What crying what roaring what lamentation did fill the Cities and Villages they did not die of a sudden as in the overflowing of the Sea but they died by degrees they had time to get up upon hills and trees and to foresee and fore-feare their choaking by waters afore it came and to see the Beasts many perishing before them many looking for the same ruine with them Doth not this floud pertaine to you Doth not it pertaine to you also Doe you not here see 1. The Omnipotent power of God and his absolute and soveraigne command over all creatures The Sea and Springs are his and will breake out upon us The Cloudes and Waters above are his and will fall downe upon us to revenge his quarrell He is Lord of Hosts O plant in your selves an holy feare of him and say to your selves shall he threaten and not performe who hath the whole world at hand to be serviceable unto him If we would represent the Lord before our eyes according to his fearefull greatnesse so as to make us tremble and depart from sinne happie were wee Doth not Christ send us to the old World and doth not Peter also minde us of this destruction by water Surely the Lord is a terrible God still he is now as terrible as he shewed himselfe then in the overthrow by waters Againe you must in this plague see the justice of God his will to punish sinners by inflicting great evill upon them that so you may yet make the feare of him the more stedfast and more effectuall for as hee is of power to crush the highest and stoutest and those of greaest power in the world so he is resolved upon this course and will surely declare his excellency by making them smoake with most heavie calamities that dare advance themselves against his authority See here how severe God is he will not spare the wicked he will not hold them innocent though he deferre many daies yet will the heavinesse of the stroake answer the delay The floud was long a comming but being come it 's furious and irresistible and wipes out all the sonnes of men sparing none The Lord can finde in his heart to execute hideous evills upon sinners Let them if they please fancie a God wholy consisting of mercy they shall find him such as his Word describeth not as they themselves have counterfeited hee will recompence vengeance on his Adversaries hee will not pitie their cries nor groanes Hee will not be melted with their complaints but utterly destroy them according as his Word hath spoken Behold also the equity of Gods proceeding hee answers their sinnes with the kinde and measure of punishment Great sinnes and great waters All flesh corrupted with sinne and all flesh cut off for sinne the earth filled with violence and now filled with waters None tooke care to forbeare almost any sinne but Noah and none escapes but Noah No multitude of sinners can save them out of his hand as all sinned so all perish This great and heavie judgement should be often in our thoughts we should thinke thus if God spared not the old World neither will bee spare us It is S. Peters inference and it is a great sinne in us that we doe not often put our selves in minde of these things to frame our selves to humble obedience If any say but God hath promised never againe to destroy the world by water I answer true but he hath never promised not to drowne sinners neither hath he promised not to punish them with punishments as fearefull as this of perishing by waters God hath great variety of weapons to wound his enemies if he hath renounced the use of one he hath others enough to take up for that purpose And Brethren I pray you take notice of what S. Peter tells us of That as the world that then was did perish being drowned in the waters so the world that now is shall perish by fire for he telleth us that it is by the same word reserved for fire kept in store against the time to come The Prophet Enoch foretold of that great day before Noah foretold of this deluge That day is longer before it come but it shall be more terrible when it comes for the heavens shall passe away with a noise as the holy Apostle tells you Now as the righteous Noah shewed a way how to escape that water even repent and get into the Arke so we shew away how to escape that fire repent and turne unto the Lord otherwise when he shall come in flames of fire you shall receive the judgement of eternall destruction from before the presence of his glory Brethren I beseech you so to ponder upon that great misery which fell upon the old World that you may be the better for knowing all the passages of so strange a story It was the first remarkeable judgement No generall calamity that we reade of did come upon the world till then The first and last acts of justice will be most severe and the last likely severer then the first The Lord gave to the men of this old World a very long life and very great outward benefits and shewed to them exceeding great long-suffering why so but because he would first as he delighteth to do proove men with benefits As if he should have said I will proove Adams sonnes with the fruites of my favour They shall have time enough to repent some eight or nine hundred yeares and they shall be allured by all prosperity nothing but comforts shall come upon them for a long time but if they will not profit by this gentlenesse I will shorten their lives by halfe having taken away all those fearefull sinners by a floud of waters You see Gods displeasure against sinne O at last profit by it and learne to be righteous there is no way to escape Gods judgements but by following after righteousnesse this course take and you shall be safe * ⎠* THE SIXTH EXAMPLE OF NOAH ONe godly man is worth a whole million of sinners as appeareth in that the Lord made more reckoning of one Noah then of all the world of the ungodly Having laid before you the bad Example of that most wicked generation which lived before the floud I will now speake of one godly man which lived in the same times with them and saw them all swept away with the besome of destruction His name was Noah the word signifieth rest and we have a reason given us of imposing that name by his Father Gen. 5.29 This same shall comfort us concerning our worke and the toyle of our hands because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed It is somewhat doubtfull how Noah was a comforter to the godly Patriarckes In respect of their troubles of all kinds both those they tooke in striving against the bad men of their times and the common labours of life in regard of the curse that was gon out against mans sinne
that thou shouldst not come neere her meaning Sarah It is a great favour of God to preserve a man from sinning by his providence I meane to order things so that hee hath not opportunity or freedome to doe such things as else hee would commit because hee doth not know them to bee sinnes And this is one of the graces that God doth shew to those whose hearts hee findes upright with him O strive to get sincerity of soule that hee which searcheth the heart may vouchsafe you the same goodnesse but if you bee hollow and guilefull the Lord may and will justly punish you by giving you over to great offences And if any man finde that God hath restrained him from doing some wickednesse which hee did not know and therefore should have done much more which hee did know and would have done he must blesse the name of God for it with heartiest prayers Hee that was in likeliehood afore hee knew of it to have falne into some great pit or other like danger travelling in the night and findeth in the morning how neere he came to mischiefe and yet escaped the fame is either very blockish and prophane or else hee must needes lift up his heart and eyes and hands to Heaven and magnifie the name of God that caused him to scape so much more must wee doe if when wee were in a forwardnesse to runne into grievous offences the Lord hath used some or other meanes which our selves did not provide to restraine us from that evill Spirituall preservation deserveth serious and thankefull acknowledgement as well as naturall Another mercy of God is that hee revealed himselfe unto him in a dreame by night and declared his will by a commandement promise and threat I doe not reade of such a kindnesse afforded to any wicked man except it were to Balaam the false Prophet which was done not in favour to him but unto Israel that hee might not dare to curse his people therefore am I conceited that Abimelech was a godly man especially because the Lord doth please to talke as it were in so friendly and familiar a manner with him as if hee had nor beene a stranger to God but rather of inward knowledge You shall finde if you reade the dreame a kind of lovingnesse expressed on Gods part and a kinde of dutifull boldnesse on Abimelechs so that for my part I have a very good opinion of the man and thinke that the feare of God was in the King of that people which were themselves so wicked that good Abraham said there was no feare of God in them But the favour affoorded him is this he was taught of God his duty by a dreame Dreames were one of the ordinances whereby God did reveale his will unto men in those times Pharaoh was shewed a thing in a dreame and so was Nebuchadnezar but God did not appeare unto them and speake to them in dreames this was an ordinance of his I say in which most times hee used to teach good men Now this was a note of Gods kindnesse to Abimelech that hee so taught him and not by heavy plagues as hee did Pharaoh King of Egypt forementioned How much more mercy shewes the Lord to us to whom hee shewes himselfe in the word and in the preaching of it whereby wee are taught our damnable estate and shewed the meanes of escaping it and called upon with continuall threats and promises to use those meanes let us pray to God to worke upon us by these his ordinances that they may winne us to obedience in a thorough reformation of life as Abimelech was wonne to reform e this one fault and then happy shall wee bee But if wee imitate the naughtinesse of Israel and harden our hearts that wee may not hearken then shall this mercy aggravate our sinnes and wee shall onely have this fruite of it wee shall know there was a Prophet amongst us when those greater fearefull punishments befall us which were formerly threatned against us in the word Bretheren God doth not please to speake to men now in person by dreames but hee revealeth his will by Pastors and Teachers speaking in his Name Hee hath imployed mee to you this thirty yeares well neere to informe you that you are but dead men because of the sinnes you have gone a whoring after and to threaten you with death if you refuse to leave them and encourage you with promise of life upon your converting and amending O when will you hearken as this man did I beseech you before you come to Church to heare take sometime to beg of God the assistance of his Spirit to make you obedient hearers and then blessed be your eares that heare Another benefit afforded to this King Abimelech was this that hee found God as favourable to him as could be in a speedy removing of the chastisement which was sent upon him because of Sarah viz. the barrennesse of all his family for it is said vers ult that God healed Abimelech his wife and his maides and his hand-maides and they conceived for hee had fast shut up every wombe in the house of Abimelech by which it may bee thought that God sent some gentle sicknesse upon him by which hee was disabled from comming neere to Sarah Now so soone as hee did reforme the fault the Lord heard the prayer of Abraham and cured him and his house This is a great favour of God to make hast to our deliverance and very quickly to heare our owne prayers and the prayers of others made for us and instantly to remove the miseries which did lie upon us for if the long lying on of a crosse bee tedious and heavy because of the much sorrow it bringeth and many complaints it wringeth from the mouth even of good men saying Lord how long then surely freedome from all that anguish must bee received as a point of great grace O my Bretheren doe you imitate Abimelech in the speedy mending of your faults that the Lord may also favour you so much as to remove your crosses quickly If iniquity bee in your heart put it from you and remoove it out of your tabernacle and then your light shall spring as the morning as one of Iobs friendes speaketh to him But when we linger and holde sinne under our tongues and are loath to cast it away no wonder if God doe take us in our owne nets as it were and make sorrowes and crosses linger as much upon us Make hast to obey God and amend your lives that he may also make hast to heale These be Abimelechs mercies The crosses that the Scripture telleth us of are no more but one onely viz. God did strike him with sicknesse and weakenesse and his women with barrennesse and this crosse was rather sent upon him as a mercy to keepe him from touching Sarah then in anger or displeasure against him Sicknesse of a mans person wife and family are crosses but sometimes the Lord
priviledge is it and this is a mercy promised to all Saints For so saith our Saviour If my mords abide in you and you abide in me aske what you will and you shall have it And againe S. Iohn telleth us This is our confidence that whatsoever we aske according to his will he heareth us Therefore let us keepe our interest into this mercy by not having respect to sinne in our hearts and by constant endeavour to walke holily before the Lord. And if we have found and doe finde God favourable to us in this kinde so that we lose not our prayers which wee make unto him let us then comfort our selves in this benefit and be carefull to yeeld as obedient an eare to his word as hee doth yeeld a patient eare to our supplications And now of Iacobs temporall benefits First he was blessed with a large estate in the world according to his profession being a Shepheard his flocks did thrive he had cattell and servants in abundance God blessed him in Labans house and made all the stronger cattell to bring forth just such kinde of young as Laban had consented to give him for his wages so that he could not but see a Divine hand taking Labans goods and giving them to him as himselfe noteth Riches are do great matter but when God giveth them as tokens of his love and tender respect they are desirable Let those that enjoy them be sure that they come to them from God as fruits of his goodnesse or else the worst men may be wealthier than the best And let those that are upright with Iacob learne to trust God with their estate and to know that what shall be good for them shall be seasonably provided for them Secondly God delivered him out of all adversity as himselfe saith on his death-bed The Angel that redeemed me from all evill His three greatest dangers were first from Esau both when hee went unto Padan Aram and when hee returned at the former time God brought him safe to Padan and so restrained the minde of Esau that then hee put off the thought of killing him to his Fathers death and at the later time God so melted him that hee shewed himselfe exceeding kinde and fell upon his neck and kissed him instead of killing him which hee had intended and therefore hee tels Esau that hee had seene his face as the face of GOD. Laban pursued him too with a purpose to strip him of all and to send him empty home and he had power in his hand to doe it as himselfe saith but God appeared to him and rebuked him that he durst not handle him amisse The Inhabitants of the Countrey were much insenced against him in respect of that outragious murder and rapine committed upon the Sichemites and by his Sons in so much that Iacob feared much that they would pursue him and cut him off but God cast a feare into their hearts so that they did not offer any violence unto him as is noted by the Story These three great deliverances God vouchsafed Iacob O let us learne to turne to God and to walke before him in truth and then we shall have God ready to help us in all our necessities and at that time and in those exigents to provide for us meanes of escape by his providence when our owne wit and strength faileth as we finde him dealing with Iacob What could he doe against Esau Laban or the Inhabitants of the Countrey Let us cleave to God that hee may be out Buckler also and our strong Tower and Rocke of defence and if we have found so much favour with God as to rescue us out of such dangers as seemed unpreventable let not us attribute the deliverances to any other secondary causes but even see God in them ascribe them to him and learne thence to feare honour and praise him Those deliverances are indeed profitable that are cords of kindnesse to tie us nearer to God Hee that improveth not such benefits to that end loseth the most desirable fruit of them Further Iacob had a large off-spring of children twelve sons and one daughter this is a favour to give a man store of children of these sons all had wealth enough Ioseph was very religious in his youth and Benjamin civill and orderly at least and at the end all of them turned home and became godly men O happinesse to have so many children some good betime all holy at last all prosperous in outward things and one much advanced Another mercy of God was the providing of Ioseph as a man before to maintaine him and his family in Aegypt and bringing him to see Ioseph and enjoy his preferment for seventeen yeares together where he lived in as great a fulnesse of prosperity and concluded his dayes as happily as ever man did living in Iosephs bosome as it were seeing all his children godly and prosperous and feeling no considerable adversity having Iosephs oath also to bury him in Canaan This is a singular favour of God to make ones old age prosperous and to cause his eyes to see so much happinesse as he can wish when now he is ready to leave the world Marke the righteous man in the Psalme it is said The end of that man is peace Study righteousnesse that you may inherite this blessing and never threaten your selves how miserable you shall be hereafter God can provide wayes that you know not to make you safe and comfortable beyond your thoughts O be faithfull with him and trust in him and feare nothing So much for Iacobs life Now for his death It was a most seasonable death after a large time of life a most peaceable death in the midst of his Sonnes a most religious death blessing them and confirming their faith with his last words a most comfortable death so soone as he had ended his blessing he pulled up his legs and gave up the Ghost and then he had also an honourable embalming and buriall as at large is set downe in the Story Who would not wish such a death And yet more after death he hath an honourable name on earth and liveth in eternall glory in heaven Now let us imitate Iacobs vertues and labour to be upright and then notwithstanding many sins we shall have at last eternall happinesse and so much happinesse in this world also as is needfull for us Now we will shew you what calamities he suffered for the people of God must looke to suffer much tribulation in this world as it is foretold them both because their owne need requireth it to make and keep them good and cause them to grow in goodnesse as also because the Lord sees it fit thus to magnifie his power justice wisdome and goodnesse in sustaining and delivering them His chastisements then were these First that his Father did not love him so well as his brother but did manifestly prefer hunting Esau before
Caine nay willing to be at cost in Gods Worship and for it Also satisfie your selves with one wife for Caine did so he knew his wife wives he had not Yea be builders up of your families by thrift and husbandry for so could Caine not pullers of them downe by riot and unthriftinesse say to thyselfe How shall this first of all bad men rise up in judgement against mee if I cannot frame my selfe at least to be as good as he was A man should even blush to thinke what is the eldest sonne of the Divell more vertuous then I am O how bad a man am I then Secondly we must make some good use of that was bad in Caine which is double First to take great heed to our selves to mortifie those vices and shun those sinnes which we finde related of him Caine was a very Hypocrite a man that contented himselfe with the outward acts of Gods Worship but was not Sanctified did not frame his heart to please God and set himselfe to doe well O take heed to your selves that you be not such but labour to present your hearts to God and in all his services to offer your soules and bodies to him and not alone the externall service seeke in and by the duties of religion to be made new creatures Joyne care of a good life in your whole conversation with your outward devotion then you shall not be Hypocrites but uprright Beware of Hypocrisie find out it selfe and its ill effects lament them confesse them pray against them Be afraid least you should prove Hypocrites cry to God to keepe you from being such and to make you sincere An Hypocrite is apt to runne into all sinne nothing is accepted from him he is apt to fall away into open profanenesse and to be quite cast of by God for his sins And you may see in Caine what be the signes of an Hypocrite 1. Envie at those that be better then himselfe and even hating them because they have better esteeme then himselfe 2. Not striving to reforme his sinnes when hee is admonished nor confesse them to God and craving helpe against them but rather persisting in them and denying them 3. Chasing at admonitions 4. Casting of at last all care of religion 5. Murmuring against God for the greatnesse of his punishment and so despairing of his mercy as to run away from him O beware of all these signes of prevailing Hypocrisie and do as Caine should have don Strive against guile set against envie labour to profit by Gods admonitions in his Word though hee come not now in person to admonish you If you have sinned confesse it to God stoope to his Justice confesse him righteous if he destroy you Hold fast a perswasion of the possibility of having your sins pardoned how great soever and a hope of finding pardon at least in such a degree as may make you runne penitently to God and boldly to crave pardon And most of all take heed of growing utterly impenitent out of despaire and goe not about to burie your selves in the world and so to ease the torments of your consciences but by humble falling downe before God seeke for mercy which will indeed refresh you Profit your selves by the lamentable and tragicall story of Caine. And above all take heed of letting envie proceed to that height as to carrie you into actuall murder but resist and oppose it and cast it out of your hearts that it may not bring you to be spillers of innocent blood that is a crying sinne and you see what torment and hardnesse it is apt to bring upon the committer chiefely if the cause of hatred and envie be goodnesse Againe blesse God heartily for preserving you from envie from murder from hypocrisie from muttering from despaire from open profanenesse from meere and prevailing worldlinesse For wee have the same nature that Caine the same corruptions full of pride full of hypocrisie full of ignorance of God and apt to be bold to any evill if wee may conceale it from men Wee who have the selfe-same bad nature if God have preserved us from so mighty prevailing and breaking forth of corruption let us not lift up our selves above others but give the glory to God and be satisfied with the comfort not daring to take the praise unto our selves each one of us in his kinde would be as bad as Caine if God had in like manner left us unto our corruptions and the temptations O that wee could be humbly thankefull for our preservation from such soule sinnes and crimes Now let us remember Caines miseries and crosses and let us affright our selves from sinnes by them Thinke would I have God make mee a fugitive and a runnagate fill mine eares with the voice of terrour and make a dreadfull sound possesse mine heart alwaies curse the things I take in hand for my sake as hee did the earth for Caines sake deliver mee up to grosse sinnes to hardnesse and utter prophanenesse to impenitencie and despaire and a meere forsaking of God and Apostacie then let mee not be an Hypocrite let mee not mocke God with shewes let mee not sleight reproofes not caring to amend Let me not hide my sinnes and allow my selfe to doe evill in secret fearing mans eyes more then Gods Let mee not mutter against his Justice let mee not denie his Mercy Let mee not runne into the sinnes of Caine which by degrees procured to him this mischiefe Hypocrisie brought forth rejecting his service not profiting by that chastisement brought forth discontent and envie against his Brother not hearkening to reproofe to resist envie brought forth murder not confessing and lamenting that but hiding it brought forth Gods judgement to make him a fugitive not stooping to that but murmuring brought forth despaire and that utter Apostacie and profanenesse Beware of these sinnes which you see so fearefully punished and affright your selves from these faults by the miserable effects of them in Caine. Take great care that sinne make not such a progresse in your soules till it utterly separate you from God as it did Caine. Wee have more and clearer meanes then Caine besides his evill to be our warning if wee proove as bad as he wee shall fare much worse because of that aggravation of sinne which it will receive from this consideration Tremble to thinke of yeelding to Hypocrisie envie murder muttering despaire c. flie from those waies which brought Caine to ruine Yea learne thankefullnesse to God that hee hath not laid such miseries upon you as upon Caine viz. a terrified conscience and a curse upon your estates that can affoord you no comfort and an heart possessed with desperate fancies and impatient risings against God These be fearefull evills wee also have deserved them but God hath not inflicted them upon many of us O let our hearts rejoyce in his goodnesse that hath delivered us and let us make use of his patience to draw us to repentance that wee doe not
a piece or crosse-bow but it is hard to take the flying bird It is easie for Satan to intangle with his temptations the Idlesbee but hard to fasten on the man of imployments The Lord commends and rewards diligence in a calling and bids know the state of thy flocke and bids men goe and learne of the Pismire and discommends idlenesse and sluggishnesse and threatens him that followes the idle Let good Abel teach you faithfullnesse in your calling Cast away sluggishnesse and unthriftinesse wearing out your bodies in vanities and worse then vanities and set your selves to some such worke as may make you able to answer the question of God and your Master when hee shall call you to account for the laying out of so pretious a thing as time But secondly hee was religious and devout hee brought of the fruit of his flocks yea of the firstlings and of the fat thereof He did bring to God one of the best and fattest of his Rammes or Ewes for Weathers were not for Sacrifice and no maimed thing was to be offered on Gods Altar It is not observed of Caine that hee brought of the first fruites and best of his corne or other graine It is likely that the Holy Ghost would have done this office of a faithfull Historian and have given Caine his due by telling the quality as well as the matter of his offering if it had beene as well qualified in this respect as his Brothers Wherefore when he commends Abels offering because it was of the choice and fattest of his flock it may be well thought in forbearing to say any thing in like commendation of Caines that hee tooke no great care whether it were of the best or not and therefore wee may well conceive that one cause of Gods rejecting Caines Sacrifice was because hee did not bring of the best of his fruites as one cause of his accepting Abels was because hee did bring of the choicest of his flock not that God looketh to these outward things but to the minde of the doer which for the most part if necessity hinder not doth shew it selfe in the valew and worth of the gift He that loves God will bring him as full a Sacrifice as hee can hee that loves him not will give him as leane a Sacrifice as it may stand with his credit to give A man whose heart is not upright with God will be at as little cost with him as is possible A man that is upright with him will inlarge his bounty towards him you shall see in Mal. 1.13 that God refuseth the Sacrifices because they were halt and blinde the worst and refuge of all and he curseth the deceiver that hath in his flock a male and voweth and sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing and verse 8. he saith Offer it now to thy governour will hee be pleased with thee and accept thy person saith the Lord The Lord knowes that niggardlinesse towards him shewes want of love and faith but freenesse and bounty shewes truth of love and of faith and because he looketh to the heart therefore hee liketh that gift which comes from a loving and faithfull heart and hates that which comes from a contrary heart Learne therein to imitate Abel bring to God the best things you have he must have the fat the fat I say of your heards or flocks The chiefest of your affections must be his and your affections must shew themselves in action You must be willing to serve him with a costly service and be ever of Davids mind that said I will not serve God without charge Now these two things you have in the Text of Abel two other things you have in another place Heb. 11. He offered a better Sacrifice then Caine by faith Hee offered in faith and that caused him to bring a better that is I suppose he meanes there a more costly Sacrifice of better worth and valew of more price and cost not the cost but the faith that made him willing to be at the cost and the cost alone as it was a fruit and signe of the faith did content God and made the Sacrifice acceptable Let us learne therefore to doe all wee doe in faith The faith that good Abel had was the same that after is commended in Henoch hee was perswaded that God was and was a rewarder of them that diligently seeke him it was such as that which the Apostle there describeth it was the evidence of things not seene and the substance of things hoped for It was such an apprehension of Gods being and goodnesse to true Converts and such a perswasion of his will to give him the future invisible things hoped for as made Abel serve God in the course of his life in righteousnesse and not alone for a time to come to the Altar and offer Sacrifice Sacrificing was a profession of their owne guiltinesse submitting themselves to the Justice of God as men worthy to die and be burnt as that beast or other thing to be burnt but withall of their hope that God would pardon them for his goodnesse sake through that true Sacrifice which was to come And hee that offered Sacrifice without this faith of Gods accepting him for his mercy sake and without acknowledgement of his worthinesse to perish did not please God and all our Sacrifices must be done in faith now more distinct because we have a fuller revelation wee must doe all wee doe in faith not alone a perswasion of the lawfullnesse of what we doe but also an indeavour to trust particularly for our acceptation both of persons and Sacrifices in Christ not in the worthinesse of our selves or of our workes He that hath this faith he and his services shall please God hee that hath it not cannot please God whatsoever he doth Let mee therefore commend unto you the care of searching into your hearts whether you have this faith or no viz. that you beleeve your selves in your selves to be miserable sinners but confesse that Christ Jesus is a perfect Saviour and therefore even trust upon Gods mercie in him for grace and salvation But the Scripture saith that Abel was righteous and saith that he obtained witnesse that hee was righteous Where hath hee that witnesse Partly in that God testified of his gifts by accepting them for he accepts nothing but that which comes from a righteous man he heareth no sinners or more fully from the mouth of our blessed Saviour who calleth him righteous Abel Note therefore that Abel was a righteous man The Scriptures give infinite comfort and commendation to the righteous man Now there is a righteousnesse of the Law and of the Gospell A righteous man by the Law we shall finde none in all the world for S. Paul telleth us that by the workes of the Law no flesh shall be justified before God and that there is none righteous no not one and Iob saith of himselfe in this sence that if hee went to
pardon and strive to transgresse no more Also note that Abraham drawes Sarah here to sinne in such a kinde as did even hazard and indanger her chastity once or twice O let good men take heed of drawing one another to sin for our sin will so indanger another that we know not when we shall be rid of the evill fruits of our feares and dissemblings When a man is in perill he doth not likely look about him to see those mischiefes that will follow the bad courses he takes to free himselfe from the present evill Sure if he would fore-see them he would rather suffer the danger of feare then expose himselfe to the bad consequents of his escape Would not Abraham rather have hazarded himselfe by saying she is my wife then of making her commit adultery by saying she is my sister if he had well considered of it before hand But yet note we that Abraham fell into this sinne once and againe and if occasion had served was ready to fall into it often as we have alledged his agreement with Sarah before He did it first in Pharaohs Countrie then in Abimelechs Countrie and intreated Sarah to doe so where ever he came so for want of due considering a good man may runne into the same grosse sinne againe and againe yea and be ready to runne into it very often if he were put to it as we see also in Isaac in the same kinde There is a double sinne of ignorance One concerning the fact in generall when one knowes not that such a thing is unlawfull the other concerning this particular fact when I doe not take notice and observe that this act of mine is such a sinne Often it falls out that Gods children through the strength of some passion or corruption as here out of feare doe not consider of their particular actions and so run often into foule offences out of this particular ignorance as I may call it they know the proposition deceit is a sinne but the assumption this is an act of deceit is not added for want of considering and therefore the conscience doth not presse this is a deceitfull act you must not doe it Now when we finde our selves upon better consideration to have beene carried thus to doe evill we must not be dismayed but renew our repentance and rest on Gods mercy in Christ for pardon and so for the future resolve to forbeare the sinne Also we must learne often to consider of our owne waies least any such faults be found in us Mans heart is full of blindnesse and selfe-deceit and unlesse he shake himselfe as it were and examine his waies often in his owne heart he may live in some great offence and not finde it and though these kinds of sinnes will not hazard his salvation yet they may bring divers crosses and miseries and much reproach and give much offence and procure sore temptations and much disquietment of conscience to him afterwards Let us not animate our selves to sinne by the falls of the Saints but rather worke in our selves an holy feare of our selves and care of avoiding such sins Now I come to Abrahams last sinne which was his taking of Hagar a fault in it selfe for God made one Man and one Woeman to shew that he would have marriage an individuall society of life betwixt one Man and one Woeman But that point was not knowne it seemes in those times and therefore both Sarah perswaded her husband and he condescended to take Hagar A good man may live in a few sinnes of ignorance and never particularly repent of them Take we heed therefore of condemning those who conceiving such and such things not to be sinnefull take boldnesse to live in them If want of will to see the light make a man to resist the light offering it selfe to his conscience because that he will not know fearefull is such a mans estate and I cannot see that this may stand with sanctification But if want of light or strength of impediments hinder from knowing wee should not condemne a man that in other things is upright for such faults onely we must labour with God to reveale to us our secret faults that so much as maybe we may free our selves from those sinnes of ignorance and take heed of taking things on trust upon the opinion and example even of most worthy men Wee goe forward in considering Abrahams example and must observe the benefits which God bestowed upon him These are of two sorts First Temporall then Spirituall The Temporall blessings are of two sorts First Those that were given to himselfe Secondly Those that were granted to others for his sake First for himselfe besides the common benefits of health and strength and wit and limbes and the like which most men receive at the hands of God He gave him first a good Wife Sarah who was obedient unto him as the Scripture noteth and did shew all respect and reverence to him calling him Sir or my Lord and though shee was a woeman and had her fraileties yet she was a good and dutifull wife unto him and in the maine a comfort unto him Abraham had his Sarah with whom he lived very comfortably in the state of matrimony and there never fell out that we read of but one alone discontent and brawle betwixt them which yet by the wisedome and moderation of Abraham was quickly made up and healed Now this benefit must be marked as a singular and excellent blessing to have a loving chast dutifull and respective wife is a great blessing All those to whom God hath vouchsafed the same mercy must see and acknowledge it with all thankfulnesse And if we consider that a bad wife is like continuall droppings and as rottennesse in ones bones and like oyle in his right hand which will quickly discover it selfe we shall learne the better to prize and esteeme this favour Hee that obtaineth a wife saith Salomon obtaineth mercy of the Lord. For house and goods be the inheritance of the Fathers but a good wife is of the Lord. And Salomon saith Who shall find a vertuous woeman her price is above the pearles The heart of her husband shall trust in her shee will doe him good and not evill all the dayes of his life This great benefit the Lord gave unto his servant Abraham All therefore that have obtained the like mercy in some measure must observe and valew aright so principall a blessing Though a man have an yoake-fellows in some things imperfect and weake yet if she be generally good will joyne with him in piety as Sarah did with Abraham and beare him company in all good things and will leave house and all to journey with him if God call them forth to any service it is a speciall goodnesse and a chiefe instrument of his comfort and welfare Sarah honoured Abraham Sarah obeyed Abraham she was ready to provide a feast for the Angels at
yea it doth appeare often that riches are laid up for the owners thereof for hurt And these be the benefits temporall which Abraham had for himselfe a good wife good children in their kinde and one religious good servants good friends good name good favour and great wealth to which add one particular benefit a great and famous victory over foure great and conquering Kings as the Holy Ghost telleth us Gen. 14.15 he pursued them he divided himselfe against them he and his servants by night and smote them and pursued them to Hobah and brought backe all the goods and Lot his brother and his goods and the women and his people An absolute victory was obtained by Abrahams wisedome and valour God gave him the wisdome God gave him the valour God gave him the successe The Prophet Esay sets forth Gods goodnesse to Abraham in generall as a sure argument that God will shew the like mercies to his people in after times bidding them looke unto Abraham and Sarah and saying Isa 51.2 I called him I blessed him and increased him and 41.2 3. He setteth forth this very benefit in magnificall phrases saying who raised up the righteous man from the East called him to his foot gave the nations before him and made him rule over Kings gave them as dust to his sword as driven stubble to his bow hee pursued them and passed safely by the way that he had not gone with his feete God would have his people take notice of this mercy in saving Abraham and making him victorious to assure them of his like love in defending them and giving them victory over all their enemies even the whole Church and each particular member thereof He that sheltered Abraham was with him gave Kings before him shall not he declare his love as much in future ages to his people Surely he is the same for ever Let this comfort us against all those that rise up against us But what did God for others for Abrahams sake First he blessed Lot the more for Abrahams sake and as it is noted Lot that went with Abraham had heards and after when God destroyed Sodome he thought of Abraham and delivered Lot also So God for a good mans sake will blesse and helpe even his friends and well-willers and those that belong to him shall be much the better for him according to the promise that he had made saying I will blesse them that blesse thee And for Abrahams children he blessed Isaac and gave him great outward things yea gave him also grace and made him heire of the Covenant and continued the Church in his house giving him a sonne in the life time of Abraham For Abraham had Isaac at a hundred and lived 175 yeares and Isaac married at forty and had Esau and Iacob at sixty so Abraham lived to see those two sonnes about five yeares old and gave outward things to Ishmael and abundance to him that Princes came of him in likelihood during Abrahams life time and he sent away his sonnes by Keturah with great riches and you know that even after Abrahams death God honoured him still by calling him his friend in many places and for his sake did great things for his sonnes after him in many generations Thus you see how worth the while it is to serve feare and obey God what abundant blessings he grants what honour and same even after death though all Gods people have not all these outward things in like manner bestowed upon them yet they have that which is sufficient for them and those that finde their friends and children happy in outward respects must observe Gods hand to be thankfull Yea we must all take notice of Gods like dealing with many of his people whose posterity flourish when they be dead some in goodnesse as well as goods and some at least in earthly respects and leave a good name behinde them so that many yeares after their decease their names are honourably mentioned and all men count them good and faithfull servants of God The name of the righteous is had in everlasting remembrance whilst they live and when they die God shewes himselfe gratious and bountifull to them even in temporall blessings oftentimes as well as spirituall But if any want these outward benefits they must consider of themselves whether their sinnes doe not deprive them thereof For sometimes such mercies are denied to Gods people to chastize and keepe downe and roote up some vices in them David was crossed in his children to correct his fondnesse and to chastize his adultery and murder Salomons posterity was brought low to chastize his Idolatry If in outward things the Lord seeme carelesse of his people they might easily finde by searching that some evill carriage of theirs hath caused him to chastize them in this life that by being brought to repentance they might not be destroyed and perish in another world and so much for these temporall benefits Now for spirituall blessings the first was that God called him out of his Countrey and Fathers house from the Idols of his Fathers house for they served false gods there Iosh 24.2 and acquainted him with himselfe the onely true God No greater blessing can befall a man here then to be called from a false religion to the true religion so that his heart be inclined also to the practise of the true religion and that he be effectually sanctified as was Abraham Wee must looke that wee have this mercy of effectuall calling Indeed from Idols and such kinde of false gods wee are called or rather we have beene kept from following them at all but ah are we called to walke before God in holinesse and righteousnesse not alone turning from darkenesse to light from a false religion to the true but from the power of Satan unto God that is from serving the Divell in a wicked life to serve God in an holy life If we be not so called we are not sonnes of Abraham and outward blessings will doe us little good If we be then wee have cause to rejoyce before the Lord our God with exceeding great joy for he that is so called happie is he This is a mercy of mercies to be a Saint by calling one whom God hath so wrought upon by his Spirit that his outward call hath wonne him from the state of corruption to the state of grace And if any finde not himselfe so called or finde it doubtfull to himselfe whether he have beene so called yea or not let him earnestly seeke to God for it and if wee would know whether we be called yea or not compare our selves with Abrahams Call Gen. 12.1 God had said meaning before his Fathers death before he dwelt in Charran saith Steven for though because Terah was the Father the departure is ascribed to him yet God gave the call first to Abraham and he acquainted his Father with it and so his Father went out and he with
man doth disobey God and transgresseth his Law in suffering it he doth alone receive misery to himselfe now the greatest misery is not so great an evill as the least sinne It behooveth us to take heed that our carnall reason doe never so over-sway us no not on the suddaine that wee should consent to act any evill for the procuring of any good And if wee have done otherwise wee are to impute it to our selves as a great weakenesse and so to confesse it and humble our selves for it before God Againe Lot lingred in Sodome till the Angels tooke him by the hand and in a kind of gratious violence set him in safety against his will Willing hee was to escape the destruction which was now falling upon Sodome but loath he was to save his life at so deare a rate as the loosing of all his substance It is a sinne to cleave so fast in affection to goods as not to be willing with the losse of all to save out lives He loves riches too well that will cast his life upon great danger for the saving of them and not gladly leave them all to free his life from perdition Satan could say Skinne for skinne and all that a man hath will hee give for the redemption of his life If wee have at any time found our heart so glewed to wealth that we have beene lingring about it to the manifest indangering of our lives much more our soules we should even heartily condemne our selves for too great lovers of riches Another sinne in Lot was that he was too timerous and durst not commit himselfe to the Mountaines whither yet he was faine at length to flie for feare least some or other mischiefe might befall him there and therefore was he so over-importunate for the sparing of that City because it was little might he not as well have trusted the Angels direction as his owne conceits and sought and expected safety in the Mountaines when they commanded him to escape thither Doubtlesse it is a fault not to trust God with our welfare but to cast in our heads what evill may befall us there where he doth send us for safety Let us not yeeld to our owne fancies nor frame perill to make us discontent with that estate to which God doth call us for we shall finde at length that our owne hopes will deceive us and we shall be never the farther of from danger because we followed our owne heads Let mee goe to Zoar saith he and my soule shall live but after he found that his soule could not live with comfort there Live where God would have us live and looke for his protection there where it shall please him to appoint us to live Now I come to his two last offences he suffered himselfe to be made drunken by his daughters two severall times one shortly after another You see how a good man may be overtaken with grievous sinnes and drawne by those whom he loveth and trusteth to grievous abhominations O let us feare our selves and pittie others and take heed wee suffer not our neerest friends to be a snare unto us Especially beware of drunkennesse it is not alone a great offence it selfe but laies us open to all other crimes Make a man drunken and he will easily be drawne to defloure his owne daughter Keepe your selves from excessive drinking of wine or strong drink It is raging it is mocking it will change you into very beasts and make you runne into such crimes as your soules at other times would even loath to thinke of Labour to be temperate or else you do hardly be chaste and modest Deprive not your selves of reason by pleasing your palate expose not your selves to the danger of the foulest of all sinnes by so base a pleasure as satisfying the tast with the relish of this liquor And all you Governours and Magistrates set your selves with all diligent severity to prevent and beate downe drunkennesse if this offence abound all other evills will abound with it Now wee come to Lots benefits First God drew him out of his sinnes and gave him repentance else S. Peters words had not beene true that called him a just man O how great a mercy of God is this not to call us from the state of corruption at first but when wee have almost departed backe againe to folly to recall us from our grievous sinnes and heale our wounded soules by causing us to repent unfainedly Presume not on this mercy but if you have found it praise God most earnestly for it and let not the greatnesse of sinne discourage you from returning unto God againe for such is his grace that he will readily receive you after such wandrings Againe you see that God gave him riches great store the Lord can give the same to other of his people with as plentifull a hand but if hee doe not you see in Lot what cause there is not to murmure for riches did undoe Lot almost and therefore was God faine to take them all againe because hee could not so use them as not to set his heart too much upon them If God hath beene pleased to grant you these things let Lots example make you carefull to keepe your hearts from being too much inamoured of them Further Lot obtained a gracious deliverance for himselfe and his wife and his daughters out of the burning of Sodome hee lamented their sinnes and escapeth the punishment Learne the best way to save your selves from common stroakes even by bewailing the common sinnes and prooving your selves to be righteous persons Yea God yeelded much to Lots weakenesse in granting him leave to goe to Zoar and saving that City also for his sake Surely God is as ready also now to passe by weakenesses and will much more willingly grant the better digested petitions of his servants Now Lots misery first hee was taken Captive and lost all his goods Secondly hee lost his goods againe in Sodome Thirdly his Wife Lastly hee was plagued with wicked children that drew him to grievous offences Prepare to loose all you have especially if you finde your soules over-earnestly addicted to them and cause not God to pull them out of your hands by setting your hearts upon them Prepare your hearts to loose your yoake-fellowes by some strange and unexpected accidents Prepare to have your children naught and wicked and take heed that your owne folly in choosing for wealths sake an evill place of habitation be not an instrument of making them such yea learne to be thankfull that God hath yet saved you from such miseries and make your smaller crosses seeme lighter to you then else they would by comparing them with these so heavie and burdensome crosses Now what became of Lot after all this the Scripture doth not speake and therefore here wee leave and will speake two words of his Wife also first the benefits shee received Secondly the sinne shee committed Thirdly the punishment that
fell upon her The benefits shee received were two first shee was redeemed from the Captivity of the Kings that had taken her selfe Husband Daughter and whole Family prisoners in the Conquest of Sodome where they dwelt at that time and upon their deliveance neither shee nor her husband had the grace to consider of it and to remoove from Sodome and dwell againe in some better place neerer Abraham Secondly shee was delivered out of the burning of Sodome together with her Husband and Daughters saving that shee made the benefit unprofitable to her selfe by her sinning And her sinne though it seemed little in respect yet indeed was very great The matter was small the transgression was great as in great poyson fullnesse may be found in a small quantity of liquor even in a drop or lesse then a drop Shee was forbidden by the Angell that sent her forth to looke backe to Sodome and yet expressely against that charge shee did looke backe the cause of that prohibition may seeme to have beene this the Lord knowing her too eager affection to the goods shee left behinde her would have her now cast off that inordinate passion and accepting the goodnesse of God in giving her her life for a prey not so much as to turne and looke towards Sodome but trust God for goods who had now vouchsafed them life but shee belike thinking as many of us would have thought as good die as be sent away a beggar and destitute of all things could not keepe her heart constant in taking notice of the great benefit of escaping the fire but out of griefe to leave house and all after her turned backe to salute them once againe with her eye This sinne was compounded of disobedience to God speaking in the Angell and dis-esteeme of the present mercy and over-grieving the losse of her wealth Take heed you give not your selves leave to commit a thing expressely forbidden for usually much naughtinesse concurreth to produce such an act so the Lord that searcheth the heart accounteth that great which your blindnesse maketh you to esteeme nothing and so to punish it many times with some heavie punishment As it befell this woman her punishment was to be turned into a Pillar of salt The Lord instantly smote her with death and taking her soule from her body changed the body into a pillar which whether it be called a pillar of salt because it was of that matter or because of the everlasting continuance of it as an everlasting Covenant is called a covenant of salt I cannot determine The latter seemeth to mee the more probable howsoever shee is set forth to us for an example by which wee may informe our selves thus much that when God hath chastened us and by our chastisements taken pittie upon us and granted us deliverances and yet wee profit so little by both as to continue faulty in the same faults wee shall then finde his hand more heavie upon us by some exemplary blow as it is noted by David that though the Lord brought the people out of Egypt yet hee did after destroy them in the wildernesse that did not beleeve Let us feare least the Lord set us up also as Monuments of his just severity when hee findes us not reformed by former goodnesse and gentlenesse * ⎠* THE TVVELFTH EXAMPLE OF LOTS Daughters and others of that time WEE have finished the things that are recorded of Lots selfe and his Wife Next let us tell you what is recorded of his two Daughters Their names their birth their death the Lord vouchsafeth not to mention and of their life not much is written and that which is tends all to their reproach First good deeds we have none for which to commend them or in which to follow them but bad deeds too many considering how great they were Their first sinne was that they consulted together and agreed about a most abhominable sinne nay a paire of grievous crimes at once In which the first-borne did make the motion and the younger gave her consent In the consultation about it see what reason induced and what it is to which they were induced by that reason The reason is 1. Their Fathers age who being now shortly to leave the world they would not have his off-spring perish in themselves 2. The want of other men to company with them there is not a man in all the earth to come in unto us after the earth They wanted other husbands to beget children of them in lawfull matrimonie Surely their late abode in Zoar might cause them to know that the whole world was not destroyed if they meant that there was never another man left with whom they might joyne themselves they did beguile themselves too too palpably for onely Sodome and Gomorrha and Admah and Zeboim foure Cities of the plaine were consumed with fire from Heaven the rest stood in their former estate Zoar they had seene standing and left it with their Father and seeing they dwelt upon a Mountaine they could not but discerne other Cities round about for that Countrey was full of Townes and people It is like therefore that they meant none neere unto us none of our blood and kindred But why should they make doubt of marrying any other besides their owne kindred They had beene betrothed to husbands in Sodome might they not as well marrie any other Cananite as a Citizen of Sodome It is apparant that their reasons were frivolous and vaine yet upon them they build a full resolution of committing two fearefull offences for they agree together saying Come let us make our Father drinke Wine and then let us lie with him to preserve seed of him They would seeme each to other to be carried with libidinous fancies as if lust led them but that a desire of preserving seed was the motive to the villanous designe Wee see how mans nature is easily drawne by weake and poore grounds to runne into very loathsome and foule crimes Better the world should have wanted continuance and ended in their persons then have it stored with an incestuous off-spring No other meeting together of man and woman if it had beene in the way of Matrimony is simply and of it selfe unlawfull but onely that of Parents and children for there was a time when the Brother married the sister without fault as in the beginning when the world had no other persons in it but brethren and sisters but never at any time was it lawfull for the daughters to have the Father or the Mother the sonne This therefore was the most unlawfull mixture in the same kinde and of different Sexe that possibly could be Yet upon a slender pretext that they knew not how to come by any other man and so their Fathers posterity should perish they consent to accomplish it Had they not beene made more then ordinarily immodest with the conversation of impure Sodomites they would have beene restrained with shame and
earnestly strive to disswade or perswade a Ruler in such things It is weakenesse enough in a Governour on such an occasion to say nay but to chafe and bee angry is a double fault wee finde noe such distemper in Iacob This is the good of Reuben His afflictions so farre as is recorded were not many indeed none but what was common with his other Bretheren except we may count that a crosse that hee was suffred to sinne so farre and doubtlesse it was a corrasive to him all his dayes after and that his fore-mentioned griefe as it was in some sence an act of vertue so it was a suffering of evill For to be grieved for some misery like to befall our friends is a great misery to him that so grieveth But one crosse hee had that his Father did minde him of his fault on his death-bed before all his bretheren and did then and there dis-inherit him he tooke it well and made no angry reply It is an affliction to bee dis-inherited or otherwise deprived of any benefit which else wee should have had because of our sinnes And wee must learne when such a crosse is laid upon us to beare it quietly and fruitfully too I meane so as not to breake forth in anger and discontent against him that doth withdraw such things from us nor yet to passe it over sleightly and carelesly as not regarding the hand of God but to accept it as a just punishment of our faults and make it a meanes of renewing and increasing our Repentance Of the benefits of Reuben besides the common we read of his fruitfullnesse for hee had divers sonnes when they went downe to Aegypt and so hee made one of the twelve Tribes Wee have noted this mercy afore in others let us take heed that the commonnesse of this mercy make us not disvalew it A benefit is no whit lesse to be esteemed because the Lord vouchsafeth to communicate it to many and it is nothing but our folly that takes occasion to sleight such favours Now I come to Simeon and Levi we have their speciall sin and the punishment of it noted The sinne is double First They were the Actors of that bloudy and ragefull murder and spoyle committed on the Sichemites in killing Hamor Shechem and all the Males They drew their swords and went in boldly on the third day when all were sore and slew all the men they met withall Iacob doth curse their rage and anger and doth abominate the same It is a grievous sinne to kill men in a wrathfull passion without just warrant and calling from God indeed to kill one particular person is sinne enough and calleth for the Sword of the Magistrate to cut of the sinner how much more to fill ones hands with bloud and kill as here a whole city or towne Murder is a sinne against the light of Scripture and of Nature against the Lawes of GOD and every well ordered Common-weale a grosse sinne and palpable a mischievous sinne wronging the Person murdered in his life the pretiousest thing hee hath with an irrecoverable wrong wronging his Friends wronging the Common-weale and wronging GOD extreamely in presumptuous incroching upon his prerogative to be the taker as hee hath beene the giver of life O be thankfull to the living God that hee hath kept you from this red and crimson sinne especially if any have beene so inflamed with rage as once David that he hath even desired and resolved and intended and attempted to commit murder as it fell out to David and he hath kept him from it either by preventing the occasion or some counsell comming betwixt or some diverting of the blow or the like O let him be thankfull that he hath escaped the fact of murder as well as be humble that he hath desired to commit the fault Wee must not ascribe to our selves the immunity from grosse sinnes and please our selves in our estate because of it but we must give God the glory and loath and abase our selves and our bad nature that should fall into them if wee were left to our selves chiefely if nothing have stopped us from them but want of opportunity And now ever mortifie anger and wrath and revengefull boyling of heart for he that nourisheth wrath malice envie in his spirit within shall at last be carried away so farre with that inward distemper that if occasion offer it selfe he shall flame forth into the grosse act of murder All corruptions being fed in the heart within doe gather such strength that if there be fitnesse of occasion they will breake out indeed O bring not your selves into such a temper that the Divell shall have you in readinesse to make murderers of if ever hee can fit you with time and place and other circumstances Beware of blouds beware of blouds this sinne teares the conscience in an hundred peeces when once it is made sensible This sinne leaves a deepe staine it begets grievous horrors and makes the soule still fierce in pronouncing evill against it after it hath beene fierce in doing so great an evill unto others Pray to God to preserve you from it and get meeke gentle quiet patient spirits which may keepe you from being provoked with wrongs And if any of you have transgressed in this kinde though not in so high a degree let the example of these two incourage him to repent and make him flie to the throne of grace that God would worke in him true repentance and both pardon and heale him You see two young men here drowned in a river of bloud most innocent bloud by them most causelesly and groundlesly spilt you see them yet pardoned Nay they were stained with their brothers bloud whom they consented to kill and actually sould for a slave and yet they be pardoned Runne to God hee can pardon many murders as well as one angry word and will doe it if you submit and convert He that judgeth himselfe for his sinnes past resolving thoroughly by Gods helpe to reforme his heart and life and takes boldnesse to aske remission and sanctification at Gods hand in Christs name shall be pardoned although the guilt of the bloud of God the son did sticke to his fingers But another fault they committed when their Father in the bitternesse of his soule and his great feares told them of their fault and their danger they shewed no repentance no feare at all either of God or men but returned him a surly kinde of foolish excuse saying should he abuse our sister as a whore If you frame this answer into a due forme of reasoning and apply it to the justifying of their murder for to that purpose they alledged it it must runne thus If any man wrong us notoriously wee may and will kill him and there is no cause of reprehending us but hee hath done so for he hath abused our sister as an whore wherefore we doe not deserve to be reprooved for killing them First if
even in the land of Goshen Thus it behoveth a good King yea and a good man to favour still whom he hath begun deservedly to favour and for his sake to shew all good esteeeme to his friends and kindred so farre as they shew not themselves unworthy to be favoured Constancy in loving and honouring a worthy man becomes Kings and largenesse of love even a kind of royall love beseemeth their persons and places for a worthy servants sake to advance his Father Bretheren and kindred This is a right Kingly love and such as can sort alone with men of such high quality Meaner persons want meanes to shew their favourable respect in such a spreading manner Indeed to preferre unworthy persons because they be of kinne to a man of great worth and much favoured is not agreeable to the rules of wisdome but let them be men capeable of favour and he doth not love a man thoroughly that for his sake doth not also love those that are neere unto him And if Princes have such a Princely love to their vertuous favourites how much more hath the living God to his These be things commendable in Pharaoh For his faults God hath beene pleased to reveale none but that common fault hee continued an Heathen though he had a Ioseph in his Court and highly preferred by himselfe It is a hard matter to get out of darkenesse and to come into light a divine spirit must joyne with the meanes or else the meanes will prove ineffectuall Let us pray to God to leade us into the knowledge of his truth or else we may live long with them that know it and yet learne nothing of it It is in our nature to settle our selves in the religion of our forefathers and not to consider whether it be true and good yea or not A kind of slitenesse in matter of religion doth raigne in the world men will not be at the trouble to examine that which they find in use they will not hazard themselves in crossing the common-voice so they swimme downe the streame and runne into perdition for company Let us be carefull to examine the things that we finde and seeing God hath vouchsafed us the happy guidance of his word let us learne to try all things and hold fast the good Onely in crying we must take heede that we be not of a kind of crosse humour that will strive to goe in a single way and will refuse things upon sleight grounds as if they were glad to find occasion to goe alone And so much for Pharaohs faults too Now his prosperity was great First God warned him of the Famine before hand that hee might prevent the danger of it to his people a great mercy to be made to understand evills long before that a man may hide himselfe from the evill of them the wisedome of man can alone guesse of future things and of some it cannot so much as guesse O how great favour doth God shew to men when he will lend them a little part of his Wisdome and tell them what mischiefes are comming on the world So God told David how Saul and the men of Keilah would have conspired against him Christ foretold his Disciples of the ruine of Ierusalem and made them able to save themselves out of that destruction Now wee must learne to esteeme it a greater mercy that we are forewarned of the evill to come in another world and acquainted with the onely meanes of flying from that unsufferable wrath Let us be as carefull to beleeve those predictions and to follow that counsell for escaping the mischiefe foretold as here Pharaoh was to beleeve Ioseph and to take his counsell and then shall we as assuredly escape the misery of eternall destruction as he and his Countrey escaped the unhappinesse of Famine A second benefit God gave Pharaoh a Ioseph a worthy servant a man of excellent Wisdome and faithfullnesse fit for that high honour of being Second to Pharaoh who in all things behaved himselfe as became a wise and godly man The Lord cannot give a greater benefit to a King and a Kingdome then by preferring a Ioseph by providing such a man and inclining the hearts of Kings to favour such this is a mercy which our prayers must obtaine for our King and for our selves Lord send Iosephs to the Court and guide the heart of his Majesty to love and advance Iosephs A third mercy he grew exceeding wealthy and a mighty Prince possessor in a manner of all the land of Egypt and had all the people as his servants to plow the ground for him so that he was a rich and mighty Prince But when Princes or other men become very great and high many times their weakenesse and corruptions turne that benefit into a misery and occasion of much mischiefe learne so to receive this benefit as to be earnest for grace to use it well that it may not turne to your destruction But of Pharaohs crosses we reade nothing he was so prosperous a King that no adverse accident is recorded to have befallen him Even to escape great crosses must be accounted a great mercy and if the Lord have caused any mans life amongst us to runne with so even a threed as it were that no adversity hath interrupted it he is so to take notice of this mercy as to take heed withall that he flatter not himselfe with vaine thoughts as if he were therefore much in Gods favour because of such immunity from outward evills Not so but we must ever remember that in the Psalme That the wicked are lusty and strong that they have no bonds in their death and that they be not in adversity as other men Hitherto of Pharaoh now of the Aegyptians both the land in generall and the chiefe officers about Pharaoh The land of Egypt was a rich land and fertile the Holy Ghost doth not speake much of their idolatry in Genesis But in after times they were infamous for it and there did Israel learne to be Idolatrous If God leave a people to themselves they will soone degenerate either into prophanenesse and a meere contempt of God or into false worship and Idolatry How thankfull ought wee to be to whom the Lord hath pleased to reveale his truth and to keepe us farre from worshipping a false god or embracing a false religion But we have an example of some good in these Egyptians and a great vertue it was they submitted themselves to their Governours with a very great submission The Famine lay upon them they were content to buy corne of Ioseph for money and when that failed to pawne their cattell and when that meanes was gone to sell their lands and themselves and did not rebell and with strong hand take corne to themselves whither Pharaoh and Ioseph would or not This was a most commendable thing in the Egyptians they would rather sell themselves to the skinne yea sell themselves
may be couragious in all things First be sure the causes in which you put your selves in hazard be good and just Secondly be sure that you take God along with you by keeping his favour in a holy conversation as Abraham did or else courage may quickly faile and deceive you And next learne to deale prudently in all affaires as Abraham did in seeking the helpe of his confederates and taking the opportunity of night and dividing his men against his enemies into severall bands The excellency of a businesse is in the wise carriage of it labouring to get convenient aid and helpe and then choosing fit times and seasons and other circumstances We must blame our selves therefore if by any indiscretion or failing we have hindered our owne good successe in our affaires as often times men doe and must pray to God to direct us with discretion for it is his gift that we be not causes of our owne disappointment and misery Now see how Abraham behaved himselfe to frin-men as we call them 1. To the Sodomites 2. To the Cananites 3. To Angels whom he tooke to be travellers First to the Sodomites first he did most heartily intercede to God for their sparing if there had beene found 50.40 30 20. Yea but 10. just men therein So great a lover of good men was Abraham that he would heartily pray to God to save them and for their sakes to save also the people whom they dwelt amongst and how well pleasing this service was to God it is evident in the storie Gen. 18.23 ad finem For God did with wonderfull patience accept his suites even till hee came to so low a rate as if he did finde but 10. in the 5. Cities that is a poore couple in every City Wee must learne hence to shew our loves to man-kind in generall and especially to just and good men in praying God for all righteous men that they may be saved and delivered and for the Societies and Cities and countries wherein we live that they also might prosper and escape for the good sake of the good that live there Fervent prayer for humane societies and for just men in them should be made by Gods people Why should you not improve the right you have unto Gods eares For the good of many I will that prayers and supplications be made for all men saith S. Paul especially to pray that God would deliver Cities and Countries from publike and fearefull destructions Bretheren why are we so defective in this duty Why do we not pray for the nations abroad in hope that there may be some righteous amongst them why are our mouthes stopped from such suites Let us now follow our Father here and let our heartes and mouthes be inlarged with all humble confidence to beseech God for the good of those Cities and quarters of Christendome that are ready to eate up one another that God would shew favour to them and not give them over to perish by the sword each of other Account Prayer an exercise of some efficacie have so much faith as to know that our prayers shall not be vaine labours and that you beleeve that God is a God that heareth prayers onely let all your prayers be as Abrahams were servent humble and reverend Another good worke of Abraham to the Sodomites was that he did not make them slaves to himselfe and keepe them for his owne use nor sell them as slaves to others as by the Law of Nations he might well have done but granted them liberty and set them againe in state of freedome after he had by the sword taken them out of the hands of those that had led them captive He shewed humanity and kindnesse to them though they were wicked men and not rigour and extremity Wee must all learne to be kinde and loving to mankinde and not to presse men with heavie and grievous burdens even though wee might doe it in extremity of right This shall bring more love and good will honour and good esteeme then rougher and more severe carriage It is better to be loved then hated honoured then disgraced be counted a friend and saviour of men then a proud person that cares not what becomes of others so that himselfe may make an advantage of them The comfort that gentlenesse and clemencie bringeth is also very much more then that which will follow from the contrary The dying heart can receive no content in thinking he hath crushed inthralled or otherwise afflicted men but that he hath delivered comforted saved them that affoordeth great consolation in that it becommeth an argument of goodnesse and a meanes of hope that a man shall finde mercy as he hath shewed and exercised it Let not either covetousnesse or arrogancie or a cruell disposition make you carrie your selves austerely to men for your owne advantage sake but use all courtesie as Abraham did even to these Sodomites Let them enjoy good things even though you have power and some shew of right to deprive them thereof onely doe not interrupt justice in her acts of severity This was his dealing with the Sodomites in generall See how his dealing is with the King as you have it Gen. 14.21 He would not take any thing that was his no not to a shooe-latcher and he saith that he had lift up his hands to God to that end that it might not be said by the King of Sodome I have made Abraham rich Here Abraham shewes himselfe first a man that did not regard riches nor esteeme the wealth of this world in that of his owne accord he bound himselfe by a vow not to touch so great a bootie as this that fell into his hands by just conquest and which in all equity he might have taken and that with good thankes too for the present time from the King of Sodome who wished alone the persons and did willingly yeeld the goods to Abraham but Abraham stood upon termes here of credit for his Religion sake and would not have the King of Sodome to triumph and say that his wealth had inriched Abraham You see that we should so dis-valew riches as freely to cast them away and deny our selves of them rather then incurre any reproach or disgrace for them even though the imputation would be unjust Should not all men labour to have as generous a minde as Abraham Sure we should strive for the perfection of vertue which hath beene found in the Saints It cannot be said yet Abraham should have sinned if he had taken this spoyle neither was hee bound so much to the Sodomite as to affoord him either persons or goods but he considered before hand that some aspersion of covetousnesse would have beene cast upon him if he should have possessed himselfe of this wealth and therefore he bindes himselfe from it by a vow Noble Abraham that regardest due esteeme rather then great riches and wouldst let goe so faire a morsell rather then incurre any the least
agreement is not so cordiall and hearty as it ought to be But the next Crosse in Lot was worse for in the spoile of Sodome he was spoiled and taken captive by those that tooke the Sodomites captive This comming to Abrahams eares pierced him indeed that his loving Cousin who had beene brought up in his house with him and had borne him company in all his peregrination from Vr till almost that time should fall into the hands of so cruell enemies should have his cattell and goods seized upon and himselfe and wife and children made slaves and bondmen This affliction is usuall enough in the world Much misery and distresse befalls them to whom wee wish well and we suffer in their sufferings whom naturall affection doth so indeere us unto as that wee cannot but have a fellow-feeling with them in their distresses as the members of the body suffer by consent But a second evill that I had almost forgotten pinched Abraham in Lot for Lot lost all in Sodome and went and dwelt in the Mount and there lay with his two daughters and begat of each of them a sonne This was no doubt noised abroad it came to Abrahams eares and filled his heart with a great deale of griefe that such a man as he had taken Lot to be and found him to be after God had afflicted and chastened him and also shewed him mercy and delivered him should runne into so monstrous and unnaturall sinnes as to commit incest not with one of his daughters which had beene farre too much but even with both of them one after the other This I say pierced Abrahams soule to thinke of he could not but be sensible of all the bitter reproachfull taunts that the true religion of God would suffer for this crime of Lot The sinnes and crimes of those that are deare to us and the reproach that followes thence both upon themselves and sometimes upon the truth of God which they professe must needs breede much heavinesse unto good men and sometimes the providence of God so disposeth of things that the people of God shall be humbled so as Paul saith God would humble him he feared when he should finde many impenitent sinners in Corinth and it had brought anguish to his heart that the incestuous man had not alone so shamefully offended but also beene tolerated by the Church as no doubt also the heare-say of Rubens incest was a great vexation of heart to Iacob when the report of it was brought unto him Now see what Abraham suffered in his owne house in respect of his wives and children First his wife Sarah a good woman and deare to him was twice taken away from him once by the King of Egypt and after by the King of Gerar and he could not but be grieved at it so much the more because it came to passe by his owne default and sinne and because shee was so taken away as that it was likely every day that shee should have beene married to another man or at least have beene made a minister to serve his lust What an anguish was this thinke you How did this gaule his heart when he abode alone in his Tent and Sarah was not in hers when he lay alone at home and Sarah bare him not company yea when shee was perhaps in the bosome of another man to whom he had betrayed her by his cowardly feares and dissembling it scarce befalleth any of us to meete with such a crosse in his wife But secondly Sarah his wife was barren shee had no children fruitfullnesse and shee were parted as the Holy Ghost noteth This affliction hath befallen many good women and it was so much the more bitter to Abraham because he did not intend to take any other woman but that at last Sarah when her selfe was now by meanes of age past all hope did earnestly perswade him unto it To be childlesse is a crosse wherewith some are exercised but to Abraham it was a worse crosse then ordinary because the want of a childe was to him the want of salvation too for himselfe and all Nations were to be blessed in his seede So that if hee had had no sonne hee could have had no Heaven and nothing stood as a stronger objection against his being saved then his being childlesse Barrennesse with this aggravation comes not to any of us and if God had not eased this burden to Abraham by often renewing the promise of a child unto him doubtlesse it would have afflicted him sore But another crosse in Sarah upon occasion of Hagar there fell out a great jarre betwixt him and Sarah and shee that ever before had shewed her selfe a dutifull and respective wife now brake forth into much tartnesse and passion with him eagerly and wrongfully charging him to maintaine Hagar against her and to be the cause of her stubborne and contemptuous carriage This sounded harshly in Abrahams eares and this language was tedious to be so rated by Sarah it made him thinke the case strangely altered Indeed he by his wisdome calmed the tempest very soone it continued not long but it was a soure thing for the time many a man hath the same trouble for matter but more frequent and more lasting A wives passions are an husbands sufferings her anger and discontent and brawles with maides and men and children sometimes fall upon him and shee is ready causelesly to quarrell with him when she is displeased with them this crosse is so much the more tedious by how much a man doth more affect and love his wife and sometimes too it is aggravated by this that hee hath some way beene an occasion of it though unwittingly But lastly Abraham buried Sarah she died before him and he was faine to part with her unto the dust This calamity falleth upon many men to bury their wives but to many it is not a calamity they know how very quickly to make this affliction nothing by a speedy bringing in of another but to Abraham who loved Sarah and had long lived with her it must needes be matter of sorrow and so the Scripture witnesseth saying Hee rose up from before his dead whether hee had gone before to mourne and weepe for her These things he suffered in his wife Sarah Now in his Concubine Hagar first her ill carriage to Sarah was surely a griefe to Abraham when two such persons fall at oddes hee that is a common friend to both suffers in both The custome of Poligamie is weeded out of the Christian world so that men now are happier then to be vexed with the mutuall brawling of two Antagonists as I may call them but now the contentions of neere friends do fall out somewhat bitter sometimes to them that love both so well that they know not where to take part Secondly When shee was now great by him she ran away from him and Sarah and carried the fruite of his body away with her This no doubt
it shall be easier with the Sodomites then the Capernaites at the day of judgement so shall it be for the servants of profanest Masters then for you that serve good and holy Masters and Mistresses Secondly Hagar had the favour of her Mistresse very much else you may assure your selves that shee would never have made her a Concubine to her husband neither would Abraham have taken her to be Concubine wife if hee had not thought some good of her This therefore was a benefit to her that she was well reputed of both by Abraham and Sarah both the Governours of the family were well affected unto Hagar and this is a great comfort unto a servant that their Rulers entertaine them with good liking approoving well of them and of their services for by that meanes they be made capable of enjoying much comfort in their lives and of receiving such curtesies and rewards from their Governours as they be capable of and of escaping much hard usage which else they should likely feele This should teach all servants to doe their uttermost indeavour that they may to winne the love of their Governours by submissivenesse and obedience performing the commandement of the Apostle who commandeth to doe service with good will and to please them well in all things and to serve with feare and to doe the will of God from the heart remembring that they serve the Lord Christ and if God will as he hath promised give them reward of inheritance he will much more cause the hearts of their Governours to favour and accept them Thus Ioseph gat his Masters good will and was great in his house this is the right way to procure favour take this course and God shall be with you but put away farre from you all crossing and thwarting and idlenesse and eye-service and answering againe and the like evill carriages which will alienate your Rulers hearts from you and make you seeme hatefull to them and if any of you doe not finde your Governours good liking take heed that your own naughty behaviour have not beene the cause of it And if you have it take heed of abusing it to wrong both them and your selves and all you Governours learne to shew favour to your servants unlesse their sinfullnesse hinder it For the favour of a King shall be to a good servant saith Salomon and hee that waiteth on his Master shall be promoted to honour as he that tendeth a figtree shall eate of the fruit of it Furthermore Hagar received great mercies from God for he gave her to conceive by Abraham and when she ran away met with her and directed her to goe backe againe which shee acknowledged with great thankes for he gave her also a heart to goe backe and submit to her Mistresse This is a great favour of God if he finde us in our out-strayings and give us both direction and will to come into the right way againe Pray to God that he would thus guide you and not suffer you to continue and perish in your out-strayings Another mercy of God to Hagar was that shee had Ishmael and a promise that God would be with him and blesse him and make him a great man and that he made Ishmael after dutifull to her for he was guided by her in taking a wife which she had chosen for him If children have not grace yet if they prosper in the world and yeeld themselves dutifully to their Parents to be guided by them they must acknowledge it as a great favour from Heaven Againe it was a speciall goodnesse of God to her that when shee wandred in the wildernesse and the water was spent and her sonne was ready to die for thirst God pitied both him and her and shewed her a Well whereby shee gat water to give him and promised to blesse him and so he revived and lived and prospered All these favours Hagar had Consider what crosses she felt for some bitter things she met withall as well as these comfortable and pleasing things First the hard usage of Sarah was tedious to her and so much the more tedious by how much she was more guilty of pulling it on her selfe by her disobedience stubbornenesse rude and contemptuous carriage All you that be servants if you finde your Governours sharp and rigorous consider with your selves whether your irreverent and disobedient behaviour have nor provoked them against you and exposed you to this affliction and if so humble your selves before God first and after to them But if any have escaped this crosse let them blesse the name of God that hath kept them from stubborne and undutifull courses and given their governours wisedome and meekenesse not to be sharpe as some governours be without just cause Now another crosse to Hagar was this that she and her sonne were both sent out of Abrahams family in such a poore and ill provided manner as the story telleth us This is a misery very heavy to beare to be cast out of ones countrey and place of habitation where they lived comfortably and forced to want all those benefits being deprived of them all at once Wherefore take heed least by abusing these kinde of benefits you provoke not the Lord to cast you out of the Church or out of your houses and dwellings but make you a good use of such mercies that they may be continued to you and learne if such a crosse should befall you yet not to be disheartned and discouraged but to humble your selves before God knowing that in such extremity the Lord is ready to helpe and succour you The last crosse of Hagars was that she saw her sonne Ishmael spent with thirst and ready to die and she was utterly destitute of all meanes to helpe him not being able farther to ease him or her selfe but by getting out of sight and hearing and sitting downe to weepe and mourne This is a lamentable heart-breaking to a Parent if they be destitute of things needfull for this life whether by occasion of travell wandring out of the way or of penury and necessity at home How most heavie a heart hath a Father or Mother if they see their children ready to be famished through hunger and have no bread to breake unto them or are almost choaked through thirst and have no drink to bestow upon them neither know what to doe for them but to conveigh themselves out of sight and sitting downe to empty their griefes in teares This is a misery that God sent upon the Parents of Ierusalem by reason of famine and scarcity their children sowned in the streetes and no man could supply them with bread Lament 4.4 Wee must learne to blesse the name of God most heartily that hath freed us from this misery and hath not caused us to behold such a lamentable sight by one occasion or other but hath given us abundance of things necessary yea if he have not furnished us with great
Lord then that is a lover of truth and peace doth not likely leave such rebellions unpunished This therefore must cause us to detest much more as a much more plaine and fearefull crime the sinne of rebellion against those more rightfull Kings and Princes to whom we owe more subjection as being both naturall borne subjects and also having tyed our selves by an oath of allegiance and loyalty for the more confirming of us in our duty and stronger tying our consciences to it And the Pope that taketh upon him for his owne advantage you may be sure to dissolve and unloose such oathes dispencing with them and pretending to free mens consciences from the obligation of them and from all danger of sinne by breaking them carrieth himselfe exceeding wickedly and is most extreamely injurious to the consciences of men and to the peace of the world and most impudently bolde against the name of God and the sacred and inviolable power of an oath Bee you advertised that this is to set himselfe above God in undertaking to dispence with an oath taken by the holy name of God which the Lord himselfe did never yet dispence withall for hee that dispenceth with the conscience must be Lord of the conscience and hee that dissolveth an oath must be greater then he that bindeth to the oath and by the oath and that is the living God alone whose Name is invocated in an oath Wherefore abhorre you this man of sinnes impious boldnesse and learne also to abhorre all manner of rebellion learning of Salomon not to meddle with the seditious but to feare God and honour the King and shew all good fidelity and allegiance unto him for conscience Rebellion against our Kings cannot be seperated from rebellion against God and this also is like the sinne of witchcraft or Idols If Israel must beare the yoake of the King of Babell how much more every people of their naturall Liege Lord and Soveraigne And this is the first sin of the Sodomites The next is that when the Lord did scourge them by the hand of Amraphel and his confederates so that they lost the day and many of them their lives and the rest their liberties and their goods and after delivered them againe by the valour of Abraham they were not any whit amended by this chastisement but their wickednesse continued still to make the same out-cry and shrill clamour in the eares of God as he told Abraham before It is a great wickednesse not to profit by corrections Hee that hardeneth his heart being often reproved much more corrected shall surely fall into mischiefe God complaines of Israel why should yee bee smitten any more and againe thy children would receive no correction It is a great provocation to a man against his inferiours if he have punished them for any offence and cannot finde them one whit amended Incorrigiblenesse increaseth wrath in all superiours For first it is a frustration of their hopes and labours and that is tedious Secondly it is a proofe that the offender is utterly heardened in an evill course and that doth stop the way against all further proceeding of clemency and makes justice arme it selfe with vengeance when mercy would be but abused if it should shew it selfe Bee warned therefore to compare your owne selves with these Sodomites and judge betwixt the Lord and your selves if you also have not profited naught by his corrections I will presse the point upon you in respect of every mans owne particular hath not God afflicted thee made thee groane and complaine with losses and crosses and more then one or two calamities and yet after deliverance granted you have returned to your vomit and againe are become wallowers in the mire even giving over your selves to the selfe same crime for which your owne soules did smite you in your miseries and told you plainely that for those very things the Lord sent those testimonies of his displeasure against you so great is that aggravation of thy fault and will cause the Lord to make his rods more smarting and if future amendment upon future and worse crosses doe not come betwixt to cut thee of and destroy thee at once as here you see in Sodome Indeed the most horrible abomination that they did publikely live in required so extraordinary and publike a punishment but the particular fault of one particular man in a matter vile enough though not so loathsome shall surely procure another and a sorer chastisement or else even utter destruction at length Let this admonition enter into your soules and move you to repent now of that hardnesse of your hearts which causeth you not to repent upon a former adversity or else be sure that you shall treasure up wrath to your selves against the day of wrath you that doe presently lie under any hand of God set to the matter of finding out and reforming your offences and be much more earnest with God to make the crosse profitable to you in that behalfe then to remove it from your shoulders And you that have come lately out of a crosse and now are gotten againe into a large place beware of forgetting the hand of God let the present exhortation stirre you up to doe better then the Sodomites Say in your consciences was it not a great folly in them and a just forerunner of their finall ruine that captivity tooke away nothing from their sinnes why will you commit the same sinne which you cannot but condemne in them They had no publike admonishioner amongst them that did continually perswade them to profit by that calamity and putting them in remembrance of the lamentable condition in which they were falne wished them earnestly to study reformation of life God hath made you his people hath setled his ordinances amongst you and ceaseth not daily to remember your of your duty without doubt your sinne in not being bettered by crosses shall offend him 10. times more then that of Sodome and you shall finde by experience that the wilfulnesse is the greater by how much the meanes of reclaiming have beene greater I proceed now to a third sinne and that is their unnaturall filthinesse in offering to commit that foule crime of buggery with the strangers that came to lodge amongst them for a night and were but men as they conceived by their outward behaviour though indeed they were Angels Take notice of the lewdnesse of these worse then beasts and learne to have it in utter detestation First the crime it selfe Secondly the circumstances aggravating the crime The crime it selfe is that base and vile and worse then brutish wickednesse of confounding the sexes which God hath in the creation distinguished For he made the Male and Female but these beasts would needes so much as was in them take away that so necessary and usefull destinction and would have abused Males as if they had beene Females and turned men into women for the satisfaction of their prodigious lust
blessing was this that he made him a godly man giving him true faith so that he did unfainedly beleeve in God and was a right godly and religious man For it is noted of him that he beleeved in God and was an heire with Abraham of the same promises both concerning the land of Canaan as a Type and heaven it selfe the thing figured by the land of Canaan So Iacob was a true servant of God and member of Christ and inheritour of heaven and from him the Church is many times called by the name of Iacob and Israel And this is the greatest good that can be found in this life in comparison of which all other benefits are of no value and without which other things are not sufficient to make a man happy though he should possesse them in never so great abundance for what will it advantage a man to win the whole world and lose his owne soule Now therefore we must learne most earnestly to seeke this benefit which God is ready to give to us as well as to him For Iacob was not godly by nature nor by any power of his owne but by the free grace of God and the mighty and saving worke of his owne blessed Spirit which Spirit he hath promised to all that aske even as undoubtedly as any tender hearted Father will give food unto his hungry childe that shall crave it at his hands Let no man be discouraged because of the corruption and naughtinesse of his nature for the same bad and depraved nature was found in Iacob that in himselfe seeing Iacob also was a son of Adam by corrupt nature a childe of wrath and heire of death as well as any other but God did circumcise his heart as well as his flesh and made him partaker of the divine nature by which he prevailed against the corruptions that are in the world through lust Wherefore let each of us take notice of his owne wickednesse and inability to make himselfe good and of his manifold sins and inability to procure pardon of them to himselfe and let him earnestly call upon God to worke true repentance and unfained faith in him and the Lord will graciously worke these things in him as well as in Iacob and will pardon his sins and sanctifie his soule and make him an inheritour of his heavenly Kingdome I beseech you therefore bury not your selves in the world and in the study of earthly things but Seeke first the Kingdome of God and his righteousnesse and labour to come into the state of grace by meditating on the Gospell seeing your misery in your selves and endeavouring to turne unto the Lord. For in the Church no man is left destitute of grace but through his own default in neglecting the great salvation that is there offered unto him Againe those to whom the Lord hath pleased to shew the same goodnesse working in them true faith inabling them to beleeve in his mercy through Christ and to walke in his wayes with truth and uprightnesse of heart must learne to shew themselves exceeding thankfull to God for this mercy and strive to take comfort in it and to walke worthy of it Blesse God with constant and daily blessings that hath blessed thee with spirituall blessings in Christ and rejoyce in the riches of that inheritance to which thou are interessed and shalt possesse whatsoever wants afflictions crosses thou maist bee exercised withall yet be glad in the Lord and count thy selfe an happy man because the Lord hath granted thee that which may abundantly satisfie thy soule in the want of all outward things and support thee in all afflictions and miseries and countervaile and more then overweigh all manner of calamities Let not the rich man rejoyce in his riches nor the wise man in his wisdome nor the strong man in his strength nor any man in any terrene thing he hath but Let him that rejoyceth rejoyce in this that he knoweth me saith the Lord. It is our duty to raise up our hearts so that no earthly adversity may coole or damp our prayers and dismay our hearts and fill us with anguish and grief and that no outward benefits may glut and satt our hearts and turne us away from taking comfort in this true and everlasting mercy God hath made us his owne given us faith sanctified us by his Spirit united us to his Son and caused us to see beleeve and embrace his promises What though we want wealth honour pleasure and these sensuall benefits He hath given us Wheate What though he feed us not with huskes He hath given us Gold What though he lade us not with dirt Hee hath given us himselfe and his Son What though he give us not the vanities of this life It is a sin for a godly man to be out of heart and comfortlesse because of any other want and any other crosse If God have granted you this chiefe benefit glory in it and thinke that you have gotten a good portion though your estate in the world be never so low and poore only be sure that your faith bee true by causing you to abound in those fruits of it which we shewed you before that it brought forth in Iacob Now I come to some lesse principall mercies flowing from this First he gave him the priviledge of the first-borne that Christ should come of him and that the visible Church should continue in his posterity That part of the dignity of the primogeniture to have Christ the blessed seed come of him cannot be bestowed upon any of us neither that to have a great Nation flow from our loines that shall be also the Church of God and a Nation in which true religion and piety shall be continued But to have our children godly and become members of the Church that we must earnestly desire and seeke for and that we may hope for and attaine if we pray earnestly for it and make our children as good as we can by bringing them up in the true knowledge and worshipping of God Further Iacob had the blessing given him First by his Fathers mistake when he tooke him for his eldest son Esau to whom he intended the blessing then after by his Fathers witting and deliberate pronouncing it upon him by the direction of Gods Spirit The former you may see pronounced upon him in Genesis where he saith God give thee of the dew of heaven and after God Almighty blesse thee and give thee the blessing of Abraham This blessing is the bestowing upon him all temporall benefits so far as they are subordinate to his spirituall and then spirituall benefits viz. all sorts of graces by which he may be happily guided to the possession of life eternall This is an excellent mercy to be freed from the curse of the Law and to be made partaker of the blessing of Abraham even that God shall love one take care of him and prosper him in all things hee takes in hand and conduct him
be wondrous thankfull that God hath not so farre left us to our selves as to be drawne to such enormous offences He that can looke upon the worst men that have beene and the worst deeds so as to accuse himselfe of the same bad nature and to confesse himselfe obnoxious to the same crimes and therefore labours to be more humble in himselfe because of the badnesse of his nature and to be thankfull to God for the goodnesse he shewes in restraining that bad nature he makes a singular use of other mens sins But if we heare or see other mens faults onely to brag of our selves that we have not so offended nor will not so offend it is a testimony of much blindnesse and unacquaintednesse with our selves and may justly cause the Lord to make us know our selves by giving us over to our owne selves in like manner But now a word of the common goodnesse of all first to their Father they all gathered together to comfort him when he was in his great and exceeding sadnesse This was well done though they had wronged him in being a cause of his sorrow yet it may seeme they were greatly troubled to thinke of their naughtinesse and were carefull to to use all meanes of restoring him to contentment againe But ah what bitter accusations must those their words reflect upon their owne selves which they used to comfort their Father How could they choose but almost bewray themselves by blushing one while and palenesse another through the cheekes of their owne consciences when ever they heard him as often no doubt they did heare him name the name of Ioseph But howsoever it was commendably done that now they sought to asswage his sorrowes All good children should strive to minister matter of comfort to their grieved Parents and it is an hainous and unnaturall hardnesse to doe otherwise Further they were all dutifull to him in going downe to Egypt and not taking Benjamin with them secretly or against his will and shewed much love and honour in burying him and lamenting him and shewed themselves carefull of their families and very penitent to Ioseph at last and called to minde this sin in their troubles at Egypt and declared by their submission to Ioseph that they had truly repented besides in their behaviour to Ioseph before they knew him they shew lowlinesse and good discretion So in one word they grew better and better as fruits by time grow ripe and mellow and at last unfainedly repented and all turned godly men O that you which have beene rude wilde debaushed in youth would be carefull now in your more stayed time to be truly penitent and become truly godly There is a kinde of amendment by age which is nor sufficient to salvation though it something recover the credit It is to lay aside the practise of ones grosser faults and to frame to a civill carriage and to a creditable behaviour though still the heart remaine vaine and earthly and bee not humbled duely by the sight of these faults which were formerly committed Such a kinde of morall amendment is better then none but I pray you that be old doe not satisfie your selves with that but mend throughout See and lament your badnesse as well as your bad lives lament and bewaile in secret and frequently the former disorders Be base in your owne eyes because of them and labour to get them pardoned and your corrupt natures healed and to shine in piety and holinesse and all goodnesse so much the more by how much your youth was more sinnefull All you that have beene grievous sinners in youth take this counsell learne this lesson of Iacobs sonnes And you young men that have too too much broken forth O take your selves to taske betime and begin to amend betime Let your Parents have the happinesse to see you reformed in their life time to behold your change that they may rejoyce in your reformation and blesse God for his goodnesse in hearing their prayers and granting their desires and you may cause them to live so much longer and more cheerefully by seeing so happy and desireable a sight It will add a new youth to an aged Parent if he may see his much offending children returned quite backe to the waies of God and goodnesse most comfortably will they leave earth and goe to Heaven when they leave their children in such plight as they may hope to meete them there at last But let us looke into the benefits which the Lord bestowed upon them First they had a godly Father and Progenitors and were themselves members yea and pillars of the Church of God of them came a most populous and flourishing nation in whom the visible Church continued then when all the nations of the world besides did lie in darknesse A greater mercy then this the world cannot have to be the Church of God to have the Church continue in a mans posterity this is a singular favour and God pleased to take all these sonnes and to make them heires of his promise Isaac had but two sonnes Iacob and Esau God tooke Iacob and refused Esau Abraham had but two sonnes God cast out Ishmael and gave the blessing and promise to one alone even to Isaac but see the great favour shewed to all these they be all taken into the Church all partake of the blessing all are made heires of the promise If we consider their carriage Ishmael never committed so great and monstrous a fault against the second Table as Iudah for he never fell into incest but hee scorned Isaac Esau never did so foule a fault as Simeon and Levi but he despised his birth-right and hated Iacob So God did not take these for their goodnesse but of his mercy though they were of rude carriage hee suffered them not to despise and contemne the truth and so still kept them within the Church Furthermore foure of these were borne of hand-maidens as well as Ishmael and yet the Lord rejected them not This is the first benefit we must learne to esteeme it a choice mercy that God vouchsafeth us the same in making us members of his Church and in planting the true Church amongst us Further God saved them all from a great danger over-awing the Canaanites that they did not pursue and destroy them for that insolency they shewed at Shechem It is a great mercy if God represse the wrath of men towards any so that when they have both provocation and power yet they be restrained from taking vengeance God hath the hearts of men in his hand and can if he pleaseth and often doth over-rule and over-awe them in this manner Thirdly they had riches and wealth in abundance this is a common benefit learne not to over-esteeme it nor abuse it and be confident that if we feare God he will not denie us necessaries Lastly they had a good friend sent downe to Egypt to provide for them that their families and themselves
might not perish by famine and he forgetting all their cruelty and injustice tooke care of them and their children comforting and succouring and countenancing them even after their Father was dead so that they lived most comfortably during his life This is a most remarkeable favour that God provides long before for the helping of his people out of distresse and that by such waies as they could never guesse of advancing such persons as they did least conceive should be helpfull to them and inclining their hearts to doe them good of whom they could least expect kindnesse But see the folly of man that is often bitter against those things by which God intends their great welfare as Iosephs Brethren against his preferment without which they had perished Now for their crosses we reade of few they were in danger from Esau when they were children yet not so young but that they had some sence of it but that was soone over and they were never the better for it They were in danger at Shechem but that they considered not of and God saved them afore they were aware But the famine pinched them and their family and their rough handling in Egypt crushed them so that they were tamed with it and throughly brought to repentance It is a great goodnesse of our heavenly Father to heale the soules of his people by fatherly chastizements and by blowes to leade them to repentance We must be thankefull to God for our escaping of famine rough usage and other like crosses but specially wee must beseech him that what crosses hee sees fit to inflict may bee sanctified unto us to bring us to repentance to revive in us the remembrance of sinnes past and humble our hearts for them farre better is it to have medicinable crosses then to live at ease without crosses * ⎠* THE TWENTY THIRD EXAMPLE OF REVBEN SIMEON LEVI IVDAH SOmewhat must be spoken of Iacobs sonnes in severall so many of them as the Scripture sets forth unto us in respect of any speciall thing done by them These are Reuben Simeon Levi Iudah Ioseph First for Reuben wee note his bad deeds his good deeds his crosses and benefits First for his bad deeds Besides what was common with the rest He committed incest with his Fathers Concubine Bilhah the maide-servant of Rachel whom Iacob had taken to himselfe at the instance of his wife her Reuben defiled Incest is a great sinne it defileth the Fathers bed it is a wrong to himselfe and the party with whom hee offendeth as any sinne in that kinde and it is much against nature shewing a most violent and brutish rage of lust treading downe all considerations even of the lawes and rules of nature it selfe in discovering the Fathers nakednesse and wronging so deare a person in so high a degree and in a thing so neere unto him Paul speaketh of it as of a thing not so much as named among the Heathen and was greatly grieved that it was committed and not duely punished among the Corinths Absalom committed it with an high hand and extreame wilfullnesse and presumption even upon ten of his Fathers Concubines one after another and that openly and of purpose to vexe his Father and make the jarre betwixt them irreconcileable the law plainely forbad it Now how comes it to passe that men run into such grosse sins Answer First God pleaseth to leave men unto themselves and permit their breaking forth into such horrible crimes to make the wickednesse of mans heart knowne to humble the offendours and make way for the demonstration of his mercy or else to shew his justice in punishing one sinne with another and in punishing all at last with much severity and to warne others by the example of the offenders and therefore this Gods permission is not to be blamed or murmured at for he is ready to forgive such enormous evills to the penitent as he did also pardon Reuben Againe the Divell out of the filthinesse of his owne nature and his most outragious wickednesse and deadly hatred of God and man is ready to thrust men out even into such abhominations because the greater the offence the more it dishonours God and hurts the soule name and all of the offenders which he delighteth in and he hopes by one bad example to draw others to the like evill and so to doe more mischiefe to mankinde And for man his corruptions are very strong and there is little or no feare of God before his eyes wherefore by degrees he will waxe extreamely wicked and runne into crimes against the very light of nature for when any thing begins to corrupt it doth grow worse and worse till it come to extremity because it is a kinde of easie motion to goe from bad to worse and especially it is so in this corruption of the soule because every sinne addes blindnesse and hardnesse to the minde and heart and so causeth the sinnes to seeme farre lesse vile and mischievous then they be besides all sinnes doe flatter with a kinde of carnall and sensuall content and so carry away the fancie and passions and by them also the will to give consent and to act the wickedest things Wee must learne first to see our vile nature and to feare and looke to our selves striving against lesse sinnes that we may not be delivered over to greater through Gods justice and the strength of our lusts yea to repent of lesser sinnes and strive to get them pardoned and healed and to cry earnestly to God that he would keepe us seeing alas wee be sorry and simple keepers of our selves thus we may escape grosser evills we must not therfore bragge and censure and presume but know our owne nature pittie others and heedfully watch over our selves Againe we are to be greatly thankfull to God for keeping us from such notorious vices for such is his goodnesse that he restraines the greater number from such crimes because he will not have humane societies too much disordered and polluted to hasten his vengeance on the world this restraint is a favour deserving thankes O how often hath God in the time of our unregeneracie held us off from most foule evills that wee would have committed Let us magnifie God therefore and not lift up our selves for such preservation And if any have committed such vile sinnes let them be much humbled and make hast to repent knowing the goodnesse of God who if we cast downe our selves is ready to pardon such sinnes and sinners Be not hardened grow not impudent in sinning neither seeke to extenuate great sinnes but labour to be greatly ashamed of them sorrowfull for them and earnestly sue for grace to heale your natures and willingly confesse them before God if they breake out so as to proove scandalous before men also Now see Reubens particular good deeds First he turned his Brethren from their purpose of killing Ioseph not by earnest opposition which would rather have