Thirty-Six Sermons
5. This is clear enough, yea, and good enough hitherto, if there were no more in it but so: For you must observe, (or else you quite mistake the Text, and the whole drift of it) that it is no part of our Savior's meaning, absolutely and wholly to condemn all the Commandments of men. For that were to cut the sinews of all Government and Order, and to overturn Churches, Kingdoms, Corporations, Families, and all other both greater and lesser Societies of men, none of all which can be upheld without some positive Laws and Sanctions of man's devising. We do not therefore find, that either Jonadab was blamed for commanding the Rechabites not to drink Wine; or that they were blamed for observing his commandments therein. But rather on the contrary that God well approved both of him and them, yea, and rewarded them for their obedience unto that command; though it were a command but of man's devising, and had no more than a bare human Authority to warrant it. And therefore those Men are very wide, that vouch this Text against the Ecclesiastical Constitutions or Ceremonies, with such confidence, as if they were able with this one Engine to take them all off at a blow: not considering, that it is not barely the Commandments of men, either materially or formally taken, (that is to say, neither the things commanded by men, nor yet men's commanding of them;) but it is the teaching of such Commandments for Doctrines, that our Savior here condemneth the Pharisees for. What that is therefore, we are next to inquire, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men.
6. In the 29. of Isa. the substantives have a Conjunction Copulative between them in the Septuagint; and they are read in the very same manner and order [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] by St. Paul, alluding thereunto in Col. 2. But in the Greek Text in all Copies extant both here and in Mark 7. where the same History is related, they are put without the Conjunction, by Apposition, as the Grammarians call it. The meaning is the same in both readings; only this latter way it appeareth better, and it is in effect this: Whosoever shall endeavor to impose upon the judgments of Men, in credendis, or in point of faith, anything to be believed as a part of God's holy truth; or shall endeavor to impose upon the Consciences of men, in agendis, or in point of manners, anything to be observed as a part of God's holy will, which cannot be sufficiently evidenced so or so to be, either by express Testimony of the written Word of God, rightly understood and applied, or by clear natural and necessary deduction therefrom according to the Laws of true Logical discourse, is guilty, more or less, of that Superstition our Savior here condemneth in the Pharisees, of teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
7. And a fault it is of a large comprehension. It taketh in all additions whatsoever, that are made to that absolute and all-sufficient Rule of Faith and manners, which God hath left unto his Church in his written Word. In what kind soever they are, whether in Opinion, Worship, Ordinance, Injunction, Prohibition, Promise, or otherwise. From what cause soever they proceed, whether from Credulity, Ignorance, Education, Partiality, Hypocrisy, Mis-governed Zeal, Time-serving, or any other. For what end soever they may be done; whether those ends be in truth intended, or but in show pretended: say it be the glory of God, the reformation of abuses, the preventing of mischiefs or inconveniences, the avoiding of scandals, the maintenance of Christian liberty, the furtherance of Piety, or whatever else can be imagined. If they have not a sufficient foundation in the sacred Text, and yet shall be offered to be pressed upon our Iudgments or Consciences, in the name of God, and as his Word: they are to be held as chaff, fitter to be scattered before the Wind, or cast out to the dunghill, than to be hoarded up in the garners among the Wheat; (alas, what is the chaff to the wheat? ) or as Hay, Wood, or Stubble, meeter to become fuel for the Oven, or Hearth, than to be coffered up in the Treasures among Gold, and Silver, and precious Stones. And he that bringeth any such Doctrine with him, let his Piety or parts be otherwise what they can be; should he in either of both, or even in both, match not only the Holy Apostles of Christ, but the ever blessed Angels in Heaven: yet should we rather defy him as a Traitor, for setting God's stamp upon his own Bullion, than receive him as his faithful Ambassador, and salute him with an Anathema sooner, than bid him God speed. Especially if the Doctrine be apparently either false or ungrounded, and yet positively and peremptorily delivered, as if it were the undoubted word and will of God.
8. I may not now descend to particulars. But thus much it will concern us all to know in the General, that whosoever teacheth anything either to be absolutely unlawful, which God hath not forbidden in his Word; or to be absolutely necessary, which God hath not required in his Word, he teacheth for doctrines the commandments of men, and so far forth playeth the Pharisees part in burthening the Consciences of God's people with the superstitious fancies of his own brain. But otherwise, the enjoining of something for a time which God hath not forbidden, or the forbidding of something for a time which God hath not required, by those that are endued with lawful Authority in any Ecclesiastical, Political, or Domestical Society; so as the same be not done for Conscience sake towards God, or with any Opinion of worship, merit, or operative holiness, but merely out of prudential considerations, and for the reasons of order, decency, expedience, or other like respects of conveniency and accommodation; is a thing no ways justly chargeable with Pharisaism, superstition, or to be cried down and condemned under the name of Will-worship; nor doth it come within the compass of our Savior's reproof in this place. If Jonadab had laid an obligation upon the Consciences of the Rechabites, not to drink wine, by telling them that for Conscience sake towards God they ought to abstain therefrom; or if the Jewish Elders and Governors, leaving the Consciences of the People free, had only made a Law under some penalty for decency and cleanliness sake, that no Man should sit down to Meat in public with unwashen hands: to my seeming had he then been guilty of this Pharisaical superstition, and they free. In brief then to conclude this Enquiry, To lay an obligation either upon the judgments or consciences of Men in point of opinion or practice, which God hath not laid; that, and nothing but that, is to teach for doctrines the commandments of men.
9. We have yet a third thing to be inquired of, for the Explication of the words: namely, how, and in what respect they that teach such Doctrines may be said to worship God in vain. The Ambiguity of our English word Worship, hath occasioned many Errors among Divines, and mis-understandings of one another's words and writings, whereby the disputes and controversies about Worship are become of all other the most intricate and perplexed. The Hebrews, and the Greeks too have sundry words, and those of distinct notions, and significations: which we in English, for want of fitter expressions, are fain to translate promiscuously by this one word Worship. The Greek words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (which is the word here used) are all indifferently rendered, worshipping. Here, according to the notion of the Greek word, it properly signifieth the performance of some Religious or devout act, with an intention to honor God thereby. Whereby it appeareth, that these Pharisees placed a great part of their Religion in the observation of these Traditions of men's divising; and flattered themselves with this conceit, That they did God a great deal of honor in so doing, and that therefore he could not choose but be marvelous well pleased with them for so doing. By long accustoming themselves to which like outward observances, they had almost lost the vigor and soul of true Religion, (which consisteth in the inward Reverence and Devotion of the heart:) and had little other left than the bare carcase, or empty outside thereof; and that also patched and pieced up for the most part with the devices and inventions of men.
10. And this our Savior now telleth them is Worship in vain. He saith so indeed: but hath he any Text for it? The place he citeth is in Isa. 29. 13. where the words, according to the Original, run but thus [ Their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men: ] but that it is vain, the Prophet doth not there say. He doth not say it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in those very words, according to the Hebrew: but the scope of the place importeth all that and more. For God there threateneth to punish the People for such worship: which he would not have done, if he had been either pleased with it, or honored by it. But the very word and all is so found, even as our Savior citeth it [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] in the Septuagint there: which being the most common and received Translation in those days, was therefore for the most part followed by Christ and his Apostles in their quotations, especially where it swerved not very much in sense from the Original. Now a thing is said to be done in vain, when it hath not that wished effect, which the doer intended and expected. Those Pharisees then, intending by those superstitious Will-worships to honor God, and hopeing to please him therewithal; when their expectations should be so far frustrated, that God should all on the contrary profess himself dishonored and displeased thereby; it must needs be acknowledged that this their Will-worship was all in vain. Certainly God will reject, what himself hath forbidden: and he hath forbidden, and that both frequently, and with the severest interminations, all manner of Will-worship (of this kind, and properly so called) and all additions of Men unto his holy Word.
11. In the several parts of the Text thus opened, we may see the full meaning of the whole. God will not approve of, nor accept any Witworship, or Will-worship, forged or devised by Man, with an Opinion, as if it were a necessary part of God's service; nor allow of any Doctrine, that tendeth to bind the Iudgments or Consciences of his people further than he hath thought fit himself to bind them by the expresses of his Word. He will, when time serveth, root out every plant which is not of his own planting. And when the day is come, which shall declare (by a fiery Trial) every man's work of what sort it is: the Gold and Silver and precious Stones shall abide the fire, and the Workman that built with such good stuff shall receive a blessed reward. But he that buildeth Wood, or Hay, or Stubble; though by the great mercy of God he himself may pass through the fire, and be saved (with some difficulty) so long as he holdeth fast the foundation, which is Christ and his merits: yet he shall suffer loss in his work however. That shall be sure to burn and perish; whatsoever becometh of him. All that fear of God is but superstitious and vain, that is taught by the Precepts and Commandments of men.
12. From the Explication of the Text hitherto, I come now to the Application of it. Wherein I doubt not by God's help, but to make clear to the judgment of any Man, that is not either uncapable through ignorance, or fore-possessed with prejudice, these three things. First, that the Papists are guilty of the Pharisaical Superstition and Will-worship here condemned. Secondly, that the Church of England, and her regular and Obedient Children are not guilty of the same. Thirdly, that those Divines and others in the Church of England, that so undutifully charge her therewithal, are in truth themselves inexcusably guilty of that very Crime, whereof they unjustly accuse her.
13. First, for the Papists. That they are the right children and successors of the Pharisees, no Man, that rightly understandeth the Tenets of the Romish Church, but will easily grant; if he shall duly consider what a mass of human Traditions both in point of belief and worship are imposed upon the judgments and consciences of all that may be suffered to live in the visible Communion of that Church, and that with opinion of necessity, and under pain of Damnation. The Popes Supremacy, Worshipping of Images, Invocation of Saints and Angels, the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass, Purgatory, the seven Sacraments, Transubstantiation, Adoration of the Host, Communion under one kind, Private Masses, forbidding Priests Marriage, Monastical Vows, Prayer in an unknown Tongue, Auricular Confession. All these, and I know not how many more, are such, as even by the confession of their own learned Writers, depend upon unwritten Traditions more than upon the Scriptures. True it is, that for most of these they pretend to Scripture also: but with so little color at the best, and with so little confidence at the last; that when they are hard put to it, they are forced to fly from that hold, and to shelter themselves under their great Diana, Tradition. Take away that, it is confessed that many of the chief Articles of their Faith nature & vacillare videbuntur, will seem even to totter and reel, and have much ado to keep up. For what else could we imagine should make them strive so much to debase the Scripture all they can, denying it to be a Rule of Faith, and charging it with imperfection, obscurity, uncertainty, and many other defects; and on the other side to magnify Traditions as every way more absolute: but merely their consciousness, that sundry of their Doctrines, if they should be examined to the bottom, would appear to have no sound foundation in the Written Word. And then must we needs conclude from what hath been already delivered, that they ought to be received, (or rather not to be received but rejected) as the Doctrines and Commandments of men.
14. Nor will their flying to Tradition help them in this Case, or free them from Pharisaism; but rather make the more against them. For to omit that it hath been the usual course of false teachers, when their Doctrines were found not to be Scripture-proof, to fly to Tradition: do but inquire a little into the Original and growth of Pharisaical Traditions, and you shall find that one Egg is not more like another, than the Papists and the Pharisees are alike in this matter. When Sadoc (or whosoever else was the first Author of the Sect of the Sadducees ) and his followers began to vent their pestilent and Atheistical Doctrines against the immortality of the Soul, the resurrection of the Body, and other like: the best learned among the Jews, (the Pharisees especially) opposed against them by arguments and collections drawn from the Scriptures. The Sadducees finding themselves unable to hold argument with them (as having two shrewd disadvantages; but a little Learning, and a bad cause; ) had no other means to avoid the force of all their arguments, than to hold them precisely to the letter of the Text, without admitting any Exposition thereof, or Collection therefrom. Unless they could bring clear Text, that should affirm totidem verbis what they denied; they would not yield. The Pharisees on the contrary refused (as they had good cause) to be tied to such unreasonable conditions: but stood upon the meaning of the Scriptures, as the Sadducees did upon the letter; confirming the truth of their interpretations partly from Reason, and partly from Tradition. Not meaning by Tradition (as yet) any Doctrine other than what was already sufficiently contained in the Scriptures; but merely the Doctrine which had been in all ages constantly taught and received with an Universal consent among the People of God, as consonant to the holy Scriptures and grounded thereon. By this means, though they could not satisfy the Sadducees (as Heretics and Sectaries commonly are obstinate) yet so far they satisfied the generality of the People, that they grew into very great esteem with them: and within a while carried all before them: the detestation of the Sadducees and of their loose Errors also conducing not a little thereunto. And who now but the Pharisees: and what now but Tradition? In every Mans eye and mouth. Things being at this pass, any Wise Man may Judge, how easy a matter it was for Men so reverenced as the Pharisees were, to abuse the Credulity of the People and the interest they had in their good Opinion, to their own advantage: to make themselves Lord's of the Peoples Faith, and by little and little to bring into the Worship whatsoever Doctrines and observances they pleased; and all under the acceptable name of the Traditions of the Elders. And so they did, winning continually upon the People by their cunning and shows of Religion, and proceeding still more and more, till the Jewish Worship by their means was grown to that height of superstition and formality, as we see it was in our Savior's days. Such was the beginning and such the rise, of these Pharisaical Traditions.
15. Popish Traditions also both came in and grew up just after the same manner. The Orthodox Bishops and Doctors in the ancient Church, being to maintain the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, the Hypostatical union of the two Natures in the Person of Christ, the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, and other like Articles of the Catholic Religion against the Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and other Heretics: for that the words Trinity, Homoiision, Hypostasis, Procession, &c. (which for the better expressing of the Catholic sense they were forced to use) were not expressly to be found in the holy Scriptures; had recourse therefore very often, in their writings against the Heretics of their times, to the Tradition of the Church. Whereby they meant not (as the Papists would now wrest their words) any unwritten Doctrine not contained in the Scriptures, but the very Doctrine of the Scriptures themselves as they had been constantly understood and believed by all faithful Christians in the Catholic Church down from the Apostles times till the several present Ages wherein they lived. This course of theirs, of so serviceable and necessary use in those times, gave the first occasion, and after-rise to that heap of Errors and Superstitions which in process of time (by the Power and Policy of the Bishop of Rome especially) were introduced into the Christian Church under the specious name and color of Catholic Traditions. Thus have they trodden in the steps of their Forefathers the Pharisees; and stand guilty even as they of the Superstition here condemned by our Savior, in teaching for Doctrines men's Precepts.
16. But if the Church of Rome be cast, how shall the Church of England be quit? That symbolizeth so much with her in many of her Ceremonies, and otherwise? What are all our crossings, and kneelings, and duckings? What Surplice, and Ring, and all those other Rites and Accoutrements that are used in or about the Public Worship; but so many Commandments of men? For it cannot be made appear (nor truly do I think was it ever endeavored) that God hath anywhere commanded them. Indeed these things have been objected heretofore, with clamour enough; and the cry is of late revived again with more noise and malice than ever, in a world of base and unworthy Pamphlets, that like the Frogs of Egypt croak in every corner of the Land: And I pray God the suffering of them to multiply into such heaps do not cause the whole Land so to stink in his Nostrils, that he grow weary of it and forsake us. But I undertook to justifle the Church of England and her regular and obedient Children in this behalf: and it will be expected I should do it. If any of the Children of this Church in their too much hast have over-run their Mother, that is, have busied themselves and troubled others with putting forward new Rites and Ceremonies, with scandal, and without Law; or by using her name without her leave for the serving of their own purposes, have causlessly brought an evil suspicion upon her (as some are blamed) let them answer it as well as they can: it is not my business now to plead for them, but to vindicate the Church of England against another sort of men, who have accused her of Superstition unjustly.
17. Set both these aside, and her defense is made in a word, if we do but remember what hath been already delivered in the Explication of the Text: to wit, that it is not the commandments of men, either Materially or Formally taken; but the Opinion that we have of them, and the teaching of them for Doctrines, wherein Superstition properly consisteth. Materially first. There is no Superstition either in wearing, or in not wearing a Surplice; in kneeling, or in not kneeling at the Communion; in crossing, or in not crossing an Infant newly Baptized: even as there is no Superstition in washing or in not washing the hands before Meat. So long as neither the one is done with an Opinion of necessity, nor the other forborne out of the Opinion of unlawfulness. For so long the Conscience standeth free. The Apostle hath so resolved in the very like case: that neither he that eateth is the worse for it, nor he that eateth not the better for it. A Man may eat, and do it with a good Conscience too. As in the present case, at this time it is certain Christ's Disciples did eat and washed not: it cannot be doubted but at some time or other they washed before they eat. Not for Conscience sake towards God either; but even as they saw it fit, and as the present occasion required: and they might do both without supersition. But if any man shall wear, or kneel, or cross, with an Opinion of necessity and for Conscience sake towards God, as if those parts of God's Service wherein those Ceremonies are used in our Church could not be rightly performed without them; yea, althought the Church had not appointed them, doubtless the use of those Ceremonies by reason of such his Opinion should be Superstition to him. Because a man cannot be of that Opinion, but he must believe it to be true Doctrine, that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves necessary parts of God's worship. As on the contrary, if anybody should refuse to wear, or kneel, or cross, out of an Opinion of their unlawfulness; as if those Ceremonies did vitiate the whole act of that Worship whereunto they are applied: I cannot see, but upon the same ground, and by reason of such his Opinion, the refusal of those Ceremonies should be to him also Superstition. Because a man cannot be of that Opinion, but he must believe this to be true Doctrine, that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves unlawful to be used in the Worship of God. But the obedient Children of the Church of England, having no such Opinion either of the necessity or unlawfulness of the said Ceremonies; but holding them to be (as indeed they are) things in their own nature indifferent, are even therefore free from Superstition in both the kinds aforesaid. So then in the things commanded taken materially, that is to say, considered in themselves without respect to the Churches command, there is no Superstition; because there is nothing concerning them Doctrinally taught either the one way, or the other.
18. Now if we can as well clear these things taken also formally, that is to say, considered not in themselves, but as they stand commanded by public authority of the Church: the whole business is done, as to this point. Nor is there in truth any great difficulty in it, if we will but apprehend things aright. For although the very commanding them do seem to bring with it a kind of necessity, and to lay a tie upon the Conscience, (as that of St. Paul implieth both, you must needs be subject, and that for Conscience sake: ) yet is not that any tie brought upon the Conscience de novo by such command of the Church, only that tie that lay upon the Conscience before by virtue of that general Commandment of God of obeying the higher Powers in all their lawful commands, is by that Commandment of the Church applied to that particular matter. Even as it is in all Civil Constitutions, and human positive Laws whatsoever. And the necessity also is but an obediential, not a doctrinal necessity. But the Text requireth a doctrinal necessity, to make the thing done a vain and superstitious Worship [ Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. ] Which the Church of England in prescribing the aforesaid Ceremonies hath not done; nor by her own grounds could do. For look as the case standeth with private men for doing, or refusing; even so standeth the case with public Governors for commanding or forbidding. As therefore with private men, it is not the bare doing or refusing of a thing, as in discretion they shall see cause; but the doing of it with an Opinion of necessity or the refusing of it with the Opinion of unlawfulness, that maketh the action superstitious, as hath been already shown; so with public Governors, it is not the commanding or forbidding of a mutable Ceremony, as for the present they shall deem it fit, for order, decency or uniformities sake, or such other like respects: but the commanding of it with an opinion as if it were of perpetual necessity, or the forbidding it with the like opinion, as if it were simply unlawful, that maketh the Constitution superstitious.
19. Now I appeal to any man, that hath not run on madly with the cry for company, but endeavored with the Spirit of Charity and Sobriety to satisfy his understanding herein; if the Church of England, both in the Preface before the Book of Common-Prayer, and in the Articles of her Confession, and in sundry passages in the Homilies occasionally (and these Books are acknowledged her most Authentic Writings, the two former especially, and the just standard whereby to measure her whole Doctrine: ) if, I say, she have not in them all, and that in as plain and express terms as can be desired, disclaimed all human Traditions, that are imposed upon the Consciences of God's People either in point of Faith or Manners; and declared to the world, that she challenged no power to herself to order anything by her own Authority but only in things indifferent, and such as are not repugnant to the word of God; and that her Constitutions are but for order, comeliness and uniformity sake, and not for Conscience sake towards God; and that therefore any of those her Orders and Constitutions may be retained, abolished or altered from time to time, and at all times, as the Governors for the time being shall judge to serve best unto Edification. What should I say more? If men list to be contentious, and will not be satisfied, who can help it? yet thus much I dare say more. Let any Papist or Precisian in the world give instance but in any one single thing, doctrinally maintained by the Church of England, which he can with any color of truth except against as a Commandment of men: if we do not either show good warrant for it from the written word of God, (which we doubt not but to be able to do, and is most ad rem; ) or else (which is enough ad hominem ) for every single instance they shall bring, return them ten of their own teaching, every whit as liable to the same exception as that: we will yield the Bucklers, and confess her guilty.
20. But now, what will you say, if after all this clamouring against English. Popish Ceremonies, (as of late they have blazoned them) they that keep all this ado, prove in the end the guilty persons themselves? I am much deceived if it do not clearly prove so, if we either compare her Doctrine and theirs together, or take a view of some of theirs by themselves. First, compare them a little, which will also add some confirmation to the former point for the farther justifying of the Church of England in this behalf. And for example and perspicuity sake, let the instance be kneeling at the Communion; there being the like reason of all the rest. I pray you consider well the evidence; weigh the grounds and observe the course held on both sides, and then give sentence accordingly. If, as God hath given those our Church Governors power to determine of indifferent mutable circumstances, and they using the liberty of the power given them, have appointed kneeling rather than sitting, or standing, as judging it a gesture of greater reverence and well becoming our unworthiness, but without any Opinion either of the necessity of that gesture, or of the unlawfulness of the other two; so God had given the like Power to these our Brethren, and they using the liberty of that power had appointed sitting or standing, rather than kneeling, as judging either of them a more proper Table gesture than it, yet without any Opinion of their necessity, or of the unlawfulness of kneeling; the case had then been alike of both. These had been as free as they; neither of them had been guilty of Superstition, in teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men: because there was no doctrinal necessity, whereby to bind the Consciences of God's People on either side. Again, if as these say to their Proselytes peremptorily in effect thus [ you are bound in Conscience not to kneel; it is an unlawful gesture, a superstitious relique of Popery, and carrieth with it a shrewd appearance of their idolatrous Bread-worship; and therefore we charge you upon your Consciences not to kneel: ] so our Church-Governors should say to the People peremptorily in effect thus, [ you are bound in Conscience to kneel, or else you profane the holy Sacrament, not discerning the Lord's Body; and therefore we charge you upon your Consciences to kneel: ] the case of both had here also been alike. Both alike guilty of Superstition, in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men: because by that doctrinal necessity, as well the one sort as the other had laid a perpetual obligation upon the Consciences of men, in a matter which God having not anywhere either commanded or forbidden hath therefore left free and indifferent. But now taking the case as de facto it is, without Ifs and Ands, set the one against the other, and make the comparison right: and here it is. Our Brethren having no public authority given them to order what shall be done or not done in matters of external government, do yet bind the Consciences of God's people, by teaching that which they thus forbid to be simply and in itself unlawful. Our Governors on the contrary, though having public authority to prescribe in such matters, do yet leave the Consciences of men at liberty, without teaching that which they appoint, to be of absolute necessity in itself. This being species facti, as the Civilians speak, the even true state of the case: say now I beseech you in good sooth, and be not partial, Quid Iuris? at whose door lieth the Superstition? The one side teaching no such doctrine, but having authority, do by virtue of that authority appoint the People to kneel; The other side having no such authority, but teaching a doctrine, do by virtue of that doctrine charge the people not to kneel: Whether of both sides may rightlier be said to teach for doctrines the Commandments of men;
21. Their guilt herein will yet farther appear, if leaving comparisons, we take a view of some of their doctrines by themselves. I say, but some of them: for how many hours would serve to reckon them all? or who indeed (even of themselves) knoweth them all? There are so many Covies of new doctrines sprung up ever and anon, especially in these late times of connivance and licentiousness; which by that they are well hatched, presently fly abroad the Country, and are entertained by some or other for as good Divinity, as if they were the undoubted Oracles of the Holy Ghost. I dare not affirm it, because I will not put myself to the trouble to prove it, and because I heartily desire and wish I be deceived in it: yet I cannot dissemble my fear that it is but too true, (by the proportion of what we almost daily hear or see) that within little more than this one twelvemonth last past there have been more false and superstitious doctrines vented in the Pulpits and Presses in England, than have been (in so open and daring a manner) in the whole space of almost fourscore years before, I mean since the first of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory. And to make good the former charge, omitting sundry other their unwarrantable positions, partly concerning Church-Government, Orders, and Ceremonies, established by Law, partly concerning sundry received customs in matters wholly or in part Ecclesiastical, partly concerning the use of sundry pastimes and recreations, partly concerning sundry usages and customs in vita communi, in things merely Civil, and not sacred or Ecclefiastical: the particulars whereof would amount to many scores, if not hundreds: I shall present unto your view a dozen only, which I have selected from the rest of those that I have observed to have been most urged of late in Sermons and Pamphlets; by which you may in part judge of the rest. And they are these.
22. 1. That the appointing of a set form of Prayer or Liturgy, to be used in the Service of God, is unlawful or Antichristian; or that it is a straitening or limiting of the Holy Spirit of God.
2. That it is not in the power of the Church to ordain any Rites or Ceremonies in the Service of God, which the People are bound to observe, other than such as God hath commanded in his Word.
3. That Rites and Usages, devised or abused either by Heathens or Idolaters, may not be lawfully used by Christians in the Service of God.
4. That it is unlawful or superstitious to kneel at the Holy Communion, in the act of receiving the Sacrament.
5. That Instrumental Music may not be used in the Service of God, as well as Vocal.
6. That Episcopacy is Antichristian, or repugnant to the word of God.
7. That the Presbyterian Discipline is the very Scepter of Christ's Kingdom, or the order appointed by Christ himself for the perpetual Government of his Church, which ought of all particular Congregations to be inviolably observed unto the worlds end.
8. That it is simply unlawful for a Minister to be possessed of two Benefices.
9. That Ecclesiastical persons may not meddle in secular affairs, nor can with a good Conscience exercise any Civil office or Jurisdiction, although by human Authority, Law or custom allowed them.
10. That it is not lawful in preaching God's word, to recite sentences out of the Fathers; much less from the writings of Heathen Writers.
11. That the Election or consent of the people is of necessity required, either to the ordaining of the Ministers, or to the appointing of them to their particular charges.
12. Lastly, (which though I find not positively delivered in terminis, nor is the danger thereof so generally observed, as of sundry of the former; yet for that I find it often touched upon in these late Treatises, and conceive it to be an error of no less dangerous consequence than many of the former, I thought meet not to omit it:) That the examples of Christ and of his Apostles ought to be observed of all Christians, as a perpetual Rule binding them to Conformity, even as their Precepts do unto obedience.
23. Concerning which Positions, I do here in the face of this Congregation take God to witness, who shall judge us all at the last day, that I do verily believe, and in my conscience am persuaded, That all and every of them are the vain and superstitious inventions of men, wholly destitute of all sound warrant from the written word of God, rightly understood and applied: and (till they shall be better proved) ought to be so esteemed of every man that desireth to make God's Holy Word the rule of his opinions and actions. Many and great are the mischiefs otherwise, that come to the Church and People of God, by the teaching of these and other like groundless Positions: As amongst others, these three following. First, great scandal is hereby given to Atheists, Papists, Separatists, and other the enemies of our Religion; especially to the Papists: who will not only take occasion thence to speak evil of us and of the way of truth and holiness which we profess, but will be themselves also the more confirmed in their own wicked errors, by objecting to us, that since we left them, we cannot tell where to stay. Secondly, many sober and godly men, both Ministers and other who cheerfully submit to the established Laws and Government (as they take themselves by the Law of God bound to do, in things which they believe not to be repugnant to his word) are by this means unworthily exposed to contempt and mis-censure, as if they were time-servers, or inclined to Popery or Superstition at the least. But if they shall farther endeavor in their Sermons or otherwise, to show their just dislike, and to hinder the growth of these unlawful impositions, and to hold the people in their good belief by instructing them better; they shall be sure to be forthwith branded as opposers of the Gospel. As if there were such a spirit of infallibility annexed to some men's Pulpits, as some have said there is to the Pope's Chair, that whatsoever they shall deliver thence must needs be Gospel. Thirdly, hereby many an honesthearted and well meaning Christian is wonderfully abused; by being misled into Error, Superstition, and disobedience, by having his Conscience brought into bondage in those things, whereunto it was the good pleasure of God to leave him free; and by being disposed to much uncharitableness in judging evil of his Brother, that hath given him no just cause so to do.
24. Besides these and sundry other mischiefs of dangerous consequence, too long now to repeat: the thing that I am presently to affirm, concerning all and every of the positions aforesaid, and other like them, pertinently to the Text and business in hand, is this, That whosoever shall doctrinally and positively teach any of the same, doth ipso facto become guilty of the Superstition here condemned by our Savior, and so far forth symbolizeth with the Pharisees in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. And I doubt not, but there are in the Church of England sundry learned, judicious, and Orthodox Divines, no way suspected of favoring Popery or Popish Innovations that by God's help and the advantage of Truth will be ready to maintain what I now affirm, in a fair, Christian and Scholar-like trial, against whosoever are otherwise minded, whensoever by Authority they shall be thereunto required.
25. I have now finished what I had to say from this Scripture by way of Application. From the whole premisses would arise sundry Inferences, as Corollaries and by way of Use. In the prosecution whereof, had we time for it, I should have occasion to fall upon some things that might be of right good use for the settling of men's Iudgments and Consciences in a way of Truth and Peace. And truly my aim lay chiefly here, when my thoughts fixed upon this Text. But having enlarged myself so far beyond my first purpose already, I shall only give you a short touch of each of them: and it may be hereafter (as I shall see cause, and as God shall dispose) I may take some other occasion, here or elsewhere to enlarge them further.
26. The first should be an earnest request to such of my Brethren, as through inconsideratian, zeal against Popery, or profaneness, or any other cause, have been a little too forward and faulty this way. That they would in the fear of God review their own dictates, and (all partiality and self-seeking laid aside) bestow a little pains to examine thoroughly the soundness of those principles from which they draw their Conclusions: whether they be the very true word of God indeed, or but the fancies and devices of the wit of man. I know how lothly men are induced to suspect themselves to be in an Error: and that it is with our Brethren herein as with other men, may sufficiently appear in this, that few of them will so much as bestow the reading of those Books, that might give them satisfaction. But (beloved) better try your own work yourselves, and if it prove but Hay or Stubble burn it yourselves, by acknowledging your error and retracting it; that you may build better: then let it lie on still, till a sorer fire catch it. Better for any of us all, whether in respect of our errors or sins, to prevent the Lord's judging of us, by timely judging ourselves, than to slack the time till his judgment overtake us.
27. The Second Use should be an Admonition to all my Brethren of the Ministry for the time to come, and that in the Apostles words, 1 Cor. 3. 10. Let every man take heed what he buildeth. St. Paul himself was very careful this way, not to deliver anything to the People, but what he had received from the Lord. The Prophets of the Lord still delivered their Messages with this Preface, Haec dicit Dominus. Yea, that wretched Balaam, though a false Prophet, and covetous enough, professed yet that if Balak would give him his house full of▪ Silver and Gold, he neither durst nor would go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more. There is a great proneness in us all to Idolize our own inventions: Besides much Ignorance, Hypocrisy, and Partiality; any of which may bias us awry. Our Educations may lay such early anticipations upon our judgments; or our Teachers, or the Books we read, or the Society we converse withal, may leave such impressions therein, as may fill them with prejudice, not easily to be removed. The golden mean is a hard thing to hit upon almost in anything, without some warping toward one of the extremes, either on the right hand or on the left: and without a great deal of wisdom and care seldom shall we seek to shun one extreme, and not run a little too far towards the other, if not quite into it. In all which, and sundry other respects, we may soon fall into gross mistakes and errors, if we do not take the more heed; whilst we suspect no such thing by ourselves, but verily believe that all we do is out of pure zeal for God's Glory, and the love of his truth. We had need of all the piety, and learning, and discretion, and pains, and prayers we have: and all little enough without God's blessing too, (yea, and our own greater care too) to keep us from running into Errors, and from teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
28. The Third Use should be for Admonition also, to all the people of God that they be not hasty to believe every Spirit; but to try the Spirits (especially when they see the spirits to disagree and clash one with another, or find otherwise just cause of suspicion;) and that, as the Bereans did, by the Scriptures. Using withal all good subsidiary helps for the better understanding thereof; especially those two as the principal; the Rule of Right Reason, and the known constant judgment and practice of the Universal Church. That so they may fan away the Chaff from the Wheat: and letting go the refuse, hold fast that which is good. To this end every man should especially beware, that he do not suffer himself to be carried away with names; nor to have any man's person either in hatred or admiration: but embrace what is consonant to truth and reason, though Judas himself should preach it; and reject what even an Angel from Heaven should teach, if he have no other reason to induce him to believe it, than that he teacheth it.
29. The Fourth Use should be for Exhortation to the learneder sort of my Brethren, to show their faithfulness, duty, and true hearty affection to God and his Truth and Church, by maintaining the simplicity of the Christian Faith, and asserting the Doctrine of Christian Liberty, against all corrupt mixtures of men's inventions, and against all unlawful impositions of men's Commandments, in any kind whatsoever. If other men be zealous to set up their own errors, shall we be remiss to hold up God's Truth? God having deposited it with us, and committed it to our special trust: how shall we be able to answer it to God and the World, if we suffer it to be stolen out of the hearts of our people by our silence or neglect? Like enough you shall incur blame and censure enough for so doing; as if you sought but yourselves in it by seeking to please those that are in authority in hope to get preferment thereby. But let none of these things discourage you, if you shall not be able by the grace of God in some measure to despise the censures of rash and uncharitable men, so long as you can approve your hearts and actions in the sight of God, and to break through (if need be) far greater trials and discouragements than these; you are not worthy to be called the servants of Christ.
30. The last Use should be an humble Supplication to those that have in their hands the ordering of the great affairs of Church and State: that they would in their goodness and wisdoms make some speedy and effectual provision, to repress the exorbitant licenciousness of these times, in Printing and Preaching every man what he list to the great dishonor of God, scandal of the Reformed Religion, fomenting of Superstition and Error, and disturbance of the peace both of Church and Common-wealth. Lest if way be still given thereunto, those evil Spirits that this late connivence hath raised, grow so fierce within a while, that it will trouble all the power and wisdom of the Kingdom to conjure them handsomely down again. But certainly, since we find by late experience, what wildness in some of the Lay-people, what petulancy in some of the inferior Clergy, what insolency in some both of the Laity and Clergy, our Land is grown into, since the reins of the Ecclesiastical Government have lain a little slack: we cannot but see, what need we have to desire and pray, that the Ecclesiastical Government and Power may be timely settled in some such moderate and effectual way; as that it may not be either too much abused by them that are to exercise it, nor too much despised by those that must live under it. In the mean time, so long as things hang thus loose and unsettled, I know not better how to represent unto you the present face of the times in some respects, than in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, [The Prophets prophesy lies, and the Priests get power into their hands by their means, and my people love to have it so: And what will you do in the end thereof?
31. What the end of these insolencies will be, God alone knoweth. The increase of Profaneness, Riot, Oppression, and all manner of wickedness on the one side; and the growth of Error, Novelty, and Superstition on the other side: are no good signs onward. The Lord of his great mercy grant a better end thereunto, than either these beginnings or proceedings hitherto portend, or our sins deserve. And the same Lord of his infinite goodness vouchsafe to dispel from us by the light of his Holy Spirit, all blindness and hardness of heart; to purge out of us by the fire of his Holy Spirit all dross of pride and Hypocrisy; to increase in us by the grace of his Holy Spirit the love of Truth and Godliness; to support us by the comforts of his Holy Spirit amidst all our distresses and fears; and to lead us by the guidance of his Holy Spirit along the paths of holiness unto the ports of happiness. And all this for the alone merits sake of his blessed Son and our alone Savior Jesus Christ. To which blessed Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be ascribed by us and the whole Christian Church, all the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, from this time forth for evermore.
LONDON, Printed for Richard Chiswell. 1686.
AD MAGISTRATUM.
The First Sermon.
At a Public Sessions at Grantham, Lincoln, June the 11th. 1623.
JOB. XXIX. ver. 14, 15, 16, 17.
14.
15.
16.
17.
W Here silence against foul and false imputations may be interpreted a Confession; there the Protestation of a man's own innocence as ever just, and sometimes necessary. When others do us open wrong, it is not now Vanity, but Charity, to do ourselves open right: and whatsoever appearance of folly or vain boasting there is in so doing; they are chargeable with all that compel us thereunto, and not we. (I am become a fool in glorying; but ye have compelled me, 2 Cor. 12. 11.) It was neither pride nor passion in Job, but such a compulsion as this, that made him so often in this Book proclaim his own righteousness. Amongst whose many and grievous afflictions, as it is hard to say which was the greatest; so we are sure this was not the least, that he was to wrestle with the unjust and bitter upbraidings of unreasonable and incompassionate men. They came to visit him as friends; and as friends they should have comforted him. But sorry friends they were, and miserable comforters: indeed not comforters, but tormenters; and accusers rather than friends. Seeing God's hand heavy upon him; for want of better or other proof, they charge him with Hypocrisy. And because they would not seem to deal all in generalities (for against this general accusation of hypocrisy, it was sufficient for him as generally to plead the truth and uprightness of his heart;) they therefore go on more particularly, (but as falsely) and as it were by way of instance, to charge him with Oppression. Thus Eliphaz by name taxeth him: Chap. 22. 6, &c. Thou hast taken a pledge from thy Brother for naught; and hast stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast witholden bread from the hungry. But as for the mighty man, he had the Earth; and the honorable man dwelt in it. Thou hast sent Widows away empty, and the Arms of the Fatherless hast thou broken.
Being thus shamefully, indeed shamelessly, upbraided to his face, without any desert of his, by those men, who (if he had deserved it) should least of all have done it, his neighbors and familiar friends; can you blame the good man, if to remove such false aspersions, he do with more than ordinary freedom insist upon his own integrity in this behalf? And that he doth in this Chapter something largely; wherein he declareth how he demeaned himself in the time of his prosperity in the administration of his Magistracy, far otherwise than was laid to his charge. [ When the Ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the Fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widows heart to sing for joy. ] in the next immediate verses before these. And then he goeth on in the words of my Text, I put on righteousness, &c.
It seemeth Job was a good man, as well as a great: and being good, he was by so much the better, by how much he was the greater. Nor was he ony Bonus vir, a good man; and yet if but so, his friends had done him much wrong to make him an Hypocrite: but he was Bonus Civis too, a good Common-wealths man; and therefore his friends did him yet more wrong to make him an Oppressor. Indeed he was neither the one, nor the other. But it is not so useful for us to know what manner of man Job was, as to learn from him what manner of men we should be. The grieved Spirit of Job indeed at first, uttered these words for his own Justification: but the blessed Spirit of God hath since written them for our instruction. To teach us from Job 's example how to use that measure of greatness and power which he hath given us, be it more, be it less, to his glory, and the common good. So that in these words we have to consider, as laid down unto us under the person, and from the example of Job, some of the main and principal duties which concern all those that live in any degree of Eminency or Authority, either in Church or Common-wealth; and more especially those that are in the Magistracy, or in any office appertaining to Justice.
And those Duties are four. One, and the first, as a more transcendent and fundamental duty: the other three, as accessory helps thereto, or subordinate parts thereof. The first is, a Care and Love, and Zeal of Justice. A good Magistrate should so make account of the administration of Justice, as of his chiefest business; making it his greatest glory and delight, Ver. 14. [ I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was a robe and a diadem. ] The second is a forwardness unto the works of Mercy, and Charity, and Compassion. A good Magistrate should have compassion of those that stand in need of his help, and be helpful unto them, ver. 15. and part of 16. [ I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame, I was a father to the poor. ] The third is Diligence in Examination. A good Magistrate should not be hasty to credit the first tale, or be carried away with light Informations: but he should hear, and examine, and scan and sift matters as narrowly as may be for the finding out of the truth, in the remainder of ver. 16. [ And the cause which I knew not, I searched out. ] The Fourth is Courage and Resolution in executing. A good Magistrate, when he goeth upon sure grounds, should not fear the faces of men, be they never so mighty or many; but without respect of persons execute that which is equal and right even upon the greatest Offender, Ver. 17. [ And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth: ] Of these four in their order: of the first first; in these words, I put on righteousness, &c.
This Metaphor of clothing is much used in the Scriptures in this notion as it is applied to the soul, and things appertaining to the soul. In Psalm 109. David useth this imprecation against his enemies; [ Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a Cloak. ] And the Prophet Isaiah speaking of Christ and his Kingdom, and the righteousness thereof, Chap. 11. thus describeth it, [ Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. ] Likewise in the New Testament, Saint Paul in one place biddeth us put on the Lord Jesus Christ: in another exhorteth women to adorn themselves, instead of broidered hair, and gold, and pearls, and costly array, with shamefac'dness and sobriety, and (as becoming women professing godliness) with good works: in a third, furnisheth the spiritual Soldier with Shooes, Girdle, Breastplate, Helmet, and all necessary accoutrements from top to toe. In all which, and other places where the like Metaphor is used; it is ever to be understood with allusion to one of the three special ends and uses of Apparel. For we clothe ourselves, either first, for necessity, and common decency, to cover our nakedness; or secondly, for security, and defense against enemies; or thirdly, for state and solemnity, and for distinction of Offices and Degrees. Our Cloaks, and Coats, and ordinary suits, we all wear to cover our nakedness: and these are Indumenta, known by no other, but by the general name of Cloathing or Apparel. Soldiers in the wars wear Morions, and Cuiraces, and Targets, and other habiliments for defense: and these are called Arma, Arms or Armor. Kings and Princes wear Crowns and Diadems; inferior Nobles, and Judges, and Magistrates, and Officers, their Robes, and Furrs, and Hoods, and other Ornaments fitting to their several Degrees and Offices, for solemnity of state, and as ensigns or marks of those places and stations wherein God hath set them: and these are Infulae, Ornaments or Robes. It is true; Justice, and Judgment, and every other good virtue and grace is all this unto the soul; serving her both for covert, and for protection, and for ornament: and so stand both for the garments, and for the Armor, and for the Robes of the soul. But here I take it, Job alludeth especially to the third use. The propriety of the very words themselves give it so: for he saith he put righteousness and judgment upon him as a Robe and a Diadem; and such things as there are worn, not for necessity, but state. Job was certainly a Magistrate, a Judge at the least; It is evident from the seventh Verse, 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 and to me it seemeth not improbable that he was a King; though not like such as the Kings of the earth now are (whose dominions are wider, and power more absolute,) yet possible such as in those ancient times, and in those Eastern parts of the World were called Kings, viz. a kind of petty Monarch, and supreme Governor within his own Territories, though perhaps but of one single City with the Suburbs, and some few neighbouring Villages. In the first Chapter it is said that he was the greatest man of all the East: and in this Chapter he saith of himself, that When he came in presence, the Princes and the Nobles held their tongues: and that He sat as chief, and dwelt as a King in the Army, and in this verse he speaketh as one that wore a Diadem, or Ornament proper to Kings. Now Kings, we know, and other Magistrates, place much of their outward glory and state in their Diadems, and Robes, and peculiar Vestments: these things striking a kind of reverence into the Subjects towards their Superior; and adding in the estimation of the people, both glory and honor, and Majesty to the person, and withal pomp and state, and solemnity to the actions of the wearer. By this speech then of putting on Justice and Judgment as a Robe and Diadem, Job showeth that the glory and pride which Kings and Potentates are wont to take in their Crowns, and Scepters, and Royal Vestments, is not more, than the glory and honor which he placed in doing justice and judgment. He thought that was true honor, not which reflected from these empty marks and ensigns of Dignity, but which sprang from those virtues, 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 Analogy of which place we may not unfitly understand these words of Job, as intimating the great love he had unto Justice, and the great pleasure and delight he took therein. Join 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 Apparel, than Job did true glory and delight in doing Justice and Judgment. He put on Righteousness, and it clothed him; and Judgment was to him what to others a Robe and a Diadem is: honorable and delightful.
Here then the Magistrate and every Officer of Justice may learn his first principle, and (if I may so speak) his Master-Duty, (and let that be the first Observation: ) namely, to do Justice and Judgment with delight, and zeal, and cheerfulness. 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 endeavors, to do Justice and Judgment. He must make it his chiefest business; and yet count it his lightsome Recreation: and make it the first and lowest step of his care; and yet withal count it the last and highest rise of his honor. The first thing we do in the morning before we either eat or drink, or buckle about any worldly business, 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 public Affairs; and not count himself ready to go about his own profits, his shop, his ship, his lands, his reckonings, much less about his vain Pleasures, his jades, his currs, his kites, his anything else, till first with Job, he had put on righteousness as a garment, and clothed himself with judgment as with a Robe and a Diadem.
Nor let any man think his affection to justice to have been singular in Job: much less impute it to simplicity in him. For behold another like affectioned; and he a greater, and I may say too a wiser than Job, for God himself hath witnessed of him, that for wisdom 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 judgment, that when God put him to his choice to ask what he would, and he should have it; he asked not long life, or riches, or victory, or any other thing, but only Wisdom; and that in this kind, Prudentiam regitivam, Wisdom 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 righteousness and equity: And the Text saith, The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. Magistrates should subscribe to Solomon 's judgment, who is wiser than the wisest of them: and yet for farther conviction, behold a wiser than Solomon is here, even Jesus Christ the righteous, the God of Solomon, and the Savior of Solomon, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Of whom David having said in Psal. 45. that the Scepter of his kingdom is a righteous Scepter, he proceedeth immediately to show, wherein especially consisted the righteousness of the Scepter of his Kingdom: Not so much in doing righteousness, and punishing iniquity, (though that also,) as in loving righteousness, and hating iniquity. [ The Scepter of thy Kingdom is a righteous Scepter: thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, &c.] and you heard already out of the Eleventh of Isaiah, that righteousness was the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. Magistrates from the examples of Job, of Solomon, of Jesus Christ himself, should learn to make justice and judgment 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 anything 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 itself, or God, or ourselves or others. The thing itself, Justice both in the common consideration of it, as it is a virtue, is, as every other virtue is, honorable and lovely, and to be desired for its own sake: and in the special nature of it, as it is Justice, is a virtue so necessary and profitable to human society, and withal so comprehensive of all other virtues, as that those men who labor to pervert it do yet honor it, and even those men who themselves will not use it, cannot yet but love it, at leastwise commend it in others. Judgment, Mercy and Faithfulness our Savior Christ reckoneth as the weightiest matters of the Law, Matt. 23. And every man (saith Solomon, Prov. 24.) will kiss his lips that giveth a right answer: that is, Every man will love and honor him that loveth and honoreth Justice. Ought you to delight in anything more than Virtue; or in any Virtue more than the best? and such is Justice. Again, by due administration of Justice and judgment God is much glorified. Glorified in the encouragement 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 increase, and in the Peace and Prosperity of his Kingdom, 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 Justice, do labor 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 judgment? And as for ourselves; What comfort will it be to our Souls, when they can witness with us that we have even set ourselves to do good, in those Callings wherein God hath set us? Every man that hath a Calling, must wait thereon, and do the duties belonging thereto, at his peril: and it will be much for his ease to be lightsome and cheerful therein. So shall he make of a Necessity a Virtue; and do that with pleasure, which he must do howsoever, or answer for the neglect: whereas otherwise, his Calling will be a continual burden and weariness unto him, and make his whole life no better nor other than a long and lasting affliction. And besides, we much deceive ourselves, if we think our own private good to be severed from the public; and so neglect the public Employments to follow our own private affairs. For the private is not distinguished from the public; but included in it: and no man knoweth what mischiefs unaware • he prepareth for his private estate in the end; whilst thinking to provide well enough for himself, he cherisheth in the mean time, or suffereth abuses in the public. Ought we not by making justice and judgment our glory and delight, to reap the comfort of it in our Consciences, to sweeten the miseries and travails of our Lives and Callings, and to secure our private in the common safety: rather than by or not doing justice, or doing it heavily and heartlessly, wound our own Consciences, make the Afflictions of this life yet more afflictive, and in the decay of the public, insensibly promote the ruin of our private state and prosperity? And lastly, if we respect others; what can be more glorious for us, than by our zeal and forwardness, first to shame, and then to quicken up the backwardness of others; that with joint-hearts and hands they and we together may aim at the peace and prosperity, and good of the Commonwealth? It is not easy to say what manifold benefits redound to the Commonwealth from the due execution of Justice: or from the slacking thereof, what a world of mischiefs! How honorable are we and glorious, if by our zeal we have been the happy instruments of those so many, so great benefits? How inglorious and vile, if by our negligence we have made ourselves guilty of these so many, so great mischiefs! if we neglect justice, we countenance disorders, which by Justice are repressed; we disarm innocence, which by Justice is protected; we banish Peace, which by Justice is maintained; we are Traitors to the King and his Throne, which by Justice are Established; we pull upon us God's Plagues and Iudgments, which by Justice are averted. Ought we not much rather by our forwardness in doing Justice to repress disorders, protect innocence, maintain peace, secure the King and State, and turn away God's judgments from ourselves and others? See now if we have not reason to love Justice and Judgment, and to make it our delight; to put Righteousness upon us, and to clothe us with judgment as with a Robe and a Diadem: being a thing in itself so excellent; and being from it there redoundeth so much glory to God, to ourselves so much comfort, and so much benefit unto others. The Inferences of use from this first Duty, as also from the rest, I omit for the present: reserving them all to the latter end: partly, because I would handle them all together; partly also, and especially, for that I desire to leave them fresh in your memory, when you depart the Congregation. And therefore without farther ado, I proceed forth with to the next duty, contained in these words, [ I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame; I was a father to the poor. ]
Wherein Job declareth his own readiness in his Place and Calling to be helpful to those that were any way distressed, or stood in need of him, by affording them such supply to his power, as their several necessities required. And like him should every Magistrate be in this also; which I propose as the second Duty of the good Magistrate: he must be forward to succor those that are distressed and oppressed; and to help and relieve them to his power. Men's necessities are many, and of great variety: but most of them spring from one of these two defects, ignorance, or want of skill; and impotence, or want of power: here signified by Blindness, and Lameness. The blind man perhaps hath his limbs and strength to walk in the way, if he could see it: but because he wanteth his Eyes, he can neither find the right way, nor spy the rubs that are in it; and therefore he must either sit still, or put himself upon the necessity of a double hazard, of stumbling, and of going wrong. The lame man perhaps hath his Eyes and sight perfect, and knoweth which way he should go, and seeth it well enough; but because he wanteth his limbs, he is not able to stir a foot forward; and therefore he must have patience perforce, and be content to sit still, because he cannot go withal. Both the one and the other may perish, unless some good body help them: and become a Guide to the blind, a Staff to the lame; leading the one, and supporting the other. Abroad in the World there are many; in every Society, Corporation, and Congregation, there are some of both sorts: some Blind, some Lame. Some that stand in need of Counsel, and Advice, and Direction; as the Blind: others that stand in need of Help, and assistance, and support; as the Lame. If there be any other besides these, whose case deserveth pity, in what kind soever it be; the word Poor comprehendeth him, and maketh him a fit object for the care and compassion of the Magistrate. To each of these the Magistrate must be a succourer to his power. He must be, as here Job was, an Eye to the blind, ignorantem dirigendo; by giving sound and honest counsel the best he can to them that are simple, or might without his help be easily overseen. And he must be, as here Job was, feet to the lame, impotentem adjuvando; by giving countenance and assistance in just and honest Causes the best he can to them that are of meaner ability or might without his help be easily overborn. If there be either of these, or any other defect, which standeth in need of a supply in any other man; he must be, as here Job was, a Father to the poor, indigentem sublevando; by giving convenient safety and protection the best he can to them that are destitute of help, and fly unto him as to a Sanctuary for shelter and for refuge in any misery, grievance, or distress. Upon these he must both have compassion inwardly, and he must show it too outwardly; Affectu, and Effectu; pitying them in his heart, and helping them with his hand. It is not enough for him to see the Blind, and the Lame, and the Poor, and to be sorry for them: but his compassion must be real. He must lend his Eyes to the Blind to direct them; and he must lend his feet to the Lame to support them; and he must pity the Poor as a father doth his children, so pity them, that he do something for them.
Princes, and Judges, and Magistrates were not ordained altogether, nor yet so much for their own sakes, that they might have over whom to bear rule and to domineer at pleasure; as for the people's sakes, that the people might have to whom to resort, and upon whom to depend for help and succor, and relief in their necessities. And they ought to remember, that for this end God hath endued them with that power which others want; that they might by their power help them to right, who have not power to right themselves. [ Hoc reges habent magnificum & ingens, &c. Prodesse miseris, supplices fido lare protegere, &c. ] This is the very thing wherein the Preeminence of Princes, and Magistrates, and great ones, above the ordinary sort singularly consisteth, and wherein specially they have the advantage, and whereby they hold the title of God's, that they are able to do good, and to help the distressed, more than others are. For which ability how they have used it, they stand accountable to him from whom they have received it: and woe unto them if the Accounts they bring in be not in some reasonable proportion answerable to the Receipts, Potentes▪ potenter: into whose hand much hath been given, from their hands much will be required; and the mighty ones, if they have not done a mighty deal of good withal, shall be mightily tormented. And as they have received power from God; so they do receive honors, and service, and tributes from their people for the maintenance of that power: and these as wages by God's righteous Ordinance for their care and pains for the people's good. God hath imprinted in the natural Conscience of every man notions of fear, and honor, and reverence, and obedience, and subjection, and contribution, and other Duties to be performed towards Kings and Magistrate, and other Superiors, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake: and all this for the maintenance of that power in them, by the right use whereof themselves are again maintained. Now the same Conscience which bindeth us who are under Authority, to the performance; bindeth you who are in Authority to the requital, of these Duties: I say, the same Conscience, though not the same Wrath: for here is the difference: Both Wrath and Conscience bind us to our duties; so that if we withdraw our subjection, we both wound our own Consciences, and incur your just Wrath: but only Conscience bindeth you to yours, and not Wrath: so that if ye withdraw your help, we may not use wrath, but must suffer it with patience, and permit all to the judgments of your own Consciences, and of God the Judge of all men's Consciences. But yet still in Conscience the obligation lieth equally upon you and us: As we are bound to give you honor, so are you to give us safety; as we to fear you, so you to help us; as we to fight for you, so you to care for us; as we to pay you tribute, so you to do us right. For, For this cause pay we tribute and other duties, unto you who are God's Ministers; even because you ought to be attending continually upon this very thing, to approve yourselves as the Ministers of God to us for good. Oh that we could all, superiors and inferiors, both one and other, remember what we owed to each other; and by mutual striving to pay it to the utmost, so endeavor ourselves to fulfil the Law of God? But in the mean time, we are still injurious▪ if either we withdraw our subjection, or you your help; if either we cast off the duty of Children, or you the care of Fathers. Time was, when Judges, and Nobles, and Princes delighted to be called by the name of Fathers. The Philistines called their King by a peculiar appellative, Abimelech; as who say, The King my Father. In Rome the Senators were of old time called Patres, Fathers: and it was afterwards accounted among the Romans the greatest title of honor that could be bestowed upon their Consuls, Generals, Emperors, or whosoever had deserved best of the Commonwealth, to have this addition to the rest of his style, Pater Patriae, a Father to his Country. Naaman 's servants in 4 King. 5. 13. call him Father, My Father, if the Prophet had commanded thee, &c. And on the other side, David the King speaketh unto his Subjects, as a Father to his Children in Psal. 34. Come ye children, &c. and Solomon in the Proverbs everywhere, My Son: even as Job here accounteth himself a Father to the poor. Certainly to show that some of these had, and that all good Kings and Governors should have, a fatherly care over, and bear a fatherly affection unto those that are under them.
All which yet, seeing it is intended to be done in bonum universitatis, must be so understood as that it may stand cum bono universitatis, with equity and justice, and with the common good. For Mercy and Justice must go together, and help to temper the one the other. The Magistrate and Governor must be a Father to the poor, to protect him from injuries, and to relieve his necessities; but not to maintain him in idleness. All that the Father oweth to the Child is not love and maintenance: he oweth him too Education; and he oweth him Correction. A Father may love his Child too fondly, and make him a Wanton; he may maintain him too highly, and make him a Prodigal: but he must give him nurture too, as well as maintenance: lest he be better fed than taught; and correct him too, as well as love him; lest he bring him most grief when he should reap most comfort from him. Such a fatherly care ought the civil Magistrate to have over the poor. He must carefully defend them from wrongs and oppressions: he must providently take order for their convenient relief and maintenance: But that is not all; he must as well make provision to set them on work, and see that they follow it; and he must give them sharp Correction when they grow idle, stubborn, dissolute, or any way out of order. This he should do, and not leave the other undone. There is not any speech more frequent in the mouths of Beggars and Wanderers, wherewith the Country now swarmeth, than that men would be good to the poor: and yet scarce anything so much mistaken as that speech in both the terms of it: most men neither understanding aright who are the poor, nor yet what it is to be good to them. Not he only is good to the poor that delivereth him when he is oppressed: nor is he only good to the poor, that relieveth him when he is distressed: but he also is good to the poor, that punisheth him when he is idle. He is good to the poor, that helpeth him when he wanteth: and he is no less good to the poor, that whippeth him when he deserveth. This is indeed to be good to the poor; to give him that Alms first which he wanteth most; if he be hungry, it is Alms to feed him; but if he be idle and untoward, it is Alms to whip him. This is to be good to the poor: But who then are the poor we should be good to, as they interpret goodness? Saint Paul would have Widows honored; but yet those that are Widows indeed: so it is meet the poor should be relieved, but yet those that are poor indeed. Not everyone that begs is poor; not everyone that wanteth is poor, not everyone that is poor is poor indeed. They are the poor, whom we private men in Charity, and you that are Magistrates in Justice stand bound to relieve, who are old, or impotent, or unable to work; or in these hard and depopulating times are willing, but cannot be set on work; or have a greater charge upon them than can be maintained by their work. These, and such as these, are the poor indeed: let us all be good to such as these. Be we that are private men as brethren to these poor ones, and show them mercy: be you that are Magistrates as Fathers to these poor ones, and do them justice: But as for those idle stubborn professed wanderers, that can and may, and will not work, and under the name and habit of poverty rob the poor indeed of our Alms and their Maintenance: let us harden our hearts against them, and not give them; do you execute the severity of the Law upon them, and not spare them. It is Saint Paul 's Order; nay, it is the Ordinance of the Holy Ghost, and we should all put to our helping hands to see it kept, He that will not labor, let him not eat. These Ulcers and Drones of the Commonwealth are ill worthy of any honest man's Alms, of any good Magistrates protection. Hitherto of the Magistrates second Duty, with the reasons and extent thereof, I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame: I was a Father to the poor. Followeth next the third Duty, in these words, The cause which I knew not, I searched out.
Of which words some frame the Coherence with the former, as if Job had meant to clear his Mercy to the poor from suspicion of partiality and injustice: and as if he had said, I was a Father indeed to the poor; pitiful and merciful to him; and ready to show him any lawful favor: but yet not so, as in pity to him, to forget or pervert justice. I was ever careful before I would either speak or do for him, to be first assured his cause was right and good: for that purpose, if it were doubtful, I searched it out, and examined it, before I would countenance either him or it. Certainly, thus to do is agreeable to the rule of Justice; yea and of Mercy too: for it is one Rule in showing Mercy, that it be ever done salvis pietate & justitiâ, without prejudice done to piety and justice. And as to this particular, the commandment of God is express for it in Exod. 23. Thou shalt not countenance no not a poor man in his cause. Now if we should thus understand the coherence of the words; the special duty which Magistrates should hence learn, would be indifferency: in the administration of Justice not to make difference of rich or poor, far or near, friend or foe, one or other; but to consider only and barely the equity and right of the cause, without any respect of persons, or partial inclination this way or that way.
This is a very necessary duty indeed in a Magistrate of Justice; and I deny not but it may be gathered without any violence from these very words of my Text: though to my apprehension not so much by way of immediate observation from the necessity of any such coherence; as by way of consequence from the words themselves otherwise. For what need all that care, and pains, and diligence in searching out the cause, if the condition of the person might over-rule the cause after all that search; and were not the judgment to be given merely according to the goodness or badness of the cause, without respect had to the person? But the special duty, which these words seem most naturally and immediately to impose upon the Magistrate, (and let that be the third Observation ) is diligence, and patience, and care to hear, and examine, and inquire into the truth of things; and into the equity of men's causes. As the Physician, before he prescribe receipt or diet to his patient, will first feel the pulse, and view the urine, and observe the temper and changes in the body, and be inquisitive how the disease began, and when, and what sits it hath, and where and in what manner it holdeth him, and inform himself every other way as fully as he can in the true state of his body, that so he may proportion the remedies accordingly without error: so ought every Magistrate, in causes of Justice, before he pronounce sentence, or give his determination, whether in matters judicial or criminal, to hear both parties with equal patience, to examine witnesses and other evidences advisedly and thoroughly, to consider and wisely lay together all Allegations and Circumstances, to put in queries and doubts upon the by, and use all possible expedient means for the boulting out of the truth; that so he may do that which is equal and right without error.
A duty not without both Precept and President in holy Scripture. Moses prescribeth it in Deut. 17. in the case of Idolatry, If there be found among you one that hath done thus or thus, &c. And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and behold it to be true, and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in Israel, Then thou shalt bring forth that man, &c. The offender must be stoned to death, and no eye pity him: but it must be done orderly, and in a legal course; not upon a bare hear-say, but upon diligent examination and inquisition, and upon such full evidence given in, as may render the fact certain, so far as such cases ordinarily are capable of certainty. And the like is again ordered in Deut. 19. in the case of false witness, Both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Judges, and the Judges shall make diligent inquisition, &c. And in Judge. 19. in the wronged Levites case, whose Concubine was abused to death at Gibeah; the Tribes of Israel stirred up one another to do justice upon the inhabitants thereof; and the method they proposed was this, first to consider and consult of it, and then to give their opinions. But the most famous example in this kind is that of King Solomon in 3 Kings 3. in the difficult case of the two Mothers: Either of them challenged the living Child with a like eagerness; either of them accused other of the same wrong, and with the same allegations: neither was there witness or other evidence on either part to give light unto the matter: yet Solomon by that wisdom which he had obtained from God found a means to search out the truth in this difficulty, by making as if he would cut the child into halfs, and give either of them one half; at the mentioning whereof the compassion of the right mother betrayed the falsehood of her clamorous competitor. And we read in the Apocryphal Story of Susanna, how Daniel by ( x ) examining the two Elders, severally and apart, found them to differ in one circumstance of their relation, and thereby discovered the whole accusation to be false. Judges for this reason were anciently called Cognitores, and in approved Authors Cognoscere is as much as to do the office of a Judge: to teach Judges, that one chief point of there care should be to know the Truth. For if of private men, and in things of ordinary discourse, that of Solomon be true, He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him; certainly much more is it true of public Magistrates, and in matters of Justice and Judgment: by how much both the men are of better note, and the things of greater moment. But in difficult and intricate businesses, covered with darkness and obscurity, and perplexed with many windings and turnings, and cunning and crafty conveyances, to find a fair issue out, and to spy light at a narrow hole, and by wisdom and diligence to rip up a foul matter, and search a cause to the bottom, and make a discovery of all: is a thing worthy the labor, and a thing that will add to the honor, I say not only of inferior governors, but even of the Supreme Magistrate, the King. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; but the honor of Kings, is to search out the matter.
To understand the necessity of this duty; consider, First, that as sometimes Democritus said, the truth lieth in profundo, and in abdito, dark and deep as in the bottom of a pit; and it will ask some time, yea and cunning too, to find it out and to bring it to light. Secondly, that through favor, faction, envy, greediness, ambition, and otherwise, innocence itself is often laden with false accusations: You may observe in the Scriptures how Naboth, Jeremiah, S. Paul, and others; and you may see by too much experience in these wretched times, how many men of fair and honest conversation have been accused and troubled without cause: which if the Magistrate by diligent inquisition do not either prevent or help to the utmost of his endeavor, he may soon unawares wrap himself in the guilt of innocent blood. Thirdly, that informations are for the most part partial, every man making the best of his own tale: and he cannot but often err in judgment, that is easily carried away with the first tale, and doth not suspend till he have heard both parties alike. Herein David failed, when upon Ziba 's false information he passed a hasty and injurious decree against Mephibosheth. Solomon saith, He that is first in his own tale seemeth righteous; but then his neighbor cometh and searcheth him out, Prov. 18. as we say commonly, One tale is good, till another be told. Fourthly, that if in all other things hastiness and precipitancy be hurtful, then especially matters of justice would not be huddled up hand over head, but handled with mature deliberation, and just diligent disquisition. Cunctari judicantem decet; imo oportet, saith Seneca: he that is to judge, it is fit he should, nay it is necessary he should proceed with convenient leisure. Who judgeth otherwise, and without this due search, he doth not judge, but guess. The good Magistrate had need of patience to hear, and of diligence to search, and of prudence to search out, whatsoever may make for the discovery of the truth in an intricate and difficult cause. The cause which I knew not, I searched out. That is the Magistrates third duty. There yet remaineth a fourth in these words, I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
Wherein Job alludeth to ravenous and savage beasts; beasts of prey, that lie in wait for the smaller Cattle, and when they once catch them in their paws, fasten their teeth upon them, and tear them in pieces and devour them. Such▪ Lions, and Wolfs, and Bears, and Tygres, are the greedy great ones of this world, who are ever ravening after the estates and the livelihoods of their meaner neighbors, snatching, and biting, and devouring, and at length eating them up and consuming them. Job here speaketh of Dentes and Molares; Teeth and Iaws: and he meaneth the same thing by both, Power abused to oppression. But if any will be so curiously subtle, as to distinguish them, thus he may do it. Dentes, they are the long sharp teeth, the fore teeth; Dentes eorum arma & sagittae, saith David, Their teeth are spears and arrows. Molares à molendo; so called from grinding; they are the great double teeth, the jaw-teeth. Those are the Biters, these the Grinders: these and those together Oppressors of all sorts, Usurers, and prouling Officers, and sly Merchants, and errant Informers, and such kind of Extortioners as sell time, and truck for expedition, and snatch and catch at petty advantages; these use their teeth most, these are Biters. The first, I know not whether or no the worst sort of them, in the holy Hebrew tongue hath his name from biting. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Naschack, that is to bite; and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Nescheck, that is Usury. Besides these Biters they are Grinders too; men whose teeth are Lapides Molares, as the over and neither mill-stone: depopulators, and racking Landlords, and such great ones, as by heavy pressures and burdens, and sore bargains break the backs of those they deal withal. Those first by little and little grind the faces of the poor, as small as dust and powder; and when they have done, at length eat them up one after another, as it were bread: as the Holy Ghost hath painted them out under those very phrases. Now how the Magistrate should deal with those grinders and biters, Job here teacheth him: he should break their jaws, and pluck the spoil out of their teeth: that is, quell and crush the mighty Oppressor, and deliver the oppressed from his injuries. For, to break the jaw, or the cheek bone, or the teeth, is in Scripture phrase as much as to abate the pride, and suppress the power, and curb the insolency of those that use their might to overbear right. So David saith in the third Psalm, that God had saved him by smiting his enemies upon the cheek bone, and breaking the teeth of the ungodly. And in Psalm 58. he desireth God to break the teeth of the wicked in their mouths, and to break out the great teeth of those young Lions. In which place it is observable, that, as Job here, he speaketh both of Dentes and Molares, teeth and great teeth: and those wicked great ones, according as Job also here alludeth, he expressly compareth unto young Lions; lusty and strong and greedy after the prey.
Now to the doing of this, to the breaking of the jaws of the wicked, and plucking the spoil out of his teeth; there is required a stout heart, and an undaunted Courage, not fearing the faces of men, should their faces be as the faces of Lions and their visages never so terrible. And this is the good Magistrate 's last Duty in my Text; without fear to execute justice boldly upon the stoutest offender, and so to curb the power of great and wicked men, that the poor may live in peace, and keep their own by them. It was one part of Jethro 's Character of a good Magistrate in Exod. 18. that he should be a man of courage. And it was not for nothing that every step up Solomon's Throne for judgment was supported with Lions: to teach Kings and all Magistrates, that a Lion like courage and resolution is necessary for all those that sit upon the Throne or Bench for Justice and for Judgment. When David kept his Fathers sheep, and there came a Lion and a Bear, and took a Lamb out of the flock; he went out after the Lion and smote him, and took the Lamb out of his Mouth, and when the Lion rose against him, he took him by the beard, and smote him again, and slew him: and so he did with the Bear also. Every Magistrate is a kind of shepherd: and the people they are his flock. He must do that then in the behalf of his flock, that David did. Those that begin to make a spoil; though but of the poorest Lamb of the flock, be they as terrible as the Lion and the Bear, he must after them, and smite them, and pluck the spoil out of their teeth: and though they show their spleen, and turn again at it, yet he must not shrink for that; but rather take fresh courage, and to them again, and take them by the beard, and shake them, and never leave them till he have brought them under, and broken their jaws, and in spite of their teeth made them past biting or grinding again in hast. He is a bare hireling, and not worthy the name of a Shepherd, who when he seeth the Wolf coming, thrusteth his head in abush, and leaveth the poor cattle to the spoil. The good Magistrate must put on his resolution, to go on in this course, and without fear of one or other to do justice upon whosoever dareth do injustice, and to suppress oppression even in the greatest.
A resolution necessary; whether we consider the Law, the Magistrate, or the offender. Necessary, First, in respect of the Laws: which, as all experience showeth, are far better unmade, than unkept. Quid vanae sine moribus leges proficiunt? The life of the Law is the Execution; without which the Law is but a dead letter: of less use and regard than scar-crows are in the corn-fields; whereof the birds are a little afraid at the first, but anon after a little use they grow so bold with them, as to sit upon their heads and defile them. We see the experience hereof but too much, in the too much suffered insolency of two sorts of people, [than against whom never were Laws either better made, or worse executed] Rogues and Recusants. Now we know the Laws are general in their intents, and include as well the great as the small. The Magistrate therefore who is Lex loquens, and whose duty it is to see the Laws executed, must proceed as generally, and punish transgressors of the Laws, the great as well as the small. It is an old complaint, yet groweth out of date but slowly; that, Laws are like Cobwebs, wherein the smaller flies are caught, but great ones break through. Surely, Laws should not be such; good Laws are; not such of themselves; they do or should intend an universal reformation: it is the abuse of bad men, together with the baseness or cowardice of sordid or sluggish Magistrates, that maketh them such. And I verily persuade myself, there is no one thing that maketh good Laws so much contemned, even by mean ones too at the last, as the not executing them upon the great ones in the mean time. Let a Magistrate but take to himself that courage which he should do, and now and then make a great man an example of Justice; he shall find that a few such examples will breath more life into the Laws, and strike more awe into the people, than the punishment of an hundred underlings and inferior persons.
Again, in respect of the Magistrate himself, this courage and resolution is necessary; for the maintenance of that dignity and respect which is due to him in his place and calling. Which he cannot more shamefully betray, than by fearing the faces of men. Imagine you saw a goodly tall fellow, trick'd up with fe • thers and ribbands, and a glittering sword in his hand, enter the lists like a Champion, and challenge all comers: by and by steppeth in another man perhaps much of his own size, but without either sword or staff, and doth but show his teeth and stare upon him: whereat my gay Champion first trembleth, and anon for very fear letteth his sword fall, and shrinketh himself into the crowd. Think what a ridiculous sight this would be: and just such another thing as this, is a fearful Magistrate. He is adorned with Robes, the marks and ensigns of his power. God hath armed him with a sword; indeed as well to put courage into his heart, as awe into the people. And thus adorned and armed, he standeth in the eye of the World, and as it were upon the stage; and raiseth an expectation of himself, as if sure this man would do something: his very appearance threateneth destruction to whosoever dareth come within his reach. Now if after all this braving, he should be out-dared with big looks and bug words of those that could do him no harm: how justly should he draw upon himself scorn and contempt, parturiunt montes! Wherefore is there a price, saith Solomon of the sluggard, in the hands of a fool to buy Wisdom, and he hath no heart? So, wherefore is there a Sword, may we say of the fearful Magistrate, in the hands of a Coward to do justice, and he hath no heart? You that are Magistrates, remember the promise God hath made you, and the Title he hath given you. You have an honorable promise; [ GOD will be with you in the cause and in the judgment, 2 Chronicles 19.] If God be with you, what need you fear who shall be against you? You have an honorable Tittle too [ I have said, ye are God's, Psalm 82.] If you be God's, why should you fear the faces of men? This is God's fashion: he giveth grace to the humble, but he resisteth the proud; he exalteth the meek and lowly, but he putteth the Mighty out of their seats. If you will deal answerably to that high name he hath put upon you, and be indeed as God's; follow the example of God: lift up the poor oppressed out of the mire, and tumble down the confidence of the mighty and proud oppressor; when you receive the Congregation, judge uprightly, and fear not to say to the wicked, be they never so great, Lift not up your horn. So shall you vindicate yourselves from contempt; so shall you preserve your persons and places from being baffled and blurted by every lewd companion.
Courage in the Magistrate, against these great Ones especially, is thirdly necessary in respect of the Offenders. These wicked ones of whom Job speaketh, the longer teeth they have, the deeper they bite; and the stronger jaws they have, the sorer they grind; and the greater power they have, the more mischief they do. And therefore these great ones of all other would be well hampered; and have their teeth filed, their jaws broken, their power curbed. I say not, the poor and the small should be spared when they offend: good reason they should be punished with severity. But you must remember I now speak of Courage; and a little Courage will serve to bring those under that are under already. So that if mean men scape unpunished when they transgress, it is oftener for want of care or conscience in the Magistrate, than of Courage. But here is the true trial of your Courage, when you are to deal with these great Ones: men not inferior to yourselves, perhaps your equals; yea, and it may be too, your Magistracy set aside, men much greater than yourselves: men great in place, great in wealth, in great favor, that have great friends; but withal that do great harm. Let it be your honor, that you dare be just, when these dare be unjust; and when they dare smite others with the fist of violence, that you dare smite them with the sword of Justice; and that you dare use your power, when they dare abuse theirs. All Transgressours should be looked unto; but more, the greater, and the greatest, most: as a Shepherd should watch his Sheep even from Flies and Maukes; but much more from Foxes; most of all from Wolves. Sure, he is a sorry Shepherd, that is busy to kill Flies and Maukes in his Sheep, but letteth the Wolf worry at pleasure: Why, one Wolf will do more mischief in a night, than a thousand of them in a twelve-month. And as sure, he is a sorry Magistrate, that stocketh, and whippeth, and hangeth poor Sneaks when they offend (though that is to be done too) but letteth the great Thieves do what they list, and dareth not meddle with them: like Saul, who, when God commanded him to kill all the Amalekites both man and beast, slew indeed the rascality of both, but spared the greatest of the men, and the fattest of the Cattle, and slew them not. The good Magistrate should rather with Job here, break the jaws of the wicked, and in the spite of his heart, pluck the spoil out of his teeth.
Thus have you heard the four duties or properties of a good Magistrate contained in this Scripture, with the grounds and reasons of most of them, opened. They are, 1. A Love and Zeal to justice. 2. Compassion to the poor and distressed. 3. Pains and Patience in examination of causes. 4. Stoutness and Courage in execution of justice. The Uses and Inferences of all these yet remain to be handled now in the last place, and altogether. All which for order and brevities sake, we will reduce unto three heads: accordingly as from each of the four mentioned Duties, or Properties, or Rules (call them which you will) there arise Inferences of three sorts. First, of Direction; for the choice and appointment of Magistrates according to these four properties. Secondly, of Reproof, for a just rebuke of such Magistrates as fail in any of these four Duties. Thirdly, of Exhortation, to those that are, or shall be Magistrates, to carry themselves therein according to these four Rules. Wherein what I shall speak of Magistrates, ought also to be extended and applied (the due proportion ever observed) to all kinds of Offices whatsoever, any way appertaining unto Justice. And first for directions.
S. Paul saith, The powers that are, are ordained of God: and yet S. Peter, calleth the Magistracy an human ordinance. Certainly the holy Spirit of God, which speaketh in these two great Apostles, is not contrary to itself. The truth is, the substance of the power of every Magistrate is the Ordinance of God; and that is S. Paul's meaning: but the Specification of the circumstances thereto belonging; as in regard of places, persons, titles, continuance, jurisdiction, subordination and the rest, is (as S. Peter termeth it) an human ordinance, introduced by Custom, or positive▪ Law. And therefore some kinds of Magistracy are higher, some lower, some annual or for a set time, some during life; some after one manner, some after another, according to the several Laws or Customs whereon they are grounded. As in other circumstances, so in this concerning the deputation of the Magistrates person, there is great difference: some having their power by Succession, others by Nomination, and other some by Election. As amongst us, the Supreme Magistrate, the King, hath his power by Succession; some inferior Magistrates theirs, by Nomination, or special appointment, either immediately, or mediately from the King; as most of our Judges and Justices: some again by the elections and voices of the multitude; as most Officers and Governors in our Cities, Corporations, or Colleges. The Directions which I would infer from my Text, cannot reach the first kind; because such Magistrates are born to us, not chosen by us. They do concern, in some sort, the second; but most nearly the third kind, viz. Those that are chosen by suffrages and voices: and therefore unto this third kind only I will apply them. We may not think, because our voices are our own, that therefore we may bestow them as we list: neither must we suffer ourselves in a matter of this nature to be carried by favor, faction, spite, hope, fear, importunity, or any other corrupt and partial respect, from those rules which ought to level our choice. But we must confer our voices, and our best furtherance otherwise, upon those whom, all things duly considered, we conceive to be the fittest: and the greater the place is, and the more the power is we give unto them, and from ourselves; the greater ought our care in voicing to be. It is true indeed when we have used all our best care, and proceeded with the greatest caution we can; we may be deceived, and make an unworthy choice. For we cannot judge of men's fitness by any demonstrative certainty: all we can do is to go upon probabilities, which can yield at the most but a conjectural certainty, full of uncertainty. Men ambitious▪ and in appetite, till they have obtained their desires, use to dissemble those vices which might make a stop in their preferments; which, having once gotten what they fished for, they bewray with greater freedom: and they use likewise to make a show of that zeal and forwardness in them to do good, which afterwards cometh to just nothing. Absalom to steal away the hearts of the people (though he were even then most unnaturally unjust in his purposes, against a farther and such a farther; yet he) made show of much compassion to the injured, and of a great desire to do justice. O, saith he, that I were made a Judge in the Land, that every man that hath either suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him Justice. And yet I doubt not, but if things had so come to pass, he would have been as bad as the worst. When the Roman Soldiers had in a tumult proclaimed Galba Emperor, they thought they had done a good days work; every man promised himself so much good of the new Emperor: But when he was in, he proved no better than those that had been before him. One giveth this censure of him, Omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset: he had been a man in every man's judgment worthy to have been Emperor, if he had not been Emperor, and so shown himself unworthy. Magistratus indicat virum, is a common saying, and a true. We may guess upon likelihoods what they will be when we choose them: but the thing itself after they are chosen showeth the certainty what they are. But this uncertainty should be so far from making us careless in our choice; that it should rather add so much the more to our care, to put things so hazardous as near as we can out of hazard.
Now those very Rules, that must direct them to Govern, must direct us also to choose. And namely an eye would be had to the four Properties specified in my Text. The first, a zeal of justice, and a delight therein. Seest thou a man careless of the common good; one that palpably preferreth his own before the public weal; one that loveth his ease so well, that he careth not which way things go, backward or forward, so he may sit still and not be troubled; one that would divide honorem ab onere, be proud of the honor and Title, and yet loath to undergo the envy and burden that attendeth him; set him aside. Never think that man's robes will do well upon him. A Iusticeship, or other Office would sit upon such a man's back as handsomely as Saul's armor did upon David's: unweildly, and sagging about his shoulders; so as he could not tell how to stir and turn himself under it. He is a fit man to make a Magistrate of, that will put on righteousness as a garment, and cloth himself with Judgment as with a Robe and a Diadem. The second property is, Compassion on the poor. Seest thou a man distitute of counsel and understanding; a man of forlorn hopes or estate, and in whom there is no help; or one that having either counsel or help in him, is yet a Churl of either; but especially one that is sore in his bargains, cruel in his dealings, hard to his Tenants, or an Oppressor in any kind? Take none of him. Sooner commit a flock of Sheep to a Wolf, than a Magistracy or Office of justice to an Oppressor. Such a man is more likely to put out the eyes of him that seeth, than to be eyes to the blind; and to break the bones of the strong, than to be legs to the lame; and to turn the fatherless a begging▪ than to be a Father to the poor. The third property is Diligence to search out the truth. Seest thou a man hasty, and rash, and heady in his own business; a man impatient of delay or pains; one that cannot conceal what is meet till it be seasonable to utter it, but poureth out all his heart at once, and before the time; one that is easily possessed with what is first told him, or being once possessed, will not with any reason be persuaded to the contrary; one that lendeth ear so much to some particular friend or follower, as to believe any information from him, not any but from him; one that, to be counted a man of dispatch, loveth to make an end of a business before it be ripe; suspect him. He will scarce have the Conscience▪ or if that, yet not the wit, or not the patience, to search out the cause which he knoweth not. The last Property is, Courage to execute. Seest thou a man first, of a timorous nature, and cowardly disposition? or secondly, of a wavering and fickle mind: as we say of children; won with an apple, and lost with a nut? or thirdly, that is apt to be wrought upon, or molded into any form, with fair words, friendly invitations, or complemental glozes? or fourthly, that dependeth upon some great man, whose vassal or creature he is? or fifthly, a taker, and one that may be dealt withal (for that is now the periphrasis of bribery?) or sixthly, guilty of the same transgressions he should punish, or of other as foul? Never a man of these is for the turn: not one of these will venture to break the jaws or tusks of an oppressing Tiger or Boar, and to pluck the spoil out of his teeth. The timorous man is afraid of every shadow, and if he do but hear of teeth, he thinketh it is good sleeping in a whole skin, and so keepeth a loof-off, for fear of biting. The double minded man, as S. James saith, is unstable in all his ways: he beginneth to do something in a sudden heat, when the fit taketh him; but before one jaw can be halfbroken, he is not the man he was, he is sorry for what is done; and instead of breaking the rest, falleth a binding up that which he hath broken; and so seeketh to salve up the matter as well as he can, and no hurt done. The vain man, that will be flattered, so he get fair words himself, he careth not who getteth foul blows: and so the beast will but now and then give him a lick with the tongue, he letteth him use his teeth upon others at his pleasure. The depending creature is charmed with a letter or message from his Lord, or his honorable friend; which to him is as good as a Supersedeas or Prohibition. The taker hath his fingers so oiled, that his hand slippeth off, when he should pluck away the spoil, and so he leaveth it undone. The guilty man by no means liketh this breaking of jaws: he thinketh it may be his own case another day.
You see, when you are to choose Magistrates, here is refuse enough, to be cast by. But by that all these be discarded, and thrown out of the bunch; possibly the whole lump will be near spent, and there will be little or no choice left. Indeed if we should look for absolute perfection, there would be absolutely no choice at all: There is none▪ that doth good, no not one. We must not be so dainty in our choice then, as to find one in every respect such as hath been charactered. We live not in Republica Platonis, but in faece seculi; and it is well, if we can find one in some good mediocrity so qualified. Amid the common corruptions of mankind, he is to be accounted a tolerably good man, that it not intolerably bad: and among so many infirmities and defects, as I have now reckoned, we may well voice him for a Magistrate, not that is free from them all, but that hath the fewest and least. And we make a happy choice, if from among those we have to choose of, we take such a one as is likely to prove in some reasonable mediocrity zealous of Justice, sensible of the wrongs of poor men, careful to search out the truth of causes, and resolute to execute what he knoweth is just.
That for Direction. I am next to infer from the four duties in my Text, a just reproof, and withal a complaint of the common iniquity of these times; wherein men in the Magistracy and in Offices of Justice, are generally so faulty and delinquent in some, or all of these duties. And first, as for zeal to justice: alas that there were not too much cause to complain. It is grief to speak it (and yet we all see it and know it) there is grown among us of this Land, within the space of not many years, a general and sensible declination in our zeal both to Religion and justice; the two main Pillars and Supporters of Church and State. And it seemeth to be with us in these regards, as with decaying Merchants almost become desperate; who when Creditors call fast upon them, being hopeless of paying all, grow careless of all, and pay none: so abuses and disorders increase so fast among us; that hopeless to reform all, our Magistrates begin to neglect all, and in a manner reform nothing. How few are there of them that sit in the seat of Justice, whose Consciences can prompt them a comfortable answer to that Question of David, Psal. 58. Are your minds set on rightousness, O ye congregation? Rather are they not almost all of Gallio 's temper, Acts 18. who, though there were a foul outrage committed even under his nose, and in the sight of the Bench, yet the Text saith, he cared for none of those things? as if they had their names given them by an Antiphrasis: like Diogenes his man; manes à manendo, because he would be now and then running away; so these Justices à justitia, because they neither do nor care to do Justice. Peradventure here and there one or two in a whole side of a Country to be found, that make a Conscience of their duty more than the rest, and are forward to do the best good they can: God's blessing rest upon their heads for it. But what cometh of it? The rest, glad of their forwardness, make only this use of it to themselves; even to slip their own necks out of the yoke, and leave all the burden upon them: and so at length even tire out them too, by making common pack horses of them. A little it may be is done by the rest, for fashion, but to little purpose; sometimes more to show their Iusticeship, than to do Justice: and a little more may be is wrung from them by importunity; as the poor widow in the parable by her clamorousness wrung a piece of Justice with much ado from the Judge that neither feared God, nor regarded man. Alas, Beloved, if all were right within, if there were generally that zeal that should be in Magistrates, good Laws would not thus languish as they do for want of execution; there would not be that insolency of Popish rescuants, that license of Rogues and Wanderers, that prouling of Officers, that inhancing of sees, that delay of suits, that countenancing of abuses, those carcases of depopulated Towns, infinite other mischiefs; which are ( the sins shall I say, or the Plagues? it is hard to say whether more, they are indeed both) the sins and the Plagues of this Land. And as for Compassion to the distressed; is there not now just cause, if ever, to complain? If in these hard times, wherein nothing aboundeth but poverty and sin; when the greater ones of the earth should most of all enlarge their bowels, and reach out the hand to relieve the extreme necessity of thousands that are ready to starve: if (I say) in these times, great men, yea and men of Justice, are as throng▪ as ever in pulling down houses, and setting up hedges; in unpeopleing Towns and creating beggars; in racking the backs, and grinding the faces of the poor; how dwelleth the love of God, how dwelleth the spirit of compassion in these men? Are these eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and fathers to the poor, as Job was? I know your hearts cannot but rise in detestation of these things, at the very mentioning of them. But what would you say, if as it was said to Ezekiel, so I should bid you turn again, and behold yet greater, and yet greater abominations; of the lamentable oppressions of the poor by them and their instruments, who stand bound in all conscience, and in regard of their places, to protect them from the injuries and oppressions of others? But I forbear to do that; and choose rather out of one passage in the Prophet Amos, to give you some short intimation both of the faults, and of the reason of my forbearance. It is in Amos▪ 5. v. 12, 13. I know your manifold transgressions, and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right: Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time. And as for searching out the truth in men's causes which is the third Duty: First, those Sycophants deserve a rebuke, who by false accusations, and cunningly devised tales, ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) of purpose involve the truth of things to set a fair color upon a bad matter, or to take away the righteousness of the innocent from him. And yet how many are there such as these in most of our Courts of justice? informing, and promoting, and pettifogging make-bates. Now it were a lamentable thing if these men should be known, and yet suffered, but what if countenanced, and encouraged, and under hand maintained by the Magistrates of those Courts, of purpose to bring Moulter to their own Mills? Secondly, since Magistrates must be content (for they are but men, and cannot be everywhere at once) in many things to see with other men's eyes, and to hear with other men's ears, and to proceed upon information: those men deserve a rebuke, who being by their office to ripen causes for judgment, and to facilitate the Magistrates care and pains for inquisition; do yet either for fear, or favor, or negligence, or a fee, keep back true and necessary informations, or else for spite or gain, clog the Courts with false or trifling ones. But most of all the Magistrates themselves deserve a rebuke, if either they be hasty to acquit a man upon his own bare denial or protestation (for, si inficiari sufficiet, ecquis erit nocens? as the Orator pleaded before Julian the Emperor; if a denial may serve the turn, none shall be guilty,) or if hasty to condemn a man upon another's bare accusation (for, si accusasse sufficiet, ecquis erit innocens? as the Emperor excellently replied upon that Orator; if an accusation may serve the turn, none shall be innocent; ) or if they suffer themselves to be possessed with prejudice and not keep one ear open (as they write of Alexander the great ) for the contrary party that they may stand indifferent till the truth be thoroughly canvassed; or if to keep causes long in their hands, they either delay to search the truth out, that they may know it, or to decide the cause according to the truth, when they have found it. And as for Courage to execute Justice, which is the last Duty: what need we trouble ourselves to seek out the causes, when we see the effects so daily and plainly before our eyes? whether it be through his own cowardice or inconstancy, that he keepeth off; or that a fair word whistleth him off; or that a greater man's letter staveth him off; or that his own guilty conscience doggeth him off; or that his hands are manacled with a bribe, that he cannot fasten; or whatsoever other matter there is in it; sure we are, the Magistrate too often letteth the wicked carry away the spoil, without breaking a jaw of him, or so much as offering to pick his teeth. It was not well in David 's time, (and yet David a Godly King ) when complaining he asked the Question, Who will stand up with me against the evil doers? It was not well in Solomon 's time, (and yet Solomon a peaceable King ) when, considering the Oppressions that were done under the Sun, he saw that on the side of the oppressors there was power; but as for the oppressed, they had no comforter. We live under the happy government of a godly and peaceable King; God's holy name be blessed for it: and yet God knoweth, and we all know, it is not much better now; nay, God grant, it be not generally even much worse.
Receive now in the last place, and as the third and last inference, a word of Exhortation; and it shall be but a word. You whom God hath called to any honor, or office appertaining to justice; as you tender the glory of God, and the good of the Commonwealth; as you tender the honor of the King, and the prosperity of the Kingdom; as you tender the peace and tranquility of