in the yeare 2168. and after the flood as some thinke 512. and as others 562. for there is 60. yeares difference in chronologie because of the doubt about Abrahams birth Now the manner of his birth was this as the Scriptures relate Gen. 25.25 He came out first in colour red and all over rough as an hairy garment for which cause his name was called Esau which signe made as one that was stronger than ordinary children be and all over covered with haire In him the Lord shewed the freedome of his election as the Apostle notes Rom. 9. For Before the children were borne or had done good or evill it was said The elder shall serve the younger God chose not him but Iacob though they were borne both of the same Parents and at the same burden Now concerning his life we must consider 1. That which was good therein 2. That which was evill 3. His prosperity 4. His crosses and miseries For the first some things he did that for matter were good and commendable as even a bad man may have some good things found in him The first good thing was that he did shew good respect unto Isaac his Father For he was glad to gratifie him in his diet bringing home the Venison that he caught of which was made dainty meat which the old man loved to feed upon and when he came to him to present his Venison according to his Fathers appointment that he might receive the blessing from his Father he spake reverently unto him For when he brought the meate ready prepared for his eating he said thus to him Let my Father arise and eat of his sons Venison that thy soule may blesse mee Chap. 27.31 and after ver 34. Blesse me even me also ô my Father and ver 38. Hast thou but one blessing my Father blesse me even me also ô my Father Though his Father had given the blessing to Iacob his brother yet he doth not rage and grow into passionate expostulations but with gentle and reverent termes and with teares and with prayers seekes to get some blessing from him This proveth evidently that he carried a reverent esteeme of his Father in his heart and honoured him duly The same love and respect he shewed to Isaac after for when his wrath was kindled against his brother Iacob and that he minded to revenge himselfe by killing Iacob Yet he resolved to forbeare till Isaac was dead that he might not procure too much griefe and sorrow to him in his old age and therefore it is recorded that he said The dayes of mourning for my Father are at hand then will I kill my brother Iacob ver 41. He would not have deferred the murder of his brother for Isaacs sake till after his death but that he bare some respect and good will unto his Father And hee shewed the same respect unto him after Chap. 28.6 For when hee perceived his Father had blessed Iacob and sent him to fetch a wife from Padan Aram and not to take any Canaanitish woman and that the daughters of Canaan which he had married displeased his Father he went to his Vncle Ishmael and tooke his daughter Mahalath to wife seeking as well as his wit could serve to please his Father in that latter match although indeed he went not rightly to work in that marriage neither Some care you see he shewed to give his Father content though he had not wisdome enough to order himselfe rightly for that end Thus this Esau though he wanted grace and feared not God yet he bare love and reverence in some degree as a carnall man could unto his Father Isaac who loved him dearely and so he requited his love againe with such a kinde of love as might be found in an unsanctified person Now all you sons and daughters that have Parents living with you or have had come and lay your selves in the ballance with Esau and consider if you have so much as equalled him in this kinde of imperfect dutifulnesse towards your Parents He out of a kinde of naturall inclination or out of hope of being still kindly used and blessed of his Father shewed much respect unto him divers wayes Hath nature have carnall ends prevailed so much with you to encline your hearts to your parents as they prevailed with Esau If so yet boast not of this thinke not much the better of your selves these kinde of shadows of vertues cannot prove you to be godly children nor afford you sound comfort because themselves be not sound and perfect You have no great reason to please your selves because you are as good as Esau an unsanctified man and one of whom we can give little hope but that he was a casta-way I say therefore satisfie not your selves be not good in your own eyes because of this painted and counterfeit goodnesse But if otherwise it be and that it is evident you come far short of Esau and have not declared so much regard of your parents as he hath done then how bad must you account your selves that are much more sinfull even than an Esau might have been And it is cleare that divers children be far worse than this bad son of Isaac for they shew no reverence no submission to their aged Parents but apparently sleight them in word and deed grumble at them chafe against them carry themselves cuttedly and currishly towards them if at any time they be crossed by them will not be held from following their own evill desires as Esau was from killing his Brother by a desire not to grieve them but wilfully run on in their wicked courses even though they see and know that their wicked carriage doth greatly afflict and torment their Parents but purposely some do things to torment them O sin hath a greater sway and dominion in such childrens hearts than it had in Esaus and they are far more wicked than he was Yea when they see their Parents displeased with their wayes yet they have not so much desire to give them content as Esau had nor do not so much as labour in any manner though never so poorely to give them any satisfaction at all Woe woe unto such children what can he expect from God that is a viler son than Esau was Let such shame themselves by his example and now receive reproofe with meekness and greatly repent of their undutifulnesse if ever they purpose to attain pardon And now let all children that desire to enjoy in themselves the comfort of being the children and chosen of God strive to outstrip Esau in filiall obedience and duty Let them for conscience sake to God put on a largor measure of love and a greater reverence to their Parents labouring to please them in all things in the Lord out of conscience to submit themselves unto them honor them because God hath required it at their hands and to labour to forbeare all sin as in an holy regard to God so in part also out of a
punished it severely in Iacob though he did it at his Mothers instigation and that to keep his Father from giving away the blessing How much more must God punish in you that perhaps have done it oftner and that without any such motive and to far worse purposes Come as you have sinned with Iacob repent with him for though the Scripture doth not rehearse his repentance in particular yet because he is commended for faith wee are sure that he could not but repent for so knowne a sin and so I beseech you doe you all that are guilty and you also shall be pardoned And now doe not embolden your selves to sin any of you by the abuse of his example for you see into how great misery this fault cast him but rather learne by him to shun that which cost him so deare Iacob had not a former example to terrifie him as you have his Iacob had not the Scripture as you have to terrifie him Let our hearts resolve to hate a sin and strive against it the more because in others we may see our aptnesse to it And let us beware that we passe not over-hasty censures upon them that have so offended yea though they have herein neglected the checks of their owne consciences We must not judge any man as an hypocrite for any fault that is common to him with Iacob Further Iacob offended in regard of his mother with an excesse of obedience for he was ruled by her against Gods Commandement she bade him dissemble and lie and by her faire words and perswasions he was drawne to commit that great sin of lying It is an easie matter for Inferiours to obey their Governours carnally not in the Lord not with reservation of their duty to God but a little too unlimitedly which is a fault that must needs be very offensive to God But take heed of this sin I beseech you it is a preferring of man before God and an act that doth exceeding highly dishonour God now strive to worke in your hearts such an high esteeme of God that you may be resolute not to sin against him for the sake of any man though never so much your Superiour though never so much beloved But if you have done otherwise be not disheartned but returne unto God with confessions and humble petitions renewing your former purposes and you shall be pardoned For the Lord is at this time as abundant in mercy to all that call upon him as formerly hee was Neither let any man suffer himselfe to entertaine too hard a conceit against another whom he shall see to have been either over-intreated or by threatenings over-borne to doe some evill thing at a Superiours motion but consider thine owne weaknesse and remember that even Iacob did so too and that when he was now past a childe for he was at least sixty yeares when he did this so that no part of the blame can fall on the weaknesse of youth or childhood But in respect of his children some faults he was guilty of First he did excessively love Ioseph and indiscreetly manifest his love unto him so that his brethren discerning it were enviously disposed to him and procured him much misery This is a weaknesse of Parents not alone to overlove some childe above the rest but also to shew it too apparently to the breeding of envy in the hearts of the rest and sometimes pride and self-conceit in him that findes himselfe over-loved and so doth mischiefe both wayes Be instructed you Parents to moderate your affections to your children and to each childe and to moderate the demonstrations of your affections let them not be too vehement too frequent too fondling I know it is in vaine to give this diriction to Parents for they will not see out of the blindnesse that love worketh what is too vehement love and what be too vehement expressions of it and rules to discern it can hardly be given For those of not sparing them in any sin and the like doe discover rather the unsanctity of love in other respects than the excesse It is alone a fleshly not a spirituall love when it will suffer them to sin but it may be excessive though it be not extreamly carnall Pray to God to discover it to you and to reforme it in you It is better to love too much than too little But it is better to shew love too little than to shew it too much especially if it be with partiality Againe Iacob was somewhat tyed towards Benjamin and would not suffer him to goe out of his sight for feare lest evill should betide him by the way and rather endured to be almost starved than to hazzard him in a journey This was a little too immoderate love and feare too but he had lost one son in a journey and he is to bee somewhat more pittied in this feare because of that former losse yet at last he suffered himselfe to be over-perswaded by Iudah Indeed at first he was over-peremptory My son shall not goe downe Take heed of these faults take heed of being so fond and over-fearefull of your children so that you cannot suffer them to take necessary journies lest they may miscarry and be not over-resolute in any thing this I will not doe that I will not doe God may have purposed that that shall be done which thou resolvest shall not be not over-setled in a purpose about things of this nature for against sinfull deeds a man must be resolute and it is better to faile of keeping ones resolution than not to have it and that also strong Further Iacob was a little too wayward with his sonnes when he blamed them for telling the Ruler of Aegypt that he had yet another son we must beware of growing pettish because we be crossed in any thing so as to accuse the faultlesse but in such case rather looke up to Gods hand and condemne not those that are guiltlesse saying it was long of you and why did you so when the thing followed alone accidentally and as we call it by meere chance so that no foresight could discerne or prevent what would follow But Iacob over-lamented Ioseph too and so becomes an example of excessivenesse of griefe which likely will attend upon excessive love One affection put out of tune brings another into the same distemper O take heed of suffering this passion of over-grieving at a childes death though sudden and violent or any other crosse to prevaile over you so that you shall even set your selves to grieve and refuse to take heart to your selves and use your owne reason to comfort your selves The three last things concerning Iacob are his benefits crosses and death Now we must speake of the great benefits which God gave to Iacob which are of two sorts First Spirituall Secondly Temporall The spirituall benefits are of two sorts 1. The chiefe and principall 2. Those that followed hereupon The chiefe spirituall
and Sonne concurre in this fault A common fault it is religion is made of the by it serveth some other Mistresse It is a stalking horse for policy on both sides Wickedly doe Iacobs sonnes seeme to stand on religion for their secret ends and it was not well done of them to take a religion up for meere private ends but such is the custome of the men of this world they can embrace any ordinance for their profit and any religion O looke that you bee intire in imbracing Gods Ordinance and Gods Truth take heed that sinister ends doe not marre and destroy your seeming religiousnesse and make that you shall seeme to God not the better men but the worse Hypocrites Againe something was ill done of him we see no sharpe correction nor reproofe of his sonne for his wrong done to Dinah and that provokes the maides friends O how indulgent are Parents to their childrens crimes scarce with a word will they checke them at most but with a word for that which deserveth many blowes yea the stroake of death This indulgence of theirs often makes children bold to sinne as in Adoniah and Absalom is seene and so doth make them at length correctors of their Parents that should have corrected them Let Parents take heed to themselves that they shew not themselves to love God lesse then their children by loving their children so much as to put out or smother the hatred of sinne and let Parents at last learne to make naturall affection give place to justice You have his faults his vertues are 1. To his Sonne he is willing to satisfie him in point of marriage so farre as was fit and so should all wise Parents be If the affections of their children carry them not to matches too inconvenient they should gratifie them for feare of those mischiefes which often come by crossing them and that because nothing is more likely to procure the welfare of children then when they be matched to whom they love Unlesse their folly be such as to make too too foolish choises let Parents learne to shew themselves milde and gentle here if in any other thing Further he deales well with the Shechemites his Subjects whom he seeketh not to force but to perswade to accept circumcision In things of this nature a good Prince must not compell but allure Subjects and let them see reason rather then feele violence but his reason is taken from the profit of the people That is the wisest argument which will most prevaile with him to whom it is used and so it sped accordingly Further he dealt well with Iacob too for in all plainenesse he seekes his daughter for his sonne and is willing to yeeld to any equall conditions Plaine dealing is commendable in an Heathen how much should it be commended to us Christians Now see his prosperity He had a sonne indifferent good that at least sought his consent and shewed himselfe orderly though at the first he had beene rude It is a comfort to have a sonne not altogether rude and misgoverned that if he over-shoote himselfe in some things yet will keepe his order and reforme himselfe Be you such children O ye sonnes and daughters and be thankefull ye Parents that have such children He had also good Subjects that would be perswaded by him and such Subjects let us learne to be so that we use prudence as well as subjection But his crosse was great he was over-reacht by crafty heads and himselfe and all his Family and City butchered by bloudy hands O how could you brooke such a crosse and why will not you stand prepared to loose life goods children friends and all seeing you perceive in the Shechemites how soone all these may be lost even then when you thinke your selves secure and why doe you not thanke God for preserving you from such both craft and outrage hitherto Now I proceed to speake of some others The Adullamite Hiram is a better friend then a man indeed a good friend but a bad man His friendship appeares to be morally good in its kinde because first it was lasting secondly it was serviceable thirdly it was secret Lasting for it continued to Iudah so long till his third sonne was marrigeable and began before his marriage You cannot conceive it under some twenty yeeres standing though you should thinke that Iudah married about sixteene or seventeene yeares of age Friendship is like wine the elder the better the longer it lasteth the more it is to be praised Learne to be durable friends let not a yeare or two see you changed and estranged but be like Christ in that respect whom you love love to the end unlesse they doe even too too unfriendlily cast you off and breake the lawes of friendship And those that have beene fickle friends let them be ashamed for it is too too evident that they were false seeking themselves alone and not their friends Againe his friendship was serviceable stooping to somewhat a base office to helpe Iudah out with his whoredome as secretly and undiscernedly as might be Indeed a true friend must be serviceable to his friend not alone with his cost and labour but sometimes also with a little blemish not by helping him to sinne nor lying or so forth but by doing what may honestly and lawfully be done for the secret carrying of his faults and saving him from blame even carnall friends are forward enough this way take heed that you denie not good offices to your inward acquaintance and take no lesse heed that you gratifie them not with bad For here you see the secrecy of this Adullamite no body knew by him of that fault which he himselfe knew onely by Iudah Nothing becomes a friend better then secrecy of his friends faults and he that hath once played the blab in this kinde hath no wrong if hee be never trusted after Nay verily this may seeme a most just cause of dividing friendship therefore so farre as may be without sinne against God and against the Countrey and Superiours every friend must affect this trustinesse Surely had not Iudah found him faithfull in this kinde hee would never have ingaged himselfe so farre So was Hiram a good friend but yet he was not a good man for we finde not that he did rebuke Iudah for his fault at all which he must have done if he had beene as good a man as a friend And doe you learne to add that to other good fruits of friendship even to reprehend them for their faults though you doe not divulge them that so friendship may not be a mutuall infecting of one another but a mutuall healing So much for the Adullamite Iudahs friend now for Er and Onan Iudahs sonnes The first of them was so wicked a man that God in his justice would not let him live to staine that good family O let him be a a warning to all you children that you
work by them it is evident for which God will one day reckon with them severely I beseech you learne of Ioseph a better lesson and let those which are under you live well by your lands or payments as your selves gaine by their labours He doth not love God that doth not love man and he doth not love man that in these kind of bargainings and dealings hath not respect to anothers well living as to his owne inriching Wealth gotten by grinding the poore shall never prove good meale God will mixe it with gravell to them that eate it He that eates and drinkes the blood of men as they doe that are hard exactors in this kind sucking such as are under them to great penury and unreasonable hardnesse shall one day find that God accounts of such none otherwise then of ravenous beasts that live by tearing and devouring flesh Let not this admontion taken from Iosephs example be sounded in your eares to no purpose but be you charitable and conscionable in this case as the pen of Moses noteth that hee was And so much of Iosephs carryage to strangers Now see how he behaved himselfe to his owne kindred 1. His brethren and that before he made himselfe knowne to them and after Before he carried himselfe strangely with a kind of admixture of anger and love that they might be driven to wonder and so be drawne to repentance His harsh dealings are these 1. He takes them for spies and will not intertaine better thoughts of them though they gave him a satisfying reason viz. that they were the sonnes of one man and it was never heard of that one man would venture tenne sonnes at once upon such a dangerous businesse as that of going to spy out a nation yet because they said they were twelve brethren and one was not and the youngest was with their Father hee continued to charge this crime upon them making exceptions against them as if they had contradicted themselves in their speech Secondly he will be satisfied by nothing else but by sending one of them to fetch their younger brother the rest remaining prisoners till he came Little did Ioseph thinke how burdensome a thing it would be with Iacob to part with Benjamin but this hee doth alone to have occasion of keeping them longer in hold that they might have leasure enough to repent and therefore Thirdly he kept them in prison three dayes all together This was harsh dealing at their first comming downe yet here he shewes some kindnesse betwixt viz. in that on the third day hee calls them forth and takes pity of them propounding to them an easie condition viz. That one of them should remaine bound and the rest should returne with corne for their families and bring their younger brother thither now he shewes love also in going away weeping when he heard them talking of their sinne and confessing that for that cause this crosse came on them But it was some matter of hardnesse that he tooke Simeon and bound him because he was the eldest next to Ruben and was present when he was sold but did not labour to save him from selling as Reuben saved him from killing wherefore he forbare to take and bind Reuben Another act of kindnesse to them was that hee commanded their sackes to be filled with corne and the mony also to be restored unto them which he did of purpose to put them in a fit of wondring and amazement that still they might be furthered in the worke of repentance which he perceived was begunne in them Now at their second comming up hee shewes nothing to them almost but kindnesse saving in one thing whereby hee casts them seemingly into a great danger that hee might thoroughly humble them and try them before he revealed himselfe unto them First he invites them all to dinner with him 2. He entertaineth their present and talketh lovingly with them of their Father asking how he doth and salutes Benjamin towards whom hee was so affected that he hasts to weepe being hardly able to forbeare till he could step into a corner to doe it there Lastly hee carries himselfe most cheerefully with them at dinner placing them in the order of their age and sending them messes from his owne table and sending five times as much to Benjamin as to any of them All which hee seemeth to have done to have brought them to some knowledge of himselfe if it had beene possible Another thing is by hiding his cup in Benjamins sacke he causeth them to be brought backe againe as it were guilty of theft and then seemes to be much displeased at such ill dealing and would hold Benjamin in prison till Iudahs Oration melted him and then with much secrecy and great affectionatenesse he shewes himselfe to them plainely and weepes over them and comforts their astonished spirits Now many particulars of Iosephs carriage are somwhat doubtfull extraordinary and we cannot tell what to say of them viz. his charging of them to be spies when he knew they were not and his picking quarrels with their answer and imprisoning them and then causing his cup to be hid in one of their sacks and so bringing them into the guilt of theft causelessely But all this was done in seeming only to bring them to thorough repentance for their sin which when hee perceived by Iudahs speech and all their carriage that it was effected then he shewes himselfe to them speedily The thing we must imitate is this to use all care of bringing those that are neere to us to repentance for their faults by intermixing seasonable sharpnes and kindnesse as Ioseph did to his brethren Againe it may seeme to be lawfull by the example of Ioseph in way of probation and tryall to counterfeit discontent and to lay grievous things to the charge of men and presse them as if they were guilty though one know the contrary I still say if it be done by way of tryall so that at last it be made manifest that it was meerely in tryall and that which would seeme a lye if it were affirmed expressely and not with reference to such an end being said to such an end is not a lye because it is indeed not an affirming but a seeming to affirme for a time For in such a case a mans words doe not differ from his mind and meaning but alone he conceales his meaning for a time So Salomon seemed angry and commanded to divide the child betwixt the two wrangling harlots that came before him our Saviour made as if he would have gone further when the Disciples had him in with them at Emmaus So if a Judge seeing great probability and in a manner certainty of the guiltinesse of an offendour shall affirme something to him to draw a confession from him as for example that some companion of his hath confest it and that it is in vaine for him any longer to deny or that he was seene at such
causing us never to see the second death though we must not be freed from the first for that was the speciall priviledge of Enoch and Eliah and was never granted to any other that we read Labour therfore to hold fast in your soules a firme perswasion of Gods love to you in Christ and withall a firme purpose of pleasing him in all things Let sincere truth of obedience be joyned with a firme perswasion of Gods love and the firme perswasion of Gods love be joyned with a sincere indeavour of obedience then death shall never come amisse then you are alwaies ready for it So David faith I have hoped in thy salvation and done thy Commandements So then if we would be ready for God we must doe two things Turne to him and walke with him To turne is to begin to walke with God to walke with God is to continue to turne to him O ye that have not begun to turne doe it to day turne now call to mind your former evill waies to judge your selves for them to lament them to seeke of God in Christ forgivenesse of them and power against them and labour to rest your selves upon his goodnesse in Christ for pardon and helpe and so have you made your peace then keepe your peace by a constant indeavour to please God in holinesse of life and a constant renewing of your assured perswasion of his love O happy man he that can so fit himselfe for his latter end Brethren let the mention of the deaths of so many aged persons make you carefull to prepare for death you that be young doe it because death takes away young men as well as old and you that be old doe it because you may meete with it very suddenly and must needs meete with it afore it be long Againe you see these long-liv'd men here wrestling with the corruptions of the world and their owne some a longer time and some a shorter but all in comparison of our selves a great while The longest lived man for number of dayes was Methuselah who lived nine hundred sixty nine yeares but for perfection of life Adam who lived a perfect man nine hundred and thirty yeares The shortest lived of all the Patriarkes was Noahs Father Methuselahs Sonne Lamech for he lived seven hundred seventy and seven yeares and died the yeere before the floud a little before his Father Methuselah who lived till that very yeare that the floud came and drowned all and was taken away that he might not see the floud Now why did God lengthen out the daies of the Patriarkes I answer chiefely to maintaine the knowledge of God and true religion in the world that by the long life of one godly man the truth which then was not put in writing but by word of mouth delivered from man to man might be kept more pure and undefiled Adam lived till Methuselah was two hundred forty and three yeares old Methuselah lived till Sem the Sonne of Noah was one hundred yeares lacking two so that Sem talked with him that had talked with Adam who could acquaint him with all things concerning the creatures the fall and the promised seed out of his certaine knowledge and experience he had beene made of nothing he had seene all perfections and Methuselah could tell it to Sem and Sem lived to see Isaac borne and a Father So that Isaac might speake mouth to mouth with him that had spoken with him that had spoken with Adam the first man that ever was Was not this a notable confirmation of his Faith THE FIFTH EXAMPLE OF The Old World WEe have propounded particular Examples unto you hitherto as also the Scriptures have done Now following them wee must set before your eyes the Examples of an whole multitude even of an whole World full of men and women that gave themselves to worke wickednesse before the Lord. It is called in Scripture the old World and the world of ungodly In the space of a 1656. yeares the generation of mankind was growne to that height and exorbitancie of wickednesse that the patience of God could no longer endure them Now concerning this Old World we will shew you three things 1. Their sinnes 2. The goodnesse of God to them notwithstanding their sinnes 3. The severe punishment that fell upon them at the last and so will make use of all First for their sinnes the Holy Ghost sets them out in generall and more particularly In generall the sinne of man is said to be great and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was evill and onely evill and that continually Secondly it is said that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth So their naughtinesse was remarkeable in these two respects it was exceeding hainous and grievous in that they committed great and fowle sinnes in great abundance with great wilfullnesse and gave themselves to add sinne to sinne doing nothing but plodding and contriving wickednesse and then all men gave themselves over to the same bad course you could not finde a man that made scarce a shew of goodnesse out of Noahs house When all consent together to sell over themselves to worke iniquity and grow past shame or feare running into most grievous and notorious sinnes with greedinesse and wilfullnesse this is very offensive to Almighty God and will certainely provoke his wrath to bring upon them some fearefull and heavie punishments Divers reasons may be thought of that caused this exceeding great growth of sinne in those times 1. The long life of men for let an unsanctified man continue long and he will grow more and more sinfull the longer he continues Sinne by frequent exercise growes more and more violent and head-strong So living a great space of time they grew above measure naught 2. They had strong and able bodies together with health and ability to enjoy the things of this life 3. They had great peace in regard they all lived under a paternall governement the agedst in the family still being acknowledged the governour of the family and they had all one language and so no great cause of controversie and one religion too it is like seeing the Patriarkes lived so long that they were immediately taught of God save that they degenerated to prophanenesse and the most became of no religion and so did not warre with the contrary little partie unlesse it were with jests scoffes and contumelies Long life great strength great peace begat great wickednesse But more particularly the Lord takes notice here of their 1. Unlawfull and carnall marriages 2. Of their violence and oppression And our Saviour telleth of their great worldlinesse that did sell over themselves to temporall dealings and cared nothing for better things and S. Peter tells of their obstinacy in sinning and their not beleeving nor regarding they were disobedient whilest the long suffering of God waited in the daies of Noah Yea our Saviour
some Texts of Scripture that shall give you sure arguments of comfort from which if you can conclude your selves Gods people that you are so indeed and not alone in shew your comforts will hold water as it were in the day of death and judgement Ierem 7 5. the Prophet bids them thoroughly amend their waies and their doings and not trust in lying words Loe thorough and universall reformation of heart and life that that is the onely sufficient proofe of being Gods children and such as shall inherit his Kingdome all that can be alledged without this is no better then lying words which will deceive So Iohn did after teach the Jewes Mat. 3.9 Say not wee have Abraham for our Father that Allegation will prove fruitlesse if it goe alone but what must they doe more Bring forth fruits meete for repentance that is frame your selves to a thorough reformation of your hearts and lives and so S. Iohn teacheth Hee that doth good is of God hee that doth evill hath not seene God whosoever he be that makes so good use of those helpes which God hath for that end provided in his Church as to attaine true repentance true amendment of life that is a constant and upright care and endeavour to cast away all transgressions and make him a new heart and a new spirit resolving in nothing to sinne but in all things to walke according to the direction of Gods Word and where he faileth still continuing to lament and confesse it before God judging himselfe and craving pardon and helpe in the name of Christ that man shall be saved that man is a solid Christian that man is not a Cham let him rejoyce in God as a true member of the Church but whatsoever else may be either had or done without this bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance is no more then may be alledged by some Cham or other Therefore againe I beseech you satisfie not your selves with other things but apply your selves to this amendment of heart and life with all speed and with all diligence Let Cham be your warning trust not in lying words And further now that you see in the Arke among the eight persons one Hypocrite who did afterwards evidently discover his hypocrisie learne to know that there will be such in the Church to the worlds end as were also in the family of Abraham Isaac Iacob David Hezekiah and other good men even tares among the wheate and goates among the sheepe and unfruitfull branches in the vine that you may learne as to feare your selves so especially to satisfie your owne hearts and not to be offended by the like accidents in your owne times If a man that hath long lived in an orderly course of life and gotten himselfe the name of a good man and enjoyed many benefits in the Church shall afterwards fall quite away from goodnesse and manifest himselfe to have beene no better then a Cham let not this trouble you nor dismay you neither take you occasion from their wickednesse to condemne either goodnesse it selfe or good men as to say that they be all dissemblers there is never a better in the pack but improve their fall to the making of your selves more watchfull over your selves and prayer-full for your selves and still love and honour Gods Church though some that professe themselves to be lively members of it doe manifest their guile by their utter falling away at the last We have done with the goodnesse of God to Cham in suffering him to live in the Arke Now follow his sins The first sinne which we gather from that which succeeded is this that he was an Hypocrite one that contented himselfe with a bare outward shew of goodnesse and did not labour for the power of it to humble him to discover his secret faults to him and to heale his soule by bringing the Image of God even the divine nature to him which was also the sinne of Caine before and after too of Esau and of Iudas and Achitophel and many others Take you heed of this Brethren take you heed of this Beware that you be not Hypocrites satisfied with some externall shew of religiousnesse joyned with civill conversation of life freedome from grosse sinnes and orderly living to the world-ward but seeke after the soule-spirit of godlinesse which consists in finding out and reforming the corruption of your natures and the secret disorders of your inward man He that so prayeth and heareth that these ordinances make him see and be humbled in the sight of the filthie quagmire of sinne that is within him by which he is carried from God to himselfe and to sinne and the world for his owne sake and labours to have his inside more and more cleansed and reformed and drawne up to God and the things of God this man is a true Christian But he that satisfies himselfe in an outward forme of holy duties and of civill honest conversation not diving to the depth of his heart this man may proove and if he mend not will proove a guilefull Cham at last But now his next sinne is and Ham the Father of Canaan saw the nakednesse of his Father If he had suddenly and occasionally come into the place where Noah lay uncovered and his eyes before he was aware had lighted on that object and he had presently turned away his countenance from it with griefe for his old Parents fault and out of tender compassion that seeing had beene no sinne But the meaning is he gave himselfe to stand and gaze upon his Fathers unbeseeming carriage and unseemely parts so as to delight in it and thereby to stirre up and nourish in himselfe a contempt and slight esteeme of his Father Hee did not see it with pitie and remorse and make the best of it as of a matter of infirmity into which the good old man fell unawares but he beheld it with gladnesse laughter derision jesting sporting at his Fathers nakednesse and misdemeanour This is a great fault to behold the sinnes and offences chiefely of Parents and other superiours and most of all of godly and holy men Fathers of the Church and of Religion as well as of our persons I say to behold their faults with an over-open and a greedy eye with scorne and scoffes and contempt of them and of piety and of goodnesse in and thorough them For this certainely comes from nothing else but a secret dislike and aversnesse from goodnesse it selfe against which we are glad to pick a quarrell and are willing to have somewhat to object against it that wee may hinder our selves from imbracing it and from a gladnesse also to have somewhat to alleadge in excuse of our owne naughtinesse and for the imboldening of our selves to persist in it still without feare It is nothing but hypocrisie I meane a being contented with a false counterfeit goodnesse yea willingnesse to favour and allow our selves in our owne sinnes that maketh us with joy and delight in
our selves and scorne and contempt against them to gaze upon the faults and ill carriages of the godly men with whom wee live which is also so much the more aggravated if the reverence which we owe them in regard of their places and love in regard of their neerenesse to our selves have not beene able to withdraw us from such injuriousnesse This is one sinne of Ham cursed Ham the Father of Canaan come and examine yourselves if none of you have acted Hams part against your Parents against the Magistrate against the Minister against any Christian or neighbour Have you not beheld the faults of any such with content and gladnesse in it have you not beene willing to stand thinking of that fault and to make your hearts thereby bold to despise and sleight them to laugh at them and to censure them If this have beene to a person neere and eminent the fault receives great aggravation by that circumstance but if it have beene done to any Christian man though not of such worth or neerenesse or to any man at all it was a wickednesse to be abhorred shewing a most uncharitable disposition for charity rejoyceth not in iniquity that is is not glad to see another commit sinne and withall an heart that is willing to hide its owne sinnes and make them seeme little or nothing and make it selfe bold to commit them still by beholding other like sinnes in other men chiefely such as are bound in duty to be and in reason should be expected to be better then ones selfe hee alwaies sees the faults of others to some mischievous intention and with some evill affection that lookes upon them with an open and earnest eye as taking king some content in this that such and such also be bad as well as himselfe Now if you have runne into such a fault call it to minde and repent of it and know that how great soever the crime was your crime was as great or greater in so beholding Hams thus beholding his Fathers nakednesse was worse then his Fathers discovering himselfe And now I require you to make Ham your warning doe not as he did but as your owne consciences tell you that he should have done Aske thy selfe if thou beest a reasonable man of any judgement what should this sonne have done in such a case should he not have turned away his eyes from looking on such a spectacle should he not have sighed and mourned and said alas alas how hath this befalne my poore aged and godly Father O how was he overtaken with wine that was never wont to exceed himselfe in foode or the like Should he not have prayed God to forgive him and have told himselfe in this wise ah doe thou learne O Cham how weake a thing a man is and how apt to fall into sinne that thy selfe maist learne to be more watchfull and so have cast some garment over the old man to have saved him from further disgrace if any other person might have had occasion to approach him Sure you cannot but yeeld that Chams duty had beene to have carried himselfe thus respectively and pitifully towards his Father doe you as duty bound him to doe not as leudnesse and naughtinesse prompted him to doe Mend his faults and imitate them not be reformers and not followers of what was amisse in him Commiserate the sinnes and falls of other men chiefely Parents Magistrates Ministers Aged men and men of former godly conversation and of vertuous and religious carriage in other things I say commiserate them pray for them lament their weakenesse and their slips take notice of your owne dangers and so wake your selves by their offences But whosoever will contemplate such dolefull sights with gladnesse and insultations saying Aha aha as David speaketh of his Adversaries that man will collect boldnesse to sinne and impenitencie in sinne and a sleighting of righteousnesse and righteous men from such offences and so will stumble and fall and destroy himselfe against those blockes as they may be termed But I come to another fault of Chams He contented not himselfe to see but must also blab abroad what he had seene and tells it not alone to one but to his two Brethren that were without and did not see it He left his Father still uncovered and gets him out of doores to finde Sem and Iaphet and so soone as he met with them reports no doubt laughingly and fleeringly what he had seene like enough adding also words to this purpose to draw them to the like and bid them goe in and they should see such a thing as they would little have thought ever to have seene But let us satisfie our selves to take the fault as it is set downe He told the fault and told it to his two Brethren that were without and needed not to have beene acquainted with their Fathers nakednesse if hee wretched whisperer could have commanded himselfe silence So you have in him that foule sinne of whispering of another mans faults behind his backe aggravated with the consideration of the persons against whom he sinned his Father and towards whom his Bretheren both of them and where even without It is a sinne and wickednesse to scatter abroad the faults of others and to divulge those matters of disgrace against them which a man might easily keepe close if he were master of his mouth and is not bound by any duty to reveale and especially to blab them to such as else would not know them and such as might be most grieved and hurt by hearing them This J say is a sinne it proceedeth either from a twatling laxative humour causing that a man must vent all he knowes and be talking of many things or else from an uncharitable disposition to the party whose name one tenders not his person one loveth not It is hurtfull to the speaker feeding his hypocrisie making him ready to commit the same or the like sinnes and hurtfull to the hearer to infect him or to grieve him and to him of whom report is made to reproach and discredit him and withdraw the heart of the hearers from him It is much aggravated when the thing reported is false and uncertaine taken up upon meere hearesay and the person of whom J speake either my Parent Brother Friend or Superior my Magistrate Master or of note in the Church as a Minister or eminent in goodnesse as this just Noah This was the fault of Cham. I call upon your consciences to find out your sinnes in the like kind if not degree have you not spoken of the faults of your governours or of others to others meerely to disgrace or else meerely to hold up talke when other matter failed Bretheren do not count this a small offence a talebearer a whisperer a revealer of secrets is no small offender Hee doth not walke according to the plaine rule of our Christian Religion doe as you would be done to he doth not bridle his tongue he doth not
effect the world did call that Citie Babel or confusion so instead of great honour and a great name they gate shame and confusion and were thence dispersed from whence they expected safety from dispersion Thus God catcheth the wicked in their owne devices brings mischiefe on them from that wherein they trusted for safety and shame from that from which they expected glory Yea see here that God hath strange and unwonted punishments to lay upon sinners for who would have ever had a dreame of such a thing as this viz. to have them made unable to speake their mother languages and all of a sodaine to speake gibrish one to another So powerfull is God over man that he can take from him his tongue his wit his soule all things in a moment It was an heavie chastisement making way to much ignorance and barbarisme and to much warre and bloudshed and to a great estrangement among mankinde and to great toile and labour for the getting of all learning and causing much errour and mistaking in all Arts and Sciences chiefely in Religion so that next to our casting out of Paradise and to the floud it deserveth the name of the heaviest punishment that the world hath felt yea in respect of the succession of men it was worse then the floud that onely drowned the men who lived in the present time this hath drowned in ignorance and errour all succeeding times Let us feare the Lord our God who onely doth wonderfull things and can tell how to plague his enemies with heavie scourges We have now finished the Examples of these bad men Looke to the good Sem and Iaphet and Sems posterity to Abram Of Sem note his good deed his reward and his death for his good deed it was common with him and Iaphet they went backward and so covered their Fathers nakednesse that they might not see it partly out of modesty and partly out of filiall reverence and respect which they bare unto him Thus thus should all good children doe even refuse to see their Parents nakednesse or any thing that might withdraw a due regard and feare of them any sinnes or weakenesses of theirs notwithstanding yea all men should be so truly loving one towards another as to use the mantle and veile of love to cover a multitude of sinnes so as to goe backward as it were and not see them Wee should what in us lies and so farre as duty will suffer conceale the faults of all men further then the necessity of healing them and of preventing the mischiefe that may else follow of them will permit us Every man would be so dealt withall himselfe Who doth not praise the vertuous carriage of these two Brethren Imitate it I beseech you chiefely towards Parents Magistrates Ministers keepe secret if you can their secret faults and hide their shame from breaking forth Nothing is more fit to be covered then sinne It is like a carkasse which doth least hurt when it is buried under ground so farre therefore as duty will suffer you bury bury it under ground with it and let it lie hid under the garment of silence See it not if you can choose say nothing of it more then you must needs Now consider the blessing with which their goodnesse was rewarded Sem had God for his God and the dominion of Canaan given him that is the true Religion was to continue in his posterity the Messiah to come of him and his seede to have the possession of the land of Canaan and Iaphet at last was to be brought to the participation of the same Religion with him by the perswasion of the Gospell So it is a great mercy to have the true Religion continued in a mans posterity and to be brought from errour unto the truth Whether Iaphets selfe were a godly man it is not certaine but in doubtfull things it is good to incline to the best side and to take things in the best part therefore we will hope that he was so and with Sem did inherit the blessing in his person as well as after his seed was admitted unto it And let us now blesse God that hath performed this Prophesie for it is likely that we of these Countries are of Iaphets posterity and now we see the Lord of Heaven be blessed that God hath perswaded us to accept and imbrace Christ and so to dwell indeed in the tents of Sem. But now for the seede of Sem they were these Arphaxad who lived 438 yeares almost 200 fewer then his Father Sem as Sem did 350 fewer then Noah Selah who lived 433 yeares the halfe alone of the lives of men before the floud for at the floud God did shorten mens lives by halfe to keepe them from so great a height of wickednesse as in that long lived age they came unto and to shorten the toile of the godly upon earth Heber lived 464 the longest of all but Sem after the floud it is likely he was a very worthy man from him the name Hebrewes came to his posterity and endured for many yeares after Peleg lived 239 yeares about the building of the Tower of Babel so you see then God shortened mans life one halfe seeing them againe to grow so exorbitantly wicked Reu lived also 239 yeares just as long as his Father which is not found in any other that I remember Serug lived 230 yeares Nahor lived 148 yeares it may seeme that he was the first of the Patriarkes that fell to Idolatry for Laban sware by the gods of Nahor therefore his life is almost by halfe as short as any of his predecessors Then Terah lived 205 yeares he fell to Idolatry but repented afterwards and went with his sonne Abraham towards the land of Canaan dying in the way and buried his eldest sonne before himselfe which had not befalne any Patriarke before that we reade of * ⎠* THE EIGHT EXAMPLE OF ABRAHAM IT is agreed upon by all that from Adam to the floud there passed 1656 yeares inclusively I meane from the beginning of Adams Creation Noah was the tenth from Adam inclusively Abraham the tenth from Noah exclusively I meane not reckoning Noah as one How many yeares passed betwixt the floud and Abrahams birth it is uncertaine because the relation of Abrahams birth Gen. 11.26 is set downe in such words as have ministred occasion of difference to the Reader Terah begat Abraham Nahar and Haran but at what age he begat each of them it is not manifested Some thinke that Abraham was the first-borne begotten at his fathers 70 yeare some thinke that hee was the youngest begotten at his 130 yeere so there is difference of yeeres in the account by this meanes 60 yeares but I rather incline to them that thinke Abraham was the eldest sonne at his Fathers 70 yeare for surely if Abrahams Father had beene able to become a Father at 130 yeares it would not have beene said of Abrahams selfe that he was as
it if you have it not yet get it if you have it labour to increase and nourish it by considering his great excellencie and great terriblenesse A third vertue Abraham had obedience that is his will was thoroughly subject to Gods will in all things so that he held this resolution within himselfe that whatsoever God bad him doe that he would doe for which God praised him saying because thou hast obeyed my voice and the Apostle saying he obeyed and went out Obedience is a resolution and indeavour to doe all that God bids because he bids Let us take some speciall acts of obedience wherein Abraham did crosse his reason and his affection and his credit and his profit and all to performe the will of God even therefore onely because God bad him whom he durst not out of feare and would not but out of love follow in all things First God gave him Commandement to leave his Countrey and Fathers house to goe out into a land which he should shew him A strong Commandement leave all thy kindred and goe into a Countrey thou knowest not whither but goe from place to place as I shall shew thee Here seemed no reason in this Commandement but Abraham obeyed it Gen. 12.1 Secondly when he came into the land of Canaan he did not build a Citie nor an house there but dwelt in tents as the Apostle noteth as a pilgrim and a stranger not having possession in it at all so much as a foot God gave him no place of abode but caused him to wander as himselfe telleth Gen. 20.13 This seemed an unhappy and unsetled life and flesh and bloud could not take content in such a kinde of living but because God injoyned Abraham so to live He submitted himselfe and did live so save that onely he bought a place to burie in as being still mindfull of his death A third heavie Commandement he received from God Gen. 17. 10. and 26. God made him to circumcise himselfe and all the males of his family and all that should after be borne when they were eight daies old and he made no question of it To circumcise was to cut off the top of the uppermost skinne of the secret part This seemed the foolishest thing in the world a matter of great reproach which would make him as it made his posterity after to seeme ridiculous to all the world It carried an appearance of much undecencie and shamefullnesse to cause all his servants to discover themselves unto him Much more might have beene alledged against this ordinance what good could it doe what was any man the better because he had wounded himselfe and put his body to that torment yet for all this Abraham disputed not objected not made no contrary allegations but presently the selfe same day tooke himselfe and his sonne Ishmael and all his servants in his house and circumcised them according to the commandement of Almighty God Yet a fourth commandement more tedious and contrary to reason and affection then all these which was of it selfe exceeding grievous in his sight as the Holy Ghost witnesseth that is the expulsion or excommunicating of his sonne Ishmael and of his mother Hagar yet when God commanded him to doe it Gen. 21.12 hee rose up the next morning betimes v. 14. and sent away both the mother and the sonne But last of all he obeyed a commandement that seemed to contradict nature and religion and Gods promise and his owne salvation and the salvation of all men and the truth and honour of God himselfe so that God was said to try him to the utmost in that commandement It was in sacrificing Isaac as the Spirit of God notâ—th Heb. 11. and Gen. 23. God bad him take Isaac and not instantly kill him in the place but goe three dayes journey and not knocke him on the head and there an end but offer him for sacrifice But what was this sonne the sonne of his old-age the sonne of his love which was so deare unto him yea the promised seede in whom it was said In Isaac shall thy seede be called and this sonne he offered after a most melting conference betwixt himselfe and Isaac his sonne all alone Here was an obedience incomparable and unparalable no man ever did the like except our Lord Jesus Christ who offered up himselfe which must needes be dearer to himselfe then Isaac was to Abraham So now marke the excellency of Abrahams obedience hee was obedient for the matter in hard and difficult things for the manner promptly and readily without gaine-saying speedily and presently without deferring and universally without excepting without picking and choosing If you be able to produce such obedience to justifie your faith that it may appeare your faith is a working faith then have you faith indeed and not in word alone but if your faith be not accompanied with an obedience of the same kind though not in the same degree whereby you are able to yeeld your selves to God resolving in all things readily and without delay or murmuring to yeeld unto him how are you obedient how have you faith such a faith as was Abrahams All therefore that say they beleeve as Abraham did but yet obey not as Abraham did yea are wilfull against Gods Commandements refusing to doe knowne duties and to leave knowne sinnes that will not circumcise the foreskin of their hearts nor leave their countrey and Fathers house nor cast out their Ishmaels nor offer up their Isaacs all such are beleevers alone in shew and not in deed Compare your selves with Abraham and if your obedience be not like his I say as before having the same ground extent and properties it is but a counterfeit faith whereof you boast and no true faith Therefore now be earnest with the living God to worke in you true subjection to him and to make you like Abraham his servant for God that wrought his heart to such flexiblenesse will and can performe the same for you Pray him to incline your hearts to his statutes beseech him to write his law in your hearts and to cause you to keepe his Commandements and judgements and doe them And if you find such an obedience though not so great yet that which hath the same ground and strives to attaine the same extent and properties then take comfort and be not afraid to call your selves sonnes and daughters of Abraham for Zacheus was the sonne of Abraham when leaving his greedinesse hee could make restitution and give to the poore Now a fourth vertue in Abraham was religiousnesse for it is said of him that hee built an Altar to God and that hee worshiped God and that he called on the name of God and that he payed tithe of all he had to Melchisedech and this is for our learning We must call upon God we must professe and practise true religion we must offer reall sacrifices on Christ the Altar we must also
wife for his sonne it is probable he had prayed for that mercy and received an answer he could not else have affirmed it so certainely You that be Parents must pray to God to give a wife or husband to your sonne and daughter and make piety and vertue the chiefe match-makers If you will ever shew your love to be a spirituall love let it appeare to be such to your children if by any meanes you will shew your selves affected to them with a spirituall love let it be in seeking their good really not imaginarily That woman shall live happiest not which hath the richest husband with largest revenues but that hath the godliest husband most abundant in vertues sure a Father should make his daughters happinesse the maine end of his choosing an husband for her or else he is not prudent for prudence is a vertue by which a man doth worke rightly to happinesse I say the same concerning the wife be you therefore imitators of Abraham here and be ashamed as our Saviour saith in another meaning to seeke those things after which unsanctified men and heathen doe onely or principally seeke I should have named one grace more in Abraham towards God that is patience I doe not meane so much or onely in bearing afflictions as in a contented tarrying for the promised seed A quiet waiting till benefits come and a quiet bearing of crosses that did come this is patience a being silent to God and waiting on him Abraham had waited divers yeares no sonne came his wife was barren yet he waited and still continued to hope that God would give him a sonne at length according to his promise See how you can waite upon God if he deferre the performance of his promise and that without muttering and without fainting This is an excellent thing to beleeve pray and hope still though God deferre the accomplishment of his word Learne this grace Blessed is hee that by faith and patience can inherit the promises as it is said of our godly fore-fathers So Abrahams vertues to God are faith feare obedience waiting or hope and devotion And to Sarah I should have named another He mourned moderately for her and buried her honourably for he bought a burying place of the children of Heth that he might interre her with all due respect So should an husband moderate his affection with discretion and joyne discretion with his affection that he may both shew some convenient measure of sorrow for his wives decease and also power to keepe sorrow within compasse both for degree and continuance and so should wives stand affected to husbands and all friends each to other and a decent funerall according to each mans place must be affoorded to testifie their good will to the whole person when it lived by due carriage to that earthie part of it which is left behinde Those yoke-fellowes therefore that are glad or would be glad of each others decease and care not what becomes of the body of each other they must be blamed as naughty and unloving husbands and those that make no end nor keepe no measure in mourning must be blamed as over-loving and carnally loving Let us so mourne as to shew the thing was deare we parted with and withall that we know we have better things remaining with us then an earthly friend I must now speake of Abrahams good carriage to his servants There was one principall servant Ruler Steward Over-seere of his house his name is Eliezer of Damascus Gen. 15.2 Him 1. He loved much 2. Trusted much because by good instructions and examples he had through Gods blessing made him fit and worthy to be both loved and trusted His love to him he shewes in saying to God whereby it is manifest that he did not counterfeit for Abraham was too godly to tell a counterfeit tale to God one borne in mine house shall be mine heire Loe a good servant should be very deare unto his master so that he should plentifully and liberally recompence him for to say that a servant should be made ones heire if he have no children that I dare not but I dare say he should be plentifully and liberally rewarded out of great love The Lord commanded that an Hebrew servant should not be put out empty but that his Master should communicate to him of his goods and Salomon saith that as hee that looketh to the fig-tree shall eate of the fruit thereof so shall a good servant that attendeth his master come to honour his meaning is to shew that Masters should not be indebted to their servants but should respect and preferre them Those therefore that having good and vertuous servants shall not shew themselves liberall and courteous and loving but quite contrarily froward and unloving and niggardly are much to be condemned as men that have not wisedome to consider how much benefit a man hath by his servants so that neither could men get riches nor enjoy them if they wanted servants neither could they be without them in many other respects and if the servants be good next to God above all men hee stands most beholding to them His life is in their hands his goods are in their hand and to speake as the truth is hee is more indebted to them then they to him A servant might more easily shift for himselfe without a Master then a Master live as he doth without servants wherefore I commend unto you all humanity love courtesie towards your servants that be good and faithfull such as feare God and doe their duty in such sort as humane frailty will permit unto your selves Labour to bring your servants to be religious and trustie and diligent and if they be so shew all good will to them and incourage them in their duty by loving entertainement especially seeing now they be freemen and not bondslaves that are your servants Againe Abraham trusted his servant with the weightiest businesse of his life getting a wife for Isaac and bound him with an oath but duely limited and freed from all doubt and difficultie as much as might be as you may reade Gen. 24. in the beginning causing him to lay his hand under his thigh and sweare about that businesse alone limiting him so that he should be freed from it if his friends were wanting to him So a good Master should trust a good servant onely giving him necessary instructions and cautions and if matter be of such weight laying the bond of an oath upon him for no bond stronger then that none fitter to binde a godly man what might be the meaning of laying the hand under the thigh in swearing I cannot learne nor conjecture my selfe onely it had some due signification in all likelihood as our laying the hand on the Bible and kissing it Iacob also required it of his sonne Ioseph so that it may seeme to have beene done in some religious respect whether intimating the expectation of the promised seed to come
shew of disgrace for worldlinesse Why should not we be followers of Abraham his vertues Why should we use meanes to get wealth joyned with apparent reproach such as would set the mouthes of all men on talking against us more then this fact would have filled the mouth of Chedarlaomer with talke against Abraham O what a businesse of minde is this newes and how doth it shew our inordinate affection to riches more then to a good name which yet is to be preferred above all treasures if we would hearken to Salomon I conclude that we must shew our true magnanimity by sleighting great abundance of outward things so as that no man might ever have cause to grudge against us that these riches which should have beene his if all things had beene fairely carried have made us rich especially let no man grow rich by taking forfeitures of poore men it is worse to use extremity to a meane person then to a great Now consider this worthy mans carriage to the Cananites inhabitants of the land in which he was a stranger First for the Countrie it selfe then for the persons that dwelt in it For the Countrey Abraham made it much the better for him by two things wood and water very necessary things for the life of man For hee planted groves and hee digged wells againe which had beene digged in the daies of his Father As concerning those groves it is conjectured that they might be for religious use because it is said there he called on the name of God but the word here used is not the same under which such groves for religious use are after forbidden therefore more like it is that here alone was intended civill use and sure it is a good thing to plant wood for the benefit of mankind after our selves be dead A man would have thought what should a stranger trouble himselfe to make a grove He is likely to depart from the place soone and then he cannot carry his trees with him but this did not discourage Abraham he knew that some man might enjoy it if himselfe did not Indeed for wells and water the profit redounded to himselfe presently as well as to others for the future Now learne of him to be common Benefactors by helping to store the world with wood and water-springs and other like things the use of which shall redound to many as well as to your selves Especially the care of planting woods should be commended unto you our age destroies that necessary provision All cut downe none plant for another age wood is usefull for shade for timber for fewell it is one of the things wee cannot want it is one of the things that if it be discreetely done will quit the cost that it requireth The tree after a little time will grow without any labour of expence bestowed about it it will pay for its standing if you set your hedge-rowes with trees they would grow as well as thornes If here and there at convenient distance trees were planted especially timber trees the grasse would not be much the lesse But I am not a husband-man good enough to commend these particulars to you Let mee commend the thing in generall Order things for the common benefit and shew your selves lovers of mankinde be not all for your selves and for the present Now to the persons generally he shewes curtesie that is a carriage savouring of lowlinesse and good esteeme together with love and good will unto the Hittites when he came unto them about the matter of a field of buriall for Sarah Gen. 23.7 Hee stood up and bowed himselfe the word is the same that is in other places translated worshipped meaning he bowed his body with his face downeward in testimony of honour and respect and afterwards verse 12. Hee bowed downe himselfe before the people of the Land You see lowly and respective carriage in this worthy servant of God We ought to carrie our selves courteously to all men Honour all men saith S. Peter he meanes it of this kinde of respective behaviour of body This is a meanes to shew love and to beget love and to increase love and to keep out jarres and discontents as a sower and hautie and sullen dogged carriage doth proclaime contempt or hatred or both and so causeth jarres and fallings out and dislikes and increaseth them if they have beene begun Those therefore that be of a haughty carriage or rude and boysterous behaviour not knowing how to give due salutations or complements of courtesie are to be blamed as men that doe not alone want education but charity and humility for if those graces did rule in the heart though they could not prompt a man to a kinde of artificiall demonstration of them yet they would some way infuse themselves into the carriage and make it gentle and amiable Therefore let your carriage be faire and kinde and sweete bow bend salute use cap knees all such things as either nature or custome maketh to be as it were badges and professions of humble love and serviceablenesse of a not too much preferring your selves above others and under-valewing them in comparison of your selves accustome your selves unto and use them for conscience sake that they may savour of piety in the estimation of God who can see piety in such things and so they may be more then morrall vertues even spirituall actions and fruits of Sanctification Onely I beseech you to take heed of causing your courtesie to be meere complement and of being the more crafty by how much you seeme more courteous and of ushering in some naughtinesse by a goodly and lowly carriage of your selves If such vertues be corrupted and that there be nothing in them but the meere out-side the more loathsome to God and at length also to man Particularly see how he carrieth himselfe to Hephron the Hittite with whom he bargained for a field of buriall He deales plainely and squarely with him Ephron offered to give it him freely he would none A wealthy man should not be apt to receive a thing of gift it would be a signe of covetousnesse and of an having disposition Then he asketh the price and saith that hee will give as much as it is worth I will give thee saith hee the money of the field that is what it is worth and Ephron answers t is worth 400 shekels A common shekell is thought to be worth 1 s. 3d. of our money so 400 shekels is 25 lb. and then Abraham weighes him the money of silver currant with the Merchants Abraham in a bargaine of 25 lb. doth not stand halfe-perthing and first bids 15 then 17 then 20 then 22 then 24 then 25 as a number of base niggardly minded men would have done but when he saw it to be worth the money at a word he payes it and when Ephron saw Abraham desirous of this land he doth not aske 40 or 35 or 30 or 32 but at one word tells him so much it
it by renewing our meditations of Gods promises and putting our selves often in minde of the power and truth of God the promise-maker which are the pillars and foundations of our faith For if Abraham when these doubts began to stirre in his minde had called to minde Gods promise of giving him seede and had reasoned with himselfe thus hath not the living God possessour of Heaven and Earth undertaken to give mee a seede to inherit this land after me How then can I be killed by the Philistins How can they take away my life whilst this promise is not yet fulfilled Surely God both can and also will give mee life and preserve me from the hands of these godlesse Philistins for how else should he fulfill his promise to me of giving me seed after me If Abraham I say had thus stirred up his faith by serious consideration of Gods power and truth he had not beene foyled so as he was Let his weaknesse and failings be our warning that we may escape the evills which he fell into Againe as Abrahams faith was weake and yeelded a little to doubtings so was he possessed somewhat strongly for the time with a kinde of carnall feare of death Gen. 12.12 and afterwards Gen. â—0 13 He said they will slay mee for my wives sake So you must note another weakenesse in Gods people flowing from the former imperfection of faith They are apt to be over-fearefull of dangers and by name of death even to be so much terrified with the apprehension of danger especially of loosing their lives that they cannot must upon God and rest upon him for safety as they should doe This feare was found in David it was found also in Peter and in divers others of Gods people The ground of it is as I said partly the weakenesse of their faith and partly the terriblenesse of death which is the terriblest of all terrible things as being a separation of the soule from the body and a stripping a man at once of all those things that are most deare unto him and conveighing him out of this world into another concerning his happinesse herein he is not alwaies so full of assurance as he should be For when these feares doe suddainely seize upon a man upon occasion of some sensible object that threatens him they pull out of the minde for the time the thought of Gods promises and hold the soule alone in the apprehension of the greatnesse and inevitablenesse of the danger which looketh him in the face Let us therefore learne not to be heartlesse our selves because we hare have beene so transported with feare as was Abraham nor yet be censorious to others whom wee shall see thus for a fit even shaken and almost overcome of feare It is a fault indeed and we must blame our selves for it and be humbled but it is such a fault as may stand with truth of grace and which doth not give just reason to conclude ourselves unsanctified or not to be Gods true children And let us learne to beware of feare to resist and oppose it at the beginning by the opposition of Gods love and protection yea let us labour to worke in our mindes such a true apprehension of the harmelesnesse of death and other crosses that we may learne not to be afraid of them though we must needs suffer them For why should we feare that which cannot hurt yea that which shall be an advantage to us Feare none of those things that you shall suffer saith the Lord and David saith I will not feare what man can doe unto mee and againe I will not feare though I walke in the valley of the shadow of death It is an excellent thing and very comfortable when our heart is so setled that feare may not dismay us And the way is to get assurance of Gods favour and of eternall life and that all things shall worke for our good and speedily to set this faith on worke when dangers shall offer themselves unto our sight But further Abraham to avoid this danger consulted with flesh and bloud and used deceit and shifting and falsehood for though his words were in some sence true as he telleth Abimelech because Sarah was his sister by one side yet in the meaning which he would have those to interpret his words to whom he spake them they were not true For his intent was to make them conceive that she was so his sister as not his wife He resolved to use false speeches and draw his wife likewise to joyne with him in these false speeches yea they agreed upon it before hand as he tels Abimelech Gen. 20.13 Abraham said to her this is the kindnesse thou shalt shew mee at every place whether wee shall come say he is my brother You see they agreed before hand to dissemble and to continue dissembling yet sure dissembling is a sinne and ought not to be done as Abraham heares even from Abimelech himselfe verse 9. Thou hast done deeds unto mee that ought not to be done So it may befall a good Abraham out of inconsideratenesse and heedlesnesse in not pondering their pathes nor thinking of their waies or in a suddaine to dissemble and deale falsely for the preventing of danger as may be seene also in David and in Peter when he denied Christ and when he withdrew himselfe from communion with the Gentiles for feare of them which came from Iames to Antioch For a thing not considered of is for present as uselesse as if it were not knowne at all Therefore here also we must learne not to be utterly discouraged if we have run into such a fault when we bethinke our selves after of such offences we must be humbled bewaile them confesse them condemne and judge our selves for them but we must not be fearefull of asking pardon and of intreating mercy to forgive them must not conclude that there was no truth of grace in us because of such palpable failings yea we must take boldnesse to goe to the throne of grace renewing our repentance and earnestly suing for pardon And we must also take heed of censuring others and bitterly and harshly for such offences though they be grosse even Abimelech did not esteeme Abraham a dishonest and naughty man because he had found him tripping in this matter onely take heed least we misuse this Example and the like to build upon them a boldnesse to such sinnes that were a great wickednesse They must imbolden us to repent and crave mercy after we have through weakenesse offended they must not imbolden us before hand to resolve on a sinfull deed Yea when we behold their stumblings it should make us to be earnest in our prayers to God for a great measure of strength that we may escape such offences and to be more frequent and firme in renewing our purposes of not finning in the like kinde Resolve therefore that nothing shall make you lie or dissemble and if you doe resolve you will seeke
a strange countrey those that shall as heartily love us and as faithfully cleave to us as any kinsmen in the world Feare not to forsake friends for Gods sake for hee can easily cause you to find as good in a strange countrey if need so require as any you may leave behind you in your owne countrey And if any have in his owne countrey or abroad met with such friends he must attribute it to the wise and good providence of God over him and with solid and sincere praises acknowledge it carrying himselfe friendly also to them and shewing himselfe as willing to grant a benefit to them in fit season as ever he was to receive a benefit from them for hee that hath friends saith Salomon must behave himselfe friendly Let us yet consider another mercy Abraham had good esteeme and reputation an honest and honourable name amongst the men of Heth where he lived so that they all loved and respected him as appeareth Melchisedech loved him and came out to meet him and blessed him and gave him bread and wine for himselfe and for his troupes Abimelech used him curteously and though Abraham and Sarah both had somewhat too grossely overshot themselves in dissembling that Sarah was his wife and that way indangered him to a great sinne and brought some heavy hand of God upon him and his house yet he shew'd himselfe affable and bountifull restoring him his wife and not so alone but giving him gifts and commanding his people to forbeare all injurious carriage to him and his wife and granting him leave to dwell where he would in his countrey and after repairing to him desiring his friendship he acknowledged that God had blessed him and was with him and requested that a Covenant might be made betwixt them two and that in the solemnest manner Was not this a signe of great respect and love in him to Abraham and was it not a singular comfort and credit to Abraham and a signe of Gods great favour to him to incline the heart of such a person to him Yea in what repute and credit he lived appeareth in that the Hittites honoured him called him a Prince of God and were ready to give him leave to make use of any of their choisest Sepulchers to burie his wife in and Ephron the Hittite a man of good esteeme amongst them at first word did frankely offer to give him his field which he desired and at first condiscended to sell it him for a reasonable price So God gave Abraham good will and credit where he came and amongst all even high and low Let this also encourage all men to serve and obey God He can give them a good name and good favour every where vertue piety and goodnesse shall winne good esteeme and kindnesse from men that be not utterly slaves to sinne so farre as it is good for Gods people to enjoy They must indeed if God see fit to try them by that crosse endure disgrace and hatred and causelesse malice and reproach but so farre as Gods Wisdome judgeth it beneficiall for them he both can and will incline the hearts of all to respect and regard them to love and honour them He will make them to be honoured and favoured of all with whom they live Feare not therefore to serve God but cleave to him and obey him you see his bounty how he can and will requite his faithfull servants And those that finde the good hand of God going with them in this kinde that they be respectfully and kindly entertained that they have a good name and loving kindnesse with all men except perhaps some vile and base persons that they be cordially and heartily loved that men speake well of them wish and doe well to them and are glad and ready to gratifie them they must acknowledge Gods goodnesse in this mercy and rejoyce in his love that doth turne the hearts of men unto them and praise honour and love him the more for the praise honour and love they receive in the world We must prepare our selves to meete with ill usage ill will ill language but when wee meete with good then we must confesse that the Lord our God is the ruler of all hearts and blesse his name that causeth us to finde favour with men as David did with Saul at first with all Israel and with Achish one of the Philistine Lords King of Gath that gave him honourable entertainement in his Court. Now another temporall blessing we observe to be granted to this good man and it is three or foure times noted in Scripture Gen. 13.2 Abraham was very rich in silver cattell and gold So Gen. 24.35 The Lord hath blessed my Master greatly and he is become great and hee hath given him flockes and heards and silver and gold and men servants and maide servants and Camells and Asses and 25.6 Abraham gave gifts to the sonnes of his Concubines He could not have inriched them if he had not beene rich himselfe So God fulfilled his promise to Abraham and he was a very rich man as well as very good Riches are in Gods hand hee hath them in abundance He is able and ready to grant them to his servants Indeed they be but doubtfull blessings if a man have not power to use them well they will be more hurtfull to him then profitable But so farre as the perfect wisedome of God sees that they will be beneficiall to them wisedome shall bring them also in her hand and fill the houses of her admirers with them also Let Gods people learne therefore to trust upon him for their outward estate for though he make not all his children rich for it is not good for all yet he will not see the meanest of them to starve for then he should not answer that bountifull and mercifull title of a Father by which he loveth that his servants should call him and call upon him Incourage your selves therefore in all holinesse righteousnesse and vertues for sure the Lord that filled the house of Abraham and made him so wealthie and great a man will not neglect to give you foode convenient for you and to supply you with necessaries And let those that have houses goods and wealth in abundance learne to use them well to see it is Gods gift and to use them as stewards to praise God for them to make them a meanes of knitting their hearts more sure and fast to him in love and obedience and to imploy them bountifully liberally and mercifully as Abraham no doubt did that they may lay up treasure for themselves in Heaven and that by well-doing they make them friends of the riches of iniquity Wealth honestly gotten mercifully and bountifully used and moderately enjoyed is a great mercy of God If God make you rich doe you shew your selves to be good as well as rich or else riches doe not make a man the better that hath them neither can they make his life much more comfortable
store yet we have sufficient to keep our selves and ours from pining away with want O that we could be as full of thanks when we are freed from wants as we have beene of complaints even for small crosses And now use moderately your abundance that God may not strip you of all and bring you to such extremity and why should we forfeit our selves and ours to famishing when wee see that God is tender to us and willing to satisfie us with good things And lastly let every man prepare for this crosse think of it tell himselfe it may befall him and resolve if the wisedome of God shall bring it upon him that he will labour patiently to undergoe it not so as to be sorrowlesse that were no way commendable but so as to be moderate in grieving and to turne his griefe into spirituall griefe and powre it forth before the Lord in humble and penitent confessions and lamentations for sinne Before I depart from handling of Hagars Example I must say something of Sarah and her which I knew not how so fitly to speake of in the life of either viz. that these two Mothers and the children borne of them were Allegories as S. Paul calls them that is figures of some other thing mystically signified by them For this we have the authority of S. Paul Gal. 4.21 In these words Heare you not what the Law that is the writings of Moses commonly called the Law because the Law was the principall part thereof doth say for it is written that Abraham had two sonnes one of the bond-woman another of the free-woman and the son of the bond-man was borne after the flesh that is by a bare naturall power of generation as any man naturally may beget a child of a woman without any power above nature concurring to the work But she that was borne of the free-woman was borne by promise that is not so much by any naturall strength of the Parents as by vertue of Gods promise which bound his truth to set his Omnipotency a worke above nature otherwise Abraham that had so long lived with Sarah in her youth and could never become a Father by her should much lesse have beene so by her now when her body was quite dried with age which things saith S. Paul are an Allegory according as I told you before For these are Testaments or Covenants the one from Mount Sinai which came thence being there published and promulgated it is the Law the Covenant of workes whereof it is said The Law came by Moses and this is said to gender unto bondage that is to beget and make not sonnes and daughters of a free and ingenuous spirit loving God and out of love doing him service and meerely of his grace love free favour and promise expecting their reward but bond-slaves which out of a feare of punishment or hope of reward doe service and expect the reward for the worthinesse sake of their workes and this Covenant is Hagar meaning is signified by Hagar for saith he this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia meaning is so by signification and representation and answereth in signification and Type to Ierusalem which now is and is in bondage meaning to the Law and to the curse and rigour of it being debtors to the whole Law to doe it or if they doe it not to the curse to suffer it But this Ierusalem which is from above that is the Heavenly Ierusalem the Church the number of true beleevers that doe indeed seriously imbrace the doctrine of the Gospell which began by Christ and his Apostles to be preached at Ierusalem not hoping to be justified and saved by the merit or worth of their owne workes but by the free promise of God in Christ those are free from the curse and rigour of the Law and shee is the mother of all true Christians of us all that is of my selfe and all those which with mee looke for righteousnesse and salvation alone through the merits of Christ and mercy of God in Christ through faith in his name and after he saith As then he that was after the flesh persecuted him that was after the Spirit even so saith he it is now Here you have the full Allegory two Mothers a bond-woman and a free-woman two manners of begetting after the flesh and after the Spirit two kindes of children bond-men and free-men and the bond still persecuting the free The Mothers are the two Covenants that of the Law and that of Grace The two manners of begetting one of the promise the other by the flesh two kindes of children bond-men to good and free-men The matter is this Those that bring nothing but their owne naturall power to the Law and so seeke by it to be justified they are but of a slavish disposition and have nothing but the reward of slaves but those that looke to the goodnesse of God in the Covenant of Grace having the power of Gods Spirit are made to love God as children and admitted to the inheritance of sonnes Let us take heed of being sonnes of the bond-woman for many be such still The Papists will needs challenge salvation as due by the merits of their owne workes and so in very deed doe exclude themselves from it by challenging it on a wrong ground And the multitude are in this respect no whit better then the Papists for their owne good deeds are still in their mouthes as if they would be saved by workes which yet cannot save them yea some reliques of this ignorant and foolish pride was found in the Saints who if they finde not which they will never finde perfection in themselves are still apt to question their estate as if it were their owne goodnesse that should bring them to Heaven not the goodnesse of God in Christ rewarding them freely with that undeserved crowne because they are become the children of God by faith in Christ Now let us take heed of being the sonnes of Hagar but let us acknowledge still our owne sinfullnesse and unworthinesse yet still rest on his mercy in Christ and strive to obey him in love as children doe their Father and so much for Hagar * ⎠* THE TENTH EXAMPLE OF KETVRAH ISHMAEL ELIEZER NOw Abraham had a third wife her name was Keturah The Scripture bringeth her in as it were a dumbe person tells nothing of her parents life nor death but mentioning her bare name alone shewes that shee was Abrahams wife as I conceive and what children shee had by Abraham we are told Gen. 25.1 her sonnes were sixe as you may reade in that place Now the Lord seemeth to tell us this little of this woman and her sonnes because we should the more acknowledge the blessing of God upon Abraham in restoring him to a second youth as it were and making him so fruitfull as to beget six sonnes in his old-age after Sarahs death whereas before at an 100 he was as good as dead
First what if you doe you have lost many worse labours Secondly I say who can tell why will you thinke so hardly of your Brother Why I have tried already I answer God may give better successe now Againe I answer though he hearken not you shall not loose your labour for you shall shew love and obey Gods commandement and receive a reward from him Yet another good deed of Lots was that he fought to deliver his sonnes in Law and perswaded them to get them out of Sodome too We should labour not alone to get out of Sodome our selves but to helpe others out also whether it be out of the sinnes or out of the punishment of Sodome We should detest that selvish humour which prevaileth with many if themselves escape danger they care not what becomes of others O self-selfe-love is a fruit of brutishnesse charity of a right understanding Live not like beasts if they see perill approaching they runne away for their owne safe-guard and never consider of the rest let us strive to draw as many as we can out of sin and misery The last good thing I will note though it should have beene brought in before as being done before was this for a good while together hee kept close to his Unkle went with him into Egypt came with him out of Egypt and dwelt neere him I meane in Canaan It is a good thing to love the company of good men and delight to dwell with or neere them and happier had it beene for Lot if hee had not suffered himselfe to be divided from his Unkle Let men learne to count it a great happinesse to dwell neere to good neighbours and let them take heede that a little thing doe not separate them from such And so much for Lots goodnesse Now his badnesse And I will begin there where he began first to shew it He chose rather to dwell in a rich fertile place amongst vile sinfull men then with some earthly inconveniencies with a godly and faithfull man so shewing too great a love to riches and too small a love to goodnesse I beseech you if any of you be so minded that you will take notice of it as a fault To be so much ingaged to earthly things that for the more easie obtaining of a large quantity thereof a man can be content to pitch his Tents in Sodome and to dwell there is too great a proofe of a worldly minded man It was the beginning of Lots ruine In choice of your habitation looke chiefely to the good of the soule If you doe not be assured that some way or other God will crosse you as he did Lot We shall lesse beare out those faults with impunity for which the godly in Scripture have smarted before us because men did not receive warning by the dealing of God with them The brother is whipt more severely that seeing another brother corrected before him was bold yet to rush into the same fault Doe not commit the fault that cost Lot so deare a price Leave not a good place for the soule to get a great benefit for the body let not the world sway you neither wholy nor chiefely in choosing the place of your habitation Lot should have said Unkle so much content and good doe I receive from your good selfe unto my soule that I will make an hard shift afore I will leave you yea I will rather abridge my cattell then loose your company or at least I will be content to take a place neere you though it be not so fat and fruitfull as some other places Doe you as your owne understanding now that you see the whole carriage of things will teach you that Lot ought to have done And so much for this fault Now againe worldlinesse continued to grow stronger in Lot for hee continued to dwell in Sodome even though they were exceeding great sinners It was well done that he grieved for their sinnes it would have beene better done if he had forsaken the City Hee might have departed of his owne accord with farre lesse losse then God forc't him out at length Sure it is a fault if a man can possibly remove to make his constant aboad in an extreame wicked place where heinous and foule sinnes are usually and impudently committed for if a mans selfe escape the infection yet it is too too probable that his children shall be defiled and catch the sinnes of the places as the daughters of Lot and most of his servants did for had they beene righteous they should have escaped with him And most times if any man that hath any the least goodnesse doe suffer himselfe to be so neighboured it is a fruit of some carnall passion or other in favour of which he hardens himselfe to endure such a miserable thing as the continuall hearing and beholding of great wickednesse Let us take heed no such thing in inveigle us to pitch out Tents in any Sodome But againe Lot I think offended in going about to match his daughters with any of the wicked generation of the Sodomites What could he finde none other in all the world to give his children for wives but to two wicked men in that wicked City Would he be content to have his children his childrens childrens children and all his posterity to live in that little hell and to be indangered unto the like abhominations Surely the love of the world prevailed here with him more then it ought to have It is a fault too common with us many a Father is regardlesse how bad the place and family be into which he matcheth his daughter so the state be good Be the Towne as bad as Sodome and the person as prophane as these men yet a good living will make them to plant their children in such a garden as it were or wildernesse rather I cannot conceive but that this is a proofe of mans too high esteeming of outward things and I beseech you Fathers learne of Lot provide better for the placing of your children Another fault of Lots is that he did offer his two daughters to the Sodomites saying Doe to them what seemeth good in your eyes Out of a desire to save his guests from villany he prostitutes those that should have beene dearer to him then any guests and so would redeeme the strangers from wrong with the hazard of his childrens chastity He is to be somewhat excused by the present occasion in that hurrie and distemper he had not leasure to consider well of the thing he did but through hast was pushed forward to doe so great an hurt unto the two maides Hee doth evill here that good may come of it a thing that S. Paul would never allow for he saith concerning it God forbid The doing of evill is simply sinfull the suffering of evill not so wherefore a man should resolve rather to be a patient in the greatest evill then an agent in the farre lesser In doing any evill a
blushing from opening any such thought each to other had it beene to have solicited another man much more their Father But custome of hearing and seeing shamefull deeds will banish shame quite away and make men bold to manifest their wicked conceits one to another which else modesty would never suffer them to speake of Here indeed the more aged maiden is most blame-worthy for the Spirit of God witnesseth that shee was the first moover to this lewdnesse but the younger was greatly to be blamed also for shee consented to such a motion Let those that be of more age take heede of giving wicked counsell to the younger and let the younger take heede of opening their eares to lewde advice Let us beware wee suffer not our selves to be drawne upon pretence of I know not what necessity or urgent occasion to resolve on things plainely sinfull especially such as are extreamely grosse and unnaturall No necessity can excuse an evill deed much lesse when it is none other but a counterfeit and false appearance of necessity Would these sisters have deferred their desires a while they might have found their Father at length willing to have left that hole in a Mountaine and to have conversed againe amongst men Why had they not rather perswaded him to leave that solitary kinde of living and betaken himselfe to his Unkle Abraham who was not growne either so niggardly or unkinde but that he would have welcomed them with good entertainement Why had they not taken up any resolution rather then venture on this monstrous abomination Let not the Divell and carnall reason beset us so farre as to faine to ourselves a necessity of evill-doing and then to grow bold to doe evill But what did they doe now to make their Father incestuous Surely make him drinke wine not moderately and in due quantity for then his wits would have beene his owne still and his sanctified conscience would have armed him sufficieently against all their most wanton carriages yea the gravity of his countenance and parentall authority would have affrighted them from lascivious words and gestures that tended to produce such an effect They therefore make him starke drunke with wine making him by little and little take into him such a quantity as would bury his understanding conscience and all and turne him into a bruit creature and then they doubt not but that they may easily allure him to commit folly with them A fearefull sinne it is to resolve before hand upon such a wickednesse as this and that also as a loade-stone to draw on another worse wickednesse To make one drunke for any cause is bad enough but to make him drunke of purpose to make him filthy after that is much worse Here is a most wicked end propounded which would make a thing it selfe otherwise lawfull utterly sinnefull if done for such a purpose Here is also a meanes utterly wicked though it had beene used for a most lawfull end but when end and meanes are both so remarkeably and exorbitantly sinfull how great was that sinne Had they began alone to drinke for cheerefull refreshing of themselves and their old Father and then one cup drawing on another had at unawares made both themselves and their Father drunke and then unpurposedly fallen to wanton imbraces and so to incest that had beene sinne enough But to take advice upon it to determine before hand that is to conclude fully that they would doe such a thing this shewes that they had smothered their consciences and were indeed void of all goodnesse O take heed of giving your selves leave deliberately to sinne take heed of setting downe a wicked conclusion in your mindes and saying come and let us doe this or this that you know is naught This is not to slip into the mire but to wallow in it this is a presumptuous and a wilfull sinne This is to yeeld your selves captives to sinne and to shew your selves servants of it And if any one hath in such sort sinned great repentance is needfull to wash away so great a crime But if they had agreed in hast to perpetrate this lewdnesse and yet before the time came of acting it had called to mind the loathsomenesse of the sinne and repenting of their naughty intention forborne to proceed the matter would not have beene so fowle then it might have beene attributed to weakenesse and hast But they goe on in it the elder shee first begins and then she renewes the matter to her Sister who is easily perswaded to follow her and so they both consent to doe evill and performe it also This is a great aggravation of sinne that if one have some leisure betwixt the resolving and executing yet he hath persisted in his wicked resolution and wanted the grace to change his mind Persisting in an evill purpose shewes much blindnesse of mind and hardnesse of heart and proves that God hath for punishment of wilfulnesse even given one over to his owne hearts lusts But now the elder begins to offend as it were to imbolden her Sister as if shee should say I will begin if thou wilt come after I will doe it to night if thou wilt second mee another night so she sinnes of purpose to give her Sister a bad example to animate her to the like Those sinnes are very grievous in which a man seekes not alone to satisfie his owne evill desires but also to corrupt another and draw him to the like evill The sinne is greater by how much more love of sinne is discovered and he loves sinne exceeding much that labours to increase the number of its servants Further having layne with her Father shee speakes of it to her Sister rather in way of boasting then out of shame and perswades her also to doe the like It is a wickednesse of an high nature to commit great sinnes and after be touched with no remorse for them yea rather to talke of them with a bold face as if they were deedes at least not deserving blame and when wee have done evill to presse our examples upon others to imitate It seemes the younger Sister would not have followed but that the elder provoked her the second time To use a kind of importunity towards another and presse them againe and againe to naughtinesse is a proofe of one set upon sinne with a full bent of will Now the second Sister she followes her Sisters evill deeds and evill counsell and they commit the same sinne the second time with the same wilfulnesse for the elder is as guilty of her Sisters incest as of her owne Men having transgressed the bounds of modesty grow extreamely carelesse and easily commit the second time what they have ventured upon the first It is more difficulty to forbeare repeating of a sinne then committing it as it is to drive out an enemy then to keepe him out Give sinne a strong deniall at first so shall we be soonest rid of it Now let us consider the offences themselves
spoken with Abraham and finding her to be his sister alone and not his wife for the former both of them affirmed the latter he did not inquire of so diligently as to learne the truth from them he resolved to have her to himselfe God himselfe after doth seeme to acquit Abimelech of any adulterous intention for when hee alledged that he had done this in the integrity of his heart God himselfe beareth witnesse to his uprightnesse in that respect saying I know thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart meaning that he thought verily that she was onely sister not yoake-fellow to Abraham and that if hee had knowne her to have beene a wife he would not have taken her so that he was free from intending to commit adultery but from an excessive desire of beauty hee is not free for why should a man be so carried after women that if he see any beautifull Virgin hee must needes enjoy her and not satisfie himselfe with such wives as he had taken before This verily must needes be a sinne for God did not appoint the society of man and man for pleasures sake that a man might seeke to satisfie himselfe in the delight of imbracing so many faire women as he could get but for the increase of and storing of the world with people Let us learne vertue out of other mens vices This is the sole fault which the Holy Ghost noteth in this man not because he had not more but because this alone was that wherein hee wronged Abraham and Sarah of whom the Holy Ghost intended principally to make his history Now for his Vertues divers good things are told of him First in respect of God Secondly of his own servants Thirdly of Abraham and Sarah First in respect of God When the Lord appeared unto him in a vision vers 3. and told him that he was but a dead man meaning was worthy of death and so should certainely die unlesse he reformed himselfe because the woman he had taken was another mans wife he did defend his innocency before God truely alledging that he did no way suspect her to be a married woman because both her selfe and Abraham said she was his sister and would not be knowne of their being joyned together in matrimony which also the Lord confesseth to be true Yet so soone as God had commanded him to restore the woman backing his commandements with promises and threats presently he obeyes the Lord and returneth the matron to her husband It is a worthy vertue and a proofe of integrity speedily and readily to obey the word of God and amend those sinnes which before we did not know when once the Lord doth vouchsafe to make them knowne unto us This proveth that the soule is uprightly desirous to avoid all sinnes when it will instantly reforme the fault once manifested To linger and put of from time to time and strive to make ones selfe blinde and to winke and not see the sinne or not addresse to a speedy reformation that is a fruit of guilefulnesse but to yeeld to God and ones conscience and without further delayes to leave of the sinne and put it away and the occasions of it that is a proofe of sincerity at least in that particular When God declareth a fault to us bids us mend promiseth life if we doe mend threatens death if we will not reforme if we beleeve his promises and threats and submit to his Commandements we shew integrity Abimelechs Example must teach us this effect of uprightnesse If any of us be guilty of the contrary fruit of hollownesse that we have neglected to acknowledge a fault beginning to be revealed to us and out of love to the sinne in respect of any profit credit pleasure it flattered us withall have rather indeavoured to shut out the light by false reasonings then to receive the knowledge of the truth when it began to shine out of the cloud of ignorance wee must greatly blame our selves for such hypocriticall behaviour This is that S. Paul accuseth the Gentiles of saying that Gods wrath is manifest from Heaven against all ungodlinesse and unrighteousnesse of men who detaine the truth in unrighteousnesse who doe as it were imprison and suppresse truth and hold it downe that it may not shew it selfe unto them out of a love they beare to sinne and wickednesse And sure Gods wrath shall appeare evidently against all that in such manner shall play the dissemblers with him how much more then if when a man cannot so darken himselfe with fained pretences but that he must needs see and confesse the truth in his conscience shall he be guilty of a great sinne if still he uphold in himselfe a will and resolution to commit the sinne that he could not but see to be a sinne or if he doe not come to a present resolution of amendment but put it off till afterwards and purpose to continue offending once or twice or a little time longer Shall not Abimelechs example condemne our disobedience before God if we shew our selves so much inthralled to sin Two things shew dominion of sinne in a man one where he refuseth to know though he have due meanes of knowledge and a certaine working of knowledge offering to convince his conscience another when though he doe know yet he resolves to persist in all evill or at least remaines irresolute and doth not determine to leave but stands as it were unsetled in his will at least for some time If any of you finde himselfe so disposed it is certaine that sinne ruleth in him and he is not under grace Wherefore you must diligently proove your hearts in this respect if you desire ever to enjoy the comfort of knowing your selves to be upright Now then learne to lend a dutifull eare to the Word of God and see the sinnes that it beginnes to shew you and put on a full and setled resolution of not adventuring to commit them any more And if any finde himselfe so subdued to the authority of God in all things that he seeme ready to entertaine the light of truth and to obey it and will not struggle and strive against the light in any thing then may he assure himselfe that his heart is true within him and that the Lord will surely accept him and forgive his unpurposed offences and sinnes of meere weakenesse and frailty Indeed in some one or two things that are too too grosse as adultery here a man may be prepared to yeeld to truth and yet not have an honest heart to God but he that in all things doth thus submit himselfe is surely good before the Lord. And so much for Abimelechs obedience to God in that he receiveth his commandements here with faith and present obedience which wee shall also doe if we seriously consider his promises of life to the obedient and threatenings of death to the disobedient till we worke our hearts to a firme and stedfast beleefe of them
Now another good deed of Abimelech is in regard of his servants As soone as it is day he calls them together and acquaints them with the things that God had revealed unto him by a dreame in the night He doth well to let his servants know the matter that so he might make them see the true cause of his restoring Sarah to Abraham and might approove of his practise therein and learne themselves to feare God which at least in some degree they did for it is said the men feared exceedingly verse 8. and so did not perswade him to keepe Sarah still but rather furthered his intentions of her restitution All governours must be ready to acquaint their inferiours with the way that God shewes them especially such as concerne the reformation of the lives both of themselves and of their inferiours for it was needfull that Abimelechs servants should know that Sarah was Abrahams wife least they or some one of them should thinke of taking her when the King had left her if they had remained ignorant of her condition Rulers therefore must shew unto their inferiours the danger of sinne and what is sinnefull when the Lord hath made them know it that they may be an instrument of keeping them also from evill deeds and from the punishment of them Learne we all of this man to tender the soules of our servants and inferiours and to reveale to them such things as God hath taught us that they may be preserved from sinne as well as our selves And take heed of being carelesse to shew them the good and the evill way that they sinne not through our default because we have not duly instructed them And let inferiours also learne to receive such instructions with holy feare as the servants of Abimelech did that the words they heare may prevaile to keepe them also from wickednesse And now let us see his carriage to Abraham and Sarah And first hee doth admonish them both of their fault and that not with a kinde of discontent and frowardnesse as before Pharaoh had done shewing rather that he was sorrowfull he might not have Sarah then that he had attempted so farre as he did but in gentle and yet plaine manner saying What hast thou done unto us and againe Wat sawest thou that thou hast done this His reproofe is sharpe enough and yet as appeareth afterwards it was mixed with gentlenesse So it is a good thing if our Brethren have sinned against us to call for them or goe to them and to demand what ground they had or what inducement to sinne so and to let them understand that the things they have done were such as ought not to have beene done especially if they have gone about to draw us to sinne or to occasion us to rush unwittingly into sinne that so wee may bring them to repentance or at least free our selves from being partakers with them in their sinnes So did he deale with Sarah too but not with the like earnestnesse for he considered the fault was chiefely Abrahams who had confessed that she did it at his entreaty and therefore hee doth alone intimate a chiding to her saying thy brother and adding good counsell He is to thee a covering of the eyes to all that are with thee and to all others verse 16. and it is added for shee was reprooved meaning that hee intended to reproove her and that shee did take it and was touched with it as with a reproofe Let us resolve to behave our selves so to our brethren even to tell them plainely but yet gently of their faults and that with more or lesse earnestnesse as they shall appeare to have beene more or lesse faulty Some warmth must be in a reproofe as here but it must not be scalding hot words of reviling and disgrace they scald as it were but words that tend to stirre up the conscience to a due consideration of the fault they be duely warme and tend to make the physick worke the more kindly If any have done otherwise either hiding the matter in his heart and so nourishing bitter dislike and alienation of affection from one that hath wronged him or else opened his mouth in a kind of rage and used hunting and rayling speeches he must be sorry that he was not as discreet and loving as Abimelech To forbeare reproofe of another or to doe it with bitternesse of wrath be too common faults and withall very blame-worthy The one shewes want of love the other of wisdome and in both we wrong our brother in not taking the right way to helpe him out of sinne and wrong our selves in making our selves at least in part guilty of his sinne Be not you faulty in either of these kindes hereafter but learne in plaine and milde manner to deale with them that have done you injury and let those that have done wrong learne of Abraham duly to accept of such reproofes Another vertue in Abimelech is that hee doth not alone restore Sarah but also makes amends to Abraham and yeelds a kind of silent confession of his fault and shewes a desire of making satisfaction by giving him gifts for vers 14. It is said he tooke sheepe and oxen and men-servants and women-servants and gave them to Abraham and restored Sarah his wife See a good duty here wee must not alone surcease to wrong our brethren for future time if either ignorantly or otherwise wee have begun to doe them wrong but if the wrong be manifest unto them we must even make them some due satisfaction by words or deeds or both chiefely if the injury have beene done wittingly and willingly Thinke not that you have done enough in forbearing to doe evill to any man but if the evill have beene evident unto him O make also some good amends to repaire the wrong and to doe him as much good in some other kinde as you have done him hurt before That so you may declare your selves as well sorry for the former offence as carefull to offend so no more and may make it appeare you cease to be injurious in part out of love to your brother as well as for any other consideration and may by that meanes make the pardoning of the wrong more easie to him and helpe to put charity and kindnesse into him which the receiving of wrongs will goe neare to banish away if some such care be not used to restore it againe But he that either continues in a continues of injuriousnesse or else barely breaketh it off without some demonstration of his sorrow for the fault and good affection to the person offended hath not yet fully reformed himselfe though he have ceased to doe evill any further Another commendable thing in Abimelech is that he doth not thrust Abraham away in a chase as Pharaoh had done but hee granteâ—h him liberty to dwell in his Countrey in any place that shall seeme good unto him Learne of him not to be so displeased with any man for
it not to mee When the rich man refused to sell all and give to the poore upon an extraordinary command from him he lets him goe and admits him not to follow him nay by his words spoken immediately after it is as possible he excludeth him from Heaven for he must needs be understood of that rich man and such as he was Now if not giving of all upon an extraordinary occasion will shut a man out of the Kingdome then the not giving of some convenient quantity upon an ordinary occasion must needs procure the like punishment because the disobedience is equall in both cases The reason is first this is a flat disobedience to most expresse plaine and frequent Commandements There is scarce a duty of the second Table which God hath more plainely laid downe more often repeated more earnestly pressed then this of giving to the poore He therefore that liveth in perpetuall negligence of this dutie and either will not acknowledge it or will not practise it lives in a wilfull and constant rebellion against God Thinke not my Brethren that it sufficeth to proove a man upright if hee doe not live in a sinne of commission that is in the continuance and allowed doing of something forbidden by God Nay if he live in a sinne of omission i. e. in the continuall and allowed neglect of a duty commanded this is not to obey God in all things this shewes ones heart is not universally subject to God This prooveth that some vice hath dominion in him and that he loveth and respecteth something more then God which cannot stand with uprightnesse yea beloved this hypocrisie which is so much over-awed as it were by cleerenesse of knowledge that it scarce dares discover it selfe by taking boldnesse to commit sinnes of commission but knowes how to hold in with sinnes of omission and to give them allowance enough is so much the more dangerous by how much it is lesse discernable For hee seemeth to himselfe to have much to say for himselfe why this duty should not at this and this time binde him because no affirmative precept bindes to all times and so hee will shift it from himselfe in such manner as not to take notice that hee offendeth whence groweth the greatest perill of all Therefore know you that this unmercifullnesse to the poore as prooving that obedience is but partiall and so that the heart is not upright is sure a very great sinne But secondly it declareth that a man beleeveth not the promises of God and so that his faith is not unfained It is sure that as hee which obeyeth not all Gods Commandements obeyeth none so he that beleeveth not all his promises beleeveth none For if we submit to his truth because it is a perfect truth wee must grant that hee cannot lie nor be deceived in any thing and if wee build not our consenting to his words upon his truth that cannot be called faith at all Now God hath made so many so evident so full promises to those that are mercifull to the poore as no other duty almost can alledge for it selfe A promise throughly beleeved must needs produce obedience to the Commandement whereto it is annexed because every man is so truly desirous of his owne welfare that what hee doth stedfastly perswade himselfe will procure good unto him with the paines and cost for that hee will surely put himselfe to the paines and to the cost Hee theerefore that is not mercifull doth not beleeve these promises because hee doth not obey the Commandements to which they be joyned How then doth hee beleeve any other promise So we have prooved him by this argument to be voide of faith and is not that a great sinne which convinceth him to be void of faith in whom it is Further no man hath true charity that hath not a heart to confirme the hand of the poore for S. Iohn makes the conclusion thus Hee that loveth not his Brother whom hee hath seene how doth hee love God whom he hath not seene And hee doth but lie that saith hee loves a man unlesse he be ready to releeve him for S. Paul saith that love is bountifull wherefore S. Iohn is peremptory in this conconclusion saying He that hath this worlds goods and seeth his Brother hath neede and shutteth up his compassion against him how dwelleth the love God That therefore is a great offence which prooveth that a man hath either none or none but counterfeit charity I have shewed you what a grievous offence this is of the Sodomites afore I passe from it let mee shew unto you a necessary distinction of poore men Some are Gods poore as I may terme them some the Divels Gods poore are they whom his hand crossing them or some naturall meere indiscretion of their owne or abundance of charge want of worke or the like hath brought into and doth keepe in poverty The Divels poore are those whom idlenesse wastfullnesse and unthriftinesse doth make poore because either their hands refuse to labour or else they consume it all up superfluously when they have gotten it The former kinde of poore you ought to strengthen and the not strengthening of them is a sinne To strengthen the hands of the latter is to strengthen their sinne and therefore their hands must not be strengthened for S. Pauls Canon is against it He that will not labour shall not eate Now consider every man of himselfe may it not be justly said of you that you doe not strengthen the hands of the poore Are not a number of you in your owne consciences convinced or if you would not winke might bee convinced that you doe not strengthen the poore mans hands When have you with any willingnesse given to any poore man any reasonable quantity Yea how backward are a number of you to give any thing at all Here is such complaining amongst you of your being seised too much one and too much another that it is more then evident you have little will to part with your money to his purpose I know not what skill to use for the fastening of a reproofe upon a niggard I will not so much as strive to doe it therefore But I call upon each of your consciences to become a just and true Judge against you and to finde one your guiltinesse and to give you no quiet till it have made you confesse the fault and blame you for it But I call upon conscience in vaine I feare for the conscience of a niggard is alwaies a bad conscience so inthralled to the love of money that he will not want excuses to make himselfe thinke he need not do that duty by which he should lessen his heape But these excuses shall one day aggravate the sinne therefore whosoever is an offendor in neglecting this duty of strengthening the hands of the poore I pray you give your consciences leave to passe a right sentence upon you viz. that your faith love obedience
and such When in these things hee doth not as S. Paul biddeth equall himselfe with them of the lower sort but of the higher When though God have humbled his estate yet he maust still keepe up his port and by hooke or crooke make a shift to be as gallant as ever This prooves a proud heart for noe man would bestow so much garnishing upon himselfe if he did not count himselfe some body and did not desire to be so accounted of others Therefore Isaiah among other fruites of proude vanity speaketh of the many gewgawes of the women of his time by which they sought immoderately to set out themselves A number of you thinke your selves farre the better when you have set up your selves with a deale of gaudinesse such lace such ruffes so in the fashion If it be sutable to your place and meanes it is no great discredit but if above surely it is as great a discredit as can be for it is as if you should weare a paper upon your heads or backes in which were written in great letters as in some other crimes hath beene done Bee it knowne unto all men that here goes a proud man and a proud woman It is even a Proclamation of your pride and folly and a telling tales against your selves which I am sure you would not doe if you did well thinke of it yea it is more then that for it brings your names into question about your truth and if you be females about your honesty there is such a mans servant she is exceedingly sleeked up see what a wase-coate what a gowne what a ruffe what a dresse shee hath it might well beseeme a mans daughter that would give her a large portion what hath this wench to maintaine it Is her father able to doe much for her no well then I wish she get it by honest meanes I wish that either a false finger or an over-curteous lip do not helpe her to it I am afraid all is not well that she is so fine This is all the good this haughtinesse doth you and will you not leave it The Sodomites punishments First they were taken captives blesse God that you have not felt this misery Secondly God sent fire and brimstone and destroyed them all at once Ezek. 16.49 They were set forth for an example Iude. v. 7. Sodome was turned into ashes 2 Pet. 2.6 The ground is now turned into a salt sea called the Dead Sea no fish will live in it the bird that flee over fall downe dead Thirdly they were cast into the lake that burnes with fire and brimstone Let us feare the sinnes of Sodome God is able to punish us in the same manner * ⎠* THE FIFTEENTH EXAMPLE OF ISAAC HItherto of Abraham and those that lived with him now we come to Isaac the sonne of Abraham not of his body so much as of his Faith for hee was the sonne of the promise the sonne of the free woman not of the bond-woman which was borne as S Paul saith not by the flesh nor by a meere naturall power but by promise by vertue of that gratious promise which God had made with him for this was a word of promise at that time I will come and Sarah shall have a sonne and in Isaac shall thy seede bee called and wee bretheren saith the Apostle as Isaac are sonnes of promise Now Isaac signifieth laughter or hee hath laughed or shall laugh a name given to him by God himselfe upon occasion of his Fathers laughter when he heard the promise not out of unbeleefe as Sarah once laughed but out of the joy which he conceived from the assured hope which hee had of the performance of the promise and because God filled both Abraham and Sarah with gladnesse and laughter at his birth when they were both olde and in course of nature were now past all possibility of having children Concerning Isaac we must shew his birth life and death For his birth he was borne in the hundreth yeere of his Father and the 90. of his mother His Father was Abraham his Mother Sarah both as good as dead but by faith they received strength to have a Sonne at that age For Faith will make a barren body fruitfull and also a barren heart In in his life consider First his Virtues and goodnesse Secondly his faults and weakenesses Thirdly his prosperity and benefits Lastly his afflictions and crosses For his Virtues in generall he was a true godly man and was endued with Faith without which no man can please God This Faith the Author to the Hebrewes taketh notice of in him saying By Faith Isaac blessed Iacob and Esau as concerning things to come This vertue of Faith is that by which a man beleeveth God in all that he speaketh barely by vertue of his truth and indeceiveable authority And as it apprehendeth the truth of all Gods word so particularly the truth of his promises and by name that great promise of remission of sinnes and salvation for the sake of Jesus Christ the true Messiah and promised seede in whom all spirituall blessings are conferred upon the sonnes of men for it is said in him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed Consider your selves therefore Bretheren whether you also have this same vertue of Faith in your hearts beleeving all that God speaketh to you because he speaketh it and specially all his promises and by name that principall promise of grace and salvation by Christ for without this Faith you cannot be the children of God If you have it not you are strangers from God and from the covenant of grace If you have it you are his sonnes and daughters justified before him and accepted in his sight through him the Beloved in whom the Father is well pleased And therefore labour to get it and to grow in it more and more that it may exceedingly abound in you as S. Paul saith it did in the Thessalonians But beware you deceive not your selves in a bare conceite of Faith saying you beleeve when indeed you doe not so but let your Faith be a working Faith approoving it selfe by love and by obedience that so you may indeed be the children of Abraham and children of promise as Isaac was and If you can thus approove your Faith then rejoyce in it above all things knowing that you are rich in Faith though you want all outward things for he that hath Faith hath God to bee his and that is sufficient to make him happy in the absence of all other things More particularly Isaacs Faith shewed it selfe by many excellent effects in regard of God For first he submitted himselfe to God to be offered on the Altar by his Father according to Gods commandement not making any resistance because his Father made it manifest unto him that God had given him a commandement so to offer him Hard it is to say whether the obedience of Abraham in being willing
betake your selves unto any sinfull meanes of escape but rather choose to die then to sinne against God as knowing death to be no great matter but sinne to be an hatefull thing and worse by farre then death And how should this undaunted and spirituall fortitude be attained but by conversing with death often in your thoughts so as to get some good assurance that it shall not be able to carry you to the region of darknesse to eternall death but alone to let you out of this dungeon into a roome farre more lightsome and blisfull He that thinkes much of death so as to make himselfe carefull by frequent renewing of his repentance and amendment of his life to get his salvation assured to himselfe shall at last be happily armed against the feare of death and shall be made so resolute as to choose rather to die then sinne Againe if you finde so much weakenesse in any of Gods Saints with whom you live as you finde recorded in the story of Isaac I pray you be no harsher so them then you be to him Tell mee what thinke you of Isaac was hee a godly man or not if you say no you contradict the Scripture if you say yea then you must learne not to deny to another the name of a good man because you meete with the like disorders in him that are here noted in Isaac if hee feare too much if hee hath used some sinfull meanes to escape death or other danger Nay a man ought not to deny himselfe the name of a man truly sanctified because hee findeth the same imperfections in himselfe To call in question ones being sanctified in respect of the hanging on of such weakenesses is to nip and discourage the worke of grace and to hinder the growth of it no lesse then a cold frost doth hinder fruites from growing But Isaac telleth a manifest lie Lying is a sinne and the lying tongue will bring destruction but to bee so transported with some present passion as to be thrust into the mire of lying is such a thing as may befall a godly man Come and take heede that you doe not imbolden your selves to lie by abusing this and the like Examples but rather resolve and pray against it as knowing in how much danger you stand of falling into it For though to bee over-taken with this sinne in hast doe not disproove the truth of sanctity yet to be a lier one that makes account that this is so small an offence that hee will not be so precise as to forbeare to helpe himselfe by it if need be this is a proofe of a man that hath not yet gotten any sanctity Lying is a sinne so plaine that scarce is it possible to be ignorant of it but through wilfullnesse because a man refuseth to be willing to know that fault which hee is not willing to leave For no man can choose but blame it in another and therefore his inward soule doth plainely tell him that it is also naught in himselfe Now to live purposely in a knowne sinne resolving that hee must and will doe it if occasion serve this is to be a worker of iniquity Remember therefore the word of S. Paul Put away lying seeing you have put off the old man intimating that hee hath not cast off any part of the old man that hath not throwne away this rag of it Lying will breed boldnesse to sinne hard-heartednesse in it impudency after it Therefore you must determinately conclude with your selves to put away lying and speake the truth one to another In these two things Isaac sinned against GOD and himselfe But his sinne against Abimelech was in that hee was like to have drawne him occasionally into a great sinne hee did that which might easily have hazarded him to thinke of making Rebekah his wife that is of committing adultery It is a sinne to become a stumbling blocke to another by doing that which may make him bold to doe a thing that is sinfull as Abimelech complained to Abraham and also to Isaac take heede that you become not stumbling blockes in a more palpable fashion by inticing perswading exhorting giving evill example or the like Be carefull not to partake with other mens sinnes and if you can call to minde any thing done by your selves in the like nature viz. such an act as might have pulled another to wickednesse though the ill effect have not followed yet you must repent of your uncharitablenesse and rashnesse herein Another fault of Isaacs is this that he had too great respect to good fare he loved his tooth and palate a little too much he was an aged man and hee gave himselfe a little more then enough to savoury meate and his love to good fare carried him so farre awry in his affections that he loved Esau more then Iacob Gen. 25.28 Surely it was too great a love to Venison that caused him to love a worse sonne above a better This is a weakenesse against which it is needefull to strive our sensuality inclineth us unto it wee are apt to thinke it no sinne may not a man use Gods benefits and enjoy the comforts of this life in good measure why should not hee fare well that hath much given him by God But sure to be so over-ruled by ones palate that any disorders be bred thence in ones life towards any person or thing cannot but be a sinne for all these excuses Doe not wee know that cockering of the body doth likely depresse the soule and the feeding of the belly and pleasing of the taste doth breed an aptnesse to be lesse delighted with better things Thus you have Isaacs faults First Forgetfulnesse of Gods promise Secondly Carnall feare of death Thirdly Lying to prevent danger Fourthly Scandalizing Abimelech Fiftly over-loving his worser sonne and Sixtly Over-loving good fare We will goe on now to consider what blessings he enjoyed First Spirituall God pleased to make his covenant in him and to bestow the birth-right and blessing upon him and therefore also did appeare to him and blessed him Gen. 25.3 4. and after Vers 24. It is a singular favour of God to give a man spirituall blessings to make him his childe to appeare to him and comfort him by giving him assurance that hee is his childe and confirme his Faith in his gracious promises This is the greatest favour to blesse us with spirituall blessings Ishmael had the terrene but Isaac had the spirituall blessings these were given also to Iacob as a singular prerogative It is an admirable favour indeede to enjoy these for they will not cease at the end of this life but will continue till another life and will bee perfected in another life eternally I pray you consider whether God have vouchsafed these unto you hath he caused you to feare his name hath he made you to beleeve his promises hath he appeared to you in his word and ordinances and given you some happy apprehension of his
goodnesse in Christ making you know that he will fulfill to you the blessing of Abraham If he have give hearty praises to him take unspeakable comfort in him account all your other crosses nothing Rejoyce in him evermore that hath translated you from the power of darkenesse to his owne Kingdome Happy is he that is made the childe of God though he be in great calamity for outward things Know the incomparable greatnesse of his favour that you may rejoyce in it in despight of all crosses And labour to get more and more assurance of your interest unto God and happy estate this way that you may be more and more comforted But if you have not these spirituall good things doe not account your selves happy because of the outward thinke not that you are in a good estate whatsoever you possesse if you possesse not Gods Spirit to make you Gods childe to seale you to the day of redemption to comfort you in all times with making himselfe more and more assuredly knowne unto you What is it to enjoy a dreame of prosperity in this sleepe of naturall life and then to spend ones eternall being in endlesse and irremediable and unsufferable misery Rest not your selves satisfied in outward things count not your selves happy in having them never thinke you have any thing till you have grace till you have Christ till you have interest into Heaven that eternall land of promise and set your selves in feeling of the want of these things to seeke them in Gods ordinances Prayer the Word Sacraments and you shall have them for you want them not that live in the Church but for want of care duely to seeke them Againe consider Isaacs temporall blessings he had a very good wife Rebekah that carried her selfe well towards him and was carefull to keepe him from offending in translating the blessing contrary to Gods pleasure wherein though shee used deceit yet shee brought him into the right way afore he knew of it and caused him to doe well when her thought to doe evill Againe he had one very gracious and godly childe Iacob and another though not so godly as we can assuredly say he feared God yet one that respected him that did thrive in the world and was of commendable outward carriage among men for so was Esau he shewed regard to Isaac grew great in worldly greatnesse and had a name among men Thirdly hee had a greate measure of wealth and was a man of great state and esteeme so that King Abimelech desired his friendship and though some envied and wronged him yet they could not hinder Gods blessing from attending him especially one yeere God gave him a singular blessing for he sowed and reaped and as by Faith he beleeved that God would so God did make him roomth and he became fruitfull in the land And last of all he lived a long time in this world to enjoy all these things and lived to continue with his wife Rebekah shee lived as long or neere as long as he which could not but be a great comfort to him So you see hee had all abundance of outward contents for his children wife state c. Now I bâ—eseech you reckon betwixt God and your selves hath not God beene as favourable to some of you as to Isaac so that you have good vertuous and dutifull and religious wives which will helpe your errors and cherish your bodies and doe you all the good they can Hath not hee given some of you good and godly children at least some or one and the rest civill and thriving Hath not he given you a wealthy estate not so rich as Isaac but even rich enough I meane so much as will inable you to enjoy your selves in the world and to passe thorough the world with comfort Hath not he prospered the worke of your hands and given you roomth and made you increase yea hath hee not made you live a long time to enjoy all these things If so let these benefits become matter of praise let them become arguments of obedience labour to be truly thankfull for them that you may finde them truly beneficiall make a spirituall use of temporall blessings And if any want these things let him see how rich God is and let him even trust in him for sufficiency in outward things and count it enough that it pleaseth God to give him better things as I exhorted before And if any of Gods people finde not these things so granted to himselfe let him not take Gods dealing with him in the worst part let him not ascribe it to want of love to him but to his wisedome that seeing him not so capable of these things doth withdraw from him that thing which hee sees would be hurtfull unto him Wee must not misconster Gods forbearing to give outward things Yea now let all men encourage themselves to bee obedient to God and to feare him as did Isaac for you see in him that God is ready to reward his servants with great commodities and comforts in this life too Hee will not alone save them but so farre as is good make their estate prosperous here below That godlinesse which hath the promise shall also have the performance of good things for this present life and that which is to come I know that these bee common benefits but when they come sweetened with Gods blessing then they are truly comfortable and so shall they be to him that interests himselfe to them by getting into Christ and walking in him in holinesse and godly conversation So wee have done with Isaacs benefits now his crosses for neither could hee nor can any man in this life scape but that more or lesse hee shall meete with afflictions First in respect of his body 2. His state 3. His children For his body hee was blinde many yeares for hee was married at forty at sixty hee had Esau and Iacob Iacob was about seventy six yeares when he came to Laban so then Isaac was a hundred thirty sixe yeares and at that time hee could not discerne Esau and Iacob one from the other by sight and he lived in all 180 yeares from which if you subtract 136 then will remaine forty foure yeares so long did Isaac live without the use of his eyes Therefore learne you to bee thankefull that God hath given you your eye-sight even to your lives end so that you want not this sence at all till death or at least want it not so long a space of time Sight is a great comfort it is pleasant to see the Sunne and to bee able with our eyes to behold and discerne our friends and all other creatures of GOD. Let us praise God for the use of this and other sences Secondly let us prepare to suffer the same crosse who can tell how soone his eyes may grow dimme let us use them well whilest wee have them and withdraw them from looking after vanity and all other abuses for
have a little forme of godlinesse to forbeare some sins and doe some good things for your Parents sake This is to be an Esau even to enjoy the meanes of grace and salvation in a godly house and there to conforme a little outwardly and to abstaine from some sins out of respect to the Governours though you have no true conscience to God Search your hearts you wives children servants that are educated and live under the roofe of good men in the Church of God under good meanes and see your misery if you be no better than this man was And now labour to profit by the means of grace to get the truth of grace causing you to stand in awe of God and to depart from all wickednesse out of due obedience to his Majesty that it may be said of you these and these and all sins you resolve to leave not for sinister respects of this or that person or thing of a Father or the like but out of love to God and a true desire to honour him that hath taken you to be his people Thinke not well of your selves because some self respect or humane consideration keeps you from running into grosser sins but drive to imprint such a filiall regard to the living God in your hearts that may cause you to shun all wickednesse for the Lords sake and then you may comfortably say in your selves now I know I am a true member of the Church and not as Esau was at least then a rotten and a withering and a fruitlesse branch that bringeth forth leaves alone and no good fruit But let us more particularly search into Esau First in respect of his carriage of himselfe in respect of outward things then of his carriage for matters of religion and the things of God Thirdly His behaviour to his Parents Lastly to his brother For the first his life was very faulty in the manner of his orders for the world for in his younger time he gave himselfe wholly to hunting as it is said of him Gen. 25.27 The boyes grew up and Esau was a cunning Hunter a man of the field He meaneth a gallant fellow that gave himselfe to little else but the sport of hunting and was still in the field following that sport He was a rich mans son and his Father had great meanes and allowed him enough wherefore he cared not for any usefull kinde of living but followed sports and jollity and by name was a great hunter still in the fields to please himselfe in that humour Is not this also the common sin of many richer persons who as they had wealth given them to be fewell to idlenesse and voluptuousnesse give themselves over to sports and some to this of hunting and regard not to profit in any good study or profitable trade of life Esaus hunting may seeme not to have been according to our present custome with kennels of bounds but with bow and quiver as it is noted Chap. 25. But howsoever he was set wholly upon sports and sold himselfe to that kinde of delight leting goe other things of better note and use Surely then it is a sin to live voluptuously to have none other calling but pastimes and vaine sports to make that ones occupation that should be alone his recreation and to spend himselfe in such a trifling vaine thing that should be used as a triflle alone to refresh our selves after matters of greater consequence Nimrod was an hunter Ishmael was an archer Esau a field man you reade no such thing of Sem Abraham Isaac Iacob Why should you follow the patterne of those men whom the Scripture speaketh of with disgrace and not theirs rather who have an honourable name in the book of God I pray you call your selves to an account for your expence of time must we not answer to God how we have lived how we have bestowed our dayes and houres will this be a good answer I spent the day in hunting hawking carding dicing and so I did from time to time one day at one sport or merry meeting another at another but all in such toyes Can you bee so fond as to imagine or beleeve that God for this cause gave you wit sences lives health strength wealth and other like meanes of doing good See this fault now so many as are guilty and set your selves to a more profitable kinde of living or else the day will come when you shall bootlesly wish that you had never been O so lay out your life that the world and your selves may be the better for it Live as Abraham and Iacob did not as Esau follow some study follow some good husbandry Live as those that know there is another life after this and that there be more weighty and honourable things to doe than playing and sporting Take heed of bringing your selves into the number of those that are Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God If you say why Then do you condemne all use of sports as hunting fowling or the like I answer no. I doe not but I say let not this in a manner be the totall summe of your employment Have figures as well as cyphers in the number of your dayes let these kindes of exercises have some small quantity of time for your refreshment but spend your selves in better things or else you shall be censured with S. Iames his censure You have lived in pleasure upon earth and then I am sure you shall live in torment when you must leave the earth But another fault we have in Esau for the manner of his hunting ver 29. He came from the field and was faint he followed his pastime over-eagerly and excessively and knew not how to breake it off in due time till very hunger and faintnesse brought him home Sure reason will conclude that it must needs be folly and a sin to be so bound to some sport that one knowes not a due season of leaving it off but must run after it a long time together till faintnesse or hunger follow To be eager after pastimes and stay so long at them as if they were great matters even till extreame wearinesse and hunger take one off and rather compell than perswade him to leave this is an inordinate using of sports For these recreations are in the very wisdome of nature appointed alone to cheere up the minde when it is wearied with great imployments that it may be fitted the better for them afterwards and they are not to be followed for their own sakes as not being worthy to bee made any part of the end of a wise mans life Now he that follows them with so immoderate eagernesse and so long together makes it appeare that he doth not use them as their nature requireth and instead of fitting himselfe for better actions by them doth altogether unfit himselfe for any good action For what can he performe well that hath toiled himselfe in a toy till hee bee quite spent Learne I pray you
leaves the land of Canaan and of his owne accord goes away to Mount Seir from Iacob because he found it not so commodious an habitation He and his brother could not dwell together there he would not dwell in Tents as Isaac Iacob to shew himself an heir through hope of the same promises so this was an utter forsaking of all care of true religion turning meer worldly and earthly O take heed that none of you suffer profaneness to take so strong a hold and settle so deep rooting in you that you should quite and cleane give over all shew of piety and follow the world wholly altogether and professedly He is profane that hath no great care of heaven at least not at all to get grace and therefore first makes no great reckoning of next despiseth and after relinquisheth and casteth off the signes and meanes of grace that God hath appointed O let not any of you be such perish not after the example of Esaus naughtinesse but let his badnesse teach you to feare to be bad in the same kinde and labour to be devout holy and religious that you may be saved Yet more faults must be spoken of towards his Father and Mother he did not shew that due respect which he ought unto them for he married Cananitish wives against their good liking you may be sure which proved an heart-breaking unto them and when he thought to mend the matter in super-adding the daughter of Ishmael he went yet in the same roade that before not craving their advice and counsell but did it of his own head which though be were now married hee should not have done so long as he lived as then it may seeme he did live under their roofe Beware you children of this sin of Esau wrong not the authority of God and your parents both by marrying without their consent liking or privity whether is it safe better more desirable to be Iacobs imitators or Esaus but of that I have spoken already Another rank of faults see towards his brother First he accuseth him for beguiling him of his birth-right which was a false accusation for he could not couzen him of that but himself out of a profane ignorance and contempt of the worth thereof sold it away for a poore price a messe of pottage But man is ever ready to cast the blame of his faults upon others if they have any colour so to do it were better plainly to confesse and take the blame unto ones self than to double the fault by covering it with falshood springing from self-love Let no man say that another hath deceived him of that which he hath fondly cast away or the like But when Iacob had indeed beguiled him of the blessing which I cannot tell how to excuse then he hated him It is a grievous offence to be so imbittered specially against a brother or kinsman as to entertain hatred against him Thou shalt not hate thy neighbour in thine heart Love your enemies do good to them that do evill to you saith our Saviour This is far from being like God and so from being a fruit of the Spirit of Christ who loved his enemies Should not the Image of God in a man prevaile more to make one love than his own injury to make him hate If any of you be an Esauite in this thing an hater of one that hath done him wrong let him be assured that it is a great sin and if he excuse it defend it deny it will not see it not carefully resist it let him be assured that his sin is not pardoned He that saith he loveth God and hateth his brother is a lyar and hee that saith he is a childe of God and is not a lover of God is a lyar too You may ask me what it is to hate ones brother I answer There is a passion of hatred and a habit of hatred and both work in two degrees The passion of hatred is a kinde of aversnesse and rising of the heart against a man when one sees him so that hee cannot away with him nor can speake unto or looke curteously or peaceably upon him but ones countenance fals when he sees him and he even turnes away and by his goodwill would have nothing to doe with him To be so disposed to a man in respect of his soule and wicked carriage is not a sin but to be affected in respect of an injury is this sinfull hating of him But the habit of hatred is when the heart is so setled in this alienation and estrangement that it grows to wish and desire and seeke his hurt now sometimes these passions and these grudges be seen lamented resisted and by degrees overcome here hatred ruleth not sometimes a man will not see his sin in such hatred and taketh no paines to chase this sowre leaven out of his heart This over-ruling hatred is a sinne that cannot stand with true charity to God O take heed of it see it amend it and be no longer like Esau Next he not alone intends to kill his brother but comforts himself in that thought as you may reade Gen. 27.44 It is a fearefull thing to resolve upon murder and that with delight and pleasure so that the heart concludeth to commit it so soone as such and such a let is removed or fit occasion offered and that so setledly as not conscionable obedience to God but alone some meere respect to men doth hinder the accomplishment So the Pharisees resolved to kill Christ only fearing the people they forbeared it was glad newes to them when Iudas offered his service to betray him This is to give ones selfe over as a servant to sin and cannot be found in any childe of God at least not usually or often Doe any of you sinne thus in any kinde What should I call you but Esaus and I beseech you to take heed of malice that it may not produce murther and of all the inward motions to evill with allowance for feare they produce the grossest acts of evill Nay Esaus malice strived twenty yeares in his breast for he went out against his brother when he returned from Padan Aram Gen. 22. with foure hundred men after him minding to destroy him but that God vouchsafed to stop him by putting a passion of kindenesse upon him A great sin it is to attempt greivous offences though one be stopped in the middest yea though the stoppage grow from some inward motion in himselfe for this shewes that the heart was once fully bent unto it but if some outward hinderance alone have been the cause of its not being done then the thankes of forbearance is lesse Repent therefore of such purposes and attempts and shew your selves truly sorrowfull and penitent by confessing to God the sin of attempting and blessing his name for not permitting you to follow your wicked desires His benefits they were all temporall The dew of heaven and the fatnesse
deceit and other unjustice is sweete yet Solomon saith It shall prove but gravell in the mouth a thing troublesome and unsavoury Yea Solomon saith The riches gotten by lying are but vainly tossed to and fro of them that seek death and that The deceitfull man shall not roast what he tooke in hunting and that An inheritance may be hastily gotten at the beginning but the latter end thereof shall not be blessed for he that getteth goods and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his daies and in his end shall prove a foole Wherefore that we may attaine the blessing of God upon our estates let us put away all kindes of unrighteousnesse especially take we heed that we doe not take our advantage upon other mens oversights or imperfections by misreckonings false measures or any kinde of encroaching If one leave in anothers hand any thing and forget let not his forgetfulnesse cause him to take it as his owne If one lend us and take no witnesse or security let not his inability to prove the debt make us bold to detaine it Let not the love of riches and immoderate desire of gain so blinde our eyes as to make us unable to perceive the unequalnesse and sinfulnesse of our course nor yet so harden our hearts and dull our consciences that we should be emboldened against our knowledge to enrich our selves by such devices So much for Iacobs vertues respecting himselfe Now see his carriage towards others First those that were neare to him Then strangers And first of his kindred his Superiours Equals Inferiours for his Superiours they be his Parents Isaac and Rebekkah to whom hee was loving and obedient his obedience he shewed in travailing to Padan Aram at his Mothers advice Fathers perswasion for a wife It behooveth children to shew all good subjection and that particularly in this point of being ruled by their discreet and religious Parents in choice of a wife or husband so as to make them their guiders and directors in this weighty businesse and they must not suffer their hearts to be set upon any person in that respect without the knowledge and consent of their Parents nor hearken to motions made to them without the good liking of their Parents If it be said how if Parents will crosse their children in their affections I answer The world is full of examples by which it is manifest that many come together in great heate of love and within a few yeares grow so froward discontented and carelesse either of other as none can be more And againe others come together with discretion not in such vehemency of Love and their hearts afterwards doe cleave each to other in singular love and deernesse Therefore it would become a childe to crosse his affection rather than his Parents But what if Parents will force their Children either not at all to marry or else to marry with such as are unfit for them in regard of Age Religion and in respect of evident deformities of Body or disorders of Life I answer I know no such unlimited authoritie granted to Parents as to compell their children upon inconveniences in any of these respects Parents are bound to tender fit yoake-fellowes to their Children as God did to Adam else the Children in not following their advice do forbeare to be ruled not by their authority but by their lusts For if Parents may not provoke their Children to wrath lest they be discouraged surely they may not thrust them upon other miseries and distempers But what must be done in such a case I answer By patience and long suffering and intreaty of common friends and like meanes the Children must seeke to win their Parents to reason which if they cannot doe they must referre themselves to the Governours Magistrates or Ministers and if these will not or by the Lawes cannot provide for their help they must even follow the advice of vertuous and wise Friends and Neighbors But suppose that in such case the Parents frowardnesse be such that they will not yeeld to reason and that they will rather drive their Children to an inconvenient match or yeeld their good liking to none what must the childe doe then I answer If God vouchsafe that gift he must forbeare Marriage esteeming himselfe called of God to the single life But if hee cannot by all good wayes so farre overcome himselfe but that his minde is conquered by desires of Marriage hee hath a plaine rule from S. Paul It is better to marry than to burne Yea but then the Parents displeasure followes and losse of such meanes or portion as else he might have had I answer Every good Christian must resolve to take up his crosse and follow Christ therefore I require you sonnes that have not troden in Iacobs steps for this matter to be humbled for it with true and hearty repentance Sinne will hazard a good man to some severity of punishment I meane that of knowne sinnes such as a man doth or would bee carefull might understand to bee sinnes untill particular repentance come betwixt to stop or remove that same but when a man hath and doth conveniently at fit times humble himselfe for a fault it ceaseth to make him liable to temporall evils further then they be needfull to increase and make up what would be wanting in his repentance and he that will at Gods reproofe turne unto him in humiliation and amendment shall finde the Lord a gracious Father and such a one as will not proceed to smarting corrections if loving and earnest admonitions may prevaile Againe all you children to whom God hath vouchsafed such Parents as have dealt wisely and mildly with you in this matter presenting unto you fit yokefellows and such against whom no exception might be justly made or have yeelded you to your owne choice and that hath so guided you too that you have pleased your Parents in your matches and so with good will and approbation on both sides have entred into this estate be you thankfull to God that hath ordered this affaire so properously for you and take heed of ascribing this comfort to your owne wit and goodnesse without giving the whole honour to God that gave the wit and the goodnesse and the successe without whose favourable providence neither wit nor goodnesse would have brought the businesse If benefits be perverted to nourish our good conceits of our selves not to encrease our thankes and praises to God they be but unsanctified benefits such as at last will make our state more miserable than the want of them would have done But all you young and yet unmarried folke looke to your selves pray to God to subdue your passions to reason and both to your Parents take notice it is your duty to give this honour to your Parents and resolve that by Gods assistance you will performe it Hearken to no enticements let no beauty or other allurement winne ground upon your hearts but still keepe your selves free
with good words and titles and to speake lovingly to them to give them good advice and to doe any other good office as occasion may offer it selfe We are commanded to Shew all meeknesse to all men and to Keepe peace with all men and besides brotherly love To be charitable to all and to account a stranger a neighbour in loving him as our selves For God hath made all mankinde of one blood and knit them together in divers common bands All be of one kinde all of one Parent matter form all redeemed with one blood wherefore all must be loved and kindly dealt with They therefore who are churlish sowre crabbed to strangers and can scarce speake to them in any curteous accent yea that are apt if they meet with such to give them flouts and taunts rather than any good words and to offer them injury rather than to help them with any good advice are worthy to be called Swine rather than Men. For even beasts themselves shew some respect unto them of the same kinde more than those of another unlesse it be some most fierce beasts and when occasion of quarrell falleth out betwixt them And let me now commend the vertue of humanity unto you that is of being ready to shew love to man as he is man and because he is a man one made after Gods owne image and proceeding out of the same common roote We all met in Adams loynes and in Noahs let us therefore doe good even to strangers This good will which is communicated to such savours least of self-self-love and of self-respect and is therefore the more to be commended It tends to the uniting of the common body of the world together and to make all mankinde happy And brethren are not all as they are men equally deare to God why therefore should not all be in some measure deare to each other I meane equally deare in respect of the common work of Creation But Iacob here shewed specially love to Rachel for he salutes her and takes paines to water her Sheepe Surely a neare kinswoman may challenge and must have a larger portion of love than a meere stranger and he that is not somewhat moved by the title of Vncle Cousin and so forth will scarce be moved by that of a man they be therefore in some degree destitute of naturall affection who are led nothing by kindred unlesse there be some riches found with a kinsman by which he may doe them some credit or advantage Let none of you be so but shew due respect to a kinsman or kinswoman rich or poore for maist not thou need their kindnesse hereafter as they thine for the present And so much for Iacobs vertues to these strangers Now to Pharaoh he was a stranger too but he was a King and a King that had advanced his son Ioseph Wherefore comming and going he blessed him that is thanked him for his extraordinary kindnesse to Ioseph and all his for Iosephs sake praying God to blesse him for it So he was a thankfull man and ready to give thankes for a benefit So must we be to all that have pleasured us though they be far lesse persons and have pleasured us in far lesser things And thus of Iacobs vertues Now of his faults which are neither many nor great but some they were as there was never any man except our Lord Iesus Christ in whom some sin was not found First then he was somewhat faulty towards God in that he did shew himself a little forgetfull of his Vow made to God in his trouble and deferred the performance of it somewhat too long even till the Lord did force him unto it by a sore chastisement and that chastisement would not serve to revive his memory till in a Vision the Lord spake unto him and wished him to goe to Bethel and there to reare an Altar unto him that had appeared to him when hee fled from the face of his brother It was twenty yeares space betwixt the Vow and Iacobs returne so that it may seeme that Iacob had well neare forgotten the Vow A good man may grow forgetfull of a Vow in twenty yeares and indeed omissions through forgetfulnesse and commissions through inconsideratenesse are not unwonted in good men I pray you looke that none of you offend through the same example of forgetfulnesse indeed there are greater faults but a good man must shew his uprightnesse by forsaking all faults great as well as small and small as well as great Now let me put you in minde of your former forgetfulnesse Is there none of you that hath formerly bound himselfe to God by a Vow and hath either deferred wittingly or put off through forgetfulnesse the accomplishment of it If so let him now be induced to remember himselfe and to make all convenient hast to make good his Vow for feare the Lord send some heavy crosse upon him and waken his conscience by terrours Iacob should have considered his promise to God so soone as the Lord had brought him safely home to his Fathers house but it seemeth he deferred it for that was the time prescribed in his Vow I pray you doe as Iacob should have done not as he did in a thing wherein it is evident that he did amisse and call to minde often the words of Solomon When thou vowest a Vow unto the Lord defer not to pay it for he hath no pleasure in fooles pay what thou owest and before him Moses in the Law saith Be not slack to performe thy Vowes If you have tyed your soules in an oath to God defer not from day today bee not forgetfull It is a great carelesnesse to forget a great bond and to let the paiment be put off from time to time yet if any man have committed such a sin he must not be discouraged the sin is not to be unduly extenuated nor yet aggravated above measure It is such a fault as calleth for unfained repentance and that done shall bee pardoned yea the most wilfull breach of a Vow is pardonable to the penitent But other faults he is to be blamed for in respect of his Parents First he abused his old Father with lies and dissembling the lie it selfe and dissimulation we meddle not with in it selfe but that hee bare so little respect unto aged Isaac as to goe about to mocke him with tricks and tales Indeed before his doing of it his conscience told him that this was a sin and yet he was induced by his Mother to doe it So he sinned in this against his conscience Have any of you done the like offence but in a worse manner and to a worse end towards your Fathers to hide your faults or to wrest money from them to serve the turne of your inordinate lusts flapped them in the mouth as our proverbe is with leasings and abased the weaknesse of their sences memory or discretion with cheating tricks This is a villany God
crosse Say then wast thou ever driven out of thine owne habitation to serve in a strange place and an hard master that wronged thee and used thee discurteously Wast thou ever in danger to have all thy goods taken from thee by an enraged man stronger than thy selfe and pursuing thee with a revengefull minde nor wast thou never in perill of thy life by a revengefull person armed with foure hundred souldiers nor wast thou never tormented with seeing thy sonnes murderers couzeners and robbers nor hast thou never lost a deare childe and thought him slaine by a violent death nor did never no son of thine commit incest with his mother in law if not see how favourable God hath been to thee above Iacob and praise love an honour him and make his gentlenesse an argument of turning and obeying for if thou compare thy sins with Iacobs there need be no doubt but that thine have been as great as his and thy repentance as little But it is our good not our sins that God lookes to in correcting as a Father corrects not a little childe for as great a fault so much as he doth a stronger Againe learne to beare the crosses thou hast with more patience and quietnesse of minde by comparing them with Iacobs crosses which have been more in number and more weighty and grievous Why doth any of you my Brethren take the matter so heavily that some childe of his is somewhat stubborne and ill disposed When none of them have committed murder incest rapine and such sins as Iacobs sons did commit Why doe you make such a stir at wrongs When none of you were ever so pursued by any foe as Iacob was by his brother and Father in Law Why doe you take on so for the ordinary and naturall death of a childe seeing none of you hath had such a childe torne by wilde beasts or some other like violence as Iacob conceived Ioseph to have miscarried Why doe you complaine of famine and of want When none of you hath suffered such a famine as compelled him to send so far as Iacob sent to Aegypt for Corne which is thought to be not much lesse than two hundred miles We complaine of ease If our so much lamented afflictions were laid in the ballance with Iacobs we should finde them very light and trifling businesses in comparison Want of looking about and observing the burdens that are fastened unto other mens shoulders causeth us to aggravate our owne so much in our owne conceits as that by making them seeme extraordinarily heavy wee even wilfully cast our selves into excessive sorrow for them But againe you that are yet at ease and have not tasted any so bitter a cup as Iacob did many must bee perswaded to take some paines with your owne hearts to make your selves thinke that some such crosses may befall you and therefore to prepare for them by resolving to beare them and praying God to sit you for them and sanctifie them to you Mans self-loving minde is willing to flatter it selfe with good hopes rather then to forewarne it selfe with wise warnings O I hope I shall never see my children my wife so naught I shall never finde such ill usage I hope Come hither vaine man and either give a good reason of thine hopes or else confesse them to be fruits of thine extreame folly and doting self-love Hath God ever promised thee that no such thing should befall thee I am sure thou canst shew no such promise Hast not thou deserved as much as Iacob to be severely chastened of God I am sure thou oughtest to say yes Doth not thy body soule name children lie abroad in as open a Sea and as tempestuous Here also thou oughtest to say yes and therefore shouldest also condemne these silken soft hopes of thine and say Well God may make me as afflicted as Iacob and therefore I will even expect the same or as bad and if they come I will beare them all seeing God and my ill deservings in them Yonder is a very towardly boy I love him dearely what if I should heare he were torne of beasts Lord if it be thy will let it not be so but if it be make me to beare it with quietnesse and why should I not so stoope to thy will in every thing yea I will doe it by thy grace If thou say I see many escape such crosses I answer and thou seest many afflicted with them and why maist not thou be amongst the number of those that suffer them as well as of those that escape them But lastly take heed of making over-bold with Gods favour as a wanton childe that presumes he shall not be whipt and therefore cares not almost what wanton and evill prankes he playes Doe you not see here that the Lord of heaven knowes how to whip his owne children throughly and to purpose You have not to deale with a foolishly pittifull Father that cannot finde in his heart to heare his children cry and see them smart and bleed No he can strike he can lay it on soundly he can make you roare and cry and bleed hee can doe it yea and he will doe it too if he finde that your conceit of his love and gentlenesse brings forth no better fruit in you than this that by presuming of it you are made more wicked Wherefore say to thy selfe if such abominable fancies arise foolish man that I am doe I so requite the Lords kindnesse Doe I put his clemency to this use Did he not cut and wound Iacobs soul Did he not handle him roughly even though we never reade that he did entertaine such presumptuous conceits How then will hee deale with me if I doe so exceedingly provoke him by so exceedingly abusing his goodnesse And so frame to condemne and blame thy wickednesse in having such motions and pray to God to worke in thine heart a reverend awe of his Majestie by making his justice and anger so terrible to thee as to make sin abominable that would insence that wrath and justice against thee * ⎠* THE TWENTIETH EXAMPLE OF IACOBS Wives FRom the Story of Iacob I proceed to his Wives and Children and so to other his contemporaries Iacob had foure Wives It was not his own seeking that his Wives grew to such a number for he was painfull and laborious and a chaste man that would very contentedly have satisfied himselfe with one woman But he was drawne into this way of Polygamy by severall occasions Now of his Wives the true and lawfull Wife was Rachel for her he agreed with her he espoused himselfe as it is like for we cannot thinke but that after his Father had promised to give her to him upon seven yeares service he would acquaint her with it and desire her good will and unlesse he had attained it the marriage would not have proceeded and been as it was solemnly celebrated to her hee bare singular affection and her alone he looked for Now for Rachel you
walke with God live to him seeke him please him or else some bare naked good deeds will not suffice to prove us his children and his heires So much for the good of Laban now his evill must be observed too First to God-ward though hee had Iacob living in his house and had observed by experience that God did blesse him for his sake yet hee would not leave his false gods his Idols his Teraphim but keepe them still and made such store of them that hee tooke it very ill that Iacob should steale them away as hee conceived hee had done though falsly and therefore also hee sware by the gods of Nahor and the gods of their Fathers Hee was brought up an Idolater and continued an Idolater living and dying in the worship of false and imaginary gods which they that doe shall not inherite the kingdome of God hee had Images of these false gods Images of men it may seeme they were by their name O how naturall it is to man to erre in the conceit of a multiplicity of gods and in setting up pictures and representations of God to himselfe Great darknesse possesseth the mindes of men in the matter of Gods nature hee will take upon trust any fable in this kinde and will scarce use his own reason to examine religion but for the worshipping God in an Image though it bee a point of the greatest foppery in the world hee will count it singular wisdome and count himselfe so much devouter by how much hee is liker the blocke or picture before which hee doth his false devotions Let us blesse God that hath delivered us from conceit of fantasticall gods and from the love and liking of Images and pictures which the Lord may seeme to have in detestation because in likelihood they were occasions of inducing the damnable opinion of multitude of gods into the world And let us pray to God to bring the poore ignorant persons that run after other gods or else dote upon pictures out of such their miserable condition and to set up the truth in so great power that men may no longer cast themselves headlong by that which themselves account religion and the right way to please God But Laban dealt very ill with Iacob First the love hee bare him was a meere worldly self-respecting love hee found hee gate well by him therefore hee desired his company But for Iacobs piety and true religion he regarded him not a jot the better So most times yea evermore the love of worldlings doth grow from the roote of worldlinesse If by some good Iacob they have attained or hope to attaine profit and advantage they are loath to part with him but unlesse such things doe commend a man to them hee may sit without doores long enough and his goodnesse with him before they will take him into house Such a carnall love to good men is none other thing than may bee seene in as bad a man as hee of whom wee entreate You must therefore learne to love a Iacob as a Iacob and in the name of a Iacob that love will demonstrate some piety to your selves And when wee perceive the kindnesse of any man to have its originall in such base ends wee must esteeme it a point of discretion not to trust at all in their loves they will soone turne enemies for gaine whom gaine maketh friends Further Laban did palpably deceive and cousin Iacob in a matter wherein deceit should least of all bee used even in point of Matrimony Iacob intended to live contentedly with his owne wife as his Father Isaac had done before him and therefore setting his affections on the younger daughter Rachel agrees to serve Laban for her seven yeares instead of dowrie which hee had not to give Laban agrees to it as I shewed you before and assembling his neighbours celebrates the marriage with a feast It must not bee doubted but that they were all made to understand which of the maides was the Bride as well as which young man was the Bridegroome But at night it may seeme the Bride was brought into the Bridegroomes Chamber vailed for modesty sake Laban perswades his eldest daughter Leah to possesse the place of her younger sister whether with or without her consent it is not expressed but most likely without and so is Iacob in the morning greatly discontented to see a stranger bedded with him instead of his owne Spouse Wherefore complaining of the wrong to his Father in Law hee is answered with a shift that the custome of that place is not to bestow the younger before the elder but if hee would serve seven yeares more for Rachel hee should have her too for Polygamy was not then reputed a sinne Iacob must needes bee content with that which hee could not helpe and is compelled to make his apprentiship longer by halfe than hee intended here was flat cousenage To winde in Iacob for seven yeares more than hee meant at first and to bestow both his daughters upon so thriving a man and so advantage himselfe more wayes than one at once this fellow feares not to breake Covenant and to beguile and defraud a man in his wife And when hee was told of it hee pretends a contrary custome If there were no such custome hee playes the lying fellow in saying wittingly that which was not for the excusing of his fault If there were such a custome hee playes the cousening companion in concealing it before and not acquainting Iacob with it when hee made the motion He should have said I would willingly give her thee but that the custome of the countrey hinders but if thou wilt have them both first the elder then the younger I am content This had beene plaine dealing but to leade Iacob on with words and then at last pull him on in this fashion to seven yeares bondage more was flat dishonesty And such is the disposition of a worldling for advantage sake that hee cares not with trickes to out-reach and beguile any with whom hee deales but wee have a better direction from Gods Word saying Let none of you defraud or over-reach another in any matter for God is an avenger of all that doe such things Hee used the like guilefull dealing after in changing his wages so many times and all proceeded from the same evill humour of covetousnesse But now see another sinne whereof Iacob makes mention to his Wives in way of perswading them to depart with him Iacob beheld Labans countenance that it was not to him at before Loe hee lookes doggedly upon him and hath a kinde of envious grudge against him not for any fault of his but alone because hee hindered his wealth in that God gave his riches to Iacob by causing most of the Ewes and shee Goates to bring forth still young of such colour as was agreed upon for Iacobs wages ver 8. If hee said the speckled shall bee thy wages all the cattell bare speckled and now
to be made as Laban was worldly minded Now for crosses Wee reade little of Labans affliction it may bee it was a griefe to him that his daughters and grand-children went so farre from him but such a crosse even a naturall wise man may make easie to himselfe by considerations of reason that the good of their children so requires and that their comfort in their children stands not so much in seeing them as in their well-doing Onely Laban did make Iacobs prosperity a crosse to himselfe in suffering his minde to bee alienated from Iacob because Iacob did thrive a great deale faster than himselfe and to his hinderance which cannot bee done without a great deale of vexation It is an ill disease to bee sicke of another mans prosperity take heed you suffer not covetousnesse or other distempers to bring such sicknesse upon you With farre lesse vexation may a man lose halfe hee hath than beare the torment which such estrangement of heart will bring with it And now for Labans death we heare nothing of it onely hee lived and dyed so farre as wee see like a carnall man and he had no grace in him but after a little time here spent in earth prosperously enough at last so far as we can see he perished eternally for no footsteps of faith and true piety appeare in him O my brethren take heed that you doe not carry your selves so foolishly as to live in a meere worldly fashion scraping together a great heap of muck and dung on which the much deceived world doth falsely bestow the name of goods and then with the rich glutton and him that said Soule eate and drinke and be merry for thou hast much riches laid up in store for many yeares have your soule taken away and carried into the place and state of eternall death for our Saviour hath said that So is every one which is rich in the world and is not in GOD. * ⎠* THE TWO AND TWENTIETH EXAMPLE OF IACOBS Children AFter Iacobs Wives and Father in Law wee will proceed to his children which were twelve sons and one daughter Concerning his sons they were sixe of Leah Reuben Simeon Levi Iudah Issachar Zebulun two of Bilhah Dan and Nephthali two of Zilpah Gad and Asher two of Rachel Ioseph borne in Padan Aram and Benjamin borne in the Land of Canaan The daughter was Dinah of Leah of the birth and names of each of these the Scripture takes speciall notice Reuben signifies Behold a son for his mother tooke it as a great favour of God whereby he would mitigate her sorrow yea and help to remove it too by winning her husbands love to her the want whereof was her greatest trouble as you shall finde Simeon signifies the hearing of God because she said God heard that she was hated and hath given me this son too It was a good thing in Leah to give her sons such names as might minde her of Gods goodnesse in considering her affliction and when shee saith that God saw first and then heard her affliction the last speech is a proofe that she made her moane and complaint to God and so this mercy came to her as a fruit of her prayers The next son is called Levi for said she Now my husband will be united to me or cleave to me for the word Levi signifieth as much as cleaving She was earnestly desirous of her husbands love and would as it were minde him of her hopes and desires that he would recompence her paines of bringing him three sons with the increase of his affection A wife is not good if she be not very covetous of her husbands love some probably say that he meaning Iacob hearing Leahs word to comfort her called him Levi and the originall seemes to leade us to that opinion for the former word translated called is of the feminine gender and is plainly referred to the woman spoken of before but the latter is of the masculine and so may very likely note the husband of whom she had immediatly spoken And if so it was well done of Iacob at last to speak some word of comfort to his drooping wife and to let her see that the riches of three sons had made him forget that great wrong she did him of obtruding her selfe upon him against his will and without his knowledge which shee ought not to have done though at her Fathers command The fourth son is Iehudah in short Iudah as much as praise of the Lord or the Lord be or is praised to expresse her thankefulnesse for she said Now I will praise the Lord which hath caused mine husbands affections somewhat more to incline unto me by making me a mother of foure sons For so it may seeme they did and that also maybe justly accounted one cause of her sisters envy because shee saw Iacob begin to love her more heartily than before These foure were borne one after another yeare by yeare without long intermission then she ceased bearing till Iacob had foure children by the two handmaids then she had two more sons Issachar the fifth sonne signifying there is a reward for giving her maide to her husband but in this she was much mistaken God is not wont to give rewards for our bad deeds and though it was of ignorance yet it was a sin in her to give her maid to her husband therefore we must take heed of imitating her in conceiting that God is well pleased with our faults Such is the blindnesse of our mindes that we are apt to run into such errours The last son was Zebulun signifying dwelling because God had given her so goodly a dowry as six sons she now begins to hope not alone that her husband will love her more but so much now as to affoord her more of his company and dwell with her which it seemes before he accustomed not to doe but with Rachel For love is never satisfied unlesse it enjoy the presence and company of the person loved these are Leahs sins envy at her maide Rachel so far plaid the foolish woman that she gave her handmaiden Bilhah to be her husbands Concubine and she had two sons which Rachel would needes take as her owne rather than those that her owne sister brought forth and the first she called Dan which signifies He hath judged for saith she God hath judged me and hath heard my cause and hath given me a son She bewrayes a distempered passion and would needes interest God into her folly as if now God in great favour seeing how shee was wronged had come to right her Fond Rachel no body wronged her but her selfe by entertaining the bone-rotting vice of envy into her bosome and yet she will needes take this as a righting of her wrong from above for so the word judging signifies so foolish we be that we will count our selves either to be wronged by men when we have received none at
be wondrous thankfull that God hath not so farre left us to our selves as to be drawne to such enormous offences He that can looke upon the worst men that have beene and the worst deeds so as to accuse himselfe of the same bad nature and to confesse himselfe obnoxious to the same crimes and therefore labours to be more humble in himselfe because of the badnesse of his nature and to be thankfull to God for the goodnesse he shewes in restraining that bad nature he makes a singular use of other mens sins But if we heare or see other mens faults onely to brag of our selves that we have not so offended nor will not so offend it is a testimony of much blindnesse and unacquaintednesse with our selves and may justly cause the Lord to make us know our selves by giving us over to our owne selves in like manner But now a word of the common goodnesse of all first to their Father they all gathered together to comfort him when he was in his great and exceeding sadnesse This was well done though they had wronged him in being a cause of his sorrow yet it may seeme they were greatly troubled to thinke of their naughtinesse and were carefull to to use all meanes of restoring him to contentment againe But ah what bitter accusations must those their words reflect upon their owne selves which they used to comfort their Father How could they choose but almost bewray themselves by blushing one while and palenesse another through the cheekes of their owne consciences when ever they heard him as often no doubt they did heare him name the name of Ioseph But howsoever it was commendably done that now they sought to asswage his sorrowes All good children should strive to minister matter of comfort to their grieved Parents and it is an hainous and unnaturall hardnesse to doe otherwise Further they were all dutifull to him in going downe to Egypt and not taking Benjamin with them secretly or against his will and shewed much love and honour in burying him and lamenting him and shewed themselves carefull of their families and very penitent to Ioseph at last and called to minde this sin in their troubles at Egypt and declared by their submission to Ioseph that they had truly repented besides in their behaviour to Ioseph before they knew him they shew lowlinesse and good discretion So in one word they grew better and better as fruits by time grow ripe and mellow and at last unfainedly repented and all turned godly men O that you which have beene rude wilde debaushed in youth would be carefull now in your more stayed time to be truly penitent and become truly godly There is a kinde of amendment by age which is nor sufficient to salvation though it something recover the credit It is to lay aside the practise of ones grosser faults and to frame to a civill carriage and to a creditable behaviour though still the heart remaine vaine and earthly and bee not humbled duely by the sight of these faults which were formerly committed Such a kinde of morall amendment is better then none but I pray you that be old doe not satisfie your selves with that but mend throughout See and lament your badnesse as well as your bad lives lament and bewaile in secret and frequently the former disorders Be base in your owne eyes because of them and labour to get them pardoned and your corrupt natures healed and to shine in piety and holinesse and all goodnesse so much the more by how much your youth was more sinnefull All you that have beene grievous sinners in youth take this counsell learne this lesson of Iacobs sonnes And you young men that have too too much broken forth O take your selves to taske betime and begin to amend betime Let your Parents have the happinesse to see you reformed in their life time to behold your change that they may rejoyce in your reformation and blesse God for his goodnesse in hearing their prayers and granting their desires and you may cause them to live so much longer and more cheerefully by seeing so happy and desireable a sight It will add a new youth to an aged Parent if he may see his much offending children returned quite backe to the waies of God and goodnesse most comfortably will they leave earth and goe to Heaven when they leave their children in such plight as they may hope to meete them there at last But let us looke into the benefits which the Lord bestowed upon them First they had a godly Father and Progenitors and were themselves members yea and pillars of the Church of God of them came a most populous and flourishing nation in whom the visible Church continued then when all the nations of the world besides did lie in darknesse A greater mercy then this the world cannot have to be the Church of God to have the Church continue in a mans posterity this is a singular favour and God pleased to take all these sonnes and to make them heires of his promise Isaac had but two sonnes Iacob and Esau God tooke Iacob and refused Esau Abraham had but two sonnes God cast out Ishmael and gave the blessing and promise to one alone even to Isaac but see the great favour shewed to all these they be all taken into the Church all partake of the blessing all are made heires of the promise If we consider their carriage Ishmael never committed so great and monstrous a fault against the second Table as Iudah for he never fell into incest but hee scorned Isaac Esau never did so foule a fault as Simeon and Levi but he despised his birth-right and hated Iacob So God did not take these for their goodnesse but of his mercy though they were of rude carriage hee suffered them not to despise and contemne the truth and so still kept them within the Church Furthermore foure of these were borne of hand-maidens as well as Ishmael and yet the Lord rejected them not This is the first benefit we must learne to esteeme it a choice mercy that God vouchsafeth us the same in making us members of his Church and in planting the true Church amongst us Further God saved them all from a great danger over-awing the Canaanites that they did not pursue and destroy them for that insolency they shewed at Shechem It is a great mercy if God represse the wrath of men towards any so that when they have both provocation and power yet they be restrained from taking vengeance God hath the hearts of men in his hand and can if he pleaseth and often doth over-rule and over-awe them in this manner Thirdly they had riches and wealth in abundance this is a common benefit learne not to over-esteeme it nor abuse it and be confident that if we feare God he will not denie us necessaries Lastly they had a good friend sent downe to Egypt to provide for them that their families and themselves
that hee was forcibly driven out of Gods Inheritance and wished nothing more then that he might have liberty to dwell in Gods Tabernacles Let us if we have banished our selves from such habitations be carefull to returne with speed from our voluntary wandring Secondly Iudah shewes himselfe somewhat humbled for his sinne with Tamar for seeing the tokens he had left with her and knowing his fault hee confesseth his fault and saith shee is more righteous then I. For Shelah was growne up and was not given unto her So must wee doe if wee have sinned and beene an occasion of others sinnes let us justifie them above our selves and condemne our selves more then them and not bee possessed so with the partiality of self-selfe-love as still to stand in our owne light denying the fault or laying the blame upon another True repentance will be ready to blame it selfe but an impenitent heart is witty to cast the blame still from it selfe upon another Againe it is said hee knew Tamar no more afterwards and wee reade not of any other wife or childe he had afterwards so that he forbare her because shee was his daughter in Law and forbare to take another wife voluntarily it is like in humiliation for this unbridled fact he had committed If any have sinned in unlawfull deeds of this kinde his care must be with Iudah to offend so no more and to be so humbled with his former offence that the consideration of it may make him temper himselfe for the future Further Iudah carried himselfe well towards his Father for hee was earnest to get him send Benjamin with them to the Governour in Egypt and at last prevailed by interposing his faithfull promise to bring him backe againe as you reade in the Story It is a good thing in an Inferiour to turne away his Superiour from stiffenesse in an indiscreet purpose and he hath performed a worthy office that hath so farre prevailed with his superiour for the good of himselfe and of others wherefore doe this good deed with humblenesse and discretion as occasion serveth The last good deed of Iudah and most commendable was his faithfull keeping of his promise with Iacob in offering himselfe to be a bondslave in Benjamins roome whose absence he knew would even kill his old Father so that hee was content to take the punishment of anothers fault upon himselfe rather then falsify his word of presenting the Lad againe unto his Father How was love and faithfullnesse joyned both in one act We must learne to practise even so to love a Parent so as if it be possible to prevent his griefe with our owne so great a misery as perpetuall bondage during life How much are they to blame that occasion their Parents misery by their wilfull sinnes and can well enough be content to see their Parents goe mourning to the grave even for their incorrigible naughtinesse Sure the affection of good children is farre otherwise And now children have a loving pittie to your Parents and frame your selves rather to suffer any misery then the sight of your Parents pining away in griefe especially then the procuring of it by your owne misdemeanours Againe he shewed here great fidelity for having given his Word to his Father that he would bring Benjamin againe to him he preferres the performing of his promise before his owne liberty and would rather keepe his promise with his Father then live at home with him in freedome Let us learne to shew the like care in keeping our promises even to doe what wee have said chiefely in matters of weight though wee cannot doe it without great inconveniences to our selves let us keepe promise though it be to our hurt Againe Iudah makes a most pithy and rhetoricall speech to Ioseph for affection will make a reasonable wit to doe the office of a good Orator This was a commendable thing in Iudah to beare so sudden and terrible an accident with so much strength of minde that he could apply himselfe to take that course which was fit and behoofefull notwithstanding his griefes Let us labour to be of so well compact a spirit that extremity of sudden blowes may not disable us from carrying our selves discreetely even in such unexpected accidents This is a gift that we must beg at Gods hands and the best way to get it is as Iudah did to see God in it and be humbled before him for our sins that procured it And so much for Iudahs particular good deeds Now his crosses were first that he had two sonnes so wicked that God himselfe could not brooke them but even slew them for their extreame wickednesse It is a crosse that hath befallen many a Father to have very lewd children Labour what you can to prevent it by being good your selves and carry not your selves so wickedly as to pull this crosse upon your selves as Iudah did in running to Hiram and marrying a Canaanitish woman for what could he looke for but that the sonnes of such a woman and brought up in such a place should proove wicked And if it doe befall any of you or have befalne you be indeed humbled by it but not put quite out of heart Let it helpe to make your selves better if your children be wicked Another crosse was that his daughter in Lawes discontent drew her to prostitute her selfe to him in the disguize of an Harlot and so drew him to incest when he thought but to have committed fornication It is a misery to be drawne into a more grievous sinne then one intended to commit Let us resolve to commit none at all that such an addition of faultinesse may not be put upon our sinnes beyond our owne knowledge and if it have befalne us let us learne to be humbled very much It is just with God to give a man over to a worse sinne then he thought of that is bold to take liberty to commit some sin which he ought not to have done Lastly God did cause the sinne of Iudah to breake forth to his shame as you know though hee feared the shame more then the sinne And this is surely a great punishment to make ones evills knowne which he hoped should have beene kept still in secrecy And a just thing it is with God to dishonour a man before men when hee will dishonour God by sinning boldly in secret And if God have buried any mans faults in darkenesse let him bury them by repentance else they shall breake out more reproachfully at last day to his utter confusion But if God have cast the dirt of any mans sin upon his face and layd his grosse crimes open to all the world he must make this use of it to be more humbled before God and improve the griefe that shame and reproach will stirre in him to the more hearty bewailing of the sin that deserved it otherwise to be greatly grieved for the shame is nothing else but a carnall and unsanctified
even in the land of Goshen Thus it behoveth a good King yea and a good man to favour still whom he hath begun deservedly to favour and for his sake to shew all good esteeeme to his friends and kindred so farre as they shew not themselves unworthy to be favoured Constancy in loving and honouring a worthy man becomes Kings and largenesse of love even a kind of royall love beseemeth their persons and places for a worthy servants sake to advance his Father Bretheren and kindred This is a right Kingly love and such as can sort alone with men of such high quality Meaner persons want meanes to shew their favourable respect in such a spreading manner Indeed to preferre unworthy persons because they be of kinne to a man of great worth and much favoured is not agreeable to the rules of wisdome but let them be men capeable of favour and he doth not love a man thoroughly that for his sake doth not also love those that are neere unto him And if Princes have such a Princely love to their vertuous favourites how much more hath the living God to his These be things commendable in Pharaoh For his faults God hath beene pleased to reveale none but that common fault hee continued an Heathen though he had a Ioseph in his Court and highly preferred by himselfe It is a hard matter to get out of darkenesse and to come into light a divine spirit must joyne with the meanes or else the meanes will prove ineffectuall Let us pray to God to leade us into the knowledge of his truth or else we may live long with them that know it and yet learne nothing of it It is in our nature to settle our selves in the religion of our forefathers and not to consider whether it be true and good yea or not A kind of slitenesse in matter of religion doth raigne in the world men will not be at the trouble to examine that which they find in use they will not hazard themselves in crossing the common-voice so they swimme downe the streame and runne into perdition for company Let us be carefull to examine the things that we finde and seeing God hath vouchsafed us the happy guidance of his word let us learne to try all things and hold fast the good Onely in crying we must take heede that we be not of a kind of crosse humour that will strive to goe in a single way and will refuse things upon sleight grounds as if they were glad to find occasion to goe alone And so much for Pharaohs faults too Now his prosperity was great First God warned him of the Famine before hand that hee might prevent the danger of it to his people a great mercy to be made to understand evills long before that a man may hide himselfe from the evill of them the wisedome of man can alone guesse of future things and of some it cannot so much as guesse O how great favour doth God shew to men when he will lend them a little part of his Wisdome and tell them what mischiefes are comming on the world So God told David how Saul and the men of Keilah would have conspired against him Christ foretold his Disciples of the ruine of Ierusalem and made them able to save themselves out of that destruction Now wee must learne to esteeme it a greater mercy that we are forewarned of the evill to come in another world and acquainted with the onely meanes of flying from that unsufferable wrath Let us be as carefull to beleeve those predictions and to follow that counsell for escaping the mischiefe foretold as here Pharaoh was to beleeve Ioseph and to take his counsell and then shall we as assuredly escape the misery of eternall destruction as he and his Countrey escaped the unhappinesse of Famine A second benefit God gave Pharaoh a Ioseph a worthy servant a man of excellent Wisdome and faithfullnesse fit for that high honour of being Second to Pharaoh who in all things behaved himselfe as became a wise and godly man The Lord cannot give a greater benefit to a King and a Kingdome then by preferring a Ioseph by providing such a man and inclining the hearts of Kings to favour such this is a mercy which our prayers must obtaine for our King and for our selves Lord send Iosephs to the Court and guide the heart of his Majesty to love and advance Iosephs A third mercy he grew exceeding wealthy and a mighty Prince possessor in a manner of all the land of Egypt and had all the people as his servants to plow the ground for him so that he was a rich and mighty Prince But when Princes or other men become very great and high many times their weakenesse and corruptions turne that benefit into a misery and occasion of much mischiefe learne so to receive this benefit as to be earnest for grace to use it well that it may not turne to your destruction But of Pharaohs crosses we reade nothing he was so prosperous a King that no adverse accident is recorded to have befallen him Even to escape great crosses must be accounted a great mercy and if the Lord have caused any mans life amongst us to runne with so even a threed as it were that no adversity hath interrupted it he is so to take notice of this mercy as to take heed withall that he flatter not himselfe with vaine thoughts as if he were therefore much in Gods favour because of such immunity from outward evills Not so but we must ever remember that in the Psalme That the wicked are lusty and strong that they have no bonds in their death and that they be not in adversity as other men Hitherto of Pharaoh now of the Aegyptians both the land in generall and the chiefe officers about Pharaoh The land of Egypt was a rich land and fertile the Holy Ghost doth not speake much of their idolatry in Genesis But in after times they were infamous for it and there did Israel learne to be Idolatrous If God leave a people to themselves they will soone degenerate either into prophanenesse and a meere contempt of God or into false worship and Idolatry How thankfull ought wee to be to whom the Lord hath pleased to reveale his truth and to keepe us farre from worshipping a false god or embracing a false religion But we have an example of some good in these Egyptians and a great vertue it was they submitted themselves to their Governours with a very great submission The Famine lay upon them they were content to buy corne of Ioseph for money and when that failed to pawne their cattell and when that meanes was gone to sell their lands and themselves and did not rebell and with strong hand take corne to themselves whither Pharaoh and Ioseph would or not This was a most commendable thing in the Egyptians they would rather sell themselves to the skinne yea sell themselves
cause to speake and that it bee the certaine truth they speake before they speake to any Thirdly while Joseph was young hee shew'd himselfe obedient to his Father for when he called him to send him to visit his Brethren hee was ready to obey him and did the office of a dutifull Sonne addressing himselfe to the appointed businesse although it was to take a journey of two or 3 dayes on foot Come young men and young women and learne of this good youth how to carry your selves to your Parents if they call you come and give them dutifull and mannerly answers if they send you goe and preferre the doing of their will in lawfull things before your owne ease and pleasure You know how precisely the Lord hath imposed this duty upon the consciences of children Children obey your Parents in all things You must make no restriction of the largenesse of this Commandement but by adding that word Lawfull which out of other Scriptures must needes bee understood and hee gives a reason saying this is the first Commandement meaning of the second Table with promise and with promise of welfare saying that it may bee well with thee As ever you desire to finde prosperity from God so you must bee dutifull to your Fathers and Mothers the instruments of your beeing and bringing up and the most immediate Deputies of God and you which hee hath set in his stead to take care of you and to rule you Now you that are sinfull and disobedient Sonnes and Daughters whose carriage doth farre differ from that of Josephs see the foulenesse of your Vice by opposing unto it the fairenesse of his Vertue Doe not your hearts within you say that it was very well done in Joseph to say to his Father here am I when hee called him to goe on his errand and when his father had told him his work by and by to set about it doe you not thinke that Joseph did the office of a godly childe and that which his duty bound him to and wherwith God was well pleased If he did as your selves must needes affirm he did be you grieved ashamed within your selves of your quite contrary carriage whose consciences can tell that instead of answering here I am have retained some surly answer and instead of going on the businesse have gone a quite contrary way Let your hearts smite you to Repentance that you may comfort your Parents with obedience hereafter whose hearts you have formerly vexed by your gracelesse stubbornesse Fourthly when Iosephs Brethren used him exceeding injuriously and hardly viz. selling him to forrainers for a Bond-man what did he but even intreat and beseech them to deale better with him as themselves tell of his carriage when they were touched with some remorce for their cruelty Gen. 42.21 He besought us and we would not heare Loe how it behoves a good body to behave himselfe to his equals or betters or any that being too strong for him when they doe offer hard measure unto him even intreat pray beseech use all submissive gentle quiet and milde words and carriage Learne that of S. Paul who saith being defamed we intreat You know Abigals carriage toward David when she found him in a great chafe against her husband and ready to doe violence to her family she intreated him and caused his passion to stoppe it selfe by her faire words Solomon hath told us that gentle words pacifie wrath and if any thing in the world will asswage the fury and mollifie the hardnesse and remove the cruelty of an enemy it is this kinde of language and behaviour If therfore any of us be guilty of betaking our selves in such case to railing bitternesse and violence giving all the vile tearmes that wrath would put into our mouthes against our Superiours when they wronged us and dawbing them with most foule names let us take notice of our folly in being wrathfull This was not the course that naturall discretion much lesse that Christian Religion would prescribe to a wronged man this shews him to be as proud and bitter that suffers as they that offer the wrong S. Peter saith we should not render reviling for reviling if we must not raile on him that abuseth us in words neither then on them that abuse as in actions Now then learne meekenesse of Ioseph learne to frame your tongues to this kinde of humble speech when you be wronged Perhaps you may say that Joseph did this because he durst doe no otherwise I answer if he feared his Brethren are not you to feare God if hee durst not speake wrathfully to them that hee might not the more provoke and move them should not you take heed of provoking GOD with the licentious use of your evill tongue But secondly I answer that it is very probable Ioseph did not this out of bare feare for then when he saw that the matter grew desperate and hee could not prevaile by intreaty he would have fallen to bitternesse at last wherefore follow his mildnesse beseech when you are wronged but doe not rayle and revile This is all I have noted of Iosephs private life in his Fathers house now we will follow him into Egypt and see how he carryed himselfe there 1. in private in the house 1. of Putiphaer 2. in prison 2. more publikely Iosephs carriage in Putiphars house deserveth praise 1. because he was a diligent and faithfull servant unto him Ioseph had beene bred up tenderly as the free sonne of a noble and great man Iacob of a sodaine God by his providence made him a bondman he frames himselfe to such dutifulnesse and fidelity that he winnes his Master and gaineth greater favour with him then any other servant as you may reade Gen. 39. ad 7. For had not he beene faithfull and painefull God had not beene with him nor prospered him as he did Let me commend his example to you that be servants to imitate it labour you to be good servants faithfull diligent in your Masters businesse and respective towards their persons that so God may be with you too and prosper you and you also may draw the loves and good wils of your Masters Your service is not bond service but free service at the worst it is but a service of eight or nine yeares likely See the commandement of God lying upon you as much as it did upon Ioseph and doe that which you see in him is possible to doe this is the way to make your service most easie and comfortable to your selves and most acceptable and pleasing to God you are servants now you may be Masters or Governours hereafter so frame your selves in the function of servants that God may blesse you with good servants Carry your selves towards your Masters as you would wish your servants to carry themselves to you and for the most part you shall find that in this as well as in other things the Lord will returne a mans owne measure into
his owne bosome The living God markes the carriage of servants accepts their diligence and fidelity and rewards it and it is as evident a note of true piety to be a good servant as a good King or a good Minister and that will make you good servants if you know that in so doing you shall be accepted by God and have your wages from him if your Governours should be froward And to remember that Saint Peter requireth you to shew your selves true Christians by being good servants even to unquiet and crooked Masters But if any of you have shewed your selves froward servants sullen dogged sloathfull idle false untrusty at best but eye-servants that caâ—ed no further to doe your duty then you conceived your Masters should know of your carriage otherwise not caring how you loitered out the time how wastfull you were and adding to these faults also answering againe and frowardnesse and falsehood denying your faults O be humbled in seeing your selves so unlike to Ioseph you would be accounted good Christians as he was a good son to Iacob and be sorrowfull you have not approved your selves such as he did approve himselfe When we see the godlinesse of those whom the Scriptures commend unto us we must take notice of our own naughtinesse with remorse and sorrow and runne to God to pardon and reforme it God that made Ioseph a good servant can make thee so too seeke unto him for his Spirit to make thee humble and conscionable Secondly in his Masters house this godly man shewed the true feare of God in that he forbare to commit a sinne to which he was so vehemently solicited saying to his Mistresse How shall doe this great evill and sinne against God Gen. 39.9 Wee must all labour to plant an awfull apprehension of Gods greatnesse justice and presence in our minds that wee may not dare to sinne against him this is the vertue so much commended in the Scriptures so often required and that hath so many promises made unto it This is that vertue which must prove our knowledge of God and our faith in him I meane a not daring to sinne in respect that wee know it is offensive to him and will provoke him against us This vertue will hold the heart from secret sinne and such to which wee are much solicited perhaps also much inclined He that hath this grace is mounded and armed against the strongest temptations of Satan and of evill men No man can doe himselfe a better turne then to abound in it the Prophet calls it our treasure He that hath gotten it in any good quantity hath gotten the richest treasure in the world and that which will doe him more good then all gold and silver Salomon calleth it the beginning or head or chiefe part or first fruits of wisdome It is a grace which maketh knowledge usefull which else will end or rather vanish in meere discourse and twattle It is a grace that cannot be found but in a heart thoroughly sanctified he that hath it is sure to find favour with God and to walke holily with God No man can sufficiently set forth the excellency of this grace It is that by which we must worke out our salvation without which wee cannot hold out in the way of piety it must helpe us against false feares and false hopes against pleasure against profit against credite against discredite against all the wayes that Satan hath to draw us to sinne It will make you forbeare secret sinnes and such as flesh hath much to say why it must needs commit a large measure of feare will make you forbeare such sinnes and if there be any there it will make you carefull of rising out of them by speedy repentance But you that are bold to sinne in secret and carelesse to repent of the sinnes that you can keepe secret flatter not your selves with a false imagination that you have the feare of God before your eyes Thirdly this worthy man had a thankefull and loving respect unto his Master for saith he my Master hath thus and thus honoured trusted me and shall I so requite his love as to defile his wife you see that every man ought to take great heed of wronging that person in any thing from whom he hath received much kindnesse in any respect The good that another hath done as should offer it selfe unto our minds to make us stedfast in forbearing to doe any thing that may wrong him as we should abstaine from injurying a benefactour in his wife or goods or name or in his children or in his body or in any other respect Consider if you have beene thus thankefull or not and he that is proved by the verdict of his owne soule to be ungratefull having not remembred good turnes received to make him temper himselfe from injuries let him know that this shall be a great aggravation of his fault that what should have prevayled to withdraw a man from sinne and hath not shall certainely prevaile to make his punishment the more grievous Hast thou wronged any one in his good name wife c. Concerning whom if ingratitude and love of sinne had not polluted and corrupted thy memory thou mightest have said he hath done this and this for me and shall I so requite him blush for shame to thinke that thou hast incurred the odious name of an ingratefull man a terme of as much reproach as any can be And now tread in Iosephs steps this way shew that you doe account your selves indebted for favours and curtesies by having them ready in your minds as a disswasive from any manner of injuriousnesse to them in whose debt you stand for such curtesies Let your memories serve you for good purposes Corruption will soone recall injuries to hinder from gratifying another let us as soone recall kindnesses to hinder from hurting But fourthly This Ioseph shewes forth that excellent vertue of chastity and that in an high degree for being a young man and earnestly and often yea almost continually importuned by his Mistresse to commit adultery with her he continues to repell her temptations with a peremptory denyall and shuns her company by all the wayes he can when she caught him at such an advantage once that having him alone she durst lay hands upon him and offer as much violence as that sexe could offer in that case he leaves his garment with her and runnes out so farre is he from yeelding a truer and nobler patterne of continency how can we thinke of If we consider his age and his person and the person of the solicittesse and the continuance of her evill suit and her earnestnesse in it how great a patterne is he of constant and invincible purity But the words that can be bestowed in commending him will all fall short of his worthinesse I shall endeavour to commend this grace unto you chastity is a sweet and excellent vertue The keeping of the Body pure
time in such a place by such and such when indeed these things were not so but somewhat equivalent to them was true viz. Arguments convincing their guiltinesse even as much as these things would though not to make them confesse I say such courses taken by way of probation and tryall and finding out guiltinesse are not to be esteemed lyes because here the meaning is to be taken according to that which shall be shortly discovered and not according to the present shew of words These be but a kind of ironicall carryage no more lies then an irony that by affirming one thing in such and such a manner and gesture doth affirme the quite contrary But to doe thus in way of excusing or hiding a fault and keeping ones selfe from the knowledge of a Governour is altogether sinfull and naught and must not be allowed Take heed that you doe not imbolden your selves to deny and to shift them off from your Superiours examining you because you see Ioseph trying his brethren by talking with them so as is apparent he meant not as he said Againe Ioseph made it evident that he had forgotten all his brethrens wrongs and therefore useth them exceeding kindly for he weeps over them and comforts them bidding them not to bee sorry that they had sold him and he sends for their families and gives them gifts and maintaines them and their families and sets some of them before Pharaoh and prevailes to get them the Land of Goshen to dwell in and after their Fathers death when they send and come to him he useth them with all kindnesse weeping and comforting them as is manifest in the story So that he had utterly forgotten all wrongs and loves them no whit lesse now that they have repented then if they had never sinned Hence we must learne the duty of Brothers one to another even to communicate their wealth one to another and the richer to help to maintaine the poore in case of dearth or want or any hand of God afflicting and distressing them Indeed if any bring want upon themselves abler kinsmen are not bound to provide for them that spend it on their lusts if they will serve the Devill with what they have let them be pinched no man is to pity them in such case But when Gods hands brings affliction when they frame to good courses then they are to be helped by those of their kindred that are of ability And one able person should improve his wealthinesse to the helping and inriching of those that be poorer and to their maintenance in their necessity as Ioseph did else they are guilty of wanting naturall affection and of great uncharitablenesse Further you see that when men have truely repented of their sinnes be they never so great their sinnes must be forgotten and they must be accepted and regarded even as if they had never sinned Ioseph is as loving to his brethren as if they had beene the honestest men in the world because now they were truly changed So should men be to the greatest offendours when a sound and thorough reformation and amendment shewes it selfe in their lives Till sinnes be amended it is not requisite to shew such respect but when they be amended Therefore every sinner should hasten to amend that he might repaire his broken estimation and regaine the love which he hath lost with good and wise men And those must not please themselves in their folly that to a man truly reformed are still objecting and upbrayding former evill deeds Herein they shew not the detestation of the vices but wrath and discontent against the persons and are farre unlike to God himselfe who doth blot the sinnes of his converting children out of his remembrance and that so as if they commit them no more he will no more remember them Againe in Iosephs carryage to his brethren we see how easie he was to pardon for though he shewed himselfe rough at first yet that was not out of a revengefull passion but out of a desire to bring them to repentance for their sinnes for he knew they had beene very wild and faulty in their youth but he still shewes love and kindnesse notwithstanding the hatred that they shewed to him and he sees God in it and would have them see God in it and so comforts them and pacifieth himselfe All good men must imitate him in this forgive and forget huge great and enormous injuries If one have gone about to deprive us of our liberty our goods of our lives yea have not alone gone about it but effected it so much as in him lay and after fals into our hands so that we may if we will revenge our selves of him yet we must not yeeld our selves to thoughts of revenge but must doe good against evill especially if a neere kinsman or brother have so forgotten himselfe yet must not we so farre forget our selves as to requite like for like evils with evils but must doe them all the good we can and blot their faults out of our minds Our Saviour teacheth this in the Parable you know he that hath beene forgiven the 1000 Talents as all of us have must be easily perswaded to forgive the hundred pence And this will make us forgive and forget our brethrens offences if we frequently remember our owne to admire the goodnesse of God that so graciously doth pardon us If any therefore find themselves apt to remember and requite wrongs yea petty small wrongs nothing so high as these of Iosephs brethren they must blame the greatnesse of their stomacks and condemne that rancour which swelleth within them as a great fault shewing that they have not well considered the love that God shewed to man-kind in Christ to forgive iniquity transgression and sinne And now learne all of you this excellent vertue strive to be of a sweet and a mild and an amiable nature ready to passe by great injuries to shew great kindnesse against great unkindnesse and to overcome bad with good This is a thing well pleasing to God and shall comfort the conscience in the day of any affliction more then all the riches in the world Revenge tasts sweet in the doing but after it shall lade the conscience with terrours passing by faults loving enemies doing good to those which have done us evill be hid things to the flesh and blood and seeme difficult in the practise but the remembrance of them after shall afford unspeakeable content I have spoken of Iosephs good deeds in some part viz. Those that he shewed in his Fathers house and some of those that he shewed in Egypt viz. In his private estate both in his Masters house and his prison house and in his publike estate before his advancement to Pharaoh in respect of his dreames and after his advancement to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians and his brethren Lastly Ioseph after his Father was dead carryed himselfe lovingly to his brethren for had he revenged himselfe after his
preferment in Aegypt did not make him forget God and turne either an Aegyptian idolater or a wicked man but Joseph was Joseph still in all his tossings and tumblings of his estate if you be still good in all estates adverse and prosperous as JOSEPH was magnifie Gods grace that hath established you in every good word and work and confesse that you have stood by his power but if any have declined or back slided from his goodnesse let him see his misery and doe his first workes returning to God who calleth back-sliders and promises to heale their back-sliding So much for Iosephs spirituall benefits now for the naturall benefits And first in generall He was a prosperous man and God made all he did to prosper both in Putiphars house and in the Prison So God prospered David where ever hee went and Iob too for a while this brings contentment to a mans selfe and getteth him a good esteeme from others See therefore whether God vouchsafe you this mercy ascribe the praise of your prosperity to him and let this goodnesse allure you to love feare and obey him to seeke his honour and to doe all good with that prosperity of thine but if contrarily God crosseth any of you and sets himselfe against you so that nothing thrives with you see Gods hand that doth walke contrary to you and finde out the cause and turne this adversity into an occasion of the greatest prosperity There is a sanctified adversity as well as cursed prosperity labour to feare God and walke in uprightnesse before him and disesteeme earthly things And so much for his generall good estate more particularly First God delivered him out of sore heavy and grievous calamities and by his speciall providence and in a manner more then ordinary First when his Father sent him to his Brethren he lost himselfe wandring about and knew not where to go then God caused a man to meet him that it may seeme did know him and told him where he should finde his Brethren Secondly when his Brethren consulted to take away his life God raised up Reuben to deliver him and when they thought after to have dispatcht him the Merchants came by and so God took them off then when he was in bondage God inclined Putiphars heart towards him and his Masters likewise in the prison and lastly the Butler remembred him when he had long lien there and by that meanes God brought him out of the prison and advanced him to be chiefe Officer in Aegypt Thus you see strange and happy escapes out of misery so that Joseph might well have called God by the same title that his old Father Jacob did the God that delivered his soule out of all adversity as David also intitles him Hath God strangely also delivered you out of great miseries either from keeping them from falling upon you when in all likelihood they must have come or in helping you when your selves could see no way out if so acknowledge Gods Providence and goodnesse and forget not him in your good estate that remembred you in your low estate let those that are in misery learne to cast themselves upon God as Joseph did submit be patient trust in him The Lord in bringing his servants into calamities aymes at their bettering by them and his Glory in their deliverances learne patience therefore and confidence So you see how God pulled him out of evils Next consider what good things hee stored him withall for indeed he laded him with benefits as it is in the Psalme And to begin with the gifts of his mind First the Lord gave him that extraordinary gift of interpreting Dreames even from his childehood almost with which hee furnished Daniel too and made it a meanes of great preferment to them both You know how readily hee could tell the Butler and the Baker what was meant by three vine branches three dayes and the wringing of them into Pharaohs Cup and giving them into Pharaohs hand the restoring of him againe unto his office So in the Dream of the other servant of Pharaoh 3. Baskets are three dayes the eating of meat out of the highest by the foules upon his head signified the devouring of his flesh by birds after that Pharaoh had hanged him on the third day So for Pharaohs Dreames the number of the kine and eares of corne 7 and 7 signifying each seven yeeres the quality of the kine and eares full and good eares with fat fleshie and well favoured kine plentifull yeares thin blasted and empty eares with leane ill fleshed and ill favoured kine yeares of famine The eating up of the fat and goodly by the leane the utter forgetting of the past abundance by the following of the famine and the number of dreames Secondly the certainty and neere approaching of the things which was to bee surely and instantly fulfilled You see how apt these dreames were to signifie these things and when God gave to Joseph the spirit of interpretation how easie the interpretation is and how fit and handsome as it were all things sorting so reasonably for such a meaning Doubtlesse this interpretation by its owne clearenesse and fitnesse did carry the credit of truth with it Now at those times when God did please to make Dreames an ordinance of his for the revealing of things necessary it was a speciall favour of his to give the power of interpreting them too for what is a dreame if it be not interpreted but a meanes of perplexed thoughts and feares Now God that gave power to shew the meaning of Dreames when Dreames were his Ordinance is able also to give the gift of interpreting his Word unto men seeing the Word is now his Ordinance for the revealing of all truth to men needfull to salvation We must beseech God to powre gifts upon his servants now even to give unto his Ministers skill and will to become faithfull interpreters of his Word and if God do give to any an extraordinary gift this way let him be thankfull to God and use it for their good that need it Another gift of his mind was great wisedome and dexterity to mannage any businesse committed to his charge You see how hee dispatched matters in the great houshold of Putiphar so that they perceived that all things went well which could not have bin so if the person that ordered all had not had an excellent head to guide them and after when he was in prison by little and little his Master found out his excellent sufficiencies to doe any worke and therefore as the former master did so hee intrusted him with all And when from ordering a family he came to order the whole Kingdome of Aegypt he underwent that busie and toilesome work with so much discretion as gave the King and all his people content so that to Joseph Pharoah sent them and unto Joseph they gladly repaired It is a singular favour when God gives one as they
call it a good Head-piece an aptnesse and fitnesse to contrive matters discreetly and to order them prudently as it is said of the Deputy in the Acts that he was a prudent man one that could resolve and execute well and square out fit meanes for each end and follow it accordingly This wisedome as well as other Learning was given to DANIEL and to SOLOMON and to many good men and the same was found out also in ACHITOPHEL and in bad men It is not a gift of holinesse proper to those who must bee saved but a gift which the LORD sees fitte for the common benefit of Man-kinde to bestow upon wicked and unsanctified men Indeed many times God chooseth rather the simple heads of the world then these nimble and deepe pates that it may appeare 't is of his grace and not of nature that men bee godly and vertuous But an excellent gift it is and makes way for their preferment in worldly things that have it but let them which have it take heed of suffering it to degenerate into Craft for then it will become pernitious Craft is naturall wisedome separated from Justice Truth Charity and other graces and joyned with falsehood injuriousnesse and self-selfe-love as it were a weapon in the hands of Traytors a fort possessed by Rebels by which they doe make warre against their Prince Againe take heed that you waxe not proud of this gift but stir up your selves to blesse God for it and make use of it for the good and benefit of simpler heads and not only for your particular advantage and let men be carefull to beg not onely naturall but spirituall wisedome of God both are promised by him Thus farre of his gifts of minde I goe on to speake of externall gifts I meane the good things that were without himselfe The first is that where ever he came hee was esteemed loved trusted His Father loved him above all his Brethren and esteemed more of him then of them all and put confidence in him so that he believed his reports of his Brethren and observed his dreames his Master Putiphar the Aegyptian loved him above all his servants and trusted him with all his estate and had him in great account putting all into his hand his mistresse esteemed him but too much and loved him too much and durst trust him with her name and honour in the case you know of then Pharaoh trusted him with his ring and the command of all Aegypt and imployed him in that most important affaire of providing and selling Corne and what estimation he had with Pharaoh is evident and what love when for his sake he so respected his Father and Brethren as to give them the land of Goshen for a possession the people also they loved and honoured him exceedingly and even put their lives and lands and all into his hands A man more affected respected and esteemed then Joseph in his time no story can name it is a singular thing to bee loved regarded trusted accounted not only a wise but a just good worthy man and to have the good wils of men attending him alwayes So it was with David all loved and honoured him but he which should have honoured him most his father in Law Saul let all strive by shewing all Josephs vertues to get the good will as of God so of men that they may be capable of doing and receiving so much more good by how much he hath more command in the hearts of men Indeed Gods people have lived sometimes amongst so evill persons and in so evill dayes that their vertues have begotten hatred and reproach but if mens practice be not evill and times be not very bad good carriage will get good will and good esteeme be not so farre carried with mens words and liking as to condescend to their sinfull courses for the attaining thereof but so farre as faithfull wise loving and vertuous behaviour will win men every man should labour and seek to procure the affections of others Secondly Joseph had great outward preferment he was made a chiefe Commander and Counsellor of State in Aegypt to teach his Senators wisedome as is in the Psalmes and withall hee had an heart given him to use his preferment well for the common benefit of mankind and opportunity too to use it for the particular good of his father and family and for the preservation of the Church To be preferred unto a place of great honour and authority is a thing that most mens eyes doe gaze after and ambitiously wish and seeke after but to have it cast upon man by God for his good deservings and then to be so blessed in it as to make it a meanes of benefitting many especially the Church of God this is a great benefit So did Hester use her preferment and Mordecay his so Daniel his so David and Solomon theirs you are not likely any of you to come to very high place yet who can tell perhaps there may bee some young scholler or other amongst you that may come to high place let me speake such a word to him now that may come into his heart hereafter and doe him good If you be advanced strive to doe good to the Common-Weale and let the Nation fare the better for you strive to do good to your kindred the Church though the Church may not consist onely of your family Honour and great titles and offices will be but like a high gibbet to expose men unto disgrace if they be used at the Commandement of selfe-love and other vices bat happy is and shall he be that hath Josephs preferment and Josephs heart to use it according to his example But woe unto those persons which being lifted up to honour prove like a stone in a sling to destroy many and chiefely to batter downe vertue and piety and them that follow it Thirdly for gifts of bodie Ioseph had a strong and able body as appeares by his living to a 110 yeares old This is a great benefit to them in whom it is found in the way of righteousnesse live so young men that you may be capable of it and you that are old be thankefull if God have granted you it in the same manner as he did to Ioseph even to be long in the world to enjoy the comforts of the world as he did For he was thirty yeares old at his preferment therfore he lived in that flourishing honourful eighty yeares A happy recompence for all the service hee did to the Church of God and for his true feare of God not offending him to get his Mistresse favour and to rise that way For his misery into which he seemed to cast himselfe by his goodnesse was even a paire of staires to lift him up into the place of honour wherein the Lord caused him to continue eighty yeares His goodnesse in complaining of his brothers faults made them hate him his goodnesse in denying his Mistresses sollicitations made
are in that degree counterfeit and fained that you take liberty to your selves to be slack in this service And now I must require you in Gods name to take great care that this sinne of Sodome doe not shew it selfe in you which would be counted Christians I suppose there is scarce a Congregation within many neere you that hath beene more urged to this duty then I have urged you Sodome had not the twentieth part of this helpe If God take it ill of them that they did not establish the poore mans hand how will he be offended at it in you If ever you will have comfort at your end If ever you will have a reward of your religion If ever you will be called any thing but Hypocrites by your owne consciences I call upon you to reforme this fault strengthen the poore mans hands Those poore that be idle that be wastfull that make themselves poore by carrying the dirty yoke of vice ale-house haunting c. I pray you chastize them correct them spare not for their crying It is no more pitty to heare them complaine then to heare a Woolfe howle when his foot is taken in a snare But those that be honest sober and good and have not put themselves into this misery but are put into it by Gods hand I pray you confirme their hands helpe them to such a quantity of releefe as may make their lives comfortable supply their needs that God may supply all your needes according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus God giveth to some more to some lesse that there may be an equality through the bounty of the one notwithstanding the inequality in gathering So it should be concerning them of the houshold of faith you of the wealthier sort that feare God should lay all your heads hands and hearts together to take such order that the poorer sort of the same place which make care to live well should not be over-much scanted O that you would doe soe and some amongst you helpe to stirre up others and to effect the matter as I doe now stirre you up all and would be glad to give you an example of bountie in this kinde No one mans purce can supply the wants of all but the superfluity of all united would doe it abundantly Why should we not reforme a fault which God would not brooke no not in Sodome We have done with foure of Sodomes sins The fift is committing abhomination hee meaneth that unnaturall uncleannesse whereof we spake before out of Gen. 19.9 and therefore will passe it over in silence now The last sinne is haughtinesse hee chargeth them before with pride and now here with haughty carriage It may be concluded hence that pride and haughtinesse be two distinct things seldome separated in practise but in their nature to be so distinguished as the roote and the branch the fountaine and the streame For pride is a vice more inward the nature of which standeth in this that it causeth a man to over-esteeme himselfe Haughtinesse is a vice more outward consisting in this that it maketh a mans outward carriage lofty and high This is that which S. Iohn calleth the pride of life this is that which David denieth of himselfe saying that his eyes were not lofty and it is one of the things whereto he bindes himselfe to be so great an enemy that none of those which accustomed themselves unto it should have admittance into his favour and house him that hath a high looke and a proud heart will I not suffer Hee names an high looke first because it was impossible for him to discerne the proud heart but by the looke or some external effect of it And Salomon nameth it in the Proverb 6.17 as one of the things and the first in order which God detesteth viz. a proud looke And David in Psal 18.17 saith that God will bring downe high lookes You see that this high and lofty carriage is a sinne the cause is it proceeds from pride of heart it increaseth pride of heart in him that so declareth it it infecteth others with the same pride and it grieveth and offendeth them that are not infected and in all these respects procureth Gods hand upon the offender Now looke everyone to himselfe Art not thou and thou and thou of an haughty carriage Doth not your behaviour give a strong relish of selfe-conceitednesse There be foure principall things that discover pride in the outward carriage The lookes and countenance the gate and pace the words and language the garments and ornaments First the lookes when they be big and disdainefull such as it is easier to observe where they be then to describe them in wordes The colour of red blew white may easily be discerned by the eye the judge of colours but what wordes should a man use to describe a red colour so to the fancy as a man might know it without seeing it so hauty lookes are most easy things to be knowne when one sees them but hard to be described and it is sure that God would not have made so frequent mention of proude lookes but that the countenance is very apt to bewray the high heart but because a man doth seldome see his owne face therefore this is a fitter signe to shew pride to others then to discover it to a mans selfe The next a proud gate with an outstretched necke and mincing with ones feete or any other affected kind of going is an act of haughtinesse that is a setting forth of ones selfe unduely and a demonstration of pride and this too may be better perceived then expressed and because a man cannot easily observe the carriage of his owne head and body in his going therefore it is fitter for the discovery of another then of ones selfe There is a third act of haughtinesse that is high words speaking on high as Hannah hath it in her song by way of prohibiting it When a mans tongue is lofty his heart is so wordes tending to vilifie and abase others especially when he is angry with them words of bragging and boasting that have none other use but to set up a mans selfe and to paint him with gay colours Threatning wordes that are died with revengefulnesse and the like to these they are all proude wordes and haughty speeches and all kinde of disdainefull and scornefull and upbraiding wordes tending unseasonably to cast a mans faults in his teeth for no man is covetous to disgrace another but he hath overvalued himselfe first Lastly haughtinesse appeareth most apparently in cloathes and the like ornaments when a man or woman will goe as costly and gaily as ever his place will beare and a little more too and when he must have trimme cloathes though he goe in debt for them when he must be fine though he spend all he can get on his backe when he vieth with others and must have as good things as such