for the clearing of God holiness in these his proceedings If sometimes he temporally reward Hypocrites is it not either for their own or for their works sake as if he either accepted their Persons or approved their Obedience No it is but Lex talionis he dealeth with them as they deal with him They do him but eye service and he giveth them but eye wages Indeed God can neither be deceived nor deceive yet as they would deceive God in their service with such obedience as falleth short of true obedience so they are deceived in their pay from him with such blessings as fall short of true blessings And all this may well stand with Gods both Iustice and Holiness Secondly it appeareth from the premises that Gods thus dealing with wicked and unsanctified men in thus rewarding their outward good things giveth no warrant nor strength at all either to that Popish corrupt doctrine of Meritum congrui in deserving the first grace by the right use of Naturals or to that rotten principle and foundation of the whole frame of Pelagianism Facienti quod in se est Deus non potest non debet deuegare gratiam We know God rewards his own true and spiritual graces in us which increase of those graces here and with glory hereafter we see God rewardeth even false and outward and seeming graces natural and moral good things with outward and temporal favours And all this is most agreeable to his infinite both Iustice and Mercy and may stand with the infinite Purity and Holiness of his nature But this were rather to make God an unjust and unholy God to bind him to reward the outward and sinful works of Hypocrites for the best natural or moral works without grace are but such with true saving Grace and inward sanctification Other Inferences and uses more might be added as viz. Thirdly for our Imitation by God example to take knowledge of and to commend and to cherish even in wicked men those natural or moral parts that are eminent in them and whatsoever good things they do in outward actual conformity to the revealed will andlaw of God And Fourthly for Exhortation to such as do not yet find any comfortable assurance that their obedience and good works are true sincere and yet to go on and not to grow weary of well-doing knowing that their labour is not altogether in vain in as much as their works though perhaps done in Hypocrisie shall procure them temporal blessings here and some abatement withal I add that by the way of stripes and everlasting punishment hereafter But I pass by all these and the like Uses and commend but one more unto you and that is it which I named before as one Reason of the point observed viz. the Comfort of Gods dear Children and Servants and that sundry ways First here is comfort for them against a Temptation which often assaulteth them and that with much violence and danger arising from the sense and observation of the prosperity and flourishing estate of the wicked in this world We may see in the Psalms and elsewhere how frequently and strongly David z Iob and Ieremy and other Godly ones were assailed with this temptation For thy instruction then and to arm thee against this so common and universal a temptation if thou shalt see fools on horseback ungodly ones laden with wealth with honour with ease Hypocrites blessed with the fat of the earth and the dew of heaven and abundance of all the comforts of this life yet be not thou discomforted at it or disquieted with it Do not fret thy self because of the ungodly neither be thou envious at evil doers Thou expectest for thine inward obedience an unproportionable reward in the life to come do not therefore grudge their outward obedience a proportionable reward in this life Some good things or other thou mayest think there are in them for which God bestoweth those outward blessings upon them But consider withal that as they have their reward here so they have all their reward here and whatsoever their present prosperity be yet the time will come and that ere long be when The hope of the hypocrite shall wither The end of the Wicked shall be cut off Again here is a second Comfort for the godly against temporal afflictions and it ariseth thus As Gods love and favour goeth not always with those temporal benefits he bestoweth so on the other side Gods wrath and displeasure goeth not always with those temporal afflictions he inflicteth For as he rewardeth those few good things that are in evil men with these temporal benefits for whom yet in his Iustice he reserveth eternal damnation as the due wages by that Iustice of their graceless impenitency so he punisheth those remnants of sin that are in Godly men with these temporal afflictions for whom yet in his mercy he reserveth Eternal salvation as the due wages yet by that mercy only of their Faith and Repentance and holy Obedience As Abraham said to the rich glutton in the Parable Luke 19. e Son remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented As if he had said If thou hadst any thing good in thee remember thou hast had thy reward in earth already and now there remaineth for thee nothing but the full punishment of thine ungodliness there in Hell But as for Lazarus he hath had the chastisement of his infirmities on earth already and now remaineth for him nothing but the full reward of his godliness here in Heaven Thus the meditation of this Doctrine yieldeth good Comfort against temporal afflictions Here is yet a third Comfort and that of the three the greatest unto the godly in the firm assurance of their Eternal reward It is one of the Reasons why God temporally rewardeth the unsound obedience of natural carnal and unregenerate men even to give his faithful servants undoubted assurance that he will in no wise forget their true and sound and sincere obedience Doth God reward Ahab's temporary Humiliation and will he not much more reward thy hearty and unfeigned repentance Have the Hypocrites their reward and canst thou doubt of thine This was the very ground of all that comfort wherewith the Prodigal son sustained his heart and hope when he thus discoursed to his own soul If all the hired servants which are in my Fathers house have bread enough and to spare surely my Father will never be so unmindful of me who am his Son though too too unworthy of that name as to let me perish for hunger Every temporal blessing bestowed upon the wicked ought to be of the child of God entertained as a fresh assurance given him of his everlasting reward hereafter Abraham gave gifts to the Sons of his Concubines and sent them away but his only son
temptations where this may fail We may deceive our selves then and thousands in the world do so deceive themselves if upon our abstaining from sins from which God with-holdeth us we presently conclude our selves to be in the state of grace and to have the power of godliness and the spirit of sanctification For between this restraining grace whereof we have now spoken and that renewing grace whereof we now speak there are sundry wide differences They differ first in their fountain Renewing Grace springeth from the special love of God towards those that are his in Christ Restraining Grace is a fruit of that general mercy of God whereof it is said in the Psalm that his mercy is over all his works They differ secondly in their extent both of Person Subject Object and Time For the Person Restraining Grace is common to good and bad Renewing Grace proper and peculiar to the Elect. For the Subject Restraining grace may bind one part or faculty of a man as the hand or tongue and leave another free as the heart or ear Renewing grace worketh upon All in some measure sanctifieth the whole man Body and soul and spirit with all the parts and faculties of each For the Object Renewing grace may with-hold a man from one sin and give him scope to another Restraining grace carrieth an equal and just respect to all Gods Commandments For the Time Restraining grace may tie us now and by and by unloose us Renewing grace holdeth out unto the end more or less and never leaveth us wholly destitute Thirdly they differ in their Ends. Restraining Grace is so intended chiefly for the good of humane society especially of the Church of God and of the members thereof as that indifferently it may or may not do good to the Receiver but Renewing Grace is especially intended for the Salvation of the Receiver though Ex consequenti it do good also unto others They differ fourthly and lastly in their Effects Renewing Grace mortifieth the corruption and subdueth it and diminisheth it as water quencheth fire by abating the heat but Restraining Grace only inhibiteth the exercise of the corruption for the time without any real diminution of it either in substance or quality as the fire wherein the three Children walked had as much heat in it at that very instant as it had before and after although by the greater power of God the natural power of it was then suspended from working upon them The Lions that spared Daniel were Lions still and had their ravenous disposition still albeit God stopped their mouths for that time that they should not hurt him but that there was no change made in their natural disposition appeareth by their entertainment of their next guests whom they devoured with all greediness breaking their bones before they came to the ground By these two instances and examples we may in some measure conceive of the nature and power of the restraining Grace of God in wicked men It bridleth the corruption that is in them for the time that it cannot break out and manacleth them in such sort that they do not shew forth the ungodly disposition of their heart but there is no real change wrought in them all the while their heart still remaining unsanctified and their natural corruption undiminished Whereas the renewing and sanctifying grace of God by a real change of a Lion maketh a Lamb altereth the natural disposition of the soul by draining out some of the corruption begetteth a new heart a new spirit new habits new qualities new dispositions new thoughts new desires maketh a new man in every part and faculty compleatly New Content not thy self then with a bare forbearance of sin so long as thy heart is not changed nor thy will changed nor thy affections changed but strive to become a new man to be transformed by the renewing of thy mind to hate sin to love God to wrestle against thy secret corruptions to take delight in holy duties to subdue thine understanding and will and affections to the obedience of Faith and Godliness So shalt thou not only be restrained from sinning against God as Abimelech here was but also be enabled as faithful Abraham was to please God and consequently assured with all the faithful children of Abraham to be preserved by the Almighty power of God through faith unto salvation Which Grace and Faith and Salvation the same Almighty God the God of Power and of Peace bestow upon us all here assembled With all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours even for the same our Lord Jesus Christs sake his most dear Son and our blessed Saviour and Redeemer To which blessed Father and blessed Son with the blessed Spirit most holy blessed and glorious Trinity be ascribed by us and the whole Church all the Kingdom the Power and the Glory from this time forth and for ever Amen AD POPULUM The Seventh Sermon At St. Paul's Cross London May 6. 1632. 1 Pet. II. 16. As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness but as the servants of God THere is not any thing in the World more generally desired than Liberty nor scarce any thing more generally abused Insomuch as even that blessed liberty which the eternal Son of God hath purchased for his Spouse the Church and endowed her therewithal hath in no Age been free from Abuses whilst some have sinfully neglected their Christian liberty to their own prejudice and other some have as sinfully stood upon it to the prejudice of their brethren So hardly through Pride and Ignorance and other Corruptions that abound in us do we hit upon the golden mean either in this or almost in any thing else but easily swerve into the Vicious Extreams on both hands declining sometimes into the Defect and sometimes into the Excess The Apostles therefore especially St. Peter and St. Paul the two chiefest planters of the Churches endeavoured early to instruct believers in the true Doctrine and to direct them in the right use of their Christian liberty so often in their several Epistles as fit occasion was offered thereunto Which we may observe them to have done most frequently and fully in those Two Cases which being very common are therefore of the greater consequence viz. the case of Scandal and the case of Obedience And we may further observe concerning these Two Apostles that St. Paul usually toucheth upon this Argument of Liberty as it is to be exercised in the case of Scandal but St. Peter oftner as in the Case of Obedience Whereof on St. Peter's part I conceive the reason to be this That being the Apostle of the Circumcision and so having to deal most with the Iews who could not brook subjection but were of all Nations under heaven the most impatient of a foreign yoke he was therefore the more careful to deliver the
not titular and by a naked profession only whatsoever he is taken for is clearly the wiser man And he that is no more than worldly or carnally wise is in very deed and in Gods estimation no better than a very fool Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe Where is the disputer of this World Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the World saith the Apostle That Interrogative form of speech is more emphatical than the bare Categorical had been it signifieth as if it were so clear a truth that no man could reasonably deny it What Solomon saith in one place of the covetous rich man and in another place of the sluggard that he is wise in his own conceit is true also of every vicious person in every other kind Their wisdom is a wisdom but in conceit not in truth and that but in their own conceit neither and of some few others perhaps that have their judgments corrupted with the same lusts wherewith theirs also are Chrysippus non dicit idem Solomon sure had not that conceit of their wisdom and Solomon knew what belonged to wisdom as well as another man who putteth the fool upon the sinner I need not tell you indeed I cannot tell you how oft in his writings 34. His judgment then is clear in the point though it be a Paradox to the most and therefore would have a little farther proof for it is not enough barely to affirm Paradoxes but we must prove them too First then true saving wisdom is not to be learned but from the Word of God A lege tuâ intellexi By thy Commandments have I gotten understanding Psal. 119. it is that word and that alone that is able to make us wise unto salvation How then can they be truly wise who regard not that word but cast it behind their backs and despise it They have rejected the word of the Lord and what wisdom is in them saith Ieremy Again The fear of the Lord is the begining of Wisdom and a good understanding have they that do thereafter Psal. 111. How then can we allow them to pass for wise men and good understanding men that have no fear of God before their eyes that have no mind nor heart to do thereafter that will not be learned nor understand but are resolvedly bent to walk on still in darkness and wilfully shut their eyes that they may not see the light 35. Since every man is desirous to have some reputation of wisdom and accounteth it the greatest scorn and reproach in the world to be called or made a fool it would be very well worth the labour but that it would require as it well deserveth a great deal more labour and time than we dare now take to illustrate and enlarge this point which though it seem a very Paradox as was now said to the most is yet a most certain and demonstrable truth That godliness is the best of wisdom and that there is no fool to the sinner I shall but barely give you some of the heads of proof and refer the enlargement to each mans private meditation He that first is all for the present and never considereth what mischiefs or inconveniencies will follow thereupon afterwards that secondly when both are permitted to his choice hath not the wit to prefer that which is eminently better but chuseth that which is extremely worse that thirdly proposeth to himself base and unworthy ends that fourthly for the attaining even of those poor ends maketh choice of such means as are neither proper nor probable thereunto that fifthly goeth on in bold enterprises with great confidence of success upon very slender grounds of assurance and that lastly where his own wit will not serve him refuseth to be advised by those that are wiser than himself what he wanteth in wit making it up in will no wise man I think can take a person of this character for any other than a fool And every worldly or ungodly man is all this and more and every godly man the contrary Let not the worldly-wise man therefore glory in his wisdom that it turn not to his greater shame when his folly shall be discovered to all the world Let no man deceive himself saith St. Paul but if any among you seem to be wise in this world let him become a fool that he may be wise That is let him lay aside all vain conceit of his own wisdom and learn to account that seeming wisdom of the world to be as indeed it is no better than folly that so he may find that true wisdom which is of God The God of light and of wisdom so enlighten our understandings with the saving knowledge of his truth and so inflame our hearts with a holy love and fear of his Name that we may be wise unto salvation and so assist us with the grace of his holy Spirit that the light of our good works and holy conversation may so shine forth both before God and men in the mean time that in the end by his mercy who is the Father of lights we may be made partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in the light of everlasting life and glory and that for the merits sake of Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord. To whom c. AD AULAM. Sermon XVI Newport in the Isle of Wight Novemb. 1648. Heb. 12. 3. Consider him that endured such contradictions of sinners against himself that ye be not wearied and faint in your minds 1. THere is scarce any other provocation to the performance of any duty so prevalent with men as are the examples of such as have performed the same before them with glory and success Because besides that the same stirreth up in them an emulation of their glory and cheereth them on with hopes of like success it also clean taketh off that which is the common excuse of sloth and neglect of duty the pretension of Impossibility The Apostle therefore being to confirm the minds of these Hebrews with constancy and patience in their Christian course against all discouragements whatsoever setteth before them in the whole former Chapter a multitude of examples of the famous worthies of former times who by the strength of their faith had both done and suffered great things with admirable patience and constancy to their immortal honour upon earth and eternal happiness in heaven To the end that compassed with such a cloud of Witnesses they might think it a shame for them to hang back and not to dare especially having wâ—ithal so rich a Crown laid ready at the Goal for them to invite them thereunto to run with all possible chearfulness that race when they had seen so many so happily to have run before them vers 1. of this Chapter 2. Yet this great cloud of examples they were but to look through as the Medium at another and higher Example that of the bright Son of
to be cried down and condemned under the name of Will-worship nor doth it come within the compass of our Saviours reproof in this place If Ionadab had laid an obligation upon the Consciences of the Rechabites not to drink wine by telling them that for Conscience sake towards God they ought to abstain therefrom or if the Iewish Elders and Governors leaving the Consciences of the People free had only made a Law under some penalty for decency and cleanliness sake that no Man should sit down to Meat in publick with unwashen hands to my seeming had he then been guilty of this Pharisaical superstition and they free In brief then to conclude this Enquiry To lay an obligation either upon the judgements or consciences of Men in point of opinion or practice which God hath not laid that and nothing but that is to teach for doctrines the commandments of men 9. We have yet a third thing to be enquired of for the Explication of the words namely how and in what respect they that teach such Doctrines may be said to worship God in vain The Ambiguity of our English word Worship hath occasioned many Errors among Divines and mis-understandings of one anothers words and writings whereby the disputes and controversies about Worship are become of all other the most intricate and perplexed The Hebrews and the Greeks too have sundry words and those of distinct notions and significations which we in English for want of fitter expressions are fain to translate promiscuously by this one word Worship The Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word here used are all indifferently rendred worshipping Here according to the notion of the Greek word it properly signifieth the performance of some Religious or devout act with an intention to honour God thereby Whereby it appeareth that these Pharisees placed a great part of their Religion in the observation of these Traditions of mens divising and flattered themselves with this conceit That they did God a great deal of honour in so doing and that therefore he could not choose but be marvellous well pleased with them for so doing By long accustoming themselves to which like outward observances they had almost lost the vigor and soul of true Religion which consisteth in the inward Reverence and Devotion of the heart and had little other left than the bare carcase or empty outside thereof and that also patcht and pieced up for the most part with the devices and inventions of men 10. And this our Saviour now telleth them is Worship in vain He saith so indeed but hath he any Text for it The place he citeth is in Isa. 29. 13. where the words according to the Original run but thus Their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men but that it is vain the Prophet doth not there say He doth not say it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in those very words according to the Hebrew but the scope of the place importeth all that and more For God there threatneth to punish the People for such worship which he would not have done if he had been either pleased with it or honoured by it But the very word and all is so found even as our Saviour citeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Septuagint there which being the most common and received Translation in those days was therefore for the most part followed by Christ and his Apostles in their quotations especially where it swerved not very much in sence from the Original Now a thing is said to be done in vain when it hath not that wished effect which the doer intended and expected Those Pharisees then intending by those superstitious Will-worships to honour God and hopeing to please him therewithal when their expectations should be so far frustrated that God should all on the contrary profess himself dishonoured and displeased thereby it must needs be acknowledged that this their Will-worship was all in vain Certainly God will reject what himself hath forbidden and he hath forbidden and that both frequently and with the severest interminations all manner of Will-worship of this kind and properly so called and all additions of Men unto his holy Word 11. In the several parts of the Text thus opened we may see the full meaning of the whole God will not approve of nor accept any Wit-worship or Will-worship forged or devised by Man with an Opinion as if it were a necessary part of Gods service nor allow of any Doctrine that tendeth to bind the Iudgments or Consciences of his people further than he hath thought fit himself to bind them by the expresses of his Word He will when time serveth root out every plant which is not of his own planting And when the day is come which shall declare by a fiery Trial every mans work of what sort it is the Gold and Silver and precious Stones shall abide the fire and the Workman that built with such good stuff shall receive a blessed reward But he that buildeth Wood or Hay or Stubble though by the great mercy of God he himself may pass through the fire and be saved with some difficulty so long as he holdeth fast the foundation which is Christ and his merits yet he shall suffer loss in his work however That shall be sure to burn and perish whatsoever becometh of him All that fear of God is but superstitious and vain that is taught by the Precepts and Commandments of men 12. From the Explication of the Text hitherto I come now to the Application of it Wherein I doubt not by Gods help but to make clear to the judgment of any Man that is not either uncapable through ignorance or fore-possessed with prejudice these three things First that the Papists are guilty of the Pharisaical Superstition and Will-worship here condemned Secondly that the Church of England and her regular and Obedient Children are not guilty of the same Thirdly that those Divines and others in the Church of England that so undutifully charge her therewithal are in truth themselves inexcusably guilty of that very Crime whereof they unjustly accuse her 13. First for the Papists That they are the right children and successors of the Pharisees no Man that rightly understandeth the Tenets of the Romish Church but will easily grant if he shall duly consider what a mass of humane Traditions both in point of belief and worship are imposed upon the judgments and consciences of all that may be suffered to live in the visible Communion of that Church and that with opinion of necessity and under pain of Damnation The Popes Supremacy Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints and Angels the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass Purgatory the seven Sacraments Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Communion under one kind Private Masses forbidding Priests Marriage Monastical Vows Prayer in an unknown Tongue Auricular Confession All these and I know not how many more are such as even by the
pleasure to the prejudice of the Adversaries person or cause Seek not preposterously to win the name of a Good Lawyer by wresting and perverting good Laws or the opinion of the best Counsellor by giving the worst and the shrewdest Counsel Count it not as Protagoras did the glory of thy profession by subtilty of wit and volubility of tongue to make the worse cause the better but like a Good Man as well as Good Orator use the power of thy tongue and wit to shame impudence and protect innocency to crush oppressors and succour the afflicted to advance Justice and Equity and to help them to right that suffer wrong Let it be as a Ruled case to thee in all thy pleadings not to speak in any cause to wrest judgment If lastly thou art in any place or office of service or trust or command or attendance about the Courts rejoyce not as if it were now in thy power to do a friend a courtesie or a foe a spite Do not shew a cast of thy Office for the promise or hope of a reward in helping a great Offender out of the Briars Compel not men that have been long weather-beaten in the Main and are now arrived at the Haven of their business to weather for their Passports until they have offered some sacrifice to that great Diana Expedition Let no fear or hope or bribe or letter or envy or favour no not charity it self and compassion to the poverty or distressedness of any make you partial for the person to disregard the Cause If you would be charitable to the poor give them from your own but do not carve them from another's Trencher To relieve a poor man in his wants is the proper Office of Charity but Iustice must have no eyes to see nor bowels to yern at the wants of any man Be he rich or poor that bringeth his cause hither Currat Lex Let him find such as he bringeth Let him have as his cause deserveth The last of those Rules must be thine Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause If any of these to whom I have now spoken Accusers Witnesses Iurers Pleaders Officers shall transgress these Rules to the perverting of Iustice our refuge must be next under God to you that are the Magistrates of Justice and sit upon the Bench of Judicature At your gravity and authority we must take sanctuary against them that pursue us wrongfully as at the horns of the Altar It is your Duty or if it be as to most men it is a more pleasing thing to be remembred of their Power than of their Duty it is in your power if not to reform all the abuses and corruptions of these persons yet to curb their open insolencies and to contain them at least within modest bounds Nay since I have begun to magnifie your power let me speak it with all the due reverence to God and the King there is no power so great over which in a qualified sence you have not a greater power It is in your power to bear up the pillars of the State when the land is even dissolved and the pillars thereof grown weak for that is done by judging the Congregation according to right Psal. 75. In yours to make this yet flourishing Country and Kingdom glorious or despicable for Righteousness exalteth a Nation but sin is a reproach to any people Prov. 14. In yours to settle the Throne upon the King and to entail it by a kind of perpetuity unto the right heir for many succeeding generations for The Throne is established by justice Prov. 16. In yours to discharge Gods punishing Angel who now destroyeth us with a grievous destruction and by unsheathing your Sword to make him sheath his as here in my Text Phinees stood up and executed judgment and the plague ceased In yours though you be but Gods on Earth and in these Courts mortal and petty Gods yet to send prohibitions into the Court of Heaven and there to stop the judgments of the great and Eternal God before they come forth yea and when the Decree is gone forth to stay Execution In a word as it was said to Ieremy but in another sence you are Set over Nations and over Kingdoms to root out and to destroy to build and to plant Only then be intreated to use that power God hath given you unto edification and not unto destruction And now I have done my message God grant unto all of us that by our hearty sorrow and repentance for our sins past by our stedfast resolutions of future amendment and by setting our selves faithfully and uprightly in our several places and callings to do God and the King and our Country service in beating down sin and rooting out sinners we may by his good grace and mercy obtain pardon of our sins and deliverance from his wrath and be preserved by his power through faith unto salvation Now to God the Father the Son c. AD POPULUM The First Sermon At Grantham Linc. Octob. 3. 1620. 3 KINGS 21. 29. Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days but in his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house THE History of this whole Chapter affordeth matter of much Variety and Use but no passage in it so much either of Wonder or Comfort as this in the close of the whole both Story and Chapter That there should be Mighty ones sick with longing after their meaner Neighbours Vineyards That there should be crafty heads to contrive for Greedy Great Ones what they unjustly desire That there should be officious instruments to do a piece of legal injustice upon a great mans letter That there should be Knights of the Post to depose any thing though never so false in any cause though never so bad against any man though never so innocent That an honest man cannot be secure of his life so long as he hath any thing else worth the losing There is instance in the fore-part of the Chapter of all this in Ahab sickning and Iezebel plotting and the Elders obeying and the Witnesses accusing and poor Naboth suffering But what is there in all this singularly either Strange or Comfortable All is but Oppression Active in the rest Passive in Naboth And what wonder in either of these stupet haec qui jam post terga reliquit Sexaginta annos himself may pass for a wonder if he be of any standing or experience in the world that taketh either of these for a wonder And as for matter of Comfort there is matter indeed but of Detestation in the one of Pity in the other in neither of Comfort To pass by the other Occurrents also in the latter part of the Chapter as That a great Oppressor should hug himself in the cleanly carriage and
daily for mercy upon the Land and that weep and mourn in secret and upon their beds for your Abominations whom you hate and despise and persecute and defame and account as the very Scum of the People and the refuse and off-scouring of all things to whom yet you owe your Preservation Surely if it were not for some godly Iehoshaphat or other whose Presence God regardeth among you if it were not for some zealous Moses or other that standeth in the gap for you God's wrath had entred in upon you long ere this as a mighty breach of water and as an overflowing deluge overwhelmed you and you had been swept away as with the Besom of Destruction and devoured as stubble before the fire It is the innocent that delivereth the Land and reprieveth it from Destruction when the Sentence of Desolation is pronounced against it and it is delivered by the pureness of his hands O the goodness of our God! that would have spared the five Cities of the Salt-Sea if among so many thousands of beastly and filthy Persons there had been found but Ten righteous ones and that was for each City but two Persons nay that would have pardoned Ierusalem if in all the Streets and broad places thereof replenished with a World of Idolaters and Swearers and Adulterers and Oppressors there had been found but one single man that executed Iudgment and sought the truth from his heart But Oh the madness of the men of this foolish World withal who seek to do them most Mischief of all others who of all others seek to do them most good thirsting most after their Destruction who are the chiefest Instruments of their preservation O foolish and mad World if thou hast but wit enough yet yet to hug and to make much of that little flock the hostages of thy Peace and the earnest of thy tranquillity if thou wouldest but know even thou at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace Thou art yet happy that God hath a remnant in thee and if thou knewest how to make use of this happiness at least in this thy day by honouring their persons by procuring their safety and welfare by following their examples by praying for their continuance thou mightest be still and more and ever happy But if these things that belong unto thy peace be now hidden from thine eyes if these men that prolong thy peace and prorogue thy destruction be now despised in thy heart in this day of thy peace God is just thou knowest not how soon they may be taken from thee and though he do not bring the evil upon thee in their days when they are gone thou knowest not how soon Vengeance may overtake thee and then shall he tear thee in pieces and there shall be none left to deliver thee I have now done Beseech we God the Father of mercies for his dear Son Jesus Christ his sake to shed his Holy Spirit into our hearts that by his good Blessing upon us that which hath been presently delivered agreeably to his holy Truth and Word may take root downwards in our hearts and bring forth fruit upwards in our lives and conversations and so to assist us ever with his Grace that we may with humble confidence lay hold on his Mercies with chearful reverence tremble at his Iudgments by unfeigned Repentance turn from us what he hath threatned and by unwearied Obedience assure unto us what he hath promised To which Holy Father Son and Spirit three Persons and c. AD POPULUM The Third Sermon At Grantham Linc. Iun. 19. 1621. 3 KINGS 21. 29. I will not bring the evil in his days but in his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house I Come now this third time to entreat of this Scripture and by God's help to finish it Of the Three parts whereof heretofore propounded viz. 1. Ahab's Humiliation 2. The suspension of his judgment for his time 3. And the Devolution of â—t upon Iehoram the two former having been already handled the last only now remaineth to be considered of In the prosecution whereof as heretofore we have cleared GOD's Holiness and Truth so we shall be now occasioned to clear his Iustice from such imputations as might seem to lie upon it from this Act. And that in three respects accordingly as Iehoram who standeth here punishable for Ahab's sin may be considered in a threefold reference to Ahab that is to say either relate as the son of Ahab or disparate as another man from Ahab or comparaâ—â— as a man not altogether so bad as Ahab Now what Justice first to punish the Son for the Father or indeed secondly any one man foâ— another but most of all thirdly the less Offender for the greater It is not a matter of so much difficulty as at the first appearance it seemeth to clear these doubts if all things thereto appertaining be duly and distinctly considered The greatest trouble will be the things being of more variety than hardness to sort them in such manner as that we may therein proceed orderly and without confusion Evermore we know Certainties must rule Uncertainties and clear truths doubtful it will be therefore expedient for us for the better guiding of our Judgments first to lay down some Certainties and then afterwards by them to measure out fit Resolutions to the Doubts and then lastly from the premises to raise some few instructions for our use The first Certainty then and a main one is this Howsoever things appear to us yet God neither is nor can be unjust as not in any other thing so neither in his punishments Is God unrighteous that taketh vengeance God forbid for then how shall God judge the world shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right Indeed the Reasons of his Iustice oftentimes may be oftentimes are unknown to us but they never are they never can be unrighteous in him If in a deep point of Law a learned discreet Iudge should upon sufficient grounds give sentence flat contrary to what an ordinary by stander would think reason as many times it falleth out it is not for the grieved party to complain of injustice done him he should rather impute what is done to want of skill in himself than of Conscience in the Judge Right so if in many things Gods Proceedings hold not proportion with those characters of Justice and Equity which our weak and carnal reason would express we must thence infer our own ignorance not his injustice And that so much the rather because those matters of Law are such as fall within the comprehension of ordinary Reason whereas the ways of God are far removed out of our sight and advanced above our reach and besides an Earthly Iudge is subject to misprison mis-information partiality corruption and sundry infirmities that may vitiate his Proceedings whereas no such thing can possibly fall upon
might to have had those means considered which he had afforded them of knowledge Those means even where they are scantest being ever sufficient at the least thus far 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaketh Rom. 1. to leave the transgressor without excuse and to make void all pretensions of Ignorance That Error then did not wholly excuse Abimelech from sin because his Ignorance was partly wilful yet we may not deny but even that error did lessen and extenuate the sinfulness of the Action something and so excuse him in part à tanto though not à toto Because it appeareth by many evidences that his ignorance therein was not grosly affected and wilful and look how much measure you abate in the wilfulness so much weight you take off from the sin The light of Nature though to a man that could have made the best of it it had been sufficient to have discovered the vicious deformity and consequently the moral unlawfulness of Fornication yet was it nothing so clear in this particular as in many other things that concerned common equity and commutative Iustice. Besides common Opinion and the Custom of the times and Consent though corrupt Consent of most Nations in making but a light matter of it might easily carry him with the stream and make him adventure to do as most did without any scruple or so much as suspicion of such foul wickedness in a course so universally allowed and practised These respects make his wilfulness less his ignorance more pardonable and his sin more excusable And I make no question the premisses considered but that Abraham's sin in denying Sarah to be his Wife notwithstanding the equivocating trick he had to help it was by many degrees greater than was Abimelech's in taking her as being done more against knowledge and therefore more wilfully Abimelech's sin in taking her though with some degrees of wilfulness being yet a sin rather of Ignorance whereas Abraham's sin in denying her was a sin of Infirmity at the least if not much rather a sin of Presumption Now although this former Error Ignorantia Iuris could not wholly excuse Abimelech from sin in what he had done but in part only for he sinned therein by giving way to unchaste desires and purposes against the seventh Commandment yet that other Error of his Ignorantia Facti in mistaking a married woman for a single doth wholly excuse his fact from the sins of injustice in coveting and taking another mans Wife against the eighth and the tenth Commandments He had not the least injurious intent against Abraham in that kind and degree and therefore though he took his wife from him indeed yet not knowing any such matter by her especially having withal made ordinary and requisite enquiry thereafter it must be granted he did it unwittingly and therefore unwilfully and therefore also unsinfully as to that species of sin S. Augustine saith truly Peccatum ita est voluntarium ut si non sit voluntarium non est peccatum without some consent of the will no complete actual sin is committed Such ignorance therefore as preventeth à toto and cutteth off all consent of the will must needs also excuse and that à toto the Actions that proceed there-from from being sins It is clear from the words of my Text that Abimelech's heart was sincere in this action of taking Sarah from any injury intended to Abraham therein although de facto he took his wife from him because he did it ignorantly By what hath been spoken we may see in part what kind of Ignorance it is that will excuse us from sin either in whole or in part and what will not Let us now raise some profitable Inferences from this Observation First our Romish Catholicks often twit us with our fore elders What say they were they not all down-right Papists Believed as we believe Worshipped as we worship You will not say they all lived and died in Idolatry and so are damned And if they were saved in their faith why may not the same faith save us And why will not you also be of that Religion that brought them to Heaven A motive more plausible than strong the Vanity whereof our present Observation duly considered and rightly applied fully discovereth We have much reason to conceive good hope of the salvation of many of our Fore-fathers who led away with the common superstitions of those blind times might yet by those general truths which by the mercy of God were preserved amid the foulest overspreadings of Popery agreeable to the Word of God though clogged with an addition of many superstitions and Antichristian inventions withal be brought to true Faith in the Son of God unfeigned Repentance from dead works and a sincere desire and endeavour of new and holy Obedience This was the Religion that brought them to Heaven even Faith and Repentance and Obedience This is the true and the Old and Catholick Religion and this is our Religion in which we hope to find salvation and if ever any of you that miscal your selves Catholicks come to Heaven it is this Religion must carry you thither If together with this true Religion of Faith Repentance and Obedience they embraced also your additions as their blind guides then led them prayed to our Lady kneeled to an Image crept to a Cross flocked to a Mass as you now do these were their spots and their blemishes these were their hay and their stubble these were their Errors and their Ignorances And I doubt not but as S. Paul for his blasphemies and persecutions so they obtained mercy for these sins because they did them ignorantly in misbelief And upon the same ground we have cause also to hope charitably of many thousand poor souls in Italy Spain and other parts of the Christian World at this day that by the same blessed means they may obtain mercy and salvation in the end although in the mean time through ignorance they defile themselves with much foul Idolatry and many gross Superstitions But the ignorance that excuseth from sin is Ignorantia Facti according to that hath been already declared whereas theirs was Ignorantia Iuris which excuseth not And besides as they lived in the practice of that worship which we call Idolatry so they died in the same without repentance and so their case is not the same with S. Paul's who saw those his sins and sorrowed for them and forsook them But how can Idolaters living and dying so without repentance be saved It is answered that ignorance in point of fact so conditioned as hath been shewed doth so excuse à toto that an Action proceeding thence though it have a material inconformity unto the Law of God is yet not formally a sin But I do not so excuse the Idolatry of our Fore fathers as if it were not in it self a sin and that without repentance damnable But yet their Ignorance being such as it was nourished by
of a discreet Father and the affection of a tender Mother towards the fruit of their own loyns and womb And the Apostle at large prosecuteth the resemblance and that in this very matter whereof we now speak of our heavenly Fathers correcting his children in love and for their good most accurately and comfortably in Heb. 12. 22. But to return back to the relation of friendship from which yet I have not digressed for can we have any better friends than our Parents If any of us have a friend that is lethargick or lunatick will we not put the one from his drousie seat and shake him up and make him stir about whether he will or no and tie the other in his bed hamper him with cords yea and with blows too if need be to keep him quiet though it be death to the one to be stirred and to the other to be tied Or if we have some near friend or kinsman that we wish well to and partly dependeth upon us for his livelihood that will not be advised by us but will flie out into bad company drink and quarrel and game will we not pinch him in his allowance refuse to give him entertainment set some underhand to beat him when he quarrels in his drink or to cheat him when he gameth too deep and if he will not be reclaimed otherwise get him arrested and laid up and then let him lie by it till shame and want give him some better sight and sense of his former follies Can any man now charge us truly with unfaithfulness to our friend for so doing Or is it not rather a good proof of our love and faithfulness to him Doubtless it is You know the old saying Non quòd odio habeam sed quòd amem it hath some reason in it For the love and faithfulness of a friend is not to be measured by the things done but by the affection and intention of the doer A thing may be done that carrieth the shew of much friendship with it yet with an intent to do the party a mischief Eutrapelus cuicunque nocere volebat c. As if he should put his friend upon some employment he were unmeet for of purpose to disgrace him or feed him with money in a riotous course to get a hanck over his Estate like Sauls friendship to David in giving him his Daughter to wife that she might be a snare to him to put him into the hands of the Philistines This is the basest unfaithfulness of all other sub amici fallere nomen and by many degrees worse than open hostility Let not their precious balms break my head Let the righteous rather smite me friendly saith David There may be smiting it should seem by him without violation of friendship And his wise Son Solomon preferreth the wounds of a Friend before the kisses of an Enemy These may be pleasanter but those will prove wholsomer there is treachery in these kisses but in those wounds faithfulness 23. You may perceive by what hath been said that God may cause his servants to be troubled and yet continue his love and faithfulness to them nevertheless yea moreover that he bringeth those troubles upon them out of his great love and faithfulness toward them It should make us the more willing whether God inflict or threaten whether we feel or fear any either publick calamity or personal affliction any thing that is like to breed us any grief or trouble to submit our selves to the hand of God not only with patience because he is righteous but even with thankfulness too because he is faithful therein Very meet we should apprehend the wrath of God and his just indignation against us when he striketh for he is righteous and will not correct us but for our sin Which should prick our hearts with sorrow nay rend them in pieces with through contrition that we should so unworthily provoke so gracious a God to punish us But then we must apprehend his wrath that we doubt not of his favour nor despair of staying his hand if we will but stay the course of our sins by godly repentance and reformation for he is faithful and correcteth us ever for our good Doth he take any pleasure think you in our destruction He hath sworn the contrary and dare you not believe him Doubt ye not therefore but that humility and confidence fear and hope may consist together as well as justice and mercy may in God or repentance and faith in us Presume not then to continue in sin but fear his judgments for he is righteous and will not acquit the guilty Neither yet despair of finding pardon but hope in his mercy for he is faithful and will not despise the peâ—itent I forbid no man but charge him rather as he meaneth to build his after comforts upon a firm base to lay a good foundation of repentance and godly sorrow by looking first upon Gods justice and his own sins that he may be cast down and humbled under the mighty hand of God before he presume to lay hold of any actual mercy But after he hath by this means assured the foundation let him then in Gods name proceed with his work and bring it on more and more to perfection by sweet meditations of the great love and gracious promises of our good God and his undoubted sted fastness and faithfulness therein Never giving it over till it come to that perfection of art and skill that he can spy love even in the very wrath of God Mel de petra suck honey out of the stony rock gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles Till we attain to this I say not but we may have true hope and comfort in God which by his mercy may bring us to salvation but we have not yet that fulness of joy and peace which because by Gods grace if our own endeavours be not wanting it is attainable in this life we should press hard after of rejoycing in tribulation and counting it all joy when we fall into divers temptations 24. Somewhat a hard lesson I grant yet if we can but learn some of Davids knowledge it will be much the easier He speaketh not here you see out of a vain hope because he would fain have it so nor out of some uncertain conjecture as if perhaps it might be so but out of certain knowledge gotten by diligent and attentive study in the Word of God and by his own experience and observation I know O Lord that thy judgments are right and that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled For the former branch of this knowledge that concerneth the righteousness of Gods judgments it is a thing soon learned I have shewed you the course already There is no more to be done but to examine our own carriage and deserving and we shall find enough I doubt not to satisfie fully in that point and therefore
stumble or be offended or be made weak by it the action becometh evil All things are pure but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence ver 20. there Thirdly Comparison in regard of other actions Though the thing be good yet if we prefer it before better things and neglect or omit them for it the action becometh evil Go and learn what that is I will have mercy and not sacrifice Matth. 9. The stuff thus prepared by differencing out those things which undistinguished might breed confusion our next business must be to lay the rule and to apply it to the several kinds of evil as they have been differenced I foresaw we should not have time to go thorow all that was intended and therefore we will content our selves for this time with the consideration of this Rule applied to things simply evil In them the Rule holdeth perpetually and without exception that which is simply evil may not for any good be done We know not any greater good for there is not any greater good than the Glory of God we scarce know a lesser sin if any sin may be accounted little than a harmless officious lye Yet may not this be done no not for that Will you speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him Job 13. 7. If not for the glory of God then certainly not for any other inferiour end not for the saving of a life not for the conversion of a Soul not for the peace of a Church and if even that were possible too not for the redemption of a world No intention of any end can warrant the choice of sinful means to compass it The Reasons are strong One is because sin in its own nature is de numero ineligibilium and therefore as not eligible propter se for its own sake there is neither form nor beauty in it that we should desire it so neither propter aliud with reference to any farther end Actus peccati non est ordinabilis in bonum finem is the common resolution of the Schools In civil and popular elections if men make choice of such a person to bear any office or place among them as by the local Charters Ordinances Statutes or other Customs which should rule them in their choice is altogether ineligible the election is de jure nulla naught and void the incapacity of the person elected making a nullity in the act of election No less is it in moral actions and elections if for any intended end we make choice of such means as by the Law of God which is our rule and must guide us are ineligible and such is every sin Another reason is grounded upon that Principle Bonum ex causa integra Malum ex partiali Any partial or particular defect in Object End Manner or other Circumstance is enough to make the whole action bad but to make it good there must be an universal concurrence of all requisite conditions in every of these respects As a disfigured eye or nose or lip maketh the face deformed but to make it comely there is required the due proportion of every part And any one short Clause or Proviso not legal is sufficient to abate the whole Writ or Instrument though in every other part absolute and without exception The intention then be it granted never so good is unsufficient to warrant an Action good so long as it faileth either in the object or manner or any requisite circumstance whatsoever Saul pretended a good end inspring the fat things of Amaleck that he might therewith do sacrifice to the Lord but God rejected both it and him 1 Sam. 15. We can think no other but that Uzzah intended the safety of Gods Ark when it tottered in the Cart and he stretched out his hand to stay it from falling but God interpreted it a presumption and punished it 2 Sam. 6. Doubtless Peter meant no hurt to Christ but rather good when he took him aside and advised him to be good to himself and to keep him out of danger yet Christ rebuked him for it and sent him packing in the Devils name Get thee behind me Satan Matth. 16. But what will we say and let that stand for a third reason if our pretended good intention prove indeed no good intention And certainly be it as fair and glorious as we could be content to imagine it such it will prove to be if it set us upon any sinful or unwarranted means indeed no good intention but a bad For granted it must be that the Intention of any end doth virtually include the means as in a Syllogism the premises do the Conclusion No more then can the choice of ill means proceed from a good intention than can a false Conclusion be inferred from true Premises and that is impossible From which ground it is that the Fathers and other Divines do oftentimes argue from the Intention to the Action and from the goodness of the one to the goodness of both to that purpose applying those speeches of our Saviour in the twelfth and in the Sixth of Matthew Either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt And If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness The light of the body is the eye and of the work the intention No marvel when the eye is evil if the whole body be dark and when the intention is evil if the whole work be naught That which deceiveth most men in judging of good or bad intentions is that they take the end and the intention for one and the same thing betwixt which two there is a spacious difference For the end is the thing propter quid for which we work that whereat we aim in working and so hath rationem causae finalis but the intention is the cause à qua from which we work that which setteth us on working and so hath rationem causae efficientis Now between these two kinds of causes the final and the efficient there is not only a great difference but even a repugnancy in such sort as that it is impossible they should at any time coincidere which some other kinds of causes may do It is therefore an errour to think that if the end be good the intention of that end must needs be good for there may as well be a bad intention of a good end as a bad desire of a good object Whatsoever the end be we intend it is certain that intention cannot be good which putteth us upon the choice of evil means Methinks the Church of Rome should blush if her forehead dyed red with the blood of God's Saints were capable of any tincture of shame at the discovery of her manifold impostures in counterfeiting of Reliques in coyning of
error and retracting it that you may build better then let it lie on still till a sorer fire catch it Better for any of us all whether in respect of our errours or sins to prevent the Lords judging of us by timely judging our selves than to slack the time till his judgment overtake us 27. The Second Use should be an Admonition to all my Brethren of the Ministry for the time to come and that in the Apostles words 1 Cor. 3. 10. Let every man take heed what he buildeth St. Paul himself was very careful this way not to deliver any thing to the People but what he had received from the Lord. The Prophets of the Lord still delivered their Messages with this Preface Haec dicit Dominus Yea that wretched Balaam though a false Prophet and covetous enough professed yet that if Balak would give him his house full of Silver and Gold he neither durst nor would go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more There is a great proneness in us all to Idolize our own inventions Besides much Ignorance Hypocrisie and Partiality any of which may byass us awry Our Educations may lay such early anticipations upon our judgments or our Teachers or the Books we read or the Society we converse withal may leave such impressions therein as may fill them with prejudice not easily to be removed The golden mean is a hard thing to hit upon almost in any thing without some warping toward one of the extremes either on the right hand or on the left and without a great deal of wisdom and care seldom shall we seek to shun one extreme and not run a little too far towards the other if not quite into it In all which and sundry other respects we may soon fall into gross mistakes and errors if we do not take the more heed whilst we suspect no such thing by our selves but verily believe that all we do is out of pure zeal for Gods Glory and the love of his truth We had need of all the piety and learning and discretion and pains and prayers we have and all little enough without Gods blessing too yea and our own greater care too to keep us from running into Errors and from teaching for doctrines the commandments of men 28. The Third Use should be for Admonition also to all the people of God that they be not hasty to believe every Spirit but to try the Spirits especially when they see the spirits to disagree and clash one with another or find otherwise just cause of suspicion and that as the Beraeans did by the Scriptures Using withal all good subsidiary helps for the better understanding thereof especially those two as the principal the Rule of Right Reason and the known constant judgment and practice of the Universal Church That so they may fan away the Chaff from the Wheat and letting go the refuse hold fast that which is good To this end every man should especially beware that he do not suffer himself to be carried away with names nor to have any mans person either in hatred or admiration but embrace what is consonant to truth and reason though Iudas himself should preach it and reject what even an Angel from Heaven should teach if he have no other reason to induce him to believe it than that he teacheth it 29. The Fourth Use should be for Exhortation to the learneder sort of my Brethren to shew their faithfulness duty and true hearty affection to God and his Truth and Church by maintaining the simplicity of the Christian Faith and asserting the Doctrine of Christian Liberty against all corrupt mixtures of mens inventions and against all unlawful impositions of mens Commandments in any kind whatsoever If other men be zealous to set up their own errors shall we be remiss to hold up Gods Truth God having deposited it with us and committed it to our special trust how shall we be able to answer it to God and the World if we suffer it to be stollen out of the hearts of our people by our silence or neglect Like enough you shall incurr blame and censure enough for so doing as if you sought but your selves in it by seeking to please those that are in authority in hope to get preferment thereby But let none of these things discourage you if you shall not be able by the grace of God in some measure to despise the censures of rash and uncharitable men so long as you can approve your hearts and actions in the sight of God and to break through if need be far greater tryals and discouragements than these you are not worthy to be called the servants of Christ. 30. The last Use should be an humble Supplication to those that have in their hands the ordering of the great affairs of Church and State that they would in their goodness and wisdoms make some speedy and effectual provision to repress the exorbitant licenciousness of these times in Printing and Preaching every man what he list to the great dishonour of God scandal of the Reformed Religion fomenting of Superstition and Error and disturbance of the peace both of Church and Common-wealth Lest if way be still given thereunto those evil Spirits that this late connivence hath raised grow so fierce within a while that it will trouble all the power and wisdom of the Kingdom to conjure them handsomly down again But certainly since we find by late experience what wildness in some of the Lay-people what petulancy in some of the inferior Clergy what insolency in some both of the Laity and Clergy our Land is grown into since the reins of the Ecclesiastical Government have lain a little slack we cannot but see what need we have to desire and pray that the Ecclesiastical Government and Power may be timely setled in some such moderate and effectual way as that it may not be either too much abused by them that are to exercise it nor too much despised by those that must live under it In the mean time so long as things hang thus loose and unsetled I know not better how to represent unto you the present face of the times in some respects than in the words of the Prophet Ieremy The Prophets prophesie lies and the Priests get power into their hands by their means and my people love to have it so And what will you do in the end thereof 31. What the end of these insolencies will be God alone knoweth The increase of Profaneness Riot Oppression and all manner of wickedness on the one side and the growth of Error Novelty and Superstition on the other side are no good signs onward The Lord of his great mercy grant a better end thereunto than either these beginnings or proceedings hitherto portend or our sins deserve And the same Lord of his infinite goodness vouchsafe to dispel from us by the light of his Holy Spirit all blindness and hardness of
heart to purge out of us by the fire of his Holy Spirit all dross of pride and Hypocrisie to increase in us by the grace of his Holy Spirit the love of Truth and Godliness to support us by the comforts of his Holy Spirit amidst all our distresses and fears and to lead us by the guidance of his Holy Spirit along the paths of holiness unto the ports of happiness And all this for the alone merits sake of his blessed Son and our alone Saviour Iesus Christ. To which blessed Father Son and Holy Spirit be ascribed by us and the whole Christian Church all the Kingdom the Power and the Glory from this time forth for evermore Amen Amen LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell 1686. AD MAGISTRATUM The First Sermon At a Publick Sessions at Grantham Lincoln Iune the 11th 1623. JOB XXIX ver 14 15 16 17. 14. I put on righteousness and it cloathed me my judgment was a Robe and Diadem 15. I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame 16. I was a Father to the poor and the cause which I knew not I searched out 17. And I brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth WHere silence against foul and false imputations may be interpreted a Confession there the Protestation of a mans own innocency as ever just and sometimes necessary When others do us open wrong it is not now Vanity but Charity to do our selves open right and whatsoever appearance of folly or vain boasting there is in so doing they are chargeable with all that compel us thereunto and not we I am become a fool in glorying but ye have compelled me 2 Cor. 12. 11. It was neither pride nor passion in Iob but such a compulsion as this that made him so often in this Book proclaim his own righteousness Amongst whose many and grievous afflictions as it is hard to say which was the greatest so we are sure this was not the least that he was to wrestle with the unjust and bitter upbraidings of unreasonable and incompassionate men They came to visit him as friends and as friends they should have comforted him But sorry friends they were and miserable comforters indeed not comforters but tormenters and accusers rather than friends Seeing Gods hand heavy upon him for want of better or other proof they charge him with Hypocrisie And because they would not seem to deal all in generalities for against this general accusation of hypocrisie it was sufficient for him as generally to plead the truth and uprightness of his heart they therefore go on more particularly but as falsly and as it were by way of instance to charge him with Oppression Thus Eliphaz by name taxeth him Chap. 22. 6 c. Thou hast taken a pledge from thy Brother for naught and hast stripped the naked of their cloathing Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink and thou hast witholden bread from the hungry But as for the mighty man he had the Earth and the honourable man dwelt in it Thou hast sent Widows away empty and the Arms of the Fatherless hast thou broken Being thus shamefully indeed shamelessly upbraided to his face without any desert of his by those men who if he had deserved it should least of all have done it his neighbours and familiar friends can you blame the good man if to remove such false aspersions he do with more than ordinary freedom insist upon his own integrity in this behalf And that he doth in this Chapter something largely wherein he declareth how he demeaned himself in the time of his prosperity in the administration of his Magistracy far otherwise than was laid to his charge When the Ear heard me then it blessed me and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me Because I delivered the poor that cryed and the Fatherless and him that had none to help him The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widows heart to sing for joy in the next immediate verses before these And then he goeth on in the words of my Text I put on righteousness c. It seemeth Iob was a good man as well as a great and being good he was by so much the better by how much he was the greater Nor was he ony Bonus vir a good man and yet if but so his friends had done him much wrong to make him an Hypocrite but he was Bonus Civis too a good Common-wealths man and therefore his friends did him yet more wrong to make him an Oppressor Indeed he was neither the one nor the other But it is not so useful for us to know what manner of man Iob was as to learn from him what manner of men we should be The grieved Spirit of Iob indeed at first uttered these words for his own Iustification but the blessed Spirit of God hath since written them for our instruction To teach us from Iob's example how to use that measure of greatness and power which he hath given us be it more be it less to his glory and the common good So that in these words we have to consider as laid down unto us under the person and from the example of Iob some of the main and principal duties which concern all those that live in any degree of Eminency or Authority either in Church or Common-wealth and more especially those that are in the Magistracy or in any office appertaining to Iustice. And those Duties are four One and the first as a more transcendent and fundamental duty the other three as accessary helps thereto or subordinate parts thereof The first is a Care and Love and Zeal of Iustice. A good Magistrate should so make account of the administration of Iustice as of his chiefest business making it his greatest glory and delight Ver. 14. I put on righteousness and it cloathed me my judgment was a robe and a diadem The second is a forwardness unto the works of Mercy and Charity and Compassion A good Magistrate should have compassion of those that stand in need of his help and be helpful unto them ver 15. and part of 16. I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame I was a father to the poor The third is Diligence in Examination A good Magistrate should not be hasty to credit the first tale or be carried away with light Informations but he should hear and examine and scan and sift matters as narrowly as may be for the finding out of the truth in the remainder of ver 16. And the cause which I knew not I searched out The Fourth is Courage and Resolution in executing A good Magistrate when he goeth upon sure grounds should not fear the faces of men be they never so mighty or many but without respect of persons execute that which is equal and right even upon the greatest Offender
with patience and permit all to the judgments of your own Consciences and of God the Judg of all mens Consciences But yet still in Conscience the obligation lyeth equally upon you and us As we are bound to give you honour so are you to give us safety as we to fear you so you to help us as we to fight for you so you to care for us as we to pay you tribute so you to do us right For For this cause pay we tribute and other duties unto you who are Gods Ministers even because you ought to be attending continually upon this very thing to approve your selves as the Ministers of God to us for good Oh that we could all superiours and inferiours both one and other remember what we owed to each other and by mutual striving to pay it to the utmost so endeavour our selves to fulfil the Law of God But in the mean time we are still injurious if either we withdraw our subjection or you your help if either we cast off the duty of Children or you the care of Fathers Time was when Iudges and Nobles and Princes delighted to be called by the name of Fathers The Philistines called their King by a peculiar appellative Abimelech as who say The King my Father In Rome the Senators were of old time called Patres Fathers and it was afterwards accounted among the Romans the greatest title of honour that could be bestowed upon their Consuls Generals Emperors or whosoever had deserved best of the Commonwealth to have this addition to the rest of his stile Pater Patriae a Father to his Country Naaman's servants in 4 King 5. 13. call him Father My Father if the Prophet had commanded thee c. And on the other side David the King speaketh unto his Subjects as a Father to his Children in Psal. 34. Come ye children c. and Solomon in the Proverbs every where My Son even as Iob here accounteth himself a Father to the poor Certainly to shew that some of these had and that all good Kings and Governours should have a fatherly care over and bear a fatherly affection unto those that are under them All which yet seeing it is intended to be done in bonum universitatis must be so understood as that it may stand cum bono universitatis with equity and justice and with the common good For Mercy and Iustice must go together and help to temper the one the other The Magistrate and Governour must be a Father to the poor to protect him from injuries and to relieve his necessities but not to maintain him in idleness All that the Father oweth to the Child is not love and maintenance he oweth him too Education and he oweth him Correction A Father may love his Child too fondly and make him a Wanton he may maintain him too highly and make him a Prodigal but he must give him nurture too as well as maintenance lest he be better fed than taught and correct him too as well as love him lest he bring him most grief when he should reap most comfort from him Such a fatherly care ought the civil Magistrate to have over the poor He must carefully defend them from wrongs and oppressions he must providently take order for their convenient relief and maintenance But that is not all he must as well make provision to set them on work and see that they follow it and he must give them sharp Correction when they grow idle stubborn dissolute or any way out of order This he should do and not leave the other undone There is not any speech more frequent in the mouths of Beggars and Wanderers wherewith the Country now swarmeth than that men would be good to the poor and yet scarce any thing so much mistaken as that speech in both the terms of it most men neither understanding aright who are the poor nor yet what it is to be good to them Not he only is good to the poor that delivereth him when he is oppressed nor is he only good to the poor that relieveth him when he is distressed but he also is good to the poor that punisheth him when he is idle He is good to the poor that helpeth him when he wanteth and he is no less good to the poor that whippeth him when he deserveth This is indeed to be good to the poor to give him that Alms first which he wanteth most if he be hungry it is Alms to feed him but if he be idle and untoward it is Alms to whip him This is to be good to the poor But who then are the poor we should be good to as they interpret goodness Saint Paul would have Widows honoured but yet those that are Widows indeed so it is meet the poor should be relieved but yet those that are poor indeed Not every one that begs is poor not every one that wanteth is poor not every one that is poor is poor indeed They are the poor whom we private men in Charity and you that are Magistrates in Iustice stand bound to relieve who are old or impotent or unable to work or in these hard and depopulating times are willing but cannot be set on work or have a greater charge upon them than can be maintained by their work These and such as these are the poor indeed let us all be good to such as these Be we that are private men as brethren to these poor ones and shew them mercy be you that are Magistrates as Fathers to these poor ones and do them justice But as for those idle stubborn professed wanderers that can and may and will not work and under the name and habit of poverty rob the poor indeed of our Alms and their Maintenance let us harden our hearts against them and not give them do you execute the severity of the Law upon them and not spare them It is Saint Paul's Order nay it is the Ordinance of the Holy Ghost and we should all put to our helping hands to see it kept He that will not labour let him not eat These Ulcers and Drones of the Commonwealth are ill worthy of any honest man's Alms of any good Magistrates protection Hitherto of the Magistrates second Duty with the reasons and extent thereof I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame I was a Father to the poor Followeth next the third Duty in these words The cause which I knew not I searched out Of which words some frame the Coherence with the former as if Iob had meant to clear his Mercy to the poor from suspicion of partiality and injustice and as if he had said I was a Father indeed to the poor pitiful and merciful to him and ready to shew him any lawful favour but yet not so as in pity to him to forget or pervert justice I was ever careful before I would either speak or do for
him to be first assured his cause was right and good for that purpose if it were doubtful I searched it out and examined it before I would countenance either him or it Certainly thus to do is agreeable to the rule of Iustice yea and of Mercy too for it is one Rule in shewing Mercy that it be ever done salvis pietate justitiâ without prejudice done to piety and justice And as to this particular the commandment of God is express for it in Exod. 23. Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause Now if we should thus understand the coherence of the words the special duty which Magistrates should hence learn would be indifferency in the administration of Justice not to make difference of rich or poor far or near friend or foe one or other but to consider only and barely the equity and right of the cause without any respect of persons or partial inclination this way or that way This is a very necessary duty indeed in a Magistrate of Justice and I deny not but it may be gathered without any violence from these very words of my Text though to my apprehension not so much by way of immediate observation from the necessity of any such coherence as by way of consequence from the words themselves otherwise For what need all that care and pains and diligence in searching out the cause if the condition of the person might over-rule the cause after all that search and were not the judgment to be given meerly according to the goodness or badness of the cause without respect had to the person But the special duty which these words seem most naturally and immediately to impose upon the Magistrate and let that be the third Observation is diligence and patience and care to hear and examine and enquire into the truth of things and into the equity of mens causes As the Physician before he prescribe receipt or diet to his patient will first feel the pulse and view the urine and observe the temper and changes in the body and be inquisitive how the disease began and when and what sits it hath and where and in what manner it holdeth him and inform himself every other way as fully as he can in the true state of his body that so he may proportion the remedies accordingly without error so ought every Magistrate in causes of Justice before he pronounce sentence or give his determination whether in matters judicial or criminal to hear both parties with equal patience to examine witnesses and other evidences advisedly and throughly to consider and wisely lay together all Allegations and Circumstances to put in quaeries and doubts upon the by and use all possible expedient means for the boulting out of the truth that so he may do that which is equal and right without error A duty not without both Precept and President in holy Scripture Moses prescribeth it in Deut. 17. in the case of Idolatry If there be found among you one that hath done thus or thus c. And it be told thee and thou hast heard of it and inquired diligently and behold it to be true and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in Israel Then thou shalt bring forth that man c. The offender must be stoned to death and no eye pity him but it must be done orderly and in a legal course not upon a bare hear-say but upon diligent examination and inquisition and upon such full evidence given in as may render the fact certain so far as such cases ordinarily are capable of certainty And the like is again ordered in Deut. 19. in the case of false witness Both the men between whom the controversie is shall stand before the Iudges and the Iudges shall make diligent inquisition c. And in Iudg. 19. in the wronged Levites case whose Concubine was abused to death at Gibeah the Tribes of Israel stirred up one another to do justice upon the inhabitants thereof and the method they proposed was this first to consider and consult of it and then to give their opinions But the most famous example in this kind is that of King Solomon in 3 Kings 3. in the difficult case of the two Mothers Either of them challenged the living Child with a like eagerness either of them accused other of the same wrong and with the same allegations neither was there witness or other evidence on either part to give light unto the matter yet Solomon by that wisdom which he had obtained from God found a means to search out the truth in this difficulty by making as if he would cut the child into halfs and give either of them one half at the mentioning whereof the compassion of the right mother betrayed the falshood of her clamorous competitor And we read in the Apocryphal Story of Susanna how Daniel by x examining the two Elders severally and apart found them to differ in one circumstance of their relation and thereby discovered the whole accusation to be false Iudges for this reason were anciently called Cognitores and in approved Authors Cognoscere is as much as to do the office of a Judge to teach Iudges that one chief point of there care should be to know the Truth For if of private men and in things of ordinary discourse that of Solomon be true He that answereth a matter before he heareth it it is folly and shame unto him certainly much more is it true of publick Magistrates and in matters of Justice and Judgment by how much both the men are of better note and the things of greater moment But in difficult and intricate businesses covered with darkness and obscurity and perplexed with many windings and turnings and cunning and crafty conveyances to find a fair issue out and to spy light at a narrow hole and by wisdom and diligence to rip up a foul matter and search a cause to the bottom and make a discovery of all is a thing worthy the labour and a thing that will add to the honour I say not only of inferiour governours but even of the Supreme Magistrate the King It is the glory of God to conceal a thing but the honour of Kings is to search out the matter To understand the necessity of this duty consider First that as sometimes Democritus said the truth lyeth in profundo and in abdito dark and deep as in the bottom of a pit and it will ask some time yea and cunning too to find it out and to bring it to light Secondly that through favour faction envy greediness ambition and otherwise innocency it self is often laden with false accusations You may observe in the Scriptures how Naboth Ieremy S. Paul and others and you may see by too much experience in these wretched times how many men of fair and honest conversation have been accused and troubled
Isaac he kept with him and gave him all that he had Right so God giveth temporal gifts to Hypocrites and Cast-aways who are bastards and not sons and not sons of the freewoman not sons of promise not born after the spirit and that is their portion when they have gotten that they have gotten all they are like to have there is no more to be looked for at his hands But as for the Inheritance he reserveth that for his dear Children the godly who are Born after the Spirit and Heirs according to promise on these he bestoweth all that ever he hath all things are theirs for on them he bestoweth his Son the heir of all things in whom are hid all the treasures of all good things and together with whom all other things are conveyed and made over unto them as accessories and appurtenances of him and on them he bestoweth Himself which is All in all in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore To which joy unspeakable and glorious O thou the Father of mercies who hast promised it unto us bring us in the end for thy dear Son's sake Jesus Christ who hath purchased it for us and given into our hearts the earnest of his and thy holy Spirit to seal it unto us To which blessed Son and holy Spirit together with thee O Father three persons and one only wise gracious Almighty and eternal Lord God be ascribed by us and all thy faithful people throughout the world the whole kingdom power and glory for ever and ever Amen Amen AD POPULUM The Second Sermon At Grantham Linc. Feb. 27. 1620. 3 KINGS 21. 29. because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days I Will not so far either distrust your Memories or straiten my self of Time for the delivery of what I am now purposed to speak as to make any large Repetition of the Particulars which were observ'd the last time from the consideration of Ahab's Person and Condition who was but an Hypocrite taken joyntly with his present Carriage together with the Occasion and Success thereof He was humbled It was the Voice of God by his Prophet that humbled him Upon his humbling God adjourneth his Punishment From all which was noted first That there might be even in Hypocrites an Outward formal Humiliation secondly the Power and Efficacy of the Word of God able to humble an Oppressing Ahab thirdly the boundless Mercy of God in not suffering the Outward formal Humiliation of an ungodly Hypocrite to pass altogether unrewarded All this the last time by occasion of those first Clauses in the Verse Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me because he humbleth himself before me I will not We are now next to consider of the Great Favour which it pleased God to shew to Ahab upon his humiliation what it was and wherein it consisted It was the Removal at least for a time that is the suspension of an heavy judgment denounced against Ahab and his house most deservedly for his bloody and execrable oppression Because he humbleth himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days The Evil which God now promiseth he will not bring I will not bring the evil in his days is that which in vers 21. he had threatned he would bring upon Ahab and upon his house Behold I will bring evil upon thee and will take away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the Son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha the Son of Abijah for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger and made Israel to sin A great Judgment and an heavy But the greater the Judgment is when it is deserved and threatned the greater the mercy is if it be afterwards forborn as some of this was But whatsoever becometh of the Iudgment here we see is Mercy good store God who is rich in mercy and delighteth to be stiled the God of mercies and the Father of mercies abundantly manifesteth his mercy in dealing thus graciously with one that deserved it so little Here is mercy in but threatning the punishment when he might have inflicted it and more mercy in not inflicting the punishment when he had threatned it Here is mercy first in suspending the punishment I will not bring the evil and mercy again in suspending it for so long a time I will not bring the evil in his days Of these two points we shall entreat at this time and first and principally of the former I will not bring the evil It is no new thing to them that have read the sacred Stories with Observation to see God when men are humbled at his threatnings to revoke them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom more than once this is ever Gods manner when men change their deeds to change his doom when they renounce their sins to recal his sentence when they repent of the evil they have done against him to Repent of the evil he had said he would do against them Search the Scriptures and say if things run not thus as in the most ordinary course God commandeth and Man disobeyeth Man disobeyeth and God threatneth God threatneth and man repenteth Man repenteth and God forbeareth Abimelech thou art but a dead man because of the woman which thou hast taken but Abimelech restoreth the Prophet his Wife untouched and God spareth him and he dieth not Hezekiah make thy Will and Put thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live but Hezekiah turneth to the Wall and prayeth and weepeth and God addeth to his days fifteen years Nineveh prepare for desolation for now but forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed but Nineveh fasted and prayed and repented and Nineveh stood after more than forty years twice told Generally God never yet threatned any punishment upon person or place but if they repented he either withheld it or deferred it or abated it or sweetned it to them for the most part proportionably to the truth and measure of their repentance but howsoever always so far forth as in his infinite wisdom he hath thought good some way or other he ever remitted somewhat of that severity and rigour wherein he threatned it A course which God hath in some sort bound himself unto and which he often and openly professeth he will hold Two remarkable testimonies among sundry other shall suffice us to have proposed at this time for the clear and full evidencing hereof The one in Ier. 18. 7 8. At what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up and pull down and to destroy If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will
him it is no small Comfort to us if either he take us away before his Judgments come or keep his Judgments away till we be gone When God had told Abraham in Gen. 15. that his Seed should be a Stranger in a Land that was not theirs meaning Egypt where they should be kept under and afflicted 400 years lest the good Patriarch should have been swallowed up with grief at it he comforteth him as with a Promise of a glorious deliverance at the last so with a Promise also of Prosperity to his own person and for his own time But thou shalt go to thy Fathers in peace and shalt be buried in a good old age vers 15. In Esay 39. when Hezekiah heard from the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah that all the treasures in the Lord's house should be carried into Babylon and that his Sons whom he should beget should be taken away and made Eunuchs in the Palace of the King of Babylon he submitted himself as it became him to do to the sentence of God and comforted himself with this that yet there should be Peace and Truth in his days vers 8. In 4 Kings 22. when Huldah had prophesied of the evil that God would bring upon the City of Ierusalem and the whole Land of Iudah in the Name of the Lord she pronounceth this as a Courtesie from the Lord unto good King Iosiah Because they Heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy Fathers and thou shalt be gathered unto thy Grave in Peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place verse last Indeed every man should have and every good man hath an honest care of Posterity would rejoice to see things setled well for them would grieve to see things likely to go ill with them That common speech which was so frequent with Tiberius was monstrous and not savouring of common humanity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When I am gone let Heaven and Earth be jumbled again into their old Chaos but he that mended it with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea saith he whilst I live seemeth to have renounced all that was man in him Aristotle hath taught us better what reason taught him that res posterorum pertinent ad defunctos the good or evil of those that come after us doth more than nothing concern us when we are dead and gone This is true but yet proximus egomet mi though it were the speech of a Shark in the Comedy will bear a good Construction Every man is nearest to himself and that Charity which looketh abroad and seeketh not only her own yet beginneth at home and seeketh first her own Whence it is that a godly man as he hath just cause to grieve for Posterities sake if they must feel God's Judgments so he hath good cause to rejoice for his own sake if he shall escape them and he is no less to take knowledge of God's Mercy in sparing him than of his Iustice in striking them This Point is useful many ways I will touch but some of them and that very briefly First here is one Comfort among many other against the bitterness of temporal Death If God cut thee off in the midst of thy days and best of thy strength if Death turn thee pale before Age have turned thee gray if the flower be plucked off before it begin to wither grudge not at thy Lot therein but meet God's Messenger chearfully and imbrace him thankfully it may be God hath some great work in hand from which he meaneth to save thee It may be he sendeth death to thee as he sent his Angel to Lot to pluck thee out of the midst of a froward and crooked generation and so to snatch thee away left a worse thing than death should happen unto thee Cast not therefore a lodning eye back upon Sodom neither desire to linger in the plain it is but a valley of tears and misery but upto the mountain from whence cometh thy salvation lest some evil overtake thee Possibly that which thou thinkest an untimely death may be to thee a double advantage a great advantage in ushering thee so early into God's glorious presence and some advantage too in plucking thee so seasonably from God's imminent Iudgments It is a favour to be taken away betimes when evil is determined upon those that are left Secondly here is a Warning for us to take Consideration of the loss of good or useful Men and to fear when they are going from us that some evil is coming towards us The Prophet complaineth of the too great and general neglect hereof in histime The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Esa. 57. When God sendeth his Angel to pluck out his righteous Lots what may Sodom expect but fire and brimstone to be rained down upon them When he plucketh up the fairest and choicest flowers in his garden and croppeth off the tops of the goodliest Poppies who can think other than that he meaneth to lay his Garden waste and to turn it into a wild Wilderness when he undermineth the main Pillars of the House taketh away the very Props and Butteresses of Church and Common-weal sweepeth away religious Princes wise Senators zealous Magistrates painful Ministers men of eminent Ranks Gifts or Example Who can be secure that either Church or Common-weal shall stand up long and not totter at least if not fall God in Mercy taketh such away from the evil to come we in wisdom should look for evil to come when God taketh such away Thirdly here is Instruction for Worldlings to make much of those few godly ones that live among them for they are the very Pawns of their Peace and the Pledges of their security Think not ye filthy Sodomites it is for your own sakes that ye have been spared so long know to whom you are beholden This Fellow that came in to sojourn among you this Stranger this Lot whom you so hate and malign and disquiet he it is that hath bailed you hitherto and given you Protection Despise not God's Patience and Long suffering ye prophane ones neither bless your selves in your ungodly ways neither say We prosper though we walk in the Lusts of our Hearts This and thus we have done and nothing have been done to us God holdeth his hand and holdeth his Tongue at us surely he is such a one as our selves Learn O ye Despisers that if God thus forbear you it is not at all for your own sakes or because he careth not to punish evil doers no he hath a little remnant a little flock a little handful of his own among you a few names that have given themselves unto him and call upon him
on blindfold into hell And through inner post along unto utter darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Frustrà sibi de ignorantia blandiuntur saith S. Bernard qui ut liberius peccent libenter ignorant S. Paul so speaketh of such men as if their case were desperate If any man be ignorant let him be ignorant as who say if he will needâ— be wilful at his peril be it But as many as desire to walk in the fear of God with upright and sincere hearts let them thirst after the knowledge of God and his will as the Hart after the rivers of waters let them cry after knowledge and lift up their voices for understanding let them seek it as silver and dig for it as for hid treasures let their feet tread often in Gods Courts and even wear the thresholds of his house let them delight in his holy Ordinances and rejoyce in the light of his Word depending upon the ministry thereof with unsatisfied ears and unwearied attention and feeding thereon with uncloyed appetites that so they may see and hear and learn and understand and believe and obey and increase in wisdom and in grace and in favour with God and all good men But then in the third place consider that if all ignorance will not excuse an offender though some do how canst thou hope to find any colour of excuse or extenuation that sinnest wilfully with knowledge and against the light of thine own Conscience The least sin thus committed is in some degree a Presumptuous sin and carrieth with it a contempt of God and in that regard is greater than any sin of Ignorance To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is a sin saith S. Iames Sin beyond all plea of excuse S. Paul though he were a Persecutor of the truth a Blasphemer of the Lord and injurious to the Brethren yet he obtained Mercy because he did all that ignorantly His bare ignorance was not enough to justifie him but he stood in need of Gods mercy or else he had perished in those sins for all his ignorance but yet who can tell whether ever he should have found that mercy if he had done the same things and not in ignorance Ignorance then though it do not deserve pardon yet it often findeth it because it is not joyned with open contempt of him that is able to pardon But he that sinneth against knowledge doth Ponere obicem if you will allow the Phrase and it may be allowed in this since he doth not only provoke the Iustice of God by his sin as every other sinner doth but he doth also damm up the Mercy of God by his contempt and doth his part to shut himself out for ever from all possibility of pardon unless the boundless overflowing mercy of God come in upon him with a strong tide and with an unresisted current break it self a passage through Do this then my beloved Brethren Labour to get knowledge labour to increase your knowledge labour to abound in knowledge but beware you rest not in your knowledge Rather give all diligence to add to your knowledge Temperance and Patience and Godliness and Brotherly kindness and Charity and other good graces Without these your knowledge is unprofitable nay damnable Qui apponit soientiam apponit dolorem is true in this sence also He that increaseth knowledge unless his care of obedience rise in some good proportion with it doth but lay more rods in steep for his own back and increase the number of his stripes and add to the weight and measure of his own most just condemnation Know this that although Integrity of heart may stand with some ignorances as Abimelech here pleadeth it and God alloweth it yet that mans heart is devoid of all singleness and sincerity who alloweth himself in any course he knoweth to be sinful or taketh this liberty to himself to continue and persist in any known ungodliness And thus much for our second Observation I add but a Third and that taken from the very thing which Abimelech here pleadeth viz. the integrity of his heart considered together with his present personal estate and condition I dare not say he was a Cast-away for what knoweth any man how God might after this time and even from these beginnings deal with him in the riches of his mercy But at the time when the things storied in this Chapter were done Abimelech doubtless was an unbeliever a stranger to the Covenant of God made with Abraham and so in the state of a carnal and meer natural man And yet both he pleadeth and God approveth the innocency and integrity of his heart in this business Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart Note hence That in an unbeliever and natural man and therefore also in a wicked person and a cast-away for as to the present state the unregenerate and the Reprobate are equally incapable of good things there may be truth and singleness and integrity of heart in some particular actions We use to teach and that truly according to the plain evidence of Scripture and the judgment of the ancient Fathers against the contrary tenet of the latter Church of Rome that all the works of unbelievers and natural men are not only stained with sin for so are the best works of the faithful too but also are really and truly sins both in their own nature because they spring from a corrupt fountain for That which is born of the flesh is flesh and it is impossible that a corrupt tree should bring forth good fruit and also in Gods estimation because he beholdeth them as out of Christ in and through whom alone he is well pleased St. Augustin's judgment concerning such mens works is well known who pronounceth of the best of them that they are but splendida peccata glorious sins and the best of them are indeed no better We may not say therefore that there was in Abimelech's heart as nor in the heart of any man a legal integrity as if his person or any of his actions were innocent and free from sin in that perfection which the Law requireth Neither yet can we say there was in his heart as nor in the heart of any unbeliever an Evangelical integrity as if his pâ—rson were accepted and for the persons sake all or any of his actions approved with God accepting them as perfect through the supply of the abundant perfections of Christ then to come That first and legal integrity supposeth the righteousness of works which no man hath this latter and Evangelical integrity the righteousness of Faith which no unbeliever hath no mans heart being either legally perfect that is in Adam or Evangelically perfect that is out of Christ. But there is a third kind of integrity of heart inferiour to both these which God here acknowledgeth in Abimelech and of
in or to keep back Retinui or Cohibui or as the Latine hath it Custodivi te implying Abimelech's forwardness to that sin certainly he had been gone if God had not kept him in and held him back The Greek word rendreth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I spared thee and so the Latin Parcere is sometimes used for impedire or prohibere to hinder or not to suffer as in that of Virgil Parcite oves nimium procedere Or taking parcere in the most usual signification for sparing it may very well stand with the purpose of the place for indeed God spareth us no less indeed he spareth us much more when he maketh us forbear sin than when having sinned he forbeareth to punish and as much cause have we to acknowledge his mercy and rejoyce in it when he holdeth our hands that we sin not as when he holdeth his own hands that he strike not For I also with-held thee from sinning against me How Did not Abimelech sin in taking Sarah or was not that as every other sin is a sin against God Certainly had not Abimelech sinned in so doing and that against God God would not have so plagued him as he did for that deed The meaning then is not that God with held him wholly from sinning at all therein but that God with held him from sinning against him in that foul kind and in that high degree as to defile himself by actual filthiness with Sarah which but for Gods restnaint he had done therefore suffered I thee not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non demisi te that is I did not let thee go I did not leave thee to thy self or most agreeable to the letter of the Text in the Hebrew non dedi or non tradidi I did not deliver or give That may be non dedi potestatem I did not give thee leave or power and so giving is sometimes used for suffering as Psal. 16. Non dabis sanctum tuum Thou wilt not suffer c. and elsewhere Or non dedi te tibi I gave thee not to thy self A man cannot be put more desperately into the hands of any enemy than to be left in manu consilii sui delivered into his own hands and given over to the lust of his own heart Or as it is here translated I suffered thee not We should not draw in God as a party when we commit any sin as if he joyned with us in it or lent us his helping hand for it we do it so alone without his help that we never do it but when he letteth us alone and leaveth us destitute of his help For the kind and manner and measure and circumstances and events and other the appurtenances of sin God ordereth them by his Almighty power and providence so as to become serviceable to his most wise most just most holy purposes but as for the very formality it self of the sin God is to make the most of it but a sufferer Therefore suffered I thee not To Touch her Signifying that God had so far restrained Abimelech from the accomplishment of his wicked and unclean purposes that Sarah was preserved free by his good providence not only from actual adultery but from all unchaste and wanton dalliance also with Abimelech It was Gods great mercy to all the three Parties that he did not suffer this evil to be done for by this means he graciously preserved Abimelech from the sin Abraham from the wrong and Sarah from both And it is to be acknowledged the great mercy of God when at any time he doth and he doth ever and anon more or less by his gracious and powerful restraint with-hold any man from running into those extremities of sin and mischief whereinto his own corruption would carry him headlong especially when it is agog by the cunning perswasions of Satan and the manifold temptations that are in the world through lust The points then that arise from this part of my Text are these 1. Men do not always commit those evils their own desires or outward temptations prompt them unto 2. That they do it not it is from Gods restraint 3. That God restraineth them it is of his own gracious goodness and mercy The common subject matter of the whole three points being one viz. Gods restraint of mans sin we will therefore wrap them up all three together and so handle them in this one entire Observation as the total of all three God in his mercy oftentimes restraineth men from committing those evils which if that restraint were not they would otherwise have committed This Restraint whether we consider the Measure or the Means which God useth therein is of great variety For the Measure God sometimes restraineth men à toto from the whole sin whereunto they are tempted as he withheld Ioseph from consenting to the perswasions of his Mistress sometimes only à tanto and that more or less as in his infinite wisdom he seeth expedient suffering them perhaps but only to desire the evil perhaps to resolve upon it perhaps to prepare for it perhaps to begin to Act it perhaps to proceed far in it and yet keeping them back from falling into the extremity of the sin or accomplishing their whole desire in the full and final consummation thereof as here he dealt with Abimelech Abimelech sinned against the eighth Commandment in taking Sarah injuriously from Abraham say he had been but her brother and he sinned against the seventh Commandment in a foul degree in harbouring such wanton and unchaste thoughts concerning Sarah and making such way as he did by taking her into his house for the satisfying of his lust therein but yet God with-held him from plunging himself into the extremity of those sins not suffering him to fall into the act of uncleanness And as for the Means whereby God with-holdeth men from sinning they are also of wonderful variety Sometimes he taketh them off by diverting the course of the corruption and turning the affections another way Sometimes he awaketh natural Conscience which is a very tender and tickle thing when it is once stirred and will boggle now and then at a very small matter in comparison over it will do at some other times Sometimes he affrighteth them with apprehensions of outward Evils as shame infamy charge envy loss of a friend danger of humane Laws and sundry other such like discouragements Sometimes he cooleth their resolutions by presenting unto their thoughts the terrors of the Law the strictness of the last Account and the endless unsufferable torments of Hell-fire Sometimes when all things are ripe for execution he denieth them opportunity or casteth in some unexpected impediment in the way that quasheth all Sometimes he disableth them and weakneth the arm of flesh wherein they trusted so as they want power to their will as here he dealth with Abimelech And sundry other ways he hath more than
there to beat themselves without help or remedy exposed to nothing but shame and contempt What then if God suffer those that hate him to prosper for the time and in their prosperity to Lord it over his heritage What if Princes should sit and speak against us without a cause as it was sometimes David's case Let us not fret at the injuries nor envy at the greatness of any let us rather betake us to David's refuge to be occupied in the statutes and to meditate in the holy Word of God In that holy Word we are taught that the hearts even of Kings how much more then of inferiour persons are in his rule and governance and that he doth dispose and turn them as seemeth best to his godly wisdom that he can refrain the spirit of Princes bind Kings in Chains and Nobles in links of Iron and though they rage furiously at it and lay their heads together in consultation how to break his bands and cast away his cords from them yet they imagine but a vain thing whilst they strive against him on earth he laugheth them to scorn in heaven and maugre all opposition will establish the Kingdom of his Christ and protect his people Say then the great ones of the World exercise their power over us and lay what restraints they can upon us our comfort is they have not greater power over us than God hath over them nor can they so much restrain the meanest of us but God can restrain the greatest of them much more Say our enemies curse us with Bell Book and Candle our comfort is God is able to return the curse upon their own heads and in despight of them too turn it into a blessing upon us Say they make warlike preparations against us to invade us our comfort is God can break the Ships of Tarshish and sâ—atter the most invincible Armadoes Say they that hate us be more in number than the hairs of our head our comfort is the very hairs of our head are numbred with him and without his sufferance not the least hair of our heads shall perish Say to imagine the worst that our Enemies should prevail against us and they that hate us should be Lords over us for the time our comfort is he that loveth us is Lord over them and can bring them under us again when he seeth time In all our fears in all our dangers in all our distresses our comfort is that God can do all this for us our care should be by our holy obedience to strengthen our interest in his protection and not to make him a stranger from us yea an enemy to us by our sins and impenitency that so we may have yet more comfort in a chearful confidence that God will do all this for us The Assyrian whose ambition it was to be the Catholick King and universal Monarch of the World stiling himself the great King thus saith the great King the King of Assyria when he had sent messengers to revile Israel and an Army to besiege and destroy Ierusalem yet for all his rage he could do them no harm the Lord brought down the stout heart of the King of Assyria put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips and made him return back by the way by which he came without taking the City or so much as casting a bank or shooting an arrow against it Nay he that is indeed the great King over all the children of pride and hath better title to the stile of most Catholick King than any that ever yet bare it whose Territories are large as the Earth and spacious as the Air I mean the Devil the Prince of this World he is so fettered with the chain of Gods power and Providence that he is not able with all his might and malice no not though he raise his whole forces and muster up all the powers of darkness and Hell into one band to do us any harm in our souls in our bodies in our children in our friends in our goods no not so much as our very Pigs or any small thing that we have without the special leave and sufferance of our good God He must have his Dedimus protestatem from him or he can do nothing Fourthly since this restraint is an act of Gods mercy whom we should strive to resemble in nothing more than in shewing mercy let every one of us in imitation of our Heavenly Father and in compassion to the souls of our Brethren and for our own good and the good of humane society endeavour our selves faithfully the best we can to restrain and with-hold and keep back others from sinning The Magistrate the Minister the Housholder every other man in his place and calling should do their best by rewards punishments rebukes incouragements admonitions perswasions good example and other like means to suppress vice and restrain disorders in those that may any way come within their charge Our first desire should be and for that we should bend our utmost endeavours that if it be possible their hearts might be seasoned with grace and the true fear of God but as in other things where we cannot attain to the full of our first aims Pulchrum est as he saith in secundis tertiisve consistere so here we may take some contentment in it as some fruit of our labours in our Callings if we can but wean them from gross disorders and reduce them from extremely debaucht courses to some good measure of Civility It ought not to be it is not our desire to make men Hypocrites and a meer Civil man is no better yet to us that cannot judge but by the outward behaviour it is less grief when men are Hypocrites than when they are Prophane Our first aim is to make you good yet some rejoycing it is to us if we can but make you less evil Our aim is to make you of Natural holy and Spiritual men but we are glad if of dissolute we can but make you good Moral men if instead of planting Grace we can but root out Vice if instead of the power of godliness in the reformation of the inner man we can but bring you to some tolerable stayedness in the conformity of the outward man If we can but do this though we are to strive for that our labour is not altogether in vain in the Lord. For hereby first mens sins are both less and fewer and that secondly abateth somewhat both of the number and weight of their stripes and maketh their punishment the easier and thirdly there is less scandal done to Religion which receiveth not so much soil and dis-reputation by close hypocrisie as by lewd and open prophaneness Fourthly the Kingdom of Satan is diminished though not directly in the strength for he loseth never a Subject by it yet somewhat in the glory thereof
ween is another-gates matter than to make the face to shine This for material Oil. Then for those other outward things which for some respects I told you might be also comprehended under the name of Ointments Riches Honours and worldly Pleasures alas how poor and sorry comforts are they to a man that hath forfeited his good Name that liveth in no credit not reputation that groaneth under the contempt and reproach and infamy of every honest or but sober man Whereas he that by godly and vertuous Actions by doing Iustice and exercising Mercy and ordering himself and his affairs discreetly holdeth up his good Name and reputation hath that yet to comfort himself withal and to fill his bones as with marrow and fatness though encompassed otherwise with many outward wants and calamities Without which even life it self would be unpleasant I say not to a perfect Christian only but even to every ingenuous moral man The worthier â—ort of men among the Heathens would have chosen rather to have died the most cruel deaths than to have lived infamous under shame and disgrace And do not those words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 9. shew that he was not much otherwise minded It were better for me to dye than that any man should make my glorying void Thus a good Name is better than any precious Ointment take it as you will properly or tropically because it yieldeth more solid content and satisfaction to him that enjoyeth it than the other doth 17. Compare them thirdly in those performances whereunto they enable us Oils and Ointments by a certain penetrative faculty that they have being well chaâ—ed in do supple the joynts and strengthen the sinews very much and thereby greatly enable the body for action making it more nimble and vigorous than otherwise it would be Whence it was that among the Greeks and from their example among the Romans and in other Nations those that were to exercise Arms or other feats of Activity in their solemn Games especially Wrestlers did usually by frictions and anointings prepare and fit their bodies for those Athletick performances to do them with more agility and less weariness Insomuch as Chrysostom and other Greek Fathers almost every where use the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only when they speak of those preparatory advantages such as are prayer fasting meditation of Christs Sufferings or of the Joys of Heaven and the like wherewith Christians may fortifie and secure themselves when they are to enter the combate with their spiritual enemies but more generally to signifie any preparing or fitting of a person for any manner of action whatsoever 18. But how much more excellent then is a good name Which is of such mighty consequence advantage for the expediting of any honest enterprise that we take in hand either in our Christian course or civil life in this World It is an old saying taken up indeed in relation to another matter somewhat distant from that we are now treating of but it holdeth no less true in this than in that other respect Duo cum faciunt idem non est idem Let two men speak the same words give the same advice pursue the same business drive the same design with equal right equal means equal diligence every other thing equal yet commonly the success is strangely different if the one be well thought of and the other labour of an ill name So singular an advantage is it for the crowning of our endeavours with good success to be in a good name If there be a good opinion held of us and our names once up whether we deserve it or no whatsoever we do is well taken whatsoever we propose is readily entertained our counsels yea and rebukes too carry weight and authority with them By which means we are enabled if we have but grace to make that good use thereof to do the more good to bring the more glory to God to give better countenance to his truth and to good causes and things Whereas on the other side if we be in an ill name whether we deserve it or no all our speeches and actions are ill-interpreted no man regardeth much what we say or do our proposals are suspected our counsels and rebukes though wholsom and just scorned and kickt at so as those men we speak for that side we adhere to those causes we defend those businesses we manage shall lie under some prejudice and be like to speed the worse for the evil opinion that is held of us We know well it should be otherwise Non quis sed quid As the Magistrate that exerciseth publick judgment should lay aside all respect of the person and look at the cause only so should we all in our private judgings of other mens speeches and actions look barely upon the truth of what they say and the goodness of what they do and accordingly esteem of both neither better nor worse more or less for whatsoever fore-conceits we may have of the person Otherwise how can we avoid the charge of having the faith of our Lord Iesus Christ the Lord of Glory with respect of persons But yet since men are corrupt and will be partial this way do we what we can and that the World and the affairs thereof are so much steered by Opinion it will be a point of godly wisdom in us so far to make use of this common corruption as not to disadvantage our selves for want of a good name and good Opinion for the doing of that good whilst we live here among men subject to such frailties which we should set our desires and bend our endeavours to do And so a good Name is better than a good Ointment in that it enableth us to better and worthier performances 19. Compare them Fourthly in their Extensions and that both for Place and Time For place first That Quality of the three before-mentioned which especially setteth a value upon Ointments advancing their price and esteem more eminently than any other consideration is their smell those being ever held most precious and of greatest delicacy that excel that way And herein is the excellency of the choicest Aromatical Ointments that they do not only please the sence if they be held near to the Organ but they do also disperse the fragrance of their scent round about them to a great distance Of the sweetest herbs and flowers the smell is not much perceived unless they be held somewhat near to the Nostril But the smell of a precious Ointment will instantly diffuse it self into every corner though of a very spacious room as you heard but now of the Spikenard poured on our Saviours feet Ioh. 12. But see how in that very thing wherein the excellency of precious Ointments consisteth a good Name still goeth beyond it It is more diffusive and spreadeth farther Of King Uzziah so long as he did well and
against them openly before their Congregations as unlawful but have been since convinced in their judgments of the Lawfulness thereof should yet with-hold their Conformity thereunto and chuse rather not only to expose themselves to such mischiefs and inconveniences as that refusal may bring upon them but to seem also to persist in their former error to the great scandal of their people and cheating their own Consciences than by acknowledging that they have erred adventure the loss of that great reputation they had by their former opposition gained amongst their credulous followers 3. Alas that there should still be found among our People men who being conscious to themselves of some secret wrongs done to their brethren in their worldly estate by oppression fraud or other false dealing do yet hold off from making them just restitution or other meet compensation for the same and so become really cruel to their own Consciences whil'st they are so fondly tender over their reputations with others as rather to continue still dishonest in retaining than acknowledge their former dishonesty in obtaining those ill gotten parcels 25. But leaving all these to the judgment of God and their own hearts and to ruminate on that sad Text Luk. 16. That which is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of God For thee Christian brother who ever thou art that shall at any time be in a strait between two evils shaken with doubtings and distractions what to do when thy Conscience and thy Credit lie both at stake together ' ' Thou hast a ready resolution from the old Maxim E malis minimum As the Merchant in a storm throweth his dear commodities into the Sea to save himself so do thou resolve to redeem thy Conscience howsoever and at any rate whatsoever betide thy Credit I forbid thee not to be tender of thy good Name it is an honest care but I charge thee upon thy soul to be more tender of thy Conscience 26. This admonition premised I shall now with your patience proceed to some Inferences from what hath been delivered concerning the excellency of a good Name and what a precious thing it is But the more precious it is the more grievous first is their sin that seek to rob others of it We read in Pliny that there were some Ointments in the shops in his time made of such costly ingredients so great was the riot of those times that every pound weight was sold at 400 Roman Pence which by computation allowing to the Roman Penny seven pence half-penny of our Coyn cometh to above twenty two pounds English which was a very great rate especially considering the time wherein he lived about fifteen hundred years ago We would all think that man had done a very foul robbery that should have broken a shop and carryed thence any considerable quantity of such Costly ware And must we not then adjudge him a far worse Thief that injuriously taketh away a man's good Name from him which we have heard to be in many respects far more precious than the most precious Ointments can be But Murther is a felony of a higher degree than Theft Sometimes we pity Thieves but we detest Murtherers Yet neither Thieves nor Murtherers are more cruel and injurious than Slanderers and Back-biters and Tale-bearers and Whisperers and false Accusers are Those bereave a manâ— but of his Livelihood or at most of his Life but these take that from him which is justly more dear to him than either Life or Livelihood 27. It were to be wished that all malicious and envious persons would lay this to heart who seek to raise their own Fame upon the ruine of their Brothers whose daily endeavour it is and daily practice to raise scandalous reports of others and to cast foul aspersions upon them without cause to make their Names unsavoury and thereby to render their persons odious among such as will be ready to spread the Report farther and it is great odds they will do it with some addition of their own too or otherwise make ill use of it to their prejudice But since such mischievous persons will not or cannot learn to do better having been long accustomed to do ill no more then a Leopard can change his spots or a blackamore his skin It will concern us very much not to suffer our selves to become Receivers to these Thieves or Abbettors to these Murtheress by setting our Ears wide open to their detractions but rather to suspect him as an Impe of Satan that delighteth in Satan's Office in being an accuser of his Brethren 28. Secondly how distant are they from Solomon's judgment that value any outward thing in the World it may be some little sordid gain or some petty slippery preferment or some poor fruitless pleasure at a higher rate than they do their good Name which Solomon here so much preferreth before them all 1. The Covetous Worldling so he may but lade himself fast enough with thick clay what careth he what men say or think of him Call him Churl Miser Caitiff Wretch or what else they think good at mihi plaudo domi Tush saith he let them say on The Fox fareth best when he is curst If this man be a wise man as himself thinketh none wiser sure then Solomon was not so wise a man as he is taken for to say as he doth Prov. 22. A good Name is rather to be chosen than great riches c. 2. The Ambitious man that panteth after Preferment what regardeth he though all the World should tax him of Flattery of Bribery of Calumny of Treachery of Perjury So he can but climb up to the step at which he aimed and from which he knoweth not how soon he may be justled off by another as ambitious as himself 3. The luxurious Wanton the prodigal Gamester the Glutton Drunkard or other voluptuous beast in any kind when once imboldned in his ways sitteth him down in the seat of the scorner laugheth at all mankind that will not run with him to the same excess of riot resolveth against whatsoever dislikes sober men bewray of his exorbitances to take his own pleasure howsoever and then let others talk theirs bestoweth a nick-name or perhaps a rhime or two upon those that censure him and then as if he had stabb'd them dead and the day were his he insulteth like a Conqueror and thinketh he hath now quit himself sufficiently for the loss of his Reputation 29. Quid facias illi Without more than the ordinary mercy of God in awakening their Consciences by some immediate work of his own desperate is the condition of all these men Shame is the most powerful curb to restrain men from such vicious excesses as are of evil report and Reproof seasonably lovingly and discreetly tendered the most proper instrument to work Shame in those that have done amiss What hope is there then as to humane endeavours and
it is partly in our own power what other men shall speak and think of us Not that we are Lords either of their tongues or thoughts for men generally and wicked men especially challenge a property in these two things as absolute Lords within themselves Our tongues are our own say they and Thought is free But that we may if we behave our selves with godly discretion win good report even from those that in their hearts wish no good to us or at least put such a muzzle upon their tongues that whereas they would with all their hearts speak evil of us as of evil doers they shall not dare for shame to accuse our good conversation in Christ For who is he that will harm you saith St. Peter if ye be followers of that which is good As if he had said Men that have any shame left in them will not lightly offer to do you any harm or to say any harm by you unless by some miscarriage or other of your own you give them the advantage The oâ—d saying that every man is Fortunae suae faber and so Famae too is not altogether without truth and reason For seldom doth a man miscarry in the success of his affairs in the World or labour of an ill name but where himself by some sinful infirmity or negligence some rashness credulity indiscretion or other oversight hath made a way open for it This I note the rather because it falleth out not seldom to be the fate or fault of very good men by assed too much by self-love and partiality to impute such crosses and disgraces as they sometimes meet withal wholly to the injuries of wicked men which if they would search narrowly at home they might perhaps find reason enough sometimes to impute at least in part unto themselves When by busie intermedling where they need not by their heat violence and intemperance of spirit in setting on those things they would fain have done or opposing those things they would fain hinder by their too much stiffness or peremptoriness either way concerning the use of indifferent things without due consideration of times places persons other circumstances by partaking with those they think well of so far as to the justifying of their very Errors and Exorbitances and denying on the other side to such as are not of their own way such fair and just respects as to men of their condition are in common civility due or by some other like Partialities and Excesses they provoke opposition against themselves their persons and good names from such men especially as do but wait an opportunity and would greedily apprehend any occasion to do them some displeasure or disgrace 35. That it may be otherwise and better with you Beloved ponder well I beseech you what our Solomon wrote long since Prov. 19. The foolishness of man perverteth his way and his heart fretteth against the Lord or which cometh to one against such persons as the Lord is pleased to make use of as his rods wherewith to give him due correction Neither cast off this care of your good Names by any pretensions of impossibility which is another Topick of Sophistry wherewith Satan teaches us to cheat our selves It is indeed and I confess it something a hard thing and not simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have every mans good word but I may not yield it impossible Demetrius hath good report of all men and of the truth it self saith St. Iohn Do you what in you lieth towards it and if then men will yet be unjust and speak evil of you undeservedly you have your comforts in God and in Christ and some comfort also in the testimony of your own hearts that you have faithfully done what was to be done on your part to prevent it and by walking honestly and wisely to cut off occasion from them that seek occasion But so far as you have been wanting to your selves in doing your part so much you take off both from their blame and from your own comfort It concerneth you to have a great care of preserving your good Names because by your care you may do much in it 36. Consider thirdly that a good Name is far easier kept than recovered Men that have had losses in sundry kinds have in time had some reparations Sampson's locks were shorn of but grew again Iob's Goods and Cattel driven but restored again the Widows Child dead but revived again the Sheep and the Groat in the Parable lost but found again But the good Name once lost the loss is little better than desperate He had need be a good Gamester they say and to have very good fortune too that is to play an After-game of Reputation The shipwrack of a good Name though in most and the most considerable respects it be incomparably less yet in this one circumstance it is in some sort even greater than the shipwrack of a good Conscience The loss there may be recovered again by Repentance which is tabula secunda post naufragium as in Act. 27. some on boards some on broken pieces of the ship got all safe to Land But when our good Names are shipwrackt all is so shattered in pieces that it will be hard to find so much as a board or plank to bring us ashore And the Reason of the difference is manifest which is this When we have made shipwrack of our Consciences we fall into the hands of God whose Mercies are great and his Compassions fail not and who if we timely and unfeignedly repent is both able and willing to restore us But when we make shipwrack of our good Names we fall into the hands of men whose bowels are narrow their tenderest Mercies cruel and their Charity too weak and faint to raise up our Credit again after it is once ruined I have sometimes in my private thoughts likened a flaw in the Conscience and a flaw in the good Name to the breaking of a bone in the body and the breaking of a Christal Glass or China dish at the Table In the mischance there is no comparison a man had better break twenty glasses or dishes at his Table than one bone in his body And so a man had better receive twenty wounds in his good Name than but a single raze in his Conscience But yet here the recovery is easier than there A broken bone may be set again and every splinter put in his due place and if it be skilfully handled in the setting and duly tended after it may in short time knit as firm again as ever it was yea and as it is said firmer than ever so as it will break any where else sooner than there But as for the shivers of a broken Glass or Earthen Dish no art can piece them so as they shall be either sightly or serviceable they will not abide the file nor the hammer neither solder nor glue nor
understanding can fathom Sic Deus dilexit So God loved the world But how much that so containeth no tongue or wit of man can reach Nothing expresseth it better to the life than the work it self doth That the Word should be made Flesh that the holy One of God should be made sin that God blessed for ever should be made a curse that the Lord of life and glory should suffer an inglorious death and pour out his own most precious blood to ransome such worthless thankless graceless Traitors as we were that had so desperately made our selves away and that into the hands of his deadliest enemy and that upon such poor and unworthy conditions O altitudo Love incomprehensible It swalloweth up the sense and understanding of Men and Angels fitter to be admired and adored with silence than blemished with any our weak Expressions 29. I leave it therefore and go on to the next his Right When de facto we sold our selves to Satan we had de jure no power or right at all so to do being we were not our own and so in truth the title is naught and the sale void Yet it is good against us however we may not plead the invalidity of it forsomuch as in reason no man ought to make advantage of his own act Our act then barreth us But yet it cannot bar the right owner from challenging his own wheresoever he find it And therefore we may be well assured God will not suffer the Devil who is but malae fidei possessor an intruder and a cheater quietly to enjoy what is Gods and not his but he will eject him we have that word Ioh. 12. 21. Ejicietur now is the Prince of this world cast out and recover out of his possession that which he hath no right at all to hold 30. Sundry inferences we might raise hence if we had time I may not insist yet I cannot but touch at three duties which we owe to God for this Redemption because they answer so fitly to these three last mentioned assurances We owe him Affiance in respect of his Power in requital of his Love Thankfulness and in regard of his Right Service First the consideration of his Power in our Redemption may put a great deal of comfort and confidence into us that having now redeemed us if we do but cleave fast to him and revolt not again he will protect us from Sin and Satan and all other enemies and pretenders whatsoever O Israel fear not for I have redeemed thee Isa. 43. If then the Devil shall seek by any of his wiles or suggestions at any time to get us over to him again as he is an unwearied sollicitor and will not lose his claim by discontinuance Let us then look to that Cornu salutis that horn of salvation that God hath raised up for us in Christ our Redeemer and flie thither for succour as to the horns of the Altar saying with David Psalm 119. I am thine oh save me and we shall be safe In all inward temptations in all outward distresses at the hour of death and in the day of judgement we may with great security commit the keeping our souls to him both as a faithful Creator and as a powerful Redeemer saying once more with David into thy hands I commend my spirit for thou hast redeemed me O Lord thou God of truth Psal. 31. 6. 31. Secondly The consideration of his love in our Redemption should quicken us to a thankful acknowledgment of his great and undeserved goodness towards us Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from the hands of the enemy Psal. 107. Let all men let all creatures do it but let them especially If the blessings of corn and wine and oyl of health and peace and plenty of deliverance from sicknesses pestilences famines and other calamities can so affect us as to provoke at least some overly and superficial forms of thanksgiving from us how carnal are our minds and our thoughts earthly if the contemplation of the depth of the riches of God mercy poured our upon us in this great work of our Redemption do not even ravish our hearts with an ardent desire to pour them out unto him again in Hymns and Psalms and Songs of Thanksgiving with a Benedictus in our mouths Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people 32. Thirdly The consideration of his Right should bind us to do him service We were his before for he made us and we ought him service for that But now we are his more than before and by a new title for he hath bought us and paid for us and we owe him more service for that The Apostle therefore urgeth it as a matter of great equity you are not your own but his therefore you are not to satisfie your selves by doing your own lusts but to glorifie him by doing his will When Christ redeemed us by his blood his purpose was to redeem us unto God Rev. 5. 9. and not to our selves and to redeem us from our vain conversation 1 Pet. 1. 18. and not to it And he therefore delivered us out of the hands of our enemies that we might the more freely and securely and without fear serve him in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our lives Luke 1. which being both our bounden duty and the thing withal so very reasonable we have the more to answer for i◠we do not make a conscience of it to perform it accordingly He hath done his part and that which he was no way bound unto in redeeming us and he hath done it to purpose done it effectually Let it be our care to do our part for which their lye so many obligations upon us in serving him and let us also do it to purpose do it really and throughly and constantly 33. Thus is our Redemption done effectually it is also done freely which is the only point now remaining Not for price nor reward Isa. 45. 13. but freely and without money here in the Text. Nor need we here fear another contradiction For the meaning is not that there was no price paid at all but that there was none paid by us we laid out nothing towards this great Purchase there went none of our money to it But otherwise that there was a price paid the Scriptures are clear You are bought with a price saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 6. and he saith it over again Chap. 7. He that paid it calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransom that is as much as to say a price of Redemption and his Apostle somewhat more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which implieth a just and satisfactory price full as much as the thing can be worth Yet not paid to Satan in whose possession we were for we have found already that he was but an Usurper and his title naught He had but bought of us
and estate And it should in all reason secondly quicken the hearts of all loyal and well-affected Subjects by their prayers counsels services aids and chearful obedience respectively rather to afford Princes their best assistance for the comfortable support of that their weighty and troublesom charge than out of ambition discontent popularity envy or any other cross or peevish humour add unto their cares and create unto them more troubles 15. David you see had troubles as a man as a godly man as a King But who caused them Sure in those his first times when as I conjecture he wrote this Psalm Saul with his Princes and followers was the chiefest cause of most of his troubles and afterwards crafty Achitophel caused him much trouble and railing Shimei some and seditious Sheba not a little but his rebellious Son Absolon most of all He complaineth of many troubles raised by the means of that Son in Psal. 3. Domine quà m multiplicati Lord how are they encreased that trouble me Yet here you see he over-looketh them all and all other second causes and ascribeth his troubles wholly unto God So he did also afterwards in the particular of Shimei's railing Let him alone saith he to Abishai Let him curse on for God hath bidden him Even as Iob had done before him when the Sabeans and the Chaldeans had taken away his Cattle and Goods he scarce took notice of them he knew they were but Instruments but looked at the hand of God only as the chief and principal cause Dominus abstulit The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away Neither did David any injury at all to Almighty God in ascribing it to him for God also himself taketh it all upon himself I will raise him evil out of his own house and I will do it before the sun 2 Sam. 12. 16. How all those things wherein wicked men serving their own lusts only in their own purpose do yet unwittingly do service to God Almighty in furthering his wise and holy designs can have their efficiency from causes of such contrary quality and looking at such contrary ends to the producing of one and the same effect is a speculation more curious than profitable It is enough for us to know that it neither casteth any blemish at all upon him that he maketh such use of them nor giveth any excuse at all to them that they do such service to him but that all this notwithstanding he shall still have the whole glory of his own wisdom and holiness and they shall still bear the whole burthen of their own folly and wickedness But there is another and that a far better use to be made hereof than to trouble ourselves about a mystery that we shall never be able in this life to comprehend and that is this that seeing all the troubles that befal us in any kind whatsoever or by what instruments soever come yet from the hand of God we should not therefore when at any time we meet with trouble rage against the second causes or seek to vent our spleen upon them as of our selves we are very apt to do but laying our hands upon our hearts and upon our mouths compose our selves to a holy patience and silence considering it is his will and pleasure to have it so to whom it is both our duty and wisdom wholly to submit 17. We may learn it of holy Iob. His wife moved his patience not a little by moving him to impatience Thou talkest like a foolish woman saith he shall we receive good things at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil also Or we may learn it of good old Eli. When he received a message from the Lord by the mouth of young Samuel of a right heavy judgment shortly to fall upon him and his house for his fond indulgence to his ungracious Children he made no more reply but said only It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Or to go on further than our Prophet David we may learn it sufficiently from him I was dumb saith he and opened not my mouth Quoniam tu fecisti for it was thy doing This consideration alone Quoniam tu fecisti is enough to silence all tumultuous thoughts and to cut off all farther disputing and debating the matter that it is God that causeth us to be troubled All whose judgments are not only done in righteousness as we have hitherto heard but towards his children also out of much love and faithfulness as we are next to hear I know that of very faithfulness thou hast caused me to be troubled 18. In the former part of the verse where he spake of the righteousness of God he did it indefinitely without mentioning either himself or any other person not particularly Thy judgments upon me but indefinitely I know O Lord that thy judgments are right But now in this latter part of the verse where he cometh to speak of the faithfulness of God he nameth himself And that thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled For as earthly Princes must do justice to all men for Iustice is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every man may challenge it and there must be no respect had no difference made of Persons therein but their favours they may bestow upon whom they think good so God will have his justice to appear in all his dealings with all men generally be they good or bad that none of them all shall be able to say he hath done them the least wrong but yet his tender mercies and loving kindnesses those he reserveth for the Godly only who are in special favour with him and towards whom he beareth a special respect For by faithfulness here as in sundry other places of Scripture is meant nothing else but the speâ—ial love and favour of God towards those that love and fear him whereby he ordereth and disposeth all things so as may make most for their good 19. And it is not unfitly so called whether we respect the gracious promises that God hath made unto them or those sundry mutual relations that are between him and them First faithfulness relaâ—eth to a promise He is faithful that hath promised Heb. 10. Truly God is a debtor to no man that he doth for us any thing at all it is ex mero motu of his own grace and goodness merely we can challenge nothing at his hands But yet so desirous is he to manifest his gracious love to us that he hath freely bound himself and so made himself a voluntary debtor by his promises for promise is due debt insomuch as he giveth us the leave and alloweth us the boldness to remind him of his promises to urge him with them and as it were to adjure him by all his truth and faithfulness to make them good But what a kind of promise is this may some say to promise a man to trouble him It
works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven but even in the use of the Creatures and of all indifferent things in eating and drinking in buying and selling and in all the like actions of common life In that most absolute Form of Prayer taught us by Christ himself as the Pattern and Canon of all our Prayers the Glory of God standeth at both ends When we begin the first Petition we are to put up is that the Name of God may be hallowed and glorified and when we have done we are to wrap up all in the Conclusion with this acknowledgment that to him alone belongeth all the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever 11. The Glory of God you see is to be the Alpha and the Omega of all our votes and desires Infinitely therefore to be preferred not only before Riches Honour Pleasures Friends and all the comforts and contentments the World can afford us in this life but even before life it self The blessed Son of God so valued it who laid down his life for his Fathers Glory and so did many holy Martyrs and faithful Servants of God value it too who laid down their lives for their Masters Glory Nay let me go yet higher infinitely to be preferred even before the unspeakable joys of the life to come before the everlasting salvation of our own souls It was not meerly a strain of his Rhetorick to give his brethren by that hyperbolical expression the better assurance of his exceeding great love towards them that our Apostle said before at Chap. 9. of this Epistle that he could wish himself to be accursed to be made an Anathema to be separated and cut off from Christ for their sakes Neither yet was it a hasty inconsiderate speech that fell suddenly from him as he was writing fervente calamo and as the abortive fruit of a precipitate over-passionate zeal before he had sufficiently consulted his reason whether he should suffer it to pass in that form or not for then doubtless he would have corrected himself and retracted it upon his second thoughts as he did Acts 23. when he had inconsiderately reviled the High-Priest sitting then in the place of Judicature But he spake it advisedly and upon good deliberation yea and that upon his conscience yea and upon his Oath too and as in the presence of God as you may see it ushered in there with a most solemn Asseveration as the true real and earnest desire of his heart I speak the truth in Christ I lie not my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost Not that St. Paul wished their salvation more than his own understand it not so for such a desire neither was possible nor could be regular Not possible by the Law of Nature which cannot but begin at home Omnes sibi melius esse malunt quam alteri Nor regular by the course of Charity which is not orderly if he do not so too That is not it then but this That he preferred the Glory of God before both his own salvation and theirs Insomuch that if Gods Glory should so require hoc impossibili supposito he could be content with all his heart rather to lose his own part in the joys of heaven that God might be the more Glorified than that God should lose any part of his Glory for his salvation 12. And great reason there is that as his was so every Christian mans heart should be disposed in like manner that the bent of his whole desires and endeavours all other things set apart otherwise than as they serve thereunto should be the Glory of God For first all men consent in this as an undoubted verity That that which is the chiefest good ought also to be the uttermost end And that must needs be the chiefest good which Almighty God who is goodness it self and best knoweth what is good proposeth to himself as the End of all his Actions and that is meerly his own glory All those his high and unconceiveable acts ad intra being immanent in himself must needs also be terminated in himself And as for all those his powerful and providential acts ad extra those I mean which are exercised upon and about the creatures and by reason of that their efflux and emanation are made better known to us than the former if we follow them to their last period we shall find that they all determine and concentre there He made them he preserveth them he forgiveth them he destroyeth them he punisheth them he rewardeth them every other way he ordereth them and disposeth of them according to the good pleasure of his Will for his own names sake and for his one glories sake That so his Wisdom and Power and Truth and Iustice and Mercy and all those other his divine excellencies which we are to believe and admire but may not seek to comprehend might be acknowledged reverenced and magnified Those two great acts of his most secret and unsearchable councel than the one whereof there is not any one act more gracious the Destination of those that persevere in Faith and Godliness to eternal happiness nor any one act more full of terrour and astonishment than the other the designation of such as live and die in Sin and Infidelity without repentance to eternal destruction the Scriptures in the last resolution refer them wholly to his Glory as the last End The glory of his rich mercy being most resplendent in the one and the glory of his just severity in the other Concerning the one the Scripture saith that he predestinated us to the praise of the Glory of his grace Eph. 1. Concerning the other The Lord made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. He maketh it his End we should make it ours too if but by way of Conformity 13. But he requireth it of us secondly as our bounden Duty and by way of Thankfulness in acknowledgement of those many favours we have received from him Whatever we have nay whatever we are as at first we had it all from him so we still holdit all of him and that jure beneficiario as feudataries with reservation of services out of the same to be performed for the honour of the Donor Our Apostle therefore in our Lords behalf presseth us with the nature of our tenure and challengeth this duty from us by a claim of right Ye have them of God saith he and ye are not your own therefore glorifie God in your body and in your Spirit which are Gods Glorifie him in both because both are his As the rivers return again to the place whence they came Eccl. 1. they all come from the Sea and they all run into the Sea again So all our store as it issued at first from the fountain of his grace so should it all fall at last into the Ocean of his Glory For of him and through him and
or we expected if they be taken from us before we be grown up If our friends whom we trusted have proved unfaithful and shrunk from us when we had use of them if those proportions of Wealth Honour Reputation Liberty or whatsoever other worldly conveniences and contentments we have formerly enjoyed be pared away to very little or even to nothing we have yet one reserve that we dare rest surely upon one anchor of hope that will hold in despight of all the World even the goodness and faithfulness of our gracious Lord God To him have we been left ever since we were born and he hath not hitherto failed nor forsaken us but hath preserved us in being in such a being as he who best knoweth what is fit hath thought fit for us It is our fault if the experience of the time past do not breed in us hope for the time to come and that a lively hope a hope that will never shame either him or us even this That he Will also be our guide unto death that he will not fail or forsake us henceforth for ever but will preserve us still in such a condition as he shall see good for us Persecuted we may be and afflicted but forsaken we shall not be 32. We ought therefore to possess our souls in patience whatsoever shall betide us in the World and not to consult with flesh and blood in seeking to relieve our selves in our distresses by engaging in any unworthy or unwarrantable practice or by siding partaking or but basely complying with the workers of wickedness that we may eat of their dainties Is it possible we should be so ill advised as to think to escape the storm when it approacheth towards us by making shipwrack of a good Conscience If we go after lying vanities and such are all Creatures all men lyars all things vanity do we not ipso facto forsake our own mercy and willfully bring ruine upon us The short and sure way is when any danger any distress is upon us or maketh towards us to run to our heavenly Father as young birds do to their Dam for succour He will gather us under his wings and we shall be safe under his Feathers his faithfulness and truth shall be our shield and buckler If we commit our ways to him cast our selves upon him by a thorough reliance resign all our desires wills and interests into his hands he will certainly bring to pass aut quod volumus aut quod malumus either what we like best or what he knoweth is best 33. Only let us resolve to perform our part do faithfully what he commandeth shun carefully what he forbiddeth suffer patiently what he inflicteth and we may then be confident he will perform his part to the uttermost That when all the World forsaketh us he will take us up take us into his care and protection here and if by patient continuance in well-doing we seek it take us up at the last into the fellowship of that glory and honour and immortality and eternal life which his only beloved Son hath purchased and his ever blessed Spirit consigned to all them that love him and put their trust in his mercy To that only beloved Son and ever-blessed Spirit together with the eternal Father three Persons and one undivided Trinity be rendered by us and the whole Church all the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen AD AULAM. Sermon XV. STOKE POGEYS 1647. Luke 16. 8. For the Children of this World are in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light 1. THe fore-going verses contain a Parable this the Application of it The Parable that of the unjust Steward a faithless and a thriftless man He had wronged his Master without any benefit to himself as prodigals are wont to do other men harm and themselves no good The Master coming at length and with the last to have some knowledge of his false dealing dischargeth him his office and calleth on him to give in his accounts The Steward awakened with that short and unexpected warning began now to think in good earnest what before he never thought of to purpose what should become of him and his for the future he knew not which way in the world to turn himself to get a living when he should be turned out of service He had not been so provident an husband as to have any thing before-hand to live upon He could not frame to handle a spade he had not been brought up with pains-taking And for him that had so long born sway in such a house and like enough with insolence enough now to run craving a small piece of Money of every Traveller by the high-way or stand at another mans door begging a morsel of bread shame and a stout heart would not suffer him to think of that Well something he must do and that speedily too or starve He therefore casteth about this way and that way and every way and at last bethinketh himself of a course and resolveth upon it to shew his Master a trick at the loose that should make amends for all and do his whole business He therefore sendeth for his Masters Debtors forthwith abateth them of their several Sums and makes the Books agree in hope that having gratified so many Persons by such large abatements some of them would remember it sure though others should prove ungrateful and make him some part of requital for the same The Master vexed to see himself so palpably cheated and knew not how to help it for he could require no more of the Debtors than was upon the foot of their Bills could not yet but commend the mans wit howsoever And the Lord commended the unjust Steward because he had done wisely in the former part of this verse 2. Having thus framed the body of the Parable our Saviour now giveth it a soul in this latter part of the verse breatheth into it the breath of life by applying it Application is the life of a Parable The commending of the Stewards wisdom was with the purpose to recommend the example to us that we might from it learn to provide against the time to come as he did and that also by such like means as he did So that the Application hath two parts The one more general respecting the End that as he was careful to provide maintenance for the preservation of his natural life so we should be careful to make provision for our souls that we may attain to everlasting life The other more special respecting the Means that as he provided for himself out of his Masters goods by disposing the same into other hands and upon several persons so we should lay up for our selves a good foundation towards the attainment of everlasting life out of the unrighteous Mammon wherewith God hath intrusted us by being rich in good works communicating and distributing some of that in
and by what evidence you must approve your selves to be Gods Defend the poor and fatherless saith he in that Psalm See that such as be in need and necessity have right Deliver the out-cast and poor Save them from the hand of the ungodly This premised it then followeth one verse only interseâ—â—ed I have said Ye are Gods As if he had said So do and then you are Gods indeed but without this care you are Idols and not Gods Much like the Idol-Gods of the Heathen that have eyes and see not ears and hear not mouths and speak â—â—ot that have a great deal of worship from the people and much reverence but are good for nothing By this very Argument in Baruc 6. are such Idols disproved to be Gods They can save no Man from death neither deliver the weak from the mighty They cannot restore a blind Man to his sight nor help any Man in his distress They can shew no mercy to the widow nor do good to the fatherless How should a Man then think and say that they are Gods 11. I hope the greatest upon earth need think it no disparagement to their greatness to look down upon the afflictions of their meanest brethren and to stoop to their necessities when the great God of Heaven and Earth who hath his dwelling so high yet humbleth himself to behold the simple that lie as low as the dust and to liâ—t up the poor that sticketh fast in the mire The Lord looketh down from his Sanctuary from the Heaven did the Lord behold the Earth That he might hear the mournings of such as be in captivity and deliver the children appointed unto death So then for the performance of this duty thou hast God's Commandment upon thee and thou hast God's Example before thee If there be in thee any true fear of God thou wilt obey his Command and if any true hope in God follow his Example 12. If from God we look downward in the next place upon our selves and duly consider either what power we have or what need we may have from both considerations we may discover yet farther the necessity of this duty And first from our Power There is no power but of God and God bestoweth no power upon Man nor indeed upon any Creature whatsoever to no purpose The natural powers and faculties as well of our reasonable souls as of our organical bodies they have all of them their several uses and operations unto which they are designed And by the Principles of all good Philosophy we cannot conceive of Power but in order and with reference to Act. Look then what power God hath put into any of our hands in any kind and in any measure it lieth us upon to employ it to the best advantage we can for the good of our brethren for to this very end God hath given us that power whatever it be that we might do good therewithal The Lord hath in his wise providence so disposed the things of this World that there should ever be some rich to relieve the necessities of the poor and some poor to exercise the charity of the rich So likewise he hath laid distresses upon some that they might be succoured by the power of others and lent power to some that they might be able to succour the distresses of others Now as God himself to whom all power properly and originally belongeth delighteth to manifest his power rather in shewing mercy than in works of destruction God spake once Twice have I heard the same that power belongeth unto God and that thou Lord art merciful Psal. 62. O let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before thee according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die Psal. 79. So all those upon whom God hath derived any part of that power should consider that God gave it them for edification not for destruction to do good withal and to help the distressed and to save the innocent not to trample upon the poor and oppress those that are unable to resist Pestifera vis est valere ad nocendum It is in truth a great weakness in any Man rather than a demonstration of power to stretch his power for the doing of mischief An evident Argument whereof is that observation of Solomon in Prov. 28. confirmed also by daily experience that a poor Man that oppresseth the poor is ever the most merciless oppressor It is in matter of Power many times as it is in matter of Learning They that have but a smattering in Scholarship you shall ever observe to be the forwardest to make ostentation of those few ends they have because they fear there would be little notice taken of their Learning if they should not now shew it when they can And yet you may observe that withal it oftentimes falleth out very unluckily with them that when they think most of all to shew their Scholarship they then most of all by some gross mistake or other betray their Ignorance It is even so in this case Men of base spirit and condition when they have gotten the advantage of a little power conceive that the World would not know what goodly Men they are if they should not do some Act or other whereby to shew forth their power to the World And then their minds being too narrow to comprehend any brave and generous way whereby to do it they cannot frame to do it any other way than by trampling upon those that are below them and that they do beyond all reason and without all mercy 13. This Argument taken from the end of that power that God giveth us was wisely and to good purpose pressed by Mordecai Esth. 1. to Queen Esther when she made difficulty to go into the Presence to intercede for the people of the Iews after that Haman had plotted their destruction Who knoweth saith he there whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this As if he had said Consider the marvellous and gracious providence of God in raising thee who wert of a despised nation and kindred to be partaker with the most potent Monarch in the World in the Royal Grown and Bed Think not but the Lord therein certainly intended some great work to be done by thy hand and power for his poor distressed Church Now the hour is come now if ever will it be seasonable for thee to make use of those great fortunes God hath advanced thee to and to try how far by that power and interest thou hast in the King's favour thou canst prevail for the reversing of Haman's bloody Decree and the preserving our whole Nation from utter destruction And of this Argument there seemeth to be some intimation in the very Text as those words in the 12th verse may and that not unfitly be understood He that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it that is He that hath preserved
very life it self the substance essence or being of a Man And he that should violenty take away that from another if the wise Son of Sirac were of the Inquest would certainly be found guilty of no less than Murder Hear his verdict in the case and the reason of it The bread of the needy is their life he that defraudeth him thereof is a Man of blood He that taketh away his neighbours living slayeth him and he that defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a bloodshedder Ecclus. 34. 17. And as these poor ones deserve our pity and our help in regard of the grievousness of their distresses so are we secondly bound so much the more to endeavour to succour them by how much the more they are destitute of friends or other means whereby to relieve or help themselves The Scriptures therefore especially commend to our care and protection the stranger the fatherless and the widow for these are of all others the most exposed to the injuries and opressions of their potent Adversaries because they have few or no friends to take their part so that if Men of Place and Power shall not stick close to them in their righteous causes they will be overborn and undone This Solomon saw with much grief and indignation insomuch as out of that very consideration he praiseth the dead that were already dead more than the living that were yet alive Eccles. 4. when viewing all the oppressions that are done under the Sun he beheld the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter and on the side of their Oppressors there was power but they had no comforter Power and might and friends and part-taking on the one side no power no strength no friends no comforter on the other side When things are thus and thus they have ever been and thus will they ever be more or less whilst the world continueth there is then a rich opportunity for every great and good Man especially for every conscionable Magistrate to set in for God's cause and in God's stead and by the greatness of his power to stop the course of violence and oppression and to rescue out of the hands of the Mighty those that are marked out to destruction or undoing Then is it a fit time for him to buckle on his armour with Iob to gird himself with zeal and righteousness as with a breast-plate to close with the giant oppressour and not to give over the combate till he have broken the jaws of the wicked and plucked the prey out of his teeth A good Magistrate should be as he was eyes to the blind feet to the lame a husband to the widow a father to the orphan a brother to the stranger in a word as St. Paul was but in another sense Omnia omnibus all things to all Men according to their several necessities and occasions that by all means he might at least save some from oppression and wrong 18. But that which above all other considerations should stir up our compassion to those that are in distress and make us bestir our selves in their behalf is that which I mentioned in the third place The equity of their Cause when by the power and iniquity of an unjust Adversary they are in danger to be over-born in arighteous matter For unless their matters be good and right be they never so poor their distresses never so great we should not pity them I mean not so to pity them as to be assistant to them therein For as in God so in every Minister of God every Magistrate and in every Child of God every good Man Iustice and Mercy should meet together and kiss each other Iustice without Mercy and Mercy without Justice are both alike hateful to God both alike to be shuned of every good Man and Magistrate Lest therefore any Man should deceive himself by thinking it a glorious or a charitable act to help a poor Man howsoever the Lord hath given an express prohibition to the contrary Exod. 23. Thou shalt not countenance a poor Man in his Cause that is in a good cause shrink not from him but if his cause be naught let his poverty be what it will be thou mayest not countenance him in it He that hath respect of persons in judgment cannot but transgress and he that respecteth a Man for his poverty is no less a respecter of persons than he that respecteth a Man for friendship or neighbour-hood or greatness or a bribe In this case the Magistrate cannot propose to himself a fitter or safer example than that of God himself who as he often professeth to have a special care over the stranger and fatherless and widow and needy so doth he often declare his proceedings to be evermore without respect of persons 19. That therefore whilst we avoid the one extreme that of incompassion we may not fall into the other that of foolish pity it will be needful that we rightly understand Solomon's purpose in the Text. For it may perhaps seem to some to be here intended that every Man should do his utmost to save the life of every other Man that is in danger to lose it And accordingly many Men are forward more than any good subject hath cause to con them thanks for to deprecate the favour of the Iudge for the saving of some hanious Malefactor or to sue out a Pardon for a wilful Murderer or say it be but to help some busie crafty compaion to come fair off in a fould business And when they have so done as if they had deserved a Garland for their service so do they glory among their neighbours at their return from these great Assemblies that their journey was well bestowed for they had saved a proper Man from the Gallows or holpen a good fellow out of the Briers Alas little do such Men consider that they glory in that which ought rather to be their shame such glorying is not good For albeit in the Text it be not expressedly so set down yet must Solomon of necessity be understood to speak of the delivering of such only as are unjustly drawn to the slaughter and not of such Malefactors as by Robberies Rapes Murders Treasons and other guiltinesses have justly deserved the sentence of death by the Law For we must so understand him here as not to make him contradict himself who else-where telleth us that it is the part and property of a wise King to scatter the wicked and to bring the wheel over them and that he that hath done violence to the blood of any person should flie to the pit and no man should stay him Against Murder the Lord provided by an early Law Gen. 9. enacted and published before him out of whose loins the whole World after the floud was to be repeopled to shew it was not meant for a national and temporary ordinance but for an universal and perpetual Law Whoso sheddeth Man's
blood by Man shall his blood be shed And that Iudges should be very shy and tender how they grant Pardons or Reprievals in that case he established it afterwards among his own people by a most severe sanction Num. 35. Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a Murderer which is guilty of death but he shall surely be put to death And there is a reason of it there given also For blood saith he defileth the land and the land cannot be cleansed from the blood that is shed therein but by he blood of him that shed it Read that passage with attention and if both forehead and conscience be not harder than the neither milstone thou canst not have either the heart or the face to glory in it as a brave exploit whoever thou art that hast been the instrument to save the life of a Murderer 20. Indeed all offences are not of that hanious nature that Murder is nor do they cry so loud for vengeance as Murder doth And therefore to procure undeserved favour for a smaller offender is not so great a sin as to do it for a Murderer But yet so far as the proportion holdeth it is a sin still Especially where favour cannot be shewn to one Man but to the wrong and grievance of some other as it hapneth usually in those judicial controversies that are betwixt party and party for trial of right Or where favour cannot be shewn to an offender but with wrong and grievance to the publick as it most times falleth out in criminal causes wherein the King and Commonwealth are parties Solomon hath taught us that as well he that justifieth the wicked as he that condemneth the just are an abomination to the Lord. Yea and that for any thing that appeareth to the contrary from the Text and in thesi for circumstances may make a difference either way in hypothesi they are both equally abominable In doubtful cases it is doubtlesly better and safer to encline to Mercy than to Severity Better ten offenders should escape than one innocent person suffer But that is to be conceived only when things are doubtful so as the truth cannot be made appear but where things are notorious and evident there to justifie the guilty and to condemn the innocent are still equal abominations 21. That which you are to do then in the behalf of the poor is this First to be rightly informed and so far as morally you can well assured that their cause be just For mean and poor people are nothing less but ordinarily much more unreasonable than the great ones are and if they find the ear of the Magistrate open to hear their grievances as is very meet it should be they will be often clamorous and importunate without either cause or measure And if the Magistrate be not very wary and wise in receiving informations the Country swain may chance prove too cunning for him and make him but a stale whereby for himself to get the start of his Adversary and so the Magistrate may in fine and unwares become the instrument of oppression even then when his intention was to vindicate another from it The Truth of the matter therefore is to be first throughly sifted out the circumstances duly weighed and as well as the legal the equitable right examined and compared and this to be done with all requisite diligence and prudence before you engage in the poor Man's behalf 22. But if when this is done you then find that there is much right and equity on his side and that yet for want of skill or friends or means to manage his affairs he is in danger to be foiled in his righteous cause Or if you find that his Adversary hath a legal advantage of him or that he hath de rigore incurred the penalty of some dis-used statute yet did not offend wilfully out of the neglect of his known duty or a greedy covetous mind or other sinister and evil intention but meerly out of his ignorance and inexperience and in the simplicity of his heart as those two hundred Israelites that followed after Absalom when he called them not knowing any thing of his conspiracy had done an act of treason yet were not formally traitors In either of these cases I say you may not forsake the poor Man or despise him because he is poor or simple But you ought so much the rather to stick by him and to stand his friend to the utmost of your power You ought to give him your counsel and your countenance to speak for him and write for him and ride for him and do for him to procure him right against his Adversary in the former case and in the latter case favour from the Iudge In either case to hold back your hand to draw back your help from him if it be in the power of your hand to do him any help is that sin for which in the judgment of Solomon in the Text the Lord will admit no excuse 23. Come we now in the last place to some reasons or motives taken from the effects of the duty it self If carefully and conscionably performed it will gain honour and estimation both to our persons and places purchase for us the prayers and blessings of the poor yea and bring down a blessing from God not upon us and ours only but upon the State and Commonwealth also But where the duty is neglected the effects are quite contrary First do you know any other thing that will bring a Man more glory and renown in the common opinion of the World than to shew forth at once both justice and mercy by doing good and protecting the Innocent Let not mercy and truth forsake thee bind them about thy neck write them upon the table of thine heart so shalt thou find favour and good understanding or acceptance in the sight of God and Man Prov. 3. As a rich sparkling Diamond addeth both value and lustre to a golden Ring so do these vertues of justice and mercy well attempered bring a rich addition of glory to the Crowns of the greatest Monarchs Hoc reges habent magnificum ingens Prodesse miseris supplices fido lare Protegere c. Every Man is bound by the Law of God and of Charity as to give to every other Man his due honour so to preserve the honour that belongeth to his own person and place for Charity in performing the duties of every Commandment beginneth at home Now here is a fair and honest and sure way for all you that are in place of authority and judicature or sustain the persons of Magistrates to hold up the reputation both of your Persons and Places and to preserve them from scorn and contempt Execute judgment and justice with wisdom and diligence take knowledge of the vexations of those that are brought into the Courts or otherwise troubled without cause be sensible of the groans and pressures of poor Men in the
day of their adversity protect the innocent from such as are too mighty or too crafty for him hew in pieces the snares and break the jaws of the cunning and cruel oppressor and deliver those that are drawn either to death or undoing 24. The course is preposterous and vain which some Men ambitious of honour and reputation take to get themselves put into the place of Magistracy and Authority having neither head nor heart for it I mean when they have neither knowledge and experience in any measure of competency to understand what belongeth to such places nor yet any care or purpose at all to do God their King and Country good service therein The wise Son of Sirac checketh such ambitious spirits for their unseasonable forwardness that way Sirac 7. Seek not of the Lord preeminence neither of the King the seat of honour Think not he hath any meaning to dissuade or dishearten Men of quality and parts for medling with such employments for then the service should be neglected No Men that are gifted for it although the service cannot be attended without some both trouble and charge yet should not for the avoiding either of charge or trouble indeed they cannot without sin seek either to keep themselves out of the Commission or to get themselves off again being on His meaning clearly is only to repress the ambition of those that look after the Title because they think it would be some glory to them but are not able for want either of skill or spirit or through sloth nor willing to perform the duties And so he declareth himself a little after there Seek not to be a Iudge being not able to take away iniquity lest at any time thou fear the person of the mighty and lay a stumbling-block in the way of thy uprightness 25. Did honour indeed consist which is the ambitious Man's error either only or chiefly in the empty Title we might well wish him good luck with his honour But since true Honour hath a dependence upon vertue being the wages as some or as others have rather chosen to call it the shadow of it it is a very vanity to expect the one without some care had of the other Would any Man not forsaken of his senses look for a shadow where there is no solid body to cast it Or not of his reason demand wages where he hath done no service Yet such is the perversness of our corrupt nature through sloth and self-love that what God would have go together the Honour and the Burden we would willingly put asunder Every Man almost would draw to himself as much of the honour as he can if it be a matter of credit or gain then Why should not I be respected in my place as well as another But yet withal would every Man almost put off from himself as much of the burden as he can If it be a matter of business and trouble then Why may not another Man do it as well as I Like lazy servants so are we that love to be before-hand with their wages and behind-hand with their work 26. The truth is there is an Outward and there is an Inward Honour The Outward honour belongeth immediately to the Place and the place casteth it up on the Person so that whatsoever person holdeth the place it is meet he should have the honour due to the place whether he deserve it or not But the Inward honour pitcheth immediately upon the Person and but reflecteth upon the Place and that Honour will never be had without desert What the Apostle said of the Ministry is in some sense also true of the Migistracy they that labour faithfully in either are worthy of double Honour Labour or labour not there is a single honour due to them and yet not so much to them as to their Places and Callings but yet to them too for the places sake and we are unjust if we with-hold it from them though they should be most unworthy of it But the double Honour that inward Honour of the heart to accompany the outward will not be had where there is not worth and industry in some tolerable measure to deserve it The knee-worship and the cap-worship and the lip-worship they may have that are in worshipful places and callings though they do little good in them but the Heart-worship they shall never have unless they be ready to do Iustice and to shew Mercy and be diligent and faithful in their Callings 27. Another fruit and effect of this duty where it is honestly performed are the hearty prayers and blessings of the poor as on the contrary their bitter curses and imprecations where it is slighted or neglected We need not look so far to find the truth hereof asserted in both the branches we have a Text for it in this very Chapter Prov. 24. He that saith unto the wicked Thou art righteous him shall the people curse nations shall abhor him But to them that rebuke him shall be delight and a good blessing shall come upon them Every Man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer As he that with-holdeth corn in the time of dearth having his Garners full pulleth upon himself deservedly the curses of the poor but they will pour out blessings abundantly upon the head of him that in compassion to them will let them have it for their mony Prov. 11. So he that by his place having power and means to succour those that are distressed and to free them from wrongs and oppressions will seasonably put forth himself and his power to do them right shall have many a blessing from their mouths and many a good wish from their hearts but many more bitter curses both from the mouth and heart by how much men are more sensible of discourtesies than of benefits and readier to curse than to bless if they find themselves neglected And the blessings and cursings of the poor are things not to be wholly disregarded Indeed the curse causless shall not come neither is the Magistrate to regard the curses of bad people so far as either to be deterred thereby from punishing them according to their desert or to think he shall fare ever the worse doing but his duty for such curses For such words are but wind and as Solomon saith elsewhere He that observeth the wind shall not sow so he that regardeth the speeches of vain persons shall never do his duty as he ought to do In such cases that of David must be their meditation and comfort Though they curse yet bless thou And as there is little terrour in the causless curses so there is as little comfort in the causless blessings of vain evil Men. But yet where there is cause given although he cannot be excused from sin that curseth for we ought to bless and to pray for not to curse even those that wrong us and persecute us yet vae homini withal woe to the
Man from whom the provocation cometh Such curses as they proceed from the bitterness of the soul of the grieved person in the mean time so they will be in the end bitterness to the soul of him that gave cause of grievance And if there were not on the other side some comfort in the deserved blessings of the poor it had been no wisdom for Iob to comfort himself with it as we see he did in the day of his great distress The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widows heart to sing for joy Job 29. 28. But say these poor ones should be so charitable as very seldom they be as not to curse us when we have despised them or so unthankful as seldom they are otherwise as not to bless us when we have relieved them yet the Lord who hath given every Man a charge concerning his brother and committed the distresses of the poor to our care and trust will take district knowledge how we deal with them and impartially recompense us thereafter Doth not he consider And shall not he render to every Man according to his works The last words of the Text. If therefore you have done your duty faithfully let it never discourage you that unrighteous and unthankful Men forget it They do but their kind the comfort is that yet God will both remember it and requite it God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love saith the Apostle Heb. 5. He will remember it you see And then saith David Psal. 41. Blessed is he that considereth the poor and needy the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble He will requite it too He that for God's sake helpeth his poor brother to right that suffereth wrong he doth therein at once first an act of mercy because it is done in the behalf of a distressed Man and an act secondly of Iustice because it is done in a righteous cause and thirdly being done for the Lord's sake an act of Religion also Pure Religion and undefiled before God even the father is this to visit the fatherless and widow in their afflictions Jam. 1. And is it possible that God who delighteth in the exercise of every one of them singly should suffer an act to pass unrewarded wherein there is a happy concurrence of three such excellent vertues together as are Iustice Mercy and Religion The Prophet Ieremy to reprove Iehoiachin's tyranny and oppression upbraideth him with his good father Iosiah's care and conscience to do justice and to shew mercy after this manner Did not thy father eat and drink and do judgment and justice and then it was well with him He judged the cause of the poor and needy then it was well with him was not this to know me saith the Lord But now on the contrary He shall have judment without mercy that sheweth no mercy He that stoppeth his ears against the cry of the poor he shall also cry himself but shall not he heard c. Many other like passages there are in the Scriptures to the same effect 29. Nay moreover the general neglect of this duty pulleth down the wrath of God not only upon those particular persons that neglect it but also upon the whole nation where it is in such general sort neglected O house of David thus saith the Lord execute judgment in the morning and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor lest my fury go out like fire and burn that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings Jer. 21. Brethren we of this nation have cause to look to it in time against whom the Lord hath of late manifested his just wrath though tempered as we must all confess with much clemency yea and his hand is streched out against us still in the heavy plagues both of dearth and death Though the Land be full of all manner of sins and lewdness and so the Lord might have a controversie with us for any of them yet I am verily persuaded there are no other kinds of sins that have overspread the face of the whole Land with such an universal contagion as it were of a Leprosy as the sins of Riot and Oppression have done Which two sins are not only the provoking causes as any kind of sins may be in regard of the justice of God but also the sensible instrumental causes in the eye of reason and experience of much penury and mortality among us 30. Surely then as to quench the fire we use to withdraw the fewel so to turn away the heavy wrath of God from us we should all put to our helping-hands each in his place and calling but especially the Minister and the Magistrate the one to cry down the other to beat down as all sins in general so especially these of Riot and Oppression Never think it will be well with us or that it will be much better with us than now it is or that it will not be rather every day much worse with us than it is never look that disorders in the Church distempers in the State distractions in our judgments diseases in our bodies should be remedied or removed and not rather more and more encreased if we hold on as we do in pampering every Man his own Flesh and despising every Man his poor brother So long as we think no pleasures too much for our selves no pressures too heavy for our brethren stretch our selves along and at ease upon our Couches eat of the fat and drink of the sweet without any touch of compassion in our bowels for the afflictions of others we can expect no other but that the rod of God should abide upon us either in dearths of pestilences or if they be removed for God loveth sometimes to shift his rods in greater and heavier judgments in some other kind 31. But as to the particular of Oppression for that of Riot and Intemperance being beside the Text I shall no farther press my humble request to those that are in place of authority and all others that have any office or attendance about the Courts is this For the love of God and of your selves and your Country be not so indulgent to your own appetites and affections either of Ease as to reject the complaints or of Partiality as to despise the persons or of filthy Lucre as to betray the cause of the fatherless and friendless Suffer not when his cause is good a simple Man to be circumvented by the wiliness or a mean Man to be over powred by the greatness of a crafty or mighty Adversary Favour not a known Sycophant nor open your lips to speak in a cause to pervert judgment or to procure favour for a mischievous person Turn not judgment into wormwood by making him that meant no hurt an offender for a word Wrangle not in the behalf of a contentious person to the prejudice