marriages for hence ensue perpetuall discontentments to the parties so forcedly conjoyned an utter frustration of the end of mariage which should be mutuall comfort and not seldome dangerous machinations against the life of the disaffected consort as it were too easie to instance every where but especially if the affections of the yong couple have been before as it oft falls out placed elsewhere what secret heart burnings what loathing of conjugall society what adulterous plottings doe straight follow what unkind defiances passe between them how do they weare out their days in a melancholick pining wish each other themselves dead too soon Yea herin an imperious or covetous parent may be most injurious to him selfe in robbing himselfe of that comfort which he might receive from a dutifull child in her person in her posterity for the avoiding of which mischiefs it were meet happy that both parent and child could both know their limits which God and nature hath set and keep them Let the child then know that he is his parents that as he was once a part of them in respect of his natural being so he should be still in his affections and obsequiousness and therfore that hee ought to labour by all means to bring his heart unto a conformity to his parents will desire according to that universall rule of the Apostle Children obey your parents in all things for this is well pleasing unto the Lord Colos. 3. 20. The word is comprehensive In all things Things unlawfull passe for impossible we only can doe what we ought In all those things then which are honest lawfull just parents must be obeyed And the motions for marriage being such impose upon the child so far a duty of obedience as that he is bound to work his affections what he may to a compliance with his parents will the wilful neglect whereof is no better then a kind of domestique rebellion Let the parent again consider that the child however derived from his loins is now an entire person in him self that though the body came from him yet the soule was from above that the soul of his child is endowed with powers and faculties of its own that as he is not animated by his parents spirits so he is not in wardly swayed by his parents will or affections that when his reason coms to be improved there may bee differences of judgement betwixt his parent and him and from thence may arise a diversity or contrariety of affections and desires and these affections and passions may grow to such strength as that he himselfe shâ—ll not be able to maâ—ter them and if the parent feele himself subject to such infirmities well may he be induced to pity those whom a vigorous heat of youth hath rendred more head-strong and unruly withall let him consider that though the child shold be advised by the parent yet it is fit that he should like for himselfe that the will is to be led not driven that no marriage can be happy but that which is grounded in love that love is so altogether voluntary that it can not consist with constraint Lastly let him know that the power of the father though great yet is not unlimited It is the charge which the father of mercies hath laid upon all earthly fathers in their carriage towards their children Fathers provoke not your children to wrath or as the Vulgar reads it to indignation lest they be discouraged and surely if there be any thing wherein the passion of the child may be like to be inordinately stirred it is in the crossing of an once-well-setled-affection and diverting the streame of love into another channell For the avoiding whereof the imperiall lawes have been so indulgent to the child as that according to their best glosses they permit not the father to disinherit the daughter for chosing an husband not unworthy of her self though against her fathersâ— mind yea some of them have gone a step further but I forbeare How far it may be lawfull and fit for the parent to puniâ—h the disrespect of a child in so important a case is not for me to determine doubtlesse where the provision is arbitrary the parent will be apt so to manage it as to make the child sensible of a disobedience so as both parts herein suffer and are put into a way of late repentance Briefly therefore on the one side the Son or Daughter doe justly offend if without cause or wilfully they refuse the parents choyce and are in duty bound to worke their hearts to an obedient subjection to those unto whom they owe themselves and for this cause must bee wary in suffering their affections to over-runne their owne reason and their parents guidance eyther suppressing the first motions of unruly passions or if they grow impetuous venting them betimes into the tender eares of their indulgent Parents or discreet and faithful friends that so they may seasonably prevent their own misery and their parents grief On the other side the parent shal offend if holding too hard an hand over the fruit of his own body he shall resolve violently to force the childs affections to his own bent where he finds them setled wil rather break then bow them not caring so much to perswade as to compell love These harshnesses have too much of Tyranny in them to be incident to a Christ an parent who must transact all these matrimonial affaires in a smooth plausible way of consent indulgence A noble and ancient pattern whereof we find in the contract betwixt Isaac his Rebecca Gen. 24. 49 50 51 52 c. the match was treated on betwixt Abrahams proxie and the maids father Bethuel and her brother Laban The circumstances drew their full consent all is agreed upon betwixt parents but when all this is don nothing is don till Rebecca have given her assent they said Wee will call the damsell and enquire at her mouth ver 57. And they called Rebecca and said unto her Wilt thou goe with this man And she said I will goe ver 58. Now the contract is made up till then all the engagements of Bethuel and Laban were but complements Till then all the rich Jewels of Gold and Silver given to the intended Bride and all the precious things given to her mother brother were but at the mercy of the receivers Neither ought it to be other in all Christian espousals the free and cheerfull consent of parents and parties makes the match both full and happy Let not the Childe dare to crosse his parents let not the Parent think to force the child and when an undue bargain is through the heat of passion made up past reclamation let love and pity so far intercede for the offenders that they may smart for their rashness neglect without their utter undoing CASE V. Whether the marriage of Cousens Germans that is of Brothers or Sisters Children be lawfull THe displeasure of the Canon
it selfe though not enlightened with the knowledge of the estate of another world found cause to abhor this practice However the Stoicall Philosophers and some high Roman spirits following their doctrine have beene liberall of their lives the Thebans of old professed detestation of this worst of prodigalities And the Athenians enacted that the hand which should be guilty of such an act should be cut off and kept unburied And it was wisely ordained by that Grecian Common-wealth when their Virgins out of a peevish discontentment were growne into a selfe-killing humour that the bodies of such offenders should bee dragged naked though the streets of the City the shame whereof stopped the course of that mad resolution It is not the heaviest of crosses or the sharpest bodily anguish that can warrant so foule an act Well was it turned off by Antisthenes of old when in the extremity of his paine he cried out Oh who will free me from this torment and Diognes reached him a poynard wherewith to dispatch himselfe Nay said hee I said from my torment not from my life as well knowing it neither safe nor easie to part with our selves upon such termes Farre farre be it from us to put into this ranke and file those worthy Martyrs which in the fervour of their holy zeale have put themselves forward to martyrdome and have courageously prevented the lust and fury of Tyrants to keep their chastity and faith inviolable I looke upon these as more fit objects of wonder than either of censure or imitation For these whom wee may well match with Sampson and Eleazar what Gods spirit wrought in them hee knowes that gave it Rules are they by which we live not examples Secondly However wee may not by any meanes directly act to the cutting off the thred of life yet I cannot but yeild with learned Lessius that there may fall out cases wherein a man may upon just cause doe or forbeare something whereupon death may indirectly ensue Indirectly I say not with an intention of such issue for it is not an universall charge of God that no man should upon any occasion expose his life to a probable danger if so there would be no warre no traffique but onely that he should not causelesly hazard himselfe nor with a resolution of wilfull miscarriage To those instances hee gives of a souldier that must keep his station though it cost him life of a prisoner that may forbeare to flee out of prison though the doores be open of a man condemn'd to dye by hunger in whose power it is to refuse a sustenance offered of a man that latches the weapon in his owne body to save his Prince or of a friend who when but one loafe is left to preserve the life of two refraines from his part and dyes first or that suffers another to take that planke in a shipwrack which himselfe might have prepossessed as trusting to the oares of his armes or that puts himselfe into an infected house out of meer charity to tend the sick though hee know the contagion deadly or in a Sea-fight blows up the deck with gun-powder not without his own danger or when the house is on fire casts himselfe out at the window with an extreame hazard To these I say may be added many more as the cutting off a limb to stop the course of a Gangreene to make an adventure of a dangerous incision in the body to draw forth the stone in the bladde the taking of a large dose of opiate pills to ease a mortall extremity or lastly when a man is already seized on by death the receiving of some such powerfull medicine as may facilitate his passage the defect of which care and art the eminently-learned Lord Verulam justly complaines of in Physitians In these and the like cases a man may lawfully doe these things which may tend in the event to his owne death though without an intention of procuring it And unto this head must bee referred those infinite examples of deadly sufferings for good causes willingly embraced for conscience sake The seven Brethren in the Maccabees alluded to by St. Paul to his Hebrewes Heb. 11. 35. will and must rather endure the butchering of their owne flesh than the eating of Swines flesh in a willing affront of their Law Daniel will rather dye than not pray Shadrach Meshach and Abednego will rather fall downe bound into the fiery Fornace seven-fold heated than fall down before the golden Image And every right-disposed Christian will rather welcome death than yeild to a willing act of Idolatry Rebellion Witchcraft If hereupon death follow by the infliction of others they are sinfull agents hee is an innocent sufferer As for that scruple among our Casuists whether a man condemned to dye by poyson may take the deadly draught that is brought him it is such as wise Socrates never made of old when the Athenians tendred him his hemlock and indeede it may as well be disputed whether a man condemned to dye by the Axe may quietly lay downe his head upon the Block and not but upon force yeild to that fatall stroke A juster scruple is whether a man condemned to a certaine and painefull death which hee cannot possibly eschew may make choice rather of a more easie passage out of the world wherein I marvell at the indulgence of some Doctors that would either excuse or mince the matter For although I cannot blame that naturall disposition in any creature to shrinke from pain and to affect what it may the shifting from extremity of miserie yet for a Christian so to doe it as to draw a greater mischief to himselfe and an apparent danger to his soule it cannot justly beare any other than a hard construction For thus to carve himselfe of Justice is manifestly to violate lawfull authority and whiles he would avoid a short pain to incur the shame and sin of a selfe-executioner But if in that way wherein the doome of death is passed a man can give himselfe ease or speed of dissolution as when a Martyr being adjudg'd to the fire use the helpe of a bagge of Gun-powder to expedite his passage it cannot be any way judged unlawfull The sentence is obeyed the execution is accordingly done and if the patient have found a shorter way to that end which is appointed him what offence can this be either to the Law or to the Judge RESOLUTIONS The third Decade Cases of Piety and Religion CASE I. Whether upon the appearance of Evill Spirits wee may hold discourse with them and how we may demean our selves concerning them THat there are evill spirits is no less certaine than that there are men None but a Sadduce or an Atheist can make question of it That evill spirits have given certaine proofes of their presence with men both in visible apparitions and in the possessions of places and bodies is no lesse manifest than that we have soules whereby they are discerned Their appearances are
is presumptuous and unwarrantable cryed ever downe by Councells and Fathers as unlawfull as that which lies in the mid-way betwixt magick and imposture and partakes not a little of both The anointing of the weapon for the healing of the wound though many miles distant wherein how confident soever some intelligent men have beene doubtlesse there can be nothing of nature sith in all naturall agences there must necessarily be a contraction either reall or virtuall here in such an intervall none can bee neither can the efficacy bee ascribed to the salve since some others have undertaken and done the cure by a more homely and familiar ointment It is the ill-bestowed faith of the agent that draws on the successe from the hand of an invisible Physitian Calming of tempests and driving away devills by ringing of bells hallowed for that purpose Remedy of witcheries by heating of Irons or applying of Crosses I could cloy you with instances of this kinde wherewith Satan beguiles the simple upon these two mis-grounded principles 1. That in all experience they have found such effects following upon the use and practise of such meanes which indeed cannot be denyed Charms and Spels commonly are no lesse unfailing in their working than the best naturall remedies doubtlesse the Devill is a most skilfull Artist and can do feats beyond all mortall powers but God blesse us from imploying him 2 King 1. 3. Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that we goe to enquire of Baal-zebub the God of Ekron 2. That there may be hidden causes in nature for the producing of such effects which they know not neither can give any reason of their operations whereof yet we doe commonly make use without any scruple and why may not these be ranged under the same head which they have used with no other but good meaning without the least intention of reference to any malignant powers In answer whereto I must tell them that their best plea is ignorance which may abate the sinne but not excuse it There are indeed deep secrets in nature whose bottome we cannot dive into as those wonders of the load-stone a piece outwardly contemptible yet of such force as approacheth neare to a miracle and many other strange sympathies and antipathies in severall creatures in which ranke may be set the bleeding of the dead at the presence of the murtherer and some acts done for the discovery of witchcraft both in this and our neighbor kingdome But withall though there be secrets in nature which we know not how she works yet we know there are works which are well knowne that she cannot doe how far her power can extend is not hard to determine and those effects which are beyond this as in the forementioned particulars we know whither to ascribe Let it be therefore the care and wisdome of Christians to looke upon what grounds they goe whiles they have God and nature for their warrant they may walke safely but where these leave them the way leades downe to the Chambers of death CASE III. Whether reserving my conscience to my self I may be present at an Idolatrous devotion or whether in the lawfull service of God I may communicate with wicked persons THe question is double both of them of great importance The former I must answer negatively your presence is unlawfull upon a double ground of sinne and of scandall of sin if you partake in the Idolatry of scandall if you doe but seeme to partake The scandall is three-fold you confirm the offenders in their sin you draw others by your example into sin you grieve the spirits of those wiser Christians that are the sad witnesses of your offence The great Apostle of the Gentiles 1 Cor. 8. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. hath fully determined the question in a more favourable case the heathen sacrifices were wont to be accompanied in imitation of the Jewish prescribed by God himselfe with feastes the owners of the feast civilly invite the Neighbours though Christians to the banquets The Tables are spread in their Temples The Christian guests out of a neighbourly society goe sit eate with them S. Paul cries downe the practice as utterly unlawfull yet this was but in matter of meat which sure was Gods though sacrificed to an Idoll how much more must it hold in rites and devices meerely either humane or devilish I need not tell you of the Christian Souldiers in the Primitive Persecution who when they found themselves by an ignorant mistaking drawne under a pretence of loyalty into so much ceremony as might carry some semblance of an Idolatrous thurification ranne about the City in an holy remorse and proclaimes themselves to be Christians Nor how little it excused Marcellinus Bishop of Rome from an heavy censure that he could say he did but for company cast a few graines of incense into the fire The charge of the Apostle 1 Thes. 5. 22. is full and peremptory that we should abstaine from every appearance of evill It is a poore plea that you mention of the example of Naaman Alas an ignorant Pagan whose body if it were washed from his leprosie yet his soule must needes be still foule 2 Kings 5. 17 18 19. yet even this man will thenceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice unto any other God but unto the Lord nor upon any ground but the Lords peculiar and will therefore lade two Mules with Israelitish earth and is now a professed convert Yea but he will still bow in the Temple of Rimmon But how will he bow Civilly onely not religiously In the house of Rimmon not to the Idoll Not in relation to the false deity but to the King his Master you shall not take him going alone under that Idolatrous roofe but according to his office in attendance of his Soveraigne nor bowing there but to support the arme that lean'd upon him And if upon his returne home from his journey he made that solemne protestation to his Syrians which he before made to the Prophet Take notice O all ye Courtiers and men of Damascus that Naaman is now become a Proselyte of Israell that hee will serve and adore none but the true God and if you see him at any time kneeling in the Temple of your Idoll Rimmon know that it is not done in any devotion to that false God but in the performance of his duty and service to his royall Master I see not but the Prophet might well bid him Goe in Peace How ever that ordinary and formall velediction to a Syrian can be no warrant for a Christians willing dissimulation It is fit for every honest man to seeme as he is what do you howling amongst Wolves if you be not one Or what do you amongst the Cranes if you be a Stork It was the charge of Jehu when he pretended that great sacrifice to Baal Search and looke that there be here with you none of the servants of the Lord 2 King 10. 23. but the
worshippers of Baal onely surely had any of Gods Clients secretly shrouded himselfe amongst those Idolaters his blood had beene upon his owne head Briefly then iâ— you have a minde to keepe your selfe in a safe condition for your soule let me lay upon you the charge which Moses enforced upon the congregation of Israel in the case of Corah's insurrection Depart I pray you from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing of theirs lest ye be consumed in all their sins Numb 16. 26. The latter I must answer affirmatively If the Ordinances be holy why should you not take your part of them It is an unjust nicenesse to abridge your selfe of a blessing for another mans unworthinesse Doubtless there ought to be a separation of the precious from the vile the neglect whereof is the great sinne of those whom in duty it concernes to perform it but where this is not accordingly done shall I suffer for anothers offence my owne sinnes may justly keepe me off from Gods Table if another mans may doe so too I appropriate the guilt of his sin to my own wrong surely it argues but small appetite to these heavenly viandes if you can be put off with a pretence of others faults Judge of the spirituall repast by this earthly were you throughly hungry would you refraine from your meat because one of the guests hath a paire of foule hands that may be a just eye-sore to you but no reason why you should forbeare wholesome dishes Carve you for your selfe and looke to your owne trencher he feedes for himselfe not for you sinne is the uncleannesse of the soule that cleaves closer to it than any outward nastinesse can to the skin to feed thus foule then is doubtlesse unwholesome to himselfe it can be no hurt to you But you are ready to straine the comparison higher to your owne advantage say that one of the guests hath a plague-fore running upon him shall I then thinke it safe to sit at the Table with him now sin is of a pestilent nature spreading its infection to others besides its owne subject therefore it is meet we keepe aloofe from the danger of his contagion True there are sinnes of a contagious nature apt to diffuse their venome to others as there are other some whose evill is intrinsecall to the owner but these infect by way of evill counsails or examples or familiar conversation not by way of a meere extemporary presence of the person by spreading of their corruption to those that are taken with them not by scattering abroad any guilt to those that abhorr them Well did our Saviour know how deadly an infection had seised on the soule of Judas yet he drives him not from his board lest his sinne should taint the Disciples The spirit that writes to the seven Asian Churches Rev. 2. 20 21 22. saw and professed to see the horrible infection spread amongst the Thyatirians by the doctrine and wicked practises of their Jesebell yet all that he enjoyns the godly party is to hold their own Have no fellowship saith the Apostle with the unfruitfull works of darknesse Eph. 5. 11. Loe he would not have us partake in evill he doth not forbid us to partake with an evil man in good works However therefore we are to wish and endeavour in our places that all the Congregation may be holy and it is a comfortable thing to joyn with those that are truly conscionable and carefully observant of their wayes in the immediate services of our God yet where there is neglect in the overseers and boldnesse in the intruders and thereupon Gods sacred Table is pestred with some unworthy Guests it is not for you upon this ground to deprive your selfe of the benefit of Gods blessed Ordinances notwithstanding all this unpleasing encombrance you are welcome and may be happy CASE IV. Whether vowes bee not out of season now under the Gospel of what things they may be made how farre they oblige us and whether and how far they may be capable of release IT is a wrongfull imputation that is cast upon us by the Roman Doctours that we abandone all vowes under the Gospell They well see that we allow and professe that common vow as Lessius termes it in Baptisme which yet both Bellarmine and he with other of their consorts deny to be properly such It is true that as infants make it by their proxies there may seeme some impropriety of the engagement as to their persons but if the party Christened be of mature age the expresse vow is made absolutely by and for himselfe Besides this we allow of the renovation of all those holy vowes relating to the first which may binde us to a more strict obedience to our God yet more though we doe not now allow the vowes of things in their nature indiffernt to be parts of Gods worship as they were formerly under the law yet we doe willingly approve of them as good helps and furtherances to us for the avoiding of such sinnes as we are obnoxious unto and for the better forwarding of our holy obedience Thus the charge is of eternall use Psal. 76. 11. Vow unto God and performe it Not that we are bound to vow that act is free and voluntary but that when we have vowed we are straitly bound to performance It is with us for our vowes as it was with Ananias and Saphira for their substance Whiles it remained saith S. Peter was it not thine own Acts 5. 4. Hee needed not to sell it he needed not to give it but if he will give he may not reserve If he profess to give all it is death to save some he lies to the holy Ghost that defalks from that which he engaged himselfe to bestow It mainly concernes us therefore to looke carefully in the first place to what we vow and to our intentions in vowing and to see that our vow be not rash and unadvised of things either triviall or unlawfull or impossible or out of our power to performe for every Vow is a Promise made to God and to promise unto that great and holy God that which either we cannot or ought not to doe what is it other than to mock and abuse that Sacred Majesty which will not hold him guiltlesse that taketh his name in vaine It is the charge to this purpose of wise Solomon Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few Eccles. 5. 2. Your vow therefore must be either of things morally good for the quickening you in that duty which you are bound to doe or of things indifferent in themselves the refraining or doing whereof may tend either to the restraint from sinne or the furtherance of your holy obedience As a man that findes his brains weak and his inclination too strong to pleasing liquor bindes himselfe by a vow to drinke no
of spirits who onely sees and searches the secrets of it and can both convince and punish it Besides well did penitent David know what he said when he cryed out Against thee onely have I sinned Psal. 51. he knew that sinne is a transgression of the law and that none but Gods law can make a sin men may be concerned and injured in our actions but it is God who hath forbidden these wrongs to men that is sinned against in our acts of injustice and uncharitablenesse and who only can inflict the spirituall which is the highest revenge upon offenders The charge of the great Doctor of the Gentiles to his Galatians was Galat. 5. 1. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not intangled againe in the yoak of bondage What yoak of bondage was this but the law of Ceremonies What liberty was this but a freedome from the bondage of that law And certainly if those ordinances which had God for their author have so little power to bind the conscience as that the yoake of their bondage must be shaken off as inconsistent with Christian liberty how much less is it to be indured that we should be the servants of men in being tyed up to sin by their presumptuous impositions The lawes of men therefore doe not ought not cannot bind your conscience as of themselves but if they be just they binde you in conscience to obedience They are the words of the Apostle to his Romans Rom. 13. 5. Wherefore ye must needes be subject not onely for wrath but also for conscience sake However then their particular constitution in themselves put no speciall obligation upon us under paine of sinne and damnation yet in a generall relation to that God who hath commanded us to obey authority their neglect or contempt involves us in a guilt of sin All power is of God that which the supreme authority therefore enjoyns you God enjoyns you by it the charge is mediately his though passing through the hands of men How little is this regarded in these loose times by those lawlesse persons whose practises acknowledge no soveraignty but titular no obedience but arbitrary to whom the strongest laws are as weapons to the Leviathan who esteemes Iron as straw and Brass as rotten wood Job 41. 27. Surely had they not first cast off their obedience to him that is higher than the highest they could not without trembling heare that weighty charge of the great God of Heaven Rom. 13. 1. Let every soule be subject to the higher powers For there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God 1 Pet. 2. 13. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake and therefore should be convinced in themselves of that awe and duty which they ow to Soveraignty and know and resolve to obey God in men and men for God You see then how requisite it is that you walk in a middle way betwixt that excessive power which flattering Casuists have beene wont to give to Popes Emperours Kings and Princes in their severall jurisdictions and a lawlesse neglect of lawfull authority For the orthodox wise and just moderation whereof these last ages are much indebted to the learned and judicious Chancellour of Paris John Gerson who first so checked that over-flowing errour of the power of humane usurpation which carried the world before it as gave a just hint to succeding times to draw that streame into the right channell in so much as Dominicus à Soto complaines greatly of him as in this little differing from the Lutheran heresie But in the way which they call heresie we worship the God of our Fathers rendring unto Cesar the things that are Cesars and unto God those things that are Gods yeilding our bodyes to Cesar Act. 24. 14. reserving our souls for God tendring to just Lawes our active obedience to unjust passive But in the meane time farre be it from us to draw this knot of our obligation harder closer then authority it self intends it What ever Popes may doe for their Decrees certainly good Princes never meant to lay such weight upon all their lawes as to make every breach of them even in relation to the authority given them by God to be sinfull Their lawes are commonly shut up with a sanction of the penalty imposed upon the violation There is an obedientia bursalis as I remember Gerson calls it an obedience if not of the person yet of the purse which Princes are content to take up withall we have a world of sinnes God knowes upon us in our hourly transgressions of the royall lawes of our maker but woe were us if wee should have so many sins more as we break statutes In penall lawes where scandall or contempt finde no place humane authority is wont to rest satisfied with the mulct paid when the duty is not performed Not that we may wilfully incur the breach of a good law because our hands are upon our purse-strings ready to stake the forfeiture This were utterly to frustrate the end of good lawes which doe therfore impose a mulct that they may not bee broken and were highly injurious to soveraign authority as if it sought for our money not our obedience and cared more for gain then good order then which there cannot be a more base imputation cast upon government As then we are wont to say in relation of our actions to the lawes of God that som things are forbidden because they are sinfull and some things are sinfull because they are forbidden so it holds also in the lawes of men som things are forbidden because they are justly offensive and som other things are only therfore offensive because they are forbidden in the former of these we must yield our careful obedience out of respect even to the duty it self in the latter out of respect to the will of the law-giver yet so as that if our own important occasions shall enforce us to transgress a penall law without any affront of authority or scandall to others our submission to the penalty frees us from a sinfull disodedience CASE VII Whether Tithes bee a lawfull maintenance for Ministers under the Gospel and whether men bee bound to pay them accordingly AS the question of Mine and Thine hath ever embroyled the world so this particular concerning tithes hath raised no little dust in the Church of God whiles some plead them in the precise quota parta due necessarie to be paid both by the law of God and nature it self others decry them as a judaicall law partly ceremoniall partly judiciall and therfore either now unlawfull or at least neither obligatory nor convenient What is fit to be determined in a businesse so over agitated I shall shut up in these ten propositions 1. The maintenance of the legall ministery allowed and appointed by God was exceeding large and liberall Besides all the tithes of corn wine oyle herbs herds
the hearts of too many Christians as if the contributions to their ministers were a matter of meer almes which as they need not to give so they are apt upon easy displeasures to upbraid But these men must be put in minde of the just word of our Saviour The laborer is worthy of his wages The ministery signifies a service a publique service at Gods Altar whereto the wages is no lesse due then the meat is to the mouth of him that payes it No man may more freely speak of tithes then my selfe who receive none nor ever shall do Know then ye proud ignorants that call your Ministers your almes-men and your selves their Benefactors that the same right you have to the whole they have to a part God and the same lawes that have feoffed you in your estates have allotted them their due shares in them which without wrong ye cannot detract It is not your charity but your justice which they presse for their owne Neither think to check them with the scornfull title of your servants servants they are indeede to Gods Church not to you and if they doe stoop to particular services for the good of your souls this is no more disparagement to them then it is to the blessed Angels of God to be ministring spirits Heb. 1. 14. sent forth to minister for them who shall be heires of salvation Shortly it is the Apostles charge ratified in heaven that they which labour in the word and doctrine should be remunerated with double honour that is not formall of words and complements but real of maintenance which he laies weight upon his Timothy to enioyn 1. Tim. 5. 17. 10. And surely how necessary it is that we should bee at som certainty in this case and not left to the meere arbitrary will of the givers it too well apears in common experience which tell us how ordinary it is where ministers depend upon voluntary benevolences if they doe but upon som just reproofe gall the conscience of a guilty hearer or preach som truth which dis-relishes the palat of a prepossessed auditor how he straight flies out and not only withholds his own pay but also withdrawes the contributions of others so as the free-tongued teacher must either live by ayre or be forced to change his pasture It were easy to instance but charity bids mee forbeare Hereupon it is that these sportulary preachers are faine to sooth up their many masters and are so gaged with the feare of a starving displeasure that they dare not be free in the reprehension of the daring sins of their uncertain benefactors as being charmed to speak either placentia or nothing And if there were no such danger in a faithfull and just freedom yet how easy is it to apprehend that if even when the laws enforce men to pay their dues to their ministers they yet continue so backward in their discharge of them how much lesse hope can there be that being left to their free choyce they would prove eyther liberall or just in their voluntary contributions Howsoever therfore in that innocent infancy of the Church wherein zealous Christians out of a liberall ingenuity were ready to lay downe all their substance at the Apostles feet in the primitive times immediately subsequent the willing forwardness of devout people tooke away all need of raysing set maintenances for Gods ministers yet now in these depraved and hard hearted times of the Church it is more then requisite that fixed competencies of allowance should by good lawes be established upon them which being done by way of tithes in those countries wherein they obtaine there is just cause of thankfulnesse to God for so meet a provision none for a just oppugnation CASE VIII Whether it bee lawfull for Christians where they find a countrey possessed by savage Pagans and Infidels to drive out the native inhabitants and to seize and enjoy their lands upon any pretence and upon what grounds it may be lawfull so to doe WHat unjust and cruel measure hath been heretofore offered by the Spaniard to miserable Indians in this kind I had rather you should receive from the relation of their own Bishop Bartholomaeus Casa then from my Pen. He can tell you a sad story of millions of those poor savages made away to make room for those their imperious successors the discovery of whose unjust usurpation procured but little thanks to their learned professors of Complutum and Salamanca Your question relates to our owne case since many thousands of our nation have transplanted themselves into those regions which were prepossessed by barbarous owners As for those countries which were not inhabited by any reasonable creatures as the Bermudas or Summer-Islands which were only peopled wih Hogs and Deer and such like bruite cattle there can be no reason why they should not fall to the first occupant but where the land hath a known master the case must vary For the decision whereof some grounds are fit to be laid No nation under heaven but hath som Religion or other and worships a God such as it is although a creature much inferiour in very nature to themselves although the worst of creatures evil spirits and that religion wherein they were bred through an invincible ignorance of better they esteem good at least Dominion and propriety is not founded in Religion but in a naturall and civill right It is true that the saints have in Christ the Lord of all things a spiritual right in all creatures all things are yours saith the Apostle and you are Christs and Christ is Gods but the spirituall right gives a man no title at all to any naturall or civill possession here on earth yea Christ himselfe though both as God and as Mediator the whole world were his yet hee tells Pilate My kingdom is not of this World neither did he though the Lord Paramount of this whol earth by virtu of that transcendent soveraignty put any man out of the possession of one foot of ground which fell to him either by birth or purchase Neither doth the want of that spirituall interest debar any man from a rightfull claim and fruition of these earthly inheritances The barbarous people were lords of their owne and have their Sagamores and orders and formes of government under which they peaceably live without the intermedling with other nations Infidelity cannot forfeit their inheritance to others no more then enmity professed by Jewes to Christian Religion can escheat their goods to the Crownes under which they live yea much lesse for those Jewes living amongst Christian people have or might have had meanes sufficient to reclaime them from their stubborn unbeleefe but these savages have never had the least overture of any saving helps to wards their conversion they therefore being as true owners of their native inheritances as Christians are of theirs they can no more be forced from their possessions by Christians then Christians may be so forced by them certainly in the same
of a thousand to shew unto man his uprightnesse and the soundnesse of his repentance ver 24. then is God Gratious unto him and saith Deliver him from going down into the pit I have found a ransome c. ver 26. Hee shall pray unto God and he will be favorable unto him and hee shall see his face with joy In case of some dangerous sicknesse of the body wee trust not our owne skill nor some ignorant quack-salvers but seek to a learned and experienced Physitian for the prescription of some sure remedies whereas if it be but for a sore finger or a tooth-ach we care only to make use of our own receits And so in civil quarels if it be only som sleight brabble wee thinke to compose it alone but if it be som maine question importing our free hold wee are glad to waite on the stairs of some judicious Lawyer and to fee him for advice How much more is it thus in the perilous condition of our soules which as it is a part farre more precious then its earthly Tabernacle so the diseases whereto it is subject are infinitely more dangerous and deadly Is your heart therfore embroyled within you with the guilt of some hainous sin labour what you may to make your peace with Heaven humble your self unto the dust before the Majesty whom you have offended beat your guilty brest water your cheeks with your tears cry mightily to the father of mercies for a gracious remission but if after all these penitent endevours you finde your soule still unquiet and not sufficiently apprehensive of a free and full forgiveness betake your selfe to Gods faithfull agent for peace run to your ghostly Physitian lay your bosome open before him flatter not your own condition let neither feare nor shame stay his hand from probing and searching the wound to the bottome and that being done make carefull use of such spirituall applications as shall be by him administred to you This this is the way to a perfect recovery and fulness of comfort But you easily grant that there may be very wholsome use of the ghostly counsell of your Minister in the case of a troubled soule but you doubt of the validity and power of his absolution concerning which it was a just question of the Scribes in the Gospell Who can forgive sinnes but God only Mar. 2. 6. Our Saviour therefore to prove that he had this power argues it from his divine omnipotence He only hath authority to forgive sinnes ver 7. that can say to the decrepit paralytick Arise take up thy bed and walke ver 9. none but a God can by his command effect this he is therefore the true God that may absolutely say Thy sins be forgiven thee ver 10. Indeede how can it be otherwise Against God only is our sin committed against man only in the relation that man hath to God He only can know the depth of the malignity of sin who only knowes the soule wherein it is forged He only who is Lord of the Soule the God of spirits can punish the Soule for sinning Hee only that is infinite can doome the sinfull soule to infinite torments He only therefore it must be that can release the guilty Soule from sin and punishment If therefore man or Angell shall challenge to himselfe this absolute power to forgive sin let him be accursed Yet withall it must be yeelded that the blessed son of God spake not those words of his last commission in vaine Whos 's soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sinnes ye retaine they are retained John 20. 23. neither were they spoken to the then present Apostles only but in them to all their faithfull successors to the end of the world It cannot therfore but be granted that there is some kind of power left in the hand of Christs ministers both to remit and retain sin Neither is this power given only to the Governors of the Church in respect of the censures to be inflicted or relaxed by them but to all Gods faithfull ministers in relation to the sins of men A power not soveraign and absolute but limited ministeriall for either quieting the conscience of the penitent or further aggravating the conscience of sin and terror of judgement to the obstinate and rebellious Neither is this only by way of a bare verball declaration which might proceed from any other lips but in the way of an operative and effectuall application by virtue of that delegate or commissionary authority which is by Christ entrusted with them For certainly our Saviour meant in these words to conferre somwhat upon his Ministers more then the rest of the world should be capable to receive or perform The absolution therefore of an authorized person must needs be of greater force and efficacy then of any private man how learned or holy soever since it is grounded upon the institution and commission of the Sonne of God from which all power and virtue is derived to all his ordinances and we may wel say that whatsoever is in this case done by Gods minister the key not erring is ratified in heaven It cannot therfore but be a great comfort and cordiall assurance to the penitent soule to heare the messenger of God after a careful inquisition into his spiritual estate and true fight of his repentance in the name of the Lord Jesus pronouncing to him the full remission of all his sinnes And if either the blessing or curse of a father goe deeper with us then of any other whosoever although but proceeding from his own privat affection without any warrant from above how forcible shall we esteem the not so much apprecatory as declaratory benedictions of our spirituall Fathers sent to us out of Heaven Although therefore you may perhaps through Gods goodnesse attaine to such a measure of knowledg and resolution as to be able to give your self satisfaction concerning the state of your soul yet it cannot be amisse out of an abundant caution to take Gods minister along with you and making him of your spirituall Counsaile to unbosome your selfe to him freely for his fatherly advice and concurrence The neglect whereof through a kinde of eyther strangenesse of mis-conceit is certainly not a little disadvantageous to the soules of many good Christians The Romish Laity makes either Oracles or Idols of their Ghostly Fathers if we make Ciphers of ours I know not whether we be more injurious to them or our selves We go not about to rack your consciences to a forced and exquisite confession under the pain of a no-remission but wee perswade you for your owne good to be more intimate with and less reserved from those whom God hath set over you for your direction comfort salvation CASE X. Whither it bee lawfull for a man that is not a professed Divine that is as we for distinction are wont to call him for a laick person to take upon him to interpret the Scripture
as that without which so great a blessing cannot bee had As the wise Woman said to Joab 2 Sam. 20. 18. they should first treat with the men of Abel ere they smite upon the charge of the Lord of hosts Deut. 20. 10. conditions must first be tendered even to heathen enemies before any acts of hostility shall be exercised where this which is the worst of all remedies proves needfull if you ask how farre it is lawfull to ingage I must aske you ere I can returne answer first of the justice of the quarrell for surely where the warre is knowne to be unjust the willing abettors of it cannot wash their hands from blood To make a warre just as our Casuists rightly there must bee a lawfull authority to raise it a just ground whereon to raise it due formes and conditions in the raising managing and cessation of it That no authority lesse than supreame can wage a warre it is cleare in nature for that none other besides it can have power of life and death which both must lye at the publique stake in warre That none but a just and weighty cause can be the ground of a warre every mans reason apprehends for how precious a blessing had that need to bee that is held worth the purchasing with the price of so much bloud and how heavy a curse must that needes bee which can onely be remedied or prevented by so grievous a judgement as war That due termes and conditions are requisite to bee offered ere warre be undertaken and observed in the managing and ceasing of it humanity it self teacheth us without which men should run upon one another with no lesse fury and disorder than beasts not staying for any capitulation but the first advantage nor terminating their discord in any thing but utter destruction Where all or any of these are wanting the warre cannot be just and where it is known not to be such woe be to those hands that are willingly active in prosecuting it Now the care of all these three maine requisites must lie chiefly upon that Power which is entrusted by the Almighty with the over-ruling of publique affaires For the Subject as he is bound to an implicite reliance upon the command of the supreame power so unlesse it be in a case notoriously apparent to be unjust must yeild a blind-fold obedience to authority going whither he is led and doing what he is bidden But if the case be such as that his heart is fully convinced of the injustice of the enterprise and that he clearly finds that he is charged to smite Innocence and to him against God I cannot blame fight if with Sauls footmen when they were commanded to fall upon the Priests of the Lord he withhold his hand and craving pardon shew lesse readinesse to act than to suffer In the second place I must aske you with what intentions you addresse your selfe to the field if it be out of the conscience of maintaining a just cause if out of a loyall obedience to lawfull authority I shall bid you go on and prosper but if either malice to the parties opposed and therein desire of revenge or a base covetousnesse of pay or hope and desire of plunder have put you into armes repent and withdraw For what can be more sordid or cruell than to be hired for dayes-wages to shed innocent blood Or what can bee more horribly mischievous for a Man than to kill that hee may steale Upon your answer to these questions it will be easie for mee to returne mine In a just quarrell being thereto lawfully called you may fight warrantable authority hath put the sword into your hand you may use it But take heed that you use it with that moderation and with those affections that are meet Even an authorized hand may offend in striking Magistrates themselves if there be revenge in their executions doe no other than murder Far be it from you to take pleasure in bloud and to enjoy another mans destruction If especially in those warres that are intestine you shall mingle your teares with the blood which you are forced to spill it may well become Christian fortitude Shortly doe you enter into your armes imprest or voluntary If the former you have nothing but your owne heart to looke unto for a fit disposition That Power whom you justly obey must answer for the cause If the latter you have reason diligently to examine all the necessary points of the power of the cause of your intentions as well considering that in a warre it is no lesse impossible that both sides should be in the right than that in a contradiction both parts should be true Here therefore your will makes it selfe the Judg of all three and if any of them faile leaves you answerable for all miscarriages so as you had need to be carefully inquisitive in this case upon what grounds you goe that so whatsoever may befall a good conscience may beare you out in the greatest difficulties and saddest events that are wont to attend upon warre CASE X. Whether and how farre a man may act towards his own Death DIrectly to intend or endeavour that which may worke his owne death is abominably wicked and no lesse than the worst murder For if a man may not kill another much lesse himselfe by how much he is nearer to himselfe than to another and certainely if we must regulate our love to another by that to our selves it must follow that love to our selves must take up the first roome in our hearts and that love cannot but be accompanied with a detestation of any thing that may bee harmefull to our selves Doubtlesse many that can be cruell to another are favourable enough to themselves but never man that could be cruell to himself would be sparing to another's blood To will or attempt this is highly injurious to that God whose we onely are who hath committed our life as a most precious thing to our trust for his use more than our owne and will require from us an account of our managing of it and our parting from it It is a foule misprision in those men that make account of themselves as their owne and therefore that they are the absolute Lords of their life Did they give themselves their owne being had they nothing but meere nature in them can they but acknowledge an higher hand in their formation and animating What a wrong were it therefore to the great Lord and giver of life to steale out of the world without his leave that placed us there But much more if Christians they know themselves besides dearly paid for and therefore not in their own disposing but in his that bought them Secondly most desperately injurious to our selves as incurring thereby a certaine damnation for ought appeares to lookers on for ever of those soules which have wilfully broken Gods more easie and temporary prison to put themselves upon the direfull prison of Satan to all eternity Nature
not wont to be without grievous inconveniences whether in respect of our dreadfulnesse or their dangerous insinuations It is the great mercy of the God of Spirits that hee hath bound up the evill Angels in the chaines of darkenesse restraining them from those frequent and horrible appearances which they would otherwise make to the terrour and consternation of his weak creatures Whensoever it pleaseth the Almighty for his owne holy purposes so farre to loosen or lengthen the chaines of wicked spirits as to suffer them to exhibit themselves in some assumed shapes unto men it cannot but mainly import us to know what our deportment should be concerning them Doubtlesse to hold any faire termes of commerce or peace much more of amity and familiarity with them were no better than to professe our selves enemies to God for such an irreconcileable hostility there is betwixt the holy God and these malignant spirits that there can bee no place for a neutrality in our relation to them so as hee is an absolute enemie to the one that bids not open defiance to the other As therefore wee are wont by our silence to signifie our heart-burning against any person in that we abide not to speake unto those whom wee hate so must wee carry our selves towards evill spirits And if they beginne with us as that Devill did in in the Serpent with Eve how unsafe and deadly it may bee to hold that with them appeares in that first example of their onset the issue whereof brought misery and mortality upon all mankinde yet then were our first parents in their innocency and all earthly perfection wee now so tainted with sinne that Satan hath a kinde of party in us even before his actuall temptations As therefore wee are wont to say that the fort that yeilds to parley is halfe won so may it prove with us if we shall give way to hold discourse with wicked spirits who are farre too crafty for us to deale withall having so evident an advantage of us both in nature we being flesh and blood they spirituall wickednesse and in duration and experience we being but of yesterday they coetaneous with the world and time it selfe If you tell mee that our Saviour himselfe interchanged some speeches with the spirits whom he ejected it is easily answered that this act of his was never intended for our imitation sith his omnipotence was no way obnoxious to their malice our weakness is I cannot therefore but marvell at the boldnesse of those men who professing no small degree of holinesse have dared to hold familiar talk with evill spirits and could be content to make use of them for intelligence as the famous Jesuite in our time Pere Cotton who having provided 50. questions to be propounded to a Demoniack some concerning matters of learning some other matters of State concerning the then French King and the King of England and having them written down under his owne hand to that purpose being questioned concerningit answered that hee had licence from Rome to tender those demands as I received it upon certaine relation from the learned Dr. Tilenus with many pregnant and undeniable circumstances which I need not here expresse Although this need not seeme strange to me when I finde that Navarre determines plainly that when evill spirits are present not by our invocation as in possessed bodies it is lawfull to move questions to them so it be without our paayers to them or pact with them for the profit of others yea thus to confer with them even out of vanity or curiosity is but venial at the most Thus he with whom Lessius goes so far as to say Licitum est petere verbo à Diabolo ut nocere desinat c. It is lawfull to move the Devill in words to cease from hurting so that it be not done by way of deprecation or in a friendly compliance but by way of indignation A distinction which I confesse past the capacity of my apprehension who have not the wit to conceive how a man can move without implying a kinde of suite and how any suite can consist with an indignation It savours yet of a more heroicall spirit which the Church of Rome professeth to teach and practice the ejection of evill spirits by an imperious way of command having committed to her Exorcists a power of Adjuration to which the worst of Devils must be subject a power more easily arrogated than really exercised Indeed this over-ruling authority was eminently conspicuous not onely in the selected twelve and the seventy Disciples of Christ who returned from their Embassie with joy Luk. 10. 17. that the Devils were subject to them through his name but even in their holy Successors of the Primitive Church whiles the miraculous gifts of the holy Ghost were sensibly poured out upon men but if they will be still challenging the same power why doe they not as well lay claime to the speaking of strange tongues Mar. 16. 17. 18 to the super-naturall cure of all diseases to the treading on serpents and scorpions to the drinking of poysons without an Antidote and if they must needs acknowledge these faculties above their reach why doe they presume to divide the Spirit from it selfe arrogating to themselves the power of the greatest workes whiles they are professedly defective in the least wherein surely as they are the true successors of the sonnes of Sceva Act. 19. r3 14 15 16. who would be adjuring of Devils by the name of Jesus whom S. Paul preached so they can looke for no other intertainment than they found from those Demoniacks which was to be baffled and beaten and wounded Especially if we consider the foule superstition and grosse magick which they make use of in their Conjurations by their owne vainely-devised Exorcismes feoffing a supernaturall vertue upon drugges and herbes for the dispelling and staving off all evill spirits Because the bookes are not perhaps obvious take but a taste in one or two In the treasure of Exorcismes there is this following Benediction of Rue to be put into an hallowed paper and to be carried about you and smelled at for the repelling of the Invasion of Devils I conjure thee ô thou creature of Rue by the holy Lord the Father the Almighty and Eternall God which bringeth forth grasse in the mountaines and herbes for the use of man And which by the Apostle of thy Sonne our Lord Jesus Christ hast taught That the weake should eat Herbes I conjure thee that thou bee blessed and sanctifyed to retaine thâ—s invisible power and vertue that whosoever shall carry thee about him or shall smell to thee may be free from all the uncleannesse of Diabolicall infatuation and that all Devills and all Witchcrafts may speedily fall from him as herbes or grasse of the earth through the same our Lord Jesus Christ which shall come to judge the quick and the dead and the world by fire The like is prescribed to be