A Christian Directory

Tit. 2. A fuller resolution of the Cases, 1. Whether the Laws of men do bind the Conscience: 2. Especially smaller and Penal Laws?

THe word [ Conscience ] signifieth either 1. In general according to the notation of the word, The knowledge of our own matters; Conscire; The knowledge of ourselves, our duties, our faults, our fears, our hopes, our diseases, &c. 2. Or more limitedly and narrowly, The knowledge of ourselves and our own matters in relation to God's Law and Judgment: Iudicium hominis de seipso prout subjicitur judicio Dei, as Ames defineth it.

2. Conscience is taken, 1. Sometime for the Act of self-knowing: 2. Sometime for the Habit: 3. Sometime for the Faculty, that is, for the Intellect itself, as it is a faculty of self-knowing. In all these senses it is taken properly. 2. And sometimes it is used (by custom) improperly, for the Person himself, that doth Conscire; or for his Will, (another faculty).

3 The Conscience may be said to be bound, 1. Subjectively, as the subjectum quod, or the faculty obliged; 2. Or Objectively, as Conscire, the Act of Conscience, is the thing ad quod, to which we are obliged.

And upon these necessary distinctions I thus answer to the first question.

Prop. 1 The Act or the Habit of Conscience are not capable of being the subject obliged; no more than any other act or duty: The Act or duty is not bound, but the man to the act or duty.

2. The Faculty or Judgment is not capable of being the Object or Materia ad quam, the thing to which we are bound. A man is not bound to be a man, or to have an Intellect, but is made such.

3. The Faculty of Conscience (that is the Intellect) is not capable of being the immediate or nearest subjectum quod, or subject obliged. The reason is, Because the Intellect of itself is not a free-working faculty, but acteth necessarily per modum naturae, further than it is under the Empire of the Will: And therefore Intellectual and Moral habits are by all men distinguished.

4. All Legal or Moral Obligation falleth directly upon the Will only; and so upon the Person as a Voluntary agent: So that it is proper to say, The Will is bound, and The Person is bound.

5 Improperly and remotely it may be said, The Intellect (or faculty of Conscience ) is bound, or the tongue, or hand, or foot is bound; as the Man is bound to use them.

6. Though it be not proper to say, that the Conscience is bound, it is proper to say, that the Man is bound to the Act and Habit of Conscience, or to the exercise of the faculty.

7. The common meaning of the phrase, that we are [ bound in conscience ] o • that [ conscience is bound ] is that [ we are bound to a thing by God, ] or [ by a Divine obligation ] and that it is [ a fin against God to violate it ]: So that Divines use here to take the word Conscience in the narrower Theological sense, as respect to God's Law and Judgment doth enter the definition of it.

8. Taking Conscience in this narrower sense, To ask, Whether man's Law as Mans do bind us in Conscience, is all one as to ask, Whether Man be God.

9. And taking Conscience in the large or General sense, to ask whether Mans Laws bind us in Conscience, subjectively, is to ask whether they bind the Understanding to know our duty to man? And the tenor of them will show that: While they bind us to an outward Act, or from an outward Act, it is the man that they bind to or from that act, and that is, as he is a Rational Voluntary Agent: so that a human obligation is laid upon the Man, on the Will, and on the Intellect by human Laws.

10. And human Laws while they bind us to or from an outward Act, do thereby bind us as Rational-free agents, knowingly to choose or refuse those acts: Nor can a Law which is a Moral Instrument any otherwise bind the hand, foot or tongue, but by first binding us to choose or refuse it knowingly, that is, conscientiously, so that a human bond is certainly laid on the mind, soul, or conscience taken in the larger sense.

11. Taking Conscience in the stricter sense, as including essentially a relation to God's obligation, the full sense of the question plainly is but this, Whether it be a sin against God to break the Laws of man? And thus plain men might easily understand it. And to this it must be answered, that it is in two respects a sin against God to break such Laws or Commands as Rulers are authorized by God to make: 1. Because God commandeth us to obey our Rulers: Therefore he that (so) obeyeth them not, sinneth against a Law of God. God obligeth us in General to obey them in all things which they are authorized by him to command: But their Law determineth of the particular matter: Therefore God obligeth us (in Conscience of his Law) to obey them in that particular. 2. Because by making them his Officers, by his Commission he hath given them a certain beam of Authority, which is Divine as derived from God: Therefore they can command us by a power derived from God: Therefore to disobey is to sin against a power derived from God. And thus the General case is very plain and easy, How man sinneth against God in disobeying the Laws of man, and consequently how (in a tolerable sense of that phrase) it may be said, that man's Laws do or do not bind the conscience (or rather, bind us in point of Conscience; ) or by a Divine obligation. Man is not God; and therefore as man, of himself can lay no Divine obligation on us. But Man being God's Officer, 1. His own Law layeth on us an obligation derivatively Divine (For it is no Law which hath no obligation, and it is no authoritative obligation which is not derived from God). 2. And God's own Law bindeth us to obey man's Laws.

Quest. 2. BUt is it a sin to break every Penal Law of man?

Answ. 1. You must remember that Mans Law is essentially the signification of man's Will; And therefore obligeth no further than it truly signifieth the Rulers Will.

2. That it is the Act of a Power derived from God; and therefore no further bindeth, than it is the exercise of such a power.

3. That it is given, 1. Finally for God's glory and pleasure, and for the Common Good (comprehending the Honor of the Ruler and the welfare of the society ruled). And therefore obligeth not when it is, 1. Against God; 2. Or against the Common Good. 2. And it is subordinate to God's own Laws, (in Nature and Scripture) and therefore obligeth not to sin, or to the violation of God's Law.

4. You must note that Laws are made for the Government of Societies as such universally; and so are fitted to the Common Case, for the Common Good. And it is not possible but that a Law which prescribeth a duty which by accident is so to the most, should meet with some particular subject to whom the case is so circumstantiated as that the same act would be to him a sin: And to the same man it may be ordinarily a duty, and in an extraordinary case a sin. Thence it is that in some cases (as Lent Fasts, Marriages, &c. ) Rulers oft authorize some persons to grant dispensations in certain cases; And hence it is said, that Necessity hath no Law.

Hereupon I conclude as followeth.

1. It is no sin to break a Law which is no Law, as being against God, or not authorized by him (as of a Usurper, &c. ) See R. Hooker Conclus. Lib 8.

2. It is no Law so far as it is no signification of the true Will of the Ruler, what ever the words be: Therefore so far it is no sin to break it.

3. The Will of the Ruler is to be judged of, not only by the Words, but by the Ends of Government, and by the Rules of Humanity.

4. It being not possible that the Ruler in his Laws can foresee and name all exceptions, which may occur, it is to be supposed that it is his Will, that the Nature of the thing, shall be the notifier of his Will, when it cometh to pass: And that if he were present, and this case fell out before him, which the sense and end of the Law extendeth not to, he would say, This is an excepted Case.

5. There is therefore a wide difference between a General Law, and a personal particular Mandate; As of a Parent to a Child, or a Master to a Servant: For this latter fully notifieth the Will of the Ruler in that very case, and to that very person: And therefore it cannot be said that here is any exception, or that it is not his Will: But in an Universal or General Law, it is to be supposed that some particular excepted Cases will fall out extraordinarily, though they cannot be named: And that in those Cases, the Rulers will dispenseth with it.

6. Sometimes also the Ruler doth by the mere neglect of pressing or executing his own Laws, permit them to grow obsolete, and out of use: And sometimes he forbeareth the execution of them for some time, or to some sort of persons: And by so doing doth notify, that it was not his Will that • t such a time, and in such cases they should oblige. I say not, that all remissness of execution is such a sign: But sometimes it is: And the very word of the Law-giver, may notify his dispensation or suspending will. As for instance, Upon the burning of London, there were many Laws (about coming to Parish Churches, and relief of the poor of the Parish, and the like,) that the people became uncapable of obeying: And it was to be supposed, that the Rulers will would have been to to have excepted such Cases if foreseen; and that they did dispense with them when they fell out.

7. Sometimes also the penalty of violating a Law, is some such Mulct or service, which the Ruler intendeth as a Commutation for the duty, so that he freely leaveth it to the choice of the subject which he will choose. And then it is no sin to pay the Mulct, and omit the Action; because it crosseth not the Law-givers will.

8. Sometimes also the Law may command this principally for some men's sake, which so little concerns others, that it should not extend to them at all, were it not lest the Liberty of them should be an impediment to the obedience of others, and consequently of the common good: In which case, if those persons so little concerned, do but omit the action secretly, so as to be no scandal or public hurt, it seemeth that they have the implicit Consent of the Rulers.

9. Sometimes particular duties are commanded with this express exception, [ Unless they have just and reasonable impediment ] (As for coming every Lord's Day to Church, &c. ): which seemeth to imply, that (though in cases where the public good is concerned, the person himself shall not be Judge, nor at all as to the penalty; yet that) in actions of an indifferent nature in themselves, this exception is still supposed to be implied, [ Unless we have just and reasonable impediments ] of which in private Cases, as to the Crime, we may judge.

10. I need not mention the common natural exceptions: As that Laws bind not to a thing when it becometh naturally impossible; or, cessante materia, vel capacitate subjecti obligati, &c.

11. Laws may change their sense in part by the change of the Law-giver: For the Law is not formally to us his Law that is dead and was once our Ruler, but his that is alive and is now our Ruler. If Henry the eighth make a Law about the outward acts of Religion (as for coming to Church, &c. ) and this remain unrepealed in King Edwards, Queen Mary's, Queen Elizabeth's, King James his days, &c. even till now: As we are not to think that the Law-givers had the same sense and will, so neither that the Law hath the same sense and obligation: For if the general words be capable of several senses, we must not take it as binding to us in the sense it was made in, but in the sense of of our present Law-givers or Rulers; because it is their Law.

12. Therefore if a Law had a special Reason for it at the first making (as the Law for using Bows and Arrows) that Reason ceasing we are to suppose the Will of the Law-giver to remit the obligation, if he urge not the execution, and renew not the Law.

13. By these plain principles many particular difficulties may be easily resolved, which cannot be foreseen and named: e. g. The Law against relieving a beggar bindeth not, when he is like to die if he be not relieved; or in such a case as after the burning of London, when there was no Parish to bring him to. A Law that is but for the ordering of men's charity, (to soul, or body, by preaching or alms ) will not disoblige me from the Duties of Charity themselves, in cases where Scripture or Nature proveeth them to be imposed by God. A Law for fasting will not bind me, when it would be destructive to my body: even on God's Sabbaths duties of mercy were to be preferred to Rest and Sacrifices.

14. If God's own Laws must be thus expounded, that [ When two duties come together, and both cannot be done, the lesser ceaseth at that time to be a duty, and the greater is to be preferred ], man's Laws must also be necessarily so expounded: And the rather because man's Laws may be contradictory when God's never are so, rightly understood.

15. Where the subject is to obey, so far he must discern which of the Laws inconsistent, is to be preferred: But in the Magistratical execution, the Magistrate or Judge must determine.

E. g. One Law commandeth that all the needy poor be kept on the Parish where they were born or last lived. Another Law saith, that Non-conformable Ministers of the Gospel who take not the Oxford Oath shall not come within five miles of City or Corporation (though they were born there) or any place where they have been Preachers. In case of necessity, what shall they do? Answ. Whither they shall go for relief, they must discern as well as they can: But whither they shall be carried or sent, the Magistrate or Constable must discern, and judge.

Also Whether he shall go with a Constable that by one Law bringeth him to a place which by the other Law he is forbid on pain of six months imprisonment in the Common Gaol to come to? Answ. If he be not voluntary in it, it is not his fault: And if one bring him thither by force, and and another imprison him for being there, he must patiently suffer it.

16. But out of such excepted Cases, the Laws of our Rulers (as the commands of Parents) do bind us as is afore explained: And it is a sin against God to violate them.

17. Yea, When the reason of the Law reacheth not our particular case and person, yet when we have reason to judge, that it is the Rulers will that all be bound for the sake of some, and the common order and good will be hindered by our exemption, we must obey to our corporal detriment, to avoid the public detriment, and to promote the public good.

CHAP. IV. Directions to Lawyers about their Duty to God.

GEntlemen, you need not meet these Directions with the usual censures or suspicions, that Divines are busying themselves with the matters of your Calling, which belong not to them, and which they do not understand: You shall see that I will as much forbear such matters as you can well desire. If your Calling be not to be sanctified by serving God in it, and regulating it by his Law, it is then neither honorable nor desirable. But if it be, permit me very briefly so far to Direct you.

§. 1. Direct. 1. Take the whole frame of Polity together, and study each part in its proper place, and know it in its due relation to the rest: that is, Understand first the Doctrine of Polity and Laws in genere, and next the Universal Polity and Laws of God in specie; and then study Human Polity and Laws as they stand in their due subordination to the Polity and Laws of God, as the by-Laws of Corporations do to the General Laws of the Land.

§. 2. He that understandeth not what Polity and Law is in genere, is unlike to understand what Divine or Human Polity or Law is in specie: He that knoweth not what Government is, and what a community, and what a politick society is; will hardly know what a Common-wealth or Church is: And he that knoweth not what a Common-wealth is in genere, what is its End, and what its constitutive parts, and what the efficient causes, and what a Law, and Judgment, and Execution is, will study but unhappily the Constitution or Laws of the Kingdom which he liveth in.

§. 3. 2. And he that understandeth not the Divine Dominium & Imperium as founded in Creation (and refounded in Redemption ), and man's subjection to his Absolute Lord, and the Universal Laws which he hath given in Nature and Scripture to the world, can never have any true understanding of the Polity or Laws of any Kingdom in particular: No more than he can well understand the true state of a Corporation, or the power of a Mayor, or Justice, or Constable, who knoweth nothing of the state of the Kingdom, or of the King, or of his Laws. What ridiculous discourses would such a man make of his Local Polity or Laws? He knoweth nothing worth the knowing, who knoweth not that all Kings and States have no power but what is derived from God, and subservient to him; and are all his Officers, much more below him, than their Justices and Officers are to them; and that their Laws are of no force against the Laws of God, whether of Natural or Supernatural Revelation. And therefore it is most easy to see, that he that will be a good Lawyer, must first be a Divine; And that the Atheists that deride or slight Divinity, do but play the fools in all their independent broken studies. A man may be a good Divine, that is no Lawyer, but he can be no good Lawyer, that understandeth not Theology. Therefore let the Government and Laws of God, have the first and chiefest place in your studies, and in all your observation and regard.

1. Because it is the Ground of Human Government, and the Fountain of man's Power and Laws.

2. Because the Divine Polity is also the End of Human Policy: Mans Laws being ultimately to promote our Obedience to the Laws of God, and the honor of his Government.

3. Because God's Laws are the measure and bounds of Human Laws; against which no man can have power.

4. Because God's Rewards and Punishments are incomparably more regardable than man's: Eternal joy or misery being so much more considerable than temporal peace or suffering: Therefore though it be a dishonor to Lawyers to be ignorant of Languages, History and other needful parts of Learning, yet it is much more their dishonor to be ignorant of the Universal Government and Laws of God.

§. 4. Direct. 2. Be sure that you make not the getting of money to be your principal end, in the exercise of your function▪ but the promoting of Justice, for the righting of the just, and the public g • od; and therein the pleasing of the most righteous God. For your work can be to you no better than your End. A ba • e end doth debase your work. I deny not, but your competent gain and maintenance may be your lower end, but the promoting of justice must be your higher end, and sought before it. The question is not, Whether you seek to live by your Calling; for so may the best: nor yet Whether you intend the promoting of Justice, for so may the worst (in some degree). But the question is, Which of these you prefer? and which you first and principally intend? He that looketh chiefly at his worldly gain, must take that gain instead of God's reward, and look for no more than he chiefly intended: For that is formally no Good work, which is not intended chiefly to please God: And God doth not Reward the servants of the world: Nor can any man rationally imagine, that he should reward a man with happiness hereafter, for seeking after Riches here. And if you say, that you look for no Reward but Riches, you must look for a Punishment worse than Poverty: For the neglecting of God and your Ultimate End, is a sin that deserveth the privation of all which you neglect; and leaveth not your actions in a state of innocent indifferency.

§. 5. Direct. 3. Be not Counsel • rs or Advocates against God, that is, against Justice, Truth or Innocency. A b • d cause would have no Patrons, if there were no bad or ignorant Lawyers. Its a dear bought fee, which is got by sinning; especially by such a willful aggravated sin, as the deliberate pleading for iniquity, or opposing of the Truth. Judas his gain and Aohitophels counsel will be too hot at last for conscience; and sooner drive them to hang themselves in the review, than afford them any true content: As St. James saith to them that he calleth to weep and howl, for their approaching misery, Your Riches are corrupted, and your garments moth-eaten, your Gold and Silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire: ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. What ever you say or do against truth, and innocence, and justice, you do it against God himself. And is it not a sad case that among prof • ssed Christians, there is no cause so bad but can find an Advocate for a fee? I speak not against just counsel to a man that hath a bad cause (to tell him it is bad, and persuade him to disown it): Nor I speak not against you for pleading against excessive penalties or damages: For so far your cause is good, though the main cause of your Client was bad: But he that speaketh or counselleth another for the defense of sin, or the wronging of the innocent, or the defrauding another of his right, and will open his mouth to the injury of the just, for a little money, or for a friend, must try whether that money or friend will save him from the vengeance of the Universal Judge (unless faith and true repentance which will cause Confession and Restitution, do prevent it).

The Romans called them Thieves, that by fraud, or plea, or judgment got unlawful gain, and deprived others of their right.

Lampridius saith of Alexander Severus, Tanti eum stomachi fuisse in eos judices qui furtorum fama laborassent, etiamsi damnati non essent, ut si eos casu aliquo videret, commotione animi stomachi choleram evomeret, toto vultu inardescente, ita ut nihil posset loqui. And afterwards, Severissimus judex contra fures, appellans eosdem quotidianorum scelerum reos, & solos hosts inimi • osque reipublicae. Adding this instance, Eum notarium, qui falsum causae brevem in confilio imperatorio retulisset, incisis digitorum nervis, ita ut nunquam posset scribere, deportavit. And that he caused Turinus one of his Courtiers to be tied in the Market-place to a stake, and choked to death with smoke, for taking men's money on pretence of furthering their suits with the Emperor; Praecone dicente, Fumo punitur, qui vendidit fumum. He strictly prohibited buying of Offices, saying, Necesse est ut qui emit, vendat: Ego vero non patiar mercatores potestatum: quos si patiar, damnare non possum. The frowns or favor of man, or the love of money, will prove at last a poor defense against his Justice whom by injustice you offend.

The Poet could say,

But if men would first be just, it would not be so hard to bring them to do justly: Saith Plautus,

§. 6. Direct. 4. Make the cause of the innocent, as it were your own; and suffer it not to miscarry through your slothfulness and neglect. He is a lover of money more than justice, that will sweat in the cause of the Ri • h that pay him well, and will slubber over and starve the cause of the poor, because he getteth little by them. What ever your place obligeth you to do, let it be done diligently and with your might: both in your getting abilities, and in using them. Scaevola was wont to say, ( ut lib. Pandect. 42. tit. refer. ) [ Ius civile vigilantibus scriptum est non dormientibus ]. Saith Austin, [ Ignorantia judicis plerumque est calamitas innocentis. ] And as you look every Labourer that you hire should be laborious in your work, and your Physician should be diligent in his employment for your health; so is it as just that you be diligent for them whose cause you undertake, and where God who is the Lover of Justice doth require it.

§. 7. Direct. 5. Be acquainted with the temptations which most endanger you in your place, and go continually armed against them with the true remedies, and with Christian faith, and watchfulness and resolution. You will keep your innocence, and consequently your God, if you see to it that you love nothing better than that which you should keep. No man will chaffer away his commodity for anything which he judgeth to be worse and less useful to him. Know well how little friends or wealth will do for you in comparison of God, and you will not hear them when they speak against God, ( Luke 14. 26. 17. 33.) When one of his friends was importunate with P. Rutilius to do him an unjust courtesy, and angrily said, [ What use have I of thy friendship, if thou wilt not grant my request? ] he answered him, [ And what use have I of thy friendship, if for thy sake I must be urged to do unjustly ]? It is a grave saying of Plutarch, Pulchrum quidem est justitia regnum adipisci: pulchrum etiam regno justitiam anteponere: Nam virtus alterum ita illustrem reddidit, ut regno dignus judicaretur; alterum ita magnum ut id contemnerit. Plut. in Lycurg. & Numa. But specially remember who hath said, What shall it profit a man to win all the world, and lose his soul? And that Temptations surprise you not, be deliberate and take time, and be not too hasty in owning or opposing a cause or person, till you are well informed: As Seneca saith of Anger, so say I here, Dandum semper est tempus: Veritatem enim dies aperit. Potest poena dilata exigi; cum non potest exacta revocari. Its more than a shame to say, I was mistaken, when you have done another man wrong by your temerity.

CHAP. V. The Duty of Physicians.

NEither is it my purpose to give any occasion, to the learned men of this honorable profession, to say that I intermeddle in the mysteries or matters of their art. I shall only tell them, and that very briefly, what God and Conscience will expect from them.

§. 1. Direct. 1. Be sure that the saving of men's lives and health, be first and chiefly in your Intention, before any gain or honor of your own. I know you may lawfully have respect, both to your maintenance and honor: But in a second place only, as a far lesser good than the lives of men. If money be your Ultimate end, you debase your profession, which as exercised by you, can be no more to your honor or comfort, than your own intention carrieth it. It is more the End than the Means, that ennobleth or debaseth men: If gain be the thing which you chiefly seek, the matter is not very great (to you), whether you seek it by medicining men or beasts, or by lower means than either of them. To others indeed it may be a very great benefit, whose lives you have been a means to save; but to yourselves it will be no greater, than your intention maketh it. If the honoring and pleasing God, and the public good, and the saving of men's lives, be really first and highest in your desires, then it is God that you serve in your profession: Otherwise you do but serve yourselves. And take heed lest you here deceive yourselves, by thinking that the Good of others is your end, and dearer to you than your gain, because your Reason telleth you it is better, and ought to be preferred: For God and the public good are not every man's end, that can speak highly of them, and say they should be so. If most of the world do practically prefer their carnal prosperity even before their souls, while they speak of the World as disgracefully as others, and call it Vanity; how much more easily may you deceive yourselves, in preferring your gain before men's lives, while your tongue can speak contemptuously of gain.

§. 2. Direct. 2. Be ready to help the poor as well as the rich: Differencing them no further than the public good requireth you to do. Let not the health or lives of men be neglected, because they have no money to give you: Many poor people perish for want of means, because they are discouraged from going to Physicians, through the emptiness of their purses: In such a case you must not only help them gratis, but also appoint the cheapest Medicines for them.

§. 3. Direct. 3. Adventure not unnecessarily on things beyond your skill, but in difficult cases persuade your patients to use the help of abler Physicians, if there be any to be had, though it be against your own commodity. So far should you be from envying the greater esteem and practice of abler men, and from all unworthy aspersions or detraction, that you should do your best to persuade all your patients to seek their counsels, when ever the danger of their lives or health requireth it. For their Lives are of greater value than your gain. So abstruse and conjectural is the business of your profession, that it requireth very high accomplishments to be a Physician indeed! If there concur not, 1. A natural strength of Reason and sagacity, 2. And a great deal of study, reading, and acquaintance with the way of excellent men, 3. And considerable experience of your own, to ripen all this; you have cause to be very fearful and cautelous in your practice, lest you sacrifice men's lives to your ignorance and temerity. And one man that hath all these accomplishments, in a high degree, may do more good, than a hundred smatterers: And when you are conscious of a defect in any of these, should not reason and conscience command you, to persuade the sick, to seek out to those that are abler than yourselves? Should men's lives be hazarded, that you may get by it a little fordid gain? It is so great a doubt whether the ignorant inexperienced sort of Physicians, do cure or hurt more, that it hath brought the vulgar in many Countries, into a contempt of Physicians.

§. 4. Direct. 4. Depend on God for your direction and success. Earnestly crave his help and blessing in all your undertakings. Without this all your labor is in vain. How easy is it for you, to overlook some one thing, among a multitude that must be seen, about the Causes and Cure of diseases; unless God shall open it to you, and give you a clear discerning, and an universal observation? And when twenty considerable things are noted, a man's life may be lost, for want of your discerning one point more. What need have you of the help of God, to bring the fittest remedies to your memory? And much more to bless them when they are administered? as the experience of your daily practice may inform you (where Atheism hath not made men fools).

§. 5 Direct. 5. Let your continual observation of the fragility of the flesh, and of man's mortality, make you more spiritual than other men, and more industrious in preparing for the life to come, and greater contemners of the vanities of this world. He that is so frequently among the sick, and a spectator of the dead and dying, is utterly inexcusable if he be himself unprepared, for his sickness or for death. If the heart be not made better, when you almost dwell in the house of mourning, it is a bad and deplorate heart indeed. It is strange that Physicians should be so much suspected of Atheism as commonly they are; and Religio medici should be a word that signifieth irreligiousness: Sure this conceit was taken up in some more irreligious Age or Country: For I have oft been very thankful to God, in observing the contrary, even how many excellent pious Physicians there have been in most Countries where the purity of Religion hath appeared, and how much they promoted the work of Reformation, (such as Crato, Platerus, Erastus, and abundance more that I might name): And in this Land and Age, I must needs bear witness, that I have known as many Physicians Religious proportionably as of any one profession, except the Preachers of the Gospel. But as no men are more desperately wicked, than those that are wicked after pious education, and under the most powerful means of their reformation; so it is very like that those Physicians that are not truly good are very bad; because they are bad against so much light, and so many warnings: And from some of these it's like this censorious Proverb came. And indeed man's nature is so apt to be affected with things that are unusual, and to lose all sense of things that are grown common, that no men have more need to watch their hearts, and be afraid of being hardened, than those that are continually under the most quickening helps and warnings. For it is very easy to grow customary and senseless under them; and then the danger is, that there are no better means remaining, to quicken such a stupid hardened heart. Whereas those that enjoy such helps but seldom, are not so apt to lose the sense and benefit of them. The sight of a sick or dying man, doth usually much awaken those that have such sights but seldom: But who are more hardened than Soldiers and Sea men, that live continually as among the dead? when they have twice or thrice seen the fields covered with men's Carkasses, they usually grow more obdurate than any others. And this is it that Physicians are in danger of, and should most carefully avoid. But certainly an Atheistical or ungodly Physician, is unexcusably blind. To say, as some do, that they study nature so much, that they are carried away from God; is as if you should say, [They study the work so much, that they forget the workman;] or [They look so much on the Book, that they overlook the sense;] or that [They study medicine so much, that they forget both the patient and his health.] To look into Nature and not see God, is as to see the creatures, and not the light by which we see them; or to see Trees and Houses, and not to see the Earth that beareth them. For God is the Creating, Conserving, Dirigent, Final Cause of all. Of him and Through him and To him are all things: He is All in all. And if they know not that they are the subjects of this God, and have immortal souls, they are ill proficience in the study of Nature, that know no better the nature of man. To boast of their acquisitions in other Sciences, while they know not what a Man is, nor what they are themselves, is little to the honor of their understandings. You that live still as in the fight of death, should live as in the sight of another world, and excel others in spiritual wisdom and holiness and sobriety, as your advantages by these quickening helps excel.

§. 6. Direct. 6. Exercise your Compassion and Charity to men's souls, as well as to their Bodies; and speak to your patients, such words as tend to prepare them for their change. You have excellent opportunities, if you have hearts to take them. If ever men will hear, it is when they are sick; and if ever they will be humbled and serious, it is when the approach of death constraineth them. They will hear that counsel now with patience, which they would have despised in their health. A few serious words about the danger of an unregenerate state, and the necessity of holiness▪ and the use of a Savior, and the everlasting state of Souls, for ought you know, may be blest to their conversion and salvation. And it is much more comfortable for you to save a soul, than to cure the body. Think not to excuse yourselves by saying, It is the Pastors duty: For though it be theirs ex officio, it is yours also, ex charitate. Charity bindeth every man, as he hath opportunity to do good to all; and especially the greatest good. And God giveth you opportunity, by casting them in your way: The Priest and Levite that past by the wounded man, were more to be blamed for not relieving him, than those that never went that way, and therefore saw him not, Luk. 10. 32. And many a man will send for the Physician, that will not send for the Pastor: And many a one will hear a Physician that will despise the Pastor. As they reverence their Landlords, because they hold their estates from them, so do they the Physician because they think they can do much to save their lives. And, alas, in too many places the Pastors either mind not such work, or are insufficient for it; or else stand at ods and distance from the people: so that there is but too much need of your charitable help. Remember therefore that he that converteth a sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins, Jam. 5. 20. Remember that you are to speak to one that is going into another world, and that must be saved now or never! And that all that ever must be done for his salvation must be presently done, or it will be too late. Pity human nature, and harden not your hearts against a man in his extreme necessity. O speak a few serious words for his Conversion (if he be one that needs them) before his soul be past your help, in the world from which there is no return.

CHAP. VI. Directions to School-masters, about their duty for Children's souls.

PAssing by all your Grammatical employment, I shall only leave you these brief Directions, for the higher and more noble exercises of your Profession.

§. 1. Direct. 1. Determine first rightly of your End; and then let it be continually in your eye, and let all your endeavors be directed in order to the attainment of it. If your end be chiefly your own commodity or reputation, the means will be distorted accordingly, and your labors perverted, and your calling corrupted, and embased (to yourselves, ) by your perverse intentions. See therefore, 1. That your ultimate end, be the pleasing and Glorifying of God; 2. And this by promoting the Public good, by fitting youth for public service; And 3. Forming their minds to the Love and Service of their Maker; 4. And furthering their salvation, and their welfare in the World. These noble designs will lift up your minds, to an industrious and cheerful performance of your duties! He that seeketh great and heavenly things, will do it with great resolution and alacrity! When any drowsy creeping pace, and deceitful superficial labors, will satisfy him that hath poor and selfish ends. As God will not accept your labors as any service of his, if your ends be wrong, so he useth not to give so large a blessing, to such men's labors as to others.

§. 2. Direct. 2. Understand the excellency of your calling, and what fair opportunities you have to promote those noble ends; and also how great a charge you undertake; that so you may be kept from sloth and superficialness, and may be quickened to a diligent discharge of your undertaken trust. 1. You have not a charge of Sheep or Oxen, but of rational creatures. 2. You have not the care of their bodies, but of their minds: You are not to teach them a trade to live by only in the world, but to inform their minds with the knowledge of their Maker, and to cultivate their wits, and advance their reason, and fit them for the most manlike conversations. 3. You have them not (as Pastors) when they are hardened in sin by prejudice and long custom; but you have the tenderest twigs to bow, and the most tractable ductile age to tame: you have paper to write on, (not wholly white, but that) which hath the fewest blots and lines to be expunged. 4. You have them not as volunteers, but as obliged to obey you, and under the correction of the rod; which with tender age is a great advantage. 5. You have them not only for your auditors in a general Lecture (as Preachers have them at a Sermon): but in your nearest converse, where you may teach them as particularly as you please, and examine their profiting, and call them daily to account. 6. You have them not once a week (as Preachers have them) but all the week long, from day today, and from morning until night. 7. You have them at that age, which doth believe their teachers, and take all upon trust, before they are grown up to self-conceitedness, and to contradict and quarrel with their Teachers (as with their Pastors they very ordinarily do). All these are great advantages to your ends.

§. 3. Direct. 3. Labor to take pleasure in your work, and make it as a recreation, and take heed of a weary or diverted mind. 1. To this end consider often of what is said above; Think on the excellency of your ends, and of the worth of souls, and of the greatness of your advantages. 2. Take all your Scholars as committed to your charge by Jesus Christ: As if he had said to you; Take these whom I have so dearly bought, and train them up for my Church and Service. 3. Remember what good one Scholar may do, when he cometh to be ripe for the service of the Church or Common-wealth! How many souls some of them may be a means to save. Or if they be but fitted for a private life, what blessings they may be to their Families and Neighbors! And remember what a joyful thing it will be, to see them in Heaven with Christ forever! How cheerfully should such excellent things be sought? If you take pleasure in your work, it will not only be an ease and happiness to yourselves, but greatly further your diligence and success. But when men have a base esteem of their employment, and look at Children as so many Swine or Sheep, or have some higher matters in their eye, and make their Schools but the way to some preferment, or more desired life, then usually they do their work deceitfully, and anything will serve the turn, because they are aweary of it, and because their hearts are somewhere else.

§. 4. Direct. 4. Seeing it is Divinity that teacheth them the Beginning, and the End of all their other studies, let it never be omitted nor lightly slubbered over, and thrust into a corner: but give it the precedency, and teach it them with greater care and diligence, than any other part of learning: Especially teach them the Catechism and the Holy Scriptures. If you think that this is no part of your work, few wise men will choose such Teachers for their Children. If you say as some Sectaries, that Children should not be taught to speak holy words, till they •• e more capable to understand the sense, because it is hypocrisy, or taking the Name of God in vain; I have answered this before; and shown that words being the signs, must be learned in order to the understanding of the sense, or thing that is signified: and that this is not to use such words in vain, how holy soever, but to the proper end for which they are appointed. Both in Divine and human learning, the Memories of Children must first be furnished in order to the furnishing of their understandings afterwards. And this is a chief point of the Masters skill, that Time be not lost, nor Labor frustrated. For the memories of Children are as capacious as men's of riper age; and therefore they should be stored early, with that which will be useful to them afterwards: but till they come to some maturity of age, their judgments are not ripe for information, about any high or difficult points. Therefore teach them betimes the words of Catechisms, and some Chapters of the Bible; and teach them the meaning by degrees as they are capable. And make them perceive that you take this for the best of all their learning.

§. 5. Direct. 5. Besides the forms of Catechism, which you teach them, speak often to them some serious words, about their souls and the life to come in such a plain familiar manner as tendeth most to the awakening of their Consciences, and making them perceive how greatly what you say concerneth them. A little such familiar serious discourse, in an interlocutory way, may go to their hearts, and never be forgotten; when mere forms alone are lifeless and unprofitable. Abundance of good might be done on Children, if Parents and Schoolmasters did well perform their parts in this.

§. 6. Direct. 6. Take strict account of their spending the Lord's day! How they hear, and what they remember; and how they spend the rest of the day. For the right spending of that day, is of great importance to their souls! And a custom of play and idleness on that day, doth usually debauch them, and prepare them for much worse. Though they are from under your eye on the Lord's day, yet if on Monday they be called to account, it will leave an awe upon them in your absence.

§. 7. Direct. 7. Pray with them and for them. If God give not the increase by the dews of Heaven, and shine not on your labors, your planting and watering will be all in vain. Therefore prayer is as suitable a means as Teaching, to do them good; and they must go together. He that hath a heart to pray earnestly for his Scholars, shall certainly have himself most comfort in his labors; and it is likely that he shall do most good to them.

§. 8. Direct. 8. Watch over them by one another when they are behind your backs, at their sports or converse with each other. For it is abundance of wickedness that Children use to learn and practice which never cometh to their Masters ears: especially in some great and public Schools. They that came thither to learn sobriety and piety of their Masters, do oftentimes learn, profaneness, and ribaldry, and cursing, and swearing, and scorning, deriding and reviling one another, of their ungracious School-fellows. And those lessons are so easily learnt, that there are few Children but are infected with some such debauchery, though their Parents and Masters watch against it; and perhaps it never cometh to their knowledge. So also for gameing, and robbing Orchards, and fighting with one another, and reading Play-books and Romances, and lying, and abundance other vices which must be carefully watched against.

§. 9. Direct. 9. Correct them more sharply for sins against God, than for their dullness and failing at their books. Though negligence in their learning is not to be indulged, yet smart should teach them, especially to take heed of sinning: that they may understand that sin is the greatest evil.

§. 10. Direct. 10. Especially curb or cashier the leaders of impiety and rebellion, who corrupt the rest. There are few great Schools but have some that are notoriously debauched; that glory in their wickedness; that in filthy talking, and fighting, and cursing and reviling words, are the infecters of the rest: And usually they are some of the bigger sort, that are the greatest fighters, and master the rest, and by domineering over them and abusing them, force them both to follow them in their sin, and to conceal it. The correcting of such, or expelling them if incorrigible, is of great necessity to preserve the rest: For if they are suffered, the rest will be secretly infected and undone, before the Master is aware. This causeth many that have a care of their Children's souls, to be very fearful of sending them to great and public Schools, and rather choose private Schools that are freer from that danger: It being almost of as great concernment to Children, what their companions be, as what their Master is.

CHAP. VII. Directions for Soldiers, about their duty in point of Conscience.

THough it is likely that few Soldiers will read what I shall write for them, yet for the sake of those few that will, I will do as John the Baptist did, and give them some few necessary Directions, and not omit them as some do, as if they were a hopeless sort of men.

§. 1. Direct. 1. Be careful to make your peace with God, and live in a continual readiness to die. This being the great duty of every rational man, you cannot deny it to be especially yours, whose calling setteth you so frequently in the face of death. Though some Garrison Soldiers are so seldom if ever put to fight, that they live more securely than most other men, yet a Soldier as such being by his place engaged to fight, I must fit my Directions to the ordinary condition and expectation of men in that employment. It is a most irrational and worse than beastly negligence, for any man to live carelessly in an unpreparedness for death, considering how certain it is, and how uncertain the time, and how inconceivably great is the change which it inferreth: But for a Soldier to be unready to die, who hath such special reason to expect it, and who listeth himself into a state which is so near it, this is to live and fight like beasts, and to be Soldiers before you understand what it is to be a Christian or a Man. First therefore make sure that your souls are regenerate and reconciled unto God by Christ, and that when you die you have a part in Heaven; and that you are not yet in the state of sin and nature: An unrenewed unsanctified soul is sure to go to Hell, by what death or in what cause soever he dieth. If such a man be a Soldier, he must be a coward or a mad man: If he will run upon death, when he knoweth not whither it will send him, yea when Hell is certainly the next step, he is worse than mad: But if he know and consider the terribleness of such a change, it must needs make him tremble when he thinks of dying. He can be no good Soldier that dare not die: And who can expect that he should dare to die, who must be damned when he dieth? Reason may command a man to venture upon death; but no reason will allow him to venture upon Hell. I never knew but two sorts of valiant Soldiers: The one was Boys and brutish ignorant sots, who had no sense of the concernments of their souls: and the other (who only were truly valiant) were those that had made such preparations for Eternity, as at least persuaded them that it should go well with them when they died. And many a debauched Soldier I have known, whose Conscience hath made them Cowards and shift or run away when they should venture upon death, because they knew they were unready to die, and were more afraid of Hell than of the Enemy. He that is fit to be a Martyr, is the fittest man to be a Soldier: He that is regenerate, and hath laid up his treasure and his hopes in Heaven, and so hath overcome the fears of death, may be bold as a Lyon, and ready for anything, and fearless in the greatest perils. For what should he fear, who hath escaped Hell, and God's displeasure, and hath conquered the King of terrors? But fear is the duty and most rational temper of a guilty soul; and the more fearless such are, the more foolish and more miserable.

§. 2. Direct. 2. Be sure you have a warrantable Cause and Call. In a bad cause it is a dreadful thing to conquer or to be conquered: If you conquer you are a murderer of all that you kill: If you are conquered and die in the prosecution of your sin, I need not tell you what you may expect. I know we are here upon a difficulty which must be tenderly handled: If we make the sovereign power to be the absolute and only Judge, whether the Soldiers cause and call be good; then it would follow, that it is the duty of all the Christian subjects of the Turk, to fight against Christianity as such, and to destroy all Christians when the Turk commandeth it: And that all the subjects of other Lands, are bound to invade this or other such Christian Kingdoms, and destroy their Kings, when ever their Popish, or malicious Princes or States shall command them: which being intolerable consequences, prove the Antecedent to be intolerable. And yet on the other side, if subjects must be the Judges of their cause and call, the Prince shall not be served nor the common good secured, till the interest of the Subjects will allow them to discern the goodness of the cause. Between these two intolerable consequents, it is hard to meet with a just discovery of the mean: Most run into one of the extremes, which they take to be the less, and think that there is no other avoiding of the other. The grand errors in this and an hundred like cases, come from not distinguishing aright the case de esse, from the case de apparere, or cognoscere, and not first determining the former, as it ought, before the latter be determined. Either the cause which Subjects are commanded to fight in, is really lawful to them, or it is not. (Say not here importunely, who shall judge? For we are now but upon the question de esse. ) If it be not lawful in itself, but be mere robbery or murder, then come to the case of Evidence; Either this evil is to the subject discernible by just means, or not: If it be, I am not able for my part to justify him from the sin if he do it, no more than to have justified the three witnesses, Dan. 3. if they had bowed down to the golden Calf, or Daniel 6. if he had forborne prayer, or the Apostles if they had forborne preaching, or the Soldiers for apprehending and crucifying Christ, when their Superiors commanded them. For God is first to be obeyed and feared. But if the evil of the Cause be such as the Subject cannot by just and ordinary means discern, then must he come next to examine his Call: And a Volunteer unnecessarily he may not be in a doubtful cause: It is so heinous a sin to murder men, that no man should unnecessarily venture upon that which may prove to be murder for ought he knoweth. But if you ask what Call may make such a doubtful action necessary, I answer, It must be such as warranteth it, either from the End of the action, or from the Authority of the Commander, or both. And from the end of the action, the case may be made clear, that if a King should do wrong to a foreign enemy, and should have the worse cause, yet if the revenge which that enemy seeketh would be the destruction of the King, and Country, or Religion, it is lawful and a duty to fight in the desence of them. And if the King should be the assailant, or beginner, that which is an Offensive War in him (for which he himself must answer) may be but a Defensive War in the commanded Subjects, and they be innocent: Even on the Highway, if I see a stranger provoke another by giving him the first blow, yet I may be bound to save his life from the fury of the avenging party. But whether or how far the bare Command of a sovereign may warrant the subjects to venture in a doubtful cause, (supposing the thing lawful in itself, though they are doubtful) requireth so much to be said to it, which Civil Governors may possibly think me too bold to meddle with, that I think it safest to pass it by; only saying, that there are some cases in which the Ruler is the only Competent Judge, and the doubts of the subject are so unreasonable, that they will not excuse the sin of his disobedience: and also that the degree of the doubt is oft very considerable in the case. But suppose the cause of the War be really lawful in itself, and yet the subject is in doubt of it, yea, or thinketh otherwise; then is he in the case as other erroneous consciences are, that is, entangled in a necessity of sinning till he be undeceived, in case his Rulers command his service. But which would be the greater sin, to do it or not, the Ends and circumstances may do much to determine: But doubtless in true Necessity to save the King and State, subjects may be compelled to fight in a just cause, notwithstanding that they mistake it for unjust: And if the subject have a private discerning judgment, so far as he is a voluntary agent, yet the Sovereign hath a public determining judgment, when a neglecter is to be forced to his duty. Even as a man that thinketh it unlawful to maintain his Wife and Children, may be compelled lawfully to do it.

So that it is apparent that sometime the Sovereigns cause may be good, and yet an erroneous conscience may make the Soldiers cause bad if they are Volunteers, who run unnecessarily upon that which they take for robbery and murder; and yet that the Higher Powers may force even such mistakers to defend their Country and their Governors, in a case of true necessity: And it is manifest that sometimes the Cause of the Ruler may be bad, and yet the cause of the Soldier good: And that sometimes the cause may be bad and sinful to them both; and sometime good and lawful unto both.

§. 3. Direct. 3. When you are doubtful whether your Cause and Call be good, it is (ordinarily) safest to sit still, and not to venture in so dangerous a case, without great deliberation and sufficient evidence to satisfy your consciences. Neander might well say of Solons Law, which punished them that took not one part or other in a Civil War or Sedition, Admirabilis autem illa atque plane incredibilis, quae honoribus abdicat eum, qui orta seditione nullam factionem secutus sit. No doubt, he is a culpable▪ Neuter that will not defend his Governors and his Country when he hath a call: But it is so dreadful a thing to be guilty of the blood and calamities of an unjust War, that a wise man will rather be abused as a Neuter, than run himself into the danger of such • case.

§. 4. Direct. 4. When Necessity forceth you to go forth in a just War, do it with such humiliation and unwillingness as beseemeth one that is a Patient, a Spectator and an Actor, in one of the sorest of God's temporal judgments. Go not to kill men as if you went to a Cock-fight, or a Bear-baiting: Make not a sport of a common calamity: Be not insensible of the displeasure of God, expressed in so great a judgment. What a sad condition is it to yourselves, to be employed in destroying others: If they be good, how sad a thought is it, that you must kill them? If they are wicked, how sad is it that by killing them, you cut off all their hopes of mercy, and send them suddenly to Hell? How sad an employment is it, to spoil and undo the poor inhabitants where you come? To cast them into terrors, to deprive them of them of that which they have long been laboring for? To prepare for famine, and be like a consuming pestilence where you come? Were it but to see such desolations, it should melt you into compassion; much more to be the executioners yourselves: How unsuitable a work is it to the grace of Love. Though I doubt not but it is a service, which the Love of God, our Country and our Rulers may sometimes justify and command, yet (as to the Rulers, and Masters of the business) it must be a very clear and great necessity that can warrant a War: And, as to the Soldiers, they must needs go with great regret, to kill men by thousands whom they Love as themselves. He that Loveth his neighbor as himself, and blesseth and doeth good to his persecuting enemy▪ will take it heavily to be employed in killing him, even when necessity maketh it his duty. But the greatest calamity of War is the perniciousness of it to men's souls: Armies are commonly that to the soul, as a City infected with the Plague is to the body: The very Nurseries and Academies of pride, and cruelty, and drunkenness, and whoredom, and robbery, and licentiousness; and the bane of Piety and common Civility and Humanity. Not that every Soldier cometh to this pass: the hottest Pestilence killeth not all: But O how hard is it to keep up a life of faith and godliness, in an Army? The greatness of their business and of their fears and cares, doth so wholly take up their minds and talk, that there is scarce any room found for the matters of their souls, though unspeakably greater. They have seldom leisure to hear a Sermon, and less to pray: The Lord's Day is usually taken up in matters that concern the lives, and therefore can pretend necessity: So that it must be a very resolute, confirmed, vigilant person, that is not alienated from God. And then it is a course of life, which giveth great opportunity to the Tempter, and advantage to temptations, both to errors in judgment, and vitiousness of heart and life: He that never tried it can hardly conceive how difficult it is to keep up piety and innocence in an Army. If you will suppose that there is no difference in the Cause, or the Ends and Accidents; I take it to be much more desirable to serve God in a Prison than in an Army; and that the condition of a Prisoner hath far less in it to tempt the foolish or to afflict the wise, than a military. (Excepting those whose life in Garrisons and lingering Wars, doth little differ from a state of peace.) I am not simply against the lawfulness of War (Nor as I conceive, Erasmus himself, though he saw the sinfulness of that sort of men; and use to speak truly of the horrid wickedness and misery of them, that thirst for blood, or rush on Wars without necessity.) But it must be a very extraordinary Army, that is not constituted of Wolves and Tigers; and is not unto common honesty and piety, the same that a Stews or Whore-house is to chastity. And O how much sweeter is the work of an honest Physician that saveth men's lives, than of a Soldier, whose virtue is shown in destroying them? Or a Carpenters or Masons that adorneth Cities with comely buildings, than a Soldiers that consumeth them by fire!

§. 5. Direct. 5. Be sure first that your cause be better than your lives, and then resolve to venture your lives for them: It is the hazarding of your Lives, which in your Calling you undertake: And therefore be not unprepared for it; but reckon upon the worst, and be ready to undergo what ever you undertake. A Soldiers life is unfit for one that dare not die. A Coward is one of the most pernicious murderers: He verifieth Christ's saying in another sense, He that saveth his life shall lose it. While men stand to it, it is usually but few that die; because they quickly daunt the enemy, and keep him on the defensive part: But when once they rowt and run away, they are slain on heaps, and fall like leaves in a windy Autumn. Every Coward that pursueth them is emboldened by their fear; and dare run them through, or shoot them behind, that durst not so near have looked them in the face, and maketh it his sport to kill a fugitive, or one that layeth down his weapons, that would fly himself from a daring presence. Your cowardly fear betrayeth the cause of your King and Country: It betrayeth the lives of your fellow Soldiers: while the running of a few affrighted dastards lets in ruin upon all the rest: And it casteth away your own lives which you think to save. If you will be Soldiers, resolve to conquer or to die. It is not so much skill or strength that conquereth, as boldness: It is Fear that loseth the day, and fearlesness that winneth it. The Army that standeth to it, getteth the Victory, though they fight never so weakly: For if you will not run, the enemy will. And if the lives of a few be lost by courage, it usually saveth the lives of many: (Though wisdom still is needful in the Conduct:) And if the cause be not worth your lives, you should not meddle with it.

§. 6. Direct▪ 6. Resolve upon an absolute obedience to your Commanders, in all things consistent with your obedience to God and the Sovereign power. Disobedience is nowhere more intolerable than in an Army: Where it is often unfit for a Soldier to know the reason of his commands; and where self-conceitedness and willfulness is inconsistent with their common safety, and the lives of many may pay for the disobedience of a few. If you cannot obey, undertake not to be Soldiers.

§. 7. Direct. 7. Especially detest all murmurings, mutinies, sidings and rebellions. For these are to an Army like violent Feavors to the body, or like a Fire in a City; and would make an Army the greatest plague to their King and Country. How many Emperors, Kings and Commanders, have lost their dignities and lives, by the fury of mutinous enraged Soldiers: And how many Kingdoms and other Common-wealths have been thus overthrown and betrayed into the enemies hands? And how many thousands and millions of Soldiers have thereby lost their lives? In your discontents and murmuring passions, you may quickly set the house on fire over your heads, and when you feel your misery repent too late. Passion may begin that which fruitless penitence must end. The leaders of mutinies may easily have many fair pretences to enflame an Army into discontents: They may aggravate many seeming injuries: they may represent their Commanders as odious and unworthy, by putting an ill appearance on their actions: But in the end it will appear, that it was their own advancement which they secretly aimed at, and the destruction of the present Government, or the Soldiers ruin which is like to be the effect. A mutinous Army is likest Hell of anything I know among God's creatures; and next Hell, there is scarce a worse place for their Commanders to be in.

§. 8. Direct. 8. Use not your power or liberty to the robbing, or oppressing or injuring of any. Though military Thieves and oppressors may scape the Gallows, more than others; they shall come as soon to Hell as any. If you plunder, and spoil, and tyrannize over the poor people, under pretence o • supplying your own wants, there is a God in Heaven that will hear their cries, and will avenge them speedily, though you seem to go scot-free for a time. You may take a pride in domineering over others, and making yourselves Lord's by violence of other men's estates, and when you see none that will question you for it, you may take that which you have most mind of: But the poor and oppressed have a just defender, who hath a severer punishment for you than the Sword or Gallows! And though he take you not in the very fact, and his sentence is not presently executed, yet be certain of it, that your day is coming.

§. 9. Direct. 9. Take heed lest custom, and the frequency of God's judgments, do harden your hearts into a reprobate stupidity. Many a man that formerly by the sight of a Corpse, or the groanings of the sick, was awakened to serious thoughts of his latter end, when he cometh into an Army, and hath often seen the dead lie scattered on the earth, and hath often scaped death himself, groweth utterly senseless, and taketh blockishness to be valor, and custom maketh such warnings to be of no effect. You can scarce name a more strange and lamentable proof, of the madding and hardening nature of sin! That men should be most senseless when they are in the greatest danger! And least fear God, when they are among his dreadfullest judgments! And least hear his voice, when his calls are loudest! And live as if they should not die, when they look death so often in the face, and see so many dead before them! That they should be most regardless of their endless life when they are nearest it; and sense itself hath such notable advantage to tell them of all this! What a monstrous kind of sottish stupidity is this? Think whither the soul is gone when you see the carcass on the earth: and think where your own must be forever▪

§. 10. Direct. 10. Take heed of falling into drunkenness and sensuality, though Temptations and Liberty be never so great. It is too common with Soldiers, because they are oft put to thirst and wants, to think they may lawfully pour it in when they come at it, without moderation or restraint: Even as many poor men take a gluttonous meal for no sin, because they have so many days of hunger; so is it with such Soldiers in their drink: till drunkenness first have wounded their consciences, and afterwards grow common till it have debauched and seared them; and then they have drowned Religion and Reason, and are turned sottish miserable brutes.

§. 11. Direct. 11. If necessity deprive you of the benefits of God's public or stated Worship, see that you labor to repair that loss, by double diligence in those spiritual duties, which yet you have opportunity for. If you must march or watch on the Lord's Days, redeem your other time the more: If you cannot hear Sermons, be not without some profitable Book, and often read it: And let your meditations be holy, and your discourses edifying: For these you have opportunities, if you have hearts.

§. 12. Direct. 12. Take heed that Command or Successes do not puff you up; and make you overvalue yourselves, and ineline you to rebel against your Governors. What lamentable effects hath England lately seen of this! A silly half-witted Soldier, if he be but made a Captain, doth carry it as if he were wiser than the Preacher or the Judge! As if his dignity had added to his wit! When Victories have laid the power at men's feet, and they think now that none is able to control them, how few are they that abuse not such success to their own undoing, and are not conquered by the pride of their own hearts, when they have conquered others? How ordinarily do they mis-expound the Providence of God, and think he hath put the Government into their hands, because they have the strength; and from the Histories of former successful Rebels, and the fairness of their opportunity encourage themselves to Rebell, and think they do but whats their duty? How easily do they justify themselves in those unlawful deeds, which impartial by-standers see the evil of? And how easily do they quiet their consciences, when they have but power enough to raise up flatterers, and to stop the mouth of wholesome reprehension? How lamentably doth prosperity make them drunk, and sudden advancement overturn their brains! and their greatness together with there pride and fury, preserveth them from the accesses of wisdom and of sober men, that so their malady may have no remedy: And there like a drunken man, they rave a while, and speak big words, and lay about them, and glory in the honor of a pestilence, that they can kill men; and we must not speak to them till their heads are settled and they come to themselves; and that is not usually till the hand of God have laid them lower than it found them; and then perhaps they will again hear reason; unless pride hath left their souls as desperate, as at last it doth their bodies or estates. The experience of this Age may stand on record as a teacher to future generations, what power there is in great successes, to conquer both Reason, Religion, Righteousness, Professions, Vows and all obligations to God and man, by puffing up the heart with pride, and thereby making the understanding drunken.

CHAP. VIII. Advice against Murder.

§. 1. THough Murder be a sin which human nature and interest do so powerfully rise up against that one would think besides the Laws of Nature, and the fear of temporal punishment, there should need no other argument against it; And though it be a sin which is not frequently committed, except by Soldiers, yet because man's corrupted heart is liable to it, and because one sin of such a heinous nature, may be more mischievous than many small infirmities, I shall not wholly pass by this sin, which falls in order here before me. I shall give men no other advice against it, than only to open to them, 1. The Causes, and 2. The Greatness, and 3. The Consequents of the sin.

§. 2. I. The Causes of Murder are either the Neerest, or the more radical and remote. The opening of the Neerest sort of Causes, will be but to tell you, how many ways of murdering the World is used to! And when you know the Cause, the contrary to it is the prevention: Avoid those Causes and you avoid the sin.

§. 3. 1. The greatest Cause of the cruellest murders, is unlawful wars: All that a man killeth in an unlawful war, he murdereth: And all that the Army killeth, he that setteth them a work by Command or Counsel is guilty of himself. And therefore how dreadful a thing is an unrighteous war? and how much have men need to look about them, and try every other lawful way, and suffer long, before they venture upon war. It is the skill and glory of a Soldier when he can kill more than other men. He studyeth it; he maketh it the matter of his greatest care and valous and endeavor: He goeth through very great difficulties to accomplish it: This is not like a sudden or involuntary act. Thieves and Robbers kill single persons; but Soldiers murder thousands at a time: And because there is none at present to judge them for it, they wash their hands as if they were innocent, and sleep as quietly as if the avenger of blood would never come. O what Devils are those Counsellers and inc • nd • ries to Princes and States, who stir them up to unlawful wars!

§. 4. 2. Another Cause and way of Murder, is by the Pride and tyranny of men in power. When they do it easily, because they can do it. When their Will and Interest is their Rule, and their Passion seemeth a sufficient warrant for their injustice. It is not only Nero 's, Tiberius 's, Domitian 's, &c. that are guilty of this crying crime; but O what man that careth for his soul, had not rather be tormented a thousand years, than have the blood-guiltiness of a famous applauded Alexander, or Caesar, or Tamerlane, to answer for! So dangerous a thing it is to have Power to do mischief, that Uriah may fall by a David's guilt, and Crispus may be killed by his father Const • mine. O what abundance of horrid murders do the histories of almost all Empires and Kingdoms of the World afford us! The maps of the affairs of Greeks and Romans, of Tartariuns, Turks, Russians, Germans, of Heathens and Infidels, of Papists, and too many Protestants are drawn out with too many purple lines, and their Histories written in letters of blood. What write the Christians of the Infidels, the Orthodox of the Arians, (Romans or Goths or Vandals) or the most impartial Historians of the mock Catholics of Rome, but Blood, Blood, Blood. How proudly and loftily doth a Tyrant look, when he telleth the oppressed innocent that displeaseth him, Sirra, I will make you know my power! Take him; Imprison him, Rack him; Hang him! Or as Pilate to Christ, Joh. 9. 10. Knowest thou not that I have power to Crucify thee, and have power to release • he? I will make you know that your life is in my hand: Heat the Furnace seven times horter, Dan. 3. Alas poor worm! Hast thou power to kill? So hath a Toad or Adder or mad D • gg or pestilence, when God permitteth it. Hast thou power to kill? But hast thou also power to keep thyself alive? and to keep thy Corpse from rottenness and dust? and to keep thy soul from paying for it in Hell? or to keep thy Conscience for worrying thee for it, to all Eternity? With how trembling a heart, and ghastly look wilt thou at last hear of this, which now thou gloriest in. The bones and dust of the oppressed Innocents, will be as great and honorable as thine: And their souls perhaps in rest and joy, when thine is tormented by infernal furies. When thou art in Nebuchad • ezzara glory, what a mercy were it to thee, if thou mightest be turned out among the beasts to prevent thy being turned out among the Devils. If killing and destroying be the glory of thy greatness, the Devils are more honorable than thou: And as thou agreest with them in thy work and glory, so shalt thou in the reward.

§. 4. 3. Another most heinous Cause of Murders, is a malignant enmity against the Godly, and a persecuting destructive Zeal. What a multitude of innocents hath this consumed! and what innumerable companies of holy souls are still crying for vengeance on these persecutors? The Enmity began immediately upon the fall, between the Woman's and the Serpents seed: It shown itself presently in the two first men, that were born into the World. A malignant envy against the accepted Sacrifice of Abel, was able to make his Brother to be his Murderer. And it is usual with the Devil to cast some bone of carnal interest also between them, to heighten the malignant enmity. Wicked men are all Covetous, voluptuous and proud: And the doctrine and practice of the Godly doth contradict them and condemn them: And they usually espouse some wicked interest, or engage themselves in some service of the Devil, which the servants of Christ are bound in their several places and callings to resist. And then not only this resistance, though it be but by the humblest words or actions, yea the very conceit that they are not for their interest and way, doth instigate the befooled world to persecution! And thus an Ishmael and an Isaac, an Esau and a Jacob, a Saul and a David cannot live together in peace. Gal. 4. 29. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even so it is now. Saul's interest maketh him think it just to persecute David; and religiously he blesseth those that furthered him! 1 Sam. 23. 21. Blessed be ye of the Lord, for ye have compassion on me. He justifieth himself in murdering the Priests, because he thought that they helped David against him; and Doeg seemeth but a dutiful subject, in executing his bloody command, 1 Sam. 22. And Shimei thought he might boldly curse him, 2 Sam. 16. 7, 8. And he could scarce have charged him with more odious sin, than to be [ a bloody man and a man of Belial.] If the Prophet speak against Jereboam's political Religion, he will say, Lay hold on him! 1 King. 13. 4. Even Asa will be raging wrathful, and imprison the Prophet that reprehendeth his sin, 2 Chron. 16. 10. Ahab will feed Michaiah in a Prison with the Bread and Water of affliction if he contradict him, 1 King. 22. 27. And even Jerusalem killed the Prophets, and stoned them which were sent to gather them under the gracious wing of Christ, Matth. 23. 37. Which of the Prophets did they not persecute? Act. 7. 52. And if you consider but what streams of blood since the death of Christ and his Apostles have been shed for the sake of Christ and righteousness, it will make you wonder, that so much cruelty can consist with humanity, and men and Devils should be so like! The same man, as Paul, as soon as he ceaseth to shed the blood of others, must look in the same way to lose his own. How many thousands were murdered by Heathen Rome, in the ten persecutions? And how many by the Arian Emperors and Kings! And how many by more Orthodox Princes in their particular distastes! And yet how far hath the pretended Vicar of Christ out-done them all! How many hundred thousands of the Albigenses, Waldenses and Bohemians hath the Papal rage consumed? Two hundred thousand the Irish murdered in a little space: 〈…〉 o outgo, the thirty or forty thousand which the French Massacre made an end of! The sacrifices offered by their fury in the flames, in the Marian persecution here in England, were nothing to what one day hath done in other parts. What Volumes can contain the particular Histories of them? what a Shambles was their Inquisition in the Low-Countries? and what is the employment of it still! so that a doubting man would be inclined to think, that Papal Rome is the murderous Babylon, that doth but consider, how drunken she is with the blood of the Saints and the Martyrs of Jesus, and that the blood of Saints will be found in her in her day of trial? Rev. 17. 6. & 18. 24. If we should look over all the rest of the World, and reckon up the the torments and murders of the innocent, (in Iapan, and most parts of the World, where ever Christianity came) it may increase your wonder, that Devils and men are still so like! Yea though there be as loud a testimony in human nature against this bloodiness as almost any sin whatsoever; and though the names of persecutors always stink to following Generations, how proudly soever they carried it for a time; and though one would think a persecutor should need no cure but his own pride, that his name may not be left as Pilate's in the Creed, to be odious in the mouths of the Ages that come after him; Yet for all this, so deep is the Enmity, so potent is the Devil; so blinding a thing is sin and interest and passion, that still one Generation of persecutors doth succeed the others; and they kill the present Saints while they honor the dead ones, and build them Monuments, and say, If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the Prophets blood. Read well Matth. 23. 29. to the end. What a Sea of righteous blood hath malignity and persecuting zeal drawn out?

§. 5. 4. Another cause of Murder is Rash and unrighteous judgment. When Judges are ignorant, or partial, or perverted by passion, or prejudice or respect of persons: But though many an innocent hath suffered this way, I hope among Christians, this is one of the rarest Causes.

§. 6. 5. Another way of murder is by oppression and uncharitableness; when the poor are kept destitute of necessaries to preserve their lives: Though few of them die directly of famine, yet thousands of them die of those sicknesses which they contract, by unwholesome food. And all those are guilty of their death, either that cause it by oppression, or that relieve them not when they are able and obliged to it, I am. 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

§. 7. 6. Another way and cause of murder, is by Thieves and Robbers that do it to possess themselves of that which is another man's: when riotousness or idleness hath consumed what they had themselves, and sloth and pride will not suffer them to labor, nor sensuality suffer them to endure want, then they will have it, by right or wrong, what ever it cost them: God's Laws or man's, the Gallows or Hell shall not deter them; but have it they will, though they rob and murder, and are hanged and damned for it. Alas, how dear a purchase do they make! How much easier are their greatest wants, than the wrath of God and the pains of Hell?

§. 8. 7. Another cause of murder is Guilt and Shame. When wicked people have done some great disgraceful sin, which will utterly shame them or undo them if it be known, they are tempted to murder them that know it, to conceal the crime and save themselves. Thus many a Whoremonger hath murdered her that he hath committed fornication with: And many a Whore hath murdered her Child (before the birth or after) to prevent the shame: But how madly do they forget the day, when both the one and the other will be brought to light? and the righteous judge will make them know, that all their wicked shifts will be their confusion, because there is no hiding them from him?

§. 9. 8 Another cause is Furious anger, which mastereth Reason, and for the present makes them mad. And Drunkenness which doth the same. Many a one hath killed another in his fury, or his drink; So dangerous is it to suffer Reason to lose its power, and to use ourselves to a Bedlam course! And so necessary is it, to get a sober meek and quiet spirit, and mortify and master these turbulent and beastly vices.

§. 10 9. Another cause of Murder is Malice and Revenge! When men's own wrongs or sufferings are so great a matter to them, and they have so little learnt to bear them, that they hate that man that is the cause of them, and boil with a revengeful desire of his ruin. And this sin hath in it so so much of the Devil, that those that are once addicted to it, are almost wholly at his command! He maketh witches of some, and Murderers of others, and wretches of all! who set themselves in the place of God, and will do Justice as they call it, for themselves, as if God were not just enough to do it! And so sweet is Revenge to their furious nature, (as the damning of men is to the Devil) that Revenged they will be though they lose their souls by it: And the impotency and baseness of their spirits is such, that they say, Flesh and blood is unable to bear it.

§. 11. 10. Another cause of murder is a wicked impatience with near relations, and a hatred of those that should be most dearly loved. Thus many men and women have murdered their Wives and Husbands, when either Adulterous Lust hath given up their hearts to another, or a cross, impatient, discontented mind hath made them seem intolerable burdens to each other: And then the Devil that destroyed their love, and brought them thus far, will be their teacher in the rest, and show them how to ease themselves; till he hath led them to the Gallows and to Hell. How necessary is it to keep in the way of duty, and abhor and suppress the beginnings of sin?

§. 12. 11. And sometimes Covetousness hath caused Murder, when one man desireth another man's estate: Thus Ahab came by Naboth 's Vineyards to his cost. And many a one desireth the death of another, whose estate must fall to him at the others death: Thus many a Child in heart is guilty of the murder of his Parents, though he actually commit it not: Yea a secret gladness when they are dead, doth show the guilt of some such desire • while they were living: And the very abatement of such moderate mourning as natural affection should procure, (because the estate is thereby come to them as the heirs) doth show that such are far from innocent. Many a Judas for Covetousness hath betrayed another! Many a false witness for Covetousness hath sold another's life: Many a Thief for Covetousness hath taken away another's life, to get his money: And many a Covetous Landlord hath longed for his Tenants death, and been glad to hear of it. And many a Covetous Soldier hath made a trade of killing men for Money. So true is it that the Love of money is the root of all evil, and therefore is one cause of this.

§. 13. 12. And Ambition is too common a Cause of Murder, among the great ones of the World: How many have dispatched others out of the World, because they stood in the way of their advancement? For a long time together it was the ordinary way of Rising and dying to the Roman and Greek Emperors; for one to procure the murder of the Emperor that he might usurp his Seat, and then to be so murdered by another himself: And every Soldier that looked for preferment by the change, was ready to be an instrument in the fact. And thus hath even the Roman seat of his Mock Holiness, for a long time and oft received its Successors, by the poison or other murdering of the possessors of the desired place. And alas how many thousand hath that See devoured to defend its Universal Empire, under the name of the spiritual Headship of the Church? How many unlawful Wars have they raised or cherished, even against Christian Emperors and Kings! How many thousands have been Massacred? How many Assassinate as Hen. 3. and Hen. 4. of France? Besides those that fires and Inquisitions have consumed: And all these have been the flames of Pride. Yea when their fellow-Sectaries in Munster and in England (the Anabaptists and Seekers) have catched some of their proud disease, it hath worked in the same way of blood and cruelty.

§. 14. 2. But besides these twelves great sins which are the nearest cause of Murder, there are many more which are yet greater, and deeper in nature, which are the Roots of all; especially these.

• 1. The first cause is the want of true Belief of the Word of God, and the judgment and punishment to come, and the want of the Knowledge of God himself: Atheism and Infidelity.
• 2. Hence cometh the want of the true Fear of God, and subjection to his holy Laws.
• 3. The predominance of selfishness in all the unsanctified, is the radical inclination to murder, and all the injustice that is committed.
• 4. And the want of Charity, or Loving our Neighbor as ourselves, doth bring men near to the execution, and leaveth little inward restraint.

§. 15. By all this you may see how this sin must be prevented! (and let not any man think it a needless work! Thousands have been guilty of murder that once thought themselves as far from it as you.) 1. The soul must be possessed with the Knowledge of God, and the true Belief of his Word and judgment. 2. Hereby it must be possessed of the Fear of God, and subjection to him. 3. And the Love of God must mortify the power of selfishness; 4. And also much possess us with a true Love to our neighbors, yea and enemies, for his sake. 5. And the twelve fore-mentioned causes of murder will thus be destroyed at the Root.

§. 16. II. And some further help it will be to understand the Greatness of this sin: Consider therefore, 1. It is an unlawful destroying, not only a Creature of God, but one of his noblest Creatures upon earth! Even one that beareth (at least the natural) Image of God. Gen. 9. 5, 6. And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man: at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man: whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Yea God will not only have the beast slain that killeth a man, but also forbiddeth there the eating of blood, v. 4. that man might not be accustomed to cruelty.

2. It is the opening a door to confusion and all calamity in the World: For if one man may kill another without the sentence of the Magistrate, another may kill him; and the world will be like Mastiffs or mad Dogs turned all loose on one another, kill that kill can.

3. If it be a wicked man that is killed, it is the sending of a soul to Hell, and cutting off his time of Repentance and his hopes. If it be a Godly man, it is a depriving of the World of the blessing of a profitable member, and all that are about him of the benefits of his goodness, and God of the service which he was here to have performed. These are enough to infer the dreadful consequents to the Murderer, which are such as these.

III. 1. It is a sin which bringeth so great a guilt, that if it be repented of and pardoned, yet Conscience very hardly doth ever attain to peace and quietness in this World: And if it be unpardoned, it is enough to make a man his own Executioner and tormenter.

2. It is a sin that seldom scapeth vengeance in this life: If the Law of the Land take not away their lives, as God appointeth, Gen. 9. 6. God useth to follow them with his extraordinary Plagues, and causeth their sin to find them out, so that the blood-thirsty man doth seldom live out half his days. The Treatises purposely written on this subject, and the experience of all Ages, do give us very wonderful Narratives of God's judgments, in the detecting of murderers and bringing them to punishment. They go about awhile like Cain, with a terrified Conscience, afraid of everyone they see, till seasonable vengeance give them their reward; or rather send them to the place where they must receive it.

3. For it is eternal torment under the wrath of God, which is the final punishment which they must expect, (If very great Repentance and the blood of Christ do not prevent it.) There are few I think that by shame, and terror of Conscience, are not brought to such a Repentance for it, as Cain and Judas had, or as a man hath that hath brought calamity on himself; and therefore wish they had never done it, because of their own unhappiness thereby (except those persecutors or murderers that are hardened by Error, pride or power): But this will not prevent the vengeance of God in their damnation: It must be a deep Repentance proceeding from the Love of God and man, and the hatred of sin, and sense of God's displeasure for it, which is only found in sanctified souls! And alas how few Murderers ever have the grace to manifest any such renovation and repentance?

CHAP. IX. Directions for the forgiving of Enemies and those that injure us, Against Wrath, and Malice, and Revenge, and Persecution.

§. 1. IT is not only actual Murder which is forbidden in the sixth Comm • ndment, but also all inordinate Wrath, and Malice and desires of Revenge, and injuring the person of our neighbor or our enemy: For so the Prophet and Judge of the Church hath himself expounded it, Mat. 5. 21, 22. Anger hath a hurting inclination, and Malice is a fixed Anger; and Revenge is the fruit of both or either of them. He that will be free from injurious actions, must subdue that wrath and malice which is their cause. Heart-murders and injuries must be carefully rooted up: For out of the Heart proceed evil thoughts and murders, &c. Matth. 15. 19. This is the fire of Hell on which an evil tongue is set, James 3. 6. and this must be quenched if you would be innocent.

§. 2. Direct. 1. See God in your neighbor, and Love him for that of God which is upon him. If he be Holy, he hath the Moral Image of God. If he be unholy, he hath his