A Christian Directory
§. 12. Quest. 12. Is it lawful to lend upon usury, interest or increase?
Answ. This Controversy hath so many full Treatises written on it, that I cannot expect that so few words as I must lay out upon it, should satisfy the studious Reader. All the disputes about the name of Usury I pass by: It being [ The receiving of any additional gain as due for money lent ] which is commonly meant by the word, and which we mean in the question. For the questions, Whether we may bargain for it, or tie the debtor to pay it? Whether we may take it only after his gain as partaking in it; or before? Whether we must partake also in the loss if the debtor be a loser? With other such like, are but subsequent to the main question, Whether any gain (called Use ) may be taken by the lender as his due for the money lent? My judgment is as followeth.
1. There is some such gain or Usury lawful and commendable. 2. There is some such gain or usury unlawful and a heinous sin. I shall first give my reasons of the first proposition.
§. 13. I. If all Usury be forbidden it is either by the Law of Nature, or by some positive Law of supernatural revelation: If the latter, it is either by some Law of Moses, or by some Law of Christ: If the former, it is either as against the Rule of piety to God, or against Justice or Charity to men: That which is neither a violation of the Natural Laws of Piety, Justice or Charity; nor against the supernaturally revealed Laws of Moses or of Christ, is not unlawful. But there is some Usury which is against none of all these: Ergo there is some Usury which is not unlawful.
§. 14. I will first lay you down the instances of such Usury; and then prove it. There is a parcel of Land to be sold for a thousand pound, which is worth forty pound per annum, and hath Wood on it worth a thousand pound: (Some such things we have known): John N. is willing to purchase it: But he hath a poor neighbor, T. S. that hath no money, but a great desire of the bargain. I. N. loving his neighbor as himself, and desiring his wealth, lendeth him the thousand pound upon Usury for one year. T. S. buyeth the Land, and selleth the Wood for the same money, and repayeth it in a year, and so hath all the Land for almost nothing, as if I. N. had purchased the Land and freely given it him, after a year or two; The gift had been the same.
Object. Here you suppose the seller wronged by selling his Land almost for nothing.
Answ. 1. That's nothing at all to the present case, but a different case by itself: 2. I can put many cases in which such a sale may be made without any wrong to the seller: As when it is done by some Prince, or State, or Noble and liberal person, purposely designing the enriching of the subjects: or after a War, as lately in Ireland. So that the question is, whether I. N. may not give T. S. a thousand or eight hundred pounds worth of Land, taking a years Rent first out of the Land, or a years use for the money, which cometh to the same sum.
§. 15. Another: A Rich Merchant trading into the East Indies, having five thousand pound to lay out upon his commodities in Traffick, when he hath laid out four thousand five hundred pound, lendeth in charity the other five hundred pound to one of his servants to lay out upon a commodity, which when it cometh home will be worth two thousand pound, and offereth him to secure the carriage with his own; requiring only the Use of his money at 6. per cent. Here the taking of thirty pound Use, is but the free giving him one thousand four hundred and seventy pound, and is all one with deducting so much of the gift.
§. 16. Another Instance: Certain Orphans having nothing left them but so much money as will by the allowed Use of it, find them bread and poor clothing: The guardian cannot lay it out in Lands for them: And if he maintain them upon the stock, it will be quickly spent, and he must answer for it: A rich man that is their neighbor tradeth in Iron-works, (Furnaces and Forges) or Lead-works or other such commodities, in which he constantly getteth the double of the stock which he employeth, or at least twenty pound or forty pound in the hundred: The Guardian dare not lend the money to any poor man, lest he break and never be able to pay it: Therefore he lendeth it this rich man. And if he have it without Usury, the poor Orphans give the rich man freely twenty pound or forty pound a year supposing their stock to be an hundred: If he take Usury, the rich man doth but give the poor Orphans, some part of his constant gain.
§. 17. Another instance: In a City or Corporation where there is a rich Trade of Clothing or making Silks, there is a stock of money given by Legacy for the poor, and entrusted into the hands of the richest of the City, to trade with and give the poor the Use of it: And there is another stock left to set up young beginners, who have not a stock to set up themselves: on condition that they give the third part of their gain to the poor, and at seven years end resign the stock: The question is, Whether the poor should be without this Use of their money, and let the rich go away with it? or whether they may take it?
§. 18. Now I prove that such Usury is not forbidden by God. 1. It is not forbidden us by the Law of Moses: 1. Because Moses Law never did forbid it: For, 1. It is expressly forbidden as an act of unmercifulness; and therefore forbidden only to the poor and to brethren, Exod. 22. 25. Levite. 25. 36, 37. Yea, when the poor are not named, it is the poor that are meant: Because in that Country they did not keep up stocks for Merchandize or Trading, but lent usually to the needy only: At least the circumstances of the several Texts show, that it is only Lending to the needy, and not lending to drive on any enriching Trade, which is meant where Usury is forbidden. 2. And it is expressly allowed to be used to strangers, Deut. 23. 19, 20. to whom nothing unjust or uncharitable might be done; only such a measure of Charity was not required towards them, as unto brethren. And there were more Merchants of strangers that traded with them in foreign commodities, than of Jews that fetched them home: So that the prohibition of Usury is in the Law itself restrained only to their lending to the poor: But in the Prophets who do but reprove the sin, it is expressed without that limitation, partly because it supposeth the meaning of the Law to be known, which the Prophets did but apply: and partly because there was little or no lending used among the Jews, but to the needy as an act of charity.
§. 19. 2. And if it had been forbidden in Moses Law only, it would not extend to Christians now: Because the Law of Moses as such, is not in force: The matter of it is much of the Law of Nature indeed; but as Mosaical, it was proper to the Jews and Proselytes: or at least extended not to the Christian Gentiles: as is plain in 2 Cor. 3. 7. Gal. 3. 19, 24. & 5. 3. Eph. 2. 15. 1 Tim. 1. 7. Heb. 7. 12, 16, 19. Moses Law as such never bound any other Nations, but the proselytes that joined themselves to the Jews (nor was all the world obliged so to be proselyted as to take up their Laws): Much less do they bind us that are the servants of Christ, so long after the dissolution of their Common-wealth. So much of them as are part of the Law of Nature, or of any positive Law of Christ, or of the Civil Law of any State, are binding as they are such Natural, Christian or Civil Laws. But not one of them as Mosaical: Though the Mosaical Law is of great use to help us to understand the Law of Nature in many particular instances, in which it is somewhat difficult to us.
§. 20. 2. There is no Positive Law of Christ forbidding all Usury: As for Luke 6. 32, 35. it is plainly nothing to the case: For he saith not, [ Lend, looking for no gain or increase, ] but [ looking for nothing again. ] And the Context showeth that the meaning must be one of these two: Either q. d. [Lend not only to them that will lend to you again when you are in want; but even to the poor, that you can never hope to borrow of:] Or else [Lend not only to them that are able to pay you, and where your stock is secured, but to the needy where your money is hazarded; and though they will pay you if • hey are able, yet you have little or no hope that ever they should be able to repay: L • nd so, as to be willing to make a gift of it in case the borrower never repay it.] And there is no other Text that can be pretended against it, in the New Testament.
§. 21. 3. And that the Law of Nature doth not forbid all Usury, will appear by examining the several parts of it. The Law of Nature forbiddeth but three sorts of sins; 1. Those that are against Piety to God: 2. Those that are against our own welfare. 3. Those that are against our Neighbors good: And that is, 1. Against Justice: 2. Against Charity. There is none that falleth not under • ome of these heads.
1. And that Usury is not naturally evil as against Piety to God, 2. Or as against our selves, and our own welfare, I need not prove, because no reason nor reasonable person doth lay any such accusation against it. Though they that think it absolutely unlawful, say that it is consequently against God, as every violation of his Law is. But thats nothing to the case.
3. Therefore there is no doubt but the whole controversy is resolved into this last question, Whether all Usury be against Justice or Charity to our neighbor. Justice obligeth me to give him his own: Charity obligeth me to give him more than his own, in certain cases; as one that love him as myself. That which is not against Justice, may be against Charity: But that which is against Charity, is not always against Justice strictly taken. And that which is an act of true Charity, is never against Justice: Because he that giveth his neighbor more than his own, doth give him his own and more. There is a Usury which is against Justice and Charity. There is a Usury which is against Charity, but not against mere Justice: And there is an Usury which is against neither Justice nor Charity. If I prove it Charitable, it is superfluous to say more.
§. 22. All the instances before given are notoriously charitable. That which is for the preservation of the lives and comforts of the poor, and of Orphans, or for the enriching of my neighbor is an act of Charity: But such is some U • ury, past all doubt; as is before declared. Where the contrary is an act of cruelty, the Usury is not against Charity, but for it. For the Rich to deny to the poor and Orphans a part of that gain, which they make by the improvement of their own money, is oppression and cruelty: If it be cruel to let a Beggar die or starve, when we should feed and clothe him of our own; much more to let the poor and Orphans starve and perish rather than give them the increase of their own, or part of it at least. As for them that say, It may be as well improved otherwise, they are inexperienced men: It is a known falsehood as to the most: though some few may meet with such opportunities. At least it is nothing to them that cannot have other ways of improving it: who are very many.
§. 23. Moreover, when it is not an act of Charity, yet it may be not against Charity in these cases: 1. When the lender is poor and the borrower rich: Yea, it may be a sin to lend it freely: Prov. 22. 16. He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want: It is a giving to the rich to lend freely that money which they improve to the increase of their riches. 2. When the lender is not obliged to that act of Charity, though the borrower be poorer than himself. Which falleth out in an hundred cases: which may be comprised under this one general; When the lender is obliged to expend that same money in some other greater, better work: As at the same time while a man that is worth but twenty pound a year, is in debt to a man that hath a thousand pound a year, there may be a hundred or thousand poor people worth nothing ready to perish, whom the rich is rather bound to succor, than him that hath but twenty pound a year. And there may be works of piety (as to set up a School, or promote the preaching of the Gospel) which may be as great as either. And the richest that is, cannot do all the good that is to be done, nor relieve all the persons that are in want: Therefore when he must leave much undone, if he would give all his substance, it is ( caeteris paribus ) a sin, to give that to a man that can make shift without it, and pass by an hundred in much deeper necessity and distress: So that he who either exerciseth Charity in his Usury, or doth nothing against Charity and Justice, certainly sinneth not by that Usury. For all the Scriptures which speak against Usury, speak against it as a cruel or uncharitable thing.
§. 24. Object. But it is sometimes necessary for a Law to forbid that which otherwise would be good, when it cannot be done, without encouraging others to a greater evil; such as ordinary Usury is: And then that Law must be observed.
Answ. This is true in thesi, that such cases there are: But it is unproved and untrue in this case: For, 1. There is no such Law: 2. There is no such reason or necessity of such a Law. For God can as well make Laws against unrighteous or uncharitable increase or Usury, without forbidding that which is charitable and just, as he can make Laws against unrighteous or uncharitable buying and selling without condemning that which is good and just: Or as he can forbid gluttony, drukenness, idleness, pride, without forbidding eating, drinking, apparel or riches. He can easily tell men of whom and in what case to take Use, and when not.
He that would see all other Objections answered, and the case fully handled, hath many Treatises on both sides extant to inform him.
§. 25. II. That there is a sort of Usury which is evil I know of no man that doubteth, and therefore need not stand to prove.
Quest. When is Usury sinful?
Answ. As is before said, When its against either Justice or Charity: 1. When its like cheating bargaining, which under pretence of consent and a form of Justice doth deceive, or oppress, and get from another that which is not truly ours but his. 2. When you lend for increase • here charity obligeth you to lend freely: Even as it is a sin to lend expecting your own again, when Charity obligeth you to give it. 3. When you uncharitably exact that which your brother is disabled utterly to pay, and use cruelty to procure it, (be it the Use or the principal). 4. When you allow him not such a proportion of the gain as his labor, hazard or poverty doth require; but because the money is yours, will live at ease upon his labors. 5. When in case of his losses you rigorously exact your due, without that abatement, or forgiving debts (whether Use or principal, ) which humanity and charity require. In a word, when you are selfish and do not as, according to true judgment, you may desire to be done by, if you were in his case.
§. 26. Quest. But when am I bound to exercise this charity, in not-taking use?
Answ. As I said before, 1. When ever you have no more urgent, and necessary, and excellent work, to lay out that money on, which you are so to receive. 2. Yea, though another work may be in itself better, (as to relieve many poorer better men with that money) yet when you cannot take it, without the utter undoing of the debtor, and bringing him into as bad a case, as any single person whom you would relieve, it is the safer side to leave the other unrelieved, (unless it be a person on whom the public good much dependeth) rather than to extort your own from such a one to give another. Because that which you cannot get, without a scandalous appearance of cruelty, is quoad jus in re not yours to give, till you can better get possession of it: And therefore God will not expect that you should give it to another.
§. 27. In all this I imply that as you must prefer the lives of others in giving Alms, before your own conveniencies and comforts, and must not say, I cannot spare it, when your necessity may spare it, though not your pleasure: So also in taking Use, of those that you are bound to show charity to, the same rule and proportions must be observed in your charity.
§. 28. Note also, that in all this it appeareth, that the case is but gradually different, between taking the Use and taking the principal. For when the reason for remitting is the same, you are as well bound to remit the principal as the Use.
§. 29. But this difference there is, that many a man of low estate may afford to lend freely to a poorer man for a little time, who cannot afford to give it. And prudence may direct us to choose one man to lend freely to for a time, because of his sudden necessity, when yet another is fitter to give it to.
§. 30. Quest. 13. Is lending a duty? If so, must I lend to all that ask me? or to whom?
Answ. Lending is a duty, when we have it, and our brothers necessity requireth it, and true prudence telleth us, that we have no better way to lay it out, which is inconsistent with that. And therefore rich men ordinarily should both lend and give as prudence shall direct. But there is an imprudent and so a sinful lending: As, 1. When you will lend that which is another's, and you have no power to lend. 2. When you lend that which you must needs require again, while you might easily foresee that the borrower is not like to pay. Lend nothing but what you have either great probability will be repaid, or else which you are willing to give in case the debtor cannot or will not pay; or at least when suing for it, will not have scandalous and worse effects than not lending. For it is very ordinary when you come to demand it and sue for it, to stir up the hatred of the debtor against you, and to make him your enemy, and to break his charity by your imprudent charity: In such a case, if you are obliged to relieve him, give him so much as you can spare, rather than lend him that which you cannot spare, but must sue for. In such cases, if Charity go not without Prudence, nor prudence without charity, you may well enough see when to lend, and how much.
§. 31. Quest. 14. Is it lawful to take upon Usury in necessity, when the Creditor doth unjustly or unmercifully require it?
Answ. Not, in case that the consequents (by encouraging sin or otherwise) be like to do more hurt, than the money will do you good. Else, it is lawful, when it is for your benefit: As it is lawful to take part of your wages for your work, or part of the worth of your commodity, when you cannot have the whole: And as it is lawful to purchase your rights of an enemy, or your life of a Thief as is aforesaid. A man may buy his own benefit of an unrighteous man.
§. 32. Quest. 15. Doth not contracting for a certain sum of gain, make Usury to be in that case unlawful, which might lawfully be taken of one thats free.
Answ. Yes, in case that contracting determine an uncertain case without sufficient cause: As if you agree, that whether the borrower gain or lose, and be poor or rich, I will have so much gain: that is, Whether it prove merciful or unmerciful, I will have it. But then in that case, if it so prove unmerciful, it may not be taken without contracting, if freely offered. No contract may tie the debtor to that which is against Justice or Charity: And no contract may absolutely require that which may prove uncharitable, unless there be a tacit condition, or exception of such a case implied. Otherwise I see no Scripture or reason, why a contract altereth the case, and may not be used to secure that increase which is neither unrighteous nor unmerciful: It may be the bond of equity, but not of iniquity. As in case of a certain gain by the borrower, a certain use may be contracted for: And in case of an uncertain gain to the borrower, a conditional contract may be made. Yea, in case of Merchandize, where men's poverty forbiddeth not such bargains, I see not but it is lawful to sell a greater uncertain gain, for a smaller certain gain; and so to make the contracts absolute: (As Ames • as. Consc. on this question showeth.) As all oppression and unmercifulness must be avoided, and all men must do as they would (judiciously) be done by; So it is a bad thing to corrupt Religion, and fill the world with causeless scruples, by making that a sin which is no sin. Divines that live in great Cities and among Merchandize, are usually fitter Judges in this case, than those that live more ob • curely (without experience) in the Country.
Tit. 5. Cases of Conscience about Lusory Contracts.
§. 1. Quest. 1. IS it lawful to lay Wagers upon the credit or confidence of one another's opinions or assertions in discourse? As e. g. I will lay you so much that I am in the right?
Answ. Yes, if these three things concur: 1. That the true end of the Wager is to be a penalty to him that shall be guilty of a rash and false assertion, and not to gratify the Covetousness of the other. 2. That it be no greater a sum than can be demanded and paid, without breach of Charity, or too much hurt to the looser (as above the proportion of his error): 3. That it be no other but what both parties are truly willing to stand to the loss of, if either of them lose: And that before hand they truly seem so willing to each other.
§. 2. Quest. 2. Is it lawful to lay Wagers upon Horse-races, Dogs, Hawks, Bear-baitings, or such Games as depend on the activity of Beast or Man?
Answ. Yes, upon the two last expressed conditions; and 3. That it be not an exercise which is itself unlawful, by cruelty to Beasts, or hazard to the lives of men (as in Fencing, Running, Wrestling, &c. it may fall out if it be not cautelously done:) or by the expense of an undue proportion of time in them, which is the common malignity of such recreations.
§. 3. Quest. 3. May I lawfully give money to see such sports, as Bear-baitings, Stage-plays, Masks, Shows, Puppet-plays, Activities of Man or Beast? &c.
Answ. There are many Shows that are desirable and laudable, (as of strange Creatures, Monsters, rare Engines, Activities, &c. ) the sight of which it is lawful to purchase, at a proportionable price: As a prospect thorough one of Galilaeus Tubes or such another, is worth much money to a studious person. But when the exercise is unlawful (as all Stage-plays are that ever I saw, or had just information of; yea, odiously evil; however it is very possible that a Comoedy or Tragoedy might with abundance of cautions be lawfully acted), it is then (usually) unlawful to be a spectator either for money or on free cost. I say [usually] because its possible that someone that is necessitated to be there, or that goeth to find out their evil to suppress them, or that is once only induced to know the truth of them may do it innocently: But so do not they, who are present voluntarily and approvingly. 3. And if the recreation be lawful in itself, yet when vain persons go thither to feed a carnal fancy and vicious humor, which delighteth more in vanity, than they delight in piety, and when it wasteth their time and corrupteth their minds, and alienateth them from good, or hindereth duty, it is to them unlawful.
§. 4. Quest. 4. Is it lawful to play at Cards or Dice for money, or at any Lottery?
Answ. The greatest doubt is, Whether the Games be lawful, many learned Divines being for the Negative, and many for the Affirmative; And those that are for the Affirmative lay down so many necessaries or conditions to prove them lawful, as I scarce ever yet saw meet together: But if they be proved at all lawful, the case of Wagers is resolved as the next.
§. 5. Quest. 5. May I play at Bowls, Run, Shoot, &c. or use such personal activities for money?
Answ. Yes, 1. If you make not the Game itself bad by any accident: 2. If your Wager be laid for sport, and not for Covetousness (striving who shall get another's money, and give them nothing for it). 3. And if no more be laid than is suitable to the sport, and the loser doth well and willingly pay.
§. 6. Quest. 6. If the loser who said he was willing, prove angry and unwilling when it cometh to the paying, may I take it, or get it by Law against his will?
Answ. No, no not in ordinary cases; because you may not turn a sport to covetousness, or breach of Charity: But in case that it be a sport that hath cost you anything, you may in Justice take your Charges, when Prudence forbids it not.
Tit. 6. Cases of Conscience about Losing and Finding.
§. 1. Quest. 1. IF I find money or anything l • st, am I bound to seek out the owner, if he seek not after me? And how far am I bound to seek him?
Answ. You are bound to use such reasonable means, as the nature of the case requireth, that the true owner may have his own again. He that dare keep another man's money, because he findeth it, its like would steal, if he could do it as secretly. Finding giveth you no propriety, if the owner can be found: Do as you would be done by, and you may satisfy your conscience. If nearer enquiry will not serve, you are bound to get it cried in the Market, or proclaimed in the Church, or mentioned in the Currant • 's that carry weekly news; or any probable way, which putteth you not upon unreasonable cost or labor.
§. 2. Q •• st. 2. May I take anything for the finding of it, as my due?
Answ. You may demand so much as shall pay for any labor or cost which you have been at about it, or finding out the owner. But no more as your due: Though a moderate gratuity may be accepted, if he freely give it.
§. 3. Quest. 3. May I desire to find money or anything else in my way? or may I be glad when I have found it?
Answ. You should first be unwilling that your neighbor should lose it; and be sorry that he hath lost it: But supposing that it be lost, you may moderately desire that you may find it rather than another: Not with a covetous desire of the gain; but that you may faithfully gratify the owner in restoring it; Or if he cannot be found may dispose of it as you ought. And you should be more sorry that its lost, than glad that you find it, except for the owner.
§. 4. Quest. 4. If no Owner can be found, may I not take it and use it as mine own?
Answ. The Laws of the Land do usually regulate claims of propriety in such matters: where the Law giveth it to the Lord of the Manor, it is his, and you must give it him. Where it giveth it to no other, it is his that findeth it; and occupancy will give him propriety. But so as it behooveth him to judge, if he be poor, that God's providence ordered it for his own supply; but if he be rich, that God sent it him but as to his Steward, to give it to the poor.
§. 5. Quest. 5. If many be present when I find it, may I not wholly retain it to myself? or may I not conceal it from them if I can?
Answ. If the Law over-rule the case, it must be obeyed: But if it do not, you may if you can conceal it, and thereby become the only finder, and take it as your own, if the Owner be not found: But if you cannot conceal it at the time of finding, they that see it with you, are partly the finders as well as you; though perhaps the largest share be due to the occupant.
§. 6. Quest. 6. If I trust my neighbor or servant with money or goods, or if another trust me, who must stand to the loss if they be lost?
Answ. Here also the Law of the Land as regulating proprieties must be very much regarded; and especially the true meaning of the parties must be understood: If it was antecedently the expressed or implied meaning that one party in such or such a case should bear the loss, it must in strict justice be according to the true meaning of the parties. Therefore if a Carrier that undertaketh to secure it, loseth it; he loseth it to himself. Or if one that it is lent to on that condition (explicit or implicit) lose it, it is to himself. But if a friend to whom you are beholden for the carriage lose it, who undertook no more than to bestow his labor, the loss must be yours; yea, though it was his negligence or drunkenness that was the fault: For you took him and trusted him as he is. But if a servant or one obliged to do it by hire, do without any other agreement, only undertake to serve you in it, and loseth it, the Law or custom of the Country is instead of a Contract: For if the Law or Custom lay the loss on him, it is supposed that he consented to it in consenting to be your servant: If it lay it on you, it is supposed that you took your servant on such terms of hazard. But if it be left undecided by Law and Custom, you may make your servant pay only so much as is a proportionable penalty for his fault, but no more, as any satisfaction for your loss: except you agreed with him to repay such losses as were by his default. And when it is considered what strict Justice doth require, it must also be considered what Charity and mercy doth require, that the poor be not oppressed.
Tit. 7. Directions to Merchants, Factors, Chaplains, Travelers that live among Infidels.
Quest. 1. IS it lawful to put ones self, or servants, especially young unstablished apprentices, into the temptations of an Infidel Country (or a Popish) for the getting of Riches, as Merchants do?
Answ. This cannot be truly answered without distinguishing, 1. Of the Countries they go from. 2. Of the places they go to. 3. Of the quality of the persons that go. 4. Of the causes of their going.
I. Some Countrys that they go from may be as bad as those that they go to, or in a state of War, when it is better be absent, or in a time of persecution, or at least of greater temptation than they are like to have abroad. And some are contrarily as a Paradise in comparison of those they go to, for holiness and helps to Heaven, and for peace and opportunities of serviceableness to God and the public good.
II. Some Countries which they may go to may have as good helps for their souls as at home, if not by those of the Religion of the Nation, yet by Christians that live among them; or by the company which goeth with them: or at least there may be no great temptations to change their Religion, or debauch them, either through the civility and moderation of those they live among, or through their sottish ignorance and viciousness, which will rather turn men's hearts against them. But some Countries have so strong temptations to corrupt men's understandings through the subtlety of seducers, and some have such allurements to debauch men, and some such cruelties to tempt them to deny the truth, that it is hard among them to retain ones innocence.
III. Some that go abroad are understanding settled Christians, able to make good use of other men's errors, and sins, and ill examples or suggestions; and perhaps to do much good on others: But some are young, and raw, and inexperienced, whose heads are unfurnished of those Evidences and Reasons by which they should hold fast their own profession, against the cunning reasonings of an adversary; and their Hearts unfurnished of that Love to truth, and that serious resolution which is necessary to their safety; and therefore are like to be corrupted.
IV. Some are sent by their Princes as Agents or Ambassadors on employments necessary to the public good: And some are sent by Societies on business necessary to the ends of the society: And some go in case of extreme poverty and necessity, having no other way of maintenance at home: And some go in obedience to their Parents and Masters that command it them: And some go to avoid the miseries of a War, or the danger of a sharp persecution at home; or the greater temptations of a debauched or seducing age; or some great temptations in their families. But some go for fancy, and some for mere covetousness without any need.
By these distinctions the case may be answered by men that are judicious and impartial. As,
- I. Affirm. 1. It is lawful for Ambassadors to go among Infidels that are sent by Princes or States: Because the public good must be secured.
- 2. It is lawful for the Agents of Lawful Societies or Trading Companies to go, ( caeteris paribus, the persons being capable:) Because Trade must be promoted which tendeth to the common good of all Countries.
- 3. It is not only lawful, but one of the best works in the world, for fit persons to go on a design to convert the poor Infidels and Heathens where they go. Therefore the Preachers of the Gospel should not be backward, to take any opportunity, as Chaplains to Ambassadors, or to Factories, &c. to put themselves in such a way.
- 4. It is lawful for a Son or Servant (whose bonds extend to such a service) to go in obedience to a Superiors command; And God's special protection may be trusted in a way of obedience.
- 5. It is lawful for one in debt to go that hath probable hopes that way and no other to pay his debts. Because he is a defrauder if he detain other men's money, while a lawful way of repaying it may be taken.
- 6. It is lawful for a duly qualified person to go in case of extreme poverty, to be able to live in the world: And that poverty may be called extreme to one that was Nobly born and educated which would be no poverty to one that was bred in beggary.
- 7. It is lawful for a well qualified person, who desireth Riches to serve God, and to do good with, to go in a way of trading, though he be in no poverty or necessity himself. Because God's blessing on a lawful Trade may be desired and endeavored, and he that should do all the good he can, may use what lawful means he can to be enabled to do it. And other men's wants should be to us as our own, and therefore we may endeavor to be able to relieve them.
- 8. In a time of such Civil War, when a man knoweth not which side to take, it may be better for some men to live abroad; yea, among Infidels.
- 9. There is little to dissuade a man whose Trade leadeth him into a Country that is better than his own, or so sottish as to have small temptation, and that hath the company of faithful Christians, with whom he may openly worship God, and privately converse to his spiritual edification.
- 10. In urgent cases one may go for a time, where he can have no use of public Church-Worship; so be it he have private means and opportunities of holy living.
- 11. It is lawful on less occasions to leave ones own Country in a time of debauchery, when temptations at home are greater than those abroad, or in a time of such persecution as may lawfully be avoided, than at another time.
- 12. A settled Christian may go more safely, and therefore lawfully on smaller urgencies, than a young, raw, lustful, fanciful, unsettled Novice may.
- II. Neg. 1. It is not lawful for any one to seek Riches or Trade abroad or at home, principally for the Love of Riches, to raise himself and family to fullness, prosperity or dignity; though all this may be desired when it is a Means to God's service, and honor, and the public good, and is desired principally as such a Means.
- 2. It is not lawful to go abroad, especially into Infidel or Popish Countries, without such a justifiable business, whose Commodity will suffice to weigh down all the losses and dangers of the remove.
- 3. The dangers and losses of the soul are to be valued much above those of the body and estate, and cannot be weighed down by any mere corporal commodity.
- 4. It is more dangerous usually to go among Turks and Heathens (whose Religion hath no tempting power to seduce men) than among Socinians, or Papists, whose errors and sins are cunningly and learnedly promoted and defended.
- 5. It is not lawful for Merchants or others for Trade and love of wealth or money, to send poor raw unsettled youths into such Countries where their souls are like to be notably endangered, either by being deprived of such teaching and Church helps which they need, or by being exposed to the dangerous temptations of the place: Because their souls are of more worth than money.
- 6. It is not lawful therefore for Master or servant to venture his own soul in such a case as this last mentioned; that is, so far as he is free, and without necessity doth it only for commodity sake.
- 7. We may not go where we cannot publicly worship God, without necessity, or some inducement from a greater good.
- 8. The more of these hindrances concur, the greater is the sin: It is therefore a mere willful casting away of their own souls, when unfurnished unsettled youths (or others like them) shall for mere humor, fancy, or covetousness leave such a Land as this, where they have both public and private helps for their salvation, and to go among Papists, Infidels or Heathens, where talk or ill example is like to endanger them, and no great good can be expected to countervail such a hazard, nor is there any true necessity to drive them, and where they cannot publicly worship God, no nor openly own the truth, and where they have not so much as any private company to converse with, that is fit to further their preservation and salvation, and all this of their own accord, &c.
Quest. 2. May a Merchant or Embassador leave his Wife, to live abroad?
Answ. 1. We must distinguish between what is necessitated and what is Voluntary. 2. Between what is done by the Wives consent, and what is done without. 3. Between a Wife that can bear such absence, and one that cannot. 4. Between a short stay, and a long or continued stay.
1. The command of the King, or public necessities, may make it lawful, except in a case so rare as is not to be supposed (which therefore I shall not stand to describe). For though it be a very tender business to determine a difference between the public authority or interest, and family relaons and interest, when they are contradictory, and irreconcilable, yet here it seemeth to me, that the Prince and public interest may dispose of a man contrary to the will and interest of his Wife: Yea, though it were probable that it would occasion the loss, 1. Of her Chastity, 2. Or her Understanding, 3. Or her life: and though the Conjugal bond do make man and Wife to be as one flesh. For, 1. The King and public interest may oblige a man to hazard his own life, and therefore his Wives. In case of War, he may be sent to Sea or beyond Sea, and so both leave his Wife (as Uriah did) and venture himself. Who ever thought that no Married man might go to foreign Wars without his Wives consent? 2. Because as the whole is more noble than the Part, so he that marrieth obligeth himself to his Wife, but on supposition that he is a member of the Common-wealth, to which he is still more obliged than to her.
2. A man may for the benefit of his family leave his Wife for travel or Merchandize, for a time, when they mutually consent upon good reason that it is like to be for their good.
3. He may not leave her either without or with her own consent, when a greater hurt is like to come by it, than the gain will countervail. I shall say no more of this, because the rest may be gathered from what is said in the cases about duties to Wives, where many other such are handled.
Quest. 3. Is it lawful for young Gentlemen to travel in other Kingdoms, as part of their education?
Answ. The many distinctions which were laid down for answer of the first question must be here supposed, and the answer will be mostly the same as to that, and therefore need not be repeated.
1. It is lawful for them to travel that are necessarily driven out of their own Country, by persecution, poverty, or any other necessitating cause.
2. It is lawful to them that are commanded by their Parents (unless in some excepted cases, which I will not stay to name).
3. It is the more lawful when they travel into Countries as good or better than their own, where they are like to get more good than they could have done at home.
4. It is more lawful to one that is prudent and firmly settled both in Religion, and in Sobriety, and Temperance, against all temptations which he is like to meet with, than to one that is unfurnished for a due resistance of the temptations of the place to which he goeth.
5. It is more lawful to one that goeth in sober, wise and godly company, or is sent with a wise and faithful Tutor and Overseer, than to leave young unsettled persons to themselves.
6. In a word, It is lawful when there is a rational probability, that they will not only get more good than hurt (for that will not make it lawful,) but also more Good than they could probably have other ways attained.
II. But the too ordinary course of young Gentlemens travels out of England now practiced, I take to be but a most dangerous hazarding, if not a plain betraying them to utter undoing, and to make them afterwards the plagues of their Country, and the instruments of the common calamity. For, 1. They are ordinarily sent into Countries far worse and more dangerous than their own; where the temptations are stronger than they are fit to deal with: Into some Countries where they are tempted to sensuality, and into some where they are tempted to Popery or Infidelity. In some Countries they learn to drink Wine instead of Beer; and arising from the smaller sort to the stronger, if they turn not drunkards, they contract that appetite to Wine and strong drink, which shall prove (as Clemens Alexandrinus calleth gluttony and tippling,) a Throat-madness, and a Belly-devil, and keep them in the sin of gulosity all their days. And in some Countries they shall learn the art of Gluttony, to pamper their guts in curious, costly, uncouth fashions, and to dress themselves in novel fantastical garbs, and to make a business of adorning themselves, and setting themselves forth with proud and procacious fancies and affections, to be looked upon as comely persons, to the eyes of others. In some Countries they shall learn to waste their precious hours in Stage-plays, and vain spectacles, and ceremonious attendances and visits, and to equalize their life with death, and to live to less use and benefit to the world, than the Horse that carrieth them. In most Countries they shall learn either to prate against Godliness, as the humor of a few melancholy fools, and be wiser than to believe God, or obey him, or be saved; or at least to grow indifferent and cold in holy affections and practices: For when they shall see Papists and Protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists of contrary minds, and hear them reproaching and condemning one another, this cooleth their zeal to all Religion, as seeming but a matter of uncertainty and contention: And when also they see, how the wise and holy are made a scorn in one Country, as Bigots and Huguenots, and how the Protestants are drunkards and worldlings in another Country, and how few in the world have any true sense and savor of sound and practical Religion, and of a truly holy and heavenly life, (as those few they are seldom so happy as to converse with) this first accustometh themselves to a neglect of holiness, and then draweth their minds to a more low indifferent opinion of it, and to think it unnecessary to salvation. For they will not believe that so few shall be saved as they find to be holy in the world: And then they grow to think it but a fancy and a troubler of the world.
And it addeth to their temptation, that they are obliged by the carnal ends which drew them out to be in the worst and most dangerous company and places; that is, at Princes Courts, and among the splendid gallantry of the world: For it is the fashions of the Great ones which they must see, and of which when they come home they must be able to discourse: So that they must travel to the Pesthouses of pomp and lust, of idleness, glu •• ony, drunkenness and pride, of Atheism, irreligiousness and impiety, that they may be able to glory, what acquaintance they have got of the grandeur and gallantry of the Suburbs of Hell, that they may represent the way to damnation delectable and honorable to others, as well as to themselves.
But the greatest danger is of corrupting their Intellectuals, by converse with deceivers where they come; either Infidels or juggling Jesuits and Friars: For when these are purposely trained up to deceive, how easy is it for them to silence raw unfurnished Novices (yea, even where all their five senses must be captivated, in the doctrine of Transubstantiation). And when they are silenced they must yield: or at least they have deluding stories enough of the Antiquity, Universality, Infallibility, Unity of their Church, with a multitude of lies of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and other Reformers, to turn their hearts, and make them yield. But yet that they may be capable of doing them the more service, they are instructed for a time to dissemble their perversion, and to serve the Roman Pride and Faction in a Protestant garb and name.
Especially when they come to Rome, and see its glory, and the monuments of antiquity, and are alluned with their splendor and civilities, and made believe that all the reports of their Inquisitions and cruelties are false, this furthereth the fascination of inexperienced youths.
2. And usually all this while, the most of them lay by all serious studies, and all constant employment, and make Idleness, and Converse with the Idle or with Tempters to be their daily work. And what a mind is like to come to, which is but one half year or twelvemonth accustomed to idleness, and vain spectacles, and to a pleasing converse with idle and luxurious persons, it is easy for a man of any acquaintance with the world or with human nature to conjecture.
3. And they go forth in notable peril of their health or lives. Some fall into Feavors, and die by change of air and drinks: Some fall into quarrels in Taverns, or about their Whores, and are murdered. Some few prove so steadfast against all the temptations of the Papists, that it is thought conducible to the holy cause, that they should be killed in pretence of some quarrel, or be poisoned: Some by drinking Wine, do contract such sickness, as makes their lives uncomfortable to the last. And the brains of many are so heated by it, that they fall mad.
4. And all this danger is principally founded in the quality of the persons sent to travel: which are ordinarily empty Lads, between eighteen and twenty four years of age, which is the time of the Devils chief advantage; when naturally they are pro • e to those Vices which prove the ruin of the most, though you take the greatest care of them that you can. 1. Their lust is then in the highest and most untamed rage. 2. Their appetites to pleasing meats and drinks are then strongest. 3. Their frolic inclinations to sports and recreations are then greatest. 4. And ignorant and procacious Pride beginneth then to stir. 5. All things that are most Vile and Vain, are then apt to seem excellent to them, by reason of the novelty of the matter as to them, who never saw such things before, and by reason of the false esteem of those carnal persons, to whose pomp, and consequently to whose judgment, they would be conformed. 6. And they are at that age exceedingly inclined to think all their own apprehensions to be right, and to be very confident of their own conceptions, and wise in their own eyes: Because their juvenile intellect being then in the most affecting activity, it seemeth still clear and sure to them, because it so much affects themselves. 7. But above all, they are yet unfurnished of almost all that solid wisdom, and settled holiness, and large experience, which is most necessary to their improvement of their travels, and to their resistance of all these temptations. Alas, how few of them are able to deal with a Jesuit, or hold fast their Religion against deceivers? If the very Vices, the Ambition, the Carnal Policies and Pomps, the filthiness and worldliness of the Roman Clergy did not become a preservative to men's minds, against the Temptations which would draw them to their way, and if the Atheism, Infidelity, Whoredoms and profaneness of Papists did not become an Antidote, how few were like to return uninfected. And because the Jesuits know that they can never take this stumbling block out of the way, therefore too many of them have thought best, to debauch those first whom they would proselyte, and to reconcile them first to Plays, and drunkenness, and whoredoms, that so the dislike of these may not hinder their reconciliation with the Kingdom of Rome▪ yea, that a seeming necessity of a Priests pardon, may make it seem necessary to become their subjects.
And as unfurnished are these young travellers usually to resist the temptations to this sensuality, lust and pomp, as those of Popery: So that they are perfidiously sent into a Pesthouse, when they are in the greatest disposition to be infected. And if they come not home drunkards, gluttons, gamesters, idle, prodigal, proud, infidels, irreligious, or Papists, its little thanks to those perfidious Parents, who thus perform their promise for them in Baptism, by sending them to Satan's Schools and University to be educated.
Whereas if they were but kept to their due studies, and under a holy government at home, till they were furnished with sound religious knowledge, and till they were rooted in holiness, and in a Love to a pious sober life, and till they had got a settled hatred of intemperance and all sin, and till they had a Map of the places, persons and affairs of the world well imprinted on their minds by study and due information, then necessary travel would be more safe: and then they would be in a capacity to learn wisdom from other men's folly, and virtue from other men's vice, and piety from other men's impiety: which Novices are rather ap • to imitate.
5. And in the mean time the loss of all the helps which they should have at home, doth greatly tend to their destruction. For they oft travel into Countries, where they shall have no public worship of God which is lawful, or which they understand: or if they have, it is usually cold preaching, and dull praying, when they have need of the best, and all too little. And they have seldom such pious society to edify and quicken them by private converse, as they have or might have here at home: And seldom come into such well ordered religious families. And if human nature be prone to infection by temptations, and so averse to holiness, that all means is too little, and even in the best families, folly and sensuality and a distaste of Godliness often thrives (as unsown Weeds overspread the Garden, where with great cost and labor only better things were sowed,) What then but sin and misery can be expected from those that by their own Parents are banished from their native Country, (not so well as into a Wilderness, but) into the pestilent infected Countries of the world?
I would ask those Parents that plead for this crime and cruelty as a kindness: Are you no wiser or better yourselves, than the company into which you send your children? Can you teach them and educate them no better, nor give them better examples than they are like to have abroad? Can you set them on no better work, for the improvement of their time? If not, Why do you not repent of this your shame and misery, and reform yourselves? If you can, Why will you then betray your children? Or if you cannot, Are there no Schools, no Learned and Pious men, no Religious families and company at home, in your own Land, where you might place them to better advantage, than thus to expose them to the Tempter? Undoubtedly there are; and such as may be had at Cheaper rates.
6. And it is not the smallest part of the guilt and danger, that they are sent abroad without due oversight and conduct. They that do but get them some sober or honest servant to attend them, or some sober companion, think they have done well: when as they had need of some Divine or Tutor of great Learning, Piety, Prudence and Experience, whom they will reverence and obey, that may take the oversight of them, and be ready to answer any Sophister that would seduce them. But the charge of this is thought too great, for the safety of their own children, whom they themselves expose to a necessity of it.
I know that carnal minds will distaste all this, and have Objections enough against it, and reasons of their own, to make it seem a duty to betray and undo their children's souls, and to break their promise made for them in Baptism;
But I will proceed to the Directions which are necessary to those that must or will needs go abroad, either as Merchants, Factors, or as Travelers.
Direct. 1. Be sure that you go not without a clear warrant from God; which must be (all things laid together) a great probability, in the judgment of impartial, experienced, wise men, that you may get or do more good than you were like to have done at home. For if you go sinfully without a Call or Warrant, you put yourself out of God's protection, as much as in you is, that is, you forfeit it: And what ever plague befalls you, it will arm your accusing Consciences to make it double.
Direct. 2. Send with your children that travel some such pious prudent Tutor or Overs •• r as is afore described: And get them, or your Apprentices into as good company as possibly you can.
Direct. 3. Send them as the last part of all their education, when they are settled in knowledge, sound doctrine and godliness, and have first got such acquaintance with the state of the world, as Reading, Maps and Conversation and Discourse can help them to: And not while they are young, and raw, and uncapable of self-defense, or of due improving what they see. And those that are thus prepared, will have no great lust or fancy to wander, and lose their time, without necessity: For they will know, that there is nothing better (considerably) to be seen abroad, than is at home: That in all Countries, Houses are Houses, and Cities are Cities, and Trees are Trees, and Beasts are Beasts, and Men are Men, and Fools are Fools, and Wise men are Wise, and Learned men are Learned, and Sin is Sin, and Virtue is Virtue. And these things are but the same abroad as at home: And that a Grave is everywhere a Grave, and you are travelling towards it, which way ever you go. And happy is he that spendeth his little time so, as may do God best service, and best prepare him for the state of immortality.
Direct. 4. If experience of their youthful lust and pride, and vicious folly, or unsettled dangerous state, doth tell you plainly, that your Child or Apprentice, is unfit for travel, venture them not upon it, either for the carnal ornaments of education, or for your worldly gain. For souls that cost the blood of Christ, are more precious, than to be sold at so low a rate: And especially by those Parents and Masters that are doubly obliged to love them, and to guide them in the way to Heaven, and must be answerable for them.
〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉Direct. 5. Choose those Countries for your Children to travel in which are soundest in doctrine, and of best example, and where they may get more good than hurt: and venture them not needlessly into the places and company of greatest danger; especially among the Jesuits and Friars, or subtle Heretics, or enemies of Christ.
Direct. 6. Study before you go, what particular Temptations you are like to meet with, and study well for particular Preservatives against them all: As you will not go into a place infected with the Plague, without an Antidote. It is no small task, to get a mind prepared for travel.
Direct. 7. Carry with you such Books as are fittest for your use, both for Preservation and Edification: As to preserve you from Popery, Drelincourts, and Mr. Pools small Manual: For which use my Key for Catholics, and Safe Religion, and Sheet against Popery may not be useless. And Dr. Challoners Credo Ecclesiam Catholicam is short and very strong. To preserve you against Infidelity, Vander Meulin in Latin, and Grotius, and in English my Reasons of the Christian Religion, may not be unfit. For your practice, the Bible and the Practice of Piety, and Mr. Scudders Daily Walk, and Mr. Reyners Directions, and Dr. Ames Cases of Conscience.
Direct. 8. Get acquaintance with the most able Reformed Divines, in the places where you travel, and make use of their frequent converse, for your edification and defense. For it is the wisest and best men in all Countries where you come, that must be profitable to you, if any.
Direct. 9. Set yourselves in a course of regular study if you are Travelers, as if you were at home, and on a course of regular employment if you are Tradesmen, and make not mere wandering and gazing upon novelties, your Trade and Business: But redeem your time as laboriously as you would do in the most settled life. For time is precious, where ever you be: And it must be diligence everywhere that must cause your proficiency; for Place and Company will not do it, without your labor. It is not an University that will make a sluggish person wise, nor a foreign Land that will furnish a sensual sot with wisdom: Coelum non animum mutant qui trans more currunt. There is more ado necessary to make you wise, or bring you to Heaven, than to go long journeys, or see many people.
Direct. 10. Avoid temptations: If you acquaint yourselves with the humors and sinful opinions and fashions of the time and places where you are, let it be but as the Lacodamonians called out their children to see a drunkard, to hate the sin: Therefore see them, but taste them not, as you would do by poison or loathsome things. Once or twice seeing a folly and sin is enough. If you do it frequently, custom will abate your detestation, and do much to reconcile you to it.
Direct. 9. Set yourselves to do all the good you can to the miserable people in the places where you come. Furnish yourselves with the foresaid Books and Arguments, not only to preserve yourselves, but also to convince poor Infidels and Papists. And pity their souls, as those that believe, that there is indeed a life to come, where Happiness and Misery, will show the difference between the godly and the wicked. Especially, Merchants and Factors, who live constantly among the poor ignorant Christians, Armenians, Greeks, Papists, who will hear them; and among Heathens (in Indostan and elsewhere) and Mohammedans (especially the Persians, who allow a liberty of discourse.) But above all, the Chaplains of the several Embassies and Factories. O what an opportunity have they to sow the seeds of Christianity, among the Heathen Nations? and to make known Christ to the Infidel people where they come? And how heavy a guilt will lie on them that shall neglect it! And how will the great industry of the Jesuits rise up in judgment against them and condemn them?
Direct. 10. The more you are deprived of the benefit of God's public Worship, the more industrious must you be, in Reading Scripture and good Books, and in secret Prayer, and Meditation, and in the improvement of any one godly friend that doth accompany you, to make up your loss, and to be instead of public means. It will be a great comfort among Infidels, or Papists, or ignorant Greeks, or profane people, to read sound and holy and spiritual Books, and to confer with someone godly friend, and to meditate on the sweet and glorious subjects, which from Earth and Heaven are set before us; and to solace ourselves in the praises of God, and to pour out our suites before him.
Direct. 11. And that your work may be well done, be sure that you have right ends; and that it be not to please a ranging fancy, nor a proud vain mind, nor a Covetous desire of being Rich or high, that you go abroad: but that you do it purposely and principally to serve God abroad, and to be able to serve him the better when you come home, with your wit, and experience, and estates. If sincerely you go for this end, and not for the Love of money, you may expect the greater comfort.
Direct. 12. Stay abroad no longer than your lawful ends and work require: And when you come home, let it be seen that you have seen sin, that you might hate it; and that by the observation of the errors and evils of the world, you love sound doctrine, spiritual worship, and holy, sober, and righteous living, better than you did before; and that you are the better resolved and furnished for a godly, exemplary fruitful life.
One thing more I will warn some Parents of; who send their Sons to travel to keep them from untimely marrying, lest they have part of their estates too soon: That there are other means better than this, which prudence may find out: If they would keep them low, from fullness, and idleness, and bad company (which a wise self-denying diligent man may do, but another cannot) and engage them in as much study and business (conjunct) as they can well perform, and when they must needs marry, let it be done with prudent careful choice; and learn themselves to live somewhat lower, that they may spare that which their Son must have, this course would be better than that hazardous one in question.
CHAP. XX. Motives and Directions against Oppression.
§. 1. OPpression is the injuring of inferiors, who are unable to resist, or to right themselves: when men use Power to bear down right. Yet all is not Oppression which is so called by the poor, or by inferiors that suffer: For they are apt to be partial in their own cause as well as others. There may be injustice in the expectations of the poor, as well as in the actions of the rich. Some think they are oppressed, if they be justly punished for their crimes: And some say, they are oppressed, if they have not their wills, and unjust desires, and may not be suffered to injure their superiors: And many of the poor do call all that Oppression, which they suffer from any that are above them, as if it were enough to prove it an injury, because a Rich man doth it: But yet Oppression is a very common and a heinous sin.
§. 2. There are as many ways of oppressing others, as there are advantages to men of power against them. But the principal are these following.
§. 3. 1. The most common and heinous sort is the malignant injuries and cruelties of the ungodly against men that will not be as indifferent in the matters of God and salvation as themselves; and that will not be of their opinions in Religion, and be as bold with sin, and as careless of their souls as they. These are hated, reproached, slandered, abused, and some way or other pesecuted commonly where ever they live throughout the world. But of this sort of Oppression I have spoken before.
§. 4. 2. A second sort is the Oppression of the Subjects by their Rulers; either by unrighteous Laws, or cruel executions, or unjust impositions, or exactions, laying on the people greater Taxes, tributes or servitude, than the common good requireth, and than they are able well to bear. Thus did Pharaoh oppress the Israelites, till their groans brought down God's vengeance on him. But I purposely forbear to meddle with the sins of Magistrates.
§. 5. 3. Soldiers also are too commonly guilty of the most inhumane barbarous oppressions; plundering the poor Country-men, and domineering over them, and robbing them of the fruit of their hard labors, and of the bread which they should maintain their families with, and taking all that they can lay hold on as their own. But (unless it be a few that are a wonder in the world) this sort of men are so barbarous and inhumane, that they will neither read nor regard any counsel that I shall give them. (No man describeth them better than Erasmus ).
§. 6. 4. The Oppression of Servants by their Masters I have said enough to before. And among us, where servants are free to change for better Masters, it is not the most common sort of Oppression; But rather servants are usually negligent and unfaithful, because they know that they are free: (Except in the case of Apprentices.)
§. 7. 5. It is too common a sort of Oppression for the Rich in all places to domineer too insolently over the poor, and force them to follow their wills, and to serve their interest, be it right or wrong: So that it is rare to meet with a poor man that dare displease the rich, though it be in a cause where God and Conscience do require it. If a rich man wrong them, they dare not seek their remedy at Law, because he will tire them out by the advantage of his friends and wealth; and either carry it against them, be his cause never so unjust, or lengthen the suit till he hath undone them, and forced them to submit to his oppressing will.
§. 8. 6. Especially unmerciful Landlords are the common and sore oppressors of the Country-men: If a few men can but get money enough to purchase all the Land in a County, they think that they may do with their own as they list, and set such hard bargains of it to their Tenants, that they are all but as their servants, yea, and live a more troublesome life than servants do: when they have labored hard all the year, they can scarce scrape up enough to pay their Landlords rent: Their necessities are so urgent, that they have not so much as leisure, to pray Morning or Evening in their families, or to read the Scriptures, or any good Book; nor scarce any room in their thoughts for any holy things: Their minds are so distracted with necessities and cares, that even on the Lord's Day, or at a time of prayer, they can hardly keep their minds intent, upon the sacred work which they have in hand: If the freest minds have much ado to keep their thoughts in seriousness and order, in meditation, or in the worshipping of God; how hard must it needs be to a poor oppressed man, whose body is tired with wearisome labors, and his mind distracted with continual cares, how to pay his rent, and how to have food and raiment for his family? How unfit is such a troubled discontented person, to live in thankfulness to God, and in his joyful praises? Abundance of the Voluptuous great ones of the world, do use their Tenants and servants, but as their Beasts, as if they had been made only to labor and toil for them, and it were their chief felicity to fulfil their will, and live upon their favor.
§. 9. Direct. 1. The principal means to overcome this sin, is to understand the Greatness of it. For the flesh persuadeth carnal men, to judge of it according to their selfish interest, and not according to the interest of others, nor according to the true principles of Charity and Equity; and so they justify themselves in their oppression.
§. 10. 1. Consider, That Oppression is a sin not only contrary to Christian Charity and Self-denial, but even to Humanity itself. We are all made of one earth, and have souls of the same kind: There is as near a kindred betwixt all mankind, as a specifical identity: As between one Sh • ep, one Dov • , one Angel and another. As between several drops of the same water, and several sparks of the same fire: which have a natural tendency to Union with each other. And as it is an inhumane thing for one brother to oppress another, or one member of the same body to set up a proper interest of its own, and make all the rest, how painfully soever, to serve that private interest: So is it for those men who are children of the same Creator. Much more for them who account themselves members of the same Redeemer, and brethren in Christ by grace and regeneration, with those whom they oppress. Mal. 2. 10. Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother? By profaning the Covenant of our Fathers? If we must not lie to one another, because we are members one of another. Ephes. 4. 25. And if all the members must have the same care of one another, 1 Cor. 12. 25. Surely then they must not oppress one another.
§. 11. 2. An Oppressor is an Anti-christ and an Anti-god; He is contrary to God, who delighteth to do good, and whose bounty maintaineth all the world: Who is kind to his enemies, and causeth his Sun to shine, and his rain to fall on the just and on the unjust: and even when he afflicteth doth it as unwillingly, delighting not to grieve the Sons of men. He is contrary to Jesus Christ, who gave himself a ransom for his enemies, and made himself a curse to redeem them from the curse; and condescended in his incarnation to the nature of man, and in his passion to the Cross and suffering which they deserved; and being rich and Lord of all, yet made himself poor, that we by his poverty might be made rich. He endured the Cross and despised the shame, and made himself of as no reputation, accounting it his honor and joy to be the Savior of men's souls; even of the poor and despised of the world: And these Oppressors live as if they were made to afflict the just, and to rob them of God's mercies, and to make crosses for other men to bear, and to tread on their brethren as stepping stones of their own advancement. The Holy Ghost is the Comforter of the just and faithful. And these men live as if it were their Calling to deprive men of their comfort.
§. 12. 3. Yea, an Oppressor is not only the Agent of the Devil, but his Image: It is the Devil that is the destroyer, and the devourer, who maketh it his business, to undo men, and bring them into misery and distress. He is the grand Oppressor of the world: Yet in this he is far short of the malignity of men-devils, 1. That he doth it not by force and violence, but by deceit, and hurteth no man till he hath procured his own consent to sin; whereas our Oppressors do it by their brutish force and power. 2. And the Devil destroyeth men, who are not his brethren, nor of the same kind! But these oppressors never stick at the violating of such relations.
§. 13. 4. Oppression is a sin that greatly serveth the Devil, to the damning of men's souls, as well as to the afflicting of their bodies. And it is not a few, but millions that are undone by it. For as I shown before, it taketh up men's Minds and Time so wholly, to get them a poor living in the world, that they have neither mind nor time for better things. They are so troubled about many things, that the one thing needful is laid aside. All the labors of many a worthy able Pastor, are frustrated by oppressors: To say nothing of the far greatest part of the world, where the tyranny and oppression, of Heathen, Infidel and Mahometane Princes, keepeth out the Gospel, and the means of life; nor yet of any other Persecutors: If we exhort a Servant to read the Scriptures, and call upon God, and think of his everlasting state, he telleth us that he hath no time to do it, but when his weary body must have rest: If we desire the Masters of families, to instruct and catechise their children and servants, and pray with them, and read the Scriptures and other good Books to them, they tell us the same, that they have no time, but when they should sleep, and that on the Lord's Day their tired bodies, and careful minds, are unfit to attend and ply such work: So that necessity quietteth their consciences in their ignorance and neglect of heavenly things, and maketh them think it the work only of Gentlemen and rich men, who have leisure (but are further alienated from it by prosperity, than these are by their poverty): And thus oppression destroyeth Religion, and the people's souls, as well as their estates.
§. 14. 5. Oppression further endangereth both the souls of men, and the public peace, and the safety of Princes, by tempting the poor multitude into discontents, sedition and insurrections: Every man is naturally a lover of himself, above others: And the poor as well as the rich and Rulers, have an interest of their own which ruleth them: And they will hardly honor, or love, or think well of them by whom they suffer! It is as natural almost for a man under oppression, to be discontented and complain, as for a man in a Feavor to complain of sickness, heat and thirst. No Kingdom on earth is so holy and happy as to have all or most of the subjects such confirmed eminent Saints, as will be contented to be undone, and will love and honor those that undo them. Therefore men must be taken as they are: If oppression maketh wise men mad, Eccles. 7. 7. much more the multitude, who are far from wisdom. Misery maketh men desperate, when they think that they cannot be much worse than they are. How many Kingdoms have been thus fired, (as wooden wheels will be when one part rubbeth too hard and long upon the other). Yea, if the Prince be never so good and blameless, the cruelty of the Nobles and the rich men of the Land, may have the same effects. And in these combustions, the peace of the Kingdom, the lives and souls of the seditious are made a sacrifice to the lusts of the Oppressors.
§. 15. Direct. 2. Consider with fear how Oppression turneth the groans and cries of the poor, to the God of revenge against the Oppressors. And woe to that man that hath the tears and prayers of oppressed innocents, sounding the alarm to vindictive Justice, to awake for their relief. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night to him, though he bear long with them? I tell you, that he will avenge them speedily, Luke 18. 7, 8. The Lord will be a refuge to the oppressed, Psal. 9. 9. To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress, Psal. 10. 18. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed, Psal. 103. 6. & 146. 7. Yea, God is doubly engaged to be revenged upon oppressors, and hath threatened a special execution of his judgment against them above most other sinners: Partly as it is an act of mercy and relief to the oppressed; So that the matter of threatening and vengeance to the oppressor, is the matter of God's promise and favor to the sufferers: And partly as it is an act of his Vindictive Justice against such as so heinously break his Laws. The oppressor hath indeed his time of Power, and in that time the oppressed seem to be forsaken and neglected of God; as if he did not hear their cries: But when his patience hath endured the tyranny of the proud, and his wisdom hath tried the patience of the sufferers, to the determined time; how speedily and terribly then both vengeance overtake the oppressors, and make them warnings to those that follow them. In the hour of the wicked and of the power of darkness Christ himself was oppressed and afflicted, Isa. 53. 7. and in his humiliation his judgment taken was away, Acts 8. But how quickly did the destroying revenge overtake those bloody Zealots, and how grievous is the ruin which they lie under to this day, which they thought by that same murder to have scaped? Solomon saith, Eccles. 4. 1. he considered all the oppressions that are under the Sun, and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of the oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter. Which made him praise the d • ad and the unborn: But yet he that goeth with David into the Sanctuary, and seeth the end of the oppressors, shall perceive them set in slippery places, and tumbling down to destruction in a moment, Psal. 37. & 73. The Israelites in Egypt seemed long to groan and cry in vain; But when the determinate time of their deliverance came, God saith, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows: and I am come down to deliver them—Behold the cry of the children of Israel is come up unto me, and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Exod. 3. 7, 8, 9. Deut. 26. 6, 7. The Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage, and when we cried to the Lord God of our Fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression. See Psal. 107. 39, 40, 41, 42. So Psal. 12. 5, 6. For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him (or would ensnare him) Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. Trust not therefore in oppression, Psal. 62. 10. for God is the avenger and his plagues shall revenge the injuries of the oppressed.
§. 16. Direct. 3. Remember what an odious name Oppressors commonly leave behind them upon earth. No sort of men are mentioned by posterity with greater hatred and contempt. For the interest of mankind directeth them hereunto, and may prognosticate it, as well as the Justice of God. However the power of proud oppressors, may make men afraid of speaking to their faces what they think, yet those that are out of their reach, will pour out the bitterness of their souls against them. And when once death hath tied their cruel hands, or any judgment of God hath cast them down, and knocked out their teeth, how freely will the distressed vent their grief; and same will not be afraid to deliver their ugly picture to posterity, according to their desert. Methinks therefore that even Pride itself should be a great help to banish oppression from the world? What an honorable name hath a Trajan, a Titus, an Antonine, an Alexander Severus? And what an odious name hath a Nero, a Caligula, a Commodus, a D' Alva, &c.? Most proud men affect to be extolled, and to have a glorious name survive them when they are dead: and yet they take the course to make their memory abominable; So much doth sin contradict and disappoint the sinners hopes!
§. 17. Direct. 4. Be not strangers to the condition or complaints of any that are your inferiors. It is the misery of many Princes and Nobles, that they are guarded about with such as keep all the lamentations of their Subjects, and Tenants from their cars; or represent them only as the murmurings of unquiet discontented men: So that Superiors shall know no more of their inferiors case, than their attendants please; nor no more of the reproach that falleth upon themselves. Their case is to be pitied; but the case of their inferiors more: (For it is their own willful choice which hath imprisoned their understandings, with-such informers; and it is their inexcusable negligence, which keepeth them from seeking truer information.) A good Landlord will be familiar with the meanest of his Tenants, and will encourage them freely to open their complaints, and will labor to inform himself, who is in poverty and distress, and how it cometh to pass; that when he hath heard all, he may understand, whether it be his own oppression or his Tenants fault, that is the cause: when proud self-seeking men disdain such inferior converse, and if they have servants that do but tell them their Tenants have a good bargain, and are murmuring, unthrifty, idle persons, they believe them without anymore enquiry; and in negligent ignorance oppress the poor.
§. 18. Direct. 5. Mortify your own lusts and sinful curiosity, which maketh you think that you need so much, as tempteth you to get it by oppressing others. Know well how little is truly necessary? And how little nature (well-taught) is contented with? And what a privilege it is to need but little? Pride and curiosity are an insatiable gulf. Their daily trouble seemeth to them a necessary accommodation. Such abundance must be laid out on superfluous recreations, buildings, ornaments, furniture, equipage, attendants, entertainments, visitations, braveries, and a world of need-nots, (called by the names of handsomness, cleanliness, neatness, conveniences, delights, usefulness, honors, civilities, comeliness, &c. ) So much doth carnal concupiscence, pride and curiosity thus devour, that hundreds of the poor must be oppressed to maintain it: And many a man that hath many score or hundred Tenants, who with all their families, daily toil to get him provision for his fleshly lusts, doth find at the years end, that all will hardly serve the turn; but this greedy devourer could find room for more: when one of his poor Tenants could live and maintain all his family comfortably, if he had but as much as his Landlord bestoweth upon one suit of Clothes, or one proud entertainment, or one Horse, or on a pack of Hounds. I am not persuading the highest to level their garb and expenses equal with the lowest: But mortify pride, curiosity and gluttony, and you will find less need to oppress the poor, or to feed your concupiscence with the sweat and groans of the afflicted.
§. 19. Direct. 6. Be not the sole Judge of your own actions in a controverted case; but if any complain of you, hear the judgment of others that are wise and impartial in the case. For it is easy to misjudge where self-interest is concerned.
§. 20. Direct. 7. Love your poor brethren as yourselves, and delight in their welfare, as if it were your own. And then you will never oppress them willingly; and if you do it ignorantly, you will quickly feel it and give over upon their just complaint: As you will quickly feel when you hurt yourselves, and need no great exhortation to forbear.
Tit. 2. Cases of Conscience about Oppression, especially of Tenants.
Quest. 1. IS it lawful for a mean man, who must needs make the best of it, to purchase tenanted Land of a liberal Landlord, who setteth his Tenants a much better pennyworth than the buyer can afford.
Answ. Distinguish 1. Between a seller who understandeth all this, and one that doth not: 2. Between a Tenant that hath by custom a half-title to his easier Rent, and one that hath not: 3. Between a Tenant that consenteth, and one that consenteth not: 4. Between buying it when a liberal man might else have bought it, and buying it when a worse else would have bought it. 5. Between a case of scandal, and of no scandal.
And so I answer, 1. If the Landlord that selleth it expect that the buyer do use the Tenants as well as he hath done, and sell it accordingly, it is unrighteous to do otherwise (ordinarily). 2. In many Countries it is the custom not to turn out a Tenant, nor to raise his rent; so that many generations have held the same Land at the same rent: which though it give no legal title, is yet a half-title in common estimation. In such a case it will be scandalous, and infamous, and injurious, and therefore unlawful to purchase it with a purpose to raise the rent, and do accordingly. 3. In case that a better Landlord would buy it, who would use the Tenant better than you can do, it is not (ordinarily) lawful for you to buy it. I either express or imply [ ordinarily ] in most of my solutions; because that there are some exceptions lie against almost all such answers, in extraordinary cases; which the greatest Volume can scarce enumerate.
But if 1. It be the sellers own doing to withdraw his liberality so far from his Tenants, as to sell his Land on hard rates, on supposition that the buyer will improve it: 2. And if it be a Tenant that cannot either by custom or any other plea, put in a claim in point of equity to his easy-rented Land; 3. And if as bad a Landlord would buy it if you do not: 4. If it be not a real scandal; I say if all these four concur: 5. Or (alone) if the Tenant consent freely to your purchase on those terms; then it is no injury. But the common course is, for a covetous man that hath money, never to consider what a loser the Tenant is by his purchase, but to buy and improve the Land at his own pleasure; which is no better than Oppression.
Quest. 2. May not a Landlord take as much for his Land as it is worth?
Answ. 1. Sometimes it is Land that no man can claim an equitable title to hold upon any easier rent, and sometimes it is otherwise, as aforesaid, by custom and long possession, or other reasons. 2. Sometimes the Tenant is one that you are obliged to show Mercy to; and sometimes he is one that no more than commutative Justice is due to. And so I answer, 1. If it be an old Tenant who by custom or any other ground can claim an equitable title to his old pennyworth, you may not enhaunse the Rent to the full worth. 2. If it be one that you are obliged to show Mercy as well as Justice to, you may not take the full worth. 3. The common case in England is, that the Landlords are of the Nobility or Gentry, and the Tenants are poor men, who have nothing but what they get by their hard labor out of the Land which they hold: And in this case some abatement of the full worth is but such a necessary Mercy, as may be called Justice. Note still, that by [ the full worth ] I mean, so much as you could set it for to a stranger who expecteth nothing but strict Justice, as men buy and sell things in a Market.
But 1. If you deal with a Tenant as rich or richer than yourself, or with one that needeth not your mercy, or is no fit object of it: 2. And if it be Land that no man can by custom claim equitably to hold on lower terms; and so it is no injury to another, nor just scandal, then you may lawfully raise it to the full worth. Sometimes a poor man setteth a House or Land to a rich man, where the scruple hath no place.
Quest. 3. May a Landlord raise his Rents, though he take not the full worth?
Answ. He may do it when there is just reason for it, and none against it. There is just reason for it, when 1. The Land was much underset before: 2. Or when the Land is proportionably improved: 3. Or when the plenty of money maketh a greater sum to be in effect no more than a lesser heretofore: 4. Or when an increase of persons, or other accident maketh Land dearer than it was. But then it must be supposed, 1. That no Contract, 2. Nor Custom, 3. Nor Service and Merit, do give the Tenant any equitable right to his better penny-worth. And also that Mercy prohibit not the change.
Quest. 4. How much must a Landlord set his Land below the full worth, that he may be no oppressor or unmerciful to his Tenants?
Answ. No one proportion can be determined of; because a great alteration may be made in respect to the Tenants ability, his merit, to the time, and place, and other accidents. Some Tenants are so rich, as is said, that you are not bound to any abatement. Some are so bad, that you are bound to no more than strict Justice and common humanity to them. Some years (like the last, when a longer drouth than any man alive had known, burnt up the Grass) disableth a Tenant to pay his Rent: Some Countries are so scarce of money, that a little abatement is more than in another place: But ordinarily the common sort of Tenants in England should have so much abated of the fullest worth, that they may comfortably live on it, and follow their labors with cheerfulness of mind, and liberty to serve God in their families, and to mind the matters of their salvation, and not to be necessitated to such toil, and care, and pinching want, as shall make them liker Slaves than Free-men, and make their lives uncomfortable to them, and make them unfit to serve God in their families, and seasonably mind eternal things.
Quest. 5. What if the Landlord be in debt, or have some present want of money, may be not then raise the Rent of those Lands which were under-let before?
Answ. If his pride pretend want where there is none, (as to give extraordinary portions with his daughters, to erect sumptuous buildings, &c. ) this is no good excuse for oppression. But if he really fall into want, then all that his Tenants hold as mere gifts from his liberality, he may withdraw, (as being no longer able to give). But that which they had by custom an equitable title to, or by contract also a legal title to, he may not withdraw. (And yet all this is his sin, if he brought that poverty culpably on himself: it is his sin in the cause, though, supposing that cause, the raising of his Rent be lawful • ). But it is not every debt in a rich man, who hath other ways of paying it, which is a true necessity in this Case: And if a present debt made it necessary only at that time, it is better (by Fine or otherwise) make a present supply, than thereupon to lay a perpetual burden on the Tenants, when the cause is ceased.
Quest. 6. What if there be abundance of honest people in for greater want than my Tenants are, (yea, perhaps Preachers of the Gospel), and I have no other way to relieve them unless I raise my Rents? Am I not bound rather to give to the best and poorest, than to others?
Answ. Yes, if it were a case that concerned mere giving: But when you must take away from one to give to another, there is more to be considered in it. Therefore at least in these two cases you may not raise your▪ Tenants Rents to relieve the best or poorest whosoever: 1. In case that he have some equitable title to your Land, as upon the easier Rent: 2. Or in case that the scandal of seeming injustice or cruelty, is like to do more hurt to the interest of Religion and men's souls, than your relieving the poor with the addition would do good: (which a prudent man by collation of probable consequents may satisfactorily discern:) But if it were not only to preserve the comforts, but to save the lives of others in their present famine, nature teacheth you to take that which is truly your own, both from your Tenants, and your Servants, and your own mouths, to relieve men in such extreme distress: and Nature will teach all men to judge it your duty, and no scandalous oppression. But when you cannot relieve the ordinary wants of the poor, without such a scandalous raising of your Rents as will do more harm, than your alms would do good, God doth not than call you to give such Alms; but you are to be supposed to be unable.
Quest. 7. May I raise a Tenants Rent, or turn him out of his House, because he is a bad man? by a kind of penalty?
Answ. A bad man hath a title to his Own, as well as a good man: And therefore if he have either legal or equitable title, you may not; Nor yet if the scandal of it is like to do more hurt, than the good can countervail which you intend. Otherwise you may either raise his Rent, or turn him out, if he be a wicked, profligate, incorrigible person, after due admonition: Yea, and you ought to do it, lest you be a cherisher of wickedness. If the Parents under Moses Law were bound to accuse their own Son to the Judges in such a case, and say, This our Son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice: he is a glutton and a drunkard; and all the men of the City must stone him till he die, to put away evil from among them, Deut. 21. 18, 19, 20, 21. Then surely a wicked Tenant is not so far to be spared, as to be cherished by bounty in his sin. It is the Magistrates work to punish him by Governing Justice: But it is your work as a prudent Benefactor, to withhold your gifts of bounty from him. And I think it is one of the great sins of this age, that this is not done, it being one of the notablest means imaginable to reform the Land, and make it happy, if Landlords would thus punish or turn out their wicked incorrigible Tenants: It would do much more than the Magistrate can do. The vulgar are most effectually ruled by their interest, as we rule our Dogs and Horses more by the Government of their bellies, than by force. They will most obey those on whom they apprehend their good or hurt to have most dependence. If Landlords would regard their Tenants souls, so much as to correct them thus for their wickedness, they would be the greatest benefactors and reformers of the Land: But alas, who shall first reform the Landlords? And when may it be hoped that many or most Great men will be such?
Quest. 8. May one take a House over another's head (as they speak), or take the Land which he is a Tenant to, before he be turned out of possession?
Answ. Not out of a greedy desire to be rich, nor coveting that which is another's: Nor yet while he is any way injured by it: nor yet when the act is like to be so scandalous, as to hurt men's souls, more than it will profit your body. If you come with the offer of a greater Rent than he can give, or than the Landlord hath just cause to require of him, to get it out of his hands by over-bidding him, this is mere covetous oppression. But in other cases it is lawful to take the House and Land which another Tenant hath possession of: As 1. In case that he willingly leave it, and consent. 2. Or if he unwillingly (but justly) be put out; and another Tenant must be provided against the time that he is to be dispossessed. 3. Yea, if he be unjustly put out, if he that succeed him have no hand in it, nor by his taking the House or Land do promote the injury, nor scandalously countenance injustice. For when a Tenement is void, though by injury, it doth not follow, that no man may ever live in it more: But if the title be his that is turned out, then you may not take it of another; because you will possess another man's habitation. But if it should go for a standing rule, that no man may in any case take a House over another man's head, (as the Country people would have it;) then every man's House and Land must be long untenanted, to please the will of every contentious or unjust possessor: And any one that hath no title, or will play the knave, may injure the true Owner at his pleasure.
Quest. 9. May a rich man put out his Tenants, to lay their Tenements to his own Demesnes, and so lay House to House, and Land to Land?
Answ. In two cases he may not: 1. In case he injure the Tenant that is put out, by taking that from him which he hath right to, without his satisfaction and consent: 2. And in case it really tend to the injury of the Common-wealth, by depopulation, and diminishing the strength of it: Otherwise it is lawful: and done in moderation by a pious man, may be very convenient: 1. By keeping the Land from beggary through the multitudes of poor families, that overset it: 2. By keeping the more Servants, among whom he may keep up a better order, and more pious government in his own House, (making it as a Church,) than can be expected in poor families: And his Servants will (for soul and body) have a much better life, than if they married and had families, and small Tenements of their own: But in a Country that rather wanteth people, it is otherwise.
Quest. 10. May one man be a Tenant to divers Tenements?
Answ. Yes, if it tend not 1. To the wrong of any other, 2. Nor to depopulation, or to hinder the livelihood of others, while one man engrosseth more than is necessary or meet: For then it is unlawful.
Quest. 11. May one man have many Trades or Callings?
Answ. Not, when he doth, in a covetous desire to grow rich, disable his poor neighbors to live by him on the same Callings, seeking to engross all the gain to himself: nor yet when they are Callings which are inconsistent: or when he cannot manage one aright, without the sinful neglect of the other. But otherwise it is as lawful to have two Trades, as one.
Quest. 12. Is it lawful for one man to keep Shops in several Market Towns?
Answ. The same answer will serve as to the foregoing question.
CHAP. XXI. Cases about, and Directions against Prodigality and sinful Wastefulness.
§. 1. BEcause men's carnal interest and sensuality, is predominant with the greatest part of the world, and therefore governeth them in their judgment about Duty and Sin, it thence cometh to pass that Wastefulness and Prodigality are easily believed to be faults, so far as they bring men to shame or beggary, or apparently cross their own pleasure or commodity: But in other cases, they are seldom acknowledged to be any sins at all: Yea, all that are gratified by them, account them virtues, and there is scarce any sin which is so commonly commended: Which must needs tend to the increase of it, and to harden men in their impenitency in it: And verily if covetousness, and selfishness, or poverty did not restrain it in more persons than true conscience doth, it were like to go for the most laudable quality, and to be judged most meritorious of present praise and future happiness. Therefore in directing you against this sin, I must first tell you What it is: and then tell you wherein the malignity of it doth consist: The first will be best done in the definition of it, and enumeration of the instances, and examination of each one of them.
§. 2. Direct. 1. Truly understand what necessary frugality, or parsimony, and sinful wastefulness are.
Necessary frugality or sparing is, An act of fidelity, obedience and gratitude, by which we use all our estates so faithfully for the chief Owner, so obediently to our chief Ruler, and so gratefully to our chief Benefactor, as that we waste it not any other way.
As we hold our estates under God, as Owner, Ruler and Benefactor, so must we devote them to him, and use them for him in each relation: And Christian parsimony cannot be defined by a mere negation of active wastefulness, because idleness itself, and not using it aright, is real wastefulness.
§. 3. Wastefulness or prodigality is that sin of unfaithfulness, disobedience and ingratitude, by which either by action or omission we mis-spend or waste some part of our estates to the injury of God, our Absolute Lord, our Ruler and Benefactor: that is, Besides and against his interest, his command, and his pleasure and glory, and our ultimate end.
These are true Definitions of the duty of frugality, and the sin of wastefulness.
§. 4. Inst. 1. One way of sinful wastefulness is, In pampering the belly in excess, curiosity, or costliness of meat or drink: Of which I have spoken Chap. 8. Tom. 1.
Quest. 1. Are all men bound to fare alike? Or when is it wastefulness and excess?
Answ. This question is answered in the foresaid Chapter of Gluttony, Par. 4. Tit. 1. 1. Distinguish between men's several tempers, and strength, and appetites: 2. And between the restraint of Want, and the restraint of God's Law. And so it is thus resolved:
- 1. Such difference in quantity or quality as men's health, or strength, and real benefit requireth, may be made, by them that have no want.
- 2. When want depriveth the poor of that which would be really for their health, and strength, and benefit, it is not their duty who have no such want to conform themselves to other men's afflictions: Except when other reasons do require it.
- 3. But all men are bound to avoid real excess in matter, or manner, and curiosity, and to lay out nothing needlessly on their bellies; yea, nothing which they are called to lay out a better way. Understand this answer and it will suffice you.
§. 5. Inst. 2. Another way of Prodigality is by needless costly Visits and Entertainments.
Quest. 2. What cost upon Visits and Entertainments is unlawful and prodigal?
Answ. 1. Not only all that which hath an ill original, as Pride or flattery of the rich; and all that hath an ill End, as being merely to keep up a carnal unprofitable interest and correspondency: but also all that which is excessive in degree. I know you will say, But thats the difficulty to know when it is excessive: It is not altogether impertinent to say, when it is above the proportion of your own estate; or the ordinary use of those of your own rank, or when it plainly tendeth to cherish gluttony or excess in others: But these answers are no exact solution. I add therefore, that it is excess when anything is that way expended, which you are called to expend another way.
Object. But this leaveth it still as difficult as before.
Answ. When in rational probability a greater good may be done by another way of expense, consideratis considerandis; and a greater good is by this way neglected, then you had a call to spend it otherwise, and this expense is sinful.
Object. It is a doubt whether of two goods it be a man's duty always to choose the greater.
Answ. Speaking of that Good which is within his choice, it is no more doubt than whether Good be the object of the will. If Good be eligible as good, then the greatest good is most eligible.
Object. But this is still a difficulty insuperable: How can a man in every action and expense discern, which way it is that the greatest good is like to be attained? This putteth a man's conscience upon endless perplexities; and we shall never be sure that we do not sin: For when I have given to a poor man, or done some good, for ought I know there was a poorer that should have had it, or a greater good that should have been done.
Answ. 1. The contrary opinion legitimateth almost all villainy, and destroyeth most good works as to ourselves or any others. If a man may lawfully prefer a known lesser good before a greater, and be justified because that the lesser is a real good, than he may be feeding his Horse, when he should be saving the life of his child or neighbor, or quenching a fire in the City, or defending the person of his King: He may deny to serve his King and Country, and say, I was ploughing or sowing the while. He may prefer sacrifice before mercy: He may neglect his soul, and serve his body. He may plow on the Lord's Day, and neglect all God's Worship. A lesser duty is no duty but a sin, when a greater is to be done. Therefore it is certain that when two goods come together to our choice, the greater is to be chosen, or else we sin. 2. As you expect that your Steward should proportion his expenses according to the necessity of your business, and not give more for a thing than it is worth, nor lay out your money upon smaller commodities, while he leaveth your greater business unprovided for: And as you expect that your Servant who hath many things in the day to do, should have so much skill as to know which to prefer, and not to leave undone the chiefest, whilst he spendeth his time upon the least: So doth God require that his servants labor to be so skillful in his service, as to be able to compare their businesses together, and to know which at every season to prefer: If Christianity required no wisdom and skill, it were below men's common Trades and Callings. 3. And yet when you have done your best here, and truly endeavor to serve God faithfully, with the best skill and diligence you have, you need not make it a matter of scrupulosity, perplexity and vexation: For God accepteth you, and pardoneth your infirmities, and rewardeth your fidelity: And what if it do follow, that you know not but there may be some sinful omission of a better way? Is that so strange or intolerable a conclusion? As long as it is only a pardoned failing, which should not hinder the comfort of your obedience? Is it strange to you that we are all imperfect? And imperfect in every good we do? Even by a culpable sinful imperfection? You never Loved God in your lives without a sinful imperfection in your Love? And yet nothing in you is more acceptable to him than your love. Shall we think a case of Conscience ill resolved, unless we may conclude, that we are sure we have no sinful imperfection in our duty? If your Servant have not perfect skill, in knowing what to prefer in buying and selling, or in his work, I think you will neither allow him therefore to neglect the greater and better, knowingly, or by careless negligence, nor yet would you have him sit down and whine, and say, I know not which to choose: But you would have him learn to be as skillful as he can, and then willingly and cheerfully do his business with the best skill, and care, and diligence he can: And this you will best accept.
So that this holdeth as the truest and exactest solution, of this and many another such case. He that spendeth that upon an entertainment of some great ones, which should relieve some poor distressed families, that are ready to perish, doth spend it sinfully: If you cannot see this in God's cause, suppose it were the Kings, and you will see it: If you have but twenty pound to spend, and your Tax or Subsidy cometh to so much: If you entertain some Noble friend with that money, will the King be satisfied with that as an excuse? Or will you not be told that the King should have first been served? Remember him then who will one day ask, Have you fed, or clothed, or visited me? Mat. 25. You are not absolute Owners of anything, but the stewards of God! and must expend it as he appointeth you: And if you let the poor lie languishing in necessities, whilst you are at great charges to entertain the rich without necessity or a greater good, you must answer it as an unfaithful Servant.
And yet on the other side, it may fall out that a person of quality, by a seasonable, prudent, handsome, respectful entertainment of his equals or superiors, may do more good than by bestowing that charge upon the poor: He may save more than he expendeth, by avoiding the displeasure of men in power: He may keep up his interest, by which if he be faithful, he may do God and his Country more service, than if he had given so much to the poor. And when really it is a needful means to a greater good, it is a duty: and then to omit it, and give that cost to the poor, would be a sin.
§. 6. Object. But if this rule hold, a man must never do but one kind of good; when he hath found out the greatest, he must do nothing else.
Answ. He must always do the greatest good: but the same thing is not at all times the greatest good. Out of season and measure a good may be turned to an evil: Praying in its season is better than plowing; and plowing in its season is better than praying, and will do more good: For God will more accept and bless it.
§. 7. Object. Therefore it seemeth the prudentest way, to divide my expenses according to the proportion of others of my quality; some to the poor, and some to necessary charges, and some to actions of due civility?
Answ. That there must be a just distribution is no question: because God hath appointed you several duties for your expenses: But the question is of the proportions, of each respectively. Where God hath made many duties constantly necessary (as to maintain your own bodies, your children, to pay tribute to the King, to help the poor, to maintain the charges of the Church) there all must be wisely proportioned. But entertainments, recreations, and other such after to be mentioned, which are not constant duties, may be sometimes good and sometimes sinful: And the measure of such expenses must be varied only by the rule already laid down, viz. According to the proportion of the effect, or good which is like to follow: Though the custom of others of the same rank may sometimes intimate what proportion will be suitable to that lawful end: And sometimes the inordinate custom of others, will rather tell one what is to be avoided. Therefore true prudence (without a carnal bias) comparing the good effects together, which rationally are like to follow, is the only resolver of this doubt. Which having so largely shown, I shall refer you to it, in the solution of many of the following questions.
§. 8. Inst. 3. Another way of sinful wasting is upon unnecessary sumptuous buildings.
Quest. 3. When is it prodigality to erect sumptuous Edifices?
Answ. Not when they are for the public good, either in point of use, or ornament and honor, so be it, no greater good be thereby omitted: Therefore it is not Churches, Hospitals, Burses, or Common Halls that I am speaking of: Nor when they are proportioned to the quality of the person, for the honor of Magistracy, or for a man's necessary use. But when it is for the ostentation of a man's riches, or rather of his Pride, and for the gratifying of a carnal irrational fancy: And when a man bestoweth more upon buildings, than is proportionable to his estate, and to his better expenses; and (to speak more exactly) when he bestoweth that upon his buildings, which some greater service calleth for at that time; it is then his prodigality and sin.
§. 9. Quest. 4. Here once for all, let us inquire, Whether it be not lawful, as in diet, so in buildings, recreation and other such things, to be at some charge for our Delight, as well as for our Necessities?
Answ. The question is thus commonly stated, but not well: For it seemeth to imply, that no Delights are necessary, and so putteth things in opposition, which are oft co-incident. Therefore I distinguish, 1. Of necessity: Some things are necessary to our being, and some to our felicity, and and some but to our smaller benefit! 2. Of Delight: Some delight is sinful, as gratifying a sinful humor or disposition: Some is unnecessary or wholly useless; and some is necessary, either to our greater or our lesser good. And so the true solution is: 1. The sinful delight of a Proud, a Covetous, a lustful, a voluptuous mind, is neither to be purchased or used. 2. A Delight wholly needless, that is, unprofitable, is sinful if it be purchased, but at the price of a farthing, or of a bit of bread, or of a minutes time: Because that is cast away which purchaseth it. 3. A Delight which tendeth to the health of the body, and the alacrity of the mind, to fit it for our Calling and the service of God (being not placed in any forbidden thing) may be both indulged and purchased, so it be not above its worth. 4. So far as delight in house, or sports, or any creature, tendeth to corrupt our minds, and draw us to the love of this present world, and alienate our hearts from Heaven, so far must they be resisted and mortified, or sanctified and turned a better way. 5. In the Utensils of our duty to God, usually a moderate natural delight, is a great help to the duty, and may become a spiritual delight: As a delight in my Books, in the Preachers utterance, in the melody of Psalms, in my study, and its conveniences, in my walk for meditation, &c. And a delight in our food and recreations, maketh them much fitter to cherish health, and to attain their ends; so it be not corrupt, immoderate, or abused to evil ends.
§. 10. Inst. 4. Another way of 〈…〉 rodigality, is in needless costly Recreations.
Quest. 5. Is all cost laid out upon recreations unlawful?
Answ. No: but caeteris paribus, we should choose the cheapest, and be at no needless cost on them: nor lay out anything on them, which consideratis considerandis might be better bestowed. But of this before.
§. 11. Inst. 5. Another way of Prodigality is in over-costly apparel.
Quest. 6. What may be accounted Prodigality in the costliness of apparel?
Answ. Not that which is only for a due distinction of superiors from inferiors, or which is needful to keep up the Vulg • rs reverence to Magistrates. But 1. All that which is merely serviceable to pride, or vain curiosity, or amorous lust, or an affectation to be thought to be more comely and beautiful than others. 2. All that which hath more cost bestowed upon it, than the benefit or end is worth: 3. Or which hath that cost which should be rather laid out another way, upon better uses. The cheapest apparel must be chosen which is warm and comely, and sitted to the right ends. And we must come nearer those that are below our rank, than those above it.
§. 12. Inst. 6. Also Prodigality is much shown in the cost which is laid out for needless pomp and o • temptation of greatness or curiosity, in keeping a numerous retinue, and in their gallantry, and in keeping many Horses, and costly furniture and attendance.
Quest. 7. When is a costly retinue, and other pompous furniture to be accounted Prodigality?
Answ. Not when they are needful to the honor of Magistracy, and so to the Government of the Common-wealth: Nor when it is made but a due means to some lawful end, which answereth the cost. But when it is either the fruits and maintenance of Pride, or exceedeth the proportion of men's estates, or (especially) when it expendeth that which better and more necessary uses call for. It is a most odious and enormous crime, to waste so many hundred or thousand pounds a year, in the vanities of pomp and fruitless curiosities and need-nots, while the public uses of the State and Church are injured through want, and while thousands of poor families are racked with cares, and pinched with necessities round about us.
§. 13. Inst. 7. Another way of Prodigality is that which is called by many, keeping a good house; that is, in unnecessary abundance, and waste of meat and drink, and other provisions.
Quest. 8. When may great house-keeping be accounted prodigality?
Answ. Not when it is but a convenient work of charity, to feed the poor, and relieve the distressed, or entertain strangers, or to give such necessary entertainment to equals or superiors as is before described: But when the truest relief of the poor shall be omitted (and it may be poor Tenants wracked and oppressed) to keep up the fame and grandeur of their abundance, and to seem magnificent, and praised by men for great house-keepers: The whole and large estates of many of the rich and great ones of the world goeth this way, and so much is devoured by it, as starveth almost all good works.
§. 14. Inst. 8. Another way of Prodigality is Cards and Dice, and other gaming; in which whilst men desire to get that which is another's, they lose and waste their own.
§. 15. Inst. 9. Another act of Prodigality is giving over-great portions wi • h children: It being a sinful waste of our Masters stock, to lay it out otherwise than he would have us, and to serve our pride and self-interest in our children, instead of him.
Quest. 9. When may our children's portions be accounted prodigality, or too great?
Answ. Not when you provide for their comfortable living according to your estates, and give them that due proportion which consisteth with the discharge of other duties: But when all that men can get is thought little enough for their children; and the business of their lives is to live in fullness themselves as long as they can, and then to leave that to their posterity which they cannot keep themselves! When this gulf of self-pampering and providing the like for children, devoureth almost all that you can gather, and the poor and other needful uses, are put off with some inconsiderable pittance: And when there is not a due proportion kept between your provision for your children, and the other duties which God requireth of you: Psal. 49. 7, 8, 9, 11, 13. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall be perpetuated, and their dwelling places to generations: they call their Lands after their own names—This their way is their folly; yet their posterity approve their sayings, Psal. 73. 12. Behold, these are the Ungodly, who prosper in the world, they increase in riches: Psal. 17. 14. They have their portion in this life:—They are full of children (or, their children are full,) and they leave the rest of their substance to their babes. A Parent that hath an heir, or other children, so wise, religious and liberal, as that they are like to be more charitable and serviceable to good uses, than any other whom he can trust with his estate; should not only leave such children sufficient for themselves, but enable them as much as he can to do good: For they will be more faithful Trustees to him than strangers. But a Parent that hath but common and untrusty children, should do all the good he can himself, and what he would have done when he is dead, he must commit to them that are more trusty; and allow his children but their proper maintenance. And Parents that have debauched, wicked, ungodly children (such as God commanded them to cause to be put to death, Deut. 21.) should allow them no more than their daily bread, if anything at all (which is their own to dispose of).
§. 16. Inst. 10. Also to be careless in many small expenses or losses, because they are but little things, and to let any such thing be cast away, is sinful prodigality.
Quest. 10. How far is it a duty to be frugal in small matters, and the contrary a sin.
Answ. We must not over-value anything, great or small: nor be sparing out of covetousness: nor yet in an imprudent way, which seemeth to signify baseness and worldliness when it is not so: Nor must we be too tinking in bargaining with others, when every p •• ny which we get by it, is lost to one that needeth it more. But we must see that nothing of any •••• , be lost through satiety, negligence or contempt: For the smallest is part of God's gifts and talents, given us, not to cast away, but to use as he would have us: And there is nothing that is good so small, but someone hath need of it, or some good use or other may be made of it. Even Christ when he had fed thousands by a miracle, yet commanded his Disciples to gather up the broken bread or fragments, that nothing be lost▪ John 6. 12. which plainly showeth that it is a duty which the richest man that is, is not exempted from, to be frugal, and a sin in the greatest Prince to be wasteful of anything that is good: But this must not be in sordid covetousness, but in obedience to God, and to do good to others. He is commendable who giveth liberally to the poor, out of his abundance: But he is much more commendable, who is a good husband for the poor, as worldlings are for themselves; and frugally getteth and saveth as much as he can, and denieth all superfluities to himself and all about him, that he may have the more to give to pious and charitable uses.
§. 17. Inst. 11. Idleness also and negligence in our Callings, is sinful wastefulness and prodigality: When either the pride of Gentility maketh people think themselves too good to labor, or to look after the matters of their families, or slothfulness maketh them think it, a life too toilsome for their flesh to bear. Prov. 18, 9. He that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great waster: These drones consume that which others labor for, but are no gatherers themselves.
§. 18. Quest. 11. Is everyone bound to labor in a Calling?
Answ. This is answered before in its due place Tom. 1. Everyone that is able, rich or poor, must live in some profitable course of pains or labor.
§. 19. Quest. 12. Is it a duty to desire and endeavor to get, and prosper, and grow rich by our labors; when Solomon saith, Labor not to be rich? Prov. 23. 4.
Answ. It is a sin to desire Riches as worldlings and sensualists do, for the provision and maintenance of fleshly lusts, and pride: But it is no sin, but a duty, to labor not only for labor sake, formally resting in the act done, but for that honest increase and provision, which is the end of our labor; And therefore to choose a gainful calling rather than another, that we may be able to do good, and relieve the poor. Eph. 4. 28. Let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
§. 20. Quest. 13. Can one be prodigal in giving to the Church?
Answ. Yes, if it be in a blind zeal to maintain a useless pomp or superstition: Or if he give that which should be used or given otherwise: But this is a sin that few in these days are in much danger of.
§. 21. Quest. 14. Can one be prodigal in giving to the poor?
Answ. Yes; when it is blindly done, to cherish idleness in wandering beggars; or with a conceit of meriting in point of Commutative Justice, from God: Or when that is given to the poor, which should be given to other uses (as in public tribute, maintenance of children, furtherance of the Gospel, &c. ) But this is a sin that few have need to be restrained from.
§. 22. Quest. 15. May a rich man expend anything upon (otherwise) lawful pomp, or conveniences or pleasures, at such a time, when there are multitudes of poor families in extremity of want? As now, when the flames which consumed London, have left many thousands in distress?
Answ. Doubtless every man should spare as much for the relief of others as he can: And therefore should not only forbear all needless expenses, but those also that are needful but to such conveniences and accommodations as may be spared without a greater hurt, than is the want of such as that charges would relieve. To save the lives of people in want, we must spare anything from ourselves, which our own lives can spare. And to relieve them in their deep poverty, we must abate much more than our superfluities. To expend anything on pride and lust, is a double sin at such a time, when Lazarus is at our doors in want. If that Luke 16. were well studied (wherein it was that the Rich man's sin and danger lay, in being clothed in Purple and Silk, and faring sumptuously every day, while Lazarus wanted) it would make some sensualists wiser than they are.
But yet it must be confessed, that some few persons may be of so much worth and use to the Common-wealth (as Kings and Magistrates,) and some of so little; that the maintaining of the honor and succors of the former, may be more necessary than the saving of the lives of the later. But take heed lest Pride or Cruelty teach you, to misunderstand this, or abuse it for yourselves.
§. 23. There are divers other ways of Prodigality or sinful waste, which I pass by, because they are such as few are concerned in: And my purpose is not to say all that may be said, but all that is needful. (As in needless Music, Physic, Books (which Seneca handsomely reproveth,) Gifts to Servants which need not, in mere ostentation of pride to be well spoken of, and many the like: And in unlawful Wars, which is the greatest sinful waster in all the world.) And as for expenses in debauchery and gross wickedness, as Whoredom, Revenge; in sinful Law Suits, &c. I here pretermit them.
§. 24. Direct. 2. Understand well the Aggravations of this sin of Prodigality: viz.
1. It is a wasting of that which is none of our own, and a robbing God of the use or service due to him in the improvement of his gifts. They are his, and not ours, and according to his pleasure only must be used. 2. It is a robbing the poor of that which the common Lord of the world, hath appointed for them in his Law: And they will have their Action in Heaven against the prodigal. 3. It is an inhumane vice, to waste that upon pleasures, pride and needless things, which so many distressed persons stand in need of. 4. It is an injury to the Common-wealth, which is weakened by the wasteful. And the covetous themselves (that are not oppressors) are much better members of public societies than the prodigal. 5. It seedeth a life of other vice and wickedness. It is a spending God's gifts to feed those lusts which he abhorreth. 6. It usually engageth many others in Trades and labors which are unprofitable, that they may serve the lusts of these sensual prodigals. 7. And in the conclusion it prepareth a sad account, for these wretches when they must answer at the Bar of God, how they have used all his gifts and talents. Remember all these aggravations.
§. 25. Direct. 3. Carefully mortify that greedy fancy, and fleshly lusts, which is the wasting sin, and the devouring gulf. Quench the fire, and you may spare all this fuel. Cure the Feavor or Dropsy, and you may spare both your drink and life. A greedy throat, and a diseased fancy, are never satisfied, till they have wasted the peace of your consciences, with your estates, and brought you to the end of brutish sinners: Wisdom, and duty, and real benefit, are contented with a little: But lust is insatiable: The voluptuous brute saith, I must have my cups, my lusts, my pleasure: And the effeminate vicious fancy of those empty souls, that mind no great and solid things, is still ranging after some vanity or other; and like children, crying for everything that they see another have: And the most needless, yea, burdensome things seem necessary to such: They say, I must needs have this, and I must needs have that, there is no being without it; when nothing needeth it, but a diseased mind, which much more needeth a Cure by grace and true mortification. Subdue pride, and sensuality, and fancy, and you may escape prodigality.
§. 26. Direct. 4. Remember the nearness of your account, and ask your consciences what way of expenses will please you best in the review. Whether at death and judgment it will be to your comfort, to find on your account, [So much laid out on needless bravery, to set out this carcass which is now turning into dust: Item, So much upon proud entertainments of great ones: Item, So much on Cards, and Dice, and Stage-plays; and so much on Hounds and needless pleasures, &c. ] Or rather [So much to promote the preaching of the Gospel: so much to set poor children to Prentice, or to School; so much to relieve distressed families, &c. ] Let Matth. 25. be well read, and your account well thought on.
§. 27. Direct. 5. Keep an account of your expenses, and peruse them before a Fast or a Sacrament: and ask conscience, how it judgeth of them: Yea, ask some holy prudent friend, Whether such proportions are allowable before God, and will be comfortable to you in the day of your extremity. If you are but willing to be cured, such means as these will not be in vain.
CHAP. XXII. Cases and Directions, against injurious Law-Suits, Witnessing and Judgment.
Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Law-Suits, and Proceedings.
Quest. 1. IN what cases is it lawful to go to Law with others?
Answ. 1. In case of necessary defense, when the Plaintiff doth compel you to it. 2. When you are entrusted for Orphans or others whom you cannot otherwise right. 3. When your Children, or the Church, or poor, whom you should do good to, are like to suffer, i • you recover not your talent that God hath trusted you with, for such uses, from the hands of unjust men: And they refuse all just arbitrations and other equal means which might avoid such suits. 4. When your own necessity constraineth you to seek your own, which you cannot get by easier means. 5. When your forbearance will do more hurt, by encouraging Knaves in their injustice, than it will do good. 6. When ever your cause is just, and neither Mercy, peace, nor the avoiding of scandal do forbid it: That is, when it is like to do more good than harm, it is then a lawful course.
But it is unlawful to go to Law, 1. When you neglect just arbitrations, patience, and other needful means to avoid it. 2. When your Cause is unjust. 3. When you oppress the poor by it. 4. When it is done in Cove • ousness, revenge or pride. 5. When the scandal or hurt to your Brother, is like to be a greater harm, than the righting of yourself is like to do good: Then must you not go willingly to Law.
Quest. 2. May I sue a poor man for a debt, or trespass?
Answ. 1. If he be so poor as that he cannot pay it, nor procure you satisfaction, the Suit is vain, and tendeth but to cruelty. 2. If he have no means to pay, but that which will deprive him of food, and raiment, and the necessaries of his life or comfort, you may not sue him, unless it be for the supply of as great necessities of your own; or in a trust for Orphans, where you have no power to remit the debt: yea, and for them, no cruelty must be used. 3. If your forbearance be like to make him able • by his diligence or other means, you should forbear if possible. 4. But if he be competently able, and refuse to pay through knavery and injustice, and you have better ways to use that money, if scandal forbid not, you may seek by Law to recover your own from him.
Quest. 3. May I sue a Surety whose interest was not concerned in the case?
Answ. If his poverty make it not an act of cruelty, nor scandal prohibit it, you may: Because he was willing, and declared his consent, that you should have the debt of him, if the principal pay not. To become Surety, is to consent to this: And it is no injury to receive a man's money by his own consent and Covenant. He knew that you had not lent it but on those terms; and you had reason to suppose, that he who would undertake to pay another man's debt, had sufficient reason for it, either in relation, or counter-security. But as you must use mercy to the principal debtor, in his poverty, so must you also to the surety.
Quest. 4. May I sue for the use of money as well as for the principal?
Answ. This dependeth on the Case of Usury before resolved. In those cases in which it may not be taken, it may not be sued for: Nor yet when the scandal of it will do more harm, than the money will do good. But in other cases, it may be sued for on the terms as the Rent of Lands may.
Quest. 5. May Law-Suites be used to disable or humble an insolent wicked man?
Answ. You may not take up an ill cause against him, for any such good end: But if you have a good cause against him, which otherwise you would not have prosecuted, you may make use of it, to disable him from doing mischief, when really it is a probable means thereto; and when neither scandal nor other accidents do prohibit it.
Quest. 6. May a rich man make use of his friends and purse in a just cause, to bear down or tire out a poorer man, that hath a bad cause?
Answ. Not by bribery or any evil means: For his proceeding must be just as well as his cause. But if it be an obstinate knave that setteth himself to do hurt to others, it is lawful to make use of the favor of a righteous Judge or Magistrate against him: And it is lawful to humble him by the length and expensiveness of the Suit, when that is the fittest means, and no unjust action is done in it: Still supposing that scandal prohibit it not: But let no proud or cruel person think, that therefore they may by purse, and friends, and tedious Law-Suits oppress the innocent, and attain their own unrighteous wills.
Quest. 7. May one use such forms in Law-Suits as in the literal sense are gross untruths (in Declaratitions, Answers, or the like)?
Answ. The use of words is to express the mind: And common use is the interpreter of them: If they are such words as the notorious common use hath put another sense on, than the literal one, they must be taken in the sense which public use hath put upon them. And if that public sense be true or false, accordingly they may, or may not be used.
Quest. 8. May a guilty person plead not guilty, or deny the fact?
Answ. Common use is the interpreter of words: If the common use of those words doth make their public sense a lie, it may not be done. But if the forinsick common use of the denial, is taken to signify no more but this, [ Let him that accuseth me, prove it: I am not bound to accuse myself ] or [ In foro I am not guilty till it be proved ] then it is lawful to plead [ Not-guilty ] and deny the fact, except in cases wherein you are bound to an open confession, or in which the scandal will do more hurt, than the denial will do good.
Quest. 9. Is a man ever bound to accuse himself, and seek Justice against himself?
Answ. 1. In many cases a man is bound to punish himself: As when the Law against Swearing, Cursing or the like, doth give the poor a certain mulct which is the penalty: He ought to give that money himself: And in cases where it is a necessary cure to himself: And in any case where the public good requireth it: As if a Magistrate offend whom none else will punish, or who is the Judge in his own cause: he should so far punish himself as is necessary to the suppression of sin, and to the preserving of the honor of the Laws: As I have heard of a Justice that swore twenty Oaths, and paid his twenty shillings for it. 2. A man may be bound in such a Divine Vengeance or Judgment as seeketh after his particular sin, to offer himself to be a sacrifice to Justice, to stop the Judgment: As Jonah, and Achan did. 3. A man may be bound to confess his guilt and offer himself to Justice to save the innocent, who is falsely accused and condemned for his crime. 4. But in ordinary cases a man is not bound to be his own public accuser or executioner.
Quest. 10. May a Witness voluntarily speak that truth which he knoweth will further an unrighteous cause, and be made use of to oppress the innocent?
Answ. He may never do it as a confederate in that intention: Nor may he do it when he knoweth that it will tend to such an event (though threatened or commanded,) except when some weightier accident doth preponderate for the doing it (As the avoiding of a greater hurt to others, than it will bring on the oppressed, &c. )
Quest. 11. May a witness conceal some part of the truth?
Answ. Not when he swea •••• h to deliver the whole truth: Nor when a good cause is like to suffer, or a bad cause to be fur •••• ered by the concealment: Nor when he is under any other obligation to reveal the whole.
Quest. 12. Must a Judge and Jury proceed secundum allegata & probata, according to evidence and proof, when they know the witness to be false, and the truth to be contrary to the testimony; but are not able to evince it?
Answ. Distinguish between the Negative and the Positive part of the Verdict or Sentence: In the Negative they must go according to the evidence and testimonies, unless the Law of the Land leave the case to their private knowledge. As for example, They must not sentence a Thief or Murderer to be punished upon their secret unproved knowledge: They must not adjudge either Moneys or Lands to the true Owner from another, without sufficient evidence and proof: They must forbear doing Justice, because they are not called to it, nor enabled. But Positively they may do no Injustice upon any evidence or witness against their own knowledge of the truth: As they may not upon known false witness, give away any man's Lands or Money, or condemn the innocent: But must in such a case renounce the Office: The Judge must come off the Bench, and the Jury protest that they will not meddle, or give any Verdict (what ever come of it): Because God and the Law of Nature prohibit their injustice.
Object. It is the Law that doth it, and not we.
Answ. It is the Law and you: And the Law cannot justify your agency in any unrighteous senten • e. The case is plain and past dispute.
Tit. 2. Directions against Contentious Suits, False Witnessing, and Oppressive Judgments.
§. 1. Direct. 1. THe first Cure for all these sins, is to know the intrinsic evil of them: Good thoughts of sin are its life and strength. When it is well known, it will be hated, and when it is hated, it is so far cured.
§. 2. I. The Evil of Contentious and unjust Law-Suits.
1. Such contentious Suits do show the power of selfishness in the sinner: How much self-interest is inordinately esteemed. 2. They show the excessive love of the world: How much men over-value the things which they contend for. 3. They show men's want of Love to their neighbors: How little they regard another man's interest in comparison of their own. 4. They show how little such men's care for the public good; which is maintained by the concord and love of neighbors. 5. Such contentions are powerful Engines of the Devil to destroy all Christian Love on both sides; and to stir up mutual enmity and wrath: and so to involve men in a course of sin, by further uncharitableness and injuries, both in heart, and word, and deed. 6. Poor men are hereby robbed of their necessary maintenance, and their innocent families subjected to distress. 7. Unconscionable Lawyers and Court-Officers, who live upon the people's sins, are hereby maintained, encouraged and kept up. 8. Laws and Courts of Justice are perverted, to do men wrong, which were made to right them. 9. And the offender declareth how little sense he hath of the authority or Love of God, and how little sense of the grace of our Redeemer? And how far he is from being himself forgiven through the blood of Christ, who can no better forgive another.
§. 3. II. The Evil of False Witness.
1. By False Witness the innocent are injured: Robbery and Murder are committed under pretence of truth and justice. 2. The Name of God is horribly abused, by the crying sin of Perjury (of which before). 3▪ The Presence and Justice of God are contemned: When sinners dare, in his sight and hearing, appeal to his Tribunal, in the attesting of a lie. 4. Vengeance is begged or consented to by the sinner; who bringeth God's curse upon himself, and as it were desireth God to plague or damn him if he lie. 5. Satan the Prince of malice, and injustice, and the Father of lies, and murders, and oppression, is hereby gratified, and eminently served. 6. God himself is openly injured, who is the Father and Patron of the innocent; and the cause of every righteous prson is more the cause of God than of man. 7. All Government is frustrated, and Laws abused, and all men's security for their reputations, or estates, or lives is overthrown, by false witnesses: And consequently human converse is made undesirable and unsafe. What good can Law, or right, or innocence, or the honesty of the Judge, do any man, where false-witnesses combine against him? What security hath the most innocent or worthy person, for his fame, or liberty, or estate, or life, if false witnesses conspire to defame him, or destroy him? And then how shall men endure to converse with one another? Either the innocent must seek out a Wilderness, and fly from the face of men as we do from Lions and Tigers; or else Peace will be worse than War: For in War a ma 〈…〉 ay fight for his life; but against false witnesses he hath no defense: But God is the avenger of the innocent, and above most other sins, doth seldom suffer this to go unpunished, even in this present world; but often beginneth their Hell on Earth, to such perjured instruments of the Devil.
§. 4. III. The Evil of Unrighteous Judgments.
1. An unrighteous Judge doth condemn the Cause of God himself: For every righteous cause is his. 2. Yea, he condemneth Christ himself in his members: For in that he doth it to one of the least of those whom he calleth Brethren, he doth it to himself, Matth. 25. It is a damnable sin, Not to relieve the innocent and imprisoned in their distress, when we have power: What is it then to oppress them, and unrighteously condemn them? 3. It is a turning of the remedy into a double misery; and taking away the only help of oppressed innocence. What other defense hath innocence, but Law and Justice? And when their refuge itself doth fall upon them and oppress them, whither shall the righteous fly? 4. It subverteth Laws and Government, and abuseth it to destroy the ends which it is appointed for. 5. Thereby it turneth human society into a state of misery, like the depredations of hostility. 6. It is a deliberate resolved sin, and not done in a passion by surprise: It is committed in that place, and in that form, as acts of greatest deliberation should be done: As if he should say, Upon full disquisition, evidence and deliberation, I condemn this person, and his cause. 7. All this is done as in the Name of God, and by his own Commission, by one that pretendeth to be his Officer or Minister, Rom. 3. 3, 4, 5, 6. For the Judgment is the Lord's, 2 Chron. 19. 8, 10. & 19. 5, 6, 7. And how great a wickedness is it thus to blaspheme, and to represent him as Satan, an enemy to truth and righteousness, to his servants and himself? As if he had said, God hath sent me to condemn this Cause and person? If false Prophets sin so heinously who bely the Lord, and say, He hath sent us to speak this (which is untruth); the sin of false Judges cannot be much less. 8. It is sin against the fullest and frequentest prohibitions of God. Read over Exod. 23. 1, 2, 3, &c. Lev. 10. 15. Deut. 1. 16, 17. & 16, 18. Isa▪ 1. 17, 20, 23. Deut. 24. 17. & 27. 19. Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, the fatherless and widow, and all the people shall say Amen, Ezra. 7. 26. Psal. 33. 5. & 37. 28. & 72. 2. & 94. 15. & 106. 3. 30. Prov. 17. 27. & 19. 28. & 20. 8. & 29. 4. & 31. 5. Eccles. 5. 8. Isa. 5. 7. & 10. 2. & 56. 1, 2. & 59. 14, 15. Ier. 5. 1. & 7. 5. & 9. 24. Ezek. 18. 8. & 45. 9. Hos. 12. 6. Amos 5 7, 15, 24. & 6. 12. Mic. 3 9. Zech. 7. 9, & 8. 16. Gen. 18. 19. Prov. 21. 3, 7, 15. I cite not the words to avoid prolixity. Scarce any sin is so oft and vehemently condemned of God. 9. False Judges cause the poor to appeal to God against them, and the cries of the afflicted shall not be forgotten, Luke 18. 5, 6, 7, 8. 10. They call for God's Judgment upon themselves, and devolve the work into his hands: How can that man expect any other than a judgment of damnation, from the righteous God, who hath deliberately condemned Christ himself in his cause and servants, and sat in judgment to condemn the innocent? Psal. 9. 7, 8, 9. The Lord hath prepared his throne for judgment, and he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness; he will be a refuge for the oppressed, Psal. 37. 6. He will bring forth righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon day▪ Psal. 89. 14. Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne, Psal. 103. 6. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed, Psal. 146. 7. In a word, the sentence of an unjust Judge is passed against his own soul, and he calleth to God to condemn him righteously, who unrighteously condemned others. Of all men, he cannot stand in judgment▪ nor abide the righteous doom of Christ.
§. 5. Direct. 2. When you well understand the greatness of the sin, find out and overcome the root and causes of it in yourselves: Especially selfishness, covetousness and passion. A selfish man careth not what another suffereth, so that his own ends and interest be promoted by it. A covetous man will contend and injure his neighbor when ever his own commodity requireth it. He so much loveth his money, that it can prevail with him to sin against God, and cast away his own soul; much more to hurt and wrong his neighbor. A proud and passionate man is so thirsty after revenge, to make others stoop to him, that he careth not what it cost him to accomplish it. Overcome these inward vices, and you may easily forbear the outward sins.
§. 6. Direct. 3. Love your neighbors as yourselves: For that is the universal remedy against all injurious and uncharitable undertakings.
§. 7. Direct. 4. Keep a tender conscience, which will not make light of sin. It is those that have seared their consciences by infidelity or a course of sinning, who dare venture with Judas or Gehazi for the prey, and dare oppress the poor and innocent, and feel not, nor fear not, whilst they cast themselves on the revenge of God.
§ 8. Direct. 5 Remember the day when all these causes must be heard again, and the righteous God will set all strait, and vindicate the cause of the oppressed. Consider what a dreadful appearance that man is like to have at the Bar of Heaven, who hath falsely accused, or condemned the just, in the Courts of men. What a terrible inditement, accusation, conviction and sentence must that man expect? If the hearing of righteousness and the judgment to come made Felix tremble, surely it is infidelity or the plague of a stupefied heart, which keepeth contentious persons, perverters of justice, false witnesses and unjust Judges, from trembling.
§. 9. Direct. 6. Remember the presence of that God who must be your final Judge. That he seeth all your Pride and Covetousness, and all your secret contrivances for revenge, and is privy to all your deceits and injuries. You commit them in his open sight.
§. 10. Direct. 7. Meddle not with Law Suits till you have offered an equal arbitration of indifferent men, or used all possible means of love, to prevent them. Law Suits are not the first, but the last remedy. Try all others before you use them.
§. 11. Direct. 8. When you must needs go to Law, compose your minds to unfeigned love towards him that you must contend with, and watch over your hearts with suspicion and the strictest care, lest secret disaffection get advantage by it: And go to your neighbor, and labor to possess his heart also with love, and to demulce his mind; that you may not use the Courts of Justice, as Soldiers do their weapons to do the worst they can against another, as an enemy: but as loving friends do use an amicable arbitration; resolving contentedly to stand to what the Judge determineth, without any alienation of mind, or abatement of brotherly love.
§. 12. Direct. 9. Be not too confident of the righteousness of your own cause: but ask counsel of some understanding, godly, and impartial men; and hear all that can be said, and patiently consider of the case, and do as you would have others do by you.
§. 13. Direct. 10. Observe what terrors of Conscience use to haunt awakened sinners, especially on a death- • ead, for such sins as false witnessing, and false judging, and oppressing, and inju • ing the innocent, even above most other sins.
CHAP. XXIII. Cases of Conscience, and Directions, against Backbiting, Slandering and Evil Speaking.
Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Backbiting and Evil Speaking.
Quest. 1. MAy I not speak evil of that which is evil? And call everyone truly as he is?
Answ. You must not speak a known falsehood of any man under pretence of Charity or speaking well. But you are not to speak all the evil of every man which is true: As opening the faults of the King or your Parents, though never so truly, is a sin against the fifth Commandment, [ Honor thy Father and Mother ]: So if you do it without a call, you sin against your neighbors honor, and many other ways offend.
Quest. 2. Is it not sinful silence, and a consenting to, or countenancing of the sins of others, to say nothing against them, as tender of their honor?
Answ. It is sinful to be silent, when you have a call to speak: If you forbear to admonish the offender in love between him and you, when you have opportunity and just cause, it is sinful to be silent then. But to silence backbiting is no sin. If you must be guilty of every man's sin that you talk not against, behind his back, your whole discourse must be nothing but backbiting.
Quest. 3. May I not speak that which honest, religious, credible persons do report?
Answ. Not without both sufficient evidence, and a sufficient call. You must not judge of the action by the person, but of the person by the action. Nor must you imitate any man in evil doing. If a good man abuse you, are you willing that all men follow him and abuse you more?
Quest. 4. May I believe the bad report of an honest credible person?
Answ. You must first consider Whether you may hear it, or meddle with it: For if it be a case that you have nothing to do with, you may not set your judgment to it, either to believe it, or disbelieve it. And if it be a thing that you are called to judge of, yet every honest man's word is not presently to be believed: You must first know, whether it be a thing that he saw, or is certain of himself, or a thing which he only taketh upon report? And what his evidence or proof is? and whether he be not engaged by interest, passion, or any difference of opinion? Or be not engaged in some contrary faction, where the interest of a party or cause is his temptation? Or whether he be not used to rash reports and uncharitable speeches: And what concurrence of testimonies there is, and what is said on the other side: Especially what the person accused saith in his own defense. If it be so heinous a crime in public Judgment, to pass sentence before both parties are heard, and to condemn a man before he speak for himself; it cannot be justifiable in private judgment. Would you be willing yourselves that all should be believed of you, which is spoken by any honest man? And how uncertain are we of other men's honesty, that we should on that account think ill of others?
Quest. 5. May I not speak evil of them that are enemies to God, to Religion, and godliness, and are open persecutors of it; or are enemies to the King or Church?
Answ. You may on all meet occasions speak evil of the sin; and of the persons when you have a just call; but not at your own pleasure.
Quest. 6. What if it be one whose honor and credit countenanceth an ill cause, and his dishonor would disable him to do hurt?
Answ. You may not bely the Devil, nor wrong the worst man that is, though under pretence of doing good; God needeth not malice, nor calumnies, nor injustice to his glory: It is an ill cause that cannot be maintained without such means as these. And when the matter is true, you must have a call to speak it, and you must speak it justly, without unrighteous aggravations, or hiding the better part, which should make the case and person truly understood. There is a time and due manner, in which that man's crimes and just dishonor may be published, whose false reputation injureth the truth. But yet I must say, that a great deal of villainy and slander is committed upon this plausible pretence; and that there is scarce a more common cloak for the most inhumane lies and calumnies.
Quest. 7. May I not lawfully make a true Narration of such matters of fact, as are criminal and dishonorable to offenders? Else no man may write a true History to posterity of men's crimes.
Answ. When you have a just cause and call to do it, you may: But not at your own pleasure. Historians may take much more liberty to speak the truth of the dead, than you may of the living: Though no untruth must be spoken of either: yet the honor of Princes and Magistrates while they are alive, is needful to their Government, and therefore must be maintained, oft times by the concealment of their faults: And so proportionably the honor of other men is needful to a life of love, and peace, and just society: But when they are dead, they are not subjects capable of a right to any such honor as must be maintained by such silencing of the truth, to the injury of posterity: And posterity hath usually a right to historical truth, that good examples may draw them to imitation, and bad examples may warn them to take heed of sin. God will have the name of the wicked to rot; and the faults of a Noah, Lot, David, Solomon, Peter, &c. shall be recorded. Yet nothing unprofitable to posterity may be recorded of the dead, though it be true: nor the faults of men unnecessarily divulged; much less may the dead be slandered or abused.
Quest. 8. What if it be one that hath been oft admonished in vain? May not the faults of such a one be mentioned behind his back?
Answ. I confess such a one (the case being proved, and he being notoriously impenitent) hath made a much greater forfeiture of his honor, than other men: And no man can save that man's honor who will cast it away himself. But yet it is not everyone that committeth a sin after admonition, who is here to be understood; but such as are impenitent in some mortal or ruling sin; For some may sin oft in a small and controverted point, for want of ability to discern the truth, and some may live in daily infirmities (as the best men do) which they condemn themselves, and desire to be delivered from. And even the most impenitent man's sins, must not be meddled with, by everyone at his pleasure, but only when you have just cause.
Quest. 9. What if it be one whom I cannot speak to face to face?
Answ. You must let him alone, till you have just cause to speak of him.
Quest. 10. When hath a man a just cause and call to open another's faults?
Answ. Negatively: 1. Not to fill up the time with other idle chatt, or table-talk. 2. Not to second any man how good soever who backbiteth others; no though he pretend to do it to make the sin more odious, or to exercise godly sorrow for other men's sin. 3. Not when ever interest, passion, faction or company seemeth to require it. But (Affirmatively) 1. When we may speak it to his face in love and privacy, in due manner and circumstances, as is most hopeful to conduce to his amendment. 2. When after due admonition, we take two or three, and after that tell the Church (in a case that requireth it.) 3. When we have a sufficient cause to accuse him to the Magistrate. 4. When the Magistrate or the Pastors of the Church, reprove or punish him. 5. When it is necessary to the preservation of another: As if I see my friend in danger of marrying with a wicked person, or takeing a false servant, or trading and bargaining with one that is like to over-reach him: or going among cheaters; or going to hear or converse with a dangerous Heretic or Seducer: I must open the faults of those that they are in danger of, so far as their safety and my charity require. 6. When it is any treason or conspiracy against the King or Common-wealth: where my concealment may be an injury to the King, or damage or danger to the Kingdom. 7. When the person himself doth by his self-justification force me to it. 8. When his reputation is so built upon the injury of others, and slanders of the just, that the justifying of him is the condemning of the innocent, we may then indirectly condemn him by vindicating the just: As if it be in a case of contention between two, if we cannot justify the right without dishonor to the injurious, there is no remedy but he must bear his blame. 9. When a man's notorious wickedness hath set him up as a spectacle of warning and lamentation, so that his crimes cannot be hid, and he hath forfeited his reputation, we must give others warning by his fall. As an excommunicate person, or malefactor at the Gallows, &c. ) 10. When we have just occasion to make a bare narrative of some public matters of fact; as of the sentence of a Judge, or punishment of offenders, &c. 11. When the crime is so heinous, as that all good persons are obliged to join to make it odious, as Phinehas was to execute judgment. As in cases of open Rebellion, Treason, Blasphemy, Atheism, Idolatry, Murders, Perjury, Cruelty: Such as the French Massacre, the Irish far greater Massacre, the Murdering of Kings, the Powder Plot, the Burning of London, &c. Crimes notorious, should not go about in the mouths or ears of men, but with just detestation. 12. When any persons false reputation is a seducement to men's souls, and made by himself or others the instrument of God's dishonor, and the injury of the Church, or State, or others, though we may do no unjust thing to blast his reputation, we may tell the truth so far as justice, or mercy, or piety requireth it.
Quest. 11. What if I hear daubers applauding wicked men, and speaking well of them, and extenuating their crimes, and praising them for evil doing?
Answ. You must on all just occasions speak evil of sin: But when that is enough, you need not meddle with the sinner; no not though other men applaud him, and you know it to be false: For you are not bound to contradict every falsehood which you hear. But if in any of the twelve fore-mentioned cases you have a call to do it (as for the preservation of the hearers from a snare thereby; (as if men commend a Traitor or a wicked man to draw another to like his way,) in such cases you may, contradict the false report.
Quest. 12. Are we bound to reprove every backbiter, in this age when honest people are grown to make little conscience of it, but think it their duty to divulge men's faults?
Answ. Most of all; that you may stop the stream of this common sin: Ordinarily when ever we can do it without doing greater hurt, we should rebuke the tongue that reporteth evil of other men causelessly behind their backs: For our silence is their encouragement in sin.
Tit. 2. Directions against Backbiting, Slandering and Evil Speaking.
Direct. 1. MAintain the life of brotherly Love. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Direct. 2. Watch narrowly lest interest or passion should prevail upon you. For where these prevail, the tongue is set on fire of Hell, and will set on fire the course of nature, I am. 2. Selfishness and passion will not only prompt you to speak evil, but also to justify it, and think you do well; yea, and to be angry with those that will not hearken to you and believe you.
Direct. 3. Especially involve not yourselves in any faction, Religious or Secular. I do not mean, that you should not love and imitate the best, and hold most intimate communion with them: But that you abhor unlawful divisions and sidings; and when error, or uncharitableness, or carnal interest hath broken the Church into pieces where you live, and one is of Paul, and another of Apollo, and another of Cephas; one of this party, and another of that; take heed of espousing the interest of any party, as it stands cross to the interest of the whole. It would have been hardly credible, if sad experience had not proved it, how commonly and heinously almost every Sect of Christians, do sin in this point against each other? And how far the interest of their Sect, which they account the interest of Christ, will prevail with multitudes even of zealous people, to bely, calumniate, backbite and reproach those that are against their opinion and their party? Yea, how easily will they proceed beyond reproaches, to bloody persecutions. He that thinketh that he doth God service by killing Christ or his Disciples, will think that he doth him service by calling him a deceiver, and one that hath a Devil, a blasphemer, and an enemy to Caesar, and calling his Disciples pestilent fellows, and movers of Sedition among the people, and accounting them as the filth and off-scouring of the world: That zeal which murdered and destroyed many hundred thousand of the Waldenses and Albigenses, and thirty thousand or forty thousand in one French Massacre, and two hundred thousand in one Irish Massacre, and which kindled the Marian Bonefires in England, and made the Powder Mine, and burnt the City of London, and keepeth up the Inquisition, I say, that zeal will certainly think it a service to the Church, (that is, their Sect,) to write the most odious lies and slanders of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Beza, and any such excellent servants of the Lord. So full of horrid impudent lies are the writings of (not one but) many Sects against those that were their chief opposers, that I still admonish all posterity, to see good evidence for it, before they believe the hard sayings of any factious Historian or Divine, against those that are against his party: It is only men of eminent conscience, and candour, and veracity, and impartiality, who are to be believed in their bad report of others, except where notoriety or very good evidence doth command belief above their own authority and veracity. A siding factious zeal, which is hotter for any Sect or party, than for the common Christianity and Catholic Church, is always a railing, a lying, and a slandering zeal, and is notably described, James 3. as earthly, sensual and devilish, causing envy, strife, and confusion, and every evil work.
Direct. 4. Observe well the Commonness of this sin of backbiting, that it may make you the more afraid of falling into that which so few do scape. I will not say, among high and low, rich and poor, Court and Country, how common is this sin: but among men professing the greatest zeal and strictness in Religion, how few make conscience of it. Mark in all companies that you come into, how common it is to take liberty to say what they think of all men; yea, to report what they hear, though they dare not say, that they believe it? And how commonly the relating of other men's faults, and telling what this man or that man is, or did, or said, is part of the chatt to waste the hour in? And if it be but true, they think they sin not: Nay, nor if they did but hear that it is true. For my part I must profess, that my conscience having brought me to a custom of rebuking such backbiters, I am ordinarily censured for it, either as one that loveth contradiction, or one that defendeth sin and wickedness, by taking part with wicked men: And all because I would stop the course of this common vice, of evil-speaking and backbiting where men have no call. And I must thankfully profess, that among all other sins in the world, the sins of SELFISHNESSE, PRIDE, and BACKBITING, I have been most brought to hate and fear, by the observation of the commonness of them, even in persons seeming godly: Nothing hath fixed an apprehension of their odiousness so deeply in me, nor engaged my heart against them above all other sins so much, as this lamentable experience of their prevalence in the world, among the more Religious, and not only in the profane.
Direct. 5. Take not the honesty of the person, as sufficient cause to hear or believe a bad report of others. It is lamentable to hear how far men otherwise honest, do too often here offend. Suspect evil speakers, and be not over-credulous of them. Charity thinketh not evil, not easily and hastily believeth it. Liars are more used to evil speaking, than men of truth and credit are. It is no wrong to the best, that you believe him not when he backbiteth, without good evidence.
Direct. 6. Rebuke backbiters, and encourage them not by hearkening to their tales, Prov. 25. 23. The north wind driveth away rain: So doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue. It may be they think themselves religious persons, and will take it for an injury to be driven away with an angry countenance: But God himself who loveth his servants better than we, is more offended at their sin: and that which offendeth him, must offend us: We must not hurt their souls, and displease God, by drawing upon us the guilt of their sins, for fear of displeasing them. Tell them how God doth hate backbiting, and advise them, if they know any hurt by others, to go to them privately, and tell them of it in a way that tendeth to their repentance.
Direct. 7. Use to make mention of the good which is in others (except it be unseasonable, and will seem to be a promoting of their sin) God's gi • ts in every man deserve commendations; And we have allowance to mention men's virtues oftener than to mention their vices. Indeed when a bad man is praised in order to the disparagement of the good, or to honor some wicked cause or action against truth and godliness, we must not concur in such malicious praists: But otherwise we must commend that which is truly commendable in all. And this custom will have a double benefit against backbiting: It will use your own tongues to a contrary course, and it will rebuke the evil tongues of others, and be an example to them of more charitable language.
Direct. 8. Understand yourselves, and speak often to others, of the sinfulness of evil speaking and backbiting: Shew them the Scriptures which condemn it, and the intrinsical malignity which is in it: as here followeth.
Direct. 9. Make conscience of just reproof and exhorting sinners to their faces: Go tell them of it privately and lovingly, and it will have better effects, and bring you more comfort, and cure the sin of backbiting.
Tit. 3. The Evil of Backbiting and Evil Speaking.
§. 1. 1. IT is forbidden of God among the heinous damning sins, and made the character of a notorious wicked person, and the avoiding of it is made the mark of such as are accepted of God, and shall be saved, Rom. 1. 29, 30. it is made the mark of a reprobate mind, and joined with murder and hating God, viz. full of envy, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters: Psal. 15. 2, 3. Lord who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor. And when Paul describeth those whom he must sharply rebuke and censure, he just describeth the factious sort of Christians of our times, 2 Cor. 12. 20. For I fear lest when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: Lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults. Ephes. 4. 31. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind one to another, and tender hearted —
§. 2. 2. It is a sin which gratifieth Satan, and serveth his malice against our neighbor. He is malicious against all, and speaking evil, and doing hurt, are the works which are suitable to his malignity? And should a Christian make his tongue the instrument of the accuser of the brethren, to do his work against each other?
§. 3. 3. It signifieth want of Christian Love. For love speaketh not evil, nor openeth men's faults without a cause, but covereth infirmities: Much l • ss will it lie and slander others, and carry about uncertain reports against them. It is not to do as you would be done by: And how essential Love is to true Christianity, Christ himself hath often told us.
§. 4. 4. It is a sin which directly serveth to destroy the hearers Love, and consequently to destroy their souls. If the backbiter understood himself, he would confess that it is his very end to cause you to hate (or abate your love to) him whom he speaketh evil of. He that speaketh good of a man representeth him amiable: For amiableness and goodness are all one. And he that speaketh evil of a man representeth him hateful or unlovely: For hatefulness, unloveliness and evil are all one. And as it is not the natural way of winning love, to entreat and beg it, and say, I pray you love this person, or that thing; but to open the goodness of the thing or person, which will command love. So is it not the natural way to stir up hatred, by entreating men to hate this man or that; but to tell how bad they are, which will command hatred in them that do believe it. Therefore to speak evil of another, is more than to say to the hearers, I pray you hate this man, or abate your love to him. And that the killing of Love, is the killing or destroying of men's souls, the Apostle John doth frequently declare.
§ 5. 5. And it tendeth also to destroy the Love, and consequently the soul of him that you speak evil of. For when it cometh to his hearing (as one way or other it may do) what evil you have reported of him behind his back, it tendeth to make him hate you, and so to make him worse.
§. 6. 6. It is a great make-bate and peace-breaker where ever it is practiced. It tendeth to set people together by the ears; When it is told that such a one spake evil of you in such a place; there are then heart-burnings and rehearsals, and sidings, and such ensuing malice, as the Devil intended by this design.
§. 7. 7. They that use to speak evil of others behind their backs, its ten to one will speak falsehoods of them when they do not know it. Fame is too ordinarily a liar, and they shall be liars, who will be its messengers. How know you whether the thing that you report is true? Is it only because a credible person spake it? But how did that person know it to be true? Might he not take it upon trust as well as you? And might he not take a person to be credible that is not? And how commonly doth faction, or interest, or passion, or credulity, make that person incredible in one thing, who is credible in others where he hath no such temptation? If you know it not to be true, or have not sufficient evidence to prove it, you are guilty of lying and slandering interpretatively, though it should prove true: because it might have been a lie for ought you knew.
§. 8. 8. It is gross injustice to talk of a man's faults, before you have heard him speak for himself. I know it is usual with such to say, O we have heard it from such, as we are certain will not lie. But he is a foolish and unrighteous Judge, that will be peremptory upon hearing one party only speak, and knoweth not how ordinary it is, for a man when he speaketh for himself, to blow away the most confident and plausible accusations, and make the case appear to be quite another thing. You know not what another hath to say, till you have heard him.
§. 9. 9. Backbiting teacheth others to backbite: Your example inviteth them to do the like: And sins which are common, are easily swallowed, and hardly repented of: Men think that the commonness justifieth or ext •••• at • th the fault.
§. 10. 10. It encourageth ungodly men to the odious sin of backbiting and s • andering the most religious righteous person. It is ordinary with the Devils family to make Christ's faithfullest servants their table-talk, and the objects of their reproach and scorn, and the song of drunkards? What abundance of lies go currant among such malignant persons, against the most innocent, which would all be shamed, if they had first admitted them to speak for themselves? And such slanders and lies are the Devils common means to keep ungodly men from the love of godliness, and so from repentance and salvation. And backbiting Professors of Religion encourage men to this: For with what measure they mete, it shall be measured to them again. And they that are themselves evil spoken of, will think that they are warranted to requite the backbiters with the like.
§. 11. 11. It is a sin which commonly excludeth true profitable reproof and exhortation. They that speak most behind men's backs, do usually say least to the sinners face, in any way which tendeth to his salvation. They will not go lovingly to him in private, and set home his sin upon his conscience, and exhort him to repentance: but anything shall serve as a sufficient excuse against this duty; that they may make the sin of backbiting serve instead of it: And all is out of carnal selfsaving: They fear men will be offended if they speak to their faces, and therefore they will whisper against them behind their backs.
§. 12. 12. It is at the least but idle talk, and a mis-spending of your time: What the better are the hearers, for hearing of other men's mis-doings? And you know that it no whit profiteth the person of whom you speak. A skillful friendly admonition might do him good! But to neglect this, and talk of his faults unprofitably behind his back, is but to aggravate the sin of your uncharitableness, as being not contented to refuse your help to a man in sin, but you must also injure him and do him hurt.
CHAP. XXIV. Cases and Directions against Censoriousness and unwarrantable Iudging.
Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Iudging of others.
Quest. 1. AM I not bound to judge truly of everyone as he is?
Answ. 1. There are many that you are not bound to meddle with, and to pass any judgment at all upon. 2. There are many whose faults are secret, and their virtues open: And of such you cannot judge as they are, because you have no proof or evidence to enable you: You cannot see that which is latent in the heart, or done in darkness. 3. You neither ought on pretence of charity, nor can believe an evident known untruth of any man.
Quest. Doth not charity bind me to judge men better than they are?
Answ. Charity bindeth you, 1. Rather to observe the best in them, than the worst: 2. And as I said, to judge of no man's faults uncalled: 3. Nor to judge of that which is not evident, but out of sight: And thus consequently it bindeth you to judge some men to be better than they are: but not directly.
Object. Then a man is bound to err and to believe an untruth.
Answ. No: You are not bound to believe that it is certainly true, that such a man is better than he is: Because you have no evidence of its certain truth. But you are bound to believe it a thing probable or verisimile, likely to be true, by an opinion or fallible human faith: And this is not a falsehood: For that is likely and probable to you, which hath the more probable evidence, and more for it, than against it: So that the thing which you are to believe immediately is this proposition, There is more evidence to me to prove it likely that this man is sincere than contrary: And consequently you believe this, and believe not the contrary, because the contrary hath no evidence. But you are not to take it as a certain thing, that the contrary hath no latent reality.
Quest. 2. How far may I judge ill of one by outward appearances, as by the countenance, gestures, and other uncertain, but suspicious signs?
Answ. There are some signs which are not so much as probable, but a little suspicious, and which men are very ordinarily mistaken by: As those that will judge of a man at the first look by his face: And those that will judge a studious, serious person (a Lawyer, a Judge, or a Divine) to be morose or proud, because they are not complemental; but of few words; or because they have not patience to waste precious hours in hearing an empty vessel sound; an ignorant self-conceited person talk foolishly. Such censures are but the effects of injudiciousness, unrighteousness and rash haste. There are other signs which make it probable to a wise and charitable person, that the man is bad ( e. g. proud, or covetous, or an hypocrite). If with these, there are as great signs to make the contrary probable, we must rather incline to the better, than the worse. But if not, we may fear the worst of that person, but not conclude it as a certainty: And therefore we may not in public censures, proceed upon such uncertainties, nor venture to divulge them; but only use them to help us for due caution, and pity, and prayer, and endeavor for such a ones recovery and help.
Quest. 3. How far may I censure upon the report of others?
Answ. According to the degree of the credibility of the persons, and evidence of the narrative; not simply in themselves, but as compared with all that is to be heard on the contrary part: Else you are partial and unjust.
Quest. 4. Doth not the fifth Command oblige me in honor to Parents and Princes, to judge them to be better than their lives declare them to be?
Answ. You are gradually to honor them more than others, and therefore to be more afraid of dishonoring them, and must not sit in judgment on them, to believe any harm of them, which evidence doth not compel you to believe: But you are not to judge any sin the less, because it is theirs; nor to judge contrary to evidence, nor to call evil good, nor to be willfully blind, nor to flatter any in their sin.
Quest. 5. Whom must we judge for sincere and sanctified Christians?
Answ. 1. All those that Profess to be such, whom you cannot disprove. 2. But as there are several degrees of evidence and probability, so must there be several degrees of your good opinion of others. Of some who give you the highest probability, you may have the strongest confidence short of certainty: Of others you may have less; and of some you may have much more fear than hope. 3. And yet in matters of Church-rights and public communion, your fears will not allow you to use them as no Christians: For their profession of faith and repentance is certain: And as long as your fears of their hypocrisy or unsoundness is but uncertain, it must not (on that account) prevail to deprive another of his right.
Quest. 6. But is not my error my sin, if I prove mistaken, and take that man for a sincere Christian who is none?
Answ. If you judged it to be certain, your judgment and error was your sin; But if you only judged him a Professor of Christianity, and one that on that account you were bound to have Church-communion with as if he were sincere, because you cannot prove the contrary, this was no error: Or if you erred for want of sufficient evidence to know the truth, this error is not in itself a sin.
Quest. 7. Whom must I judge a visible member of the Church, with whom I am thus bound to hold communion?
Answ. 1. If you are the Pastor of the Church who are made the Judge, at his admittance by Baptism or afterwards, you must so judge of everyone who maketh a credible profession of true Christianity, that is, of his present Consent to the Sacramental Covenant: And that profession is credible; which is, 1. Understood by him that maketh it, 2. Deliberate, 3. Voluntary, 4. Seemingly serious, 5. And is not disproved by valid evidence of the contrary. These are the true measures of Church communion: For every man, next God, is the Judge of his own heart: And God would have every man the Chooser or Refuser of his own mercies.
2. But if you are but a private member of the Church, you are to judge that person a visible member of the Church, whom the Pastor hath taken in by Baptism, and not cast out again by excommunication: Except the contrary be notorious: And even then you are oft obliged for order sake to carry yourself towards him as a visible member, till he be regularly cast out.
Quest. 8. Whom must I judge a true worshipper of God, and whom not?
Answ. Him that professeth true Christianity, and joineth in true Worship with a Christian Church, or privately (when hindered) acknowledgeth the true God in all his Essential Attributes, and heareth his Word, and prayeth to him for all things necessary to salvation; and praiseth him accordingly; not giving the Worship proper to God unto any creature: And doth all this as a sinner redeemed by Jesus Christ, trusting in his Merits, Sacrifice and intercession, and giveth not his Office to any other. And he is a false Worshipper who denieth any essential Attribute of God, or essential part of the Office of Christ; or giveth these to any other! or refuseth his Word, or excludeth in his prayers, anything essential to Christianity, or absolutely necessary to salvation. But secundum quid, in lesser parts, or circumstances, or measures, every man on earth is a false Worshipper, that is, he offereth God a worship some way faulty and imperfect: and hath some sin in his worshipping of God: And sin is a thing that God requireth not, but forbiddeth even in the smallest measures.
Quest. 9. Which must I judge a true Church of Christ, and which a false Church?
Answ. The Universal Church is but one, and is the whole society of Christians as united to Christ their only Head: And this cannot be a false Church. But if any other set up an Usurper as the Universal Head, and so make another Policy and Church, this is a false Church formally, or in its policy: But yet the members of this false Church or policy, may some of them as Christians be also members of the true Church of Christ: And thus the Roman Church as Papal is a false Catholic Church, having the Policy of an Usurper: but as Christians they may be members of the true Catholic Church of Christ. But for a particular Church, which is but part of the Universal, that is a true Church considered merely as an ungoverned Community, which is a true part of the Catholic, prepared for a Pastor, but yet being without one: But that only is a true Political Church, which consisteth of Professed Christians conjoined under a true Pastor, for Communion in the profession of true Christianity, and for the true worshipping of God, and orderly walking for their mutual assistance and salvation.
Quest. 10. Whom must we judge true Prophets and Pastors of the Church?
Answ. He is a true Prophet, who is sent by God, and speaketh truth by immediate supernatural revelation or inspiration. And he is a false Prophet, who either falsely saith, that he hath Divine revelations or inspiration, or prophesieth falsehood as from God. And he is a true Pastor at the bar of God, who is, 1. Competently qualified with abilities for the Office. 2. Competently disposed to it, with willingness and desire of success: And hath right ends in undertaking and discharging it. 3. Who hath a just admission, by true Ordination of Pastors, and Consent of the flock: And he is to be accounted a true Pastor in foro Ecclesiae, in the Churches judgment, whom the Church judgeth to have all these qualifications, and thereupon admitteth him into possession of the place, till his incapacity be notorious or publicly and sufficiently proved, or he be removed or made uncapable.
Tit. 2. Directions for the Cure of sinful Censoriousness.
Direct. 1. MEddle not at all in judging of others without a call. Know first whether it be any of your work. If not, be afraid of those words of your Judge, Matth. 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Judge not, that ye be not judged: For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged, &c. And Rom. 14. 4. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own Master he standeth or falleth. And verse. 10. & 13. But why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ—Everyone of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another anymore. 1 Cor. 4. 3, 4, 5. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment—Therefore judge nothing before the time till the Lord come, who both will bring to light the bidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts —Col. 2. 16. Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new Moon, or Sabbath.
Quest. But when have I a call to Judge another?
Answ. You may take the answer to this from the answer to Quest. 10. Chap. 23. Tit. 1. 1. If your Office or place require it, as a Magistrate, Pastor, Parent, Master, Tutor, &c. 2. If the safety of the Church, or your neighbor do require it. 3. If the good of the sinner require it, that you may seek his repentance and reformation: 4. If your own preservation or welfare (or any other duty) require it.
Direct. 2. Keep up an humble sense of your own faults, and that will make you compassionate to others. He that is truly vile in his own eyes, is least inclined to vilify others: And he that judgeth himself with the greatest penitent severity, is the least inclined to be censorious to his brother. Pride is the common cause of censoriousness: He that saith with the Pharisee, I fast twice a week, and pay tythe of all that I have, I am no adulterer, &c. will also say, I am not as other men, nor as this Publican: when the true penitent findeth so much of his own to be condemned, that he smiteth on his own breast and saith, God be merciful to me a sinner. The prouder self-conceited sort of Christians are ever the most censorious of their neighbors.
Direct. 3. Be much therefore at home in searching, and watching, and amending your own hearts: and then you will find so much to do about yourselves, that you will have no mind or leisure to be censuring others: Whereas the superficial hypocrite, whose Religion is in externals, and is unacquainted with his heart and Heaven, is so little employed in the true work of a Christian, that he hath leisure for the work of a censorious Pharisee.
Direct. 4. Labor for a deep experimental insight into the nature of Religion, and of every duty. For no men are so censorious, as the ignorant who know not what they say: whilst experienced persons know those difficulties and other reasons which calm their minds. As in common business, no man will sooner find fault with a Workman in his work, than idle praters who least understand it. So is it commonly in matters of Religion: Women and young men, that never saw into the great mysteries of Divinity, but have been lately changed from a vicious life, and have neither acquaintance with the hard points of Religion, nor with their own ignorance of them, are the common proud censurers of their brethren much wiser than themselves, and of all men that are more moderate and peaceable than themselves, and are more addicted to Unity, and more averse to Sects and separations than they. Study harder, and wait till you grow up to the experience of the aged, and you will be less censorious, and more peaceable.
Direct. 5. Think not yourselves fit Judges of that which you understand not: And think not proudly that you are liker to understand the difficulties in Religion, with your short and lazy studies, than those that in reading, meditation and prayer have spent their lives in searching after them. Let not pride make you abuse the Holy Ghost, by pretending that he hath given you more wisdom in a little time, and with little means and diligence, than your betters have by the holy industry of all their lives: Say not, God can give more to you in a year, than to others in twenty. For it is a poor argument to prove that God hath done it, because he can do it. He can make you an Angel, but that will not prove you one. Prove your wisdom before you pretend to it, and overvalue it not: Heb. 5. 11, 12, showeth that it is God's ordinary way to give men wisdom according to their time and means, unless their own negligence deprive them of his blessing.
Direct. 6. Study to keep up Christian Love, and to keep it lively: For Love is not censorious, but is inclined to judge the best, till evidence constrain you to the contrary. Censoriousness is a Vermin which crawleth in the carcass of Christian Love, when the life of it is gone.
Direct. 7. Value all God's graces in his servants: And then you will see something to love them for, when hypocrites can see nothing: Make not too light of small degrees of grace, and then your censure will not overlook them.
Direct. 8. Remember the tenderness of Christ, who condemneth not the weak, nor casteth Infants out of his family, nor the diseased out of his Hospital; but dealeth with them in such gracious gentleness, as beseemeth a tender-hearted Savior: He will not break the bruised reed: He carrieth his Lambs in his arms, and gently driveth those with young! He taketh up the wounded man, when the Priest and Levite pass him by. And have you not need of the tenderness of Christ yourselves as well as others? Are you not afraid lest he should find greater faults in you, than you find in others? And condemn you as you condemn them?
Direct. 9. Let the sense of the common corruption of the world, and imperfection of the godly moderate your particular censures. As Seneca saith, To censure a man for that which is common to all men, is in a sort to censure him for being a man; which beseemeth not him that is a man himself. Do you not know the frailty of the best, and the common pravity of human nature? How few are there that must not have great allowance, or else they will not pass for currant in the balance. Elias was a man subject to passions: Jonah to pievishness: Job had his impatiency: •• ul saith even of the Teachers of the primitive Church, They all (that were with him) seek their own, and not the things of Jesus Christ. What blots are charged on almost all the Churches, and almost all the holy persons, mentioned throughout all the Scriptures? Learn then of Paul a better lesson than censoriousness, Gal. 6. 1. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault; ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the Law of Christ. Let every man prove his own work, and then be shall have rejoicing in himself alone, &c.
Direct. 10. Remember that Judgment is God's prerogative (further than as we are called to it for the performance of some duty, either of Office, or of private Charity or self-preservation): And that the Judge is as at the door! And that judging unmercifully maketh us liable to judgment without mercy. The foresight of that near universal Judgment, which will pass the doom on us and all men, will do much to cure us of our rash censoriousness.
Direct. 11. Peruse and observe all the Directions in the last Chapter against evil-speaking and backbiting, that I may not need to repeat them: Especially avoid 1. The snare of selfishness and interest: For most men judge of others principally by their own interest: He is the good man, that is good to them, or is on their side; that loveth and honoreth them, and answereth their desires: This is the common false judgment of the corrupted selfish world; who vilify and hate the best, because they seem unsuitable to them and to their carnal interest: Therefore take heed of your judgment about any man, that you have any falling-out with: For its two to one, but you will wrong him through this selfishness. 2. Avoid passion; which blindeth the judgment. 3. Avoid Faction; which maketh you judge of all men as they agree or disagree with your opinions, or your side and party. 4. Avoid too hasty belief of censures, and rebuke them. 5. Hear every man speak for himself before you censure him, if it be possible, and the case be not notorious.
Direct. 12. Keep still upon your mind a just and deep apprehension of the malignity of this sin, of rash censuring: It is of greatest consequence to the mortifying of any sin, what apprehensions of it are upon the mind. If religious persons apprehended the odiousness of this as much, as they do of swearing, drunkenness, fornication, &c. they would as carefully avoid it: Therefore I shall show you the Malignity of this sin.
Tit. 3. The evil of the Sin of Censoriousness.
§. 1. 1. IT is an usurpation of God's Prerogative, who is the Judge of all the world: It is a stepping up into his Judgment Seat, and undertaking his work, as if you said, I will be God as to this action: And if he be called, The Antichrist who usurpeth the Office of Christ, to be the Universal Monarch and Head of the Church, you may imagine what he doth, who (though but in one point) doth set up himself in the place of God.
§. 2. 2. They that usurp not God's part in judging, yet ordinarily usurp the part of the Magistrate or Pastors of the Church. As when mistaken censorious Christians refuse to come to the Sacrament of Communion, because many persons are there whom they judge to be ungodly, what do they but usurp the Office of the Pastors of the Church? To whom the Keys are committed for admission and exclusion? And so are the appointed Judges of that case? The duty of private members is but to admonish the offender first secretly, and then before witnesses, and to tell the Church if he repent not, and humbly to tell the Pastors of their duty, if they neglect it: And when this is done, they have discharged their part, and must no more excommunicate men themselves, than they must hang Thieves when the Magistrate doth neglect to hang them.
§. 3. 3. Censoriousness signifieth the absence or decay of Love: which inclineth men to think evil, and judge the worst, and aggravate infirmities, and overlook or extenuate any good that is in others. And there is least Grace where there is least Love.
§. 4. 4. It showeth also much want of self-acquaintance, and such heart-employment as the sincerest Christians are taken up with. And it showeth much want of Christian humility and sense of your own infirmities and badness; and much prevalency of Pride and self-conceitedne • s: If you knew how ignorant you are, you would not be so peremptory in judging: And if you knew how bad you are, you would not be so forward to condemn your neighbors. So that here is together the effect of much self-estrangedness, hypocrisy and pride: Did you ever well consider of the mind of Christ, when he bid them that accused the adulterous woman, John 8. 7. He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her? Certainly adultery was a heinous crime, and to be punished with death, and Christ was no Patron of uncleanness: But he knew that it was an hypocritical sort of persons whom he spake to, who were busy in judging others rather than themselves. Have you studied his words against rash censurers, Matth. 7. 3, 4. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brothers eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and behold a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite! first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote which is in thy brothers eye. I know well that impenitent sinners, do use to pervert all these words of Christ, against any that would bring them to repentance for their sin: and account all men rash censurers, who would make them acquainted with their unsanctified hearts and lives. But it is not their abuse of Scripture, which will justify our overpassing it with neglect: Christ spake it not for nothing; and it must be studied by his Disciples.
§. 5. 5. Censoriousness is injustice, in that the censurers would not be so censured themselves: You will say, Yes, if we were as bad, and did deserve it. But though you have not that same fault, have you no other? And are you willing to have it aggravated, and be thus rashly judged? You do not as you would be done by: yea, commonly censurers are guilty of false judging; and whilst they take things hastily upon trust, and stay not to hear men speak for themselves, or to inquire thoroughly into the cause, they commonly condemn the innocent; and call good evil, and put light for darkness; and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him, when God hath cursed such with a woe.
§. 6. 6. And false censuring is the proper work of the Devil, the accuser of the brethren, Rev. 12. 10. Who accuseth them before God day and night! And Christians should not bear his Image, nor do his work.
§. 7. 7. Censoriousness is contrary to the Nature and Office of Jesus Christ: He came to pardon sin, and cover the infirmities of his servants, and to cast them behind his back, and into the depth of the Sea, and to bury them in his grave: And it is the censurers work to rake them up, and to make them seem more and greater than they are, and to bring them into the open light.
§. 8. 8. Censoriousness causeth uncharitableness and sinful separations in the censurers: when they have conceited their brethren to be worse than they are, they must then reproach them or have no communion with them, and avoid them as too bad for the company of such as they. Or when they have usurped the Pastors work in judging, they begin the execution by sinful separation.
§. 9. 9. Censoriousness is an infectious sin, which easily taketh with the younger and prouder sort of Christians, and so setteth them on vilifying others: And at this little gap there entereth all uncharitableness, backbitings, revilings, Church-divisions, and Sects, yea, and too often rebellious and bloody Wars at last.
§. 10. 10. Censoriousness is a sore temptation to them that are censured, either to contemn such as censure them, and go on the other hand too far from them; or else to comply with the errors and sinful humors of the censurers, and to strain their consciences to keep pace with the censorious.
And here I must leave it on record to posterity for their warning, that the great and lamentable actions, changes and calamities of this age, have arisen (next to gross impiety) from this sin of censoriousness producing these two contrary effects, and thereby dividing men into two contrary parties: The younger sort of Religious people, and the more ignorant, and many women, having more zeal than judgment, placed too much of their Religion in a sharp opposition to all Ceremonies, Formalities and Opinions which they thought unlawful; and were much inclined to Schism and unjust separations upon that account; and therefore censured such things as Antichristian, and those that used them as superstitious or temporizers: And no man's learning, piety, wisdom or laboriousness in the Ministry could save him from these sharp reproachful censures. Hereupon one party, had not Humility and Patience enough to endure to be so judged of; nor love and tenderness enough for such peevish Christians, to bear with them in pity, as Parents do with froward Infants; but because these professed holiness and zeal, even holiness and zeal were brought under suspicion for their sakes; and they were taken to be persons intolerable, as unfit to lie in any building, and unmeet to submit to Christian Government; and therefore meet to be used accordingly. Another sort were so wearied with the profaneness and ungodliness of the vulgar rabble, and saw so few that were judiciously religious, that they thought it their duty to love and cherish the zeal and piety of their censorious weak ones, and to bear patiently with their frowardness, till ripeness and experience cured them (And so far they were right). And because they thought that they could do them no good, if they once lost their interest in them (and were also themselves too impatient of their censure,) some of them seemed (to please them,) to be more of their opinion than they were; and more of them forbore to reprove their petulancy, but silently suffered them to go on; especially when they fell into the Sects of Antinomians, Anabaptists and Separatists, they durst not reprove them as they deserved, lest they should drive them all out of the Hive, to some of these late swarms. And thus censoriousness in the ignorant and self-conceited, drove away one part to take them as their enemies; and silenced or drew on another party to follow them that led the Van in some irregular violent actions; and the wise and sober moderators were disregarded, and in the noise of these tumults and contentions could not be heard, till the smart of either party in their suffering forced them to honor such; whom in their exaltation again they despised or abused. This is the true sum of all the Tragoedies in Britain of this Age.
Tit. 4. Directions for those that are rashly censured.
Direct. 1. REmember when you are injured by Censures, that God is now trying your Humility, Charity and Patience: And therefore be most studious to exercise and preserve these three. 1. Take heed lest Pride make you disdainful to the censurers: A humble man can bear contempt: Hard censures hurt men so far as they are proud. 2. Take heed lest imbecility add to your impatience, and concur with pride: Cannot you bear greater things than these? Impatience will disclose that badness in yourselves, which will make you censured much more: And it will show you as weak in one respect as the censurers are in another. 3. Take heed lest their fault do not draw you to overlook or undervalue that serious godliness which is in many of the censorious: And that you do not presently judge them Hypocrites or Schismatics, and abate your charity to them, or incline to handle them more roughly than the tenderness of Christ alloweth you. Remember that in all ages it hath been thus: The Church hath had peevish children within, as well as persecuting enemies without: Insomuch as Paul, Rom. 14. giveth you the copy of these times, and giveth them this counsel, which from him I am giving you. The weak in knowledge were censorious and judged the strong. The strong in knowledge were weak in Charity, and contemned the weak: Just as now one party saith, [ These are superstitious persons, and antichristian: ] The other saith, [ What giddy Schismatics are these? ] But Paul chideth them both; one sort for