Peter and Iohn rejoycing when they suffered for the name of Jesus and Saint Paul so farr from fearing that he longed after his dissolution and the blessed Martyrs running to a faggot as to a feast Verily Gods children see great good in these things which others account evils and therefore they take them not as bare punishments sent to afflict them but as glorious tryals to exercise them as gracious corrections to humble them as precious receipts to purge and recover and restore and strengthen them So that it is not any of the temporal evils of this life but much rather the everlasting pains of hell wherein the just reward and punishment of sinne properly and especially consisteth The wages of sinne is death the proper wages of sinne eternal death For so the Antithesis in that place giveth it to be understood viz. of such a death as is opposed to Eternal Life and that is Eternal Death The wages of sinne is death but the gift of God is Eternal life Rom. 6. By the distribution of those Eternal punishments then we are rather to judge of GODS righteousness in recompensing sinners than by the dispensation of these temporal evils It was a stumbling block to the heathen to see good men oppressed and vice prosper it made them doubt some whether there were a God or no others nothing better whether a providence or no. But what marvel if they stumbled who had no right knowledge either of God or of his providence when Iob and David and other the dear children of God have been much puzzled with it David confesseth in Psal. 73. that His feet had welnigh slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked and certainly down he had been had he not happily stepped Into the Sanctuary of God and there understood the end of these men Temporal evils though they be sometimes punishments of sinne yet they are not ever sent as punishments because sometimes they have other ends and uses and are ordinabilia in melius and secondly they are never the only punishments of sinne because there are greater and more lasting punishments reserved for sinners after this life of which there is no other use or end but to punish since they are not ordinabilia in melius If we will make these temporal evils the measure whereby to judge of the Iustice of God we cannot secure our selves from erring dangerously Gods purposes in the dispensation of these unto particular men being unsearchable But those everlasting punishments are they wherein Gods Iustice shall be manifested to every eye in due time at that last day which is therefore called by Saint Paul Rom. 2. The day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgement of God Implying that howsoever God is just in all his judgements and acts of providence even upon earth yet the Counsels and Purposes of God in these things are often secret and past finding out but at the last great day when He shall render to every man according to his works his everlasting recompence then his vengeance shall manifest his wrath and the righteousness of his judgement shall be revealed to every eye in the condign punishment of unreconciled sinners That is the second Certainty Temporal evils are not alwayes nor simply nor properly the punishments for sinne If any man shall be yet unsatisfied and desire to have Gods justice somewhat farther cleared even in the disposing of these temporal things although it be neither safe nor possible for us to search farr into particulars yet some general satisfaction we may have from a third Certainty and that is this Every evil of pain whatsoever it be or howsoever considered which is brought upon any man is brought upon him evermore for sinne yea and that also for his own personal sinne Every branch of this assertion would be well marked I say first Every evil of pain whatsoever it be whether natural defects and infirmities in soul or body or outward afflictions in goods friends or good name whether inward distresses of an afflicted or terrours of an affrighted conscience whether temporal or eternal Death whether evils of this life or after it or whatsoever other evil it be that is any way grievous to any man every such evil is for sinne I say secondly every evil of pain howsoever considered whether formally and sub ratione poenae as the proper effect of Gods vengeance and wrath against sinne or as a fatherly correction and chastisement to nurture us from some past sinne or as a medicinal preservative to strengthen us against some future sinne or as a clogging chain to keep under and disable us from some outward work of sinne or as a fit matter and object whereon to exercise our Christian graces of faith charity patience humility and the rest or as an occasion given and taken by Almighty God for the greater manifestation of the glory of his Wisdom and Power and Goodness in the removal of it or as an act of Exemplary justice for the admonition and terrour of others or for whatsoever other end purpose or respect it be inflicted I say thirdly Every such evil of pain is brought upon us for sinne There may be other ends there may be other occasions there may be other uses of such Evils but still the original Cause of them all is sinne When thou with rebukes doest chasten man for sinne It was not for any extraordinary notorious sinnes either of the blind man himself or of his parents above other men that he was born blind Our Saviour Christ acquitteth them of that Iohn 9. in answer to his Disciples who were but too forward as God knoweth most men are to judge the worst Our Saviours answer there never intended other but that still the true cause deserving that blindnesse was his and his parents sinne but his purpose was to instruct his Disciples that that infirmity was not layd upon him rather than upon another man meerly for that reason because he or his parents had deserved it more than other men but for some farther ends which God had in it in his secret and everlasting purpose and namely this among the rest that the works of God might be manifest in him and the Godhead of the Sonne made glorious in his miraculous cure As in Nature the intention of the End doth not overthrow but rather suppose the necessity of the Matter so is it in the works of God and the dispensations of his wonderfull providence It is from Gods mercy ordering them to those Ends he hath purposed that his punishments are good but it is withall from our sinnes deserving them as the cause that they are just Even as the rain that falleth upon the earth whether it moysten it kindly and make it fruitfull or whether it choak and slocken and drown it yet still had its beginning from the vapours which the earth it self sent up All those Evils
may without prejudice admit of some restraint in the outward practice of it Ab illicitis semper quandoque à licitis I think it is S. Gregories A Christian must never doe unlawfull nor yet alwayes lawfull things St. Paul had liberty to eat flesh and he used that liberty and ate flesh yet he knew there might be some cases wherein to abridge himself of the use of that liberty so farr as not to eat flesh whilst the world standeth But what those Restraints are and how farr they may be admitted without prejudice done to that liberty that we may the better understand let us goe on to The fourth Position Sobriety may and ought to restrain us in the outward practice of our Christian liberty For our Dye◠all fish and flesh and fowl and fruits and spices are lawfull for us as well as Bread and herbs but may we therefore with thriftless prodigality and exquisite ryot fare deliciously and sumptuously every day under pretence of Christian liberty Likewise for our Apparel all stuffs and colours the richest silks and furrs and dyes are as lawfull for us as cloth and leather and sheeps russet Christian liberty extendeth as well to one as another But doe we think that liberty will excuse our pride and vanity and excesse if we ruffle it out in silks and scarlets or otherwise in stuff colour or fashion unsuitably to our years sex calling estate or condition In all other things of like nature in our buildings in our furniture in our retinues in our disports in our recreations in our society in our Mariages in other things we ought as well to consider what in Christian sobriety is meet for us to doe as what in Christian liberty may be done Scarce is there any one thing wherein the Devil putteth slurrs upon us more frequently yea and more dangerously too because unsuspected than in this very thing in making us take the uttermost of our freedom in the use of indifferent things It therefore concerneth us so much the more to keep a sober watch over our selves and souls in the use of Gods good Creatures lest otherwise under the fair title and habit of Christian liberty we yeeld our selves over to a carnal licentiousnesse The fifth position As Sobriety so Charity also may and ought to restrain us in the outward exercise of our Christian liberty Charity I say both to our selves and others First to our selves for regular charity beginneth there If we are to cut off our right hand and to pluck out the right eye and to cast them both from us when they offend us much more then ought we to deny our selves the use of such outward lawfull things as by experience we have found or have otherwise cause to suspect to be hurtfull either to our bodies or souls So a man may and should refrain from meats which may endanger his bodily health But how much more then from every thing that may endanger the health of his soul If thou findest thy self enflamed with lust by dancing if enraged with choler by game if tempted to covetousnesse pride uncleannesse superstition cruelty any sin by reason of any of the Creatures it is better for thee to make a covenant with thine eyes and ears and hands and sences so far as thy condition and calling will warrant thee not to have any thing to doe with such things than by gratifying them therein cast both thy self and them into hell Better by our voluntary abstinence to depart with some of our liberty unto the Creatures than by our voluntary transgression forfeit all and become the Devils captives But Charity though it begin at home yet it will abroad and not resting at our selves reacheth to our brethren also of whom we are to have a due regard in our use of the Creatures An argument wherein St. Paul often enlargeth himself as in Rom. 14. and 1 Cor. 8. the whole Chapters throughout and in a great part of 1 Cor. 10. The resolution every where is that all things be done to edification that things lawfull become inexpedient when they offend rather than edifie that though all things indeed are pure yet it is evil for that man which useth them with offence that albeit flesh and wine and other things be lawfull yet it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine nor to doe any thing whereby a mans brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak Hitherto appertaineth that great and difficult common-place of scandal so much debated and disputed of by Divines The Questions and Cases are manifold not now to be rehearsed much less resolved in particular But the Position is plain in the general that in case of scandal for our weak brothers sake we may and sometimes ought to abridge our selves of some part of our lawfull Liberty Besides these two Sobriety and Charity there is yet one restraint more which ariseth from the duty we owe to our Superiours and from the bond of Civil obedience which if it had been by all men as freely admitted as there is just cause it should how happy had it been for the peace of this Church Concerning it let this be our Sixth position The determination of Superiours may and ought to restrain us in the outward exercise of our Christian liberty We must submit our selves to every Ordinance of man saith S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.13 and it is necessary we should doe so for so is the will of God Ver. 15. Neither is it against Christian liberty if we doe so for we are still as free as before rather if we doe not so we abuse our liberty for a cloak of maliciousnesse as it followeth there ver 16. And St. Paul telleth us we must needs be subject not only for fear because the Magistrate carrieth not the Sword in vain but also for Conscience sake because the powers that are are ordained of God This duty so fully pressed and so uniformly by these two grand Apostles is most apparent in private societies In a family the Master or Pater familias who is a kind of petty Monarch there hath authority to prescribe to his children and servants in the use of those indifferent things whereto yet they as Christians have is much liberty as he The servant though he be the Lords free-man yet is limited in his dyet lodging livery and many other things by his Master and he is to submit himself to his Masters appointment in these things though perhaps in his private affection he had rather his Master had appointed otherwise and perhaps withall in his private judgement doth verily think it fitter his Master should appoint otherwise If any man under colour of Christian liberty shall teach otherwise and exempt servants from the obedience of their Masters in such things S. Paul in a holy indignation inveigheth against such a man not without some bitterness in the last Chapter of this
for that Bread of life which came down from Heaven and feedeth our Soules unto eternal life and neither they nor it can perish If we must say for that Give us this day our daily bread shall we not much more say for this Lord evermore give us this bread But I have done Beseech we now Almighty God to guide us all with such holy discretion and wisdome in the free use of his good Creatures that keeping our selves within the due bounds of Sobriety Charity and civil Duty we may in all things glorifie God and above all things and for all things give thanks alwayes unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ. To which our Lord Jesus Christ the blessed Sonne of God together with the Father and the Holy Spirit three Persons and one onely wise gracious and everliving God be ascribed as is most due by us and his whole Church all the Kingdome the Power and the glory both now and for evermore Amen Amen THE SIXTH SERMON AD POPVLVM At S. Pauls Crosse London April 15. 1627. GEN. 20.6 And God said unto him in a dream Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart For I also withheld thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her FOr our more profitable understanding of which words it is needfull we should have in remembrance the whole story of this present Chapter of which story these words are a part And thus it was Abraham commeth with Sarah his Wife and their family as a Stranger to sojourn among the Philistims in Gerar covenanteth with her before-hand thinking thereby to provide for his own safety because she was beautifull that they should not be to know that they were any more than Brother and Sister Abimelech King of the place heareth of their comming and of her beauty sendeth for them both enquireth whence and who they were heareth no more from them but that she was his Sister dismisseth him taketh her into his House Hereupon God plagueth him and his House with a strange Visitation threatneth him also with Death giveth him to understand that all this was for taking another mans Wife He answereth for himself GOD replyeth The Answer is in the two next former Verses the Reply in this and the next following Verse His Answer is by way of Apology he pleadeth first Ignorance and then and thence his Innocence And he said Lord wilt thou slay also a righteous Nation Said not he unto me She is my Sister and she even she her self said He is my Brother in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this That is his Plea Now God replyeth of which reply letâ—â—ng pass the remainder in the next Verse which concerneth the time to come so much of it as is contained in this Verse hath reference to what was already done and past and it meeteth right with Abimilechs Answer Something he had done and something he had not not done he had indeed taken Sarah into his House but he had not yet come near her For that which he had done in taking her he thought he had a just excuse and he pleadeth it he did not know her to be another mans Wife and therefore as to any intent of doing wrong to the Husband he was altogether Innocent But for that which he had not done in not touching her because he took her into his House with an unchaste purpose he passeth that over in silence and not so much as mentioneth it So that his Answer so far as it reached was just but because it reached not home it was not full And now Almighty God fitteth it with a Reply most convenient for such an Answer admitting his Plea so far as he alleged it for what he had done in taking Abrahams Wife having done it simply out of ignorance Yea I know thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart and withall supplying that which Abimelech had omitted for what he had not done in not touching her by assigning the true cause thereof viz. his powerfull restraint For I also with-held thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her In the whole Verse we may observe First the manner of the Revelation namely by what means it pleased God to conveigh to Abimelech the knowledge of so much of his will as he thought good to acquaint him withall it was even the same whereby he had given him the first information at Verse 3. it was by a dream And God said unto him in a dream and then after the substance of the Reply whereof again the general parts are two The former an Admission of Abimelechs Plea or an Acknowledgement of the integrity of his heart so far as he alleged it in that which he had done yea I know that thou didst it in the integrity of thine heart The later an Instruction or Advertisement to Abimelech to take knowledge of Gods goodnesse unto and providence with him in that which he had not done it was God that over-held him from doing it For I also with-held thee from sinning against me therefore suffered I thee not to touch her By occasion of those first words of the Text And God said unto him in a dream if we should enter into some enquiries concerning the nature and use of divine Revelations in general and in particular of Dreams the Discourse as it would not be wholly impertinent so neither altogether unprofitable Concerning all which these several Conclusions might be easily made good First that God revealed himself and his will frequently in old times especially before the sealing of the Scripture-Canon in sundry manners as by Visions Prophecies Extacies Oracles and other supernatural means and namely and among the rest by Dreams Secondly that God imparted his Will by such kind of supernatural Revelations not only to the godly and faithfull though to them most frequently and especially but sometimes also to Hypocrites within the Church as to Saul and others yea and sometimes even to Infidells too out of the Church as to Pharaoh Balaam Nebuchadnezzer c. and here to Abimelech Thirdly that since the writings of the Prophets and Apostles were made up the Scripture-Canon sealed and the Christian Church by the preaching of the Gospel become Oecumenical dreams and other supernatural Revelations 〈◊〉 also other things of like nature as Miracles and whatsoever more immediate and extraordinary manifestations of the will and power of God have ceased to be of ordinary and familiar use so as now we ought rather to suspect delusion in them than to expect direction from them Fourthly that although God have now tyed us to his holy written word as unto a perpetual infallible Rule beyond which we may not expect and against which we may not admit any other direction as from God yet he hath no where abridged himself
good need the very strongest of us all should remember it and take heed of despising even the very weakest This despising being hurtfull both to the strong and weak to the strong as a grievous sin and to the weak as a grievous scandall Despising first is a sin in the strong Admit thy weak brother were of so shallow understanding and judgement that he might say in strictnesse of truth what Agur said but in modesty and that with an Hyperbole too Prov. 30. that surely he were more brutish than any man and that he had not in him the understanding of a man yet the community of nature and the common condition of humanity should be sufficient to free him from thy contempt His body was formed out of the same dust his soul breathed into him by the same God as thine were and he is thy neighbour Let his weaknesse then be what it can be even for that relation of neighbour-hood as he is a man it is sin in thee to despise him He that despiseth his Neighbour sinneth Prov. 14. But that 's not all He is not onely thy Neighbour as a man but he is thy Brother too as a Christian man He hath imbraced the Gospell he believeth in the Son of God he is within the pale of the Church as well as thou though he be not so exquisitely seen in some higher mysteries nor so thorowly satisfied in some other points as thou art If it have pleased God to endow thee with a larger portion of knowledge thou oughtest to consider first that thou art bound to be so much the more thankfull to him that gave it and then secondly that it is expected thou shouldest do so much the more good with it and thirdly again that thou standest charged with so much the deeper account for it If the same God have dealt these abilities with a more sparing hand to thy brother in despising his weakness what other thing doest thou then even despise the good Spirit of God that bloweth where he listeth and giveth to every one as he listeth For though there be diversities of gifts both for substance and degree yet it is the same spirit 1 Cor. 12. And the contempt that is cast upon the meanest Christian reboundeth upwards again and in the last resolution reflecteth even upon GOD himself and upon his Christ. He that despiseth despiseth not man but GOD who hath given unto us his holy Spirit 1 Thess. 4. And when ye sinne so against the Brethren and wound their weak consciences ye sin against Christ 1 Cor. 8. Thus you see Despising is hurtfull to the despiser as a Sin it is hurtfull also as a Scandall to the despised And therefore our Saviour in Matth. 18. discoursing of not offending little ones anon varieth the word and speaketh of not despising them as if despising were an espciall and principall kind of offending or scandalizing And verily so it is especially to the Weak Nothing is more grievous to Nature scarce Death it selfe then for a man to see himself despised Ego illam anum irridere me ut sinam Satius est mihi quovis exitio interire could he say in the Comedy It is a thing that pierceth far and sinketh deep and striketh cold and lyeth heavie upon the heart flesh and blood will digest any thing with better patience The great Philosopher for this reason maketh Contempt the ground of all Discontent and sufficiently proveth it in the second of his Rhetoriques there being never any thing taken offensively but sub ratione contemptus nothing provoking to Anger but what is either truly a contempt or at leastwise so apprehended We all know how tenderly every one of us would take it but to be neglected by others to have no reckoning at all made of us to be so reputed as if we were not or not worth the looking after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Oracle said to the Megarenses And yet this is but the least degree of Contempt a privative contempt onely How tenderly then may we think a weak Christian would take it when to this privative he should find added a Positive contempt also when he should see his person and his weakness not only not compassionated but even taunted and stouted and derided and made a laughing stock and a jesting theme when he should see them strive to speak and do such things in his sight and hearing as they know will be offensive unto him of very purpose to vex and afflict and grieve his tender soul Certainly for a weak Christian newly converted to the Faith to be thus despised it were enough without Gods singular mercy and support to make him repent his late conversion and revolt from the Faith by fearefull and desperate Apostasie And he that by such despising should thus offend though but one of the least and weakest of those that believe in Christ a thousand times better had it been for him that he had never been born yea ten thousand times better that a Mill-stone had been hung about his neck and he cast into the bottome of the Sea ere he had done it Despising is a grievous sin in the despiser in the Strong and despising is a grievous scandall to the despised to the Weak Let not therefore the strong despise the Weak Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not And thus much for the former branch of Saint Pauls advice The other followeth Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth Faults seldome go single but by couples at the least Sinfull men do with sinfull provocations as ball-players with the Ball. When the Ball is once up they labour to keep it up right so when an offence or provocation is once given it is tossed to and fro the receiver ever returning it pat upon the giver and that most times with advantage and so betwixt them they make a shift to preserve a perpetuity of sinning and of scandalizing one another It is hard to say who beginneth oftner the Strong or the Weak but whether ever beginneth he may be sure the other will follow If this judge that will despise if that despise this will judge either doth his endeavour to cry quittance with other and thinketh himself not to be at all in fault because the other was first or more This Apostle willing to redresse faults in both beginneth first with the strong and for very good reason Not that his fault simply considered in it self is greater for I take it a certain truth that to judge one that is in the right is a far greater fault considered absolutely without relation to the abilities of the persons then to despise one that is in the wrong But because the strong through the ability of his judgement ought to yield so much to the infirmity of his weak brother who through the weaknesse of his judgement is not so well able
for this end and so intended by the giver to be imployed for the the benefit of others and for the edifying of the Church they were given to profit withall It then remaineth to understand this Text and Chapter of that other and latter kind of spirituall Gifts Those Graces of Edification or Gratiae gratis datae whereby men are enabled in their severall Callings according to the quality and measure of the graces they have received to be profitable members of the publick body either in Church or Common-wealth Under which appellation the very first naturall powers and faculties of the soul onely excepted which flowing à principiis speciei are in all men the same and like I comprehend all other secondary endowments and abilities whatsoever of the reasonable soul which are capable of the degrees of more and lesse and of better and worse together with all subsidiary helps any way conducing to the exercise of any of them Whether they be first supernaturall graces given by immediate and extraordinary infusion from God such as were the gifts of tongues and of miracles and of healings and of prophesie properly so called and many other like which were frequent in the infancy of the Church and when this Epistle was written according as the necessity of those primitive times considered God saw it expedient for his Church Or whether they be Secondly such as Philosophers call Naturall dispositions such as are promptnesse of Wit quicknesse of Conceit fastnesse of Memory clearnesse of Understanding soundnesse of Iudgement readinesse of Speech and other like which flow immediately à principiis individui from the individuall condition constitution and temperature of particular persons Or whether they be Thirdly such as Philosophers call Intellectuall habits which is when those naturall dispositions are so improved and perfected by Education Art Industry Observation or Experience that men become thereby skilfull Linguists subtile Disputers copious Orators profound Divines powerfull Preachers expert Lawyers Physicians Historians Statesmen Commanders Artisans or excellent in any Science Profession or faculty whatsoever To which me may adde in the fourth place all outward subservient helps whatsoever which may any way further or facilitate the exercise of any of the former graces dispositions or habits such as are health strength beauty and all those other Bona Corporis as also Bona Fortunae Honour Wealth Nobility Reputation and the rest All of these even those among them which seem most of all to have their foundation in Nature or perfection from Art may in some sort be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall gifts in as much as the spirit of God is the first and principall worker of them Nature Art Industry and all other subsidiary furtherances being but second Agents under him and as means ordained or as instruments used by him for the accomplishing of those ends he hath appointed And now have we found out the just latitude of the spiritual gifts spoken of in this Chapter and of the manifestation of the spirit in my Text. From whence not to passe without some observable inferences for our Edification We may here first behold and admire and magnifie the singular love and care and providence of God for and over his Church For the building up whereof he hath not onely furnished it with fit materialls men endowed with the faculties of understanding reason will memory affections not onely lent them tools out of his own rich store-house his holy Word and sacred Ordinances but as sometimes he filled Bezaleel and Aholiab with skill and wisdome for the building of the materiall Tabernacle so he hath also from time to time raised up serviceable Men and enabled them with a large measure of all needfull gifts and graces to set forward the building and to give it both strength and beauty A Body if it had not difference and variety of members were rather a lump than a Body or if having such members there were yet no vitall spirits within to enable them to their proper offices it were rather a Corps than a Body but the vigour that is in every part to do its office is a certain evidence and manifestation of a spirit of life within and that maketh it a living Organicall body So those active gifts and graces and abilities which are to be found in the members of the mysticall body of Christ I know not whether of greater variety or use are a strong manifestation that there is a powerfull Spirit of God within that knitteth the whole body together and worketh all in all and all in every part of the body Secondly though we have just cause to lay it to heart when men of eminent gifts and place in the Church are taken from us and to lament in theirs our own and the Churches loss yet we should possess our souls in patience and sustain our selves with this comfort that it is the same God that still hath care over his Church and it is the same Hâ—ad Iesus Christ that still hath influence into his members and it is the same blessed Spirit of God and of Christ that still actuateth and animateth this great mysticall Body And therefore we may not doubt but this Spirit as he hath hitherto done from the beginning so will still manifest himself from time to time unto the end of the world in raising up instruments for the service of his Church and furnishing them with gifts in some good measure meet for the same more or less according as he shall see it expedient for her in her severall different estates and conditions giving some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all meet in the unity of the Faith of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. He hath promised long since who was never yet touched with breach of promise that he would be with his Apostles and their successors alwayes unto the end of the world Thirdly where the Spirit of God hath manifested it self to any man by the distribution of gifts it is but reason that man should manifest the Spirit that is in him by exercising those gifts in some lawfull Calling And so this manifestation of the Spirit in my Text imposeth upon every man the Necessity of a Calling Our Apostle in the seventh of this Epistle joyneth these two together a Gift and a Calling as things that may not be severed As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one Where the end of a thing is the use there the difference cannot be great whether we abuse it or but conceal it The unprofitable servant that wrapped up his Masters talent in a napkin could not have received a much heavier doom had he mis-spent it O then up and be doing
you as unto his first-born a double portion of his Spirit as Elisha had of Eliah's or perhaps dealing with you yet more liberally as Ioseph did with Benjamin whose messe though he were the youngest he appointed to be five times as much as any of his brethrens It is needfull that you of all others should be eft-soones put in remembrance that those eminent manifestations of the Spirit you have were given you First it will be a good help to take down that swelling which as an Aposteme in the body through ranknesse of blood so is apt to ingender in the soul through abundance of Knowledge and to let out some of the corruption It is a very hard thing Multum sapere and not altum sapere to know much and not to know it too much to excell others in gifts and not perk above them in self-conceipt S. Paul who in all other things was sufficiently instructed as well to abound as to suffer need was yet put very hard to it when he was to try the mastery with this temptation which arose from the abundance of revelations If you find an aptnesse then in your selves and there is in your selves as of your selves such an aptnesse as to no one thing more to be exalted above measure in your own conceipts boastingly to make ostentation of your own sufficiencies with a kind of unbecoming compassion to cast scorn upon your meaner brethren and upon every light provocation to fly out into those termes of defiance I have no need of thee and I have no need of thee to dispell this windy humour I know not a more soveraign remedy then to chew upon this meditation that all the Abilities and perfections you have were given you by one who was no way so bound to you but he might have given them as well to the meanest of your brethren as to you and that without any wrong to you if it had so pleased him You may take the Receipt from him who himself had had some experience of the infirmity even Saint Paul in the fourth of this Epistle What hast thou that thou hast not received and if thou hast received it why doest thou boast as if thou hadst not received it Secondly Every wise and conscionable man should advisedly weigh his own Gifts and make them his Rule to work by not thinking he doth enough if he do what Law compelleth him to do or if he do as much as other neighbours do Indeed where Lawes bound us by Negative Precepts Hitherto thou mayest go but further thou shalt not we must obey and we may not exceed those bounds But where the Lawes do barely enjoyne us to do somewhat lest having no Law to compell us we should do just nothing it can be no transgression of the Law to do more Whosoever therefore of you have received more or greater Gifts then many others have you must know your selves bound to do so much more good with them and to stand chargeable with so much the deeper account for them Crescunt dona crescunt rationes When you shall come to make up your accounts your receipts will be looked into and if you have received ten talents or five for your meaner brothers one when but one shall be required from him you shall be answerable for ten or five For it is an equitable course that to whom much is given of him much should be required And at that great day if you cannot make your accounts straight with your receipts you shall certainly find that most true in this sense which Salomon spake in another Qui apponit scientiam apponit dolorem the more and greater your gifts are unlesse your thankfulnesse for them and your diligence with them rise to some good like proportion thereunto the greater shall be your condemnation the more your stripes But thirdly though your Graces must be so to your selves yet beware you do not make them Rules to others A thing I the rather note because the fault is so frequent in practice and yet very rarely observed and more rarely reprehended God hath endowed a man with good abilities and parts in some kind or other I instance but in one gift onely for examples sake viz. an Ability to inlarge himself in prayer readily and with fit expressions upon any present occasion Being in the Ministry or other Calling he is carefull to exercise his gift by praying with his family praying with the sick praying with other company upon such other occasions as may fall out He thinketh and he thinketh well that if he should do otherwise or less than he doth he should not be able to discharge himself from the guilt of unfaithfulnesse in not employing the talent he hath received to the best advantage when the exercise of it might redound to the glory of the giver Hitherto he is in the right so long as he maketh his gift a Rule but to himself But now if this man shall stretch out this Rule unto all his brethren in the same Calling by imposing upon them a necessity of doing the like if he shall expect or exact from them that they should also be able to commend unto God the necessities of their families or the state of a sick person or the like by extemporary prayer but especially if he shall judge or censure them that dare not adventure so to do of intrusion into or of unfaithfulnesse in their Callings he committeth a great fault and well deserving a sharp reprehension For what is this else but to lay heavier burdens upon mens shoulders then they can stand under to make our selves judges of other mens consciences and our abilities Rules of their actions yea and even to lay an imputation upon our Master with that ungracious servant in the Gospel as if he were an hard man reaping where he hath not sown and gathering where he hath not strewed and requiring much where he hath given little and like Pharaoh's task-masters exacting the full tale of bricks without sufficient allowance of materialls Shall he that hath a thousand a year count him that hath but a hundred a Churl if he do not spend as much in his house weekly keep as plentifull a table and bear as much in every common charge as himself No less unreasonable is he that would bind his brother of inferiour gifts to the same frequency and method in preaching to the same readiness and copiousness in praying to the same necessity and measure in the performance of other duties whereunto according to those gifts he findeth in himself he findeth himself bound The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man let no man be so severe to his brother as to look he should manifest more of the Spirit then he hath received Now as for you to whom God hath dealt these spirituall gifts with a more sparing hand the freedome of Gods distribution may be a fruitfull meditation for you
are wont to take in their Crowns and Scepters and royall Vestments is not more than the glory honour which he placed in doing justice judgement He thought that was true honour not which reflected from these empty marks and ensigns of Dignity but which sprang from those vertues whereof these are but dumb remembrances If we desire yet more light into the Metaphor we may borrow some from David Psal. 109. where speaking of the wicked he saith ver 17. that he clothed himself with cursing like a garment and by that he meaneth no other than what he had spoken in the next verse before plainly and without a Metaphor His delight was in Cursing By the Analogie of which place we may not unfitly understand these words of Iob as intimating the great love he had unto Iustice and the great pleasure and delight he took therein Joyn this to the former and they give us a full meaning Never ambitious usurper took more pride in his new gotten Crown or Scepter never proud Minion took more pleasure in her new and gorgeous apparell then Iob did true glory and delight in doing Justice and Judgement He put on righteousnesse and it clothed him and Iudgement was to him what to others a Robe and a Diadem is honourable and delightfull Here then the Magistrate and every Officer of Justice may learn his first and principall and if I may so speak his Master-duty and let that be the first observation namely to do justice and judgement with delight and zeal and cheerfulnesse I call it his Master-duty because where this is once rightly and soundly rooted in the conscience the rest will come on easily and of themselves This must be his primum and his ultimum the foremost of his desires and the utmost of his endeavours to do Justice and Judgement He must make it his chiefest businesse and yet count it his lightsome recreation make it the first and lowest step of his care and yet withall count it the last and highest rise of his honour The first thing we do in the morning before we either eat or drink or buckle about any worldly businesse is to put our clothes about us we say we are not ready till we have done that Even thus should every good Magistrate do before his private he should think of the publick affairs and not count himself ready to go about his own profits his shop his ship his lands his reckonings much lesse about his vain pleasures his jades his curres his kites his any thing else till first with Iob he had put on righteousnesse as a garment and clothed himself with judgement as with a Robe and a Diadem Nor let any man think this affection to justice to have been singular in Iob much lesse impute it to simplicity in him For behold another like affectioned and he a greater and I may say too a wiser than Iob for God himself hath witnessed of him that for wisdome there was never his like before him nor should come after him Solomon the King Who so much manifested his love and affection to justice and judgement that when God put him to his choyce to ask what he would and he should have it he asked not long life or riches or victory or any other thing but onely Wisdome and that in this kind Prudentiam regitivam Wisdome to discern between good and bad that he might go in and out before the people with skill and rule them prudently with all his might in righteousnesse and equity And the Text saith The speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing Magistrates should subscribe to Solomons judgement who is wiser then the wisest of them and yet for farther conviction behold a wiser then Solomon is here even Iesus Christ the righteous the God of Solomon and the Saviour of Solomon in whom are hidden all the treasures of Wisdome and Knowledge Of whom David having said in Psal. 45. that the scepter of his kingdome is a righteous scepter he proceedeth immediately to shew wherein especially consisted the righteousnesse of the Scepter of his Kingdome Not so much in doing righteousnesse and punishing iniquity though that also as in loving righteousnesse and hating iniquity The Scepter of thy Kingdome is a righteous scepter Thou hast loved righteousnesse and hated iniquity therefore God c. And you heard already out of the eleventh of Esay that righteousnesse was the girdle of his loyns and faithfulness the girdle of his reins Magistrates from the examples of Iob of Solomon of Iesus Christ himself should learn to make justice and judgement their greatest both glory and delight To bad things examples will draw us on fast enough without yea many times against reason but in good things it is well if examples and reasons together can any thing at all prevail with us And here if reason may rule us surely good reason there is we should be thus affectioned to justice as hath been said whether we respect the thing it self or GOD or our selves or others The thing it self Iustice both in the common consideration of it as it is a vertue is as every other vertue is honourable and lovely and to be desired for its own sake and in the speciall nature of it as it is Iustice is a vertue so necessary and profitable to humane society and withall so comprehensive of all other vertues as that those men who labour to pervert it do yet honour it and even those men who themselves will not use it cannot yet but love it at leastwise commend it in others Iudgement Mercy and Faithfulness our Saviour Christ reckoneth as the weightiest matters of the Law Mat. 23. And every man saith Solomon Prov. 24. willâ— kiss his lips that giveth a right answer that is Every man will love and honour him that loveth and honoureth Iustice. Ought you to delight in any thing more then vertue or in any vertue more then the best and such is Iustice Again by due administration of Iustice and judgement GOD is much glorified Glorified in the incouragement of his servants when for well-doing they are rewarded glorified in the destruction of the wicked when for offending they are punished glorified in the encrease and in the peace and prosperity of his Kingdome which hereby is both preserved and enlarged glorified in the expression and imitation of his infinite perfections when they who are his Ministers and Deputies for this very thing for the execution of Iustice do labour to resemble him whose ministers and deputies they are in this very thing in being just even as he is just Ought you not to count it your greatest glory to seek his and can you do that more readily and effectually than by doing justice and judgement And as for our selves What comfort will it be to our souls when they can witnesse with us that we have even set our selves to doe good in
judgement upon Zimri and Cosbi did withall lift up his heart to God to blesse that action and to turn it to good In which respects especially if the word withall will bear it as it seemeth it will some men should have done well not to have shewn so much willingnesse to quarrell at the Church-translations in our Service-book by being clamorous against this very place as a grosse corruption and sufficient to justifie their refusall of subscription to the Book But I will not now trouble either you or my selfe with farther curiosity in examining Translations because howsoever other Translations that render it praying or appeasing may be allowed either as tolerably good or at least excusably ill yet this that rendreth it by Executing Iudgment is certainly the best whether we consider the course of the Story it selfe or the propriety of the word in the Originall or the intent of the Holy Ghost in this Scripture And this Action of Phinehes in doing judgement upon such a paire of great and bold offenders was so well pleasing unto God that his wrath was turned away from Israel and the plague which had broken in upon them in a sudden and fearfull manner was immediately stayed thereupon Oh how acceptable a sacrifice to God above the blood of Bulls and of Goates is the death of a Malefactor slaughtered by the hand of Iustice When the Magistrate who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Minister and Priest of God for this very thing putteth his knife to the throat of the beast and with the fire of an holy zeal for GOD and against sin offereth him up in Holocaustum for a whole burnt-offering and for a peace-offering unto the Lord. Samuel saith that to obey is better than sacrifice and Salomon that to do justice and judgement is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice Obedience that is the prime and the best sacrifice and the second best is the punishment of Disobedience There is no readier way to appease GODS wrath against sinne then is the rooting out of sinners nor can his deputies by any other course turn away his just judgements so effectually as by faithfull executing of Iustice and judgement themselves When Phinehes did this act the publick body of Israel was in a weak state and stood in need of a present and sharp remedy In some former distempers of the State it may be they had found some ease by dyet in humbling their soules by fasting or by an issue at the tongue or eye in an humble confession of their sinnes and in weeping and mourning for them with teares of repentance And they did well now to make triall of those remedies again wherein they had found so much help in former times especially the remedies being proper for the malady and such as often may do good but never can do harm But alas fasting and weeping and mourning before the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation had not strength enough against those more prevalent corruptions wherewith the State of Israel was then pestered This Phinehes saw who well perceived that as in a dangerous pleurisie the party cannot live unlesse he bleed so if there were any good to be done upon Israel in this their little lesse than desperate estate a vein must be opened and some of the rank blood let out for the preservation of the rest of the body This course therefore he tries and languishing Israel findeth present ease in it As soon as the blood ran instantly the grief ceased He executed judgement and the plague was stayed As God brought upon that people for their sinnes a fearfull destruction so he hath in his just wrath sent his destroying Angel against us for ours The sinnes that brought that Plague upon them were Whoredome and Idolatry I cannot say the very same sinnes have caused ours For although the execution of good Lawes against both incontinent and idolatrous persons hath been of late yeares and yet is we all know to say no more slack enough yet Gods holy name be blessed for it neither Idolatry nor Whoredome are at that height of shamelesse impudency and impunity among us that they dare brave our Moseses and out-face whole Congregations as it was in Israel But still this is sure no plague but for sinne nor nationall Plagues but for Nationall sinnes So that albeit none of us may dare to take upon us to be so far of Gods counsell as to say for what very sinnes most this plague is sent among us yet none of us can be ignorant but that besides those secret personall corruptions which are in every one of us and whereunto every mans own heart is privy there are many publick and nationall sinnes whereof the people of this Land are generally guilty abundantly sufficient to justifie GOD in his dealings towards us and to cleer him when he is judged Our wretched unthankfulnesse unto GOD for the long continuance of his Gospel and our peace our carnall confidence and security in the strength of our wooden and watry walls our riot and excesse the noted proper sinne of this Nation and much intemperate abuse of the good creatures of GOD in our meates and drinkes and disperts and other provisions and comforts of this life our incompassion to our brethren miserably wasted with War and Famine in other parts of the world our heavy Oppression of our brethren at home in racking the rents and cracking the backes and Grinding the faces of the poor our cheap and irreverent regard unto Gods holy ordinances of his Word and Sacraments and Sabbaths and Ministers our wantonnesse and Toyishnesse of understanding in corrupting the simplicity of our Christian Faith and troubling the peace of the Church with a thousand niceties and novelties and unnecessary wranglings in matters of Religion and to reckon no more that universall Corruption which is in those which because they should be such we call the Courts of Iustice by sale of offices enhauncing of fees devising new subtilties both for delay and evasion trucking for expedition making trappes of petty penall Statutes and but Cobwebs of the most weighty and materiall Lawes I doubt not but by the mercy of God many of his servants in this Land are free from some and some from all of these common crimes in some good measure but I fear me not the best of us all not a man of us all but are guilty of all or some of them at least thus farre that we have not mourned for the corruptions of the times so feelingly nor endeavoured the reformation of them to our power so faithfully as we might and ought to have done By these and other sinnes we have provoked Gods heavy judgement against us and the Plague is grievously broken in upon us and now it would be good for us to know by what meanes we might best appease his wrath and stay this Plague Publick Humiliations have ever been thought
afflictions in sundry kinds too long to rehearse And all these temporal judgements their fathers sinnes might bring upon them even as the faith and vertues and other graces of the fathers do sometimes conveigh temporal blessings to their posterity So Ierusalem was saved in the siege by Senacherib for Davids sake many yeares after his death Esay 37.35 And the succession of the Crown of Israel continued in the line of Iehu for four descents for the zeal that he shewed against the worshippers of Baal and the house of Ahab So then men may fare the better and so they may fare the worse too for the vertues or vices of their Ancestors Outwardly and temporally they may but spiritually and eternally they cannot For as never yet any man went to heaven for his fathers goodnesse so neither to hell for his fathers wickednesse If it be objected that for any people or person to suffer a famine of the word of God to be deprived of the use and benefit of the sacred and saving ordinances of God to be left in utter darknesse without the least glimpse of the glorious light of the Gospel of God without which ordinarily there can be no knowledge of Christ nor meanes of Faith nor possibility of Salvation to be thus visited is more than a temporal punishment and yet this kind of spiritual judgement doth sometimes light upon a Nation or people for the unbelief and unthankfulnesse and impenitency and contempt of their Progenitors whilest they had the light and that therefore the Children for their Parents and Posterity for their Ancestry are punished not only with Temporal but even with Spiritual judgements also If any shall thus object one of these two answers may satisfie them First if it should be granted the want of the Gospel to be properly a spiritual judgement yet it would not follow that one man were punished spiritually for the fault of another For betwixt private persons and publick societies there is this difference that in private persons every succession maketh a change so that when the Father dyeth and the son cometh after him there is not now the same person that was before but another but in Cities and countries and Kingdomes and all publick societies succession maketh no change so that when One generation passeth and another cometh after it there is not another City or Nation or People than there was before but the same If then the people of the same land should in this generation be visited with any such spiritual judgment as is the removal of their Candlestick and the want of the Gospel for the sinnes and impieties of their Ancestors in some former generations yet this ought no more to be accounted the punishment of one for another than it ought to be accounted the punishing of one for another to punish a man in his old age for the sinnes of his youth For as the body of a man though the primitive moysture be continually spending and wasting therein and that decay be still repaired by a daily supply of new and alimentall moysture is yet truly the same body and as a River fed with a living spring though the water that is in the chanel be continually running out and other water freshly succeeding in the place and room thereof is truly the same River so a Nation or People though one generation is ever passing away and another coming on is yet truely the same Nation or People after an hundred or a thousand yeares which it was before Again secondly The want of the Gospel is not properly a spiritual but rather a temporal punishment We call it indeed sometimes a spiritual Iudgement as we do the free use of it a spiritual Blessing because the Gospel was written for and revealed unto the Church by the Spirit of GOD and also because it is the holy Ordinance of GOD and the proper instrument whereby ordinarily the Spiritual life of Faith and of Grace is conveyed into our soules But yet properly primarily those only are Spiritual blessings which are immediately wrought in the soul by the spirit of God and by the same Spirit cherished and preserved in the heart of the receiver for his good and are proper and peculiar to those that are born again of the spirit and all those on the contrary which may be subject to decay or are common to the reprobate with the Elect or may turn to the hurt of the receiver are to be esteemed temporal blessings and not spiritual And such a blessing is the outward partaking of the word and Ordinances of GOD the want thereof therefore consequently is to be esteemed a temporal judgement rather than spiritual So that notwithstanding this instance still the former consideration holdeth good that GOD sometimes visiteth the sins of the fathers upon the children with outward and temporal but never with spiritual and eternal punishments Now if there could no more be said to this doubt but only this it were sufficient to clear Gods Iustice since we have been already instructed that these temporal judgements are not alwayes properly and formally the punishments of sinne For as outward blessings are indeed no true blessings properly because Wicked men have their portion in them as well as the Godly and they may turn and often do to the greater hurt of the soul and so become rather Punishments than Blessings so to the contrary outward punishments are no true punishments properly because the Godly have their share in them as deep as the Wicked and they may turn and often do to the greater good of the soul and so become rather Blessings than Punishments If it be yet said But why then doth God threaten them as Punishments if they be not so I answer First because they seem to be punishments and are by most men so accounted for their grievousnesse though they be not properly such in themselves Secondly for the common event because ut plurimùm and for the most part they prove punishments to the sufferer in case he be not bettered as well as grieved by them Thirdly because they are indeed a kind of punishment though not then deserved but formerly Fourthly and most to the present purpose because not seldome the Father himself is punished in them who through tendernesse of affection taketh very much to heart the evils that happen to his child sometimes more than if they had happened to himself See David weeping and puling for his trayterous son Absalom when he was gone more affectionately than we find he did for the hazzards of his own person and of the whole State of Israel whiles he lived For if it be a punishment to a man to sustain losses in his cattel or goods or lands or friends or any other thing he hath how much more then in his children of whom he maketh more account than of all the rest as being not only an Image but even a part
of himself and for whose sakes especially it is that he maketh so much account of the rest The Egyptians were plagued not only in the blasting of their corn the murrain of their cattel the unwholesomenesse of their waters the annoyance of vermine and such like but also and much more in the death of their first-born that was their last and greatest plague The newes of his children slain with the fall of an house did put Iob though not quite out of patience yet more to the tryal of his patience than the losse of all his substance besides though of many thousands of Oxen and Asses and Sheep and Camels Now if no man charge God with injustice if when a man sinneth he punish him in his body or goods or good name or in other things why should it be suspected of injustice when he sinneth to punish him in his children at least there where the evil of the children seen or foreseen redoundeth to the grief and afflion of the father And so was Davids murther and adultery justly punished in the losse of his incestuous son Amnon and of his murtherous son Absalon Upon which ground some think that clause Unto the third and fourth generation to have been added in the second Commandement respectively to the ordinary ages of men who oftentimes live to see their children to the third and sometimes to the fourth generation but very seldome farther Implying as they think that God usually punisheth the sins of the fathers upon the children within such a compasse of time as they may in likelihood see it and grieve at it and then what ever evil it be it is rather inflicted as a punishment to them than to their children This in part satisfieth the doubt that the punishments which God layeth upon the children for the fathers sins are only temporal punishments and consequently by our second ground not properly punishments But yet for so much as these temporal evils be it properly be it improperly are still a kind of Punishment and we have been already taught from the third ground that all evils of punishment whether proper or improper are brought upon men evermore and only for their own personal sinnes the doubt is not yet wholly removed unlesse we admit of a second Consideration and that concerneth the condition of those children upon whom such punishments are inflicted for their fathers sins And first It is considerable that Children most times tread in their Fathers steps and continue in their sinnes and so draw upon themselves their punishments And this they doe especially by a three-fold conveyance of sinne from their Parents viz. Nature Example and Education First Nature and this is seen especially in those sinnes that are more sensual than other and doe after a sort symbolize with the predominant humour in the body It is plain from experience that some sinnes especially the proneness and inclination unto them doe follow some complexions and constitutions of body more than others and arise from them As Ambition Rage rashnesse and turbulent intermedling in other mens affairs from Choler Wantonnesse and Licentious mirth from Bloud Drunkennesse and Lazinesse from Flegm Envie and Sullennesse implacable thirst of Revenge from Melancholy And these kind of sinnes to note that by the way doe oftentimes prove our master-sinnes such as Divines usually call our bosom and darling and beloved sinnes Peccatum in deliciis because naturally we have a stronger proneness and inclination to these than to other sinnes And therefore we ought to pray against and to strive against and to fight against these sinnes and to avoid the occasions of them especially and above all other sinnes And if it shall please God so to strengthen us with his grace and enable us by his spirit as to have in some good measure subdued these sinnes in us and denied our selves in them it is to be comfortably hoped that we have wrought the main and the master-piece of our Mortification But to return where I was as colour and favour and proportion of hair and face and lineament and as diseases and infirmities of the Body so commonly the abilities and dispositions and tempers of the mind and affections become hereditary and as wee say Runne in a bloud Naturae sequitur semina quisque suae An evil bird hatcheth an evil egge and one Viper will breed a generation of Vipers Secondly We are God knoweth but too apish apt to be led much by examples more by the worst most by the nearest Velocius citius nos Corrumpunt vitiorum exempla domestica Young ones will doe as they see the old ones doe before them and they will on Non quâ eundum sed quâ itur not as their father biddeth them but as he leadeth them Si nociva senem juvat alea If the father be given to swearing or gaming or scoffing or whoring or riot or contention or excesse in drink or any thing else that naught is let him counsel and advise his sonne as often and as earnestly as he can he shall find one cursed example without the singular mercy and grace of God to do more hurt upon him than a thousand wholesom admonitions wil doe good fugienda patrum vestigia ducunt Et monstrata diu veteris trahit orbita culpae A third means of conveying vices from parents to children is Education when parents train and bring up their children in those sinfull courses wherein themselves have lived and delighted So covetous worldlings are ever distilling into the ears of their children precepts of parsimony and good husbandry reading them lectures of thrift and inculcating principles of getting and saving Sunt quaedam vitiorum elementa his protinus illos Imbuet coget minimas ediscere sordes Idle wandering Beggars train up their children in a trade of begging and lying and cursing and filching and all idlenesse and abominable filthinesse And idolatrous parents how carefull they are to nuzzle up their Posterity in Superstition and Idolatry I would our profest Popelings and half-baked Protestants did not let us see but too often Wretched and accursed is our supine carelesnesse if these mens wicked diligence whose first care for the fruit of their bodies is to poyson their souls by sacrificing their sons and daughters to Idols shall rise up in judgement against us and condemn our foul neglect in not seasoning the tender years of our children with such religious godly and vertuous informations as they are capable of However it be whether by Nature Example or Education one or more or all of these certain it is that most times sinnes passe along from the father to the sonne and so downward by a kind of lineal descent from predecessors to posterity and that for the most part with advantage and encrease whole families being tainted with the special vices of their stock Iohn Baptist speaketh of a generation of vipers and
Scripture ascribeth one mans punishment to another mans sinne it pointeth us to Gods Wisedome and Providence who for good and just ends maketh choice of these occasions rather than other sometimes to inflict those punishments upon men which their own sinnes have otherwise abundantly deserved On the contrary wheresoever the Scripture giveth all punishments unto the personal sinnes of the sufferer it pointeth us to Gods Iustice which looketh still to the desert and doth not upon any occasion whatsoever inflict punishments but where there are personal sinnes to deserve them so that every man that is punished in any kind or upon any occasion may joyn with David in that confession of his Psalm 51. Against thee have I sinned and done evil in thy sight that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and clear when thou judgest Say then an unconscionable great one by cruel oppression wring as Ahab did here his poorer neighbours Vineyard from him or by countenanced sacrilege gâ—ld a Bishoprick of a fair Lordship or Manor and when he hath done his prodigal heir run one end of it away in matches drown another end of it in Taverns and Tap-houses melt away the rest in lust and beastly sensuality who doth not here see both Gods Iustice in turning him out of that which was so foulely abused by his own sinnes and his Providence withall in fastening the Curse upon that portion which was so unjustly gotten by his fathers sinnes Every man is ready to say It was never like to prosper it was so ill gotten and so acknowledge the Covetous fathers sin as occasioning it and yet every man can say withall It was never likely to continue long it was so vainly lavished out and so acknowledge the Prodigal sons sin as sufficiently deserving it Thus have we heard the main doubt solved The summe of all is this God punisheth the son for the Fathers sin but with temporal punishments not eternal and with those perhaps so as to redound to the fathers punishment in the son Perhaps because the son treadeth in his fathers steps Perhaps because he possesseth that from his father to which Gods curse adhereth perhaps for other reasons best known to God himself wherewith he hath not thought meet to acquaint us but what ever the occasion be or the ends evermore for the sons own personal sinnes abundantly deserving them And the same resolution is to be given to the other two doubts proposed in the beginning to that Why GOD should punish any one man for another and to the third Why God should punish the lesser offender for the greater In which and all other doubts of like kind it is enough for the clearing of Gods Iustice to consider that when God doth so they are first only temporal punishments which he so inflicteth and those secondly no more than what the sufferer by his own sinnes hath most rightfully deserved All those other considerations as that the Prince and people are but one body and so each may feel the smart of others sinnes and stripes That oftentimes we have given way to other mens sins when we might have stopped them or consent when we should have withstood them or silent allowance when we should have checked them or perhaps furtherance when we should rather have hindered them That the punishments brought upon us for our fathers or other mens sins may turn to our great spiritual advantage in the humbling of our souls the subduing of our corruptions the encreasing of our care the exercising of our graces That where all have deserved the punishment it is left to the discretion of the Iudge whom he will pick out the Father or the Son the Governour or the Subject the Ring-Leader or the Follower the Greater or the Lesser offender to shew exemplary justice upon as he shall see expedient I say all these and other like considerations many though they are to be admitted as true and observed as usefull yet they are such as belong rather to GODS Providence and his Wisedome than to his Iustice. If therefore thou knowest not the very particular reason why God should punish thee in this or that manner or upon this or that occasion let it suffice thee that the Counsels and purposes of God are secret and thou art not to enquire with scrupulous curiosity into the dispensation and courses of his Providence farther than it hath pleased him either to reveal it in his word or by his manifest works to discover it unto thee But whatsoever thou doest never make question of his Iustice. Begin first to make inquiry into thine own self and if after unpartial search thou there findest not corruption enough to deserve all out as much as God hath layed upon thee then complain of injustice but not before And so much for the doubts Let us now from the premises raise some instructions for our use First Parents we think have reason to be carefull and so they have for their children and to desire and labour as much as in them lyeth their well-doing Here is a fair course then for you that are parents and have children to care for Doe you that which is good and honest and right and they are like to fare the better for it Wouldest thou then Brother leave thy lands and thy estate to thy child entire and free from encombrances It is an honest care but here is the way Abstineas igitur damnandis Leave them free from the guilt of thy sinnes which are able to comber them beyond any statute or morgage If not the bond of Gods Law if not the care of thine own soul if not the fear of hell if not the inward checks of thine own conscience At peccaturo obstet tibi filius infans at the least let the good of thy poor sweet infants restrain thee from doing that sinne which might pull down from heaven a plague upon them and theirs Goe too then doe not applaud thy self in thy witty villanies when thou hast circumvented and prospered when Ahab-like thou hast killed and taken possession when thou hast larded thy leaner revenues with fat collops sacrilegiously cut out of the sides or flanks of the Church and hast nayled all these with all the appurtenances by fines and vowchers and entayls as firm as Law can make them to thy child and his child and his childs child for ever After all this stirre cast up thy bills and see what a goodly bargain thou hast made thou hast damned thy self to undoe thy child thou hast brought a curse upon thine own soul to purchase that for thy child which shall bring a curse both upon it and him When thy Indentures were drawn and thy learned Counsel fee'd to peruse the Instrument and with exact severity to ponder with thee every clause and syllable therein could none of you spie a flaw in that clause with all and singular th' appurtenances neither observe that thereby thou diddest settle upon thy
posterity together with thy estate the wrath and vengeance and curse of God which is one of those appurtenances Haddest thou not a faithfull Counsellor within thine own brest if thou wouldest but have conferred and advised with him plainly and undissemblingly that could have told thee thou hadst by thy oppression and injustice ipso facto cut off the entail from thy issue even long before thou haddest made it But if thou wouldest leave thy posterity a firm and secure and durable estate doe this rather Purchase for them by thy charitable works the prayers and blessings of the poor settle upon them the fruits of a religious sober and honest education bequeath them the legacie of thy good example in all vertuous and godly living and that portion thou leavest them besides of earthly things be it much or little be sure it be well gotten otherwise never look it should prosper with them A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump and sowreth it and a little iâ—l gotten like a gangrene spreadeth through the whole estate and worse than aqua fortis or the poysoned shirt that Deianira gave Hercules cleaveth unto it and feedeth upon it and by little and little gnaweth and fretteth and consumeth it to nothing And surely Gods Iustice hath wonderfully manifested it self unto the world in this kinde sometimes even to the publike astonishment and admiration of all men that men of antient Families and great estates well left by their Ancestors and free from debts legacies or other encombrances not notedly guilty of any expencefull sinne or vanity but wary and husbandly and carefull to thrive in the world not kept under with any great burden of needy friends or charge of children not much hindred by any extraordinary losses or casualties of fire theeves suretiship or sutes that such men I say should yet sink and decay and runne behind hand in the world and their estates crumble and milder away and come to nothing and no man knoweth how No question but they have sinnes enough of their own to deserve all this and ten times more than all this but yet withall who knoweth but that it might nay who knoweth not that sometimes it doth so legible now and then are Gods judgements come upon them for the greediness and avarice and oppression and sacrilege and injustice of their not long foregoing Ancestors You that are parents take heed of these sinnes It may be for some other reasons known best to himself God suffereth you to goe on your own time and suspendeth the judgements your sins have deserved for a space as here he did Ahab's upon his humiliation but be assured sooner or later vengeance will overtake you or yours for it You have Coveted an evil covetousness to your house and there hangeth a judgement over your house for it as rain in the clouds which perhaps in your sons perhaps in your grand-childs daies some time or other will come dashing down upon it and over-whelm it Think not the vision is for many descents to come de male quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres seldom doth the third scarce ever the fourth generation passe before God visit the sinnes of the Fathers upon the Children if he doe not in the very next generation In his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Secondly if not onely our own but our fathers sinnes too may be shall be visited upon us how concerneth it us as to repent for our own so to lament also the sins of our forefathers and in our confessions and supplications to God sometimes to remember them that he may forget them and to set them before his face that he may cast them behind his back We have a good president for it in our publike Letany Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers A good and a profitable and a needfull prayer it is and those men have not done well nor justly that have cavilled at it O that men would be wise according to sobriety and allow but just interpretations to things advisedly established rather than busie themselves nodum in scirpo to pick needlesse quarrels where they should not What unity would it bring to brethren what peace to the Church what joy to all good and wise men As to this particular God requireth of the Israelites in Lev. 26. that they should confesse their iniquity and the iniquity of their Fathers David did so and Ieremy did so and Daniel did so in Psal. 106. in Ierem. 3. in Dan. 9. And if David hought it a fit curse to pronounce against Iudas and such as he was in Psal. 109. Let the wickednesse of his fathers be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord and let not the sinne of his mother be done away why may we not nay how ought we not to pray for the removal of this very curse from us as well as of any other curses The present age is rise of many enormous crying sinnes which call loud for a judgement upon the land and if God should bring upon us a right heavy one whereat all ears should tingle could we say other but that it were most just even for the sinnes of this present generation But if unto our own so many so great God should also adde the sinnes of our forefathers the bloudshed and tyranny and grievous unnatural butcheries in the long times of the Civil warrs and the universal idolatries and superstitions covering the whole land in the longer and darker times of Popery and if as he sometimes threatned to bring upon the Iews of that one generation all the righteous bloud that ever was shed upon the earth from the bloud of the righteous Abel unto the bloud of Zacharias the sonne of Barachias so he should bring the sinnes of our Ancestors for many generations past upon this generation of ours who could be able to abide it Now when the security of the times give us but too much cause to fear it and the regions begin to look white towards the harvest is it not time for us with all humiliation of Soul and Body to cast down our selves and with all contention of voice and spirit to lift up our prayers and to say Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers neither take thou vengeance of our sinnes Spare us good Lord spare the people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious bloud and be not angry with us for ever Spare us good Lord. Thirdly Since not only our fathers sinnes and our own but our Neighbours sinnes too aliquid malum propter vicinum malum but especially the sinnes of Princes and Governours delirant reges plectuntur Achivi may bring judgements upon us and enwrap us in their punishments it should reach every one of us to seek his own private in the common and publike good and to endeavour if but for our own security from
the publike which yet bring in either no profits at all if not rather a charge or at least profits improportionable to the pains and dangers men must undergoe in them such as are the Callings of Iustice of Peace the High Sheriff of a County a Constable Church-Warden Souldier c. Now from these Callings men of sufficiency to avoid trouble and charge would withdraw themselves and so the King and Countrey should be served either not at all or by unworthy ones Here likewise would be no order if there were not left in some others a power to impose those offices upon sufficient men It may be those in whom either power resideth may sometimes yea often abuse it for they are but men keeping back sufficient men and admitting unsufficient into callings of the former sparing sufficient men and imposing upon unsufficient offices of the latter kind This is not well but yet what wise man knoweth not that there could not be avoided a necessity of general inconveniencies if there should not be left a possibility of particular mischiefs And therefore it is needfull there should be this power of admitting and refusing of sparing and imposing in Church and Commonwealth though it may happen to be thus mischievously abused rather than for want of this power a multitude of unsufferable inconveniencies as needs there must should ensue And from this power must every man have his warrant for his Outward Calling to any office or imployment in Church or Common-wealth Now then to frame a case to either of these two sorts of Calling A man desireth a lawfull Calling suppose the Ministery not only his Inclination bendeth him but his Education also leadeth him and his Gifts encourage him that way hitherto all things concurre to seal unto his Conscience GODS Calling him to this function But for so much as he hath not as it is not fit any man should have power to give himself either Orders to be a Priest or Institution into a Pastoral charge he must for his admission into that holy function depend upon those to whom the power of admitting or refusing in either kind is committed He may tender himself and his Gifts to examination and modestly crave admission which once obtained he hath no more to doe his Calling is warranted and his choice at an end But if that be peremptorily denied him whether reasonably or no it now mattereth not he is to rest himself content a while to imploy himself at his study or in some other good course for the time and to wait Gods leisure and a farther opportunity And if after some reasonable expectation upon further tender with modest importunity he cannot yet hope to prevail he must begin to resolve of another course submit himself to Authority and Order acknowledge Gods providence in it possesse his soul in patience and think that for some secret corruption in himself or for some other just cause God is pleased that he should not or not yet enter into that Calling On the other side a Gentleman liveth in his Country in good credit and account known to be a sufficient man both for estate and understanding thought every way fit to doe the King and his Country service in the Commission of the Peace yet himself either out of a desire to live at ease and avoid trouble or because he thinketh he hath as much business of his own as he can well turn him to without charging himself with the cares of the publike or possibly out of a privy Consciousness to himself of some defect as it may be an irresolution in judgement or in courage or too great a propension to foolish pity or for some other reason which appeareth to him just thinketh not that a fit Calling for him and rather desireth to be spared But for so much as it is not fit a man should be altogether his own judge especially in things that concern the Publike he must herein depend upon those to whom the power of sparing or imposing in this kind is committed He may excuse himself by his other many occasions alleage his own wants and insufficiencies and what he can else for himself and modestly crave to be spared But if he cannot by fair and honest sute get off he must submit himself to Authority and Order yeeld somewhat to the judgement of others think that God hath his secret work in it and rest upon the warrant of this Outward Calling The Outward Calling then is not a thing of small moment or to be lightly regarded Sometimes as in the Case last proposed it may have the chief and the Casting voyce but where it hath least it hath always a Negative in every regular choice of any calling or course of life And it is this Outward Calling which I say not principally but even alone must rule every ordinary Christian in the judging of other mens Callings We cannot see their hearts we know not how God might move them we are not able to judge of their inward Callings If we see them too neglectfull of the duties of their Calling if we find their Gifts hold very short and unequal proportion with the weight of their Calling or the like we have but little comfortable assurance to make us confident that all is right within But yet unlesse it be such as are in place of Authority and Office to examine mens sufficiencies and accordingly to allow or disallow them what hath any of us to doe to judge the heart or the Conscience or the inward Calling of our brother So long as he hath the warrant of an orderly outward Calling we must take him for such as he goeth for and leave the tryal of his heart to God and to his own heart And of this second general point the choice of a Calling thus far Remaineth now the third and last point proposed The Vse of a Mans calling Let him walk in it vers 17. Let him abide in it ver 20. Let him abide therein with God here in my Text. At this I aymed most in my choice of this Text and yet of this I must say least Preachers oft times doe with their proposals as Parents sometimes doe with their Children though they love the later as well yet the first goe away with the largest portions But I doe not well to trifle out that little sand I have left in Apologies Let us rather on to the matter and see what Duties our Apostle here requireth of us under these phrases of Abiding in our callings and abiding therein with God It may seem he would have us stick to a course and when we are in a Calling not to forsake it nor change it no not for a better no not upon any terms Perhaps some have taken it so but certainly the Apostle never meant it so For taking the word Calling in that extent wherein he treateth of it in this Chapter if that were his meaning he should consequently teach that
of the power and liberty even still to intimate unto the sonnes of men the knowledge of his will and the glory of his might by Dreams Miracles or other like supernatural manifestations if at any time either in the want of the ordinary means of the Word Sacraments and Ministery or for the present necessities of his Church or of some part thereof or for some other just cause perhaps unknown to us he shall see it expedient so to do He hath prescribed us but he hath not limited himself Fifthly that because the Devil and wicked spirits may suggest Dreams probably foretell future events foreseen in their causes and work many strange effects in nature applicando activa passivis which because they are without the sphere of our comprehension may to our seeming have fair appearances of Divine Revelations or Miracles when they are nothing less for the avoiding of strong delusions in this kind it is not safe for us to give easie credit to Dreams Prophecies or Miracles as Divine untill upon due tryal there shall appear both in the End whereto they point us a direct tendance to the advancement of GODS Glory and in the Means also they propose us a conformity unto the revealed Will of GOD in his written word Sixthly that so to observe our ordinary Dreams as thereby to divine or foretell of future contingents or to forecast therefrom good or ill-luck as we call it in the success of our affairs is a silly and groundless but withall an unwarranted and therefore an unlawfull and therefore also a damnable superstition Seventhly that there is yet to be made a lawfull yea and a very profitable use even of our ordinary Dreams and of the observing thereof and that both in Physick and Divinity Not at all by foretelling particulars of things to come but by taking from them among other things some reasonable conjectures in the general of the present estate both of our Bodies and Souls Of our Bodies first For since the predominancy of Choler Bloud Flegm and Melancholy as also the differences of strength and health and diseases and distempers either by dyet or passion or otherwise do cause impressions of different forms in the fancy our ordinary dreams may be a good help to lead us into those discoveries both in time of health what our natural constitution complexion and temperature is and in times of sickness from the ranckness and tyranny of which of the humours the malady springeth And as of our Bodies so of our Souls too For since our Dreams for the most part look the same way which our freest thoughts encline as the Voluptuous beast dreameth most of pleasures the Covetous wretch most of profits and the proud or ambitious most of praises preferments or revenge the observing of our ordinary Dreams may be of good use for us unto that discovery which of these three is our Master sin for unto one of the three every other sin is reduced The Lust of the flesh the Lust of the eyes or the Pride of Life But concerning Revelations and Dreams it shall suffice to have only proposed these few Conclusions without farther enlargement the manner of Gods revealing his will here to Abimelech by Dream being but an incidental circumstance upon the bye and not belonging to the main of the present story We will therefore without more ado proceed to the substance of Gods reply in the rest of the verse and therein begin with the former general part which But concerning Revelations and Dreams it shall suffice to have only proposed these few Conclusions without farther enlargement the manner of Gods revealing his will here to Abimelech by Dream being but an incidental circumstance upon the bye and not belonging to the main of the present story We will therefore without more adoe proceed to the substance of Gods reply in the rest of the verse and therein begin with the former general part which is Gods admission of Abimelechs Plea and Apology for himself The ground of whose Plea was Ignorance and the thing he pleaded his own Innocency and the integrity of his heart and God who is the searcher of all hearts alloweth the allegation and acknowledgeth that integrity Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart The Original word here translated Integrity is rendred by some Truth by others Purity and by others Simplicity and it will bear them all as signifying properly Perfection or Innocency You would think by that word that Abimelech had in this whole businesse walked in the sight of God with a pure and upright and true and single and perfect heart But alas he was far from that God plagued him and his for that he had done and God doth not use to punish the carcasse for that wherein the heart is single Again God with-held him or else he would have done more and worse and it is a poor perfection of heart where the active power only is restrained and not the inward corruption subdued Besides Sarah was taken into the house and there kept for lewd purposes and how can truth and purity of heart consist with a continued resolution of sinful uncleannesse Abimelech then cannot be defended as truly and absolutely innocent though he plead Innocency and God himself bear witnesse to the Integrity of his heart For had his heart been upright in him and sincere in this very matter of Sarah he would never have taken her into his house at all as he did But that he pleadeth for himself is that in this particular wherewith it seemed to him God by so threatning him did charge him in wronging Abraham by taking his wife from him his conscience could witnesse the Innocency of his heart how free he was from any the least injurious purpose or so much as thought that way It was told him by them both that she was his Sister and he knew no other by her than so when he took her into his house supposing her to be a single Woman if he had known she had been any mans Wife he would not for any good have done the man so foul an injury nor have sinned against his own soul by defiling anothers bed In the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands he did what he had done This is the substance of his allegation and God approveth the integrity of his heart so far viz. as free in this particular from any intent either to injure Abraham or to sin against the light of his own Conscience by committing adultery with anothers wife The meaning of the words thus cleared we may observe in them three things First the fact for which Abimelech pleadeth and that was the taking of Sarah who was anothers wife into his house Secondly the ground of his plea and that was his Ignorance he knew not when he took her that she was anothers wife Thirdly the thing he pleadeth upon that
Hell into one band to do us any harm in our souls in our bodies in our children in our friends in our goods no not so much as our very Pigs or any small thing that we have without the special leave and sufferance of our good God He must have his Dedimus potestatem from him or he can do nothing Fourthly since this restraint is an act of Gods mercy whom we should strive to resemble in nothing more than in shewing mercy let every one of us in imitation of our Heavenly Father and in compassion to the souls of our brethren and for our own good and the good of humane society endeavour our selves faithfully the best we can to restrain and withhold and keep back others from sinning The Magistrate the Minister the Housholder every other man in his place and calling should do their best by rewards punishments rebukes incouragements admonitions perswasions good example and other like means to suppress vice and restrain disorders in those that may any way come within their charge Our first desire should be and for that we should bend our utmost endeavours that if it be possible their hearts might be seasoned with grace and the true fear of God but as in other things where we cannot attain to the full of our first aims Pulchrum est as he saith in secundis tertiisve consistere so here we may take some contentment in it as some fruit of our labours in our Callings if we can but wean them from gross disorders and reduce them from extremely debaucht courses to some good measure of Civility It ought not to be it is not our desire to make men Hypocrites and a meer Civil man is no better yet to us that cannot judge but by the outward behaviour it is less grief when men are Hypocrites than when they are Profane Our first aim is to make you good yet some rejoycing it is to us if we can but make you less evil Our aim is to make you of Natural holy and Spiritual men but we are glad if of dissolute we can but make you good Moral men if in stead of planting Grace we can but root out Vice if in stead of the power of Godliness in the reformation of the inner-man we can but bring you to some tolerable stayedness in the conformity of the outward-man If we can do but this though we are to strive for that our labour is not altogether in vain in the Lord. For hereby first mens sins are both less and fewer and that secondly abateth somewhat both of the number and weight of their stripes and maketh their punishment the easier and thirdly there is less scandal done to Religion which receiveth not so much soil and dis-reputation by close hypocrisie as by lewd and open prophaneness Fourthly the Kingdome of Satan is diminished though not directly in the strength for he loseth never a Subject by it yet somewhat in the glory thereof because he hath not so full and absolute command of some of his subjects as before he had or seemed to have Fifthly much of the hurt that might come by evil example is hereby prevented Sixthly the people of God are preserved from many injuries and contumelies which they would receive from evil men if their barbarous manners were not thus civilized as a fierce Mastiffe doth least hurt when he is chained and muzled Seventhly and lastly and which should be the strongest motive of all the rest to make us industrious to repress vicious affections in others it may please God these sorry beginnings may be the fore-runners of more blessed and more solid graces My meaning is not that these Moral restraints of our wilde corruption can either actually or but virtually prepare dispose or qualifie any man for the grace of Conversion and Renovation or have in them Virtutem seminalem any natural power which by ordinary help may be cherished and improved so far as an Egge may be hatched into a Bird and a kirnel sprowt and grow into a tree far be it from us to harbour any such Pelagian conceipts but this I say that God being a God of order doth not ordinarily work but in order and by degrees bringing men from the one extream to the other by middle courses and therefore seldom bringeth a man from the wretchedness of forlorn nature to the blessed estate of saving grace but where first by his restraining grace in some good measure he doth correct nature and moralize it Do you then that are Magistrates do we that are Ministers let all Fathers Masters and others whatsoever by wholesome severity if fairer courses will not reclaim them deter audacious persons from offending break those that are under our charge of their wills and wilfulness restrain them from lewd and licentious practises and company not suffer sin upon them for want of reproving them in due and seasonable sort snatch them out of the fire and bring them as far as we can out of the snare of the Devil to God-ward and leave the rest to him Possibly when we have faithfully done our part to the utmost of our power he will set in graciously and begin to do his part in their perfect conversion If by our good care they may be made to forbear swearing and cursing and blaspheming they may in time by his good grace be brought to fear an Oath If we restrain them from grosse prophanations upon his holy-day in the mean time they may come at length to think his Sabbath a delight If we keep them from swilling and gaming and revelling and rioting and roaring the while God may frame them ere long to a sober and sanctified use of the Creatures and so it may be said of other sins and duties I could willingly inlarge all these points of Inferences but that there are yet behinde sundry other good Uses to be made of this restraining Grace of God considered as it may lye upon our selves and therefore I now passe on to them First there is a root of Pride in us all whereby we are apt to think better of our selves than there is cause and every infirmity in our brother which should rather be an item to us of our frailty serveth as fuel to nourish this vanity and to swell us up with a Pharisaical conceit that forsooth we are not like other men Now if at any time when we see any of our brethren fall into some sin from which by the good hand of God upon us we have been hitherto preserved we then feel this swelling begin to rise in us as sometimes it will do the point already delivered may stand us in good stead to prick the bladder of our pride and to let out some of that windy vanity by considering that this our forbearance of evill wherein we seem to excell our brother is not from nature but from grace not from our selves but from God And here a little let me close with
strength though it be never so great that he shall be able to avoid any sin though it be never so foul When a Heathen man prayed unto Iupiter to save him from his Enemies one that overheard him would needs mend it with a more needful prayer that Iupiter would save him from his Friends he thought they might do him more hurt because he trusted them but as for his Enemies he could look to himself well enough for receiving harm from them We that are Christians bad need pray unto the God of Heaven that he would not give us up into the hands of our professed enemies and to pray unto God that he would not deliver us over into the hands of our false-hearted Friends but there is another prayer yet more needful and to be pressed with greater importunity than either of both that God would save us from our selves and not give us up into our own hands for then we are utterly cast away There is a wayward old-man that lurketh in every of our bosoms and we make but too much of him than whom we have not a more spightful enemy nor a more false friend Alas we do not think what a man is given over to that is given over to himself he is given over to vile affections he is given over to a reprobate sense he is given over to commit all manner of wickednesse with greedinesse It is the last and fearfullest of all other judgements and is not usually brought upon men but where they have obstinately refused to hear the voice of God in whatsoever other tone he had spoken unto them then to leave them to themselves and to their own counsels My people would not hear my voice and Israel would none of me so I gave them up unto their own hearts lust and let them follow their own imaginations As we conceive the state of the Patient to be desperate when the Physician giveth him over and letteth him eat and drink and have and doe what and when and as much as he will without prescribing him any diet or keeping back any thing from him he hath a minde unto Let us therefore pray faithfully and fervently unto God as Christ himself hath taught us that he would not by leaving us unto our selves lead us into temptation but by his gracious and powerful support deliver us from all those evils from which we have no power at all to deliver our selves Lastly since this Restraint whereof we have spoken may be but a common Grace and can give us no sound nor solid comfort if it be but a bare restraint and no more though we ought to be thankful for it because we have not deserved it yet we should not rest nor think our selves safe enough till we have a well grounded assurance that we are possessed of an higher and a better grace even the grace of sanctification For that will hold out against temptations where this may fail We may deceive our selves then and thousands in the world do so deceive themselves if upon our abstaining from sins from which God with-holdeth us we presently conclude our selves to be in the state of Grace and to have the power of godlinesse and the spirit of sanctification For between this restraining Grace whereof we have now spoken and that renewing Grace whereof we now speak there are sundry wide differences They differ first in their fountain Renewing grace springeth from the special love of God towards those that are his his in Christ restraining grace is a fruit of that general mercy of God whereof it is said in the Psalm that his mercy is over all his works They differ secondly in their extent both of Person Subject Object and Time For the Person restraining Grace is common to good and bad Renewing Grace proper and peculiar to the Elect. For the Subject Restraining Grace may binde one part or faculty of a man as the hand or tongue and leave another free as the heart or ear Renewing Grace worketh upon all in some measure sanctifieth the whole man Body and soul and spirit with all the parts and faculties of each For the Object Restraining Grace may withhold a man from one sin and give him scope to another Renewing Grace carrieth an equal and just respect to all Gods Commandements For the Time Restraining Grace may tye us now and by and by unloose us Renewing Grace holdeth out unto the end more or lesse and never leaveth us wholly destitute Thirdly they differ in their Ends. Restraining Grace is so intended chiefly for the good of humane society especially of the Church of God and of the members thereof as that indifferently it may or may not do good to the Receiver but Renewing Grace is especially intended for the Salvation of the Receiver though Ex consequenti it do good also unto others They differ fourthly and lastly in their Effects Renewing Grace mortifieth the corruption and subdueth it and diminisheth it as water quencheth fire by abating the heat but Restraining Grace only inhibiteth the exercise of the corruption for the time without any real diminution of it either in substance or quality as the fire wherein the three Children walked had as much heat in it at that very instant as it had before and after although by the greater power of God the natural power of it was then suspended from working upon them The Lions that spared Daniel were Lions still and had their ravenous disposition still albeit God stopped their mouthes for that time that they should not hurt him but that there was no change made in their natural disposition appeareth by their entertainment of their next guests whom they devoured with all greedinesse breaking their bones before they came to the ground By these two instances and examples we may in some measure conceive of the nature and power of the restraining grace of God in wicked men It bridleth the corruption that is in them for the time that it cannot break out and manacleth them in such sort that they do not shew forth the ungodly disposition of their heart but there is no reall change wrought in them all the while their heart still remaining unsanctified and their natural corruption undiminished Whereas the renewing and sanctifying Grace of God by a reall change of a Lion maketh a Lamb altereth the natural disposition of the soul by draining out some of the corruption begetteth a new heart a new spirit new habits new qualities new dispositions new thoughts new desires maketh a new man in every part and faculty compleatly New Content not thy self then with a bare forbearance of sin so long as thy heart is not changed nor thy will changed nor thy affections changed but strive to become a new man to be transformed by the renewing of thy minde to hate sin to love God to wrastle against thy secret corruptions to take delight in holy duties to subdue thine understanding and
to none but God Submit your selves c. but yet as free and as the servants of God and of none besides Boundâ— to our Liberty that the freedome of our judgements and consciences ever reserved we must yet in the use of indifferent things moderate our liberty by ordering our selves according unto Christian sobriety by condescending sometimes to our brethren in Christian charity and by submitting our selves to the lawful commands of our governours in Christian duty In any of which respects if we shâ—ll fail and that under the pretension of Christian liberty we shall thereby quite contrary to the expresse direction of both the Apostles but abuse the name of liberty for an occasion to the flesh and for a cloake of maliciousnesse As free but not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousnesse but as the servants of God And so I passe from this second to my third and last observation wherein if I have been too long or too obscure in the former I shall now endevour to recompense it by being both shorter and plainer The Observation was this In the whole exercise both of the liberty we have in Christ and of those respects we owe unto men we must evermore remember our selves to be and accordingly behave our selves as those that are Gods servants in these last words But as the servants of God containing our condition and our carriage By our condition we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the servants of God and our carriage must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the servants of God I shall fit my method to this division and first shew you sundry reasons for which we should desire to be in this Condition to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the servants of God and then give some directions how we may frame our carriage answerably thereunto to demean our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the servants of God For the first We cannot imagine any consideration that may be found in any service in the world to render it desireable which is not to be found and that in a far more eminent degree in this service of God If Iustice may provoke us or Necessity enforce us or easinesse hearten us or Honour allure us or Profit draw us to any service behold here they all concur the service of God and of Christ is excellently all these It is of all other the most just the most necessary the most easie the most honourable the most profitable service And what would you have more First it is the most just service whether we look at the title of Right on his part or reasons of Equity on ours As for him he is our Lord and Master pleno jure he hath right to our best services by a threefold title like a treble cord which Satan and all the powers of darknesse cannot break or untwine A right of Creation Remember O Iacob thou art my servant I have formed thee thou art my servant O Israel Esay 44. Princes and the great ones of the world expect from those that are their Creatures rather that are called so because they raised them but in truth are not so for they never made them yet they expect much service from them that they should be forward instruments to execute their pleasures and to advance their intentions how much more may the Lord justly expect from us who are every way his creatures for he raised us out of the dust nay he made us of nothing that we should be his servants to do his will and instruments to promote his glory Besides this Ius creationis he hath yet two other titles to our services Ius redemptionis and Ius liberationis He hath bought us out of the hands of our enemies and so we are his by purchase and he hath won us out of the hands of our enemies and so we are his by conquest We read often in the Law of servants bought with money 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it is but reason he that hath paid a valuable consideration for a mans service should have it Now God hath bought us and redeemed us not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with his own most precious bloud And being bought with such a price we are not our own to serve the lusts of our own flesh nor any mans else that we should be the servants of men but his only that hath bought us and paid for us to glorifie him both in our bodies and souls for they are his jure redemptionis by the right of Purchase and Redemption Again when we were mancipia peccati diaboli the devils Captives and slaves to every ungodly lust in which condition if we had lived and died after a hard and toylsome service in the mean time our wages in the end should have been eternal death God by sending his Son to live and dye for us hath conquered sin and Satan and freed us from that wretched thraldom to this end That being delivered out of the hands of our enemies we might serve him in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the daies of our lives I am thy servant I am thy servant and the Son of thine handmaid thou hast broken my bonds in sunder Psal. 116. That is jus liberationis the right of Conquest and deliverance Having so many and so strong titles thereunto with what Justice can we hold back our services from him It is the first and most proper act of Justice jus suum cuique to render to all their dues and to let every one have that which of right appertaineth unto him And if we may not deny unto Caesar the things that are Caesars it is but right we should also give unto God the things that are Gods by so many and just titles Especially since there are reasons of Equity on our part in this behalf as well as there is title of right on his part You know the rule of equity what it is even to do to others as we would be done to See then first how we deal with those that are under our command We are rigid and importunate exactors of service from them we take on unreasonably and lay on unmercifully and bewray much impatience and distemper if they at any time slack their services towards us How should this our strictnesse in exacting services from those that are under us adde to our care and conscience in performing our bounden services to our Lord and Master that is over us But as it is with some unconscionable dealers in the world that neither have any pity to forbear their debtors nor any care to satisfie their creditors and as we use to say of our great ones and that but too truly of too many of them that they will neither do right nor take wrong such is our disposition We are neither content to forgoe any part of that service which we take to be due to us nor willing to perform any part
Almighty that we should serve him and what profit should we have if we pray unto him speak without all truth and reason For verily never man truly served God who gained not incredibly by it These things among other the servants of God may certainly reckon upon as the certain vails and benefits of his service wherein his Master will not fail him if he fail not in his service Protection Maintenance Reward Men that are in danger cast to put themselves into the service of such great personages as are able to give them protection Now God both can and will protect his servants from all their enemies and from all harms Of thy mercy cut off mine enemies and destroy all them that afflict my soul for I am thy servant Psal. 143. Again God hath all good things in store both for necessity and comfort and he is no niggard of either but that his servants may be assured of a sufficiency of both when other shall be left destitute in want and distress Behold my servants shall eat but ye shall be hungry behold my servants shall drink but ye shall be thirsty behold my servants shall rejoyce but ye shall be ashamed behold my servants shall sing for joy of heart but he shall cry for sorrow of heart and howl for vexation of spirit Esa. 65. And whereas the servant of sin besides that he hath no fruit nor comfort of his service in the mean time when he cometh to receive his wages at the end of his term findeth nothing but shame or death shame if he leave the service and if he leave it not death What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed for the end of those things is death The servant of God on the contrary besides that he reapeth much comfort and content in the very service he doth in the mean time he receiveth a blessed reward also at the last even eternal life He hath his fruit in holiness there is his comfort onward and the end everlasting life there is his full and final reward A reward far beyond the merit of his service And so the service of God is a profitable service And now I pray you what can any man alledge or pretend for himself if he shall hang back and not with all speed and cheerfulness tender himself to so just so necessary so easie so honourable so profitable a service Me thinks I hear every man answer as the Israelites sometimes said to Ioshua with one common voice God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve any other Nay but we will serve the Lord for he is our God Iosh. 24. But beloved let us take heed we do not gloze with him as we do one with another we are deceived if we think God will be mocked with hollow and empty protestations We live in a wondrous complemental age wherein scarce any other word is so ready in every mouth as your servant and at your service when all is but meer form without any purpose or many times but so much as single thought of doing any serviceable office to those men to whom we profess so much service However we are one towards another yet with the Lord there is no dallying it behoveth us there to be real If we profess our selves to be or desired to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the servants of God we must have a care to demean our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all respects as becometh the servants of God To which purpose when I shall have given you those few directions I spake of I shall have done Servants owe many duties to their earthly Masters in the particulars but three generals comprehend them all Reverence Obedience Faithfulness Whereof the first respecteth the Masters person the second his pleasure the third his business And he that will be Gods servant in truth and not only in title must perform all these to his heavenly Master Reverence is the first which ever ariseth from a deliberate apprehension of some worthiness in another more than in a mans self and is ever accompanyed with a fear to offend and a care to please the person reverenced and so it hath three branches Whereof the first is Humility It is not possible that that servant who thinketh himself the wiser or any way the better man of the two should truly reverence his Master in his heart Saint Paul therefore would have servants to count their own Masters worthy of all honour 1 Tim. 6.1 he knew well they could not else reverence them as they ought Non decâ—t superbum esse hominem servum could he say in the Comedy A man that thinketh goodly of himself cannot make a good servant either to God or man Then are we meetly prepared for this service and not before when truly apprehending our own vileness and unworthiness both in our nature and by reason of sin and duly acknowledging the infinite greatness and goodness of our Master we unfainedly account our selves altogether unworthy to be called his servants Another branch of the servants reverence is fear to offend his master This fear is a disposition well becoming a servant and therefore God as our Master and by that name of Master challengeth it Mal. 1. If I be a Father where is my honour and if I be a Master where is my fear saith the Lord of Hosts Fear and reverence are often joyned together and so joyntly required of the Lords servants Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce to him with reverence Psal 2. And the Apostle would have us furnished with grace whereby to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12. From whâ—ch fear of offending a care and desire of pleasing cannot be severed which is the third branch of the servants Reverence to his Master Saint Paul biddeth Titus exhort servants to please their masters well in all things So must Gods servant do he must study to walk worthy of him unto all pleasing not much regarding how others interpret his doings or what offence they take at him so long as his Master accepteth his services and taketh his endeavours in good part Who so is not thus resolved to please his Master although he should thereby incur the displeasure of the whole world besides is not worthy to be called the servant of such a Master If I yet sought to please men I should not be the servant of Christ Gal. 1. And all this belongeth to Reverence Obedience is the next general duty Servants be obedient to your Masters Eph. 6. Know you not whom you yeeld your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey Rom. 6. As if there could be no better proof of service than obedience And that is twofold Active and Passive For Obedience consisteth in the subjecting of a mans own will to the will of another which subjection if it be
Creatures of God if we will not so much as take a little paines to get them but much more if lavishly and like prodigal fooles we make waste and havock of them He that hath received some token from a dear friend though perhaps of little value in it self and of lesse use to him yet if he retain any gratefull memory of his friend he will value it the more and set greater store by it and be the more carefull to preserve it for his friends sake but if he should make it away causelesly and the rather because it came so easily as the Ding-thrifts proverb is Lightly come lightly go every man would interpret it as an evidence of his unfriendly and unthankfull heart But riot is not only a sign it is also a Cause of unthankfulnesse in as much as it maketh us value the good things of God at too low a rate For we usually value the worth of things proportionably to their use judging them more or lesse good according to the good they do us be it more or lesse And how then can the Prodigal or Riotous Epicure that consumeth the good Creatures of God in so short a space and to so little purpose set a just price upon them seeing he reapeth so little good from them A pound that would do a Poor man that taketh paines for his living a great deal of good maintain him and his family for some weeks together perhaps put him into fresh trading set him up on his legs and make him a man for ever what good doth it to a prodigal Gallant that will set scores and hundreds of them flying at one afternoones sitting in a Gaming-house Shall any man make me believe he valueth these good gifts of God as he should do and as every truly thankfull Christian man would desire to do that in the powdering and perfuming of an excrement that never grew from his own scalp in the furnishing of a Table for the pomp and luxury of a few houres in making up a rich Suit to case a rotten carkase in in the pursute of any other lustfull vanity or delight expendeth beyond the proportion of his revenue or condition and the exigence of just occasions To remedy this whoever would be truly thankfull let him live in some honest Vocation and therein bestow himself faithfully and painfully bind himself to Sober discreet and moderate use of GODS Creatures remember that CHRIST would not have the very broken meats lost think that if for every word idly spoken then by the same proportion for every penny idly spent we shall be accountable to GOD at the day of Judgement Immoderate Care and Sollicitude for outward things is another impediment of Thankfulnesse Under which title I comprehend Covetousnesse especially but not only Ambition also and Voluptuousnesse and every other vice that consisteth in a desire and expectation of something for the future Which desire and expectation if inordinate must needs in the end determine in unthankfulnesse For the very true reason why we desire things inordinately is because we promise to our selves more comfort and content from them than they are able to give us this being ever our Errour when we have any thing in chase to sever the good which we hope from it from the inconveniencies that go therewith and looking only upon that never so much as to think of these But having obtained the thing we desired we find the one as well as the other and then the inconveniencies we never thought of before abateth much of the weight and the price we formerly set thereupon and taketh off so much from the estimation we had of the good whereby it cometh to passe that by how much we overvalued it in the pursute by so much we undervalue it in the possession And so instead of giving thanks to God for the good we have received we complain of the inconveniences that adhere thereunto and so much underprise it as it falleth short of our expectation and look how farre we do underprise it so farre are we unthankfull for it To remove this Impediment who ever would be thankfull let him moderate his desires after these outward things fore-cast as well the inconveniences that follow them as the commodities they bring with them lay the one against the other and prepare as well to disgest the one as to enjoy the other The last Impediment of thankfulnesse is Carnal security joyned ever with Delayes and Procrastinations When we receive any thing from God we know we should give him thanks for it and it may be we think of doing such a thing but we think withall another day will serve the turn and so we put it off for the present and so forwards from time to time till in the end we have quite forgotten both his benefit and our own Duty and never perform any thing at all My Text doth after a sort meet with this corruption for here the Apostle saith the Creature should be received with thanksgiving as if the thanks should go with the receipt the receipt and the thanks both together To remove this Impediment consider how in every thing delayes are hurtfull and dangerous how our affections are best and hottest at the first and do in processe of time insensibly deaden and at last dye if we do not take the opportunity and strike as we say whilest the iron is hot how that if pretensions of other businesses or occasions may serve the turn to put off the tendering of our devotions and rendering of our thanks to God the Devil will be sure to suggest enow of these pretensions into our heads and to prompt us continually with such allegations that we shall seldome or never be at leasure to serve God and to give him thanks Let us remember these five Impediments and beware of them Pride Envy Epicurism Worldly Carefulnesse and Delay All which are best remedied by their contraries Good helps therefore unto thankfulnesse are 1. Humility and Self-denial 2. Contentednesse and Self-sufficiency 3. Painfulnesse and Sobriety 4. The Moderation of our desires after earthly things 5. Speed and Maturity And so much for this third Inference of Direction I should also have desired if the time would have permitted although my Text speaketh of our Thanksgiving unto God precisely as it respecteth the Creature yet to have improved it a little farther by a fourth Inference that if we be thus bound to give God thanks for these outward blessings how much more ought we then to abound in all thankfulnesse unto him for his manifold Spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ for Grace and Election for Mercy and Redemption for Faith and Iustication for Obedience and Sanctification for Hope and Glorification If we ought to pray for and to give thanks for our daily bread which nourisheth but our bodies and then is cast into the draught and both it and our bodies perish how much more