not very beggars that came naked into the world and must go naked out of it that brought nothing along with us at our coming and it is certain we shall carry nothing away with us at our departure Are we not arrant beggars that must beg and that daily for our daily bread And yet are we also extremely Proud and take the almes that God thinketh fit to bestow upon us in great snuff if it be not every way to our liking Alas what could we look for if God should give us but what we deserve Did we but well consider our own unworthiness it would enforce an acknowledgment from us like that of Iacob That we are far less then the least of his mercies c. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crums under his table as our dogs do under ours who far better deserve it at our hands then we do at his Our hands did not make them nor fashion them yet they love us and follow us and guard our houses and do us pleasures and services many other wayes But we although we are his creatures and the workmanship of his hands yet do nothing as of our selves but hate him and dishonour him and rebell against him and by most unworthy provocations daily and minutely tempt his patience And what good thing then can we deserve at his hands rather what evil thing do we not deserve if he should render to us according as we deal with him Why should we then be displeased with any of his dispensations Having deserved nothing we may very well hold our selves content with any thing 26. A Third help unto Contentation is to set a just valuation upon the things we have We commonly have our eye upon those things we desire and set so great a price upon them that the over-valuing of what we have in chase and expectation maketh us as much under-value what we have in present possession An infirmity to which the best of the faithful the father of the faithful not excepted are subject It was the speech of no worse a man then Abraham O Lord saith he what wilt thou give me seeing I goe childless As if he had said All this great encrease of cattle and abundance of treasure which thou hast given me avail me nothing so long as I have never a childe to leave it to It differeth not much you see from the speech of discontented Haman All this availeth me nothing so long as I see Mordecay c. save that Abrahams speech proceeded from the weakness of his Faith at that time and under that temptation and Hamans from habitual infidelity and a heart totally carnall It is the admirable goodness of a gracious God that he accepteth the faith of his poor servants be it never so small and passeth by the defects thereof be they never so great Only it should be our care not to flatter our selves so far as to cherish those infirmities or allow our selves therein but rather to strive against them with our utmost strength that we may overcome the temptation And that is best done by casting our eye as well upon what we have and could not well be without as upon what we fain would have but might want The things the Lord hath already lent thee consider how usefull they are to thee how beneficial how comfortable how ill thou couldst spare them how much worse thou shouldst be then now thou art without them how many men in the world that want what thou enjoyest would be glad with all their hearts to exchange for it that which thou so much desirest And let these considerations prevaile with thee both to be thankful for what God hath been pleased already to give thee and to be content to want what it is his pleasure yet to withhold from thee 27. Another help for the same purpose fourthly is to compare our selves and our estates rather with those that are below us then with those that are above us We love comparisons but too well unless we could make better use of them We run over all our neighbours in our thoughts and when we have so done we make our comparisons so untowardly that
to justifie themselves will not stick to repine even at God himself and his judgments as if he were cruel and they unrighteous like the slothful servant in the parable that did his master no service at all and yet as lazy as he was could blame his master for being an hard man Cain when he had slain his righteous brother and God had laid a judgment upon him for it complained of the burden of it as if the Lord had dealt hardly with him in laying more upon him then he was able to bear never considering the weight of the sin which God in justice could not bear Solomon noteth it as a fault common among men when by their own sinful folly they have pulled misery upon themselves then to murmur against God and complain of his providence The folly of a man perverteth his wayes and his heart fretteth against the Lord Prov. 19. As the Israelites in their passage through the wilderness were ever and anon murmuring and complaining at somewhat or other either against God or which cometh much to one against Moses and Aaron and that upon every occasion and for every trifle so do we Every small disgrace injury affront or losse that happeneth to us from the frowardness of our betters the unkindness of our neighbours the undutifulness of our children the unfaithfulness of our servants the unsuccesfulness of our attempts or by any other means whatsoever any sorry thing will serve to put us quite out of patience as Ionas took pet at the withering of the gourd And as he was ready to justifie his impatience even to God himself Doest thou well to be angry Ionas Ey marry do I I do well to be angry even to the death so are we ready in all our murmurings against the Lords corrections to flatter our selves as if we did not complain without cause especially where we are able to charge those men that trouble us with unrighteous dealing 11. This is I confess a strong temptation to flesh and bloud and many of Gods holy servants have had much ado to overcome it whilest they looked a little too much outward But yet we have by the help of God a very present remedy there-against if blinde self-love will but suffer us to be so wise as to make use of it and that is no more but this to turn our eye inward and to examine our selves not how well we have dealt with other men who now requite us so ill but how we our selves have requited God who hath dealt so graciously and bountifully with us If we thus look back into our selves and sins we shall soon perceive that God is just even in those things wherein men are unjust and that we have most righteously deserved at his hands to suffer all those things which yet we have no ways deserved at their hands by whom we suffer It will well become us therefore whatsoever judgments God shall please at any time to lay upon us or to threaten us withall either publick or private either by his own immediate hand or by such instruments as he shall employ without all murmurings or disputings to submit to his good will and pleasure and to accept the punishment of our iniquitie as the phrase is Levit. 26. by humbling our selves and confessing that the Lord is righteous as Rehoboam and the Princes of Iudah did 2 Chron. 12. The sence of our own wickednesse in rebelling and the acknowledgment of Gods justice in punishing which are the very first acts of true humiliation and the first steps unto true repentance we shall find by the mercy of God to be of great efficacy not only for the averting of Gods judgments after they are come but also if used timely enough and throughly enough for the preventing thereof before they be come For if we would judg our selves we should not be judged of the Lord 1 Cor. 11. But because we neglect it and yet it is a thing that must be done or we are undone God in great love and mercy towards us setteth in for our good and doth it himself rather then it should be left undone and we perish even as it there followeth When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world And this is that faithfulnesse of God which David acknowledgeth in the later Conclusion whereunto I now pass 12. And that thou of very faithfulnesse hast caused me to be troubled In which words we have these three points First David was troubled next God caused him to be so troubled last and God did so out of very faithfulness No great newes when we hear of David to hear of troubles withall Lord remember David and all his troubles Psal. 132. Consider him which way you will in his condition natural spiritual or civil that is either as a man or as a godly man or as a King and he had his portion of troubles in every of those conditions First troubles he must have as a man Haec est conditio nascendi Every mothers childe that cometh into the world falleth a childs-part of those troubles the world affordeth Man that is born of a woman those few dayes that he hath to live he shall be sure to have them full of trouble howsoever In mundo pressuram saith our Saviour In the world ye shall have tribulation Never think it can be otherwise so long as you live here below in the vale of misery where at every turn you shall meet with nothing but very vanity and vexation of spirit 13. Then he was a Godly man and his troubles were somewhat the more for that too For all that will live godly must suffer persecution and however it is with other men certainly many are the troubles of the righteous It is the common lot of the true children of God because they have many outflyings wherewith their holy Father is not well-pleased to come under the scourge oftner then the bastards do If they do amisse and amisse they do they must smart for it either here or hereafter Now God meaneth them no condemnation hereafter and therefore he giveth them the more chastening here 14. But was not David a King and would not that exempt him from troubles He was so indeed but I ween his troubles were neither the fewer nor the lesser for that There are sundry passages in this Psalm that induce me to believe with great probability that David made it while he lived a yong man in the Court of Saul long before his coming to the Crown But yet he was even then unctus in Regem anointed and designed for the Kingdom and he met even then with many troubles the more for that very respect And after he came to enjoy the Crown if God had not been the joy and crown of his heart he should have had little joy of it so full of trouble and
some few respects Take them super totam materiam and they are starke fools for all that Very Naturals if they have no Grace The Limitation here in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 terminus diminuens and must be understood accordingly The Children of this world are said to be wiser then the Children of light But how wiser Not in genere simply and absolutely and in every respect wiser but in genere suo wiser in some respect wiser in their kinde of wisdome such as it is in worldly things and for worldly ends a very mean kinde of wisdom in comparison For such kinde of limiting and diminuent terms are for the most part destructive of that whereunto they are annexed and contain in them as we use to say oppositum in apposito He that saith a dead man or a painted Lion by saying more saith less then if he had said but a man or a lion only without those additions it is all one upon the point as if he said no man no lion For a dead man is not a man neither is a painted lion a lion So that our Saviour here pronouncing of the Children of this world that they are wiser but thus limited wiser in their generation implieth that otherwise and save in that respect only they are not wiser 33. The truth is simply and absolutely considered the child of light if he be truly and really such and not titular and by a naked profession only whatsoever he is taken for is clearly the wiser man And he that is no more then worldly or carnally wise is in very deed and in Gods estimation no better then a very fool Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe Where is the disputer of this World hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world saith the Apostle That interrogative form of speech is more emphatical then the bare Categoricall had been it signifieth as if it were so clear a truth that no man could reasonably deny it What Solomon saith in one place of the covetous rich man and in another place of the sluggard that he is wise in his own conceit is true also of every vitious person in every other kinde Their wisdom is a wisdom but in conceit not in truth and that but in their own conceit neither and of some few others perhaps that have their judgments corrupted with the same lusts wherewith theirs also are Chrysippus non dicet idem Solomon sure had not that conceipt of their wisdom and Solomon knew what belonged to wisdom as well as another man who putteth the fool upon the sinner I need not tell you indeed I cannot tell you how oft in his writings 34. His judgment then is clear in the point though it be a Paradox to the most and therefore would have a little farther proof for it is not enough barely to affirm paradoxes but we must prove them too First then true saving wisdom is not to be learned but from the word of God A lege tuâ intellexi By thy commandements have I gotten understanding Psal. 119. it is that word and that alone that is able to make us wise unto salvation How then can they be truly wise who regard not that word but cast it behinde their backs and despise it They have rejected the word of the Lord and what wisdom is in them saith Ieremy Again The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome and a good understanding have they that do thereafter Psal. 111. How then can we allow them to passe for wise men and good understanding men that have no fear of God before their eyes that have no minde nor heart to do thereafter that will not be learned nor understand but are resolvedly bent to walk on still in darkness and wilfully shut their eyes that they may not see the light 35. Since every man is desirous to have some reputation of wisdom and accounteth it the greatest scorn and reproach in the world to be called or made a fool it would be very well worth the labour but that it would require as it well deserveth a great deal more labour and time then we dare now take to illustrate and enlarge this point which though it seem a very paradoxe as was now said to the most is yet a most certain and demonstrable truth That godliness is the best wisdom and that there is no fool to the sinner I shall but barely give you some of the heads of proof and referr the enlargement to each mans private meditation He that first is all for the present and never considereth what mischiefs or inconveniences will follow thereupon afterwards that secondly when both are permitted to his choise hath not the wit to prefer that which is eminently better but chuseth that which is extremely worse that thirdly proposeth to himself base and unworthy ends that fourthly for the attaining even of those poor ends maketh choise of such means as are neither proper not probable thereunto that fifthly goeth on in bold enterprises with great confidence of success upon very slender grounds of assurance and that lastly where his own wit will not serve him refuseth to be advised by those that are wiser then himself what he wanteth in wit making it upon in will no wise man I think can take a person of this character for any other then a fool And every worldly or ungodly man is all this and more and every godly man the contrary Let not the worldly-wise man therefore glory in his wisdom that it turn not to his greater shame when his folly shall be discovered to all the world Let no man deceive himself saith S. Paul but if any man among you seem to be wise in this world let him become a fool that he may be wise That is let him lay aside all vain conceit of his own wisdom and learn to account that seeming wisdom of the world to be as indeed it is no better then folly that so he may finde that true wisdom which is of God The God of light and of wisdom so enlighten our understandings with the saving knowledge of his truth and so enflame our hearts with a holy love and fear of his Name that we may be wise unto salvation and so assist us with the grace of his holy spirit that the light of our good works and holy conversation may so shine forth both before God and men in the mean time that in the end by his mercy who is the Father of lights we may be made partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in the light of everlasting life and glory and that for the merits sake of Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord. To whom c. AD AULAM. Sermon XVI Newport in the Isle of Wight Decemb. Heb. 12.3 Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself that ye be not wearied and faint in your mindes 1. THere is scarce
and faintness of minde spoken of in the Text. 13. We now see the Malady both in the Nature and in the Cause both what it is and whence it groweth We are in the next place to consider the Part affected That the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 discovereth the Minde or the Soul That ye be not wearied and faint in your mindes or souls And this occasioneth another doubt how it should be possible that worldly tribulations which cannot reach beyond the outer-man in his possessions in his liberty in his good name in his bodily health or life should have such an operation upon his nobler part the soul as to cause a faintness there Our Apostle speaketh of resisting unto blood in the next verse as the highest suffering that can befal a man in this world And our Saviour telleth his friends Luke 12. that when their enemies have killed their bodies and from suffering so much his very best friends it seemeth are not exempted they have then done their worst they can proceed no farther they have no power at all over their souls 14. It is most true they have not And happy it is for us and one singular comfort to us that they have not Yet our own reason and every dayes experience can teach us that outward bodily afflictions and tribulations do by consequent and by way of sympathy and consent and by reason of union though not immediately and directly work even upon the soul also As we see the fancy quick and roaving when the blood is enflamed with choler the memory and apprehension dull in a Lethargy and other notable changes and effects in the faculties of the soul very easily discernable upon any sudden change or distemper in the body David often confesseth that the troubles he met withal went sometimes to the very heart and soul of him The sorrows of my heart are enlarged In the multitude of the troubles or sorrows that I have in my heart My heart is disquieted within me Why art thou so vexed O my soul and why art thou so disquieted within me c. Take but that one in Psal. 143. The enemy hath persecuted my soul c. Therefore is my spirit vexed within me and my heart within me is desolate 15. For the Soul then or Minde to be affected with such things as happen to the body is natural and such affections if not vitiated with excess or other inordinacy blameless and without sin But experience sheweth us farther too often God knoweth that persecutions afflictions and such other sad casualties as befall the body nay the very shadows thereof the bare fears of such things and apprehensions of their approach yea even many times when it is causeless may produce worse effects in the soul and be the causes of such vitious weariness and faintness of minde as the Apostle here forewarneth the Hebrews to beware of Not to speak of the Lapsi Traditores others that we read of in former times and of whom there is such frequent mention in the ancient Councels and in the writings of the Fathers of the first ages and the Histories of the Church How many have we seen even in our times who having seemed to stand fast in the profession of Truth and in the performance of the offices of Vertue and duties of Piety Allegiance and Iustice before tryal have yet when they have been hard put to it ey and sometimes not very hard neither falling away starting aside like a broken bow and by flinching at the last discovered themselves to have been but very weak Christians at the best if not rather very deep hypocrites 16. It will sufficiently answer the doubt to tell you That persecutions and all occurrences from without are not the chief causes nor indeed in true propriety of speech any causes at all but the occasions onely of the souls fainting under them Temptations they are I grant yet are they but temptations and it is not the temptation but the consenting to the temptation that induceth guilt If at any time any temptation either on the one hand or the other prevail against us S. Iames teacheth us where to lay the fault Not upon God by any means for God tempteth no man No nor upon the Devil neither let me adde that too it were a sin to bely the Devil in this for though he be a tempter and that a busie one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tempter yet that is the worst he can do he can but tempt us he cannot compel us When he hath plyed us with all his utmost strength and tried us with all the engines and artifices he can devise the will hath its natural liberty still and it is at our choise whether we will yield or no. But every man when he is tempted saith he tempted cum effectu that is his meaning so tempted as to be overcome by the temptation is tempted of his own lust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drawen away and entised Drawen away by injuries and affrightments from doing good or entised by delights and allurements to do evil It is with temptations on the left hand for such are those of which we now speak even as it is with those on the right yeeld not and good enough My son saith Solomen if sinners entise thee consent not Prov. 1. It may be said also proportionably and by the same reason My son if sinners affright thee comply not The common saying if in any other holdeth most true in the case of Temptations No man taketh harme but from himself 17. And verily in the particular we are now upon of fainting under the cross it is nothing but our own fears and the falseness of a mis-giving heart that betraieth us to the Tempter and undoeth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as he said It is not any reality in the things themselves so much that troubleth the minde as our over-deep apprehensions of them All passions of the minde if immoderate are perturbations and may bring a snare but none more or sooner then fear The fear of man bringeth a snare saith Solomon And our Saviour Let not your hearts be troubled neither fear as if fear were the greatest troubler of the heart And truly so it is No passion not Love no nor yet Anger it self though great obstructers of Reason both being so irrational as Fear is It maketh us many times do things quite otherwise then our own reason telleth us we should do It is an excellent description that a wise man hath given of it Wisdom 17. Fear saith he is nothing else but the betraying of the succours which reason offereth He that letteth go his courage forfeiteth his reason withall and what good can you reasonably expect from an unreasonable man 18. Seest thou then a man faint-hearted Suspect him I had almost said Conclude him false-hearted too It is certainly a very hard thing if at all possible for a
and prayers of the poor thirdly the blessing of God upon us and ours fourthly the continuance of Gods mercies unto and the reversing of Gods judgements from the Land 34. In the opening of which reasons I have purposely pressed the duty all along somewhat the more largely that I might not trouble you with any farther application at the close and therefore I hope it will not be expected I presume you would rather expect if we had time for it that I should procâ—ed to examine the usual excuses and pretensions that are made in this case when the duty hath been neglected which Solomon hath comprehended in those few words in the 12 verse Behold we knew it not and withal referred them over for the trial of what validity they are to the judgement of every mans own heart as the deputed Iudge under God but because that may be faulty and partial in subordination to a higher tribunal even that of God himself from whose sentence there lieth no farther appeal This I aimed at in the choise of the Text as well as the pressing of the duty But having enlarged my self already upon the former point beyond my first intention I may not proceed any farther at this time nor will it be very needful I should if what hath been already delivered be well laid to heart Which God of his mercy vouchsafe c. AD MAGISTRATUM· The Second Sermon At the Assises at Lincolne in the year 1632. at the request of Sr. WILLIAM THOROLD Knight then High-Sheriffe of that County II. Ser. on Prov. 24.10 12. 10. If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawen unto death and those that are ready to be slain 12. If thou sayest Behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soule doth not he know it and shall not he render to every man according to his works 1. WE want Charity but abound with self-Self-love Our defect in that appeareth by our backwardness to perform our duties to our brethren and our excess in this by our readiness to frame excuses for our selves Solomon intending in that particular whereat the Text aimeth to meet with us in both these corruptions frameth his speech in such sort as may serve best both to set on the Duty and to take off the Excuses And so the words consist of two main parts the supposall of a Duty which all men ought to performe in the 10. and 11. Verses and the removall of those Excuses which most men pretend for non performance in the 12. Verse Our Duty it is to stand by our distressed brethren in the day of their adversity and to do our best endeavour by all lawfull wayes to proteâ—â— them from oppressions and wrongs and to rescue them out of the hands of those that go about either by might or cunning to take from them either their lives or livelihoods If 〈◊〉 faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn to death and those that are ready to be slain From which words I have heretofore upon occasion of the like meeting as this is spoken of the Duty in this place shewing the necessity and enforcing the performance of it from sundry important considerations both in respect of God and of Our selves and of our pâ—or Brethren and of the Thing it self in the blessed effects thereof which I shall not now trouble my self or you to repeat 2. Taking that therefore now for granted which was then proved to wit that it is our bounden duty to do as hath been said but our great sin if it be neglected I shall at this time by Gods assistance and with your patience proceed as the Text leadeth me to consider of the Excuses in the remaining words vers 12. If thou sayest Behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it and shall not he reward every man according to his works For the better understanding and more fruitful applying of which words we are to enquire of two things first what the Excuses are which Solomon here pointeth at and then of what value and sufficiency they are 3. Many Excuses men have to put by this and every other duty whereof some are apparently frivolous and carry their confutation with them Solomon striketh at the fairest whereof three the most principal and the most usual of all he seemeth to have comprehended in these few words 1. Behold we knew it not As thus Either first we knew it not that is we never heard of their matters they never made their grievances known to us Or secondly we knew it not that is we had no clear evidence to give us full assurance that their cause was right and good Or thirdly we knew it not that is though to our apprehension they had wrong done them yet as the case stood with them we saw not by which wayes we could possibly relieve them we knew not how to help it 4. These are the main Excuses which of what value they are is our next Enquiry Wherein Solomons manner of rejecting them will be our best guide Who neither absolutely condemneth them because they may be sometimes just nor yet promiscuously alloweth of them because they are many times pretended without cause but referreth them over for their more particular and due triall to a double judicature That is to say to the judgment of every mans heart and conscience first as a deputy Iudge under God and if that faile in giving sentence as being subject to so many errours and so much partiality like enough it may then to the judgment of God himself as the supreme unerring and unpartial Iudge from whose sentence there lieth no appeal Which judgment of God is in the Text amplified by three several degrees or as it were steps of his proceeding therein grounded upon so many divine attributes or properties and each fitted to other in so many several Propositions Yet those not delivered categorically and positively but to adde the greater strength and Emphasis to them put into the form of Negative Interrogations or Questions Doth not he consider doth not he know and shall not he render That is most certainly and without all peradventure he doth consider and he doth know and he will render 5. The first step of Gods judicial proceeding is for Inquisition and that grounded upon his Wisdom 1. Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it As if he had said The Lord is a God of admirable Wisdom by whom are weighed not only the actions but also the Spirits of men and their very hearts pondered neither is there any thing that may escape his Enquiry Trust not therefore to vain Excuses for certainly thy heart shall be throughly sifted and thy pretensions narrowly looked into when he taketh the
excuses which he pretendeth in his own defence Whether they have justae excusationis instar and will bear a good and sufficient plea or be but rather shifts devised to serve a present turn more for outward shew then real satisfaction within Which is that Iudicium cordis the judgement of the heart whereunto Solomon as I told you referreth over this pretension Behold we knew it not to receive its first and most immediate trial Doth not he that pondreth the heart consider it What the tongue pleadeth is not a thing so considerable with God as how the heart standeth affected 29. For the approving his heart therefore in this business before him that knoweth it perfectly and is able to ponder it exactly let every Magistrate and other Officer of justice consider in the fear of God First whether he hath been willing so far as his leisure amidst the throng of other his weighty imployments would permit to receive the petitions and with patience to hear the complaints of those poor men that have fled to him as to a Sanctuary for refuge and succour Iob professeth himself to have been a father to the poor and he is a very unnatural father that stoppeth his ears against the cryes of his children or so terrifieth them with his angry countenance that they dare not speak to him Solomon in the twenty ninth of this book distinguisheth a righteous man from a wicked by this that the righteous considereth the cause of the poor but the wicked regardeth not to know it He that rejecteth their complaints or beateth them off with bug-words and terrour in his looks either out of the hardness of his heart or the love of ease or for whatsoever other respect when he might have leisure to give them audience if he were so minded and to take notice of their grievances cannot justly excuse himself by pleading Behold we knew it not But I must hasten Let him consider Secondly whether he have kept his ear and his affection equally free to both parties without suffering himself to be possessed with prejudices against or to be carried away with favourable inclinations towards the one side more then the other He is too little a Iudge that is too much either a friend or an enemy Thirdly whether he hath used all requisite diligence patience and wisdom in the examination of those causes that have been brought before him for the better finding out of the truth as Iob searched out the cause which he knew not without shuffling over business in post-haste not caring which way causes go so he can but dispatch them out of the way quickly and rid his hands of them Fourthly whether he hath indeed endeavoured to his power to repress or discountenance those that do ill offices in any kinde tending to the perverting of justice as namely Those that lay traps for honest men to fetch them into trouble without desert Those that sow discord among neighbours and stir up suites for petty trespasses and trifles of no value Those that abett contentious persons by opening their mouths in their behalf in evil causes Those that devise new shifts to elude good Laws Lastly whether he hath gone on stoutly in a righteous way to break the jaw-bones of the Lions in their mouths and to pluck the spoil from between their teeth by delivering them that were ready to be slain or destinated to utter undoing by their powerful oppressours without fearing the faces of men or fainting in the day of their brothers adversity He that hath done all this in a good mediocrity so far as his understanding and power would serve though he have not been able to remedy all the evils and to doe all the good he desired may yet say with a good conscience and with comfort Behold we knew it not and his excuse will be taken in the judgment both of his own heart and of God who knoweth his heart whatsoever other men think of him or howsoever they censure him But if he have failed in all or any the premises though he may blear the eyes of men with colourable pretences he cannot so secure his own conscience much less escape the judgment of God before whose eyes causeless excuses are of no avail Which is the last of the three points proposed whereunto I now proceed 30. The judgment of a mans own heart is of great regard in utramque partem then the censures of all the men in the world besides Better the world should condemn us if our own hearts acquit us then that our hearts should condemn us and all the world acquit us This is our rejoycing the testimony of our conscience saith S. Paul The approbation of men may give some accessioâ—â— to the rejoycing the other being first supposed but the main of it lieth in the testimony of the Conscience This is the highest tribunal under heaven but not absolutely the highest there is one in heaven above it St. Paul who thought it safe for him to appeal hither from the unjust censures of men yet durst not think it safe for him to rest here but appealeth from it to a higher Court and to the judgment of the great God 1 Cor. 4. It was a very small thing with him to be judged of mans judgment So long as he knew nothing by himself so long as his own heart condemned him not he passed not much for the censures of men Yet durst not justifie himself upon the acquital of his own heart He knew there was much blindness and deceitfulness in the heart of every sinful man and it were no wisdom to trust to that that might fail He would up therefore to a higher and an unerring Iudge that neither would deceive nor could be deceived and that was the Lord. I judge not mine own self saith he but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Even so here Solomon remitteth us over for the triall of our pretended excuses from our mouthes to our hearts and from our hearts unto God If thou sayest Behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the hearts consider it c. As if he had said No matter for thy words look to thy heart If thou pretendest one thing without and thy conscience tell thee another thing within thou art 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cast and condemned by the sentence of thine own heart But if thy heart condemne thee not the more indeed is thy comfort and the stronger thy hope yet be not too confident upon it There is an abyssus a depth in thy heart which thou canst not fathome with all the line thou hast Thou hast not a just ballance wherein to weigh and to ponder thy own heart That must be left therefore wholy to the Lord who alone can do it perfectly and to whose judgment alone every man shall finally stand or fall and if he deserve to fall all his vain excuses shall not be able to hold him up 31. Which of