and bee submissive that will shew humility and winne favour with God and man Further it was well done of Hagar and is some good proofe of her piety that shee considered of this vision Gen. 16.13 and called the name of God thou God seest mee confessing that now shee took notice of Gods seeing and observing her waies and that shee said moreover have I also here looked after him that seeth mee as if shee should say Doe I live after the Lord hath come thus to take notice of mee and to reproove mee and send mee home againe and so the name was called it may be by Abraham to whom when shee returned she related this vision the well of him that lived and him that saw because the Angell looked upon her and shee lived or because the living God pleased to see her and looke upon her Shee was thankfull to God for his goodnesse in looking mercifully upon her and bringing her home againe to Abrahams family We must be thankfull if the Lord daigne us that favour to meete us in our wandrings and turne us backe againe from them Further it was a good thing in Hagar that shee yeelded her selfe to Abraham to goe away without murmuring and distemper when hee sent her away and her sonne in such poore fashion patient bearing of such hard and severe usage was no little proofe of goodnesse And when her sonne was like to die for thirst she shewed her selfe patient for shee went a good way off because she would not see him die and there shee sate and wept shee might have done better to have prayed with her weeping but to sit and mourne not to hang her nose over him weeping and roaring was some signe of patient discretion shewing her love to him And lastly shee tooke care of him afterwards to provide him a convenient wife for so it is said Gen. 21.21 this is a duty of Parents to make fit provision for the timely bestowing of their children in marriage whereof to be negligent is a part of one that regardeth not to keepe his childe in good order and to make too much haste is to make them hasten to misery So Hagar was a good servant and a good wise Mother and a good woman her carriage except in a few things was good See her faults now First shee grew proud because shee was with childe by Abraham and despised her Mistresse The Maidens of Leah and Rachel may shame Hagar in this for neither of them is accused for any such misdemeanour Take heede yee servants that you grow not insolent and contemptuous against your governours you see how much it distempered Sarah and it is a grievous sinne to put your rulers into passion by your ill carriage When the Angell met Hagar he commands her to goe and humble her selfe to her Mistresse It is apparant therefore her carriage to her was amisse There be some servants that having beene over-familiar with the Master take occasion soone to sleight their Mistresse So they add sinne to sinne and are found double offenders If any of you have offended in contempt much more in so ill grounded a contempt do that which the Angell bad Hagar humble your selves before God if not to your Mistresses Follow what was good in Hagar not what was bad Another fault of hers was that she ran away from her Mistresse which the Angell also shewes to have beene sinfull by sending her backe againe Let not the Divell make any of you play the fugitive by running away from your governours if they be somewhat sharpe to you rather strive to pacifie them by submission then to cast off the yoke by betaking your selves to your heeles These be her onely faults for I am loath to charge her with having an hand in Ishmaels mocking of Isaac for Ishmael was then upon the point of sixteene yeares old for Abraham was eighty sixe when Ishmael was borne and 100 when Isaac was borne and Isaac sucked some while like enough above a yeare and so Ishmael must be neere about sixteene that shee may thinke he was so sensible of being Abrahams heire as to laugh at the stirre made about the young childe as if by his comming into the world he should be dis-inherited Now see her crosses and comforts First shee was so happy as to be a servant in Abrahams house and so a member of the true Church within the Covenant of grace by vertue of her being a member of that domesticall Church It is a very good benefit when the Lord vouchsafeth to place a servant in a good family under good and Christian Governours which will affoord them all good usage for their bodies and all needfull helpes also for the salvation of their soules They may enjoy as much comfort in this as in any one thing that can befall them in respect of their habitation and dwelling to have good Governours in a good house For in being under the roofe and custody of a godly man they be under the custody of God himselfe and guard of holy Angels Wherefore let all those that have children and must dispose of them to be servants be principally carefull of this matter Let your care be to provide for yours Masters not alone of good estate with whom they may live comfortably for their bodies having good attire good fare good diet and the like but by whose meanes the may be helped to knowledge faith obedience graces of all sorts and to life eternall hereafter Seeing your children be made after Gods image have a soule as well as a body and have neede as much of things profitable for the soule since that is the farre better part and if that be well the good estate thereof will easily countervaile and make amends for the evills which the body suffered but if it be in bad estate all the bodily benefits will nothing at all advantage it therefore I require you in the first place to respect this most necessary thing in placing out your children And all you servants that have beene directed either by Gods providence or by the carefull indeavours of your good friends unto such households wherein you have all good usage for your outward man and over and above the comfortable helpes of domesticall duties to bring you unto goodnesse take notice of this mercy and thanke God for it and take heede that you grow not weary of those holy duties and shew not your selves so prophane as to be troubled at that which should be your greatest content Yea I pray you so many as live in good families strive so to conforme your selves to the goodnesse of the household as that you may have goodnesse by the meanes of goodnesse there used for otherwise that which should have procured life to you shall serve to make your destruction more terrible Learne to pray learne to heare Gods Word learne to be good by the precepts and examples of your Governours else as our Saviour telleth that
power to performe the duty to which he exhorted And sometimes likewise he would shew the remedyes against such or such a vice from which he disswaded as may bee seene by his Sermons already extant Also when hee thought it was needefull to discusse and handle any common place or head of Divinity hee would doe it very judiciously fully and most profitably Though hee had but an ordinary study of books for such an accomplisht Divine yet hee was one who had read very much For hee would read most swiftly yet not cursorily for he could give an account of the substance and most remarkable particulars of what hee had so read Hee had allso allwayes when hee pleased the benefit of a Booke-sellers shop which caused him to forbeare to buy many Bookes Though hee preached so often yet what hee preached was before well studied and premeditated Hee usually did pen his Sermons at large and if before he preached hee had but so much time as to read over what he had written and to gather it up into short heades hee was able if hee thought it fit to deliver it in publike well neare in the same words It pleased God to put a seale to his Ministery in the conversion confirming and building up of many thousand soules by his meanes in the whole course of his Ministery Hee was a most diligent visitor of the sick people that were under his charge without respect of Persons after that it came to his knowledge that they were sicke He was a ready Peace-maker amongst his flocke that should happen to be at variance He abounded in works of Mercie hee was a truely liberall man one that studyed liberall things for hee would seeke out to finde objects of his mercy rather then to stay till they were offered Hee did set apart and expended for the space of many yeares for good uses the tenth part of his yearly commings in both out of his temporall and ecclesiasticall meanes of maintenance Hee had an heavenly gift in Prayer both for aptnesse and Fullnesse of Confessions Petitions Supplications Intercessions and Prayses as allso for readinesse and copiousnesse of apt words together with Fervency of Spirit to poure them out unto God in the name of Christ in the behalfe of himselfe and of all those who in Prayer joyned with him He had this singular abilitie that in his Prayer after Sermon he could collect into a short Sum all which hee had delivered to his Hearers and make it the matter of his Prayer to God to the end they might be inwardly taught of God and become Beleevers and doers of what was taught them Likewise when hee had read a Psalme or Chapter in his Family hee was so well seene in the Text and of so good a Judgement and of so choice a memory that though the Chapter was part of the Ceremoniall Law or in the bookes of Numbers Chronicles and hardest Prophecies he in his Prayer would discover the scope and meaning and chiefe notes of Observation and their use in such sort that oft-times when I have heard him I have much longed that I could call them all to minde For I found the matter of his Prayer to be a better Commentary of that Chapter with apt observations and applications for use then I could finde in any Authour that I had read who had vvritten thereupon His manner was daily Morning and Evening to call his Family together and to reade a Psalme or Chapter in the Scriptures and to pray with them and oft to catechize them besides his constant Prayer Morning and Evening with his wife and also constantly alone by himselfe He did set a part private dayes of Humiliation for his Family upon speciall occasions and oft times before their preparation for their due receiving of the Lords-Supper At which times he did exceed himselfe in powring out his soule to GOD in most aboundant and most free Confessions of sinne and expressions of Sorrow for sinne with teares and with earnestnesse of Petition for pardon and grace and for the good of the Churches of God but for our whole State and Church of England more specially and particularly He was much in dayes of private Fasting and humbling himselfe before God alone that hee might make and keepe his peace with God and obtaine more Grace to keep more close to him and to walke more evenly with him and that hee might the better keepe under his body and bring it into subjection following the Example of the Apostle least having preached to others hee himselfe should not live answerable to his Doctrine without reproofe knowing that Ministers ought to be unreproveable He was so much in this that it is thought by such as knew him best that it impaired the health of his body though it made much for the good of his soule He was very able and very ready to conferre with and to resolve the doubts of those many who in love and desire of information came unto him He bare a tender love unto and had a conscionable care of that great people over which God had made him over-seer For although his mainetenance from them was but small in comparison and unkindnesses and discouragements many and his offers of greater preferment in the Church in respect of outward mainetenance were oft and importunate yet he would not be perswaded to leave them Yea though once for reasons which suddenly tooke him he did promise to accept of another charge yet within a while hee intreated mee to tell that Person to whom he had promised that hee had better thought of it and did desire to be released of his Promise and that out of Consideration of that great people which he should leave saying that if he should accept of that lesser charge when he should come into the Church amongst them his heart would in yerning towards his other people aske him what he did there He was duely inquisitive after the affaires of Gods Church and people and according as hee received true intelligence of their weale or woe so hee had his sympathies and Fellow-feelings with them in either of their conditions Hee was much grieved and troubled when hee saw that difference of opinions and thereupon strangenesse distractions and rends to arise and bee made in the Church amongst Bretheren professing for the maine and in fundamentalls the same Truthes Hee signified so much to mee with bewayling many times Hee was judiciously charitable to any that should differ in some opinions from him so long as he saw that they agreed with him in the maine and Fundamentall Points of Religion and were diligent to enquire after the Truth and saw allso that they did indeed shew the Power of Godlinesse in their lives Hee could and did highly esteeme them love them and converse Christianly and familiarly with them and that because although hee thought they were in an errour and hee would in private and publike endeavour to reclaime them yet he was perswaded that their desire
closing the flesh in steed of it and framed it into the body of a Woman in which also he placed a reasonable soule Concerning this Creation of Man you must first informe your selves of the necessity of it It must needs be granted by force of reason that there must be some first man seeing otherwise there must be infinite men because a number without beginning must be also without end in as much as there is the same reason of both that which caused men without beginning did cause them necessarily and therefore it must cause them for ever now all reason agrees to this truth that there cannot be an infinite number seeing to a number still one at least may be added I meane it of actuall numbers and actuall infinitenesse so wee reason thus either an infinite number of men or some first man and woman not the former therfore the latter And if there must be a first man and woman either they came by chance and without any maker which is so absurd that no man can choose but hisse it out or else they were made by some agent or matter that had a being before them and if so then either as Heathen Theologie tels they grew out of the mudde as frogges doe in some Countries or else were formed by God as our Theologie teacheth and let every man that hath his right wits about him judge in himselfe whether of these twaine is more agreeable to reason and more likely to be true So man was created by God now about his Creation the time and matter of it is to be noted For first man was not created till the sixth day when a fit place for him to dwell in and all necessary furniture for the place and all needfull servants and attendants were before provided for his use God saw it not fit to bring man into the world before it was garnished and stored with all contents usefull for him And then man was made in the first place and woman after him to shew that man is the superiour in nature woman was made for man and not man for woman therefore was man made first and woman after and so doth the Apostle reason in two places where he handles the difference of Sexes 1 Cor. 11.8 9. 1 Tim. 2.13 So you have this cleared how man came into the world and how woman but you must observe more particularly the different matter of which they were made and the parts of which they consist Man had a body and that was made of the dust of the earth to teach him Humility but he had also a soule and that was breathed into his nostrils that is infused by God wonderfully and immediately put into mans body it is called a breath of life and after a soule of life that is a soule which procured breathing and living nothing is harder for a man to conceive of then the nature of his owne soule next the nature of God and Angels for the former is much more hard to comprehend the latter equally difficult at least and it should be unto us a matter of great abasement that wee cannot tell what to make of our selves that is of our soules that it is we know by the effects it workes in the body and the absence of these effects and the following of contrary effects when it is departed from the body and this is all we know in a manner onely we may gather by discourse that it is a substance incorporeall because it selfe doth informe the body and one body cannot in reason be fit to informe another The Scripture also tells us certainely that it is an immortall substance which must returne to God that gave it and reason subscribes to this truth because finding the soule a thing simple it cannot conceive how it should be corrupted O how ignorant are we and what cause have we to be puffed up with conceit of our knowledge seeing so much blindnesse doth now possesse our mindes that in a manner all we have to say of our owne soules and spirits the best part of us is this that we cannot tell what to say As for Evah shee also consisted of a body and that was made not of earth but of a bone of her husband to instruct her and him both of their duty that shee should acknowledge her subjection unto him as being taken out of him and helpefull to him as being made of a rib an helpfull bone in his side and to instruct him that he should account her deare unto him and make precious reckoning of her using her as in a manner his equall as being a peece of himselfe and extracted from his own side Now a woman also hath a soule an immortall spirit to make her a living and a reasonable creature for where sin is found there is a reasonable soule because none other is capable of knowing and consequently transgressing a law made by God but woman was in the Transgression that is shee sinned and sinned first before Adam therefore shee had a soule and a reasonable soule and they seeme to have beene wilfully blinde that whether out of the silence of God in not mentioning the breathing of a soule into Evah or upon what other mad conceit would needs make themselves and others beleeve that women had no soules I conceive it was the device of some brutish and sensuall man that by instilling this most absurd conceit into that Sexe would faine draw them to commit all licentiousnesse with boldnesse for if they have no soules it could be no fault in them more then in the bruit creatures to give over themselves to all sensuality and libidinousnesse You have heard Mans beginning know now his life and herein consider his behaviour and the things that befell him his behaviour bad good indifferent doubtfull Their bad carriage stands in two things Their first sinne whereby they fell and their following sinnes which they added after their fall The first sinne was the eating of the forbidden fruit for you shall have it recorded that the Lord having placed Adam in a garden to dresse and keepe it spake to him in this wise Of all the trees of the garden thou maist eating eate that is thou maist lawfully and with mine allowance eate it was at his choice to eate of what kind he pleased and if it seemed good unto him to forbeare eating of any he might forbeare then followes a prohibition of one kind of fruit viz. of the tree of knowledge of good and evill which is in the midst of the garden thou maist not eate that is you shall not lawfully do it in regard of naturall power he had ability to eate and not eate of that as of any other but God did take away from him the morall liberty of eating of it and by his authority saw good to abridge his liberty and this alone to make it appeare to Adam that he was an absolute and a
soveraigne Lord over him and had full power and authority to forbid him what he saw good to forbid and to command what he saw good to command So the Lord did here call Adam to a profession of his absolute subjection to God his Maker and of Gods absolute right to himselfe and all other creatures and to this prohibition he subjoynes a threat of death In the day that thou eatest it thou shalt certainely die in dying thou shalt die Doubtlesse the Lord meant this of both deaths naturall and spirituall and it is to be interpreted thou shalt become subject to a naturall and to an eternall death thy body and soule both shall be made in their kind mortall Thy body subject to such putrefaction and distemper as shall cause it to be an unfit receptacle for the soule and thy soule subject to such sinfullnesse and distemper in its kind as shall make it unfit to hold any fellowship with God and so thy soule shall be separated from thy body and both from God the life of thy life in this same phrase is the wicked man threatened by the Prophet at Gods appointment O wicked man thou shalt die the death that is most surely die and be damned The Lord did not meane that naturall and eternall death should instantly follow upon their eating but obnoxiousnesse to both and some degrees of both should follow instantly and at last the consummation of both with an implicite exception of his grace in Christ in pardoning him Lo now Adam had from Gods own mouth an expresse and plaine Commandement wherein he was directly forbidden one and but one tree with warrant for the use of all the rest and a plaine and expresse threat of death to begin to insue immediately upon his eating And this Commandement either God himselfe or else Adam had made knowne to Evah for you heare that shee doth both alleadge it and oppose it to the Serpents temptation at the first Now this Commandement so plaine so easie so equall that hee could not be ignorant of it nor incurre any inconvenience by yeelding to it nor picke any exception against it This Commandement which both of them knew full well did they transgresse and that very speedily How long they continued free from the sinne I know not because I find it not revealed and will not conjecture because the not revealing it by God makes mee thinke it is not to much purpose to know If the first act of eating were that of the forbidden fruit it is a great aggravation of their sinne that they transgressed Gods Law in a manner afore they did any other thing if they stood any while it is a great aggravation that after much experience of Gods bounty they would be bold to offend him and taste of the forbidden fruit after the feeling of the sweetnesse and goodnesse of other fruits but it was not long afore they did eate and it was likewise done upon a poore motive the temptation of a base Worme and it was yeelded unto without much resistance for not many words passed them before Eve had condescended You have the Storie of this sinne in Gen. 3.1 c. where is first the Tempter a Serpent the most naked or subtilest of all beasts then the temptation in the matter of it and the successe The matter The Serpent said to the Woman hath God indeed said you shall not eate of every tree of the garden in which hee would make Eve either doubt of Gods Commandement or else be discontent with it as if hee had dealt niggardly with them in not permitting them to eate of every tree or as if the forbidding of this were as much as if hee had prohibited them all the trees intimating that this was as good as all the rest and the not giving them this as much as the deniall of all the rest Then the Womans answer telling him that he had allowed them all the rest and forbidden this alone and that on paine of death then the Serpents reply in which he contradicteth Gods threat that the Woman might not give credit unto it for he tells Evah that they should nor certainely die yea not onely so but that God knew well enough how eating of that tree would procure to them an increase of knowledge then the successe of the Temptation is that shee beleeving the Serpent and conceiving that shee should gaine knowledge by the eating and considering the beauty and pleasantnesse of the fruit did not alone eate of it her selfe but also gave her husband perswading him also to feed of it which he at her perswasion did Thus was the first Commandement utterly transgressed which so soone as it was done they began to have sence of their nakednesse and sewed figleaves together to make them aprons for the covering of their nakednesse which now began to appeare shamefull unto them This was their first sinne upon this followed divers other sinnes viz. their running away from God and hiding themselves among the trees as if it had beene possible for them so to have escaped his sight and then excusing their fault he by laying the fault partly on Eve which gave him and partly upon God which gave her to him and shee upon the Serpent which had seduced and beguiled her So they had done evill and sought to hide their sinne instead of confessing it and humbling themselves for so sinne blindes the minde hardens the heart drives a man from God and sets all the minde out of frame estranging the soule from God and causing a man to be filled with slavish feare that makes him flie from his presence This sinne brought terrour of conscience from whence of necessity followed sinfullnesse and mortality This is their bad carriage Doubtfull and indifferent may seeme to have beene their making of them aprons of leaves for that shewed some shame and desire to hide their shame Now follow the things that were good in them viz. their imbracing of Gods goodnesse and turning to him by Faith and Repentance after the promise intimated in the giving Eve the name of Evah or Mother of all living as much as if he had said though we be all dead by this sinne yet wee shall live by the promised seed which Evah shall bring forth and then Evah giveth the name of Caine to her first sonne saying I have obtained a sonne the Lord or of the Lord perhaps expressing her hope that Caine was that sonne the Lord which should bruise the Serpents head and after calling the second sonne by the name of Abel to signifie their submitting themselves to the crosses and miseries which they felt and after bringing up their sonnes in a calling the one a Shepheard the other a Husbandman and in teaching them to worship God and to bring gifts and sacrifices to him the one of his sheepe the other of the fruits which the land did affoord Now consider we the benefits God had bestowed upon them before their
respect of God man and her selfe For God shee is commended for her faith for the Author to the Hebrewes telleth us That by faith shee received strength to conceive seede and was delivered of a sonne when shee was past age because shee was perswaded that hee was faithfull which had promised where you see the nature of faith it is an acknowledging of Gods faithfullnesse a giving him the honour of his faith and setting to ones seale that God is true Faith causeth the minde of a man to submit it selfe to the Word of God and to be assured that hee can and will keepe promise for to the promise of God it looketh principally and this faith will cause a man to receive power from God to doe those things which otherwise of himselfe he wanted all power to doe This faith will make a weake man strong it will put fruitfullnesse into a barren wombe and life and strength into a dead body it will make a barren soule fruitfull in good workes and make the heart to conceive the Word so as to bring forth the fruit of good living whereto of it selfe it is as unable as a body past age is unapt to bring forth a childe Consider therefore whether you have gotten such a faith into your hearts as makes you fruitfull of good workes If we beleeve Gods promises faithfully it will sub-minister strength to produce all sorts of good workes which otherwise the heart of it selfe would never produce For he that beleeveth Gods promises shall obtaine strength from God to obey his holy Commandement and according to the strength of it to abound in good workes of all sorts Faith is a strong grace and puts a new power into the soule by which it shall be fit to doe good workes We have more largely discoursed of the nature of faith in the Example of Abraham who is also commended for faith Then Sarah in respect of Abraham her husband had two worthy vertues First shee obeyed Abraham her husband Secondly shee reverenced him and that in her heart and tongue too for shee called him Sir when shee thought of him in heart Her obedience shewed it selfe in a cheerefull forwardnesse to prepare things necessary to entertaine Angels that came unto her in the likenesse of men for it is said Abraham hasted into the Tent to Sarah and bad her quickly make ready three measures of fine flower and make cakes upon the hearth which shee did accordingly without grumbling or deferring Shee did not oppose her husband and demand husband you know not what these men be nor whence they come why should you make such care to prepare for them but without any more adoe at her husbands commandement shee gate all things ready according to his desire This is a commendable thing in a wife and is to be followed by all you godly women who would be counted daughters of Sarah if your husbands wish you to doe things honest and lawfull you must addresse your selves not to make your objections but to yeeld your cheerefull obedience according to S. Pauls commandement that saith Wives bee subject to your husbands in all things If any say that this was but a small matter I answer true but it is reported as it were a taste of her good disposition in this matter and a signe of her dutifull obedience the glory whereof the Holy Ghost giveth her more generally saying that shee obeyed her husband meaning constantly and generally shee submitted her selfe and was obedient Secondly it is noted of her that shee reverenced her husband which is also commanded to wives by S. Paul saying Let the wife see that shee feare her husband Loe it is earnestly charged upon women they must looke to it that they yeeld it Let the wife that is every wife see that is carefully looke to it and not make shifts or pretend excuses but see that shee doe it even feare her husband There is a double feare one which maketh one tremble and flie from the thing feared as hurtfull and mischievous so as men doe feare a Lyon or Beare to runne from him as fast as they can that hee may not teare us in pieces such a feare as this is not required Another feare is feare of offending wronging or grieving the person feared flying and shunning all such things as would displease him and make him conceive with dislike an irrespectivenesse of him This is the feare of the wife not to dare to displease her husband or anger him not so much least he should flie upon her with reproofes and blowes as least shee should be an instrument of griefe to one whom shee loveth and honoureth by her undutifullnesse and rudenesse And it must be noted that shee did so reverence him as to call him Lord. And how did shee call him Lord not in speaking to him or in speaking of him before others by whom it might be told him againe what shee had said but when shee thought of him or spake of him with the inward speech of her heart which none could relate againe but God who hath related this to her praise For that title shee gave him even in her inward cogitations when she said in her selfe at the hearing of the Angels promise that she should have a son Shall I have pleasure after I have waxed old my Lord being old also So the reverence of a good wife should be hearty and cause her when shee doth but thinke of her husband even then to give a title of due respect Wherefore to give rude and undecent termes to an husband such as would but become a Mistresse speaking to her bondman Ned Iacke Dick Tom Robbin is even a little too much familiarity in a wife favouring of some degree of contempt The ground of these two duties reverence and obedience is the image of God in the husband For he doth stand in Gods roome over her because as Christ is the Head of his Church so is the husband the wives head and the woman is the glory of the man meaning one that is made to bring some glory and honour to him Now by this fruit of Sarahs obedience which the Holy Ghost hath noted it is prooved that Sarah was huswifely in her house even as a woman that could stirre about in her family and looke to the dispatching of necessary affaires by her servants and them in her family For had shee beene a coy and nice or idle and sloathfull dame shee would neither have dressed meale nor kneaded it nor made cakes of it nor seene to the baking of them nor yet have followed her maid-servants and looked that they should have beene diligent in this businesse Further in respect of her sonne Isaac shee was a very loving Mother and nursed him with her owne breasts and thought it a duty for her so to doe for so it is noted of her that shee said by way of thankefull wondering at the benefit who would have said
First what if you doe you have lost many worse labours Secondly I say who can tell why will you thinke so hardly of your Brother Why I have tried already I answer God may give better successe now Againe I answer though he hearken not you shall not loose your labour for you shall shew love and obey Gods commandement and receive a reward from him Yet another good deed of Lots was that he fought to deliver his sonnes in Law and perswaded them to get them out of Sodome too We should labour not alone to get out of Sodome our selves but to helpe others out also whether it be out of the sinnes or out of the punishment of Sodome We should detest that selvish humour which prevaileth with many if themselves escape danger they care not what becomes of others O selfe-love is a fruit of brutishnesse charity of a right understanding Live not like beasts if they see perill approaching they runne away for their owne safe-guard and never consider of the rest let us strive to draw as many as we can out of sin and misery The last good thing I will note though it should have beene brought in before as being done before was this for a good while together hee kept close to his Unkle went with him into Egypt came with him out of Egypt and dwelt neere him I meane in Canaan It is a good thing to love the company of good men and delight to dwell with or neere them and happier had it beene for Lot if hee had not suffered himselfe to be divided from his Unkle Let men learne to count it a great happinesse to dwell neere to good neighbours and let them take heede that a little thing doe not separate them from such And so much for Lots goodnesse Now his badnesse And I will begin there where he began first to shew it He chose rather to dwell in a rich fertile place amongst vile sinfull men then with some earthly inconveniencies with a godly and faithfull man so shewing too great a love to riches and too small a love to goodnesse I beseech you if any of you be so minded that you will take notice of it as a fault To be so much ingaged to earthly things that for the more easie obtaining of a large quantity thereof a man can be content to pitch his Tents in Sodome and to dwell there is too great a proofe of a worldly minded man It was the beginning of Lots ruine In choice of your habitation looke chiefely to the good of the soule If you doe not be assured that some way or other God will crosse you as he did Lot We shall lesse beare out those faults with impunity for which the godly in Scripture have smarted before us because men did not receive warning by the dealing of God with them The brother is whipt more severely that seeing another brother corrected before him was bold yet to rush into the same fault Doe not commit the fault that cost Lot so deare a price Leave not a good place for the soule to get a great benefit for the body let not the world sway you neither wholy nor chiefely in choosing the place of your habitation Lot should have said Unkle so much content and good doe I receive from your good selfe unto my soule that I will make an hard shift afore I will leave you yea I will rather abridge my cattell then loose your company or at least I will be content to take a place neere you though it be not so fat and fruitfull as some other places Doe you as your owne understanding now that you see the whole carriage of things will teach you that Lot ought to have done And so much for this fault Now againe worldlinesse continued to grow stronger in Lot for hee continued to dwell in Sodome even though they were exceeding great sinners It was well done that he grieved for their sinnes it would have beene better done if he had forsaken the City Hee might have departed of his owne accord with farre lesse losse then God forc't him out at length Sure it is a fault if a man can possibly remove to make his constant aboad in an extreame wicked place where heinous and foule sinnes are usually and impudently committed for if a mans selfe escape the infection yet it is too too probable that his children shall be defiled and catch the sinnes of the places as the daughters of Lot and most of his servants did for had they beene righteous they should have escaped with him And most times if any man that hath any the least goodnesse doe suffer himselfe to be so neighboured it is a fruit of some carnall passion or other in favour of which he hardens himselfe to endure such a miserable thing as the continuall hearing and beholding of great wickednesse Let us take heed no such thing in inveigle us to pitch out Tents in any Sodome But againe Lot I think offended in going about to match his daughters with any of the wicked generation of the Sodomites What could he finde none other in all the world to give his children for wives but to two wicked men in that wicked City Would he be content to have his children his childrens childrens children and all his posterity to live in that little hell and to be indangered unto the like abhominations Surely the love of the world prevailed here with him more then it ought to have It is a fault too common with us many a Father is regardlesse how bad the place and family be into which he matcheth his daughter so the state be good Be the Towne as bad as Sodome and the person as prophane as these men yet a good living will make them to plant their children in such a garden as it were or wildernesse rather I cannot conceive but that this is a proofe of mans too high esteeming of outward things and I beseech you Fathers learne of Lot provide better for the placing of your children Another fault of Lots is that he did offer his two daughters to the Sodomites saying Doe to them what seemeth good in your eyes Out of a desire to save his guests from villany he prostitutes those that should have beene dearer to him then any guests and so would redeeme the strangers from wrong with the hazard of his childrens chastity He is to be somewhat excused by the present occasion in that hurrie and distemper he had not leasure to consider well of the thing he did but through hast was pushed forward to doe so great an hurt unto the two maides Hee doth evill here that good may come of it a thing that S. Paul would never allow for he saith concerning it God forbid The doing of evill is simply sinfull the suffering of evill not so wherefore a man should resolve rather to be a patient in the greatest evill then an agent in the farre lesser In doing any evill a
men with blindnesse a kinde of giddinesse of braine and dazeling of eyes like to those that have fed of some kinde of roote that makes them little lesse then wilde and mad for the time they could not finde the doore by groping and yet continued still to wearie themselves by groping after it Here is the greatest obstinacy and wilfullnesse in sinning that could be imagined when not alone no loving disswasion could withdraw their mindes from such a shamefull attempt but even the heavie and immediate hand of God was unable to pull them backe from continuing in their horrible and outragious onsets God might by force hold them from doing the evill but from indeavouring to doe it nothing would hinder to be so hard-hearted in a sinfull course that neither words nor blowes will so much as interrupt a man in his naughtinesse or cause him to turne a little aside or make a little stop in it but that he rusheth like a horse into the battell plunging himselfe in it like a madman running to drowne himselfe and with violence striving to rid himselfe of them that seeke to hinder him from working his mischiefe this may seeme as high a degree of sinning as that of the Sodomites O take heed that sinne lay not so fast hold upon you let it not be so absolute and mighty a commander I pray you examine your selves whether you have not sinned grossely boldly wilfully and obstinately in some other kinde as the Sodomites in masculine lusts at least whether you have not discovered the same faults in lesser degrees and know that more deepe remorse and wounding of heart is necessary to be sought after by all men for sinnes that have so many weights at their heeles to make them heavier They must rend our soules more which are laden with such considerations Was not the sinne grosse Yes Did I not commit it presumptuously Yes Did I not commit it shamelesly Yes Did I not commit it wilfully Yes Did I not persist in it against dehortaions Yes Was I so furious that some strong hand of God befalling in the instant could not hinder mee Yes O then how Sodomiticall was this sinne and how should I wonder that I should so farre surpasse all bounds and breake all bands as to commit such a crime in such a manner But here is one fault particularly to be noted in Lots sonnes in Law their Father sought to get them out of that place and so out of that plague and therefore by commission from the Angels went forth to them acquainted them with the perill and besought them to save themselves they count his words no better then the doating dreames of an old man and will not be mooved at all unlesse it be to laugh at him and so they burne with the other Sodomites because they would not beleeve their danger Thus doe men yet still pull perdition on themselves the Ministers of the Gospell preach to us to the same purpose that Lot did speake unto his sonnes in Law Come out of such and such a sinne for God will surely destroy the committers of it and what successe doe we meete withall After many an houre bestowed in seeking to make men see that if they doe such things they shall not inherit the Kingdome of Heaven but shall fall into the Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone wee have no other fruit our words appeare to them as if they were the words of one that mocked or were in jest they will not be made to thinke that any such danger is neere them Tell mee I beseech you what you thinke might not Lots two sonnes have escaped this fire of Sodome if they would What was the cause of their perishing but because they would not beleeve their Father in Law also they might have left the City with him and escaped the brimstone Surely beloved you shall be able to alledge nothing at the last day to make your destruction more tollerable for why doe you perish but because you will not give credit to the threats of God and labour to leave all sinne which you may as well indeavour to leave if your wilfullnesse did not hinder as Lots sonnes might have left Sodome If you say we could not beleeve those words I answer true but even as these wretches could not beleeve their Father because by hardening themselves in evill they had made themselves obstinate against every thing that crossed their carnall desires It is a fearefull sinne Brethren to be no otherwise affected to the threats denounced against your sinnes by Gods Ministers then as these gracelesse young men even to thinke them but words of sport counterfeit words which have no truth nor substance in them but were very mockery and scoffage so thought these foolish fellowes but in the morning they were made to feele what they would not beleeve at midnight when they scorched in the flames they in vaine repented their ill entertainement of their Father in Lawes speeches and perswasions and to no purpose wished that they had beene over-intreated by him A number of you live in the selfe-same sinne hee that threatens hell-fire and destruction against you for your drunkennesse filthinesse revenge worldlinesse is counted a mocker an idle fellow that knowes not what hee saith but must say something when he is gotten into his Pulpit and no more reckoning doe you make of it but when death hath carried your soules to hell then you shall too late accuse your owne folly and wish you had hearkened with more beliefe O accept these threats with faith that they may draw you out of sinne and save you out of hell The sinnes of Sodome related by Moses you have heard of The Prophet Ezekiel by way of upbraiding Iudah relates some other sinnes together with this as you may reade Ezek. 16.49 Pride fullnesse of bread and abundance of idlenesse were in her and in her daughters and they strengthened not the hand of the poore and needy and they were haughty and committed abhomination before mee First the Holy Ghost telleth us of their pride this is a grievous vice pride of heart is a fearefull sinne 'T is like a great swelling in the body which unfitteth it for any good service and is apt to putrifie and to breake and runne with loathsome and foule matter So doth this pride disable the soule from any good duty and at left breakes forth into most odious and filthy deeds that cause it to be tedious to God and man The Scripture often condemneth it and pronounceth heavie threats against it Psal 73.6 a wicked man is blamed because pride compasseth him as a garment he weareth it upon himselfe as some faire and gorgeous robe of which hee is so farre from being ashamed that he rejoyceth in it and thinketh himselfe to be made more comely and honourable by it and Prov. 8.13 hee saith the feare of God is to hate pride amongst other things there named It must needs be concluded
his owne bosome The living God markes the carriage of servants accepts their diligence and fidelity and rewards it and it is as evident a note of true piety to be a good servant as a good King or a good Minister and that will make you good servants if you know that in so doing you shall be accepted by God and have your wages from him if your Governours should be froward And to remember that Saint Peter requireth you to shew your selves true Christians by being good servants even to unquiet and crooked Masters But if any of you have shewed your selves froward servants sullen dogged sloathfull idle false untrusty at best but eye-servants that caâ—ed no further to doe your duty then you conceived your Masters should know of your carriage otherwise not caring how you loitered out the time how wastfull you were and adding to these faults also answering againe and frowardnesse and falsehood denying your faults O be humbled in seeing your selves so unlike to Ioseph you would be accounted good Christians as he was a good son to Iacob and be sorrowfull you have not approved your selves such as he did approve himselfe When we see the godlinesse of those whom the Scriptures commend unto us we must take notice of our own naughtinesse with remorse and sorrow and runne to God to pardon and reforme it God that made Ioseph a good servant can make thee so too seeke unto him for his Spirit to make thee humble and conscionable Secondly in his Masters house this godly man shewed the true feare of God in that he forbare to commit a sinne to which he was so vehemently solicited saying to his Mistresse How shall doe this great evill and sinne against God Gen. 39.9 Wee must all labour to plant an awfull apprehension of Gods greatnesse justice and presence in our minds that wee may not dare to sinne against him this is the vertue so much commended in the Scriptures so often required and that hath so many promises made unto it This is that vertue which must prove our knowledge of God and our faith in him I meane a not daring to sinne in respect that wee know it is offensive to him and will provoke him against us This vertue will hold the heart from secret sinne and such to which wee are much solicited perhaps also much inclined He that hath this grace is mounded and armed against the strongest temptations of Satan and of evill men No man can doe himselfe a better turne then to abound in it the Prophet calls it our treasure He that hath gotten it in any good quantity hath gotten the richest treasure in the world and that which will doe him more good then all gold and silver Salomon calleth it the beginning or head or chiefe part or first fruits of wisdome It is a grace which maketh knowledge usefull which else will end or rather vanish in meere discourse and twattle It is a grace that cannot be found but in a heart thoroughly sanctified he that hath it is sure to find favour with God and to walke holily with God No man can sufficiently set forth the excellency of this grace It is that by which we must worke out our salvation without which wee cannot hold out in the way of piety it must helpe us against false feares and false hopes against pleasure against profit against credite against discredite against all the wayes that Satan hath to draw us to sinne It will make you forbeare secret sinnes and such as flesh hath much to say why it must needs commit a large measure of feare will make you forbeare such sinnes and if there be any there it will make you carefull of rising out of them by speedy repentance But you that are bold to sinne in secret and carelesse to repent of the sinnes that you can keepe secret flatter not your selves with a false imagination that you have the feare of God before your eyes Thirdly this worthy man had a thankefull and loving respect unto his Master for saith he my Master hath thus and thus honoured trusted me and shall I so requite his love as to defile his wife you see that every man ought to take great heed of wronging that person in any thing from whom he hath received much kindnesse in any respect The good that another hath done as should offer it selfe unto our minds to make us stedfast in forbearing to doe any thing that may wrong him as we should abstaine from injurying a benefactour in his wife or goods or name or in his children or in his body or in any other respect Consider if you have beene thus thankefull or not and he that is proved by the verdict of his owne soule to be ungratefull having not remembred good turnes received to make him temper himselfe from injuries let him know that this shall be a great aggravation of his fault that what should have prevayled to withdraw a man from sinne and hath not shall certainely prevaile to make his punishment the more grievous Hast thou wronged any one in his good name wife c. Concerning whom if ingratitude and love of sinne had not polluted and corrupted thy memory thou mightest have said he hath done this and this for me and shall I so requite him blush for shame to thinke that thou hast incurred the odious name of an ingratefull man a terme of as much reproach as any can be And now tread in Iosephs steps this way shew that you doe account your selves indebted for favours and curtesies by having them ready in your minds as a disswasive from any manner of injuriousnesse to them in whose debt you stand for such curtesies Let your memories serve you for good purposes Corruption will soone recall injuries to hinder from gratifying another let us as soone recall kindnesses to hinder from hurting But fourthly This Ioseph shewes forth that excellent vertue of chastity and that in an high degree for being a young man and earnestly and often yea almost continually importuned by his Mistresse to commit adultery with her he continues to repell her temptations with a peremptory denyall and shuns her company by all the wayes he can when she caught him at such an advantage once that having him alone she durst lay hands upon him and offer as much violence as that sexe could offer in that case he leaves his garment with her and runnes out so farre is he from yeelding a truer and nobler patterne of continency how can we thinke of If we consider his age and his person and the person of the solicittesse and the continuance of her evill suit and her earnestnesse in it how great a patterne is he of constant and invincible purity But the words that can be bestowed in commending him will all fall short of his worthinesse I shall endeavour to commend this grace unto you chastity is a sweet and excellent vertue The keeping of the Body pure
her hate him Their hatred made him a slave her hatred made him a prisoner bondage and imprisonment brought him acquainted with the chiefe Butler made himselfe known to Pharaoh and so brought him up to this exceeding height of place Blessed be God for his goodnesse to his people no man shall hazard himselfe to temporall misery for conscience sake but God will requite him with a hundred fold at least more comfort here as well as with life eternall hereafter Let Iosephs wages make you not afraid so farre as you are called to it to doe Iosephs worke that is to say and doe good and forbeare evill though you incurre hatred and danger and much affliction thereby Lastly Ioseph was blessed too in his posterity to make his wellfare up fully he lived to see the sonnes of Manasseth and Ephraim his two sonnes and he lived to see the part of the birth-right even the double portion conferred upon his children and that by the mouth of his Father inspired by God when he made his last will Iacob adopted his two sonnes to himselfe to make two Tribes and God made them both great but especially the younger he made him a principall Tribe for possessions and command afterwards and this also is some satisfaction to a Father if he know that his children after him shall flourish for many generations O that we could feare God and follow true vertue and piety as Ioseph did that he might blesse us also as he did him in our selves and posterity in our state and our name in our bodies and in our soules and in all that pertaineth to us according to his promise And let all that feare God be assured that so farre as is good for them the Lord will give them prosperity in these things for he made the same promises to all his people and will confirme them so farre as they are capable and it may stand with their spirituall good Now you have heard of Iosephs life conclude we with the conclusion of his life his death For neither honours nor favours nor grace nor any thing could keepe death away and it must befall me and you and all that now live and are to live hereafter onely marke that he dyed a godly and comfortable death for in the cloze of his life he made profession of his being an Hebrew not an Egyptian by taking an oath of them for the carrying of his bones into the Land of Canaan gave them a promise of their returne thither which was also an exercise of his faith to demonstrate his comfortable expectation of life eternall whereof the Land of Promise was a figure You are not ignorant Brethren that within the compasse of an hundred yeares a minute being compared to eternity the whole number of you must be as well as Ioseph dying and dead men Be intreated to divorce your hearts from sinne the cause of death from the world which at death you must leave and from men which cannot helpe you neither in nor after death and labour to get righteousnesse which will deliver from death some assurance of heaven that ye may have a place of comfort after death and interest into Christ who can save you from the hurt of death And these things if you attaine you may triumph over death with Pauls question Death where is thy sting else death will triumph over you with the question of Christ Whose then shall be these things of which thou gloriest So much of Ioseph THE TWENTY SEVENTH EXAMPLE OF IOSEPHS STEVVARD ONE person alone remaineth to be spoken of whom wee cannot name to you for the Scripture giveth him no name at all He hath a good name a good report in Scripture for a good man but no name that is no particular surname or proper name by which he was usually knowne and distinguished from other men of his Country or progenitors of his birth or death we have nothing but he is set forth by his relation to Ioseph he was Iosephs Steward for as Ioseph sowed so did he reape what a kind of servant and Steward himselfe was to Putiphar such a kind of Steward in some degree did God provide for him He himselfe was a good servant to his Master and himselfe being a Master enjoyes a good servant to himselfe many times the Lord sees fit to bring a mans good deeds into his owne bosome a good child to his Parents hath good children himselfe a good servant hath good servants and so in the rest Let this incourage you that be in the place of servants to performe your duties diligently unto your domesticall Rulers your Masters for by this meanes you may lay up for your selves a comfortable hope of being served with like care and diligence your selves God no doubt hath a speciall hand in disposing of servants to every Master it is he that ordereth things so as such a man hath good and such a one bad servants men often use great care to choose a servant and meete with a very bad one contrary to all their hopes and care againe sometimes by meere casualty almost men light upon a very good servant More particularly his carriage was good to his Master and to the strangers brethren to his Master but not by him knowne so to be 1. Teachable they learnt some knowledge of the true God from him The God of your Fathers saith he and your God hath given you this treasure How came this man to know a distinction of Gods How came he to know that they had a God of their owne peculiar to them and to their Fathers which was not then acknowledged to be the God of all the world Egypt had many Gods this man acknowledgeth one God and that one God which was acknowledged and worshipped by these men and by their Forefathers It is not likely that Ioseph told his Steward that these were his brethren but it is undoubtedly manifest that they were some such as he knew to be worshippers of the true God which hee knew by some few men to be worshipped in the Land of Canaan Therefore you see how kindly he speakes to them that a man may even perceive by his words that they were so much dearer to him because they pertained to that God This was the more observable because he was an Egyptian servant O that all you which be servants to godly Governours would learne some goodnesse from them even to know and serve God you all have some knowledge of that one God but learne also the feare and love of that God the sincere and carefull worship of that God from your Governours that would fain teach it you and would count themselves happy if you would learne it from them But for a servant to live in the family of a Ioseph that laboureth to teach godlinesse unto him by word and example and yet declares no sense nor feeling of God no knowledge or respect of him how great a sinne is this and how
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
on This is a lawfull invention and good and comfortable Cheerefullnesse and Mirth so that it be moderate and well guided for the circumstances is a lawfull thing whether Musicke by voice or instrument whether winde instruments or other hand instruments It is a very good and lawfull thing to solace ones selfe with musicke and a warrantable recreation so that it be not abused and hee that first found it out is to be counted a benefactor to mankinde But the last named he was the most profitable inventer he that found out the art of iron worke he was an excellent Smith This was Tubal Caine thought to be the same that the Heathens called Vulcane Smiths are a necessary calling Their art is helpefull to all other Sciences both for peace and warre to them belongeth the making of all the necessariest instruments of husbandry of all sort of tooles for other trades and of armes also for the Souldier No part of mans life can be without iron worke A knife a key an hatchet a forke a saw a mattock a sythe a raking hooke a chezill a sword a speare a shield an helmet who can reckon up the things that Smiths do make for mans use This was therefore an exceeding fruitfull invention so much the more to be commended by how much it is more wearisome and laborious for it is you know a strong labour in some things and a curious in other things and much of it is much annoyed with heate about the fire And thus hath God stored the world with needfull arts by meanes of Lamechs sonnes that were it seemeth unsanctified men We must make some use of all this first to be thankefull unto God that hath imparted to some men such good wits and understandings that they were able to finde out and perfect those severall Sciences and Callings for how toylesome and uncomfortable would our lives be if we did not enjoy these helpes and comforts Even this naturall ability is from God and deserveth thankes from us Againe men must set themselves to be profitable to the world by either inventing or adding to the inventions of others in any kinde It is good to doe something for which the world may be the better and not to come into the world meerely as rats and mice onely to devoure victuals and to runne squeaking up and downe Be you followers of such if you cannot invent and perfect an art yet learne and follow some that is already invented These men were not idlesbees doe naughts O be you as good at least as these sonnes of Lamech onely labour to be so moderate in following and using all these earthly things that you be not earthly minded thereby but may become carefull of things that pertaine to the soule and to another life as well as of those that belong to this present life and to this body of clay It is good to use the world but not to love it to set our hands on worke about the things of it but not to set our hearts upon it This is a baiting place and not a place of habitation we make a journey through this world we do not dwell in the world O let our mindes and desires and wishes be in Heaven and let us doe those outward things with reference unto Heaven that by profiting men and serving God in a calling we may make our way to Heaven the easier and our wages there the greater And so much for the linage of Caine. Now we come to another off-spring of Adam If is not to be thought that he remained childlesse till the birth of Seth or that God would smite him in that newnesse of the world with so long a barrennesse or that he so long forbare society with Evah As it is said that he lived an hundred and thirty yeeres and begat Seth so it is said hee lived long after and begat sonnes and daughters therefore it is likely also that in that hundred and thirty yeeres before he begat sonnes and daughters but because the Lord intended to draw out the linage of Christ therefore he lets all the rest goe and fastens alone upon Seth of whom the promised seed was to come in a direct line Of Seth then we must speake His Birth gladded Evah and Adam too no doubt because they understood by revelation from God that he should be a godly man Therefore hee is called Seth that is he hath appointed because saith Evah God hath appointed mee another seed instead of Abel whom Caine slew Loe it is an hundred and thirty yeares after and yet shee hath not forgotten the murder of Caine. The infamy of a sinne will cleave long to a mans name and the griefe of a crosse if it be a stinging crosse indeed as this was will lie long upon the soule But why saith shee a seede instead of Abel it may be it was because shee saw little piety and goodnesse in the other sonnes and daughters none of them was like Abel in religion and godlinesse But for Seth shee understood that God would make him as good a man as Abel and therefore shee rejoyceth in him for a good Parent is little gladded in children if they proove not pious and godly children Gods children as well as his or hers wherefore those children that would glad the hearts of their Parents must see themselves to follow the waies of vertue that their aged Parents may have joy in them Now of Seth nothing is said but that he begat a Sonne at an hundred and five yeares old as the next Chapter shewes calling him Enosh that is sorrow or griefe because of the many griefes and sorrowes to which men are subject in this life Well may man have the name of sorry given to him so full of miseries is he as Iob spake long after Onely it is added that in Seths daies men began to callon the name of the Lord. It may be rendred some thinke the name of God was prophaned in calling on that is men grew then very prophane in a carelesse abusing Gods publike Service and Worship Others thus then it was begun to call on the name of the Lord that is men began more publikely and religiously and openly to call on the name of God to professe true piety more carefully in publike assemblies It notes in the former sence a growing worse of the times in the latter a growing better I am in doubt whether sence to fasten upon I thinke rather of the twaine it is a taxing of the publike profanation of God in abusing his worship because it followes immediately upon the giving of the name Enosh sorrowfull miserable mortall man as a reason of that name why did his Father call him so because Gods name then began to be prophaned in calling upon men grew more and more carelesse and remisse in Gods service and did it in so bad and negligent and indevout a fashion as it was rather a profaning then a worshipping or honouring of
his name And this seemeth the rather to be the meaning because there is little reason to thinke that Adam and Seth did not long before this apply themselves to the carefull worshipping of God in their assemblies and to take all good meanes to save themselves from the corruption of the Kaynites Or it may be rendered then it was begun to call by the name of Lord that is men began then to have that name given them of the sons of God and this I like best of all the three because in the beginning of the sixt Chapter which continues the story and the fift Chapter is but a digression put in to shew the age of the world at the floud it is said the sonnes of God saw the daughters of the sonnes of men Whereby it is apparent that to the men that professed true religion with Adam and Seth the name of the sonnes of God was given and to the rest the name of the sonnes of men The professors of the true religion were called sonnes of God that did worship the true God after the manner that God taught by Adam The other were called sonnes of men that gave themselves over to worldlinesse and vanity and prophanenesse for my part I suppose that before the floud there was no Idolatry because the Holy Ghost would not have omitted the taxing of that sinne as well as those it doth taxe if it had beene then used in the world But let us take the words to meane then it was begun to call on the name of the Lord and then it shall be added as a commendation of Seth that in his daies religion began to flourish more then ever before by his diligence joyning with his Father Adam much more respect was had to piety and greater numbers of men imbraced the profession of piety And this ought to be the care of every good man to further the progresse of true religion and to cause the name of God to be faithfully called upon of many Now of the rest of Adams seed there is a Catalogue made in the fifth Chapter of all the ancient Fathers from the first man Adam to Noah in whose daies the floud fell out by which it appeares of what standing the world was when it was growne so corrupt that the Lord could no longer endure the manners of it And in this Catalogue the Holy Ghost takes this order 1. He shewes of what age every one was when he begat his eldest sonne How many yeares he lived after the birth of that sonne 3. How old he was when he died The number of the persons are in all ten Adam Seth Enoch Cainan Mahalaleel Iared Enoch Methuselah Lamech and Noah Adam at a hundred and thirty yeares begat Seth and after lived eight hundred yeares and had more children in that time and died aged nine hundred and thirty yeares Adam was in truth the eldest man all things considered for though Methuselah out-lived him thirty nine yeares for he was nine hundred sixty nine yeares and Adam but nine hundred and thirty yet Methuselah was borne an infant Adam was made a perfect man the first day and in those times a man was but a child at thirty nine yeares for no question they would give their mindes to marriage in that newnesse of the world paucity of men and plenty of ground so soone as they were fit for it So Adams perfect estate at the first countervailed the living of forty yeares and more Seth he lived a hundred and five yeares and begat Enos and living eight hundred and seven yeares begat divers more children and ended his daies at nine hundred and two Enos lived ninety yeares and begat Cainan c. as you may reade in the story Nothing is mentioned of any one but the length of his life the time when hee had his first sonne and that hee had more sonnes Onely of Henoch it is noted that he walked with God that is lived a most holy life and that he died not at all but was translated after hee had lived three hundred sixty five yeares The Lord shortned the daies of his pilgrimage and rewarded his singular piety with taking him up to Heaven soule and body immediately without dying He was changed without any separating of his spirit from his body and in him we have an example what should have beene the course that God would have taken with all men if man had continued in the state of innocency viz. he should not have died soule and body should never have departed one from the other but after a man had proceeded in godlinesse till hee had gotten so large a measure of it as in this life hee could for though Adam were perfect habitually yet not actually I meane though hee had an ability to attaine perfect knowledge of God and the creatures yet hee had not yet actually gotten all such knowledge as hee was to get both of God and of the creatures then should he have beene translated into Heaven to see God immediately and to know him better then in this life he could be knowne Sinne entring caused death had not that come in we should have gone to Heaven without death as this Henoch did Now out of all these things written concerning these Ancients the direct parents of our Lord wee gather this that death is common to all and how long soever a man lives at last hee must leave the world and therefore we learne two things principally First to prepare for death that whensoever it befalleth wee may change for the better not for the worse and this preparation for death must be not alone a little before it comes or at the houre of its approach but in the whole course of our life by beginning early to repent and continuing daily to turne and renew our repentance that so we may get an assurance of our being taken from earth to Heaven for he that begins unfaignedly to turne to God and so continues hee shall surely be saved and for the most part shall obtaine before his departure hence an assured apprehension of his salvation Therefore hee must as Henoch did walke with God in a continuall care of obeying him and labouring to hold fast a constant perswasion of his favour and love to him in his Sonne for it is testified of Enoch that he pleased God so that what in Genesis is called a walking with God that S. Paul calls pleasing of God and also that by faith he was translated that he should not see death even by his beleeving and resting upon Gods mercy for so it is said he beleeved that God was and was a rewarder of them that diligently seeke him which finding himselfe to do he resolved that God would reward him So must each of us walke with God constantly resolve and indeavour to please God in all things and retaine in our selves an assured peaswasion that God will graciously accept and reward us in Christ with giving us life eternall and
telleth of their notable unbeleefe that did not give any credit to Gods threats nor knew of the floud till the waters came and drowned them All Noahs preaching prevailed nor to make them take notice of the judgement that hanged over their heads The mercy of God towards them appeareth in that he gave them a large warning a hundred and twenty yeares to repent in which his Spirit continued to strive with their wickednesse God taketh to himselfe the similitude of a man who being greatly displeased with the ill carriage of his Inferiours is faine to strive with himselfe to keepe downe his anger that it raise not up it selfe against them in excesse and over-suddenly The striving of Gods Spirit is a patient continuing to use the meanes of reclaiming sinners to see if it be possible to winne them Gods bounty taketh paines as it were to breake mans sinfull heart So God resolved to continue striving but for a hundred and twenty yeares and all that while he determined to continue this course of gentlenesse and withall hee used in that time the ministery of Noah who was therefore called a Minister and Preacher of righteousnesse by S. Peter that he might reduce them to some repentance and amendment therefore is it said The long-suffering of God waited in Noahs daies and in all this space they had great outward mercies Yea there were men of great stature borne which prooved also men of great renowne for wealth riches honours and outward eminencies so that they felt no manner of punishment almost in earthly things but were reserved to that great and heavie punishment which waited for them at last even to the deluge or floud of waters God made all the great deepes to breake up and the springs to over-flow so that the waters gushed up from the ground and then opened the windowes of Heaven and caused all the waters from above to fall downe till at length the raine continuing for the space of forty daies and the waters finding so violent an issue upwards the whole earth and all the highest mountaines were covered with water fifteene cubits that is a cubit being counted for halfe a yard seven yards and an halfe high to the cutting off of all the sonnes and daughters of Adam and of all the birds and beasts that could not live in the water save those few that were in the Arke with Noah who besides his preaching by the signe of building the Arke did warne them but all in vaine of the following floud So you have the summe of the story of the old World in their sinfullnesse and Gods forbearance for along time and Gods severity and their misery at the last Let us make due uses now of all For the chiefe thing in such stories as these is to make a good use because these are set forth for an Example to them that shall hereafter live ungodlily For their soules also perished eternally as well as their bodies for anything that can be learn'd out of Scripture to the contrary except that we may conceive the Lord might be mercifull to the soules of infants that were not of age to make use of the meanes that should have brought the rest to repentance nor did not runne to the same extremity of wickednesse unlesse I say wee may hope in charity that God would shew compassion on the soules of these the men of yeeres perish soule and body both Now what uses must wee make 1. Of their sinnes 2. Of Gods patience 3. Of Gods severity Of their sinnes we must make divers uses First to take notice of our owne corrupt nature that is ready to grow so extreamely naught For wee also are the posterity of Adam and have the same corruption of nature that these had and our imaginations and the forme and frame of our hearts and all our thoughts will be onely evill continually if God give us to ourselves and there is not one of us that would not grow unjust voluptuous worldly violent and most extreamely wicked in every kinde of wickednesse as occasion would offer it selfe if the Lord did not hold us backe either by restraining or sanctifying or both To him let us give the praise of our being restrained or sanctified and let us confesse his goodnesse that doth not give us over to all licentiousnesse to commit all wickednesse with greedinesse An hearty praising of God for delivering us from notorious sinfullnesse is a testimony of some grace Mans heart is apt to turne such freedome into matter of swelling and selfe-conceitednesse if our lesse badnesse makes us more thankefull and humble not haughty and arrogant it is a signe of some truth of goodnesse But innocency joyned with swelling lifting up our selves and despising others is no better then that of the Pharisee This is the first use of their sin The next is to teach us to take heed of such wickednesse that great sinnes may not grow common but that there may be some to oppose the rest some to mourne for the rest and to take care of keeping themselves unspotted in the world that so great and publike punishments may be kept back Let us every way strive to cause that sinnes grow not huge and universall that they come not to an high degree and to commonnesse so that all joyne in them for then likely some great and heavy calamity must insue With us sinnes do grow very great great faults are committed by many but yet we are to praise God that all flesh hath not corrupted their waies there be some though but few in comparison of the multitude yet I say some that set themselves against the great and common iniquities which may give us some hope that the Lords chastisements shall follow us onely for reformation not for utter extirpation of the Nation Let us all use our best diligence to hinder the greatnesse and commonnesse of sinne that wee may prevent destroying and all-devouring blowes A third use from their sinnes is that we be carefull to avoid these particular sinnes or to repent of them and to reforme them if wee have committed them 1. Take great heed of making carnall marriages with persons sinfull and wicked for beauties sake or any such carnall respect For if it offend God that men be lewd to take wives voide of true religion and piety because of their fairenesse then surely to be so farre over-ruled with gaine or any other earthly consideration as for these things sake to make matches with carnall and naughty men must needs offend God Let no man doe so therefore let piety I say piety be the match-maker let beauty riches and all such things come after in the second or third place and let no man for any respect of face faire state c. marrie themselves to foule conditions foule manners false religion wicked conversation Surely that which swayes a man most in matrimony swayes him most in his whole life this being one of the maine matters
Bible they make no reckoning that that good or evill will come ever a whit the sooner Now I pray you see and lament your unbeleefe it is the roote of all sinne neither can any sinne be found to rule farther then this ruleth and I pray you cry to God to worke faith in you by the Word you reade and heare for no good at all can it doe you if it be not mixed with faith And if any man have such faith in Gods Word indeed and not alone in profession and shew happy is that man for hee shall be sure to find the like acceptance of God that Noah hee that hath this faith must needs be in Christ and Christ in him for where Gods Word dwells there himselfe dwels and the Word of God dwells in men by faith A third thing in Noah is noted by the Author to the Hebrewes that he was moved with feare you see he feared Gods threats he was afraid least he should be drowned with his family among the rest if he did not obey God and live vertuously and build the Arke at Gods Commandement and indeed if he had not done so he should have perished with the world as whosoever lives wickedly shall be damned this is a threat he that hath true faith will not deceive himselfe with vaine words and say I am elected I am a beleever I shall be saved though I take liberty to sinne but he will feare and depart from evill and use those meanes of escaping destruction which God hath appointed So true faith will undoubtedly worke such a feare of Gods threat as will make a man depart from evill because it brings a lively apprehension of danger and much evill before his eyes if he sinne and therefore cannot but worke feare I meane a feare of caution as they call it whereby a man is made warie to shunne and escape the evill There is a passionate feare whereby the heart is perplexed the joynts shake and such naturall bodily accidents doe follow it This feare ariseth from the bodily presence or imminent danger of some sensible evill and Noah did not so feare the floud There is another rationall feare as I may well name it by which a man apprehends an evill thing to come so as he is made carefull to shunne prevent and dares not bring it upon himselfe And this feare lookes on things a great way off long before they offer themselves to the sences and such was Noahs feare And such a feare faith will evermore bring with it It will cause that a man shall not dare to doe the things forbidden out of an apprehension of the greatnesse and extremity of the danger that will arise Now looke to your selves my Brethren doe you feare Gods threats doe you feare the curse of the Law the wrath of God hell fire damnation with such a feare as makes you use the meanes to escape these evills and makes that you cannot be bold to doe the things against which the Lord speaketh these things If you brag of faith in Gods promises and have not faith in his threats your faith is a vaine fancie and a meere painted or dead faith for no man can credit any thing which God speaketh if he doe not credit all so farre as he knowes and considers it because God cannot be deceived in any thing And if you say you beleeve Gods threats and doe not feare I say againe be not moved through feare to doe the things by which you might escape those evills threatned even to forsake the sinne and repent certainely you deceive your selves and doe not beleeve Now it is most evident that most men entertaine Gods threats without any feare They are not affected at all with the heare-say of these evills therefore it is sure they have no faith See your want of faith by the absence of this never failing effect thereof and cousen your selves with a shadow of faith no longer And now pray God to plant in your hearts such a feare of his threats as hath beene said It is a most wholesome thing to have the soule over-awed with apprehension of the evills which God denounceth against evill-doing and to be thereby kept downe so that it hath no courage to lift it selfe up to naughty deeds Blessed is he that thus feareth alwaies O that you would worke out your salvation in this feare and trembling O that the same minde might be in you that was in godly Iob who said that terrour from God did keepe him from doing any wrong to his servant and that of the holy Apostle S. Paul who said that knowing this terrour he did perswade men and was made manifest to God Let those threats if you live after the flesh you shall die and those that doe such things shall not inherit the kingdome of God and for these things sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience and many the like be often in your mindes let them awe you and hold under the strength of your corruptions causing you to denie your selves all unlawfull profits pleasures and effects of sinne and to crosse your owne wills and to set your selves to do the things that are most contrary to flesh and bloud The feare of the Lord is to depart from evill this feare of the Lord is the beginning of true saving wisdome to them that thus feare are all the promises of the Gospell made yea it is in one word said those that feare the Lord shall want nothing Never thinke that your faith is right and good if it do not produce this feare for faith must acknowledge God to be faithfull in all his words threats as well as promises and this grace is that which being planted in the heart of man doth keepe him from falling away from faith doth preserve the soule to salvation by working in it this good and vertuous feare of damnation as faith kept Noah from drowning by making him holily to feare drowning Now the last vertue of Noah is that he built an Arke as God bad him and furnished it with all foode and went into it at the time appointed and received in with himselfe and family all manner of Beasts and Birds that could not live but on drie ground two and two male and female of the uncleane that were not fit for foode and Sacrifice and 7. and 7. of those that were cleane that is fit for foode and Sacrifice at least for the last Here is his faith which brought forth obedience to the word of God in such things which seemed ridiculous to the world and made him a laughing stocke unto all the world almost Noah forsooth the youngest of the Patriarkes hee will needes be thought to have better acquaintance with God then either Henoch or Methuselah or Lamech or any of his Grandfathers that have lived or do live None of them could see a floud comming none of them had a fancy of the worlds being drowned none
of them bethought himselfe of making an Arke but this fellow hath gotten some new revelation and hee is a building a huge thing like a Chest almost so long c. So you think the man is not in his right wittes Bretheren you easily perswade your selves that this good man was laden with these scoffes and the like behind his backe and like also before his face and to his very teeth For wicked wittes will never cease gybing at those good things that crosse their sence and reason Yet Noah obeyed went on built the Arke that is was obedient to God in a thing that made him ridiculous to the world So will true Faith do it will make a man obey the Lord in those actions by which hee shall make himselfe a derision to all men almost and more then a derision a prey and spoile too The Obedience of Faith is such an Obedience as will make all men to be at Gods becke in acts of that nature as will cause him to be blamed and despised of all the world as we see in Abraham in Moses and in all those almost that are reckoned up in the 11. of the Heb. Because it makes a man firmely and stedfastly to apprehend greater good things and greater evill then those that are seene and so those visible ones do not sway him and rule on him for hee that sees a greater danger or evill will easily cast himselfe upon a farre lesse to shun the greater so contrarily a good thing And so much for Noahs goodnesse before the floud Now see in and after the floud how he carried himselfe Hee entred into the Arke as God bad him and committed himselfe to Gods protection trusting on him for safety Here was no mast oare rudder canvasse or marriners to steere and guide this vessell a wonder it was that the billowes did not cast it over and over that they did not breake the barres by their continued rage and that it had not perished with all its burden But in went Noah taking all the Beasts with him assuring himselfe to be safe for so God had told Here is an excellent act of faith even to use Gods meanes of attaining the good things promised and there rest himselfe without any further carking and perplexity of mind This was the act of Noahs faith all the floud time hee heard it raine as if Heaven and Earth would come together he perceived the cloudes to be in a fury with the sonnes of men the waters raged and roared and through the windowes hee might see how all was changed into a Sea yet there he kept himselfe quiet and made account that himselfe and his houshold should do well enough in all this confusion of nature Hee had Beares Lions Tigers Wolves and all manner of devouring beasts within the Arke hee was never a whit afraid of such neighbours but rested himselfe peaceably upon Gods promises O Beloved that we could do so for our soules for our estates for every thing use Gods meanes and then promise our selves the wished effect and trouble our selves with no further feare and dismayednesse as S. Peter saith doing well and not being dismayed with any feare O how happy would our lives be in the midst of a deluge of dangers if we could thus enter into our closets as it were and shut the doore I meane use Gods meanes and rest on him Againe Noah continued in the Arke till God bad him come out hee perceived the waters to cease raging hee discovered the tops of the mountaines hee sends out the discoverers the Raven and the Dove and learnes by them great abatement and he sees with his eyes all day when he had removed the top of the Arke yet hee stirres not out till God bad him goe out who had bidden him goe in So must you do my Bretheren you must tarry in the Arke as it were so long as God sees fit and not make hast out of it of your owne heads Be so long in affliction as God will have you goe not out till hee leade you out you may wish the time of deliverance and send out the Raven and the Dove use the best meanes you can to helpe your selves especially by prayers to God and you may remove the covering of the Arke you may looke round about by faith and with joy see your deliverance comming forward but keepe this as a certaine conclusion not to stirre out of any estate though never so troublesome till you have good warrant from God going before and guiding you Now at last see what good Noah did after the floud hee built an Altar to God and offered sacrifice in thankes for his deliverance and in a desire to frame his houshold to true piety and to establish the worship of God amongst them O let each of us learne carefully to acknowledge Gods goodnesse in great deliverances and to offer him the sacrifice of praise if hee have safe guarded us from the raging flouds of adversity and calamity And let us be carefull to establish and set up the worship of God in our families and amongst our people publikely and privately every way Build Gods altar offer Gods sacrifices I meane exercise Gods religious worship pray heare read meditate come to the Sacraments set not Gods ordinances at variance Doe not picke quarrells with anyone of them exalt not one to depresse another let them all goe together in their times and especially performe the true meaning of these sacrifices Offer up the sacrifice of Christ in a perpetuall renewing of the memoriall thereof in your soules to God and renewing of your faith in it offer up the sacrifice of a contrite spirit and broken heart sighing daily for daily sinnes and infirmities offer the sacrifice of earnest prayers for all good things and of hearty praises for what wee have received already and offer up your selves to God by him to be sanctified to doe him faithfull service in all holy obedience to all his holy lawes Be truely heartily uprightly religious and devoute in your whole lives But next Noah planted a vineyard hee fell to husbandry for my part J doubt not but that God had made vines from the first and that though wee heare of no vineyard yet there might have beene store of them But howsoever Noah set himselfe to his calling to husbandry O let us every man follow him and give himselfe to his husbandry and his vineyard the tradesmans trade is his vineyard every mans calling is his vineyard be like Noah fall to planting and dressing this vine Abhorre idlenesse have some vineyard O how miserable is hee that hath nothing to do O how unhappy a thing is it to be in the world as a cipher in Arithmeticke But lastly Noah is a faithfull Prophet and pronounceth Gods curse even against his owne sonnes herein he becomes to us a patterne of fidelity in the calling of a Minister even to denounce all things that God puts into our mouthes against all
pay tithes of our goods Gen. 12.7 You have an Altar built to God a profession of his true religion among the Cananites there he called on Gods name that is performed publike worship of sacrificing and praying one named for all And v. 13.14 againe it is said that he came to the place of the Altar which he had made at the first and there called on the name of the Lord. And v. 18. there at Hebron he built an Altar to the Lord and when God appeared to him C. 17. v. 3. he fell on his face before God shewing all due outward respect unto him when he spake unto him And C. 14. Melchisedech was Priest of the most high God and he met Abraham and blessed him and Abraham gave him tithes of all I do not thinke he meant onely of all the spoiles though that hee did too but a constant tithing of all he had is meant This tithing was an acknowledgement of his subjection to Melchisedech and so necessary to be performed to Christ who is a Priest for ever after that order who must blesse and take the tithes of us Surely tithing is no Leviticall ceremony for it is not originally and primarily due to the Leviticall Priesthood but it is due to an eternall Priesthood even that after the order of Melchisedech and therefore so farre as I see it must be eternally due neither can any man lawfully forbeare to pay them to Christ neither can any man receive them in Christs steede but he that is Christs officer to preach in Christs steed and sow his spirituall things Now I pray you looke that you be religious as Abraham professe religion come to Gods house call on Gods name Learne that publique prayer is an holy ordinance of God frequent that and doe not slight and despise it as many of you do offer up spirituall sacrifices to God Pay your tithes duely of all which I know none of you all that doth make conscience of you thinke that too deare a price to buy the worship of God with but why should you not shew your selves subject to Christs Priesthood as well as Abrahams If you could make it manifest to be a Leviticall ceremony you might thinke your selves dispensed with it by Christs comming But you cannot shew any good reason why it should be so and here is a good reason it was not so for it was due to a Priest of another order then that of Aaron wherefore shew your selves truely religious by a conscionable setting a part to God the tithe of all you have as Abraham did For when here it is said he tithed all and in the Hebrew the spoiles it is no reason to shorten the wider place by the narrower but to reconcile both together thus he paid tithe of all and also of the spoiles as well as other things I am in hope to prevaile with you for all other things but in this I have no hope to prevaile because profit pleades against me and because the thing is controverted and denied by divers Now when a costly service is questioned O how hard is it to perswade men to see that truth and follow it Well I shew you mine opinion and leave it to God to perswade you but in other things which are not controverted I pray you to obey as Abraham did and to shew your religion as he did And so we have shewed you Abrahams faith obedience feare and devotion O that we could shew the same vertues in our lives I come to shew you next the good carriage of Abraham to men-ward First himselfe then others For himselfe I request you to note First that he was a very humble man truely humble one that did esteeme himselfe nothing in comparison with God and that is true humility to have a meane esteeme of himselfe out of a true apprehension of Gods greatnesse and the infinite distance betweene God and himselfe you shall see this in Abraham because when God came to shew him what should become of the Sodomites and he out of mercy was mooved to pray earnestly for them he saith unto God I am dust and ashes O good man that when he came neere to God he had a sence of his owne meanenesse and intitled himselfe no better then dust and ashes This humility must wee also be cloathed withall it is a necessary fruite of the knowledge of God and our selves without which we cannot be true Ceristians It is the cabinet and storehouse of all graces It allures God to give us grace it causeth all crosses to seeme easy if God will lay them on it makes all duties appeare seasonable It is a grace by which a man becommeth like unto Christ who humbled and made himselfe of no reputation Paul was nothing in his owne esteeme David counted himselfe a flea and a dead dog and Christ hath said that if we humble our selves we shall be exalted For alas be we not sinnefull and shall we not then be humble Be wee not mortall men be we not damnable creatures and shall we not be humble Beloved search if you have this grace that is a meane esteeme of your selves in respect of your nothingnesse compared to God and your sinfulnesse in your selves and if you find your selves laid low and made vile in your owne estimation this is to be like Abraham You have the vertues of Abraham in respect of himselfe Now in respect of other men First his family then others without his family For his family considered generally and specially Generally he brought them up godlily and religiously and taught them vertue and goodnesse as is witnessed of him Gen. 18.19 I know hee will command his houshold to keepe judgement and justice and to keepe the way of the Lord. If he had not taught them the good way how should he require them to keepe it and the word signifieth to command and teach both and it is that of which usually the word translated precepts doth come Abraham then was carefull to teach his people the waies of God and to teach them all goodnesse Hee did that to his houshold which God hath commanded us bring them up in the nurture and information of the Lord. For indeed God did bid him circumcise his children and servants and if he must administer the Seale of the Covenant to them then he must teach them the Covenant it selfe even the whole doctrine of godlinesse Brethren be not a number of you farre from following Abraham in this matter you have not gotten so much knowledge as to be able to teach your people the doctrine of true piety the way of God justice and judgement nor doe not strive to get knowledge And many that have knowledge make no care of communicating Ah if he that provides not for the family things needfull to the body denies the faith how is he guilty of that fault which doth not provide for their soules I beseech you therefore be humbled for your omission of this
according to S. Pauls phrase Rom. 4. So Gods blessing is able to make our soules fruitfull in all good workes though of our selves wee be utterly barren and unfruitfull And thus we have done with Abrahams wives Now let us speake something of his contemporaries beginning with his sonne Ishmael Ishmael was sonne of Abraham and Hagar his maide servant borne unto him at his 86. yeeres as saith the Holy Ghost Gen. 16. ult He was the sonne of a godly Father but whether himselfe were godly or not it is uncertaine But in his life we must note First his Vertues Secondly his Faults Thirdly his Benefits Fourthly his Crosses and then shall we come to his death His vertues First he lived in his fathers house in outward conformity and obedience for he submitted to his father at 13. yeares to be circumcised Gen. 17.25 and so had the outward seale of the covenant but yet he was not the promised seede nor had the covenant made with him nor had the Church and true religion continuing in his family So we must learne not to satisfie our selves with being in the Church outwardly but must labour to become true members of it and to enter into the covenant indeed It will not profit us to have the Sacraments outwardly administered to us for he is not a Jew which is one without neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh but wee must indeavour after the inward circumcision even to get the righteousnesse which is by faith that that faith may purifie our hearts and purge away from us all filthinesse of flesh and spirit And if we make use of the outward seale thereby to be made to see and feele our uncircumcisednesse of heart and heartily acknowledge Gods will and power to make us partakers of the inward circumcision so putting forth our selves to beg for and labour after that inward circumcision the Lord will surely bestow it upon us Againe all children must learne to submit themselves to their parents at least to an outward performance of such holy duties as by their parents they shall be instructed in else they are worse then Ishmael and will become matter of anguish and vexation to their godly parents Would Ishmael accept circumcison and wilt not thou accept instruction learne the principles of Christian religion and settle thy selfe to some shew of goodnesse then shall Ishmaels example rise up in judgement against thee and condemne thee And parents must observe Gods goodnesse in their childeren if they find them even in such a degree tractable and ruly for this is farre better then to be wilde and furious and to cast of all semblance of goodnesse and yet such would the best mans childeren prove if the hand of God did not restraine them But another good thing in Ishmael was that he submitted himselfe to his Father to be banished out of his house no question but Abraham that loved him would informe him of the necessity which lay upon himselfe so to expell his sonne and would furnish him with all good counsell who then being some 16. yeares old was capable of good advice and so did he without murmuring or wilfull refusing to go yeeld himselfe to that punishment It is a good thing in childeren to take quietly their parents chastisement even though they should be somewhat severe But to oppose them or to rebell against them or fall to clamorousnesse and impatiency is a great sinne even though the correction should be causelesse and unjust how much more if they be righteous and deserved Learne of Ishmael this submission how will you hope that you be Gods childeren if you do not equall such a one as Ishmael in goodnesse Againe Ishmael did another good office in the conclusion of his Fathers life for it is noted of him that he came to Isaac and joyned with him in his Fathers funerall Gen. 25.9 by which it is manifest that he bare no grudge against his Father for casting him out of his house but bore that respect towards him which was due to a Father and therefore did him the best honour he could at his latter end yea that hee did not harbour in his minde any envious and malicious thought against Isaac and therefore would come unto him and unite his paines to burie his Father Learne so much good of him I pray you as to forget that severity which perhaps Parents may have shewed to any of you and not put off the dutifulnesse of childeren because you have met with something that flesh and bloud would call hard measure The lesse inducement any man hath from a parents kindnesse to love and honour him the more commendable it is if hee performe all honour to him but he that will be so transported with discontentment against a parent for some sharpenesse as even to hate and contemne him most of all if his owne folly have inforced his parent to such proceedings is without all doubt a gracelesse and a wretched childe I pray you learne also by Ishmael not to suffer envy to rise against your Bretheren if in any thing they be preferred before you to your detriment Love not them lesse then the name of a Brother or Sister doth require because you may thinke that they have stood betwixt your parents love and bounty and your selves and so as it were overshadowed you and kept the sun-shine from you but behold the hand of God in so disposing of things and resolve to love still as Bretheren Further Ishmael did one good act of honour and duty toward his mother Hagar For it is said Gen. 21.21 that his mother tooke him a wife out of the land of Egypt so he was ruled by his mother in marriage having her liking and consent yea giving himselfe to be guided by her as did also Isaac to Abraham and Iacob to Isaac It is a needefull thing for childeren to take the consent and assent of their parents yea if it be but of the mother supposing the father to be dead or absent and not to rush into this estate against their willes and privity No comfort can come to the conscience in such a match for whosoever is joyned together otherwise then Gods Word alloweth can have no ground of comfort as those are that are joyned without the good will of those whom God hoth made his deputies in this businesse The Lord saith to Parents take wives for your sonnes and give your daughters plainely putting them into his roome in that behalfe wherefore having not consent from them they live in an unlawfull matrimony untill such time as by humble repentance before God and submissive intreaties to their parents they have attained that good leave of their parents which they ought to have gotten before If therefore any amongst you have so offended they must see the fault and be humbled and seeke pardon Most times the Lord doth sensibly crosse such matches make use of those crosses to increase your godly
is not sensible of the contrary both in it selfe and others too and it is but little sensible of it that is but little grieved for it If you say our land is not like Sodome that wee should live in it so as Lot did there I answer God be thanked in some things it is not and in publike the faults breake not out that there were done openly but many of the sonnes of Sodome are bare-fac'd amongst us and wee looke upon them without remorse You must be sorry that you have not beene more sorry for the publike iniquity Surely if a scourge come it shall take you away with the rest because you have not shewed your zeale of Gods glory and detestation of sinne in the rebellions of the rest And now set you to it set you to it it is said that Lot did put his soule upon the racke he was an actor in this sorrow he put himselfe upon it I say he was even willing to exercise himselfe in grieving for their naughtinesse and he strove to make his sorrow piercing O you must labour to doe this as well as any other good worke to chafe and grudge and be furious against such a sinner and such a sinner to jest scoffe and gird or raile and bitterly inveigh against such and such sinnes be such straines and flashes of wit and anger as may be found in men of no true holinesse but to get alone and even sell over himselfe to sighing mourning and lamentation for the common sinnes that are every where runne into this can hardly be ascribed to any thing but true piety if the sinnes be such as doe not in any particular respect touch a mans selfe in way of wrong and injury Indeed to grieve for such sinnes of others may seeme in some respect as a more difficult thing so a more sure signe of truth then to grieve for ones owne sinnes you shall see men driven to teares for their owne offences in respect of shame or losse and sometimes terrour of heart but grieving for the common sinnes can hardly proceed from any thing but charity to them as they be men and hatred against sinne as it is sinne If a meere friend of our owne have offended wee are so tender of his reproach because it is somewhat linked with our owne that many men can blubber for it exceedingly O let us love the Common-wealth so well and the state of mankinde as to yeeld some of our sorrow to quicken us in prayer against their sinnes And now a third good deed of Lots is hee was hospitall in that unhospitall Citie you know hee entertained the Angels Herein he did follow the steps of his Unkle Abraham it is a good thing when a man carries the vertues which hee hath seene amongst his friends as it were home with him or about him whethersoever hee goes and becomes a practitioner of them in all places Of Lots hospitality you may reade Gen. 19.2 3. he intreated the Angels whom he tooke for men to lodge in his house and gave them the best entertainement he could yea and hazarded himselfe to defend them from the insolent attempt of the brutish Sodomites This is a worke worthie to be imitated to be given to hospitality forget not to entertaine strangers use hospitality one to another without grudging Gajus hath this commendation that he was the Host of the Church Rom. 16.23 and a Minister is expressely commanded to be hospitall This is a rich mans duty I meane his that hath some indifferent proportion of wealth he that hath but one bed or roome must lie abroad himselfe or sit up all night if he lodge strangers But of those that have to spare the Lord requireth a free communicating of what they have to others May not wee be strangers may not our children and neere friends be strangers will not our hearts tell us that it would bee a very ill part in them that should in such case neglect us But I am to commend unto you a kinde of hospitality somewhat of another nature a stranger of any fashion by meanes of Innes which it seemes that age did not know is able to be hospitall to himselfe with his money even to buy all things needfull but alas you have poore neighbours and kinsmen in the same Towne or neere hand inhabiting O invite them to your houses make them cheerefull with a good meale now and then that have little provided at home This Hospitality hath beene formerly much practised at this season of the yeare and certainely it is a fit season to practise it If wee would shew our selves glad for our Lords comming into the world let us refresh his poore members that they may rejoyce with us Some men be not rich enough to invite many of their wealthie neighbours but many be of so much ability that they may well invite those of lower ranke to whom their owne ordinary provision will be better then a banquet to some wealthier persons Let Lots example commend unto you this hospitality Another good deed we have of Lot He went out and earnestly yet lovingly and gently intreated the Sodomites to desist from their villany My Brethren I pray doe not so wickedly and againe to these men doe nothing for therefore came they under my roofe Gen. 19.7 8. He would faine have stopped these miscreants from their abominable attempt If we see men rushing into sinfull courses wee shall doe a good office of charity if with all good termes and gentle language we disswade them from wickednesse If wee must reproove after a sinne sure wee must disswade aforehand Eli disswaded his sonnes from persisting in evill Abigail disswaded David from murder what sinne wee hinder not to our best power that we cause to be written in our owne score and inwrap our selves within the guilt of it Who would not intreate his neighbour hard not to drinke a cup of poyson If therefore any man have done the contrary instigated others to sinne and egged them forward rather then held them back surely his offence is great he hath beene not alone a helper but a father of the fault and unlesse hee repent must answer for it as much as the principall But though you have not forgotten your duty in so high a degree as to moove others to evill yet if you have so much neglected your duty as to forbeare to disswade and hinder them either out of carelesnesse or feare you are to be humbled for it as an effect of want of love and zeale And now I pray you doe this good office often if you see a man going about an evill thing take up Lots words and say I pray you Brethren doe not so wickedly intreate him to forbeare the doing of the like for the future A loving intreaty will sometimes proove of great efficacy Had they beene any but Sodomites Lot should not have beene so churlishly rejected If you say I shall but loose my labour I answer
Now another good deed of Abimelech is in regard of his servants As soone as it is day he calls them together and acquaints them with the things that God had revealed unto him by a dreame in the night He doth well to let his servants know the matter that so he might make them see the true cause of his restoring Sarah to Abraham and might approove of his practise therein and learne themselves to feare God which at least in some degree they did for it is said the men feared exceedingly verse 8. and so did not perswade him to keepe Sarah still but rather furthered his intentions of her restitution All governours must be ready to acquaint their inferiours with the way that God shewes them especially such as concerne the reformation of the lives both of themselves and of their inferiours for it was needfull that Abimelechs servants should know that Sarah was Abrahams wife least they or some one of them should thinke of taking her when the King had left her if they had remained ignorant of her condition Rulers therefore must shew unto their inferiours the danger of sinne and what is sinnefull when the Lord hath made them know it that they may be an instrument of keeping them also from evill deeds and from the punishment of them Learne we all of this man to tender the soules of our servants and inferiours and to reveale to them such things as God hath taught us that they may be preserved from sinne as well as our selves And take heed of being carelesse to shew them the good and the evill way that they sinne not through our default because we have not duly instructed them And let inferiours also learne to receive such instructions with holy feare as the servants of Abimelech did that the words they heare may prevaile to keepe them also from wickednesse And now let us see his carriage to Abraham and Sarah And first hee doth admonish them both of their fault and that not with a kinde of discontent and frowardnesse as before Pharaoh had done shewing rather that he was sorrowfull he might not have Sarah then that he had attempted so farre as he did but in gentle and yet plaine manner saying What hast thou done unto us and againe Wat sawest thou that thou hast done this His reproofe is sharpe enough and yet as appeareth afterwards it was mixed with gentlenesse So it is a good thing if our Brethren have sinned against us to call for them or goe to them and to demand what ground they had or what inducement to sinne so and to let them understand that the things they have done were such as ought not to have beene done especially if they have gone about to draw us to sinne or to occasion us to rush unwittingly into sinne that so wee may bring them to repentance or at least free our selves from being partakers with them in their sinnes So did he deale with Sarah too but not with the like earnestnesse for he considered the fault was chiefely Abrahams who had confessed that she did it at his entreaty and therefore hee doth alone intimate a chiding to her saying thy brother and adding good counsell He is to thee a covering of the eyes to all that are with thee and to all others verse 16. and it is added for shee was reprooved meaning that hee intended to reproove her and that shee did take it and was touched with it as with a reproofe Let us resolve to behave our selves so to our brethren even to tell them plainely but yet gently of their faults and that with more or lesse earnestnesse as they shall appeare to have beene more or lesse faulty Some warmth must be in a reproofe as here but it must not be scalding hot words of reviling and disgrace they scald as it were but words that tend to stirre up the conscience to a due consideration of the fault they be duely warme and tend to make the physick worke the more kindly If any have done otherwise either hiding the matter in his heart and so nourishing bitter dislike and alienation of affection from one that hath wronged him or else opened his mouth in a kind of rage and used hunting and rayling speeches he must be sorry that he was not as discreet and loving as Abimelech To forbeare reproofe of another or to doe it with bitternesse of wrath be too common faults and withall very blame-worthy The one shewes want of love the other of wisdome and in both we wrong our brother in not taking the right way to helpe him out of sinne and wrong our selves in making our selves at least in part guilty of his sinne Be not you faulty in either of these kindes hereafter but learne in plaine and milde manner to deale with them that have done you injury and let those that have done wrong learne of Abraham duly to accept of such reproofes Another vertue in Abimelech is that hee doth not alone restore Sarah but also makes amends to Abraham and yeelds a kind of silent confession of his fault and shewes a desire of making satisfaction by giving him gifts for vers 14. It is said he tooke sheepe and oxen and men-servants and women-servants and gave them to Abraham and restored Sarah his wife See a good duty here wee must not alone surcease to wrong our brethren for future time if either ignorantly or otherwise wee have begun to doe them wrong but if the wrong be manifest unto them we must even make them some due satisfaction by words or deeds or both chiefely if the injury have beene done wittingly and willingly Thinke not that you have done enough in forbearing to doe evill to any man but if the evill have beene evident unto him O make also some good amends to repaire the wrong and to doe him as much good in some other kinde as you have done him hurt before That so you may declare your selves as well sorry for the former offence as carefull to offend so no more and may make it appeare you cease to be injurious in part out of love to your brother as well as for any other consideration and may by that meanes make the pardoning of the wrong more easie to him and helpe to put charity and kindnesse into him which the receiving of wrongs will goe neare to banish away if some such care be not used to restore it againe But he that either continues in a continues of injuriousnesse or else barely breaketh it off without some demonstration of his sorrow for the fault and good affection to the person offended hath not yet fully reformed himselfe though he have ceased to doe evill any further Another commendable thing in Abimelech is that he doth not thrust Abraham away in a chase as Pharaoh had done but hee granteâ—h him liberty to dwell in his Countrey in any place that shall seeme good unto him Learne of him not to be so displeased with any man for
doth send them upon men in favour to prevent divers sinnes which else hee knowes they would have committed in that time if health had continued Let us not murmure against GOD because of such crosses but rather take notice of his goodnesse in the same especially in point of sicknesse if it linger upon us and thinke thus with our selves how many sinnes might I have runne into if this bodily feeblenesse had not kept mee within dores And when wee bee sicke or otherwise affected let us turne our thoughts round about us to finde out if any such thing be some sinne that wee should have runne into but for such prevention See if thine heart have not harboured some unconsidered fault and further the health of your bodies by turning sicknesse into purging physicke for your soules So have we finished the example of this King Somewhat about that time there lived foure Kings whose names are recorded in holy Writ but nothing at all for their praise Their names were 1. Amraphel King of Shinar that is as it is thought of Chaldea or Babilon where it may seeme that Nimrod erected a Monarchie and it may bee that this man was some successor of his or one of his Posterity and would needes inlarge his Monarchie so farre as the land of Canaan with whom was joyned Amoch King of Elkasar Chedarlomer King of Elam and one Tydall King of Nations What these Kings were or whether mentioned in Heathen Stories or not it matters not to enquire But here they are patternes of unjust violence in Warre They had the keener swords and therefore would make themselves Lords over other Kings and compell them by brunt of Warre to receive their yoke and acknowledge some Homage Nothing more usuall then for potent Kings to make at least unnecessary Warres for their growth in greatnesse many times they doe not so much as alleadge a shew of title but their owne ambition is the ground of their plea and sometimes they pretend most frivolous titles So doe they disquiet themselves and others and cause much innocent bloud to bee shed almost inforcing their Subjects to become wilfull murderers Wee must blesse God that hath caused us to live now a good time under peaceable Princes and must inforce our prayers to God begging the like mercy still The Conquering side is often more miserable by sinning then the conquered by slaughter or captivity But God doth use these great Cockes of the game as instruments of his Justice to punish the naughtinesse of those that abuse peace and become more wicked by so great a benefit Let us learne to take heede of wickednesse that the God of Heaven may not also make us a prey to violence and ambition And though you bee not Kings to whom I speake yet I pray you take heed that you runne not into the same fault that these Kings though not in so high a degree use not injustice and injuriousnesse and violence so much as your lower places will suffer a Weesell is a ravenous beast as well as a Lion But the maine sinne that these committed and which brought upon them their ruine was this that they would needs take Lot among the Sodomites Suppose the Sodomites did owe them Homage and gave just cause of quarrell yet was Lot no Sodomite nor Patron of their rebellion They should have spared him that never had beene their subject nor done them any wrong at all Indeed if Lot had gone to Warre against them and involved himselfe in the Sodomites evill cause if their cause were evill hee was justly taken captive with them but the briefe narration seemeth rather to intimate otherwise Chap. 14. verse 11 12. They tooke the substance of Sodome and their victuals and went their way and they tooke Lot also and his substance for hee dwelt in Sodome intimating as I said that hee was taken not in the battell but in the spoiling of the City afterward but you see what is the manner of insulting conquerours they sweepe away all they meete and every thing and person shall bee good bootie that lies within their reach but they smart for this spoile for hence was Abraham justly occasioned to put forth his courage for the reskue of his Kinsman and so were they deprived of the whole victory because they spared not a man whom they should have spared It often falleth out that one act of injustice looseth much that otherwise was justly gotten Beware of swallowing ill gotten wealth it hath a poysonfull operation and like some such evill simple in the stomacke will bring up the good foode together with ill humours It is said the King of Sodome had rebelled so intimating a kinde of justification of the Warre with him but it is not said that Lot had rebelled and therefore they should not have seized on him for the Sodomites sake Use justice and take nothing from any man that is due unto him neither punish any without right chiefely touch not a good man that feareth GOD unlesse his faults require that hee bee made to smart for them GOD can beare the carrying away Captive of many Sodomites rather then of one Lot Now consider how God humbleth these great and insolent Conquerours that carried all before them hee armes Abraham against them with so much wisedome and valour that hee sets upon them by night and discomfits them afore they could well tell who it was that fought with them So it falleth out often that God doth beate farre greater armies by the farre fewer Hee that feareth God and hath a just cause neede never bee discouraged from battell because his companies are but few The God of Warre whom the Scripture cals a man of Warre carries victory to that side where hee pleaseth to joyne and tell mee if hee have not most times given the greatest victories to his servants when their enemies power was such as farre surpassed theirs Some trust in bow and speare but hee that maketh mention of the name of God he is in best possibility to become a victor Take heed of making God your enemy that maketh one man to chase ten and ten to flie before one * ⎠* THE FOVRTEENTH EXAMPLE OF The Sodomites WEE are come along in Abrahams time to the Sodomites Concerning whom the Holy Ghost found nothing so much as like to any vertue which might be commended or imitated in them unlesse perhaps it may have a little relish of vertue that the King of Sodome after Abrahams victory over the foure Kings Gen 14.17 21. went out to meete Abraham and willed him to give unto him the persons and take the goods for a booty to his owne use There may seeme to be a small shadow of gratitude in that hee was willing that Abraham should enjoy the spoile but if wee consider the matter better this will shew it selfe to be rather a vice for first hee doth not so much as thanke Abraham for his hazard and paines in fighting with those
to be a fearefull offence the hatred of which must needs arise from the feare of God It is blamed in an Heathen Nation Ier. 48.29 Wee have heard of the pride of Moab he is exceeding proud his loftinesse arrogancie and pride and the haughtinesse of his heart The Prophet saith of the Iewes too Chap. 13.13 that hee will weepe in secret places for their pride And our Saviour reckoning up that abhominable litter and broode of sinnes which have their originall in mans heart that is his corrupt inward disposition amongst the rest nameth pride Marke 7.22 And how much God hateth this vice is evident by the threats which in his Word he hath thundred against it S. Peter saith â— Epist Chap. 5.5 God resisteth the proud hee sets himselfe against him as in an armie ordered for the battell he is alwaies in the field as it were with his troopes ranked and ready to give the onset and take every advantage of doing him mischiefe Salomon saith Prov. 11.2 When pride commeth then commeth a fall a man is apt to runne into most shamefull faults and so to bring upon himselfe the greatest of all reproaches when once hee giveth pride the possession of his heart and after Prov. 16.28 Pride goes before destruction This sinne is a necessary forerunner of ruine it is an Harbenger to note our a lodging place for misery and calamity and Chap. 29.23 A mans pride shall bring him low truly low enough even as low as hell it selfe for must it not needes cast him low and low that maketh God his utter enemy It must be a loathsome vice if wee consider the causes whence it comes and the fruits which it produceth The roote of it is nothing but ignorance or follie or both Ignorance is the not knowing of what one should know Folly the not usefull considering of what one doth know and were not the heart made starke blinde with one or both of these vices it could never rush into pride For so meane is a man in his very Creation that he comes of dust and nothing and in his sinfull corruption now much more meane when he is of his Father the Divell as the Scripture saith nothing but the spawne of Hell and a very bastard mis-begotten by the Prince of darkenesse and subject to so many miseries here and to such a weight of eternall misery hereafter that if he were duely informed of this basenesse and did rightly beleeve it and consider of it hee could not possibly be puffed up with a good conceit of himselfe But his high fancies are ever strong and working in him when his heart is so filled up with darkenesse and blindnesse that either he doth not at all or not certainely know these things A drunken beggar will carry himselfe like some Emperour and he cares for no man because he hath not the wit to take notice of his owne basenesse So it is with the proud man so very a foole hee is that hee cannot instruct himselfe of his owne contemptiblenesse and therefore he is apt to be lifted up in himselfe now folly and ignorance be so vile things themselves that no naturall issue of them can choose but be like themselves even sinfull and wicked Againe the effects of it are exceeding hurtfull the punishments it causeth the Lord to lay upon men are great as you heard before he is a professed enemy to him hee hath threatned to pull him downe Hee that exalteth himselfe shall be abased God will marre the pride of men and staine their excellencie and he plagues them often in their bodies and states by giving them up to such absurd carriages as doe pull ruine upon themselves and alwaies in their soules by giving them up to the hardnesse of their hearts so that they be of all the most impenitent and irreformable and therefore it is said that when God will convert a man he covers his pride by chastisements and when Ieremy chargeth the people to amend and give glory to God before his judgements come upon them hee saith if you will not heare my soule shall weepe in secret for your pride noting that this filthy pride doth even stop up the eares against all wholesome advertisements O how fearefull a vice is that which cuts off the way to all amendment by turning away the eare from receiving instruction the principall instrument of working amendment But it produceth many sinfull carriages in all respects First in respect of all persons Secondly of all states Thirdly of all qualities For persons it makes him in whom it ruleth and so farre as it ruleth rebellious against Gods precepts carelesse of his promises and regardlesse of his threats so that hee despiseth and contemneth all the authority of God and will not be guided by his counsell Caine was a proud man you all know hee would never else have killed his Brother on that quarrell whereof you heard Now when God himselfe came to admonish him and disswade him from that murder it was all in vaine hee would not hearken to God but continued to harbour malice till it brake forth into bloudshed In respect of men for ones selfe it makes him selfe-ish all for himselfe not regarding who be hurt so himselfe be pleased selfe-willed and heady so that no counsell will rule but hee will head strongly like a madded beast runne on in his owne race as the Captaines that came to Ieremy for counsell because they were proud men and as the Scripture notes would not accept of his counsell And it fills him full alwaies of discontent fretting and vexation nothing no person can please him he is still finding faults just like one that hath a swelling upon his hand something or other toucheth it still and drives him to out-cries And for others towards his superiours he is undutifull and will not heed their words nor be ruled by them He thinkes himselfe too good to receive their correction or reproofes or chastisements and growes worse rather then better For his inferiours he is likely tyrannicall and Lionlike and cares not how he disgraceth and wrongeth and over-punisheth them rating and striking and laying about him even for nothing or as good as nothing For those that are more prosperous then himselfe and excell him in any thing he is ever envious and spitefull and malignes them for it For those that are below him he is scornefull and disdainefull and insolent in deriding and sleighting them for his equals hee is arrogant and insolent too still lifting himselfe above them and preferring himselfe before them If he meete with men in a good estate he grudgeth at them if with miserable men he scornes them and passeth by them pittilesly if not scoffingly And towards all in generall he is contentious and froward ready to picke and prosecute quarrells to make the worst of every thing and to take all with the left hand ready to work in proud wrath quickly angry and apt to vent his anger in lofty and
hath cause to make but meane account of himselfe so will these thoughts helpe to chase out pride But consider a man in his spirituall misery he was conceived in sinne he is of his father the Divell he is a slave to sinne a traitor to God He is full of all wickednesse destitute of all holinesse and cannot escape eternall damnation by any worth or power of his owne but must needes sinke downe to hell and be made fuell for that eternall burning You see by what meanes you may subdue pride hee that findeth it out and resisteth it with these weapons shall undoubtedly prevaile against it hee that thinkes himselfe free from it and takes no paines to subdue it shall surely bee conquered by it And let the consideration of this that pride is so foule a vice make you blesse God with much thankfulnesse for crosses afflictions and divers temptations and tribulations for what be they else but medicines to take downe pride and who that hath a great swelling in his body doth not thinke it a benefit deserving recompence as well as thankes to have a fit medicine prepared and applied that at length may take downe that swelling It is to be confessed that the best of men be too proud even now notwithstanding all the crosses they have felt and sinnes they have committed O how much more proude would they have beene had not God made use of such things to tame and depresse them And of their pride so much The next fault is fulnesse of bread this is reckoned as a fault and either it is so indeed or the Spirit of God was deceived who put it downe here in the catalogue of Sodomitish crimes You must either grant that fulnesse of bread is a foule sinne or else you must tell the Prophet that himselfe and the Spirit by which he spake were both in an error 'T is attributed to Dives in the Parable hee fared deliciously every day 'T is charged on wealthy men as one of the sinnes that shall procure their howling and misery you have nourished your selves in the day of slaughter meaning they gave themselves over to feasting and banqueting every day A daily continuall stuffing the belly with store of savoury and delicate foode is hurtfull for the body and soule too Use abstinence feed sparingly fare hard and short sometimes And so much for the second sin of Sodome fulnesse of bread The third is abundance of idlenesse here is the fault it selfe idlenesse and the measure of it very much idlenesse Idlenesse is a sinne especially when it growes to be abundance of idlenesse Salomon hath bent himselfe to the disgrace of this fault in many of his Proverbes Goe to the pismire O sluggard Prov. 6.9 9. how long wilt thou sleepe 10. Yet a little sleepe 24.30 I went by the field of the sloathfull and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding a witlesse fellow a foole And the Apostle condemnes it in the younger widdowes that they learnt to be idle 1 Tim. 5.13 and many threats are made against the idle person and the sluggard 19.15 an idle soule shall suffer hunger There are divers reasons to prove this fault to be a great sinne First it is a crossing of that end which God had in making man hee made him to be usefull and profitable as the members of the body idlenesse makes him unprofitable hee gave him a minde and a body fit for usefull and laborious imployments he spends this strength to no purpose So he doth even thwart Gods intention in creating all things and himselfe among the rest for all were made for labour in some fruitfull matter as we see the Sunn and heavenly bodies the waters and trees and all the creatures Secondly he depriveth himselfe of all right in conscience to foode and other necessaries and maketh himselfe a theefe in all he eateth and drinketh and spendeth for this cause S. Paul saith hee that will not worke let him not eate so hee is interdicted the use of Gods creatures as it were a man banished out of the world A civill right in the courts of justice hee hath to the possessing of things because of his title to them and interest in them but a conscionable right to the use of them hee hath not therefore Paul wisheth men to labour and eate their owne bread intimating that it is not their owne in the court of conscience before God if they gaine not an interest to it by paines Thirdly idlenesse is a great nourisher of all vices It nourisheth pride and selfe-conceitednesse For the sluggard is wiser in his owne eyes then seven men that can render a reason he is apt to filthinesse and lust why was Sodome so lewd but because they were idle Every temptation doth easily seize upon him that is at leasure and doth nothing as a bird that sitteth still on a tree is easily hit with an arrow or bullet He can have while to hearken to a temptation and to ruminate upon the evill things which Satan and the flesh doe stirre up In nature things that lie still gather rust and standing water soone breeds noysome creatures and soone putrifies and especially idlenesse makes a man a busie body full of medling with other folkes matters and that for the most part to do more hurt then good The nature of man is active and if it be not imployed in some usefull thing it must follow sinne and vanity Lastly this sinne exposeth a man to want Idlenesse will cloath with ragges his penurie commeth like an armed man and like a traveller hastily surely strongly it cannot be resisted it will not linger Hee that followeth vaine persons shall have poverty enough The sluggard will not plow in Winter therefore hee must begge in Summer and have nothing And if it fall out that great meanes doe keepe an idle person from want yet hee hath a most poore and beggarly soule utterly destitute of saving graces and vertues for he must labour for these things that will attaine them But let us see what idlenesse is It is that vice by which men refuse to bestow themselves constantly and painefully in some profitable thing and take leave to spend their pretious time in things unprofitable Some things are unprofitable simply as fond and roving thoughts tatling and vaine words some things are unprofitable accidentally in respect of their excesse as sports and pastimes and sleepe and ease and sitting still and in respect of the manner of doing as dealing with a slacke hand and working by halves He that will not continue to take paines in things usefull and beneficiall to himselfe and others but whileth out his time in sitting still and twatling with others of matters impertinent to him or uselesse in themselves or discoursing with himselfe about like points or gives himselfe to excesse of sleepe or of sports or else followes his businesse by the halves this man is idle
and if hee doe so much and often and almost continually then is hee guilty even of abundance of idlenesse I pray you every one set your consciences a worke to finde out your owne sinnefullnesse in this kinde Doe not many of your hands refuse to labour Are you not such as will not worke Some are idle because they have beene so ill educated that they have not fitted themselves for any calling they have nothing to doe nor cannot tell how to bestow themselves and their times These are a kinde of vagrant people though they have meanes enough to live of cyphers good for nothing but to eate and drinke vermine Apes Monkies whose whole life is to eate and drinke and sleepe and sport and sit and talke and laugh and be merry These are excrements in humane societies and the most miserable of the sonnes of men as having brought upon themselves by long use an habit of being idlesbees and a kind of necessity to continue naughty yet such a necessity as doth not excuse but aggravate the fault others againe are idle because though they have a calling yet they have no minde to follow it but are estranged from the workes of their vocation and love to be gadding and rambling hither and thither and every where but where they should be These are great offendors this idlenesse turnes their foode into poyson many such sloathfull doe-naughts there are in the world There be some servants sluggish slow-backs whose hand is no sooner from under the Governours eye but that it is also off from the worke and they leave all and sit downe to talke by the fire-side or in a corner being men of tongue and further then eye-service drives them to it their chiefe imployment is twattle Now I pray you if any be guilty to themselves of lazinesse unwillingnesse to exercise themselves painefully in their callings either with hand or head or both that they take notice of it sure they be of kinne to these miscreants the Sodomites now begin to labour in this worthy worke of repenting for thine unprofitable living For sure if men must give an account for every idle word then other parts of idlenesse must likewise be brought unto the reckoning I pray those that be of the richer sort that doe not finde a necessity of labouring laide upon them for their bellies sake to take heed that they passe not over their idlenesse as a small matter Most times riches make men turne Sodomites they are proud they give themselves to fullnesse of bread and to abundance of idlenesse they will not set themselves to any diligent following of any good worke but delight in that which Salomon saith his vertuous woman would not doe to eate the bread of idlenesse Surely the God that made them as well as other men with bodies and mindes fitted to doe service will not brooke their doing of nothing And secondly I pray you shun shun this Sodomitish sinne take not liberty to be idle but lay out your time so that you may comfortably answer it to God the Maker of it and of you Time is a thing most pretious all the wealth under Heaven cannot redeeme one mispent minute by how much it is more deare and irremediable by so much ought it to be more carefully husbanded and warily bestowed Therefore be you painefull in your callings breake off sleepe seasonably in the morning set close to some needfull actions in the day give not the greater part of your time to sports and sitting idle and discoursing of this and that but follow the workes of your calling and frame your selves to some calling make your selves a vocation in some matter or other that shall be worth your time Painefullnesse in a calling will kill many vices it will exercise all vertues it will prevent many temptations and sinnes it will make ones life comfortable and his heart in good measure humble and discreete It will be a content at death to thinke one hath not wasted his life for nothing Doe not dare to slip away from the workes of your calling but upon good ground when you are able to alledge some better thing to be done insteed of it or just occasion of intermitting it for your better fitting and inabling to it I doe not commend toylesomenesse to you but due diligence in your places that may cause you to differ much from the inhabitants of Sodome Especially give not your selves to excessive sleepe and sports Salomon hath condemned the sluggard and the man that loveth pastime to the stockes of want and one way or another the Lord will finde a time and meanes to cast them into those stockes Doe not all things invite you to diligence in a calling see what care the Sunne hath to runne his daily and yeerely course according to its proper nature see how all the rest of the heavenly armie doe keepe themselves in their owne places and swiftly performe their owne motions See how the waters doe ebbe and flow and that constantly see how the fountaines make hast to the brookes and rivers and the rivers to the Sea see how all things almost are still in action The earth that keepes in one place yet is still doing something in that place either nourishing the rootes or the branches of the trees and other things that grow on it or else gathering heart to it selfe to doe the same worke better for a little respite and intermission And in Heaven though these naturall actions cease yet the spirituall imployment of living rejoycing in honouring and praising of God doth never cease Quicken up your selves therefore to this virtue of diligence it is good for soule good for body good for state profitable every way and at last will proove easie and delightfull too to him that doth it with moderation The diligent man takes as much content in his moderate labour as the sluggard in somnolency and easefullnesse So much for this fault also A fourth is a sinne of Omission and that is they strengthened not the hands of the poore What is that They did not releeve his necessities with convenient supplie but gave him either nothing at all or but so small a pittance as would not suffice to give him any comfort It is you see a great fault to be pinching to the poore and either to give them nothing or a very small quantity almost as good as nothing Therefore he reckons it as a proofe of a good man that shall live Ezek. 18.16 Hath given his bread to the hungry and hath covered the naked with a garment but when our Saviour came to sentence the goates on the left hand he giveth this reason of their rejection I was sicke and you did not visit hungry and you gave mee no meate in prison and you came not to mee and when they alledged that they never saw him in such distressed cases and withdrew themselves from succouring him his answer is in that you did it not to these you did
to offer his soone or of Isaac in yeelding up himselfe to be offered were greater for a man doth likely love his life as well as he loveth his childe Now Abraham subdued his love of his sonne unto God and Isaac subdued the love of his life to God both notable patternes of sincere obedience This example you reade in Gen. 22.9 when Abraham and Isaac came to the place which God had appointed Abraham built an Altar laid on the woode and stretched forth his hand and tooke the knife to slay his sonne Isaac at that time was of such an age that he might have resisted his Father being old or have got himselfe free by flight from him but he gave up himselfe into his Fathers hands or rather into God hand and yeelded his throate to the stroake of the sacrificing knife Hereby it is apparent that he began to feare God betime in that he would not withhold himselfe from God as his Father did not withhold his sonne O that we could approve our Faith by the like effects of it even by a willing yeelding of our lives to him when he doth call for them and not refuse to die if he should call us unto it for his commandements sake God is the author and Lord of our lives and nothing is more agreeable to reason then that we should be content to give up life and all into his hands from whom we have received life and all things And surely in this case it shall be proved true which our Lord Jesus telleth in the Gospell whosoever will loose his life shall save it As Isaac was partaker of that great blessing wherewith the Lord rewarded Abraham for his obedience in offering of his sonne saying in blessing I will blesse thee and in multiplying I will multiply thee Neither Father nor sonne you see were loosers by yeelding up the one his sonne the other his life into the hands of God But contrarily hee that will save his life shall undoubtedly loose his life for he must necessarily die at some other time as all other men and then his soule shall be lost together with his life because he loved not God better then his life and he that hateth not his owne life in comparison of God shall not be counted worthy of him Let us therefore see that our soules be so thoroughly subjected unto God if ever we desire to be counted the seede of Abraham and the brothers of Isaac But oh how farre short do very many of us come of this obedience for how should any man beleeve that we would readily part without lives for God which will not part with honour or goods or pleasure yea any of our sinnes at his commandement You be not Isaacs if you cannot be content to give up your lives to God how much lesse if you stand with him for other matters farre lesse then life This is the first part of Isaacs goodnesse to God-ward he became obedient to death Secondly he was devoute and religious given to all holy exercises by name to meditation and prayer principall exercises of piety and religious services of God for so it is noted Gen. 26.25 Hee builded an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. Loe here he worshipped God publikely by sacrifices and prayers and though it be not mentioned that he offered or prayed before an Altar at any other time as I remember yet this once naming of his piety is set downe to signifie his constant care in this duty his Father brought him up in it therefore he could say Where is the lambe Indeed the Lord hath abolished such kinde of Altars and such kinde of sacrifices now since the comming of Jesus Christ into the world and offering himselfe once for all as a propitiatory sacrifice to take away the sinnes of the world but yet now also we have an Altar whereof they have no right to eate that partake of those sacrifices Christ Jesus is our Altar who sacrifieth all those services which we offer up unto God by him and our sacrifices are spirituall sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ The offering of a contrite and broken heart God doth much esteeme the offering of praises and prayers the calves of our lips done unto God in the name of Christ are very pleasing unto him the presenting of our selves soules and bodies to him is exceeding delightfull yea with doing of good and distributing as with sacrifices God is greatly contented as S. Paul saith these are an odour of sweete savour a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God If a man retire himselfe and considering the death of Christ for sinne doe humbly present himselfe before God confessing his sinnes and judging himselfe for them and labour to lament them with hearty griefe before God as causes of the death of his sonne this is a gratefull sacrifice If hee praise God in the Name of Christ as for all other benefits so for the great blessing of redemption wrought by Christ this also doth give a sweete odour unto God if he even consecrate himselfe to God resolving to walke before him in all upright obedience praying for the Spirit of God to sanctify him that in all things he may please God no Bullocke or Ram can please the Lord so well If he set apart some portion of his wealth to God and give it to releeve the necessities of the Saints this is very sweete incense so that hee trust not in the merit of the worke as if it could deserve any thing for the worthinesse of it but trust alone in Christ for the acceptation of himselfe and it and all his services Would you confirme to your owne consciences that you be true Isaacs Aske your selves then doe you offer these burnt offerings if not you be not as Isaac childeren of the promise if yea you may assure your soules that you be O then study to abound in these services Againe it is noted that he called on the Name of God there and so it is noted Gen. 25.21 that Isaac intreated the Lord for Rebeccah his wife because shee was barren Hee prayed constantly to God for a childe in this also testifying his religiousnesse and his Faith So wee must be carefull to pray to God for all good things we neede for childeren if we want them for good successe in our callings and whatsoever else we neede or desire For God is the giver of all good things and hath commanded us in all things to make our requests knowne unto him and biddenus to pray continually and in all things give thankes so we are bound to pray as much as Isaac Therefore those that are carelesse of worshipping God in this duty according to that description of a wicked man written by David in the fourteenth Psalme they call not on the name of God are not surely the children of God as was Isaac but the children of Satan rather for the Spirit of God
betake your selves unto any sinfull meanes of escape but rather choose to die then to sinne against God as knowing death to be no great matter but sinne to be an hatefull thing and worse by farre then death And how should this undaunted and spirituall fortitude be attained but by conversing with death often in your thoughts so as to get some good assurance that it shall not be able to carry you to the region of darknesse to eternall death but alone to let you out of this dungeon into a roome farre more lightsome and blisfull He that thinkes much of death so as to make himselfe carefull by frequent renewing of his repentance and amendment of his life to get his salvation assured to himselfe shall at last be happily armed against the feare of death and shall be made so resolute as to choose rather to die then sinne Againe if you finde so much weakenesse in any of Gods Saints with whom you live as you finde recorded in the story of Isaac I pray you be no harsher so them then you be to him Tell mee what thinke you of Isaac was hee a godly man or not if you say no you contradict the Scripture if you say yea then you must learne not to deny to another the name of a good man because you meete with the like disorders in him that are here noted in Isaac if hee feare too much if hee hath used some sinfull meanes to escape death or other danger Nay a man ought not to deny himselfe the name of a man truly sanctified because hee findeth the same imperfections in himselfe To call in question ones being sanctified in respect of the hanging on of such weakenesses is to nip and discourage the worke of grace and to hinder the growth of it no lesse then a cold frost doth hinder fruites from growing But Isaac telleth a manifest lie Lying is a sinne and the lying tongue will bring destruction but to bee so transported with some present passion as to be thrust into the mire of lying is such a thing as may befall a godly man Come and take heede that you doe not imbolden your selves to lie by abusing this and the like Examples but rather resolve and pray against it as knowing in how much danger you stand of falling into it For though to bee over-taken with this sinne in hast doe not disproove the truth of sanctity yet to be a lier one that makes account that this is so small an offence that hee will not be so precise as to forbeare to helpe himselfe by it if need be this is a proofe of a man that hath not yet gotten any sanctity Lying is a sinne so plaine that scarce is it possible to be ignorant of it but through wilfullnesse because a man refuseth to be willing to know that fault which hee is not willing to leave For no man can choose but blame it in another and therefore his inward soule doth plainely tell him that it is also naught in himselfe Now to live purposely in a knowne sinne resolving that hee must and will doe it if occasion serve this is to be a worker of iniquity Remember therefore the word of S. Paul Put away lying seeing you have put off the old man intimating that hee hath not cast off any part of the old man that hath not throwne away this rag of it Lying will breed boldnesse to sinne hard-heartednesse in it impudency after it Therefore you must determinately conclude with your selves to put away lying and speake the truth one to another In these two things Isaac sinned against GOD and himselfe But his sinne against Abimelech was in that hee was like to have drawne him occasionally into a great sinne hee did that which might easily have hazarded him to thinke of making Rebekah his wife that is of committing adultery It is a sinne to become a stumbling blocke to another by doing that which may make him bold to doe a thing that is sinfull as Abimelech complained to Abraham and also to Isaac take heede that you become not stumbling blockes in a more palpable fashion by inticing perswading exhorting giving evill example or the like Be carefull not to partake with other mens sinnes and if you can call to minde any thing done by your selves in the like nature viz. such an act as might have pulled another to wickednesse though the ill effect have not followed yet you must repent of your uncharitablenesse and rashnesse herein Another fault of Isaacs is this that he had too great respect to good fare he loved his tooth and palate a little too much he was an aged man and hee gave himselfe a little more then enough to savoury meate and his love to good fare carried him so farre awry in his affections that he loved Esau more then Iacob Gen. 25.28 Surely it was too great a love to Venison that caused him to love a worse sonne above a better This is a weakenesse against which it is needefull to strive our sensuality inclineth us unto it wee are apt to thinke it no sinne may not a man use Gods benefits and enjoy the comforts of this life in good measure why should not hee fare well that hath much given him by God But sure to be so over-ruled by ones palate that any disorders be bred thence in ones life towards any person or thing cannot but be a sinne for all these excuses Doe not wee know that cockering of the body doth likely depresse the soule and the feeding of the belly and pleasing of the taste doth breed an aptnesse to be lesse delighted with better things Thus you have Isaacs faults First Forgetfulnesse of Gods promise Secondly Carnall feare of death Thirdly Lying to prevent danger Fourthly Scandalizing Abimelech Fiftly over-loving his worser sonne and Sixtly Over-loving good fare We will goe on now to consider what blessings he enjoyed First Spirituall God pleased to make his covenant in him and to bestow the birth-right and blessing upon him and therefore also did appeare to him and blessed him Gen. 25.3 4. and after Vers 24. It is a singular favour of God to give a man spirituall blessings to make him his childe to appeare to him and comfort him by giving him assurance that hee is his childe and confirme his Faith in his gracious promises This is the greatest favour to blesse us with spirituall blessings Ishmael had the terrene but Isaac had the spirituall blessings these were given also to Iacob as a singular prerogative It is an admirable favour indeede to enjoy these for they will not cease at the end of this life but will continue till another life and will bee perfected in another life eternally I pray you consider whether God have vouchsafed these unto you hath he caused you to feare his name hath he made you to beleeve his promises hath he appeared to you in his word and ordinances and given you some happy apprehension of his
sanctified because they were imperfect in patience Why should we make such untrue and uncharitable and indiscreet conclusions either against our selves or others with whom we live As an extenuating of faults to make them seeme nothing and make our hearts hard under them is to be condemned so an over-aggravating of them to make our selves seem no children making our case worse then ever any mans before is likewise to be condemned Satan is author of both these follies and the effect of the latter is to drive us from God as well as of the former and all things are ill used when they tend to keepe us from comming to God and trusting in him So much of Rebekkahs good and bad now of the good and evill occurrents that befell her Her prosperity first was great for God called her from her Fathers house in which Idolatry did raigne and false worship prevailed to be a member of Abrahams house and a mother of the Messiah and a professor and practiser of Gods true religion and not alone so but gave her grace to be a godly woman an heire of the promise made to Abraham together with her husband This is the greatest of mercies here below to be called from darknesse to light from serving the devill and Idols to serve the true and living God If God have granted to any this mercy even to call them effectually to himselfe out of the darknesse of a false worship and religion to the light of a godly life How much cause hath he to blesse God and to rejoyce in this mercy above all mercies and bee freequently and heartily thankfull But if you have not yet attained it for many live in the Church that be not of it take notice of your wretched condition and now cry earnestly to God to bring you to the effectuall and saving knowledge of his truth that you also may be indeed and â—ot in bare profession of the houshold of Abraham the true Church But Rebekkah had other benefits beauty health and strength for ought we reade after marriage as before A rich and godly husband in whom she was doubly happy for her soule and state and one godly childe too whom she dearely loved and who shewed himselfe a man worthy to be loved A good husband a good state a good childe good health bee they not benefits indebting us to God in many praises and thankes and much carefull obedience Let not these mercies be strangers to your thoughts but ponder upon them to stir up your selves to thanksgiving and obedience Now for her crosses some shee suffered in her dayes as well as others First her husband fell blinde and weake and almost bedridden No doubt but she did participate with him in this affliction and it was a griefe to her to see him so imprisoned in darknesse and some trouble it must needs be though her love made it easie to give attendance upon him in that estate Likewise she could not but grieve to see her husbands affections to be so much more than they should have been for a long time upon her elder but worser son It was also a great griefe unto her to see the rudenesse and bloodinesse of her son Esau who comforted himselfe against his brother with an intention so soon as his Fathers funerals were over to dispatch him and rob him of the blessing though he could not get it to himselfe Would it not cut the heart of one of you Parents to heare that one of your sons you having but a couple in all the world should resolve to become a murderer of the other and so you stood in danger of being deprived of them both at once would not both these things grieve you Againe it was a griefe to her to have her good son as it were banished from her house and compelled to fly away in secret for his life For had he not been compelled to steale into Padan Aram in respect of Esau as to steale thence again in respect of Laban his Fathers estate was not so low that he must needs have travailed over that Iordan with a staffe and come to Labans house all alone and there have served an hard service for a wife Sure Isaac was not a prodigall he had not consumed his estate so that Abrahams grandchilde must be sent out so poorely appointed whose steward when he fetched a wife for Isaac had ten Camels well laden with rich things and many servants to attend him and so with speed returned home with his errand But feare of Esau caused him to goe speedily and secretly that no man might know it lest so he might have fallen into mischiefe by his meanes and to tarry so long till he might heare his brother was pacified Now did not this think you wound Rebekkahs heart Did she not part with a great part of her comfort when she parted with her beloved son Iacob so far so long and in such a manner But worst of all so long as she lived with her daughters shee was miserably vexed with their frowardnesse and ill conditions Indeed at length Esau tooke his journey to mount Seir where her friends dwelled and made this crosse more easie by removing his habitation with his wives and all he had but in the mean it was an anguish to her and that viz. losse of Esau too when Iacob was gone could not but minister matter of some affliction to her in minde Now let all of us be perswaded to looke for these and the like crosses that by fortifying our selves against them we may be made more patient and so beare them with lesse discontent for what are we that God should handle us with more indulgence than this so good a woman And those that lie under any such crosse in husband sons daughters daughters in law let them frame themselves to a more contented suffering because they finde that they bee no other kind of evils than those wherewith their Father hath exercised their betters in former times as he doth also for the present Hee must be an unruly childe that will roare and take on when he beareth no more than his other brethren and sisters beare before him yea and if we have escaped these particular crosses let us be thankfull to God for our freedome even from them and make the bearing of the rest more easie because we have not as we have deserved and might have had the same we have and these also for an overplus of misery THE SEVENTENTH EXAMPLE OF ESAV WEE are now to handle the example of Esau Hee was a twin Iacob being the other twin We must treate of his birth life and death First for his birth we are informed that hee was the son of Isaac and of Rebekkah the wife of Isaac daughter of Bethuel by his wife Milcah Which Bethuel was son of Nachor the brother of Abraham He was borne in the yeare of the world 2108 as some thinke and as others
feare to vex and kill their godly Parents whose tender affection to them cannot but cause that their wicked carriage shall prove a mighty corrasive unto their soules Be as good as Esau yea in this matter be you far better than he content not thy selfe to be even with a miserable Esau in dutifulnesse to your Parents Another thing in Esau we have recorded in Scripture which is commendable and that towards his brother Iacob for though he went against him with foure hundred men intending to take a sharp revenge by killing him at least if not his wives and children too yet when he saw his brothers loving and kinde and humble carriage in sending him a rich present and in bowing down and saluting him with his face to the ground seaven times his naturall affection prevailed against his former unruly passion and he handled him very curteously and ran to him wept on his neck kissed him gave him kinde words invited him to his countrey and would have left off his servants with him to do him service and so returned and did him no hurt at all Every man sees that this was well done of Esau Come and imitate him and if you have been transported with rage against any specially against a brother for any true or imaginary iniquity yet when submissivenesse and curtesie is shewed unto you let it melt you let it win you pacifie appease you and cause your passion to depart and though you have intended attempted and begun to use violence yet cast out such thoughts forbeare the execution of such evill purposes and turn your violence into kindnesse and humanity Be better than Esau and do this to any man as he to a brother and without such gifts and submission which be did by such inducements and shew love and kindnesse for very conscience as he did out of naturall passion striving in him Yea if any man have been imbittered against another for any cause and hath so far yeelded to his own fury as to begin to do naughtily in seeking revenge O let him do as well as Esau did go back in the middest of his enterprise and not suffer himselfe to be so confirmed in wickednesse as to go through with sinfull designes Let the feare of God the checks of conscience the apprehension of Gods displeasure against the doers of such things even reclaime you in the middest as naturall kindnesse did this sinfull man Be not satisfied to do as well as Esau in this case but exceed him and doe far better than he that you may shew your selves to have that grace of which Esau was destitute Farther Esau for matter of goods shewes himselfe not to be extreamly greedy and worldly minded for when his brother bad sent unto him a great drove of cattle even a gift of great value Gen. 32. 14 15. Two hundred shee Goates and as many Ewes with twenty hee Goates and as many Rams with thirty milch Camels and their Colts and forty Kine and ten Buls and twenty shee Asses with ten Foales I say a rich and gay booty he did earnestly and heartily refuse the same saying Chap. 33.9 I have enough my brother keep that which is thine owne and would not take it but upon urgent pressing First it is said ver 11. He urged him and he took it Now will you not shew your selves as good men as Esau in this case Know when you have enough be not greedy of gifts and when your state is already rich and abundant seek not to get into your hands though it be by receiving a gift that which is anothers O that Esau should be able to say I have enough keep that which is thine and many that be Christians in shew should not be able to discerne when they have enough but should be as eager to get even by worse meanes or as bad as this even by taking gifts and bribes for doing but even justice or which is worse for doing injustice and should by oppression and harsh dealing even with poore and needy men their Tenants and underlings seek to get even more than enough If any man amongst you finde himselfe so earthly disposed let him earnestly condemne himselfe and say alas what a slave am I to riches that have not yet so far denyed the world but that I am more covetous and unjust than Esau shewed himselfe If any say yea Esau did this towards a brother I answer doth not Christianity teach us to love our neighbours as our selves If any say but though Esau said he had enough yet it may be that he thought not so I answer In saying so he shews he thought he was so at that time and knew he should be so therefore should a good man that would be counted far better than Esau set himselfe to be so indeed and at all times Come then you that have estates large enough to afford you all due content come I say and learne of Esau to know when you have enough and not strive to get more by any greedy unjust and oppressive course Let others enjoy their owne and be you content with your owne yea goe yet farther and be content to lose some of you owne to those that are poore and in necessity and far lower and meaner than your selves But last of all Esau joyned with his brother Iacob in burying his Father Isaac and so at once shewed his respect to his Father in doing that last duty and his perfect reconciliation to his brother in joyning with him to doe it Learne you to shew honour to your Parents in the last act and let not an old grudge stick so in your stomacks as to hinder you from doing any good work because you cannot bring your hearts to be partners with those that have offended you Esau Esau shall rise in judgement against you if you continue still to have such a coare against them from whom you have received injury as that their presence will keep you from doing good workes with them in their company and in their society And these be all the good things which I can call to minde that the Scripture tels of this evill man Let us therefore passe on to the consideration of his faults which are more and greater And first in generall though he lived more than forty yeares in his Fathers house a religious man and a carefull worshipper of God yet he lived there as an hypocrite and got no true goodnesse as appeares by that he was not kept from fratricide or brother-murdering by any conscience to God but alone by a kinde of love and respect to his Father Look to your selves I pray you you that be children of godly Parents and have been trained up by them as well as they knew how look to your selves that you continue not sinfull and wicked and hypocrites at the last such I meane as care not to get the true knowledge of God but continue still lovers and servants of sin though you
to see this fault in your selves and amend it even staying too long at your gawdes following them such a space of time together or with such great violence that you be even tired and spent by them Sports must be done sportingly not with the like seriousnesse and earnestnesse as serious matters A small deale of time should be allotted for matters of small value for seeing time is precious to give much of a precious thing for that which is a very meane and worthlesse thing is surely to suffer ones selfe to be consumed by fancy and passions and not to walke rationally and discreetly Learne therefore not to suffer your selves to be brought under the bondage of any the most lawfull recreation but to be able to breake off seasonably And when is the season ye may ask I answer when you have bestowed so much time in them as to have attained the proper end of them As in meate and drink a man should forbear to take more when he hath received so much as is requisite for the ends of food So in sports And every mans discretion will tell him unlesse he hath put out his eyes by making himselfe a bondman to pastimes that the end is to fit him for better matters by preserving the health and maintaining the vigour and cheerefulnesse of his body and minde He must not tarry at them as long as he can or till he be weary but when he hath been so long constant in them as is fit to stir and exercise his body and prepare him for serious matters then must he leave them off and goe to serious matters And I pray you let me propound to your considerations a fit rule for the measuring of your time for sports Will not sanctified reason tell you that you ought not to bestow more time in recreations though never so honest to refresh your bodies then in spirituall and holy duties to edifie your soules Give not more houres usually to these basest of all things playes and games than to those most usefull of all things reading the Scriptures Prayer Meditations and those things that are next to spirituall duties in value and usefulnesse studying some worthy knowledge or doing some profitable businesse in your callings Let not the more worthy thing be set behinde the lesse worthy let not the Vassall be set above his Soveraign and have more honour than his Lord and King Another fault in Esau in regard of his conversation about earthly things is that when he came now to be an ageder man and saw it vain to follow pastime he fell as Isaac tels him Gen. 27.40 By thy sword shalt thou live He made himselfe great by war The sword was not appointed to get lands and livings withall but to defend and maintaine men against unjust violence and to punish offenders and malefactors But Esau followed the wars to make himselfe great as it hath been used much formerly and is now Men would fight with others to take away their lands and goods from them and to make themselves possessours and Lords of their countries to get riches command and glory and make themselves great in worldly respects they would betake themselves to weapons and fighting This is so far as I can discern a fault and sin I say to take occasion of warring and making battailes to win mens lands and goods from them If you say how was this a part of Isaacs blessing to Esau if it were a sinne I answer Isaacs meaning is to relate what outward prosperity Esau should have so that he doth not justifie all the meanes he should use to make himselfe great but alone shewes that he should be great and obtain a gallant countrey It is a kinde of temporall blessing to overthrow in war and to conquer though one deale not justly in that matter of war Indeed if men may live by their sword where is the rule of equity Doe you as you would bee done by where is the following after peace which all are commanded to follow with all Where is that threat or curse become Which David pronounceth from God by way of just imprecation against such Scatter the people that delight in war Such kinde of war as is enterprized to make a living of and to get away other mens possessions for else to fight Gods battailes as Iosuah and David did in pursuing them with the sword which were Gods enemies and whom he appointed to be so pursued is a good thing and honourable and such as those worthy men before named did much delight in So then to make warres and stirres by invading others and picking and ready accepting any occasion of quarrell for the raising of a Monarchie or Principalitie to himselfe is a sinne and so farre as I see it was Esaus sinne who by his sword made himselfe owner of such a Countrie as within a little time his posteritie was raised to a great Kingdome for he dispossessed the inhabitants of Mount Seir and erected the beginning of the kingdome of Edom. Indeed to live by ones sword or by his wits may well dispute for the precedency in sinfulnesse The one couzens the other kils the one useth secret tricks the other open force The one armeth it selfe with fraud the other with violence The one hurts men in goods the other in life too the one will have it because he can over-reach you in wit the other because he can over-master you in strength the one careth not so he can beguile you whether he have iust title or no the other careth not so he can beate you whether his title be good or not the one breaketh the eighth and ninth Commandements the other the eighth and sixth Commandements never a better of them but that the worse which is joined with more crueltie and bloudinesse And Esau had a kind of presage of his fierce and bloudie nature when he looked so red at his very birth and when he was affected with the red colour of the pottage so red so red in respect whereof also his name began to be called Edom which signifieth red Here you may see what an erring judgement man hath since his fall for how have men honoured Conquerours and great fighters and souldiers whereas if the war was entred into not out of compulsion to defend or out of justice to punish publike injuries against Cities or Common-wealths or Countries it was meere robbery and murder they were but great Pyrates and great Theeves and great murderers and yet the foolish blindnesse of men will needs give them honour and good esteeme But I need not disgrace war to you only this you must note that Esau which gave himselfe in his younger time to nothing else but sports afterwards gave himselfe to nothing else but war and spoiles Oft voluptuous youth many times ends in an injurious old age They set up themselves by bad meanes at last which gave themselves to vanity and toyes before Thus much of Esaus conversation in respect of
company the other shall escape Secondly He prayed earnestly to God to save him from the hands of his brother whom he greatly feared Thirdly he presenteth him with a large present and set a space betwixt drove and drove commanding them to answer his brother with all submisnesse saying when they should be asked Whose are these before thee They be thy brother Iacobs It is a present sent to my Lord Esau and he is behinde us and so the second and the third and all that followed the droves saying I will pacifie him with a gift that goeth before me and afterwards I will see his face peradventure he will accept of me and then having wrastled with God Chap. 32. he saw his brother comming and divided his children to Leah and Rachel and the young maidens and setting the hand maides first then Leah then Rachel himself went before them and fell on the ground seven times and did obeisance and so caused the handmaids and his wives to do the like and so by his submissive carriage he pacified his brothers anger and God working with his prudence found him exceeding kinde and loving and when he would have gone before him excuseth himselfe by the pace of the young Infants and cattell he avoided his company and by pressing caused him to receive the gift and in very modest manner refused the traine which his brother left with him and escaped his hands So he proved that to be true which after Solomon told That a gift in the bosome pacifieth great wrath Prov. 21.14 And a gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it and it prospereth whethersoever it goeth Eccles 10.4 Yeelding pacifieth great offences Thus Iacob carried himselfe prudently and escaped his brothers fury Let us learne of Iacob by liberality and submissivenesse to appease the fury of unreasonable men We must not yeeld so far as to sin but to yeeld in all meek and lowly gestures even to worthy men is not a sin but a vertue So likewise Bribery is naught that is to seek to turne a Governour from justice by gifts and hire him to do wrong but by gifts to pacifie an angry man and hire him to forbeare sinning that is a lawfull use of gifts and to practise liberality in so due a season to redeeme the life by the goods and to make them quiet that were inraged is a very good thing Seasonable stooping and seasonable bounty be fruits of prudence and by such meanes to save our selves from danger is a part of wisdome and discretion The like prudence Iacob practised towards the Aegyptian Lord whom he thought to be offended not knowing that it was his son Ioseph for when they were to have Benjamin in before him he wished them to take a present with them and double money in their hands that they might prevent all occasion of distaste in respect of the money that was in his sackes mouth Gen. 43.11 12. We must pray to God to give us the likewise discretion that we may carefully use all fit meanes to asswage wrath and so by Gods blessing upon our discreet care may free our selves from evill But stubbornnesse and niggardlinesse and a kinde of fowre standing upon our right or innocency that it may carry a shew of courage and resolution is yet indeed a fruit of folly and self-conceit Further Iacob was a painfull and industrious person for when hee came to Padan Aram and met with the Shepheards and with Rachel comming with her Fathers flocks he advised them concerning the ordering of their cattell and himselfe rouled away the stone from the Wells mouth and watred Rachels sheepe Chap. 29.8 9 10. and afterwards he abode in Labans house for a moneth hee did not live idly there but behaved himselfe so painfully and serviceably that Laban himselfe made him offer of wages saying Thou shalt not serve me for nought so that Laban found him a painful and serviceable man which made him willing to entertaine him But especially when he had undertaken the care of his Father in Lawes sheepe He served him with all his might as he tels his two wives Chap. 31.6 Which also he alleadgeth to Labans selfe In the day the drought consumed me and the frost by night and sleep departed from mine eyes Chap. 31. 40. You see that he was not idle carelesse and sluggish but very diligent and laborious Herein we must imitate him every man in his place The diligent hand maketh rich saith Solomon And he that tilleth his ground shall be satisfied with bread and the good man shall eate the labour of his hands But on the other part slothfulnesse idlenesse loytering are disgraced in the booke of God and misery and want is threatned as a punishment against them They shall be clothed with rags and shall have want enough and The way of the slothfull is like a thornie hedge still full of pricking griefes and crosses Wherefore now betake your selves to all painfulnesse in your Vocations and be not weary of wel-doing This diligence hath the promise of a blessing and shall have the performance It helpeth against vices by name against pride and maketh the soule humble only so that inordinatenesse and excesse through love of outward things doe not corrupt and putrifie it How diligent also was Saint Paul in his calling and how are the servants commended for diligent imployment in their Talents and the good housewife for her labours and contrarily the slothfull servant is rated and punished by losing his Talent and being cast into utter darknesse Lastly Iacob was also just in his dealings with all for when Laban pursued him as if he had been a theefe he bids him search among all his goods if he could find any thing there that was his and when nothing was found there unjustly gotten he is bold to chide with Laban for pursuing him in that violent manner Gen. 31.37 and so when the money was returned back in his sons sacks mouthes he not knowing how it came thither wisheth them to returne it back lest it might be an oversight Loe he would not make advantage of an oversight but that which was anothers or might be he was carefull to returne unto the right owner and that though it might seem in shew an easie matter to keep it Let us learne righteousnesse of him take not any other mans goods keep not that which is not your own but give every one his owne and take to your selves that and only that which is your owne the contrary whereto is theft before God though we can conceale it from men The Law of nature commandeth us To doe as we would be done unto and every mans heart within tels him that he expects all just dealing from other men and therefore cannot but finde fault with those that shall use any unrighteousnesse towards him Let us not neglect the plaine directions of naturall light and though a man may suppose that the Bread of
safe to heaven at the length Seeke this blessing of God If you feare God and walke in his wayes hee will blesse you if you faithfully beleeve in Christ and rest upon him alone you shall be blessed for Christ hath freed us from the curse and prepared the blessing for us if we be under the workes of the Law we are under the curse but if we be of the faith of Abraham we shall be blessed with faithfull Abraham as S. Paul tels us Labour to beleeve labour to goe out of your selves and to stay alone upon the righteousnesse of Christ by faith made yours and then you shall inherite the blessing and then you shall inherite the blessing and then you shall receive the promise of the Spirit through faith then God will keep his Covenant of grace with you pardon your sins give you his Spirit and make all worke together for good Through faith and patience you must inherite the promises and the blessing which Esau was excluded from though he would have inherited it because he sought it not of God but of Isaac his Father And you that have right unto Gods blessing because you are faithfull take comfort in it and be thankfull for it Gods blessing is a rich thing it is more than all honours it is fruitfull of all comforts he that is blessed of God shall want no good thing shall have earth and heaven and all things that his heart can desire If any say but we see that such men meete with evill enough in the world The answer is that if we looke with the eye of flesh alone wee thinke that we see it so but we thinke falsly for if wee would look with the eye of faith we should see it otherwise for the blessing of God causeth crosses to worke for our spirituall good for our increase of holinesse and happinesse and it is the efficacy of Gods blessing that it turneth evill things unto good for them to whom it is granted as it is the efficacy of Gods curse that it turneth all good things to hurt in them that lie under it You may therefore be assured you are under the blessing whereof you may be assured if by a firme faith you cleave unto God But further the Lord did often appeare to Iacob to confirme and establish his faith and to comfort his soule and fill him full of spirituall joy and peace First he appeared unto him when he was benighted in a desolate and solitary place when hee fled from his brother and gave him large and comfortable promises that he would be his God give that land to him and his seed multiply his seed as the dust and in his seed blesse all Nations and would keep him and bring him againe and never leave till he had fulfilled his good word Doe but thinke what a cheating this was to Iacobs heart in this exigent that God himselfe tooke care of him and came to him in such an excellent vision to comfort him Secondly God appeared to him againe when he lived in Labans house and received very hard measure from Laban about his wages and gave him gracious promises to sustaine his drooping spirit bidding him looke on the Rammes leaping on the cattel ring streaked and bade him returne home to his Fathers house promising him that he would be with him no doubt but though the grumbling of Laban and the discurteous carriage of his sonnes as well as himselfe did make the soule of Iacob sad and pensive yet the visions of God cleared up his sad countenance and enlivened his drooping spirit againe and made him able to take comfort notwithstanding all those injuries Thirdly God appeared againe unto him after Laban was departed from him causing an whole host and army of Angels to attend him making him know that he should be safe enough in his Church how weakly soever he seemed to goe provided for these two hosts of immortall spirits would serve him against any rage of man And againe God himselfe appeared to him a little before his brother Esau met him after he was informed of his comming and though he wrastled with him to try his faith yet at last he blessed him and called him Israel and told him that He had power with God as a Prince and with man too and should prevaile How did this chase away all his feares and fill his soule with confidence and joy A fifth time God appeared unto him and blessed him and renewed the name of Israel to him and promised to multiply him and give the land of Canaan to his seed after him This also was a great consolation to him and confirmed him against the feares he conceived lest the men of the Countrey might be insenced against him for the wickednesse of his sons Yet a sixth time God appeared unto him when he was about to goe downe to Aegypt at his son Iosephs sending for him and told him he was his God bid him not feare told him he would make him a great Nation c. as you may there reade which was a most joyfull and comfortable thing unto the old mans soule Here now is a great favour which God affoorded to this good man he appeared to him oftner than ever he had done to any of his Forefathers that ever we reade of If any say what is that to us to whom God useth not now to appeare in dreames and visions and like kindes of apparitions I answer It is much to us and we must consider whether God vouchsafe to appeare to us also For now he appeareth more spiritually but not lesse comfortably to his servants when we come to his Word and finde him there in his Ordinances confirming our faith strengthening our soules now he appeareth to us So when we come to his Sacrament and by it feele an increase of faith and in ward joyes now we see God So in meditations and soliloquies O labour to carry your selves so that you may see God in his Sanctuary as David saith in the Psalme and that your hearts may be filled with spirituall joy These spirituall visions are the comfortablest things in the world when we labour to walke humbly with God then will hee come to us and shew himselfe to us as our Lord promiseth and suppe with us even make us to feele his favour in sensible manner And if God doe appeare to us so you are to esteeme highly of his favour and to study to requite his mercy by a more carefull endeavour to walke holily before and with him Lastly a great spirituall blessing it was that God heard his prayers when he prayed to him in his severall necessities and that hee was able to prevaile with God as you have heard before that he did That a poore meane worme should have accesse unto the Throne of grace with confidence and should no sooner aske any thing of God but that the Lord opens his eare and grants it what a singular
crosse Say then wast thou ever driven out of thine owne habitation to serve in a strange place and an hard master that wronged thee and used thee discurteously Wast thou ever in danger to have all thy goods taken from thee by an enraged man stronger than thy selfe and pursuing thee with a revengefull minde nor wast thou never in perill of thy life by a revengefull person armed with foure hundred souldiers nor wast thou never tormented with seeing thy sonnes murderers couzeners and robbers nor hast thou never lost a deare childe and thought him slaine by a violent death nor did never no son of thine commit incest with his mother in law if not see how favourable God hath been to thee above Iacob and praise love an honour him and make his gentlenesse an argument of turning and obeying for if thou compare thy sins with Iacobs there need be no doubt but that thine have been as great as his and thy repentance as little But it is our good not our sins that God lookes to in correcting as a Father corrects not a little childe for as great a fault so much as he doth a stronger Againe learne to beare the crosses thou hast with more patience and quietnesse of minde by comparing them with Iacobs crosses which have been more in number and more weighty and grievous Why doth any of you my Brethren take the matter so heavily that some childe of his is somewhat stubborne and ill disposed When none of them have committed murder incest rapine and such sins as Iacobs sons did commit Why doe you make such a stir at wrongs When none of you were ever so pursued by any foe as Iacob was by his brother and Father in Law Why doe you take on so for the ordinary and naturall death of a childe seeing none of you hath had such a childe torne by wilde beasts or some other like violence as Iacob conceived Ioseph to have miscarried Why doe you complaine of famine and of want When none of you hath suffered such a famine as compelled him to send so far as Iacob sent to Aegypt for Corne which is thought to be not much lesse than two hundred miles We complaine of ease If our so much lamented afflictions were laid in the ballance with Iacobs we should finde them very light and trifling businesses in comparison Want of looking about and observing the burdens that are fastened unto other mens shoulders causeth us to aggravate our owne so much in our owne conceits as that by making them seeme extraordinarily heavy wee even wilfully cast our selves into excessive sorrow for them But againe you that are yet at ease and have not tasted any so bitter a cup as Iacob did many must bee perswaded to take some paines with your owne hearts to make your selves thinke that some such crosses may befall you and therefore to prepare for them by resolving to beare them and praying God to sit you for them and sanctifie them to you Mans self-loving minde is willing to flatter it selfe with good hopes rather then to forewarne it selfe with wise warnings O I hope I shall never see my children my wife so naught I shall never finde such ill usage I hope Come hither vaine man and either give a good reason of thine hopes or else confesse them to be fruits of thine extreame folly and doting self-love Hath God ever promised thee that no such thing should befall thee I am sure thou canst shew no such promise Hast not thou deserved as much as Iacob to be severely chastened of God I am sure thou oughtest to say yes Doth not thy body soule name children lie abroad in as open a Sea and as tempestuous Here also thou oughtest to say yes and therefore shouldest also condemne these silken soft hopes of thine and say Well God may make me as afflicted as Iacob and therefore I will even expect the same or as bad and if they come I will beare them all seeing God and my ill deservings in them Yonder is a very towardly boy I love him dearely what if I should heare he were torne of beasts Lord if it be thy will let it not be so but if it be make me to beare it with quietnesse and why should I not so stoope to thy will in every thing yea I will doe it by thy grace If thou say I see many escape such crosses I answer and thou seest many afflicted with them and why maist not thou be amongst the number of those that suffer them as well as of those that escape them But lastly take heed of making over-bold with Gods favour as a wanton childe that presumes he shall not be whipt and therefore cares not almost what wanton and evill prankes he playes Doe you not see here that the Lord of heaven knowes how to whip his owne children throughly and to purpose You have not to deale with a foolishly pittifull Father that cannot finde in his heart to heare his children cry and see them smart and bleed No he can strike he can lay it on soundly he can make you roare and cry and bleed hee can doe it yea and he will doe it too if he finde that your conceit of his love and gentlenesse brings forth no better fruit in you than this that by presuming of it you are made more wicked Wherefore say to thy selfe if such abominable fancies arise foolish man that I am doe I so requite the Lords kindnesse Doe I put his clemency to this use Did he not cut and wound Iacobs soul Did he not handle him roughly even though we never reade that he did entertaine such presumptuous conceits How then will hee deale with me if I doe so exceedingly provoke him by so exceedingly abusing his goodnesse And so frame to condemne and blame thy wickednesse in having such motions and pray to God to worke in thine heart a reverend awe of his Majestie by making his justice and anger so terrible to thee as to make sin abominable that would insence that wrath and justice against thee * ⎠* THE TWENTIETH EXAMPLE OF IACOBS Wives FRom the Story of Iacob I proceed to his Wives and Children and so to other his contemporaries Iacob had foure Wives It was not his own seeking that his Wives grew to such a number for he was painfull and laborious and a chaste man that would very contentedly have satisfied himselfe with one woman But he was drawne into this way of Polygamy by severall occasions Now of his Wives the true and lawfull Wife was Rachel for her he agreed with her he espoused himselfe as it is like for we cannot thinke but that after his Father had promised to give her to him upon seven yeares service he would acquaint her with it and desire her good will and unlesse he had attained it the marriage would not have proceeded and been as it was solemnly celebrated to her hee bare singular affection and her alone he looked for Now for Rachel you
acknowledgement If you would learne that all things are pure unto the pure you would not bee hindred from so good a service by any scruple or abuse But I am afraid niggardlinesse hath as great a hand in breaking of such feasts as any thing else Whether you feast or not be it at your choise but mee thinks againe I repeat it safe escaping the danger that tooke away Rachel may well call for even a publicke and thankfull acknowledgement So much of Rachel whom we leave by her husband solemnly interred unner a monument erected upon her grave which kept her name up long and occasioned the calling of all the mothers dwelling thereabouts by her name When it is said Rachel weeping for her children because they were not Now of Leah she was a wife of Iacobs the first he had given though not promised Of her vertues we have not much noted but she shewed her selfe patient and loving to her husband somewhat quiet to her envious sister and thankfull to God for her children though her husband loved her lesse than was meet yet we read of no brawles either with him or her sister She entertained him very lovingly when he came home from field and she had hired him of her sister She consented also to goe with him into Canaan she was desirous of children and had many but a fault or two she slipped in First she went to bed to her sisters husband at her fathers persuasion which she ought not to have done In him that thought she was Rachel there was no sinne in her that knew she was not Rachel it was a great fault but excused by the fathers authority but she wronged Iacob much and made her owne life full of affliction Another little fault she had shee seemed a little too unkind to her sister in not being willing to impart some of her sonnes mandrakes but often unkindnesses and wrongs breed such an estrangement betwixt them who are otherwise neerly joyned as that they sticke at small curtesies We must take heed it doe not so with us but Leah had a little anger with her she could upbraid her sister with an injury when she came for a curtesie O that she had not too many followers in this weaknesse Her benefits were these she had a good husband and many children and was matcht into the Church and we hope went to Heaven for her carriage in respect of her children shews some goodnesse Indeed she was faulty in imitating her sister and giving Zilpah to Iacob much more faulty in thinking that God gave her the next sonne for a reward of that fault But so weake we are and ignorant of sin somtimes that we verily thinke God is pleased with our sins and recompenceth them with benefits And for her crosses they were want of her husbands love and comfortable cohabitation and all the miseries shee underwent with her husband besides her Father was something unkinde as it may seeme for she saith He counted them strangers and she also had an imperfection in her visage for she was bleare-eyed I hope you will all learne to imitate her vertues flie her sins be thankfull for the like mercies and patient under the like crosses and then you shall not be losers of time by hearing her story Now the two handmaidens Zilpah and Bilhah Zilpah hath nothing said of her but that Shee bare Iacob two children Gad and Asher So called of Leah that would needs imitate her sisters weaknesse and call them hers Bilhah is taxed of a grievous sin she suffered her selfe to be polluted with incest by Iacobs first borne If he offered her violence or surprized her by any device it was his fault not hers but it is not likely to have been so because God doth not report it so For God would not wrong any in reporting their acts to the worst but if there had been any excuse of her fault the Lord would have done her right in rehearsing it he should not else doe the office of a good writer of a Story O let all women take heed of adultery and chiefly of incestuous adulteries with their husbands son in law or brothers or a like neare of blood where the offence is made much more heinous by that aggravation and if any have committed any such crime let the mentioning of it in this woman bring it to their remembrance and provoke them to repentance that they may not have so fearefull a crime to answer for upon their sick-bed in the houre of death Likely such grosse crimes will cry out then if they have been smothered before but a conscience purged from them by sincere repentance performed in health may enjoy quiet and peace in death notwithstanding the remembrance of them For a sin repented of shall be pardoned and a pardoned debt cannot hurt at all not so much as terrifie if the pardon of it be knowne But something there was in it that God saw it fit to have his Church stored with the seed of bond-women for two of Iacobs wives were such because he would have us know that hee doth not much stand upon nobility and being free borne and the like One third part of his people Israel were seed of bond-women Though he would not let Hagars seed inherite yet that was not because he did looke to her condition but that he might figuratively set forth his aversnesse from them that will needs be in bondage under the Law when the Gospell brings them liberty and therefore now he doth equally take into the Church Dan and Nephthali Gad and Asher as well as Reuben and Levi Simeon and Iudah These earthly considerations vary nothing with God nor is the one any more acceptable with him than the other Let not those which enjoy the priviledges of this world in these matters sleight or despise such as want them and let not those that are meanlier borne trouble themselves at that depression Spirituall priviledges may belong to those that are of no reckoning in the world and those that are of high esteeme in it may be deprived of them The Tribes that came of the bond-woman were admitted into the possession of Canaan and to the fellowship of the Tabernacle as well as the rest It were a misery indeed to be outwardly mean if that would impeach our spirituall estate but seeing no such thing will follow let us shew our high esteeme of the soul above the body by not regarding the things of the body so that the soul be wel * ⎠* THE ONE AND TWENTIETH EXAMPLE OF LABAN WE have spoken of Iacobs selfe and of his Wives now I will goe on to speake of his Vncle and so of his Children His Vncle and Father in law was one Laban of Padan Aram of whose birth and death the Scripture takes no notice at all and indeed it is scarce worth the while to mention the birth and death of wicked men It is no great matter when they
were borne or when they died seeing both their comming into the world and their departure out of it do perish for they come to nothing and both come in and go out as it were in an evill time But we have something to say of his parentage and life For his Parentage we learne Gen. 22.26 and 24.29 that he was the sonne of one Bethuel who was the sonne of Nachor the brother of Abraham who did not leave his Countrey and Fathers house with Abraham when he travelled at Gods Commandement into the land of Canaan but abode still in Padan Aram the land of his Nativity and there continued to follow strange gods and commit Idolatry of which all the world and by name the countrey was then full So hee was the Idolatrous son of an Idolatrous Father and Grandfather which did as most men doe take up the religion of his forefathers without more adoe not looking whether hee served God aright but counted it sufficient to serve God as his Progenitors had done before not at all considering whether it were the true God or the false whom they served or whether it were true or false worship which they performed Now in his life wee must consider his deeds good and bad and the things that befell him good and bad First then for his good deeds for even a bad man may have some civill vertues found in his life out of a common worke of Gods Spirit who will not suffer men to be so farre over-runne with vices but that for the preservation of humane societies they shall have some shadows of vertues seene in them These good deeds of his looke partly to men and partly to God His good deeds to men-ward are first to Abrahams servant Secondly to Rebekkah his sister Thirdly to Iacob his kinsman Fourthly to his Daughters and Grandchildren First let us consider his carriage to Abrahams servant Eliezer of Damascus who was sent by his master Abraham to fetch a wife for his son Isaac out of Padan Aram because he would not match him with the cursed seed of the Canaanites The first thing commendable in him is that hee vouchsafeth curteous entertainment unto him for when the servant meeting with Rebekkah had found great kindnesse from her in watering his Camels as well as giving himselfe drinke out of her pitcher and that hee had rewarded her with precious gifts Gen. 24.22 viz. with a golden eare-ring of halfe a shekel weight and two golden bracelets of ten shekels weight for her hands and that shee had invited him to her Fathers house and comming home had told Laban her brother of the man who hee was and what hee had bestowed upon her presently Laban goes forth to the man ver 31. and invites him to the house with very kinde words saying Come in thou blessed of the Lord wherefore standest thou without for I have prepared the house and roome for thy Camels and so bringing him home they ungirded the Camels and hee gave him straw and provender for them and water to wash his feete and the feete of those that were with him and then set meate before him that hee might eate Loe here an example of curteous hospitality hee gave him good and loving words and provided and ministred to him all things necessary for his cattell and companions and himselfe Thus should men use kinde and liberall hospitality towards such friends as upon occasion doe repaire unto their houses and this is a kinde of vertue which may bee found in men that are destitute of all true grace and piety For even nature it selfe teacheth men to shew love and humanity to men that are of the same nature with themselves because they looke to finde the like gentlenesse themselves from others upon like occasions Here is one thing in Laban worthy praise and imitation another is that hee gives him an honest and good answer when hee had declared unto them his errand For the man refusing to eate till hee had related his businesse unto them being very faithfull to his master and diligent in the matter committed to his trust up and told them all that had fallen out why hee came thither and how hee had by a speciall providence of God met with Rebekkah at the fountaine of water requested to know their minde and what hee must trust unto in this matter and from Bethuel the maides Father and Laban of whom wee are speaking her Brother hee received this just and discreete answer That the thing proceeded from God and they were able to say neither good nor bad unto him that is not to crosse his motion by any allegation one way or other concluding that Rebekkah was before him and that hee might with their good consent take her and goe that shee might bee his Masters sons wife as God had spoken ver 50 51. of the same Chapter In this passage you see a great deale of honest plainnesse seeing God had directed him by his speciall hand to this maiden they would bee no hinderance unto him but would give their willing consent to the marriage It is a good thing for men to consent unto honest and good motions chiefly when they see God himselfe by his good providence going before them and as it were leading the way unto them A third good thing in Laban was that hee doth speedily dismisse the man and hindered not his present returne unto his Master with a wife for his son For so it is written ver 59. that when hee rising betimes in the morning was earnest to returne that very day and that they at first required ten dayes stay for Rebekkah but hee requesting them not to hinder his expedition seeing God had prospered him they called the Damsell and asked her consent viz. Whether shee was willing to goe with the man and finding her very forward they sent her away without further lingring It is a good thing when wee have entertained any one in our house and his desire is as his occasions shall require to make haste home to further him by all meanes and not to stop his proceedings with delayes For many times such deferring proves very unpleasing and sometimes dangerous to the party to whom wee would seeme to shew love and good will as wee see it did in case of the Levite whose Father in Laws importunity caused him to stay a day or two beyond his desire in the later end of the Story of Iudges Thus hath Labans carriage beene good to this servant of Abrahams We must follow the goodnesse of all men even Idolaters and Heathens Now consider how hee behaved himselfe to his sister to whom he discovers good affection and love by a curteous dismissing of her ver 60. They blessed her and said thou art our sister bee thou the mother of thousands of millions and let thy seed possesse the gates of them which hate them that is prevaile mightily against all their enemies and conquer them
and undefiled and forbearing to mixe ones selfe with any person not allowed by God according to his Ordinance especially when strong temptations are offered to inflame libidinous fancies deserveth great praise for it shewes that the heart is fully resolved not to doe evill Indeed if the not entertaining of such motions arise from inability of body and unfitnesse to satisfie them this cannot be called castity but debility Wee must consider how much the Apostle disgraceth uncleannesse and fornication he saith it is injurious to Christ to the holy-Ghost to a mans owne body to Christ if he be a professour of Christianity that doth it for it takes one that is joyned to him and to his mysticall body as a member thereof and makes it the member of an harlot which is a great indignity to the holy-Ghost for it takes a Temple dedicated to him such is the body and soule of every Christian and makes it a hog-sty to lodge filthy lusts in to a mans owne body for he that doth it sinnes against his owne body in making-that the very instrument of committing that soule sinne Now as much as may be said in the reproach of the sinne so much on the contrary maybe said in prayse of continency by it a man keeps Christs members and the holy-Ghosts Temples and his owne body free from so great basenesse of being made subject to an harlot The way is first to plant in ones owne heart a reverend feare of Gods all-seeing eye yea to pray much to God to bestow a good measure of this grace upon him The second is to count the sin a great wickednesse for so hee saith this great wickednesse The holding fast in ones mind an apprehension of the grievousnesse of a fault is a great preservative against it but if one once yeeld to fancy that it is no great matter then will it prove no great matter to draw us to it And indeed this sinne of Adultery must needs be a great wickednesse because it sinnes against a cleare light and is contrary to a solemne vow and Covenant made betwixt the marryed 3. A man must often ponder on the threats of God made against this sinne and presse them upon his owne soule and pray to God to make him beleeve and feare Fourthly he must prevent the occasions and fly from them even that occasion of being present especially in solitary places and alone with those to whom his heart is inclined or indeed with any with whom such a sinne may be committed but upon just grounds and causes And lastly a man must not trust upon his owne strength but constantly supplicate to God keep downe his inordinate passions or else he shall find them too unruly for him Labour you that be young and you that be elder and all to attaine this power over ill desires God that wrought it in Ioseph can worke it in any other as well you shall doe well to produce Iosephs Example unto God and beseech him to shew his Spirit and his feare in you as he did in him Why are godly mens worthy deedes set up before our eyes in Scriptures but that we may strive and pray and hope to be made like unto them But as all must bee exhorted to get Chastity so chiefly those which have beene overtaken already with the contrary crime of Adultery or fornication or both It is more easie to forbeare a sinne the first time then the second the second then the third and so forth unlesse great care be used to get the heart throughly healed If Joseph had lived in Fornication with any other he could never have resisted his mistresses inticements They that have yeelded to this sinne shall more hardly save themselves from it then those that have never yeelded but if a man doe frequently and unfainedly repent of this as well as of other sinnes it will bee made so loathsome to him that by Gods assistance he shall prevaile against it yea even though it be his darling corruption I goe on to shew how Joseph behaved himselfe in the house of his Prison and that to his Master there the Jaylor and also to the Kings Officers that were committed thither First he fell to his old trade of diligence and faithfulnesse carrying himselfe in so vertuous a manner that the Jaylor did affect him and liked him more and more till at last he intrusted him with all the charge of the prison This was a great trust for you know what extreame danger a Jaylor chiefely of such prisoners doth put himselfe in if his prisoners escape there againe therefore let all inferiours be perswaded to seeke to winne their Superiours by good and vertuous carriage especially meekenesse submissivenesse painefulnesse and trustinesse This will worke a man into favour even with an hard master but I spake of that matter a little before I will shew you his carriage to the prisoners to whom he was an Attendant it is commendable in these three respects First he shew'd himselfe desirous to comfort them when they were sad and dejected asking them why they were sad had hee not bin of a kinde and tender disposition he would not have heeded how a person to whom himselfe had no more relation had fared whether sorrowfully or merrily but so kinde was hee that hee seekes to comfort them by asking them the cause of their sadnesse and seeking to remove it We should all learne to practice this courteousnesse to all men chiefly to such as are in affliction otherwise even helpe to raise up their hearts with good words and so much as we can to become instruments of cheering them as you see Joseph intreating to know their Dreames and diligent to interpret the same It is an excellent vertue to be ready to comfort the afflicted and to revive the spirits of them that bee cast downe so farre as we be able but a churlish carelesse temper whereby a man cares not whether men cry or laugh be merry or sad is a proofe of much pride and stupidity of spirit and must be abhorred Againe you see him faithfull in interpreting their dreames not seeking to flatter the Baker in regard of the likenes of the dreames You must learne to deale truely with men telling them as the thing is not falsifying your words to please them and to prevent their sorrowes Most of all must men deale truly in interpreting and applying Gods Word and you must learne to be so wise as to accept such true and plaine dealing Lastly Ioseph was so wise and so prudently carefull of redeeming himselfe out of prison that he would not let slip the opportunity of speaking to the Butler to remember him It is very lawfull for any man to use good meanes of getting out of a crosse and to take all such advantages as God shall afford of suing and supplicating unto such as may be helpefull to him in that behalfe as Ioseph doth but still wee must take heed that
certainely shall this Steward of Ioseph rise up against such in judgement But secondly Iosephs servant was a very obsequious and dutifull servant whatsoever his Master bad him doe was presently done c. 42. ver 25. Ioseph commanded him to fill their sackes with corne as much as they could carry and to put every mans money into his sackes mouths and to put his silver cup in the youngest sackes mouth and his corne money and he did according to his Masters words and c. 44.4 He bids him runne after them and say Why have you returned evill for good is not this the cup in which my Lord drinks and for which he would make diligent search for so I thinke it should be rendred for the matter of divining was farre enough from Iosephs Loe the obedience of this servant he by the light of nature without Scripture was taught to doe that and did it which the holy Scriptures teacheth us to doe viz. to be obedient to our Masters as you reade by Saint Paul to the Ephes Coâ—os As also to Timothie and by Peter Therefore they are to be blamed that living in times of clearer light and enjoying more helps towards vertue are yet farre lesse obedience then this man was As vineger to the teeth and smoake to the eyes so is a sloathfull messenger to him that sends him and even so is a sloathfull or carelesse servant to them that imploy him as vineger sets the teeth an edge smoak makes the eyes to mart so these provoke anger and griefe in their Governours Fulfill therefore the honest commandements of your Governours with speed and diligence what things they appoint you to dispatch let them be dispatched in fit season and manner If thou wert a Master thou wouldst have such a servant be thou therfore such a one and do as thou wouldst be done by O but his Master may some say bad him doe that which was not lawfull viz. To lay snares for the men in putting the cup into Benjamins sacke unawares to him and then following after them with a grievous accusation that they had done great wrong and shewed great ingratitude in taking away his Masters cup and so bringing them backe as if they had beene great malefactors I answere that it is probable Ioseph had acquainted his Steward with his meaning that he did this not with an intention of bringing them into servitude or doing them any wrong but making a little further tryall of them for some consideration and so the thing was not ill done of Ioseph nor of him Let your obedience therefore know its due limits obey your Masters in all things so farre as justice and your duty to God will permit Thirdly his carryage to Iosephs brethren was very kind and curteous he brings them to his Masters house speakes comfortably to them saith peace be to you freeth them from their feares wherewith they were perplexed lifts up their hearts to God and saith he had given them that money brings Simeon forth to them whom they had left bound behind and gives them water to wash their feet and provender to their Cattle Loe what store of kindnesse and courtesie he shewes to these strangers his Master appointed him to bring them to his house but all the other kind usage is from himselfe as it were an over-plus besides that which was enjoyned him out of a good and affable nature and out of some good will he bare them because he had beene informed of the God of their Fathers Now let him be an Example to us of practising like curtesie to strangers and specially when we see them troubled and grieved and most of all if we perceive them to be servants to the true God learne that vertue of this Steward though hee was a servant and bond-man yet it was to Ioseph Thus have I finished the Examples of the Booke of Genesis which containes a short and briefe story of the things done from the beginning of the world to the death of Ioseph for the space as it is thought by some of 2309 years or therabouts and of some of 60 more because they doe differ in judgement so much about the age of Terah when he begat Abraham The maine thing in the whole story to be observed is how wonderfully the providence of God wrought by degrees to bring his Church from out of the loynes of Abraham and to make it a great and mighty Nation which was but a little family preserving truth and Religion in that household and lineage when hee suffered all other Nations by little and little to follow their owne way and runne into Idolatry and abominations FINIS 1 Tim. 3.2 Tit. 1.8 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will beare both readings 2 Tim. 2.15 1 Tim. 4.12 1 Pet. 5.3 Tit. 2.7 There are two singular virtues in a good Example 1 It may profit a world of people 1 Thes 1.7 8 2 It is lasting and may doe good for a long time after 1 Pet. 3.5 6. M. Harris at Hanwell * He was a Preacher at Banbury above thirty yeares * Hee went over in his preaching the whole Booke of Iudges both the Samuels the 1 Kings to the 11. C. or therabout all the Psal to the 106. the whole Gospel of Iob. besides al the principles of Religion often Heb. 13.7 Owne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci. Mat. 3.12 By marriage of sisters M. Thomas and Mistres Ioyce Whately * M Thomas Pot The Preface to the insuing Treatise Bare Examples binde not The Method observed in handling all the Examples Nothing can be said of Adam and Eves Birth but of their entring into the world Gen. 2.7 Adam what it signifieth 21 22. verses of the same Chapter The Creation of Man was necessary There must be first Man and why Non datur infinitum actu The time and matter of mans Creation Why Man was made of the dust Gen. 2.7 It is hard to understand the nature of the soule Eves body was made of a rib and why A fond conceit that women have no soules and the originall of it Their life Their bad carriage The first sinne of our first Parents Gen. 2.16.17 How long Adam continued before he sinned is not revealed * The Hebrew word is ambiguous The fall of our first Parents described Divers sinnes followed the first sinne Their doubtfull and indifferent behaviour Their good carriage Evah why so called Their benefits 1. Before their fall 2. After their fall Their Crosses Their Death Why the length of any Womans life except Sarahs is not mentioned in Scripture The uses of the whole Omnes nos eramus ille unus Rom. 5.12 We should not bee proud of apparell Ede bide lude c. Eves first fault The greatnesse of our first Parents sinne Caines Birth Caines carriage 1. Good 1. Hee had a calling The commendation of husbandry 2. Was outwardly religious 3. Built a City 4. Had but one wife Some thinke Eve still bare
Fathers death every one would have said he had but dissembled before so we must continue doing good when naturall and carnall motives are gone and not resemble Ioash who served God onely as long as good Iehojadah was alive Now followeth Iosephs good behaviour to his Father He did those 3 things which children are taught in their infancy viz. To love honour and succour their Father 1. He enquired of his health and welfare as soone as he saw his brethren Gen. 43.7 and in 45. 3â— 9. and 46.29 he did gratifie him in his request 47. chap. 29 30.2 Visited him in his sicknesse Gen. 48.1.3 He shewed great love to him after his death Gen. 50.5 If you do thus to your Parents the Lord will prosper you if not curse you all the people were to say Amen When a curse was pronounced against a wicked child 2. He shewed his honouring of him by these effects 1. He sent honourably for him Gen. 45.21 He presented him to Pharaoh Gen. 47.7 and used him respectively when he was with him Gen. 48.12 He bowed downe to the ground to him and afforded him a very honourable buryall Thus he honoured him in private in publike alive and dead The eye of him saith Salomon that despiseth Father or Mother the Eagle of the valley shall picke out Cursed is Cham to the worlds end for slighting his old Father 3. He succoured his Father readily and aboundantly hee promised it Gen. 45.11 And accordingly performed it 47. Gen. 12. Honour is required expressely in the Commandement and love followeth necessarily from this And 1 Tim. 5.4 the other is injoyned If I must either see my Father starve or my sonne I must releeve my Father first His faults are few there is nothing spoken of any thing done amisse by Mordecai Nehemiah Ester little by Iosiah Moses Ioseph 1. He swore Gen. 42.15.16 Undoubtedly it was a sinne 1. The matter did not require an oath 2. He should not however have sworne by the life of Pharaoh yet there were some things to extenuate it 1. He was out of the Church 2. He had not such meanes then to reveale this to be an oath so catching a thing as a rash oath may befall a good man Learne therefore to take heed of committing faults ordinarily practised fashion not your selves according to this world 2. In speciall takeheed of this common fault an oath Secondly he did trench a little too neare upon an untruth you are spies saith he and to see the nakednesse of the Land are you come This was spoken of him meerely by way of probation and not with an intention of accusing them but trying them it was a long ironie Now follow the crosses and benefits which Ioseph had His afflictions were many 1. The hatred of his brethren which proceeded from envy 2. They consulted to take away his life Gen. 35. Saying You comes the Dreamer come let us kill him and then shall wee see what will become of his dreames but God raised up Reuben at that time to shew him favour for his Fathers sake because he knew how deare he was to Iacob and he perswaded them not to be so unnaturally as to imbrue their hands in their brothers blood bur rather to cast him into a pit to deliver him out of their hands for the present intending himselfe after to pull him out in due season 3. They sold him for a bond-slave to Midianitish Merchant 4. Hee served as a slave in the house of Puriphar and toyled and moiled there like some base person though God shewed him some favour by inclining his Mistresses heart towards him but all was over turned againe by meanes of his lewd Mistresse Fiftly he was cast into prison by his Mistresses false accusation and there he lay at least for two yeares Psal 105. till the iron entred into his soule that is he was so laden with chaines that his flesh was eaten with them Sixtly He was forgotten by the chiefe Butler Be ye thankful to God if you have escaped many of these crosses make your crosses easie by laying them by the hard ones of Joseph who was better then you then learne to prepare for crosses forget not what you may be slaves accused of foule crimes prepare for the hatred of your Brethren Secondly his Benefits The Lord bestowed upon him a great number of Benefits First spirituall Secondly Naturall First for spirituall The Lord was exceeding gracious to his soule not only giving him the outward Ordinances which he enjoyed in his Fathers house then the Church of God for then the forme of the Church-Governement was domesticall where hee had sacrifices circumcision and teaching by the Prophets of God viz. His Grand-Father Isaack and his Father Iacob for Isaack lived till he was of yeares fit for teaching but also vouchsafing by these Ordinances to worke Faith and true holinesse in his heart so that he was an heire of the righteousnesse of faith and partaker of the promises made to his Fore-fathers And this is the greatest of benefits that can be granted a man in this life even to cause him so to live in the Church as to become an holy man that is a true member of the same So God dealt with Isaac and with Iacob and at last also with other Patriarchs Iacobs sonnes and Josephs Brethren but he sanctified Ioseph betime and let his Brethren runne on a longer time in the course of unregeneracie Wherefore beloved brethren let each of us so looke upon the goodnesse of God to Ioseph as to consider whether himselfe have attained the same favour even to bee sanctified and to bee made a true believer an holy man a Saint of God wee must bee Saints in this life if eVer we hope to come to these fellowship of Saints hereafter If any of you finde himselfe to bee converted and see that GOD hath dealt very favourably with him as with Ioseph and that perhaps also in his Childe-hood and Youth let him enlarge himselfe in thankes and stirre up his heart to blesse the great and Holy Name of GOD for this benefit and the greatest of all benefits and let him prize and esteeme this goodnesse of God at a high rate Secondly the Lord having made him good did confirme him in his goodnesse for that hee was not turned out of the wayes of Righteousnesse by all the changes and alterations that befell him His fathers indeed excessive and somewhat fond affection did not make him waxe conceited and so decline to evill wayes and waxe worse than before The envy and hatred of his Brethren could not make him forsake the trade of piety and joyn with them in their disordered courses His service in Putiphars idolatrous house nor his preferment there could not alter him His Mistresses love and solicitations did not change him nor the irons eating in his soule did not diminish goodnesse in him nay his high and sudden
preferment in Aegypt did not make him forget God and turne either an Aegyptian idolater or a wicked man but Joseph was Joseph still in all his tossings and tumblings of his estate if you be still good in all estates adverse and prosperous as JOSEPH was magnifie Gods grace that hath established you in every good word and work and confesse that you have stood by his power but if any have declined or back slided from his goodnesse let him see his misery and doe his first workes returning to God who calleth back-sliders and promises to heale their back-sliding So much for Iosephs spirituall benefits now for the naturall benefits And first in generall He was a prosperous man and God made all he did to prosper both in Putiphars house and in the Prison So God prospered David where ever hee went and Iob too for a while this brings contentment to a mans selfe and getteth him a good esteeme from others See therefore whether God vouchsafe you this mercy ascribe the praise of your prosperity to him and let this goodnesse allure you to love feare and obey him to seeke his honour and to doe all good with that prosperity of thine but if contrarily God crosseth any of you and sets himselfe against you so that nothing thrives with you see Gods hand that doth walke contrary to you and finde out the cause and turne this adversity into an occasion of the greatest prosperity There is a sanctified adversity as well as cursed prosperity labour to feare God and walke in uprightnesse before him and disesteeme earthly things And so much for his generall good estate more particularly First God delivered him out of sore heavy and grievous calamities and by his speciall providence and in a manner more then ordinary First when his Father sent him to his Brethren he lost himselfe wandring about and knew not where to go then God caused a man to meet him that it may seeme did know him and told him where he should finde his Brethren Secondly when his Brethren consulted to take away his life God raised up Reuben to deliver him and when they thought after to have dispatcht him the Merchants came by and so God took them off then when he was in bondage God inclined Putiphars heart towards him and his Masters likewise in the prison and lastly the Butler remembred him when he had long lien there and by that meanes God brought him out of the prison and advanced him to be chiefe Officer in Aegypt Thus you see strange and happy escapes out of misery so that Joseph might well have called God by the same title that his old Father Jacob did the God that delivered his soule out of all adversity as David also intitles him Hath God strangely also delivered you out of great miseries either from keeping them from falling upon you when in all likelihood they must have come or in helping you when your selves could see no way out if so acknowledge Gods Providence and goodnesse and forget not him in your good estate that remembred you in your low estate let those that are in misery learne to cast themselves upon God as Joseph did submit be patient trust in him The Lord in bringing his servants into calamities aymes at their bettering by them and his Glory in their deliverances learne patience therefore and confidence So you see how God pulled him out of evils Next consider what good things hee stored him withall for indeed he laded him with benefits as it is in the Psalme And to begin with the gifts of his mind First the Lord gave him that extraordinary gift of interpreting Dreames even from his childehood almost with which hee furnished Daniel too and made it a meanes of great preferment to them both You know how readily hee could tell the Butler and the Baker what was meant by three vine branches three dayes and the wringing of them into Pharaohs Cup and giving them into Pharaohs hand the restoring of him againe unto his office So in the Dream of the other servant of Pharaoh 3. Baskets are three dayes the eating of meat out of the highest by the foules upon his head signified the devouring of his flesh by birds after that Pharaoh had hanged him on the third day So for Pharaohs Dreames the number of the kine and eares of corne 7 and 7 signifying each seven yeeres the quality of the kine and eares full and good eares with fat fleshie and well favoured kine plentifull yeares thin blasted and empty eares with leane ill fleshed and ill favoured kine yeares of famine The eating up of the fat and goodly by the leane the utter forgetting of the past abundance by the following of the famine and the number of dreames Secondly the certainty and neere approaching of the things which was to bee surely and instantly fulfilled You see how apt these dreames were to signifie these things and when God gave to Joseph the spirit of interpretation how easie the interpretation is and how fit and handsome as it were all things sorting so reasonably for such a meaning Doubtlesse this interpretation by its owne clearenesse and fitnesse did carry the credit of truth with it Now at those times when God did please to make Dreames an ordinance of his for the revealing of things necessary it was a speciall favour of his to give the power of interpreting them too for what is a dreame if it be not interpreted but a meanes of perplexed thoughts and feares Now God that gave power to shew the meaning of Dreames when Dreames were his Ordinance is able also to give the gift of interpreting his Word unto men seeing the Word is now his Ordinance for the revealing of all truth to men needfull to salvation We must beseech God to powre gifts upon his servants now even to give unto his Ministers skill and will to become faithfull interpreters of his Word and if God do give to any an extraordinary gift this way let him be thankfull to God and use it for their good that need it Another gift of his mind was great wisedome and dexterity to mannage any businesse committed to his charge You see how hee dispatched matters in the great houshold of Putiphar so that they perceived that all things went well which could not have bin so if the person that ordered all had not had an excellent head to guide them and after when he was in prison by little and little his Master found out his excellent sufficiencies to doe any worke and therefore as the former master did so hee intrusted him with all And when from ordering a family he came to order the whole Kingdome of Aegypt he underwent that busie and toilesome work with so much discretion as gave the King and all his people content so that to Joseph Pharoah sent them and unto Joseph they gladly repaired It is a singular favour when God gives one as they