Commentary on 2 Peter
2 That he might have a thing within him to put him in remembrance. In the Law a man will do nothing without his counsel learned; but for the passages of his life, he seldom stands upon advise. This Monitor will be ever plucking him by the sleeve, telling him, this action is naught, God is angry at it, unshiftable plagues attend it. David portavit in pectore, tanquam Imaginem pictam, adulterii & homicidii. The word doth but sometimes discover our corruption: it is the Glass Saint James speaks of, wherein we look, and see our Image, but turn our backs, and forget it. But conscience is always at hand; it is the continual reflection of the soul upon it self. Even in the dark it will represent to a man his own form, make his wounds smart, and send him a main to the Physician.
3 That he may have a Judge within him: wherein conscience hath yet a higher office. For, 1. a School-master may be despised. Customary sinners, like boys grown tall and stubborn, contemn the rod. A remembrancer may be dispraised; and said as Hushai of Achitophel; his counsel is good, but not at this time: but a Judge we all tremble at. 2. External Judges may be corrupted, but the conscience will take no bribes. O that as every Judge hath a conscience, so this conscience might evermore give the Judgment. 3. The guilty person may fly from another Judge; but there is no evasion of conscience. Nescis temeraria, nescis quem fugias, ideoque fugis. It is impossible for a man to run away from himself. 4. Great men cannot be brought to Judgment-seats: the poor are like materia prima, under generation, so under reformation: but the rich are like stars above the Moon, too high for the reach of ordinary power When a company of Lacedaemonian Gallants had defiled the bench and seat of Judgment; the Magistrates at first stormed, and vowed punishment. But when they knew who did it, they enacted a Law of exception; Liceat illis, It is lawful for those Gentlemen to do what they will. But be they never so great, this Judge will make them stoop. 5. Preachers dare not reprove all men particularly: such an attempt would bring them into contempt. Conscience fears no man; dares check a Magistrate, control a Prince. It may sometime slumber; no woman is always scolding: but when she wakens she will speak.
4 That man might have his comfort, or his torment, within him. Comfort to the righteous; in all afflictions they have this stay, that they be not overwhelmed with sorrow. Though they be condemned, this approves; affords liberty in prison; in the want of outward food, this sustains: it is the Hidden ma • na. Torment to sinners; that they may taste of God's Judgments even in this life. In the midst of all their prosperous fortunes, they have inward tortures. A malefactor in prison, though he fare well, yet is tormented with the thought of ensuing judgment. It is the hand-writing on the wall, that prints bloody characters in Belshazzar's heart. This is the breakings out of the flames of Tophet, a little module of hell: as a looking glass broken into many small pieces, everyone can show the contracted form. This is another indissoluble chain that binds them over.
The last bond of this reservation is the immutable justice of God. In respect of his decree before the world, and suffering them to heap up sin in the world, that they may be punished in the world to come. But this is to be adored with reverence and with silence. Novit Dominus, he knows how to do it.
For ourselves let us take external prosperity for no good mark of our election: the fattest beasts are kept for the slaughter. Flatter we not ourselves with the sense of impunity: the less sorrow we feel, the more we have cause to fear; for the more may be behind. Let us break off our sins by repentance, that God may break the bonds of our durance. Pray with David; Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: Rescue my soul from destructions, my darling from the Lions. That our sins being remitted, and our consciences quieted; we may live in grace, and go to the grave in peace: and when all books be opened, ou • s may have no sin found in it, but instead thereof, the righteousness of JESUS CHRIST.
Unto the day of judgment.] This is the Assizes. Lewd persons riot in the Jail of their durance; yet when the Session comes, they begin to be a little calm; put off their disguises of dissoluteness, and put on some modesty and semblance of humiliation. Then they change their apparel, their garbes, their, looks; all to appear civil. If the meditation of this dreadful day when all hearts shall be searched, all secret corruptions embowelled, a final sentence pronounced, by a Judge that cannot be deceived, upon sinners that would not be converted: if this cannot make us tremble; our hearts disdain comparison for hardness with the nether millstone.
Judgment is diversely understood. For rule and government, Mat. 12.18. Order them aright. For equity, Luk. 11.42. Ier. 22.3. For opinion, Dogma. 1. Cor. 4.3. That is a man's Judgment, which he thinks. For plagues and calamities, Exod. 7.4. For righteousness and holiness. All the ways of God are Judgment and Truth, Prov. 28.5. For authority, John. 5.27. For God's secret council, Rom. 11.33. For our afflictions, 1 Pet. 4.17. 1 Cor. 11.32. Here it is taken for a determination, or giving a sentence by a Judge on the Bench, and in the seat of justice. For this there is a Court, and a Throne. The Court shall be kept in the Clouds; if any ask, why rather on earth, than in heaven? I answer, the malefactor to be judged hath sinned on the earth; and it is the manner of secular Judges there to keep the Assizes, where men committed the trespasses. All the Elements have been abused by sinners, therefore are they judged in the midst of the Elements: that the very place guilty of their fault, might be satisfied with their ruin. Again, to be admitted into heaven, though there to be judged, is an honor whereof sinful nature is not capable: therefore they must remain in the lower parts of the world. No reprobate man or devil shall ever see God: Christ indeed they shall see in the glory of a Judge, not in the glory of God. There is also a Throne: earthly Kings, when they will show themselves to their Subjects in awful Majesty; ascend their Thrones: this is the highest state of a Kingdom. This Throne shall be most terrible to the wicked; A fiery flame, and the wheels b •• ning fire. But to the faithful there is a Rain-bow about it, to qualify the terribleness of it.
To the day of judgment.] This point I have diverse times handled: therefore to avoid a co-incidence of discourse, I fasten only upon two meditations, formerly not observed. The sufficiency of the Judge, and the necessity of the judgment.
1 First the sufficiency of the Judge: his infinite perfection cannot be better discerned of us, than by comparison. There be two main conditions that conc •• re to the making up of a Judge: outward warrant, and inward inablement.
For the former; Judgment is not every man's work, there must be commission and designment for it. There have been indeed some extraordinary actions of Justice, without specification of warrant. Such was the act of Phineas, for which some plead extraordinary instinct from God: and doubtless, he would not have accepted that sacrifice, if himself had not prompted it. So he had the substance of authority, from private revelation, though not the form of authority from public deputation. But I rather think that his judgment was also solemnly warranted. For both, God says to Moses, Hang up the heads: and Moses to the under-rulers, everyone slay his men, that were joined to Baal-peor. So that for this execution every Israelite is made a Magistrate; and then why not Phineas? But it is objected, that he was a Priest, and his place for peace and mercy. I answer even this act of justice was a work of mercy: Samuel thought it not out of his office, to hew Agag in pieces. They might make a carcase which might not touch it. Levi got the Priest-hood by such a sacrifice, shedding the blood of Idolaters. Thus ordinary justice might well bear out Phineas in that act. But it is not for every man to challenge this office: private persons may only pray for the redress of sin: if the man be not warranted, it is a lawful question, Who made thee a judge? Now if a deputed Judge be of great authority, who hath yet a Supreme Magistrate over him, to examine and reform him; how mighty is this Judge? Qua • tus ill judex, qui facit judices; that makes, yea, and unmakes Judges? That judgeth them; and if they do ill, condemns them? By him Kings reign, and Judges rule: by him shall Kings and Judges be called to account. The Jews once questioned Christ; By what authority doest thou these things? And the fools of the world would fain doubt it. But this day shall show, that the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son.
For the other, which is Enablement; whatsoever sufficiency is in other Judges, comes from the Lord; how infinite then is himself? To make a sufficient Judge, these virtues are required.
1 Knowledge, Deut. 1.13. A man can best judge of that which he knoweth. Ignorantia judicis, calamitas innocentis. It is bad at the Barre, worse on the bench. An Advocates ignorance can wrong but one man's cause, a Judges may prejudice the whole Country. In this, Paul thought himself happy; that he stood before a Judge expert in the Laws, Wisdom is better than weapons of war. Without this a Magistrate is but a blind Poliphemus, a great Monster without an eye. A stander by can say, this you cannot do by law: or in derision, you are beside your book. It is a shame for a Justicer, that before he can tell what to do, he must go consult his Clark. Otherwise he must weave a resolution out of his own brains, as Spiders spin their cobwebs out of themselves. If he hit on the right, it is beholding to his luck: and so he relieves the plaintifes hope, not with constant equity, but with an uncertain lottery: and fills up the time, with that which empties the occasion; some Adage, or a stolen jest of stale wit, or a patch of Poetry. But our Judge hath clear eyes to discern the cause: and knows the law, for it was of his own making. There is nothing that can Latere cognitionem, vel effugere potestatem. The Jesuit cannot equivocate with him, though he have tricks beyond the devil.
2 Courage, Magnanimity, or Spirit: typified in Judah, that judiciary Tribe; whose Emblem or Escoucheon, was a Lion Couchant; that lies by the prey without fear of rescue, and turns not his head at the fight of any creature. The principal pillars of a house had need be heart of Oak. Of soft wood, or bending lead, Carpenters will not make them Rules: and are flexible dispositions fit for Rulers? Men do not choose a starting horse to lead the Teame. He had need be of David's valor, that can snatch the prey out of the Lions mouth, rescue the oppressed from him that is too mighty for him. Now all the courage of man is but the gift of God. In thy hand it is to give strength to all. If a beam be so radiant, how glorious is the Sun himself? The Judge of all the world is inflexible: it is falsely said of Cato, that the Sun might sooner alter his course, than he pervent his course of Justice. The stoutest and strongest may yield, either for fear, as Pilate when he heard but a buzz that he was not Caesar's friend. Or for favor, as Eli; that buried the living severity of a Judge, and burning zeal of a Priest, in the frozen and dead indulgence of a father. But whom should this Judge fear, or who can deserve his favor? No audacious swaggerer dares cross him, no great man's letters can prevail with him: nor the frowns of kings, nor the flatteries of Courtiers, can move him.
3 Integrity; there must be no corruption in him. The brain had need be of a strong constitution, that can disperse and dispel the fumes surging from a vicious stomach, liver, or spleen. He whom neither clamour, nor rumour, nor terror; neither furious passion, nor melting compassion, can divert from Justice; is fit to be a Judge. In this Court of Christ, there will be no commuting, give me thy silver for thy sin. No dispensing; Bear with me, and I will bear with thee. No conniving, as Eli; the Judge shall judge it; whereas himself was Judge, and did not judge it: so sentencing himself, while he did not sentence his sons. No slubbering over a cause, without ransacking the bowels of it. But a vindicating of truth out of all the dens and thickets of juggling conveyance. The Scholar searcheth it by disputation, in thesi: the Judge by examination, in hypothesi. Neighbourhood is my friend, alliance is my friend, bounty is my friend; but Justice is my friend above all. Thus Job searched out the cause which he knew not. Man doth search before he finds, God doth find before he searches. Man goes by discourse, by certain rules and principles and general deductions, and from thence concludes: GOD sees at first. Man and truth are two several things; truth and God is all one.
Mortall Judges may be blinded with bribes; and the champions of Justice become Mammons slaves. This acceptatio muneris, pravaricatio veritatis. A gift in the bosom wresteth Judgment: the injection of a dram sways the golden balance of Justice, and so the cause is poised by the weight of the bribe. If the left hand be full of bribes, the right must be full of mischief. But our Judge is not thus to be wrought upon: Shall not the Judge of all the world do right? Did not the Judge in his mortal flesh, scourge such money merchants with zealous severity? Did not his Apostle with fiery indignation ban Simon and his money? It comes to pass that whole kingdoms and Churches perish, because such men and their moneys perish not. O if this Judge would take gold, how few rich men would go to hell? But gold hath lost milions of souls; it never did, never shall, save one. A dram of grace shall be more worth then, than all the treasures of the earth. Sublunary materials have their places; Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass moulten out of the stone: the sun is found in his orbe, fire in his element, &c. But where is grace to be found, and what is the place of Justice? It is not found in the land of the living. Nature says, It is not in me: wealth and honor disclaim it; It is not found in us. Then how shall we do in the day of Judgment? It is found in the treasury of Jesus.
This point willingly and usefully extends it self to Magistrates, of what place soever; collaterally to all persons: teaching them to do equity, and to preserve integrity.
1 Do Justice; to this the Judge stands bound in reason, as the proper act of his function: if he be not at leisure to do this, it is time to unjudge him; as the woman said to Philip, Noli regnare. Judgment is not man's, but the Lord's. Judges are a kind of living instruments; and the nature of Instruments consists in the use and operation: as a knife is only to cut. Ad nihilum valet, quod non valet ad finem suum: if the axe be not good to hew, we say it is good for nothing. What then say you to those Magistrates, that have eyes and see not, ears and hear not? They are Idols: only one defect of those Idols they are not troubled with: we cannot say, They have hands, and handle not: for they handle too much: so much of the money, that they care not to handle the cause. Eyes they have, and see not: feet they have, and walk not: mouths they have, and speak not: hands they have, but they do handle. These are Instruments without operation: for Iudicem Iudicare, is as agreeable and natural, as for the eye to see, the ear to hear. If the other be not Idols, sure they are Idolaters: golden calves if they be not, yet they are worshippers of golden calves. Yet in doing Justice, I would not have Judgment triumph over mercy; whereas mercy rejoiceth against Judgment. To banish all favor, is to banish some equity. There may be favors within the cause, not favors without the cause: legal favors, though not personal. Where no wrong is done to Justice, there may be fair use and place for Mercy.
2 Keep integrity; what place soever you make good: it is the spiritual constitution and best health of your souls. The breach of this, the Apostle calls a Ship-wrack; and a Divine, Solutionem continui. The weight of all goodness will leave us, when we leave that: it shall pour contempt upon Princes, and make a great Antiochus called a vile person. As we love our lives, as we love our souls; through all the transitory, temporary, momentary passages of this world; let us preserve the life of our lives, and soul of our souls, our integrity.
2 The necessity of this judgment. That this should be, it stands both with the Justice and Mercy of God. It is a righteous thing with God, to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you, to you that are troubled, rest with us, rest with himself. For this world, they are afflicted most, that serve God best: and men of worst conscience flow with abundance. So that the world thinks none miserable, but the conscionable: the more holy, the less happy. Who have more seconds and friends at a pinch, than the deboisht sons of Belial, the roaring Monsters of the world, that with Crest and breast oppose all hindrance in the way of their lusts and humors? What plotting, what siding there is to maintain a Ruffian, to countenance some disordered Retainer, to uphold a rotten Ale-house, to procure a Homicides pardon; who sees not? Whereas a good man's trouble is by all cunning aggravations greatened; as if the world meant all hurt against him, that means none. O if in this life only we had hope in Christ, we were of all men the most miserable. There had need be a judgment; and for this cause among the rest, the Saints cry instantly, incessantly; Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.
Be pleased to consider this point also comparatively. Without judgment how could any Nation stand? All things would run to disorder and confusion, but for this. There can be no society among men without indifferency: there is no indifferency, where offense is done without satisfaction: satisfaction may be sought many ways, can no way be enforced, but by judgment. This they resolve into several acts of judiciary proceeding, even from the Summons to the Sentence, from God's own example in the first sinners conviction. If visible powers were not more feared, than the invisible God, the world would be overrun with outrage. Even when God's own Israel had offended, Moses makes them bleed for it, He that was so good, that he would rather perish himself, than Israel should perish; yet pronounceth sentence of death on the Idolaters, rejoices and blesseth the executioners. It is charity as well as justice, to punish offenders: and it is hard to say whether God loves more; a pitiful justice, or a pu • ishing mercy. But might not those sinners have repented and lived? Or if they must be punished, can nothing serve but death? Or if they must die, shall it be by the hands of their brethren? Or if brethren must cut their throats, shall it be done in the heat of their sins? Yes, so God commanded; and even that judgment was mercy: judgment on the bad, mercy to the whole: the corrupt blood is let out, that the body may be preserved. Moses had a soft heart, but zealous and wise: pitiful he was, not fond.
A sinful Common-wealth cannot live, unless it bleed in the common vein. There is not a better sacrifice to God, than the blood of malefactors: this sacrifice so pleased him in the hands of the Levites, that they alone must sacrifice to him still. Next to our prayers, we do no better service to God, than in punishing obstinate sinners; if they deserve it even unto blood. How doth this free the Land from those Judgments, which God otherwise would inflict! His revenge pursues transgressors; but if the revenge of man's justice overtake it, God gives over the chase: to execute this judgment, saves him a labor. If the Land be defiled with blood, in duels, drunken quarrels; there is no way to purge it, but by their blood that polluted it. Often hath the Lord done justice on the whole body, because the head hath not done justice on a member: and the seasonable infliction of a less punishment hath avoided a greater. The Tribe of Levi by shedding the blood of the Idolatrous Israelites, was cleared from the blood of the innocent Shechemites. The best friends to the State are the impartial Ministers of judgment: nor do the prayers of them that sit still and do nothing, so much pacify God's wrath against us, as their just retribution. We gaze and wonder at the iniquity of the Land, yea shed tears for it: but it is the public sword of our authority in correcting it, that must reconcile the Lord. Governors are faulty of those sins they see and punish not. It is no less than a good sight in a State, even a Malefactor at the Gall-house. We could not eat our meat, nor sleep in our beds, nor say our prayers in peace; but for judgment. Such is the necessity of it, that no State can stand without it.
This is a benefit in our Land which we must acknowledge by experience, God grant we may acknowledge with thankfulness. We have Courts and judgment seats for all causes; spiritual and temporal, civil and criminal, pecuniary and capital. We have Judges visiting all the great Cities twice in the year at least: so that the people cannot complain that they travel far for justice, nor except against trial, who stand or fall by the deposition and verdict of their nearest neighbors. The Widow took a right course in soliciting the Judge. When they have matters, saith Moses, they come to me. And when Christ chargeth us to Agree with our adversary, &c. he speaks not against just proceeding in Law: but rather ratifies and rectifies the course of civil Justice. Being smitten he stroke not again; yet he expostulated De facto, John. 18.23. Paul reproving the High Priests in justice, was yet prepared to suffer: and he appealed unto Caesar. If then it be so necessary for man, that he cannot conserve his profit, credit, quiet, life it self, without judgment: how much more stands it with the honor of God? There be innumerable sins, which neither the eye of man sees, nor the arm of man can reach: these must not scape, God must be glorified in all: now he cannot be glorified, unless all transgression be punished, and all obedience crowned. I conclude.
O that men would therefore prepare themselves for this last and great audit. I beheld a p • le horse, and his name that sat on him was Death; and hell followed him. Many tremble at death, but how would they be affrighted if they could see his follower, hell? The Foxes doth not more wait upon the Lions, nor Crowes upon Armies, nor Gaolers on Serjeants, than the devil attends on death for a booty. Death is but as the hook, that jerkes the reprobates like fishes out of the pond of this world: there is afterward a fire and a Frying-pan, or scalding caldron to come. Let us eat and drink, tomorrow we shall die? Never beast made such a senseless argument: Riot, because we shall die? How strange is such a conclusion to such a promise? It is all one with them to be a Farmers hog, or an Aldermans Horse, or a Ladies puppy; or themselves: that think death the full period, the last and final cessation of the creature. So when Antisthenes cries out in his pangs, Who shall ease me? Diogenes tenders him a knife, to cut his own throat. Our frantic combatants, falsely termed brave spirits; as prodigal of their lives as Cocks and Dogs, pouring them out on every drunken quarrel; little think of this dreadful day to come. It is not the loss of the men we so much pity; good for nothing but to stop breaches, and make up forlorn hopes, in the mouth of Cannons; but it is the loss of their souls. If they did think of this judgment, they would have little list to such desperate combats. For who would not rather welcome a Rapier or Pistol, than a lingering and racking sickness; but for this consequence; that after death comes judgment.
Death is but the beginning of sorrows; when we have done with him, judgment begins with us. Yet too many banish this meditation as too melancholy: and like children or cowards, rather shut their eyes, and choose to feel the blow, than to see and avoid it. How silly is it to fear death, whose pangs be sometimes less than the tooth-ach; more than the day of Judgment, which whom it finds out of CHRIST, shall cast into everlasting fire? So fools fear the thundercracke, and not the thunder-bolt: the report of the ordinance, not the bullet: the Serjeans arrest more than the Gaolers Imprisonment. Let us not seek to avoid death, this we cannot, but prepare ourselves for the trial, this we may. Some a little wiser, and a very little better, upon a cold thought of death, 〈◊〉 a short breathed parley of Judgment. And then after a sigh or two, put all upon a LORD have mercy on us; we trust it shall go as well with us as with others; even as GOD will have it. These have some scattered and preposterous flashes of the last Judgment in their consciences; yet take no cou •• to get faith and pardon in JESUS CHRIST. Most men think all well, an • they shall answer the matter easily enough; not weighing the horror of their sins. But how fearfully do they find themselves deluded, when their souls • w •• , as Jonah did in the tempest; in the gulf of fire and brimstone? Let us ballast our s •• p before we put to sea, lest we perish in the main: and judge ourselves, that we be not judged in the day of Jesus Christ.
To be punished.] This is the execution. It were a vain Session, if malefactors were not put to execution. Irrite and forcelesse are those censures, which impunity follows. The mulcts and fines which are not required, do make wickedness more bold and insensible. But after God's Judgment follows an unavoidable execution: the unjust are not only judged, but punished. Among men, good laws droop into contempt, by making difference of offenders: magistrates are afraid to meddle with the outrages of the mighty. Whence it comes, that small thefts are condemned to carts, while the great sacrileges are honored in coaches. If the great beast make a gap in the mound, the whole heard will not be afraid to follow. It was the Lord's charge to Moses, hang up the heads. God could as well have stroke the rulers, as the people: yet while himself punisheth the vulgar, he bids Moses punish the Princes; which one would think should have been more properly reserved to his own immediate hand. Yet these he leaves to human authority, that he might procure awe to his own ordinances. It is the impartial execution of noble offenders, that wins credit to government: and the want of it cuts the sinews of any state. If their sins have made them base, let there be no favor in their penalty. But in this Judgment, God respects no persons: he knows no valor, no honor, no riches, no royalty, in the matter of sin: but Tribulation and anguish on every soul of man that doth evil. He knows nothing in man, nothing for man, but only the righteousness of one, God and man, his son Jesus. There is a sin among men, for which there may be some mediation; but if a man sin against God, who shall entreat for him? None but Christ. To be punished, From hence I will only derive these two collections.
1 That man's soul is immortal, and his body shall be raised again: otherwise how could there be a punishment after the day of Judgment? Carnal reason can hardly imagine, how a soul should have subsistence after it's separation from the body: it seems incredible, because it is invisible. But Eagles can see more than Owls: nor was mere nature ignorant of this; through all clouds of error she could see this clear truth; that souls die not with their bodies. This is an inbred instinct sucked from the breast of nature, an indelible principle stamped in the soul by God himself, not to be rased out. The waggoner hath a being though his coach be broken: the ship is wrack'd on the sea, yet the mariner may swim to harbor: the addar lives after she hath slipped off her coat: the musician keeps his skill, though his lute be broken: the snail may creep out, and leave his shell behind. Beside faiths clear sight, and supernatural revelation; I saw souls under the Altar: John did see spirits.
Reason it self can find no absurdity in it. 1. I know my soul to be in my [unspec 1] body, I cannot see it: my body is but a house of clay: cannot another substance be as capable of this soul, as clay? may not the air, or heaven, or any other place, contain it as well as earth. 2. The soul is not guided by the body, but the body [unspec 2] by the soul: that may be choleric, when the body is phlegmatic: that cheerful, when the other is melancholy. Diverse Martyrs have expressed solid joy, when their corporal torments have been extreme: as if they had been spirits without bodies. The body would often eat, when the soul hath a mind to fast: the body would sleep, the soul rouseth it up to pray: often have you seen a cheerly mind in a distemperd body. Now if their dispositions be so manifestly cross; that the one can be well, when the other is ill: one grieved and troubled, when the other is in perfect health: it is plain, that this soul may as well be, and be sensible, out of the body, as in the body.
It were foolish for men to be so careful about their surviving names, if their [unspec 3] souls were extinguishable with their bodies. What is that honor to me, whereof I am not sensible? If death were the destruction of the whole nature and substance, a good remembrance were to little purpose: and men had better leave their posterity more wealth, though less credit behind them.
Death it self were but a toy, if no Judgment followed it, or if there was [unspec 4] no soul to be judged. It were then only as the breaking of a pitcher, which was full of nothing but fluid air. He were a coward that would fear death, if he thought it to be the end of all fear. Expiration were not terrible, if it left nothing that remains sensible.
If the soul does exhale as sensual brutes, why does it understand more than [unspec 5] brutes? The soul of the beast is as salt to keep it sweet: man's hath a nobler and more Divine dowry: it can discourse, reason, forecast, invent, remember: it can read, exercise arts, deduce conclusions; which be characters of an immortal nature. For men will not write on waters, nor engrave curiously in snow, ye, or such liquefying stuff. Therefore it is a particle of Divine breath, inspired into formed loame by God himself. It doth not arise out of the body, but is infused into it: therefore may as well exist without the body after, as it did without the body before. Dust returns to dust, the spirit to him that gave it: both to their originals, dust to dust, heaven to heaven. First, the soul goes to this Tribunal, then the body to earth: first the soul is judged and punished or rewarded, as the principal in good or evil: afterwards the body, as a mere accessory. The soul of the righteous is first, crowned, as that which more purely and primarily served God: the body did but rather hinder: therefore must come after. Dies mortis corpori, dies nativitatis animae.
The body is but sometimes awake, the soul is never a sleep. The body is [unspec 6] infirm and dull; now that which never sleeps in the body, shall certainly never sleep out of the body. And how is that liable to death, that is not capable of sleep? In the deadest and deepest slumbers, that is always discoursing, working, thinking: deaths younger brother cannot overcome it, sleeps elder brother shall not annihilate it. No Somniferous Opium, or dormitory potion can charm this into slumber: yea, it doth not seldom exercise the faculties with more freedom in the epilogue of sickness, in the confines yea even article of death: and shows more vigor in the corporal weakness, than it did in the fullness of health: as a prisoner looks and speaks more cheerfully, when the windows be open, than when all are shut up in darkness. Yea, it rejoiceth at death, as at the keepers turning of the key, to open the door, and set it at liberty. It leaves the body, as the inhabitant leaves a rotten and ruinous house; as a carpenter leaves his axe when the edge is blunted: or as a musician lays by his lute, when the strings are broken: or as a guest makes hast out of his Inn in Domum aternitatis sua, to his long home. She never sleeps in sleep, therefore not in death: for death is a long sleep as sleep is a short death. Elias prays that the Childs soul may come to him again; therefore it was not extinct, though out of the body. Lord Jesus receive my spirit, was Saint Stephens farewell: his spirit was not stoned to death. Fear not him that can kill the body only, &c. To kill the body is one thing, to kill the soul another. By Saint Paul's choice, 2 Cor. 5.8. a man may be at once absent from the body, and present with the Lord. As thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, saith Uriah to David, he speaks of two different lives. The rich man was in hell: no man thinks his body there; it was his soul. GOD is called Deus viventium, the GOD of the living: now the bodies of the Saints are dead, therefore their souls be safe.
To conclude then, the soul is not a vapor, but a spirit: not an accident, but a substance; the bodies elder sister, an excellent Queen over it: in it but not mixed; but separable from it: a guest that falls not with the house: but departs from it for a better habitation: and when it is re-edified at the Resurrection, will revisite and reunite it again to it self. Thus it lies not a dying with the flesh: but as when the body sleeps, the soul sleeps not: so when the body dies, the soul dies not. If it have kept house well, it shall be exalted to everlasting peace: if been unjust in life, after death it must be punished.
But is the soul only accountable, is that alone liable to punishment? No, the body that hath accompanied it in the sin, must not be separated in the penalty. Diverse have believed the souls immortality, that have doubted the resurrection of the body: and this error seems to have found place in some of the Corinthians. How say some of you, that there is no resurrection? Some of you, all do not say so: S. Paul doth not wrap up the innocent and orthodox with the rest in the same accusation. Many acknowledged this, some doubted: therefore he spends a long Chapter in this argument: which I forbear to amplify, as not daring to suspect any of us taken with such an hesitation. The soul never dies, and a man is not a man without his body; therefore there must be a resurrection of bodies. Let a green twig be bowed together by the hand of man: when the hand is gone it will come to it self again. Some are so nimble that they can lay their heel on their head; yet is not this the right place: but after such a forcible violence, the whole body comes again to the first proportion. Death may take one piece of man from another; but when he shall be driven to let go his hold, these two parts shall join. The soul is a spirit, and cannot be called a man without the body: no man is said to be a husband that hath no wife: nor is the sap a tree: nor fair written paper called a book, till it be bound up in a cover. The soul in heaven is not a perfect man without the body. Uses.
1 It discovers their pittiable folly, that upon every galling discontent, lift up heir own hands against their own lives. They think death the remedy of all vils, seek it as a present ease, the only cure of their violent passions and perplexed consciences. But alas, then begins their present misery: for that sends them to this judgment, and for this lamentable end, to be punished. They leap out of the smoke, into the flame: from a momentary disturbance, that may be cured by faith and repentance; into a woe that enwraps them in eternal vengeance. What a fool was that crafty Politician; that could order his house, dispose his goods, and then hang himself! He little thought of this judgment. Thus Saul forsaken of all hopes, scorning deaths blow by the hand of a Philistim, begs it of his Armor-bearer: and what he could not obtain of him, himself supplies. As if he had borne arms against himself, he falls on his own sword. The Armor-bearer follows his Master, and does that to himself which he durst not to his King: both yielding that to their own swords as familiar executioners, which they grudged to their pursuers. Saul had been told the evening before by a familiar, To morrow thou shalt be with me. Now he makes hast to prove the devil no liar: rather than fail, he makes his own mittimus; accepting the greater mischief, to avoid the less. He might have suffered the Philistian violence without blame: to have died by an enemy had been his fate, not his fault. But when he will needs act the Philistines part upon himself; he lives and dies a murderer. Other prisoners by breaking the Jail may escape the Assizes: but here to break it and not to stay for a summons, is to hasten the judgment, as it were to purchase a Sessions, for his own damnation. Upon the soul we pass not this sentence, upon the fact we may. There may be repentance, but the deed is heinous: and without repentance the punishment will be grievous.
2 Let it teach us all to provide in our life, a harbor for this storm that comes after death. How unshiftable otherwise shall we be in that hour, how unable to answer at the day of Judgment? What is it for a poor man to take care of his winding sheet? Or the rich for a curious tomb? their names may stink like their carcases for all this. Or for the superstitious to be buried in a Friars cowle, or with a great sum to purchase a grave under the Altar? Whereas a good man buried in the Church, is Templum, in Templo. Or for the desperate to wish for mountains, instead of monuments? When they shall be turned out of their bodies, as Hagar was out of doors; and rejected from God's presence, like vagabond Cain; saying with the unjust steward, what shall become of us? It is a provided receptacle, that shall comfort them that have it: foxes, and hares, and even vermin fore-acquaint themselves with muses, thickets, and borrows: and when they are hunted, repair thither for safety; and shall man be to seek for his refuge? The comes make their houses in the rocks: we have only one Rock to borough in; our only City of refuge, and Sanctuary of peace Jesus Christ.
2 The other collection is, that there is a Punishment ordained for the wicked: a punishment for the matter; but for the quality and manner, this is sealed of God and concealed from man. Horrible it is, and inconceivable; therefore hath no specification in Scripture, saving only in some shadows and narrow representations; according to human capacity; the figure, rather than the nature of hell. Diverse popish writers have made certain mappes and models of hell, searched all the nookes of that dungeon, surveyed the dark rooms, quartered them into regions and cantons: here placing lust, there riot, there covetousness. Bellarmine says that one glimpse of that burning climate were enough to make a man (not only Christian, but) even turn Monk, and confine himself to the strictest rule of their mortification. But to wish such a sight, and come off like a discoverer; to make report unto men, is superfluous, superstitious: a thing that God hath not thought fit for him to grant, nor necessary for man to know. If we ask what is in heaven, CHRIST answers; You know the way, follow it. So if you ask what is in hell, you know the way; avoid it. Quid mors est, rogitas: si scirem, mortuus essem. No man ever saw hell, that came back to make relation. Let us h • are Moses, the word, the Preacher: if the Lord mean us any good, they shall do us some good. Let us not desire it painted in tables, but considered in our meditations; and that frequently: short and transient thoughts of it, may leave men to the long and permanent pains of it, so think of it that we study to escape it. Take these glimmering shadows of it.
By the want and privation of all comforts: how terrible is it for a man to be famished? it is able to make him gnaw his own flesh. In hell the want shall be greater, and the desire more violent described by gnashing their teeth for anger, and gnawing their tongues for hunger. A son takes it grievously to be banished the sight of his father: Absalom was weary of his life by this delay. What a torment is it then to be shut out forever from the presence of God, without all hope of readmission? David, was but the father of his flesh, God is the father of all spirits: Absalom might have life by him, but did not live in him: yea, he could live not only without him, but against him. But in God we live, and without him can be no life. It was grief enough for Adonijah, though he were pardoned, to be decourted, confined to his country house. With what horror shall the reprobates hear, Depart from me ye cursed? Everlastingly to be expiled from him in whom is all life, must needs be an everlasting death. If in the Lord's presence be the fullness of joy, the fullness of sorrow must be in his absence.
By the necessity, in respect of the decree of God's immutable Justice; which casts them into prison without baile or main-prize: no ransom, no redemption. Bondage is terrible, especially to them that have ranged in liberty. Though Absalom be repealed, yet to have his own house his prison, vexeth him. It could not content Shimei, though he had room enough, to be confined to the river Kidr •• for gadding. Take a man from his well furnished house, seated in a good air, his grounds watered with commodious springs, with his choice of Gardens, fields or walks; from walking or riding at his pleasure: and lay him up in some loathsome prison, to spend but the short misery of his remaining days: how disconsolate is this restraint? Such, and ten thousand times more, is it to be fetched from this broad world, Sun-shine, light, and delight: and to be bound in the chains of eternal darkness.
By the society: the company adds much to the content or torment of a place. A loving wife, gracious children, kind neighbors, cheerful companions, are the sweet refreshments of this life. Now for a man to be excluded from these, and to be haunted with furies, male-contents, melancholy, or wrangling copesmates; how grievous is the change? No man delights to dwell among Herses and Funerals, or to live in charnell houses; unless Sextons that can make themselves merry with dead corpses. We hate to dwell in Hospitals, Bridewels, or Bedlams: yea, the very society of ruffians and tear-Christ's is odious to us, if the love of God be in us. How intolerable then is the habitation among dogs, unclean birds, reprobate spirits worse than any scriech-Owls, Tigers, or Toads.
By the extremity: flesh and blood hath been exercised with many sharp miseries, and though •• • orer than flesh and blood (without the comfort of Grace) could ever endure. The Collick, the Gowte are torments: the strappado, or the rack: the slow burnings of material fire, all terrible. Yet are all these but the rast of this punishment; like an itch to those exquisite pains. The rich oppressor will then think his former Gowte a pleasure: and the murderer wish to hang eternally on his gibbet. But hath a man been vexed with a disquiet conscience, the arrows of guiltiness sticking in his sides, groaning under the pressure of unbearable sins? This comes nearest to the say of hell, a taste of those vials, to which the gall of Asps is honey, and the stings of Scorpions a mere tickling. That which made the human nature of the Son of God sweat clods of blood, and heavy his soul to the death; crying as if he were forsaken; think of that punishment.
By the eternity; which makes all the rest absolute. Did the glass hold more sands than ever the Sea washed on the shore, and but one little dust could pass in a Milion of years; this were miserable enough: yet would there be an end of that long ruin. But this punishment is a continual fever, a death which hath no death: it hath a beginning, it hath no end. Add eternity to extremity, and then consider hell to be hell indeed. If the Ague of a Yeare, or the Collick of a Moneth, or the rack of a day, or the burning of an hour, be so bitter: how would it break the hearts of the wicked, to think of all these beyond all measure, beyond all time? Yet is all this truth, saving that it comes far short of the truth? This is much, it is not near all.
O that men would meditate on this before they sin: but such thoughts are held too melancholy; and we counted bloody Physicians to speak of hell in our Sermons. They upbraid us, that we torment them before their time. Men are loath to be tormented before their time, and yet fear not to be tormented time without end. Alas, all our scope in discoursing of this fire, is but to snatch your souls out of the fire: we bring you to the brink of the gulf, that seeing it with horror you may never fall into it. All this the very devils, I do not say, believe, but feel and shudder to think of. Shall a temporal King have his judgment seat, his prison, his executioners; and not God, who is so infinitely just? Shall man punish with death corporal, and is not death eternal just with the Lord? Let men ruminate of these things by themselves: and if the description of these flames cannot make them detest sin, how likely are they to become fire-brands of these flames? Without some infallible antidote against this poison, me thinks the souls of unbelievers should go out of their bodies, as devils do out of the possessed; raging, rending, foaming. It is a wonder that any should die in their right senses and wits, that have not learned to die in the faith of Christ. Death it self is painful, therefore no marvel if men wish it short: of an easeful life man desires a protraction, but speed of his inevitable dissolution: not more willing to live when he is well, than to be out of his pain when he must die. Every pang of violent and mortal sickness is a death: to lie one hour under deaths tyranny is tedious: but to be a whole day a dying, is beyond natural patience. What then is that death which knows no end? As this body is as frail as the life that animates it, so that death is as everlasting as the soul that endures it. It were grievous for man to be but so long a dying, as he hath leave to live: yet one minute of the second death is worse than whole ages of the first. Let us never be so mad and desperate, as to shrink at that which must come, and will soon be over: and not to tremble at that which may come and continue forever.
To conclude, here is one thing that answers to all doubts and questions that here might be moved. If it be asked who these unjust are, Dominus novit: he knows who are his, which is a Novit of approbation: who are not his, which is a Novit of reprobation. If, how reserved, what bonds be upon them; Dominus Novit, he hath insensible chains of durance. If when this day of Judgment shall be, what time is designed for it; what month, what year the Judge shall appear in the clouds; Dominus novit; it is not fit for man to know, the LORD, keeps it to himself. If, how they shall be punished, what that fire and brimstone is, how differently it shall work upon sinners, where the local seat of torment should; in air or earth: still Dominus novit, and suo tempore revelabit. One Quaere before I part with the verse.
Whether doth God always forbear notorious sinners to this great day. Indeed he set a brand upon Cain, that he should not be cut off by the hand of man, but reserved to this general Session: and many an oppressor dies aged in his bed, and tarries long for his condemnation. Even this is a heavy punishment, that suffers men to grow old in their sins. It is best for a reprobate, excepting only never to be borne, to have his swaddling clouts a winding sheet, and his cradle become his sepulcher. Then is a terrible woe, when God forbears smiting, and man forbears not sinning. But this impunity, doth not always hold to a mature and white-hair'd death. Some are met withal betimes, in the heat of their fury, breathing out blood and slaughter against the Church; even suddenly confounded, as Paul was converted. Corah rebels; doth his fall stay for his age? No, the earth opens, and swallows him quick. That element was never used to such morsels: many dead carcases hath it taken into the hungry bowels, never before bodies informed with living souls. Before it hath been only opened with the violent hand of man; now opens it self. It had often been a grave, now it is both a grave, and an executioner. Those five Kings pull sudden vengeance on their own heads, they come forth to their death: Joshua's sword and God's hailstones dispatch them apace.
Sisera flies from the impartial hand of a victors war, gets into a Tent, a friends ten • ▪ there securely falls a sleep: in the midst of all that tumult, and the jaws of death, he finds time to sleep: as too many hearts do in the midst of their sins and spiritual dangers. And whiles haply he was dreaming of the clashing of armors, rattling of chariots, cries of the bleeding, and triumphs of the conquering; even then he sleeps his last, and hath the fatal reward of all his cruelty. His head was fastened so close to the earth, as if his body had been listening what was become of his soul. Of his hundred thousands so soon hath he none left, not a page, to prevent his death, to accompany it, or bewail it. He bragged of great wonders that he would do with his iron chariots; and now one nail of iron kills him; and he knows not by whom he perishes. Fearefull are the examples of these sudden dooms; there is nothing more horrible, than to die in the act of sin without the act of repentance. Too many promise themselves the grace and space to repent in their old age: that rich man afforded himself many years; fool, he had not many hours. Nadab and Abihu, while they were offering sacrifice, were made sacrifices. God sends down true and strange fire upon them, that offered false and common fire to him. What sinner can be safe, when these sons of Aaron so suffer? Nature might have pleaded for them, they are young men, scarce warm in their office, the sons of the High Priest, of great eminence, they have not yet experience, may be more careful all their remaining time, it is but their first fault.
Think of this ye that study pretences and patronages for your sins: what hope of plea shall you find either in the greatness of your birth, or greenenesse of your youth, or in the newness of your ill doing, when you do that you know God hath forbidden? O there is no privilege that can bear off a sin with the Lord: no prerogative can challenge pardon; when as you see young men, sons of the Ruler, for their first offense, stroke dead. How did Phineas Iavelin take Zimri napping; as it is reported of one of the Popes, to die in the instant act of his adultery. Let fornicators tremble at this remembrance, when they purpose fulfilling their lusts. The Blasphemer, that wounds himself by wounding Christ, hopes to quit all with a miserere at the last: but did he never hear of Julian, of diverse common swearers, that have died with oaths in their mouths? The drunkard assures himself to be sober long enough before he dies: yet how many hath he heard of, yea some known, that have perished in their cups, and never awaked from their drink, till their souls appeared to judgment? Examples of men quackled, drowned, crushed to death, breaking their necks, are frequent enough. The thievish oppressor promises himself to give over, when age hath filled his purse. Such is the resolution of reprobates, and men ordained to damnation. I have credibly heard of one slain out-right with a piece of timber, which he stole but half an hour before. Of another that had stolen a Sheep, and resting his burden on a stone, was strangled with the struggling of it about his neck.
Thus doth God sometimes execute Martial-law, doing present execution; that fools might not say in their hearts; There is no God. As he forbears others that men might see a necessity of the solemn judgment to come. We pronounce not definitive sentence upon particular men so dying: but certainly they leave behind them to their friends little hope and comfort of their salvation. Nor yet is speed of death ever more a judgment: sudden dying is always deprecable; and when it comes, full of fear, doubt, and suspicion of the worst. But is never a manifest and infallible argument of anger, but when it strikes men in the act of sin. Howsoever, leisure of repentance is a sign of God's special favor: when he gives a man law, it implies that he would not have him wrapped up in destruction. But presume not O sinner, nor flatter thyself that the day of judgment is a great way off. Thou knowest not, when the drunken cup is in thy hand, whether thou shalt live to drink it off. When thou swearest, whether thy mouth shall ever open again to call for pardon. When thou goest to the bed of adultery, whether thou shalt ever rise again from thy unclean pillow. When thou liftest up thy hand to strike thy brother, whether thou shalt ever lift it up for mercy to thy father. When thou beginnest an unjust contention, whether thou shalt ever end it ere thou comest to hell. O think of a powerful arm, which though it draws back long to fetch the harder blow, yet is it always able to strike, and dead the despiser of Goodness ere he can have leave to swallow his spittle.
How often doth God cut men off for a sin they never did, while their assidual iniquities are not summoned, nor meddled withal? Not much otherwise he did Zebah and Zalmunna: they had been cruel to many of Gideon's fathers children; yet had they been spared if his mothers children had not died by them. For Succoth, he slew the Rulers, and spared the people: for Midian, he slew the people and would have spared the rulers. Gideon would, but God would not: he will find occasions to bring wicked men to their Judgment: and they which should have scaped the penalty of their public wrongs, must perish in a private quarrel. So swaggerers, when for theft and homicide they have scaped the Judgment of a Session; often bleed their last drop in streets and Taverns: God doing on them just execution, by an unjust adversaries weapon. Wherein he shows his manifest wrath by performing that himself, which he charged the Magistrate to do, and he performed not. The slaughter of Gideon's brethren was not the greatest fault of those Kings: yet when the rest should have found an unjust forgiveness, this alone kills them. The sins of a wicked man are many, yet someone shall bring him to shame. Not seldom doth God pay men with one sin for all the rest. Shimei had faults enough, cursing and abusing the Lord's Anointed with dust and stones: David pardons him, Solomon confines him; he might now rest in peace: No, he must run to Gath, to fetch home his servants, with the loss of himself: this paid him for all the rest. Joab had treacherously murdered Abner and Amasa, scapes for both these: at last he sides with Adonijah, and this brings him to his end in blood.
How many bloody murders have been thus punished in a mutinous word? The tongue in rash language hath scourged the iniquity of the hand. One hath done many robberies, scaped many searches; at last when all hath been forgotten he hath been hanged for accessory to a theft he never knew. Suspected felony hath often paid the price of an unknowen rape: and they that have gone away with unnatural filthiness, yet have clipped off their days with their own coin. Still GOD'S Judgments are just, even when man's may be unjust. Sinner, that which hath befallen any of these, may befall thee; what dispensations soever thou givest thyself. Some of these were mighty, some rich, some young, some thought themselves as wise as thou: none of them ever looked for such ignominious ends more than thou doest. In the fear of GOD, if we deprecate such ends, let us decline such courses.
VERSE 10. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government.
SO monstrous are the outrages of the world, and so incorrigible the boisterous precipice of sin; that Reason (which is of a middle nature betwixt grace and corruption) begins to doubt, whether there be a God and Judge of all the earth. The godly suffer injuries, and are not delivered from their oppressors. The wicked are impune and prosper in the midst of all their flagitious crimes. Where is then the Judge, to punish the one, to deliver the other? He sits in heaven, sees and disposeth all that is done upon earth: beholds the sufferings of his pious children, knows when it is fit time to release them. The wickedness of the unjust cries to him for vengeance, he knows when to answer it. He forbears to strike these, for the ripening of their disobedience: to ease the other, for the exercise of their patience. Some hot spirits would call fire from heaven, sudden destruction on their persecutors: not so saith God: there is a day prefixed; and what is it to you if I will have them tarry till then? They cannot wind themselves out of my hand; I have them bound fast enough: be you quiet and let your expectation depend on this Judgment.
Now from this Thesis he comes to the Hypothesis, accommodates the general doctrine to his own purpose. If God will take vengeance on all the wicked, let not these pernicious seducers, beasts in the shapes of men, think to escape. They follow the Flesh, not Reason, much less the Spirit; but like brutes, are governed by their sensual appetite. They walk after: the flesh is not like some stranger, whom they meet rarely: or some friend, whom they see but now and then: or a neighbor, whom they border upon, and often converse with: or a domestic companion, with whom they eat, drink, play, sleep. But it is their Captain, their Leader, their Commander, whose colors they march under; file, or rank, or troupe, according to his direction: their primum mobile, by whom they move; a if they had no particular motion of their own: so benighted and pusled with blindness, that they know no other way than the flesh guides. It is the weight that sets all their wheels a going; the horses that draw their chariot, the very life of their corruption, and corruption of their life, without which they do nothing. In the lust of uncleanness: if you desire to know what course this flesh prescribes them, it is lust: renouncing all study of honesty, they must give themselves to Lust. But there may be a sanctified lust, I desire to do thy will, O God: or a natural lust; as hunger is an appetite to meat. Therefore this lust hath the specification; lust of uncleanness; a sordid, belluine, irrational, stinking turpitude. After this the reprobate walks; his whole self, all the parts of him: his eyes walk after to look upon it: his ears walk after to hearken to it: his mouth walks after to talk of it: his feet walk after to pursue it: his hands stay not behind to act it: his heart is foremost of all to desire it. Finally, whatsoever may cross their lusts, they set themselves to contemn; Despise government. Not that Almighty word which rules Heaven and Earth, but all the beams of God's Omnipotent royalty, in his deputed magistracy: vilipending all laws, canons, sanctions; dishonoring all Princes, Judges, sovereign powers. Neither Moses nor Aaron, Caesar nor Paul, Minister of the word, nor Minister of the sword, find reverence in their hearts, or obedience in their lives. As if they resolved to disgrace that, wherein GOD hath imprinted the most immediate characters of his own Supreme Majesty.
But chiefly.] There be degrees and differences of sins and sinners; for God here sets a Prasertim, Chiefly, especially, principally, upon some. Whatsoever becomes of others, they shall be sure of a large share in vengeance. There is a notorious mark set upon them, a boring thorough the ear, like perpetual slaves; or a burning in their hands, like once convicted malefactors; a branding with some indelible mark of shame. There is great reason for this Chiefely, in respect of the sinners quality: they walk after the flesh, that is there own carnal desires and sensual delights, in the strength of corruption, yet perhaps without eruption. They balk such facts as may expose them to the censures of men: so keep themselves, that the national laws cannot fetch them in Coram nobis. How doth the covetous man scrape and oppress, yet dares look the Judge in the face: because though he be in the extremity of the Law, yet not beyond it. The Usurer guards his interest with statute-lace, he will not take a penny above that stint or allowance: so he scapes, and is rather made a Grand Iuror, than a guilty prisoner. The adulterer walks under the canopie of night, throws the silken robe of greatness over his lust; and then the Judge dares not see it: or locks it up with the doors of secrecy, and then the Judge cannot see it: or buys it off with money, and then the Judge will not see it: or when none of these will serve, he hides his head where the laws hand cannot find him. Now upon him God sets his mark, this Chiefely: thou scapest fairly, yet remember thou art reserved to Judgment. The more remiss man hath been against thee, the more impartially will God proceed with thee. He is content thou shouldest pass all apprehensions till the last, till his own Pursuivant, death comes for thee. A King takes some capital offenders from the common course of Justice, and reserves them to his own censure.
But how is this so fitly applied to the next clause, Despisers of Government? This should rather seem to bring them into present condemnation; that by suffering temporal punishment, they might repent and scape the eternal. Magistrates are often more curious and sensible of their own injuries, than of the Lord's: though this be an abuse of authority, to wear the sword of Justice in their own sheaths; and to draw it not so readily against public offenses, as in their private causes. How then come these to be reserved? Either they are too great for the hand of authority, or too contemptible for the eye of authority. Too great, as the Popish clergy are exempt from the temporal Sword: or a strong faction of mal-contents; a beast that knows the own strength. Or too base for notice; such are the droves of beggars, professed cyphers, nothing-does that swarm about this City, and have their cantons all over the country. Spight of all laws, statutes, and contradictions, they will beg rather than work; and curse that authority to the pit of hell, that shall correct their vicious life. These the connivence of man lets alone, and the patience of GOD also forbears: but their damnation sleepeth not.
Great difference then doth God make of offenders: eye for eye; not the whole body for an eye, not two eyes for one. Theft finds an easier mulct than murder, than murder treason. All sin is culpable enough; but there is a Chiefely belonging to some: as to him that miscalls his brother, Matth. 5.22. Whoremongers God will Judge; they are often reprieved to his own tribunal. Without shall be dogs, &c. Many other sinners shall be excluded, but chiefly these. 1 Tim. 1.9. If hell were too little, some less offenders should be thrust out; these must have room. There is a Maxim on the head of a deboisht Christian: howsoever men live or die out of the pale of the Church, a wicked Christian shall be sure of plagues. Woe to him that betrays the Son of man: Jews, Elders, Priests, soldiers, Pilate, all guilty; but chiefly Woe to Judas; he had the greater sin. The Midianites fare not so ill as the wicked Israelites, Judge 8.16. The sword quickly dispatcheth them; these die with lingering and horror, the flesh torn from their backs with thorns and briars; beaten and scratch'd to death. How severe was this revenge, how sad a spectacle to a tender heart! to see their bare bones looking in some places thorough the bloody rags of their skin and flesh; every rent worse than the former, death multiplied by torment?
Such a Chiefely, or high place in hell is reserved for some sinners: the rest are beaten, but they that know God's will and do it not, especially; with many stripes. All corrupt and rotten trees are good for nothing but the fire; but chiefly the vine, if it be dead and fruitless. At that dreadful day how many shall unwish themselves Christians; or wish that the Gospel and they had never been acquainted. If infidels live ungodly, they do but their kind: their punishment shall be, though just yet less. But if men after a religious nurture, and knowledge of the truth, shall shame their education; this God takes more heinously, and revenges more sharply. The more bonds of duty, the more plagues of neglect.
That walk after the flesh, &c.] Here is a double mis-behavior; one in regard of themselves, another in respect of their betters. While they neglect service to their governors, they justly become slaves to themselves. It is fit they should be left to their own desperate guidance, that scorn to be awed by God's ordinance. In the former of these vices, consider two things. 1. What is their leader, The flesh, &c. 2. How they follow this leader; Walk after it. In particular, here is the daughter, the mother, and the grand-mother: the daughter is uncleanness, the mother Lust, the Beldam or Gand-mother the flesh. Uncleanness is from Last, last from the flesh; uncleanness, lust, flesh and all from the Devil. In a tree there is the sap, root, branches, fruit: Satan is the root, flesh the sap, lust the branches, Uncleanness the fruit. All of them bad counselors, intolerable commanders.
Flesh.] By flesh, to decline the various acceptions, we here understand the whole corruption of our unmortified nature. It is not only a privative incapacitie of goodn • sse, but a positive inclination to all evil. The godly are not wholly freed from it, but not wholly governed by it. It is in the wick • d, as the Turk is at home, ruling all: in the reg • nerate, as the Turk and Christian, they can never agree. The flesh, like Esau, is the first borne: but Jacob, grace gets the blessing from it. These are mixed in the believer, as fire and water are in compounded bodies; light and darkness in the air at twilight; or water cold and hot in one vess • ll. We cannot say, that the water is in one part hot, in another cold, but the whole quantity is partly hot and partly cold; that is luke-warm. e The flesh lusteth against the spirit, &c. The flesh carries him one way, the spirit another: as the inferior orbs have a violent motion ab extra, and a natural motion contrary of their own. But still light shall overcome darkness, heat over-master the cold; and the dead flesh be weakened and finally annihilated by the quickening grace of Christ.
Many complain of the flesh, as of the Ephialtes in a slumber; they would remove the burden, and cannot: hence they begin to doubt of their salvation. But then Paul could not be sure of his salvation; for he cries out for deliverance From the body of this death. And we need no better proof that a man is not dead, than because he feels his deadness. If we be sensible of the flesh, detest her motions, repent of her over-bearings and prevailements; weep and fight, as a troubled air doth at once both rain and thunder; call upon Christ for victory, with the weapons of resistance in our hands; we shall then sing to his glory that triumph; Blessed be God, that gives the victory through Jesus Christ.
But the flesh in these men here, is a Dominus fac totum; which not only makes laws to a reprobate, but makes him keep them: a Queen regent, a she-devil, a professed strumpet; and under her conduct and Standard marcheth the whole feminine army; Avaritia, invidia, superbia, &c. The devil doates on the flesh, and her resisting is a resigning: for if Satan should not feed her with temptations, she would tempt him for them, and snatch her own bane. Sometime, she is troubled with a wrangling neighbor, Conscience; which if she cannot pacify, she will rear up; as Surgeons do incurable Fistula's. She hears of Christ's passion, and is glad of it; not as her remedy, but her security: she takes his death as a lisence to sin, and his Cross for Letters-patent to do mischief. She hears the Word, as a man writes on the waters; no character, no print of his finger is left behind. She will not understand, but dies without instruction: only hell torments can open her eyes. So the rich man Lift up his eyes in hell: they were never opened before. As Gideon taught the men of Succoth, with briers and thorns: he made them to know, taught them with a vengeance. She is ever ready to run into extremes: like the Jews, in adversity unfaithful, in prosperity unthankful. Or as Laban's Sheep were in the extremes; either all black, or all white: Jacob's were in the mean party color'd. The wicked are always in extremities, of either defect, or excess; of irreligion, or superstition. In a word, as the world is Satan's bawd, so the flesh is his harlot; upon whom he begets all his children, the works of disobedience.
For us that have both our fathers blood and our mothers blood in us: grace from the former, as we have flesh from the other; and one of these will be master: let us as it is fit, give the Soveraignety to our father: let his grace rule us, albeit the flesh entice us. Be thou a faithful Porter in God's house; diligent to keep out his enemies, and to let in his friends. Beware of denying entrance to the least motion of grace: for man's heart is like a spring-lock; pull too the door after you, and the lock will shut of it self: but being shut it cannot be opened without a key. The heart with the least pull locks out grace easily: but cannot open to re-admit it without his help that hath the key of the house of David, that opens and no man shuts, that shuts and no man opens. Know you not that flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom af Heaven? We say in wrongs, flesh and blood cannot endure this: we say in temptations flesh and blood cannot hold out. What flesh do we mean? That which God hath damned? Which he will never admit to the Kingdom of heaven? A fair plea! When that must be our Apology, which is our impiety. No, let grace be our direction, for it is grace that must be our salvation.
Lust.] This is the daughter of the flesh, and mother of uncleanness: the branches that grow from that cursed root, and bringing forth more cursed fruit. The sparks that fly up from that burning furnace, the bubbles of that noisome and baneful fountain. For method of discourse, I shall examine five questions concerning Lust.
1 What lust is. It must be considered as the Original fountain of all sins; and so it is an impotency of heart, whereby it is inordinately carried with the desire of evil. Original sin is called Lust, because it principally shows it self in lusts: as an obstruction of the liver is perceived in the burning and dryness of the palms. Or it is taken for a branch and fruit of the former corruption: flesh is the Tyrant reigning, lusts are his laws, rules, precepts Obeying them is the vassalage, a tenure in villainy. It is either fomitis innati, the in-borne occasion of sin: or Actus i • terioris; whereof be three degrees. 1. Propassio, the first motion. 2. Delectat •• , it likes us. 3. Consensus, we yield to it. The first is impossible be to avoided, the second difficult, the last by grace easy. The appetite desires noxious meat, yet we choose whether we will taste it: it pleases our palate, yet is it in our choice to swallow it down: we swallow it and it makes us sick yet then let us refrain it. Lust then is either Facultas concupiscendi, or Actus ipse: the one like a drowsiness of nature, the other like the passion of slumber: that pravitas nativa, this pravitas activa: that the nourishment of sin, this the accomplishment of sin.
There is a three-fold concupiscence; Natural, Sensitive, Voluntary. 1. Natural, which is in stirpes and plants, whereby they covet and draw unto them their food and nourishment; this is properly called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , desire. 2. Sensitive, such is in brute beasts. 3. Voluntary, this is in man only, (though the other be not excluded,) and is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . In this voluntary lust we must consider 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the faculty it self: and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the exercise of that faculty. Further, these must be considered Physice, naturally; such is an appetite to meat: or Metaphysice, supernaturally, such is a regenerate desire: so there is an Holy covetousness, A spiritual lust; An anger without sin. Thus we may covet, desire, affect, and sin not. Or morally, in relation to the commandment; which consists in concupiscendo illicita; in lusting after unlawful things. Such are aliena, not our own; another's house, or wife, or any propriety of his: or licita modo non licito; as exceeding in measure: so sinners covet wine to riot; or money to hoard, not to use: or strength to revenge: or beauty to tempt: or apparel for pride. To lust for a lawful thing may be an unlawful lust; as to desire it supra modum debitum, or citra finem licitum. Therefore S. Augustine calls concupiscence, a motion of the mind to enjoy riches, health, another, yea, himself; or anything else, non propter Deum, not for God.
2 What is the seat of this lust: I know that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Where Ambrose by flesh understands the body. His reason why sin hath the habitation in the flesh, rather than in the soul, is because the flesh is derived ex Traduce, by progagation, so is not the soul. For if that were propagated as the flesh, sin should rather habitare in anima quàm in corpore: the soul being the agent offending more than can the body, which is but the instrument. Ans. This proves that the first pollution is of the flesh, not that the soul can be free: for by infusion must follow infection; as good liquor is spoiled by a musty vessel. But sin disperseth it self into the whole nature of man, body and soul. So there is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 A mind of flesh: nor is the natural mind apt to any good. 2 Tim. 3.8. Corr • p • minds: therefore the Apostle requires a Renovation of the mind. Nor by the outward man must we understand the body, and by the inner man the soul: but the regenerate part is called the t inner man, the unregenerate part the outward. Grace is the inward man, because. 1. Intus potissimum regnat; the power of it is chiefly discerned in the mind. 2. Non patet oculis humanis; so called the Hid man of the heart. 3. Non externa quaerit: • vill lusts are ever wandering abroad; without a man, exercised about vanities: this keeps home, and seeks not riches, but peace of conscience. 4. Per excellentiam; as the mind is more excellent th •• the body, so the spirit more noble than the flesh Lyranus would have the inner m •• to be reason, the outer sensuality; that beast of man which always rebels against reason. So Gorran: In carne, that is, in homine sensuali: so Tolet, Pererius, and the present Romists. But it is plain by the Apostles demonstration, that the flesh is Totus homo ut natus, and the Spirit; Totus homo ut renatus; there being in the regenerate something that is spiritual, and something that is carnal. The seat of s •• is in the rational part, the will bringing it forth: the body doth but execute the edict of reason and will: therefore the part rational hath something carnal. Shoolemen like the Philosophers, make two parts of the mind; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the reasonable part: and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , void of discourse, the seat of affections and passions. If Paul should make no other difference between flesh and spirit; his Apostolical theology were no greater comfort than their blind philosophy.
3 Whether lust be a sin; we must know that not only the act of lust, but ipsa concupiscibilitas, concupiscence it self is corrupt and forbidden; unda cupi •• t •• . The difference between us and the Pontificians in this point, lies thus. They say, there is concupiscentia formata, the second motion, which is with consent of will; this is sin, and we say so too. There is concupiscentia informis, without deliberate consent: this they say is no sin, we affirm it. They say, it is not sin, but the cause of sin; as the Sun is said to be hot, because it causeth heat: but we call it truly sin it self. Let us first weigh some of their arguments against it; then ours for it.
Object. That which is natural, cannot be evil: but concupiscence is natural, for it was in man before his fall. Ans. As it is natural, it is not forbidden: if the matter desired be lawful, the manner regular, the end honest; God's glory, ours or others good. So a man may desire that is proper to him, the wife of his bosom or that is appropriate to him, as an office, 1 Tim▪ 3.1.
Object. Nothing involuntary is sin, but the first lust is against the will, therefore no sin. Answ. The rule of good or evil is not man's will, but God's Law. That which is in us necessary, was in Adam voluntary, and by him in us. Now it cannot be avoided, then it might: his willing transgression transmitted to us a necessity of sinning. Original sin is in Infants, it is not voluntary: yet they die, which could not be in Justice, had they not sinned. So though that of Aristotle may be true; Nemo volens malus, nec invitus faelix: no man is bad with his will, nor happy against his will: yet habit can make that necessary, which was at first voluntary.
Object. The Law commands no impossible thing, nor doth God condemn for that which no good man avoid. Ans. The Law was possible to created nature, that is now impossible to corrupted nature: that we want power to fulfill it, is because we had power and would not keep it. Nemo quantum possumus melius novit, quàm qui ipsum posse donavit.
It is objected from, I am. 1.16. that either concupiscence is not sin, but the cause of sin: or if it be sin, yet is not mortal sin; for sin till it be perfect, brings • ot forth death. Answ. This is no true conclusion; concupiscence brings forth sin, Ergo it is no sin; but Ergo it is not that sin which it brings forth. A man begets a man, therefore is he not a man? No, but therefore he is not that man which he begets: Yea, he is a man even because he begets a man. And to say, sin perfected brings forth death, therefore sin not perfect brings not forth death; is as if we should thus reason; the father begets a mortal man, therefore the Grandfather doth not. Because actual lust produceth death as the nearest cause, this hinders not original lust as a remote cause to be mortal.
Our Reasons.
Argum. 1. Whatsoever is forbidden by the Law, is sin; but the Law forbids the first motions of lust. If you ask, what commandment forbids it, I answer; Lust with consent is forbidden in the ninth, Lust without consent in the tenth▪ Without this distinction I see not how we can make ten commandments: the seventh forbids lust in the voluntary desire, as our Savior expounds it. Therefore if the tenth should not restrain the involuntary and first rising lust, it were superfluous, as being all one with the seventh. It is not untrue, that original sin is condemned in the whole Law, but more directly in the first and last commandments: because these two more properly concern the heart of man: the former respects it as concerning God, the other as concerning man. Saint Paul confesseth that his lust tempted him against his will; and by that lust he means the first motion: for the second, which are with consent of will, he knew well enough before to be sins: yea, the very heathen knew this by the light of nature. To covet then is forbidden; if we do covet, we break the Law therefore sin. The other laws condemn pravos affectus quibus delectamur: the last, ipsos appetitus quibus titillamur. To say with Pererius, that the former only prohibit Actus exteri • res, and the last consensus interiores; is false by Christ's own exposition: who citing the Law, Thou shalt not kill, affirms it to be broken by rash anger: and that, Thou shalt not commit adultery; by lusting after a woman.
Argument. 2. Rom. 7.20. If I do that I would not, it is no more I, that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. He is unwilling, yet he calls this lust, sin. Pererius answers, it is called sin, because it is Effectus peccati, or Affectus peccati: as the writing is called the hand, because it is written by the hand: or as Frigus is called Pigrum, slothful, because it makes men slothful. Solut. But that which makes a man bad cannot be good it self. Quicquid efficit tale, ipsum magis est tale. Concupiscence is not only causa peccati, and paena peccati, sed ipsum peccatum; as Saint Augustine hath it. The Jesuit replies, Augustine means not peccatum morale, nor peccatum mortal; but vitium corruptae Naturae: as blindness, deafness, lameness, are called Peccata sive errata Naturae: as being against the integrity and perfectness of our natural constitution: so the rebelling of concupiscence is against the integrity and perfection of the soul; an error in nature. Answ. There are natural faults in the soul; as ignorance, forgetfulness, dullness of understanding; in the body, infirmities, weakness, sickness: which are the effects of sin, not sins themselves. But all these are effects and passions, whereas concupiscence is active and working. In a word, it resists the motions of God's spirit, now all disobedience is sin. In civil matters no man is accessory to a sin withour consent of will, but it is otherwise in the court of conscience.
4 What variety of lusts there be. Saint Paul enlargeth lust to all motions, inclinations, passions, and perturbations, of heart, mind, will and affections. Original concupiscence is the seed of all sins in man: look how many sins there be in the world; so many lusts in the heart of man: the number of lusts is no less than the number of sins. Of actual lust, there be two degrees: sudden, or voluntary and deliberate. Sudden is the motion not agreed to voluntary is with consent. The eye is sometime cast upon an object on the sudden, without any intention or consultation of the mind: sometime it is sent on the hearts errand by the minds direction. As the eye may be shut in a twinkling without thought or purpose: and it may be shut with deliberation, to sleep, or prevent harm. The heart is a furnace, that sometime sends forth sudden, sometime leisurely flames. The first is the nature of sin, the next is the nurture of sin: consent doth nurse the child of death, practice brings it up: actual lusting is the oil that feeds the lamp of concupiscence. The mother brings forth the daughter, and the daughter nourisheth the mother: Hagar produceth Ishmael, Ishmael sustains Hagar: blessed is that Abraham, whose house is well rid of them both.
5 How heinous this sin is; even no less than damnable in it self. Lusts are often more punished by the great Judge, than diverse actual sins. The continued lust of uncleanness, is worse than a discontinued art of uncleanness. He that always desires pollution deserves greater punishment, than he that is overtaken with it against his will. One kills a man against his will, another desires to kill him and is hindered: this last is the murderer before God. It is this lust that Paul calls the burning: it is one thing Calefieri, a good man may be hot: but Vrere, to burn, is another thing; when lust finds indulgence, and is scarce restrained with shame. The act of adultery is not more heinous among men, than the unlawful desire and consented lust of the heart is to God. Without practice, the very purpose stands culpable before him. Silly people think the commandment is not broken, if the outward gross sin be abstained: but God fetcheth in malice, anger, envy, within the compass of murder. Some ignorants use the commandments for prayers: poor souls, they little think they are God's thunderbolts, to throw them into hell for their sins. Thus Usury, the desire of gain by the undoing of others: hoarding of corn in dearth, which is to make a private profit of God's public Judgment: bad example, with a delight to corrupt others; which are like those erring lights, that instead of guiding ships to the haven, lead them upon rocks and shelves: all these are degrees of murder. So a wanton eye, an obscene discourse, a vain attire, a light behavior; all these are degrees of adultery: lust is like a secret malignity in the bones, hardly got out: wounds and ulcers are sooner cured because of their appearance. Adultery may be restrained by corporal impotency; still lust is hid within; it must be a potent medicine that fetcheth it out. Uses.
1 It justly humbles us: if the first motion, without consent be sin: if the second with consent be greater sin; Lord, who can say, my heart is clean? Not many can clear themselves so with Samuel, from the act of injustice: fewer with Paul, I have coveted no man's gold, &c. but, I was never tempted to this; no man could ever say this but one, even that man who is the Son of God. If we had no more, this last were enough to hide our faces, and stop our mouths before the Lord. Too few take notice of this natural uncleanness: though it be borne in them, and borne about them; yet they neither see the filth, nor feel the weight. Moors, that never saw men of more temperate climates, think there is no other complexion but their own. He doth much good that goes not after his lusts: sed non perfectum bonum facit, but he is not perfect, that doth not what is written, Thou shalt not lust. Now shall we not be cast down for that, which without repentance will cast us down to hell? Paul did not more truly Bear about him the marks of the second Adam, than we do all the marks of the first Adam. Let us know, that eternal fire is the wages of this lust; consent makes it hotter, practice enflames it. This lust is in us all, and this lust is sufficient to condemn us all.
But then, alas what shall we do? How should we scape? This necessitates our ruin. Therefore as the law compelled him that had Opened a pit, and left it uncovered, to make good his neighbors beast that miscarried in it. So having opened a pit, lest any soul should perish in it, let me cover it again with comfort. The condemning quality of this sin is taken away by Baptism; Reatus tollitur. Asts 2.38. All sins, now children have no sin but original lust. Reatus, qui fuerat generatione contractus, est regeneratione transactus. In Christ it is pardoned, and shall not cast his members to hell. Yet is it by nature so died in grain, that nothing but his blood can purge it. And even in the purged, it still remains, tanquam in homine secum confligente. It shall not reign over us here, not confound us hereafter, yet will dwell in us till our dissolutions. It was the Pelagians slander, that we hold Baptism, non auferre, sed radere peccata; only to shave our sin, because the root of concupiscence remains. But we say, it frees us from the damnation and domination, not from the inhabitation of sin.
2 It teacheth us to withstand the beginnings of sin, to kill that pestilent brood in the cradle, to destroy them in their infancy, as we do a nest of young Wasps. For lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death. Lust tempteth, there's the mother: being moved by the devil, there's the father: it conceiveth, thus the child is begotten between them; concupiscence being the devils strumpet, by whose pregnancy he fills his kingdom of darkness: she is mater mortuorum, the mother of the dead; as grace (like Eve ) is mater viventium, the mother of the living. Delight is the midwife. It bringeth forth sin, there the child is borne: it must now have a Nurse to bring it up, that is custom: and the full stature it grows unto, is death. It tempteth by enticing the mind to evil, conceiveth by the consent of will and resolution to do evil, bringeth forth by execution and practice; nurseth it to growth by custom and continuance: lastly, this stripling engendereth another child, Benoni, the sorrow of the mother, and that is death. If we cannot prevent the conception, yet let us destroy it in the birth, make it abortive, by purposing never to act it: if it pass the knees, and draw the air of intention, yet let us stop it ere it come to action; let us not do the determined evil. If it over-sway us to like and act it, yet let it never come to an habit, let us devow a custom. But how much more easy were it to stop it in the first cause, as seasonable physic doth meet with an infection at the first taking, before it run into the veins, and corrupt the blood. The seed of Ishmael had never afflicted the seed of Israel, had Ishmael been killed when he was banished. As the first rising of Elias's cloud, Ahab had time to get home dry: that once ascended, all the speed of his Chariot cannot out-run the shower. Cut off the gangrened joint, and save the body. The way to minish the increase of ravenous and noxious fishes, is to destroy the spawn with the mother: to be rid of harmful birds, is to spoil their nests. When a fire-ball is thrown into a ship at a sea-fight, they presently cast it out ere it break or fasten. Meet thine enemy at his coming out of his bed, before he arm himself: take lust ere it come to a rebound. At the first motion, stop the mouth of it: let it never make a reply: stand not to argue, lest thou be overcome.
3 Let us avoid them as perilous and mortal enemies. 1. Dangerous for their nature; continual tempters. Conscience doth sometimes sleep from reproving, these never rest from enticing. 2. Dangerous for their number; Si c •• temnas quia minima, timeas quia plurima. Many temptations come in by the Cinque Ports, the senses; mo by Satan's injection, that presents to the affections things absent from the senses. Most (by lust it self; that as no created thing is quicker than thought) tumbles over a thousand desires in an hour: many strings to sins bow, that if some break, the rest may hold: many trains of powder, some likely to take fire. 3. Dangerous for their effect, bringing forth the most monstrous offenses; mille actus vetitos, & mille piacula. Open but the pit, out swa •• e these pestilent Locusts. Who would have thought that David's wanton look should have begot murder? He that hath given way to his lust, must confess such fearful precipices. Murder we detest; yet how many hands hath the lust of revenge embrued in blood; how many necks hath it brought to an ignominious halter? Incontinence hath the name from uncontained lust: many a disease of body, reproach of name, consumption of state, loss of life and soul, are beholding to it. 4. Dangerous for their continuance: an ill seasoning, that is never got out but by breaking of the pitcher: a mark that all carry to their graves, some to their torments. While the soul doth animate a body mortal, it will tempt both body and soul. Cut off the sprig of a tree, it grows still; a bough, an arm, still it grows: lop off the top, yea, saw it in the midst; yet it will grow again: stock it up by the root; then (and not till then) it will grow no more. Next unto God and Christ, we may thank death it self, for the abolition of lust. We have three birth-days: the first of nature; this gives lust the breeding: the second of grace; this sets lust a bleeding; it doth mortify it, not nullify it; moribundum, non mortuum reddit: the last of glory, then are we rid of it forever. Thus all the Saints in heaven are thrice borne; to si • , to grace, to glory. Lust in the first is a King; in the second a slave; in the third nothing. The second nativity crosseth the first, the last perfects the second. To be freed from concupiscence is a main motive of that zealous prayer; Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.
Let us (in the mean time) beware the captivity of our affections. Let n • t sin reign in our mortal bodies: where it is a sovereign, it will force obedience. It will inesse, let it not praeesse. There is difference between lusts, and actual sins. 1. Interventio temporis: lust is sudden, action requires time, Luk. 12.20. He hath the present lust of covetousness, he must tarry a time to enlarge and fill his barns. 2. Interjectio loci: lust often desires, that cannot be present, therefore adultery must stay for opportunity. 3. Interceptio organorum: Balaam had a des • re to kill his harmless beast, but he had no weapon: the hand is not so quick as the thought. 4. Interpositio impedimentorum: Absalom lusts for his fathers Crown there be many hindrances, he cannot reach it. If to achieve were as easy as to desire, one man's lust were able to ruin all the world. 5. Intercessio • rgument • r •• : the soul hath some discourse between the lust and the act. Video melior a prol • q •• , is in the soul of a Medea, a Sorceresse. 6. Intermissio cogitationum: sometime, the second nail drives out the first. So the LORD sets our lusts together by the ears, as the Egyptians against the Egyptians; that while two poisons wrestle we may live. The falling out of thieves helps the true man to his goods. The lust after beauty is driven out by a desire of revenge, that again by a golden thirst and if grace comes, this drives them out all; as the feathers of an Eagle, that will not endure blending with other feathers, but rather consumes them. All these Inters should be the interruption of sin, and for the compunction of heart: that though concupiscence have conceived, she may not be delivered. Justly should we say to lust; as the Hebrew did to Moses; Who made thee a Prince over us? whence hast thou this authority? Wilt thou kill me, as thou killest the worldling? No, thou shalt not, I have a deliverer, Rom. 7.25.
5 Seeing the flesh will be in man, so long as man is in the flesh; let us strive to fill our hearts with better desires. Lust works in the memory, by remembering vanities, injuries, bad examples: instead of these, let us remember our sins, our ends, our Audit. In the affections; if it work by pride, stop it out by humility: if by malice, with charity: if by uncleanness, with chastity: if by covetousness, with liberality: if by revenge, with mercy as darkness will give place to the Sun. In the mind, if idle thoughts find room, it is because God is not there. Let the word of God dwell in you plenteously: emptiness of that food will cause the repletion of windy lusts. In the body, if it work by drunkenness, rather turn Rechabite, never drink wine. If by surfeit and high feeding, fall to Daniel's pulse, shorten the commons of sin: as it is better to beat down the house, than to be fired in it. If by Idleness, skrew up thy endeavors to a greater task. They be idle, therefore regard vain words: thus a Pharaoh could conclude. Let lust never call, but we have other business. The best remedy is prayer: when concupiscence tempts us to folly, let us make the matter known to our husband, CHRIST. When lust covets transient riches, call home the meditation of those permanent joys; and say Our father which art in heaven. When lust would study how to get honor; then say Hallowed be thy Name. When ambition would have such a preferment; then say, Thy kingdom come. When it would carve thy own portion; then, Thy will be done. When it covets moneys and riches; then, Give us this day our daily bread. When it would revenge thy wrath on others, then say, Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. Howsoever it tempts us, let us pray, Lead us not into temptation. And that we may never yield unto it, Deliver us from evil. Let not lust reign in us, For thine is the kingdom: we cannot avoid it ourselves, for thine is the power: and for our deliverance, Thine be the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Of uncleanness.] Of sores and ulcers and such noisome pollutions, sordid and odious to God and good men; such is the subject of my present discourse: that this may well be called a Spittle-Sermon. But as the Physician is seldom sent for, unless men be sick; nor is so much consulted about diet as physic; The whole need him not, but the diseased. So if there were no sin, you should need no Preacher: yet wise men require antidotes and preservatives; and would rather pay the Physician to keep them well, than to make them well; health being not so easily restored, as conserved. Therefore let them that be infected with this leprosy, learn now the means of their recovery: let them that be not infected, observe the means to continue their purity. Whether they be or be not, this discourse, like the Bath, shall do them no harm: an honest heart will not return unbettered. For method, first, I will describe the disease of Uncleanness, then the cause, last, the cure.
The disease lies not like the Meagrim in the head, nor like a Pleurisy in the blood, nor like a Gowte in the joints and extreme places, nor like an ach in the bones: but it is Epidemical, like an ill habit of body, and possesseth in a reprobate not only Totum hominem, but Totum hominis: as Job was not here and there ulcerous, but all his body one coagulated ulcer; There is no whole part about him. First, there is a contemplative uncleanness, when the mind pleaseth it self with vicious thoughts: thus there may be a world of wickedness in a man, though the acts of pollution be refrained. The devil, who is The father of lusts, reigns in the soul by these: yea such a heart that infernal Prince takes up for his bedchamber. Secondly, there is a preparative uncleanness, which is an effeminatenesse of carriage; or affectation of inviting the eyes of lust: all their postures being so many characters, to spell the meaning of their lascivious hearts. It were well, if such an one were forced to cry, as the Leper in Israel, I am unclean. 3. There is a procurative uncleanness; that takes up the devils office, and helps forward the damnation of men. Such was Jonadab to Amnon; whose unkindely flame might else have wasted it self out in time; but that such a wicked counselor blew the coals. This was no worse a man than the Kings brothers son: now this noble Pander will project a course for Amnons satisfaction. The procurer is as unclean, if not worse than the committer: the fire would languish, vanish, perish, if there were no such feweller. 4. There is a sensitive uncleanness; when the ear sucks in obscene stories, the eye delights in immodest mixtures, and the tongue skrewes it into all discourses. This is, as if the door were not wide enough, to set open all the windows, and break down the walls, to let in the air of uncleanness. Actual uncleanness follows, whereof there be many degrees.
1 Fornication; I mean not titular; as Hostesse and Harlot are convertible terms: nor metaphorical; as the children of whoredoms: nor spiritual; as Idolatry is called fornication: but corporal; which is commonly taken for the incontinency of single persons. The natural cure of this uncleanness is marriage thus Shechem bewrays a good disposition even in filthiness, he would not let Dinah fare the worse for his sin. But as he had with dishonest rage abused her, so he strives with honest love to entertain her. Her deflowering shall be no prejudice to her: as the sin was done by him; so he would have the whole shame redound to him; and so he will hide her dishonor with the name of a husband. To this purpose he communes, craves, offers, indeed would buy her; even purchase leave to make her satisfaction. He sues to his father, to hers, to her brethren, to her self; and begs with submission what he might have gotten with violence. The father consents, solicits, is ready to buy his sons peace with his own pain. No dowry shall hinder, but Shechem shall recompense Dinah. How far worse are they, that abuse without any purpose of amends? But marriage in this case is some satisfaction, no restitution: a good salve is not so good as no sore. This may make the next act lawful, not justify the former. How ever the scene concludes, the first entrance was naught. Though a late satisfaction be better than none, yet a timely prevention is best of all.
2 Adultery; when one or both are married: this is the breach of many faiths; and so much the more pernicious, as it is a willful shipwreck abroad, when it hath a harbor and safe remedy provided at home.
3 Whoredom; which is a mad and transportive desire to abuse many. Sometimes it is lust, joined with anger; doing it in spite; a desperate revenge, by polluting another's bed to cast away his own soul. So the foolish child, when one snatcheth his apple, throws his bread after him. Sometime it is joined with covetousness; he wastes his body to fill his purse; as a fool burns his band to make tinder. Always is it joined with folly: not so much respecting a fair woman as she is fair, but as she is a woman: foul water will quench that fire as well as fair.
4 Unnatural uncleanness; as men with men, men with beasts, women with devils, as it is reported of some Witches. But these things are so horrenda facts, ut etiam pudenda dictu.
5 Uncleanness with our own kindred, which is incest. To patronize this, some allege precept, practice, and custom. But that Law to the Jews, was partly political, for distinction of families: and partly Typicall, preserving the right of primogeniture, prefiguring the spiritual birth-right in the Messias, which should be endless. The moral law was otherwise: therefore we answer, that albeit God had particular exceptions from his general laws: as the Cherubims over the Ark was an instance against the second commandment: the Israelites robbing the Egyptians, against the Eight: and Phinehas killing Zimri, against the Sixt: yet it is plain that the Lord condemns all incest.
6 With more wives than one, which is Poly-gamie. I know this fact of Jacob is diversely excused. As first, it was prohibited by no Law. Answ. It was not prohibited by a Law written, it was by the Law engraven: God made but one woman for one man; and he was a wicked Lamech that first begun bigamy. 2. But custom excuseth; as at first a side garment was a shame to the Romans, but at last it grew to a fashion. Answ. That was a thing indifferent, the decency whereof time might vary: but there is no custom against the first Institution. 3. In the multiplicity of wives he propounded to himself the multitude of children. Answ, If ever such an Indulgence had been fit for any, then Noah should have been dispensed with, to propogate the world: but God gave him no such indulgence. 4. This was done in a mystery. Answ. Indeed, Aug. Ruper. Greg. all reduce it into several allegories: yet cannot this Iustifie the fact; no more than CHRIST'S second coming like a thief, can warrant a thief sudden breaking into a house. This therefore must be granted, Jacob's infirmity: to marry two wives, was his transgression: but to marry two sisters, no less than Incest. Albeit God disposed this to increase the holy seed, yet the fact is against his ordinance: and our positive Law makes it death, as by the Law Institutive it is deadly. Every man shall cleave to his own wife. Vxori, non meretrici: suae, non alienae: Vxori, non • xoribus: to his wife, not wives.
7 Uncleanness with a man's spouse; I mean between the betrothment and consummation. The Levites spouse, till he married her, was but his Concubine; and their conjunction was fornication. It is not enough to say, they were married before God: the hand of the Church must be there, or this is culpable uncleanness. Marriage is no amends: otherwise than willfully to break a whole glass, it is afterward to soalder it: yea it is rather to break an arm or leg, to set it again: or to condemn a man first, and then to sue out his pardon. The common opinions, This is but a true covenant ante-dated; the taking possession of a man's own, without due course of Law: the mowing of his corn before harvest: the plucking his own grapes ere they be ripe. But this is trivial: contract is but Ius ad rem, marriage gives Ius in re. Contract binds to marriage, not allows to touch before marriage. Contract is but like Articles agreed upon, marriage puts a seal to the covenant. Such a fruit of their bodies, is but a monument of their sin: and without hearty repentance, a good proceeding seldom follows so bad a beginning.
8 Uncleanness with a man's own wife. This is when the use of the marririage-bed is either intempestive or intemperate: in a season prohibited, or in a measure not moderated, or in a manner not ordained, or to an end not warranted: as when it hath altogether respect to pleasure, not to generation; or to beget an heir for their lands, rather than a Saint for heaven; or their own Image, rather than the Image of God. If uncleanness can creep into marriage, where will it be kept out? How soul is the disease, when the very remedy is often infected? Not but that Conjugium purum, but impuri conjuges: marriage doth not stain, nor so much as die, in the Romish sense: it is honorable and clean, yet the married may be unclean.
9 Uncleanness with a man's self; as the heathen dishonored their own bodies 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . There be three turpitudes against nature; with another kind, or with the same kind of the same sex, or with no other person but with themselves. Thus Saint Augustine distinguisheth between Flagitium and Facinus: the latter is in hurting another, the former in committing against a man's self. Other sins are without the body, fornication against the body, this uncleanness in the body. This was the sin of Onan; abusing himself against the order of nature and Institution of God. This was a grievous sin; against God, whose ordinance he disobeyed: against his wife, whom he unjustly defrauded: against himself, whose issue he should not have prevented: against mankind, whose number he should have increased: against his brother, to whom issue should be raised. Some Hebrews think, that he did it to preserve the favor and beauty of Tamar, which bearing of children would have impaired. How ever, sensual was his pleasure and the sin in any man is very grievous.
10 Ravishment: the former is a rape upon a man's self, this upon another. Such was Shechems sin, as some understand it: but some rather think, that Dinah being so light to wander and gaze, was not over-difficult to yield. Commonly, such lust ends in loathing, as Amnons; beating her out of doors, whom he was sick to bring in. And therefore Shechems seemeth to be no rape, because he still loved her: and having wrought her shame in his fathers house, he would not send her home with disgrace to her fathers Tent: but rather seeks to marry her whom he had defiled. His offense did not make her odious; but so constantly he affects her, that he is willing to draw blood of himself, rather than forgo her. Amnons rape was far worse: Tamar is sent for as his Physician, but he makes her his physic. She dressed him meat, but that was not the dish he longed for: he loves the Cook, not the cates. She presents the diet, he throws down that, and falls a board with her. His sickness is now forgotten, the Devil hath made him lusty and strong on the sudden. The innocent Virgin intreats for her self, persuades in vain: shows the sin, Non licet: the shame, Non decet: the danger, deadly: thou shalt be a fool in Israel; I, no wife, yet no virgin. Prevailing not by reason, she seeks to cool his present heat with future; hope of an impossible thing; Ask me of my father. But in vain! he grows mad with resistance, and resolves to be a ravisher. If the Devil were not more strong in such than nature, they would never seek pleasure in violence. This rape defiles Amnon, not Tamar: the wrong was hers, the uncleanness his. She that is ravished, is more a Maid, than she whose own loose thoughts have made her unclean. Two lay together, only one committed Adultery, as Augustine of Lucrece. She was but the Patient; and it was not her fault to suffer, what was not her will to do. Her virginity was not Perdita, but Prodita; not lost, but torn from her by compulsory means: she still reserved it in her soul, though it had forsaken her body. The Inhabitant is not to be blamed, for thieves breaking into the house. She can do no more than bewail what she cannot keep: lamenting the shame of another's sin; living like a widow, who was neither maid, wife, harlot, nor widow; but a ravished woman. Thus you have the specification of some Vncleannesses, (which O that none knew but by a general apprehension and hear say; and not as Adam knew evil, by sense and experience) now to
The causes; which are many. Physicians say, that to know the cause is half the cure. By cause, here I understand not only that fundamental cause, which is inordinate affection, the boiling fountain of lust but: also such occasions, as breed and nurse uncleanness. These are
1. A roving eye, that looks up and down for the objects of lust. The sons of God saw the daughters of men: by that looking came lusting, thence preposterous marriages, thence universal confusion. His masters wife cast her eyes upon Joseph: her eye led her heart, her heart, led her tongue, her tongue led her hand. Such be the harlots three weapons: the first engine is her eye, the very motion whereof discourseth a silent filthiness. 2. Her tongue offers to take hold, where her eye cannot. 3. Her hand offers to catch him, whom her tongue cannot win. Tamar sat in an open place, where she might be seen: Hebr. in the door of eyes. This was Achan's confession; I saw, I coveted, I took. The eye betrays the heart, the heart the hand: sin gets in by the senses, yea by the least piece of a sense; as bad air at a crack in the window. By them it ceizeth on the inmost fort, and there it commands them like a tyrant, to whom it was beholding for entrance. This is the order of our crimes: Achan's song shall many chatter to a doleful tune; I saw, I coveted, and took. The thief; I saw the booty, coveted, and took it: the drunkard, I saw the color of the wine: the Idolater, I saw the goodly picture: the adulterer, I saw the beauty, coveted, and took it, and took my death with it.
David rose from off his bed, and from the roof of his Palace he saw a woman. From an after-noones slumber he riseth to his evenings walk: the eyes which unseasonable sleep had shut up, an enticing object opens. Her Bath was no open place, but lust is quick-sighted: she could espy nobody, but David had espied her. Dinah the daughter of Leah went to see the daughters of the land. The daughter of Leah; her mothers own daughter, right bred; as the harsh note of the Hebrews speaks: because Leah went out to meet Jacob upon such a bargain: as if Dinah had gone on purpose to be abused. But the Mothers daughter, because both had a fault in their eyes: the mothers, a defect of nature, the daughters, a defect of nurture: hers an infirmity, this a curiosity. Her eyes were guilty of this temptation: She would needs see and be seen; and while she looks about vainly, she is looked upon lustfully. Tu otiose spectas, otiose non spectaris: tu spectas curious, spectaris curiosiùs. I know there may be a clear and honest aspection, as the Qu • ene of Sheba came to see Solomon. See this woman, saith Christ to Simon. But it is better to be blind, than look with lustful eyes. This sin is little regarded: many come to the Church with Christian ears, but Pagan eyes: and Satan comes faster in at the eyes, than God at the ears: that which should save the soul, is lost by the wandering sense. There can be no safety to the Chariot, where these unbridled horses are let loose. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity: we must see it transiently, not behold it wishly. He can never keep his covenant with God, that makes not a covenant with his eyes. But my inward man is safe, why may not my outward man be free? This is an idle presumption: he is more than a man, whose heart is not led by his eyes; he is less than a good man, whose eyes be not restrained by his heart. So, the ear is the trap-door of the soul; the flies of hell are ever humming about it. It is temptation enough to the thief, that he hears of a booty. If dishonesty come so near as the ear, let wonder stop it out, and save virtue the labor.
2. Bad company; Joseph shunned the society of his Mistress. We know our own hearts, we know not the hearts of others. To be the provocation of sin is unholiness, not to avoid the provocation of sin is unhappiness. God and his Angels will protect thee in thy ways: in thy ways, not in thy wanderings. If we once rove out of the lists of our calling, there is nothing but danger. Had Dinah kept at home, her Virginity had been safe: had Shechem forced her in orbe muliebri, the house; she had sustained loss without sin. It had not then been her evil, but his: her gadding gave the occasion, even this made her not innocent. It is no sufficient warrant to draw us into suspected places, and spiritual dangers; only to see. No wise man will go into the infected Pest-house, only to see the fits of the visited. Who would poison his body, to please his taste? Quales amplectimur, tales credimur: With the lascivious we hardly learn to be chaste. Immodest behavior makes way for lust; this gives life unto wicked hopes. A cold denial invites a second charge: she deserves some blame, that hath only been tried, though she consent not. A fair carriage keeps temptation out at the staves end: lightness of presence lets it in to the grapple, and gives encouragement to lewd desires. Though we fight and conquer, yet it was our fault that we were put to fight. A man is not only to keep his conscience clear, but his name; and to keep this is harder. For our conscience is in our own custody, our credit lies in the hands of other: this stands on likely-hoods, and their construction of our deeds. It is no easy thing to disprove a slander: like an unruly spirit once raised, hard to conjure down. Our reputation is more frail than ourselves, still liable to suspicion: it must be our good behavior, and avoiding bad society, that can keep our name from scandal.
3 Idleness, or no company, and nothing to do: such a heart is the Devils day-bed, whereupon he takes his nooning. The Philosopher called love Otiosum negotium; a disease to be cured by labor. Thou wicked and slothful servant: if slothful, certainly wicked: if slow bellies, presently evil beasts. While Israel is working in Egypt; pursuing or pursued in Canaan, they have no leisure to be wanton. Let them lie still in the plains of Midian, the dancing lasses of Moab will soon seduce them to folly. Who ever saw David so tempted and foiled in the times of his busy war, as when he was idle at ease? In troubles he could rise up in the morning to his early devotions, prevent the morning watch, break his nights rest with the cares of the day: the service of God, and business of state, took him up: thus long was he innocent and holy. But when Satan finds him wallowing in the bed of idleness, he now thinks him fit for a temptation. Gentlemen that live of their lands, and those of a worse condition, that have given over all trades, to live of their moneys; think themselves the only fortunate men: they need not toile, nor weary their limbs with labor: instead of the Pen or the Pike, the Pot and the Pipe is all their excercise. But there are none more unhappy; for lust can be no stranger to an idle bosom: the industrious man hath no leisure to sin. Doth any man complain the contiguitie of his labor? he finds fault with his own felicity: the toile of action is recompensed by the benefit: if he were not doing good, he would be doing ill: if we did work less, we should suffer more: while we work not ourselves, Satan works upon us.
The sitting bird is the fowlers mark: the Devil is like some lazy companion, that while he finds us busy gives back and sees it no time to meddle with us. But if like the idle hus-wife, when her gossip comes in, we throw away our work and hold chat with him; nothing can please him better. Gratifie him but thus far, to talk with him; and he thinks us sure. Exercise is wholesome for the body, better for thy soul. The earth stands still, therefore becomes natures common-Sewer; the receptacle of corruption, all dregs: the heavens, that are ever in motion, are always pure. The troublesomest work to a good man, is to have no work: which when he hath supplied by prayer and meditation, and yet finds room for more guests; he studies business; & qui non invenit, facit. They that surrender themselves to sloth, find matter of disease breeding in their bodies and souls. The active spirit is soonest dulled with no labor; as the water that hath been heated, soonest freezeth. The danger of women's corruption is their leisure: idleness breeds fancies, which continuance of domestical business would keep out.
4 Lust after beauty; this is the general snare, and occasion of uncleanness. Joseph was a goodly person, fair, and well-favored: lovely to all, but not looked on alike withal eyes: his fellows praise him, his master trusts him, his mistress dotes on him: all love him, she over-loves him. That is true of the Poet, that virtue never hath a better grace, than when it shineth, from a beauteous face: yet was this danger, it gave him means to sin; which when he refused, it was the occasion of his trouble. But he was fair without, and fairer within; Pulchrior in luce cordis, quàm in facie corporis. Even the Sons of God were caught with beauty. Balaam could not harm Israel with his curses, he doth with his courses and counsels: his curse had hurt none but himself, his counsel cost the blood of twenty four thousand. Send out your fairest women among them: this policy was fetched from the bottom of hell. There is no sin more plausible than wantonness, wantonness is no way sooner provoked than by the sight of beauty: this shall draw them to lust, their lust to folly, their folly to Idolatry; so God shall curse them for thee, unasked. This project of that damned Magician was too prosperous: the daughters of Moab do more in the Tents of Israel, than the Amorites and Amalekites could do in the plains of Moab. The women made them captives, whom the men felt conquerors. Had they sent their subtlest politicians, and strongest soldiers, to persuade or compel them to Idolatry; they had been returned with scorn. But the eloquent and victorious beauty of the women effected this. It had been happy for them, if Balaam had used any charms but these.
I know that a man may lawfully desire beauty in his own spouse, as Jacob loved Rachel: not for provocation of lust, but procreation of children, and more loving society. Some actions do not so well rid off a hand, without some delight; as eating of meats, learning of arts; and such is matrimonial society. As meat pleaseth us better in a clean dish, wine in a Crystal glass: so virtue in a comely person. But if the beauty be let into our thoughts, and the virtue shut out, there is no speedyer way to ruin. As it is God's use to fetch glory to himself out of the worst actions of Satan: so it is Satan's ambition to advantage himself by the fairest works of God. If the Lord suffer him, he will ruin us with the most rare pieces of creation: No one means hath so enriched hell, as beautiful faces. The beautiful harlot increaseth the transgressors among men. Three of David's children were undone by it at once: it was the occasion of Amnons Incest, of Thamars ravishment, of Absalom's bloody pride and murder. Beauty, if not well disciplined proves a traitor rather than a friend. It is a blessing to be fair; but such a blessing, that if the soul be not as clear as the skin, leads to a curse. It is no rare thing to find the foulest soul dwell fairest. If the inward conditions be bad, O what strange mischief can beauty bring about! How many Solomon's and Samson's hath it befooled and blinded? The weaker sex is the stronger in temptation: it was the dowry that our Grandmother Eve bequeathed to her daughters; that they should be our helpers to sin. Indeed it is not a woman's fault to be fair: the candle does not amiss in burning, the foolish fly offends, that scorcheth her wings in the flame. The crystal stream is not to be blamed, because some distracted man drowns himself in it. Yet to be but a temptation, and (though the unwilling) occasion of another's ruin, is an unhappyinesse, albeit not a sin. The Lord so mortify all inordinate lusts in us, that we may be admitted to that city, into which no unclean thing shall ever enter.
The Cure follows; and this methodus medendi is twofold: the one a preservative, the other sanative. To see the sin in the proper and natural odiousness, is a preventing antidote. For them that be infected, there are other medicines. The horriblenesse of it is seen in it self, and in th'effects.
For it self, the light of nature discerned and condemned it. It is objected, that Solon, a Law-giver, one of the wisest among the Grecians, used to buy harlots for the young men: and among the Carthaginians it was a custom for the Virgins before their marriage, to prostitute themselves publicly in the Temple of Venus, that they might bring the greater portions to their husbands. Answ. This was not by natural light, but the unnatural darkness of those given over to a reprobate sense, as the punishment of former wickedness. Ob. But the Prophet Hosea was thus commanded; Take thee a wife of whoredoms. Answ. Nothing can be concluded for it out of a typical act: neither did he make a harlot, but take a harlot, to reduce her to chastity. Object. But fornication is reckoned among indifferent things. Answ. Their esteeming it so, did not make it so; their own conscience thought otherwise. Abimelech calls it a great sin; this, that Heathen could see, but not so clearly as Joseph: Dishonor to the husband, wrong to the children, breach of covenant, but above all, disobedience to God, is in it. Against thee have I sinned; was his confession, that had sinned against Bethshebah, Vri • h, and the whole Church; but especially against the Lord. It is most odious among Christians; this folly ought not to be done in Israel: it is bad enough in all places, here intolerable. not to be named among Saints. Let the act be so abhorred, that it may quite lose the name: especially, let no Saint have such a name. It makes the name stink both living and dead. Living, If a brother be a fornicator, with such a one eat not. Dead, his reproach shall not be wiped away. It is more heinous than theft; Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his hungry soul but he that committeth adultery destroyeth his own soul. Goods may be restored, honesty never: the breaches may be repaired, the pristine state not recovered.
[unspec 1] For the effects: It breeds diseases in the body, that the quality of the sin may be seen in the nature of the plague; as we know a rotten nut by the worm [unspec 2] hole in the shell. It makes a more loathsome soul; so odious that till it be cleansed, neither will God dwell with it, nor shall it dwell with God. It blasteth the [unspec 3] estate, roots out all the increase, and brings a man to a piece of bread. The Pare •• uncleanness makes the children beggars. It curseth the house, Hos. 4.13, 14. [unspec 4] His own sin abroad, is able to make his house a Stews at home. What followed upon David's adultery, but present payment? The deflowering of his daughter Tamar, the murder of his son Amnon, the treason, incest, and ruin of h •• Absalom. How justly is he scourged by the sins of his children, whom his own act taught to offend? Vnlawfull lust still propagates it self by example: when the [unspec 5] father of a family brings sin home to his house, it is not easily swept out. It endangers Incest; when the legitimate son may come to marry the bastard 〈◊〉 of the same father.
[unspec 6] It is not only Poena peccati; that a man being hateful to God for other sins, is made hateful to men for this: Vt quod latuit in cord impuro, pateat in opere ign • minioso: other sins ought him a shame, this shall pay it him. Therefore, he that is good before God, shall be delivered from the strange woman, not the sinner. But also, Causa peccati, it brings no more wickedness. So the Apostle joines them; Fornication, wickedness: if 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 be first, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 follows. Give lust room in the eye, she will possess body and soul. The Midian faces first appeared to Israel; they like them, that brought them to like their presence, that to take pleasure in their feasts; from their boards to their beds, from their beds to their Idols: and now God is separated, and they are joined to Baal-peor. Corporal fornication is the way to spiritual: if superstitious love make Idols of flesh, how soon do they give us up to Idols of wood and stone?
[unspec 7] It hath not only undone persons and houses, but ruined • hole Cities and Kingdoms. What a breach did this double fornication make in Israel? God doth not smother his wrath, but himself strikes with the plague, and bids Moses strike with the sword. Dinah is ravished, the whole City is destroyed for it. While every man lies sore of his own wound, Simeon and Levi rush in with weapons and kill them. What was the shrieking of women and children in all the streets of that City? While the fathers and husbands take mortal physic for their Princes sickness. For a particular Amnon to answer his lust in blood, is not so ponderous: Many a whore-lover meets with such a catastrophe. But for a whole Tribe to be cut off for uncleanness, as was Benjamin: for a whole kingdom to smart; as Abimelech said to Abraham, Thou hast brought a great sin on me, and on my kingdom; that the whole kingdom of Israel should smart for the kings filthiness; these be dire effects. The name of King became odious to Rome, for the rape of Lucrece: famous Troy was rased for one Helena.
[unspec 8] It is commonly mixed and plagued with blindness. So had lust befo ••• d Judah, that he could not discern the voice of Tamar which he heard every day, nor foresee what shame might follow those pledges: this passion for the time even bereaves a man of himself. Thus impudently blind was Joseph's Mistress: it had been too bad to yield, but for a woman to solicit, yea to importune, yea to •• nce the modesty of her servant; gross and desperate! As sin ever ends in shame when it is committed, so it makes us past shame in the committing. Thus Am •• thrusts his defiled sister out of doors: where was his reason? Secrecie had some hope, but to expose her, what was it but to anger a royal father, incense a b •• there, incur • e the Law, provoke her friends, fill the world with outcries? Though he looked not so high as heaven in doing the sin, yet he might look so low as earth to prevent the shame. No, lust knows the reason, and they that lose their honesty, shall lose their wit. This is just with God, to punish a deboisht heart with a besotted understanding. Uncleanness loves a dark mind, as well as a dark house. How foolish were those Israelites; in joining themselves to Baal peor? All Idols are abominable, this was also beastly: the devil appeared in a sordid and • asty form; yet uncleanness works them to it. Cupid is blind, and whither may not he be transported that wanteth his eyes.
Not seldom it goes off in hatred of the object: ordinate conjunction [unspec 9] increaseth love, this begets detestation; and that both where it is crossed, and where it is satiated. For the former Potipher's wife is an example; if she cannot have • isephs body to enjoy, she wills it to ruin: when she fails of his love, she seeks his life. Lust is a pleasant madness when it is yielded, a desperate madness when it is opposed. Love is not more witty than malice: the arguments of his innocence shall challenge him of sin: he left his coat because he would not do that, for which he is condemned because he left it. No hate burns so furiously, as that which ariseth from the quenched coals of love. Vel te ardenter amat, vel te capitaliter odit. For the other, look on Amnon; how did he hate abused Tamar more than ever he loved her? He should indeed have hated himself for this brutish violence, not his innocent sister: but his former love was not more unreasonable and mis-placed, than his later hatred. Fraud drew her into the house, force entertained her within, and hatred drove her out. So did one hour change the extremity of his love into extremity of hate; that he is now sick of her, as before he was sick for her: and she that kept the keys of his heart, is now locked out of his doors.
It is a sin not easily repented of: Whoredom and new wine take away the heart. [unspec 10] Saint Paul comforts the Corinthians, that they are Washed from their sins: they will not off without washing, and there can be no washing without water, and a drop or two will not serve to baptize the conscience. But, say some, this sin ordinarily of it self brings to repentance? Indeed, loss of spirits, and terrors of the fact, may breed some kind of remorse: and the expectation did not promise, nor the fruition perform more delight, than the remembrance brings irkesomenesse. The face of uncleanness looks lovely, but the farewell is deadly. If we could foresee the end, before we taste the beginning, we would never let it come so far, as to repentance; our former detestation would save our after-sorrow a labor. But l • st often ends in discontent, seldom in true repentance. The whores guests are in hell, and that is no way to heaven.
Lastly, it pulls down God's fearful Judgments, though it scape the censure of man. Amnon had so quite forgotten his sin, that he durst go to that house a feasting, where Tamar was mourning: not suspecting him other than a friend whom he had deserved to make an enemy. Now when his heart was merry, he fell down dead. Wicked Absalom meant this murder to his soul, as well as to his body; but God was just in both. He that in two years forbearance would find to leisure to repent must now perish without leisure to cry for mercy. How fearful a Judgment came to that Levites concubine, to be abused to death? She lead wronged the bed of a Levite before by her willing wantonness: yet her father harboured her, her husband forgave her, the world had forgot it, her self never smarted for it. Thus far she goes smoothly away with her sin; and neither father, nor husband, nor neighbor, nor Magistrate, nor her own conscience, upbraid her with it. Now it is forgotten of all hands, God calls her to account for it. Yea, so just and even is that Almighty Judge in his retributions; that the matter of her sin shall be the manner of her punishment: he will plague her with her own delight. Uncleanness was her fault, uncleanness shall be her fate and ruin. Before she had exposed her self with willing pleasure, now she is exposed by force: adultery was her sin, adultery is her death. Men may forget their own filthiness, God remembers it; and will pay them when they least expect it. Sin is a faithful debtor, it never borrows without payment: if it owe us a punishment, it will not break with us. And if it fail of present Judgments, yet this is sure, it destroyeth the soul. Lusts fight against the soul, but uncleanness kills it. These be the terrible effects, which if tremblingly applied, like corrosives will eat out the dead flesh, and become so many proper ingredients to the medicine of our cure. Or like ashes that are made by a fire of wood, which being poured on, will smother the fire in the wood, and put it out.
[unspec 1] The other remedies are; first, to abridge the flesh of provocatives; beating down the body, and keeping it in subjection. Take away the fuel, if the fire be too hot. High feeding and lasciviousness are inseparable: that is the Lynbecke which destills all into lust.
[unspec 2] To remember a man's beginning and end. The Lord did not make us for pollution; and the thought of death will be a death to lust. Meditate of thy mortality, whensoever thou art tempted to this iniquity.
[unspec 3] Fear God, which will make every joint tremble at the very suggestion. Some forbear a sin, because it is dear, some because it is laborious, others, because it is dangerous, few because it is impious. But the death of lust is religion: Moralitie resists but in cold blood; heat nature, and all her in-borne principals are forgotten. Regard of name and credit may fear the shame, yet love the sin. But he that fears God, and is watched by his own conscience, can never find a place dark enough to offend in. The Law looks to our words and deeds, and requires that they be good: Religion also fetcheth in the thoughts, and makes them holy. We cannot without danger trust a moral heart with a fair body: we may safely trust a fair body with a sanctified mind. This was Joseph's argument; the pleasure of sin cannot stand with the fear of God. He might conceit, that this kindness might endear him as strongly to his mistress, as his service had to his master: to be so great a Ladies minion, how many hundreds of our younger brothers would have embraced it. But holy fear had taken up all the room, before carnal love came. He knew that all the honors of Egypt could not buy off the guilt of one sin: that such an advancement would have cast him down from the royal favor of GOD. The good heart chooseth rather to lie in the dust, than to rise by wickedness. This were to get up on the scaffold of death, that a man might look higher.
[unspec 4] Abhor Idleness; the standing pool will gather filth of it self, and he [unspec 5] full of toads and vermin. Attend the word preached; Wherewithall else should a young man cleanse his way? That Physic is only able to purge it. This shall deliver thee from the strange woman. If wisdom enter not, lust will: they that find not delight in the Spirit, will seek it at the flesh. By the word of GOD abiding in you, ye shall overcome the wicked one. How have all weapons of reasons and moral resolution doubled in this encounter? It is the Sword of the Spirit that gets the victory.
[unspec 6] Prayer: if Paul be buffeted, this is his refuge, and it brings remedy; he prayed thrice. Declare thy grievances, this shall bring down heavenly graces. Shall we be like infants, that cry when a pin pricks them, but cannot tell where? Say, God knows our wants; what then? the sullen child says, my father knows that I want bread, I will not ask him though I starve. God hath promised to hear (but only) those that call upon him. He so orders things, that he seldom gives till he be asked: it is a poor pains, but to ask and have. Ask of me, and I will give thee. D •• o tibi, but first, Postula a me. The woman that would be rid of her importunate Tempter, is plain with him, I will tell my husband.
Flee, the temptation: at other times, Fight Timothy: now Fly Timothy. When such an enemy pursues, it is high time to fly. Rather will Joseph lose his livery, [unspec 7] than blemish his Mistresses honor, his Masters in her, his own in both, God's in all. He cannot be excused, that lives where he may in likely-hood be faulty. To be safe from evil works, is to avoid the occasions.
If we cannot fly, yet let us deny. David solicits, had Bathsheba denied, that [unspec 8] great sin had not been committed. Had she been mindful of her covenant with God, and her matrimonial fidelity; the inordinate desire had been checked, and in time choked. But ambition was the Bawd to lust; and the conceit to be the Kings Mistresses, to command him that commanded Israel; prostitutes her soul before her body: her facility furthers the sin. The first motioner of evil is most faulty: but as in quarrels, the second blow makes the fray, and the Law takes special notice of that: so in sins, the second blow, that is, the consent of will, is by the Law of God most culpable. Lust is a sin of two: if but one party be wise, both escape: he that is sure of either, may be secure of both. Women are the weaker in nature, yet stronger in desires: and though many hold it an impudence to woo, yet they hold not the innocence to deny. The woman at first tempted man, and therefore looks ever since that man should tempt her. She was an agent in his first ruin, in all the rest, she would be a patient. The heat of man's constitution disposeth him to be the first profferer: now his chastity lies in the hands of women. If she have the grace to refuse, what he had the fault to offer, they are both delivered. Lust would be the most common sin of the world, if like other sins it could be done alone. Indeed it is best never to be put to a denial: but by a fair carriage to put temptation out of hope. Wisdom forbears some lawful things, because they may be occasions of things unlawful.
Modestie; which is the only visible virtue, the chastity of the looks: a [unspec 9] transparent glass, thorough which we see a clean and uncorrupted heart. This sets the face in a right posture; far from pride, and not nearer to wantonness. The beauties of both mind and body meet in the center of modesty. An affected and coyish demurenesse is incident to them that be bad: but true modesty is seldom found but in innocence. Modestie is the out-work of the Citadel, that keeps the enemy even from the walls. For a great example of this virtue, we cannot look too much upon Joseph. Forraine stories make honorable mention of many famous for chastity. Of Amabaeus, who had a beauteous wife, yet abstained from her, perhaps he loved his Harp better. Of Xenocrates, and of Spurina, a fair young man, who disfigured his face of purpose that he might not be desired of women. Of Hippon a Greekish woman, that drowned her self to save her chastity. None came near Joseph; who neither abstained from his own wife, that were a folly rather than a chastity: neither disfigured nor destroyed God's workmanship; which were to pull down our house, because the eye of a passenger covers it. But in the heat of youthful blood, when his Lady solicits, promises reward, threatens ruin, conveniency of place, opportunity of time, all the helps of hell concurring; then to resist? O here was fire falling upon wet tinder, that soon went out. The Fathers commend him for those four great virtues in this one act. For Temperance, that he would not be enticed by his Mistress. For Justice, that he would not wrong his Master. For Fortitude, that he overcame many assaults. For Prudence, choosing rather to leave his vesture than his virtue.
Marriage; It is better to marry than to burn. Burning is the disease, for [unspec 10] which marriage is the proper medicine. This is that ordinate fuel, whereon such fire should feed. S. Jerome's sophistry on that place is absurd: Conjagium dicitur bonum, quia levius malum: for lust can never be good, being a transgression: and marriage cannot in it self be bad, as it is God's institution. Not that every tickling should draw us to marrying; but a Burning, an aestuant flame: for it is one thing vri, another sentire calorem. Some Pontificians have cast b • tter aspersions upon marriage; taxing that for uncleanness, which is ordained an antidote against uncleanness. But that is a blasphemous doctrine, and must needs imply, that God himself was mistaken, and that upon a more serious deliberation of the blessed Trinity. Gen. 2.18. Jehovah Elohim: there was a greater consultation about making the woman, than about making the whole world. But it is objected, that in marrying they break their faith. Answ. They do not break the faith, because they marry: but because they wexe wanton against Christ, and so marry. They are first incontinent, suffer themselves to be abused: and then to cover their offense, and to keep them from public shame, they marry. To accept of marriage only as a cloke to hide their former naughtiness; this is the sin condemned. Howsoever they think; marriage is an ordained remedy: strange lusts will give place to true conjugal love. Let the husband love his wife, the wife love her husband; (and they have reason, for they took each other for that purpose) these unnatural fires will out.
These be the rules of prevention, to escape uncleanness: but if any be defiled, they must take another Receit; true contrition of heart, the floods that come from a broken rock; washing themselves in the laver of Repentance, that they may be clean. David in a zeal of Justice against the rich oppressor, takes an oath to cut him off: God is more favorable to David, than to take him at his word. David says, The man shall die: Nathan says, Thou art the man, but thou shalt not die. Beside uncleanness, he had shed innocent blood: and the strict Law requires life for life. But O, the wondrous power of Repentance! as if it could dispence with the rigor of Justice: Thou shalt not die. In David we hear the voice of the Law, awarding death unto sin; in Nathan, the voice of the Gospel, awarding life unto the repentance for sin. Whatsoever the sore bet this is the remedy. The soul that hath sinned, shall die; saith the Law. The Gospel comes in with an exception; The soul that hath sinned, And not repented, shall die: never any soul applied this remedy, and died. Blessed is the man, not that hath not sinned; where is he to be found? But; whose sin shall not be imputed, because he hath repented. It is only unfeigned repentance, that can cleanse our souls from these known evils.
Without this, God's hand will as surely overtake us in the punishment, as Satan's hand hath overtaken us in the sin. But for comfort to the wounded soul; There is no sin so foul, but the blood of Christ can scour it off. Uncleanness is a deep stain, sized into the soul by her dwelling in the body: there is no means to get it out, but by the blood of the Lamb. Even the garments of the Saints need washing; and what can make them white? only, the blood of the Lamb. It was the Jewish scoff at Christ, Alios potuit servare, seipsum non potuit: he could save others, not himself. Saint Ambrose replies, Imo ill solus potuit sanare velnera mea, qui negligit sua: he only can heal my wounds, that neglected his own. His garments were died red, to make all ours white. But neither can this be had without faith, nor faith be assured without repentance. It is a happy thing for a man to improve the days of his peace, for the prevention of future vengeance: to seek only to be safe by being good. Next to this divine providence, our best guard is our Innocence, next to that our repentance. For him that hath fallen, to pray, Lord deliver me; for him that hath not fallen, Lord preserve me, in Jesus Christ. Take here two Characters.
The unclean person stands like one tormented with the stone in the kidneys; there is not a limb or joint about him, but suffers with the distortion of that one part. If some spot or token of his souls infection should break out and appear in his face, no leper would change complections with him. If he had a hundred eyes, he could bestow offices on them all, to purvey for his lust. He loves to be a looking on pictures; and when he cannot reach the substance, he courts the shadow. He sends his eye to the market, and money is his Cater. He loves the company but of three; Baud, Whore, and himself: only the Devil comes in, and makes up the fourth against his will. The pestilence is in his breath, it infects every place he comes in. His body is rotting apace, but his soul is already fallen to piecces. His Mistress is his Idol, and he would never learn any prayers; but for doing his devotions to her. For God; he either thinks or wishes that he could not see in the dark. He is borne to be a woman's slave, not her Lord and husband: he dares not marry, for fear (contrary to other men's minds) of being paid his own debts. If he do bestow himself, he commonly soulders up some cracked piece: and in marriage is more jealous, than before he could be luxurious. He and his strumpet make up a fagot for hell fire; and must burn together in torment, as they have done in turpitude. He so consumes himself to cinders, that there is not one drop of moisture left in him, not though a tear could save his soul. Before he dies, he is become all stench: his soul stinks God, his body stinks to himself, his name stinks to the world. It is just that he who leaves GOD for a harlot while he lives, should lose God, and his harlot, and himself, when he is dead. Reason left him long ago, and he hath ever since lived beast. Commonly he dies of Hercules disease: a fire in his marrow. He may come to be sory, seldom to repent. At last, he is brought to his couch, or crutch; and there everybody leaves him.
The chaste is a pure man whether in wedlock or virginity. If married, he loves his wife, not because she was rich, or fair; but because she was and is good; because he once loved her, and still loves himself in her. All change abhors; for he married not for recreation, but procreation; not for pleasure, but posterity. It is her soul he sets his love upon; he knows the body to be but physic for lust, a shell for progeny: therefore chose her not for that half whereby she is a woman, but for the better, wherein she is a man. Sensuall affection looks only to the shape; rational hath respect to the soul and mind forgetting the sex, or leaving to the sense. Souls have no sexes; therefore they that love in soul, (in that part which is not sexuall, wherein both husband and wife are men) their love admits no more impurity than inconstancy. If he be single, his mind keeps his mortal fabric sweet: his conscience hath got the better of his concupiscence: he is so far from doing, that he dares not think amiss. His mirth is so clear, that you may look thorough it into virtue, not beyond. He had rather seem not to understand a bad motion, than to hold conference with it. He censures all charitably, and abhors suspicion: he thinks none should do ill, because he means well. He entertains none but honest thoughts: if loose ones look in at the window, he presently shuts the door. He neither with unseasonable sleep rusts his soul, nor with immoderate diet teacheth his body to rebel. He is one of those that be not defiled with women, for they are virgins; and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. His soul is Christ's betrothed Spouse, and he accounts death but a messenger, to bring her home to her husband. He is so clean, that the Angels love to be about him here, and he shall be received among them hereafter.
Walk after the flesh.] This walking is the Axeltree, whereon the whole frame of the Text moveth. There is no man can walk without lust, but the good man does not walk after lust: if it go with him, it shall not go before him. It is the natural man's way, the Christians trouble in the way. If he be enticed out of virtues p •• h, either he doth not give consent, or he doth not give full consent, or he doth grieve for consent. Either he doth not walk, or he walks not far, or he walks against his will, and soon correcteth his steps. The wicked man is taken in his walk, Psal. 68.21. But he that doth purpose before hand not to sin, and in the act doth strive against sin, and after the act is sory for sin; though he step awe • y weakly but not wickedly, God in mercy spares him, because this is none of his walk. He that is in the flesh, cannot please God, so long as he keeps that way but as water that hath been frozen with cold, may afterward be heat with fire; so he may come from a carnal to a spiritual course. Things of the flesh are of three sorts: some good, as the knowledge of arts: some indifferent, as honor and riche • some evil, as the works of sin. We walk in the former, and do well, keeping the right end: in the middle, not amiss, keeping the right manner: in the last, we go amiss, and there is no pretence to excuse us. We make the good become evil to ourselves; when we employ our learning to justify error. We make the indifferent very evil, when we prefer temporals to spirituals; as the tongue of the feverish infected with choler, makes sweet things taste bitter. I observe four things in this carnal walking. 1. Their slavery to it. 2. Their constancy in it. 3. The specification of it. 4. Our remedy from it.
1 Their slavery: to walk is their errant diligence: to walk After it, is their servile obedience. The flesh leads, and they follow like dutiful servants. All servants. All service is from sin, this is the service of sin. If man had not sinned, he should not have served: Cham was borne of the same Parents; only his sin brought him to a slavish condition. This was just with God: but for man to make his eldest son Lord of all, and the rest no better than his servants: if such a tyranny of custom, (as if hey were all illegitimate) that in the book of God we can find no such distinction. There is a service of Superioritie: the good Prince thinks himself but the highest servant of the common-wealth. He troubles his thoughts, he breaks his sleeps about the business of state; sets his shoulders under the weight of government: and his Praesse in ruling it, is but a Subesse to the conservation of it. There is a service of equality; By love serve one another: he that doth not, is like a loose tooth in the mandible, better out than in.
There is a service of Inferioritie; which is either. 1. Voluntary, when a free man makes himself a servant; and such a servant may make himself free again. Or. 2. Temporary: he that works for us by the day, is so long our servant; at night he is free. Or. 3. Pactory; undertaking such a work, for such a wages, during such a time; in hoc, ad hoc, and huc usque, he is a servant. Or 4. Captive, such as be taken in the wars: which Saint Augustine will have called Servi a Servando, because they were saved in slaughter. Or 5. Native, such as are borne servants, being the children of Servile parents. Or 6. Venditive, that have sold themselves; concerning whom God set down a Law. So Ahab sold himself to work wickedness. But Paul seems to acknowledge this of himself; I am carnally sold under sin? We answer; there be two ways of selling unto bondage: one compulsory, as the brethren sold Joseph: so the regenerate are sold under sin, but against their wills. The other voluntary, as the wicked sell themselves to Satan for very vanity; instating themselves upon the flesh, that they tell (without asking) who owns them, by the superscription of their livery, so that sin by the commandment becomes exceeding sinful. As a head-strong and unbroken horse, the more he is curbed by the bridle, the more he breaks out. Wine will enflame any man, but he that hath a feverish body, is more fired with it through his infirmity. There is abuying and felling. Esa. 52.3. Ye have sold yourselves for naught, and ye shall be redeemed without money. But this is in a diverse sense: they are sold for naught in respect of God, because he hath no honor by it: and redeemed for naught, in respect of themselves, they paid nothing for their redemption, but not so, in respect Christ, for he bought us dear. But these have willfully sold themselves to the service of sin.
2 Their constancy in it. Walking is a continued act; and acts continued make habits. Two sorts of Philosophers had their names from walking: the Stoics, who derived their doctrine from Plato: and the Peripatetickes, who had Aristotle for their Prince. Besides, their ambulating life, severing themselves from common society, they had a certain peculiar and dogmatical way, whereunto they confined themselves. But all their ways were but fantasies and errant opinions; without any truth of rule, especially without the Rule of Truth. Our blessed God hath given us a blessed way; and as many as walk after that rule, peace be on them and mercy: a perfect rule indeed; which we have good occasion to seek, good direction to find, good encouragement to walk, good reward at the end.
Walking intends a perpetuated motion, not for a pace or space, but holding o •• : therefore, is the wicked conversation called a way; for that's a man's way, not which he steps into, but walks and travels. Some have spoken much of the way, but out of the way; while they called every act of sin, a way: for the Scripture only means it of practical and habitual sin. So then, to walk after the flesh, is an addiction to sin, constate of many lusts. This is a true distinction: Every vice is a sin, every sin is not a vice: every wry step is an error, it is not a way, not an heresy in manners. Once being overtaken with wine, makes not a drunkard. Vice cannot consist with virtue, quia ex diametro pugnat: but Peccatum, a vicious act doth not destroy virtue, whether moral or theological. Peters denial did not destroy his faith, nor David's uncleanness his charity. These were their sins, they were not their ways: their usual walking took another course. Actions are done by the powers of the soul and body, but habits have their residence in ipsis potentiis, both of the sensitive and intellectual part: as wantonness or drunkenness in the former; pride, hypocrisy, diffidence in the other. If we compare them before God, vice is more grievous than a sin, because it is habitual malice: if before men, sin is more haiuous than vice; for vices are not punished by Magistrates, but only sins. But they ever beget one another; many evil actions beget an evil habit, and an evil habit every day begets evil actions.
3 The specification of it: the flesh hath many ways for them to walk. Take them by couples: there is a Reeling way, and a Railing way. The former is the drunkards walk, that leads him from the lake of wine to the lake of brimstone: this he that never abstains till he be a thirst, and never drinks but double, for he must be pledge'd. The other is the swearers walk; that in every place sends up defiance to the Lord of Hosts. He infects all company, as thunder sours wine; and often dies raving and blaspheming, that's the end of his journey. There is a Ruffling way, and a Scuffling way. The former is the proud man's walk: as beggars hang their rags on the hedges, to tell they have been there; so these leave everywhere certain monuments and flagges of their arrogant folly. The devil cannot miss them, for he is sure to find them in his own walk. The other is the litigious man's walk; he passes through all the Iudiciary courts on earth, to the infernal court of hell. The way of peace he knows not: there is no awe in his heart, while there may be any law on his side. And when all his substance is run out in fees to his Advocates, at last (without the especial grace of Repentance, and resitution) himself goes for a round fee to the devil. There is a Burning way and a Turning way: The former is the envious man's walk; anger is but a passionate fit of the irascible part; but malice is an inveterate anger, a fiery habit. Another's well-fare is his most capital offense: yet his envy, like Phalaris Bull, makes that first become a torment to himself, which he prepared for others. He fires himself before he goes to hell, as if he meant to season and harden himself for that unquenchable burning.
The other is the Hypocrites walk, whose religion lies in wait for the inclination of the Prince: standing water, that neither ebbs nor flows, but according to the Moon, the Time. He is very earnest in what he undertakes, and reviles the opposite; yet he can be of any religion for a need, therefore his heart is truly of none. Of all men, the Ielous and the hypocrite are possessed with a strange madness; they are very diligent and curious, yet hope to lose their labors. There is a thorny way, and a miry way. The former is the deceivers walk: a common Burse, where the fraudulent trader, the pestilent Usurer, the impudent Churchrobber, every day fetch their turns: conferring how to turn the common wealth; into a private wealth and to make all Priests of one order, Mendicants. To speak impartially; this is an habit, men walk in it to their graves. A way it is, but none of God's ways: an end it hath, but none of comforts ends: an answer it hath, but none of truths answers: a reward it hath, but it is the retribution of vengeance. Men think they may do this without trouble of conscience; but God keep them from dying with such a conscience. The other is the adulterers walk, but that it is somewhat too fast for a walk: for if his acts could answer the number of his desires, nature could scarce supply him with desired objects. Could his wishes take effect. Popery might have many Nuns, it should have no maids. The flesh hath many more ways and walks, which Paul himself is fain to conclude with an &c.
4 For our remedy, first, let us beware of walking in sin, Psal. 1.1. It is dangerous to cross their way, mortal to walk in it. Look to the habit of sin, be sure to mortify that: it is not enough sometime to forbear the action: it will be rare, if a bad tree should not yield bad fruit. Cut thy hair, it will grow again: mow the grass, it will spring again: lop a tree, it is a tree still. Not to lust when a man is sick, not to steal while he is a sleep, not to quarrel while he in prison, not to swear while he is at Church; No thanks; the root is still within. If the wicked restrain one evil, the godly will kill ten: if Saul slay his thousand, David will slay his ten thousand. He that strikes at sin, let him be sure to strike home; do not favor it, for if it scape, it will have no mercy on thee; but be so much 〈◊〉 more exasperated, because thou attemptest, and didst not speed it. He that ha •• wounded this Lion at the heart, shall never fear the strength of his paws, 〈◊〉 teeth of his jaws, nor hideousnesse of his roaring. Colossi. 3. ver. 5. Mortify your members that are upon earth. First, he calls them Members, because they be either as dear to you, as your members; or because they are brought into action by your members, or because they are the united limbs of concupiscence, as members are parts of the body. Your, for properly our sins are our own, and nothing else. Mortify, apply something that shall make them dead. Let not sin alo •• till it die of it self, but kill it while it might yet live: to give it over when 〈◊〉 no longer commit it, is no repentance. It will put you to some pain: men do not ordinarily die without pain: and sin hath a strong heart, it is not easily killed. It is one thing to sleep, another thing to die; with small ado we may get sin asleep; by rocking it in the cradle of indulgence, and lullabying it with voluptuousness; till it stir not in the conscience. But to get it dead, that it may not live in us, this will cost anguish and trouble. Mortify these ways for two reasons. 1. They arise not from any noble part in us, from no divine principle or gracious instinct; nothing that can declare greatness and true spirit in man: they are but the base and degenerate works, and walks of the flesh. 2. They only make us odious to God: it is not mean clothes, nor a deformed body, nor a torn cottage, nor homely fare; but only sin, that makes a man contemptible. Proud of vices? a lazar may better be proud of his ulcers, a beggar of his vermin, or a scavenger of his lay-stals.
Secondly, let us learn another walk, even to walk with God and be perfect. This is no time of sitting; Christians do not lead vitam seden tariam; it will breed obstructions in the heart. Our Savior himself dearly earned that voice, before he heard it; Sit thou at my right hand. Noah time of standing still; Why stand ye here all the day idle? Why do ye stand? you have feet, walk: Here, in the beginning of your journey: in the day, the night is for rest, the day for labor: All the day, one hour were too much: Idle, a man may stand and do some work; but stand ye idle? There is a Medium betwixt sin and glory, and that's Grace: Vta Regia, via lactea: walk this way, or expect not this end. God did enough to bring the way to us, who could never else have brought ourselves to the way: would we have him bring down heaven and glory too? We are in the bondage of sin as the Israelites were in Egypt: Canaan was theirs, heaven is our promised land: if neither of us fall to walking, nor admit a motion and removal; they through the desert, we through amendment of life; neither can arrive at their home. If thou think thyself to good for this journey, God will think thee too bad for his glory.
God is the God of order, not of confusion: and nature is not suffered to run out of one extreme into another, but by a Medium. Suppose it now midnight, and the Sun with the Antipodes: he does not presently mount up to the heigh • of our heaven, and make it noon-day. But first, it is twilight, then the day dawnes, then the sun rises, and yet looks with weaker eyes, before he shines out in his full glory. We do not today sweat with summer, and be shaken with the fury of winter tomorrow: but it comes on with soft paces; the day grows shorter, the suns force weaker; cold dews, and white frosts, precede the extremity of hardness. Indeed CHRIST is able in a moment, of sinners on earth to make men Saints of heaven; as he wrought upon that one dying malefactor: but he seldom doth so suddenly advance men in the degrees of sancti •• cation. That ordinary way, whereby men walk from the state of sin, to the state of glory, is the state of grace. You have seen some make sudden leaps; and of furious sinners become zealous professors, in a trice. Of such we m • y be charitably jealous; Non ad altum per saltum: holiness shoots not up like Jonah's Gourd, in a night. Few men know the instant of their conversion as the Papists proudly demand the special times of their innovations, and who resisted their errors at the first rising? But as Popery crept in part after part, in every part 〈◊〉 gentle degrees in every degree with pretence of truth; till it advanced the •• nners of painted ceremonies, with a mighty noise of excommunications, lo •• er than the cataracts of Nile: and howsoever it came in, we find it here. So our conversion is by soft and scarce sensible beginnings, albeit not part after part, yet degree after degree: in every part by gentle soakings in of goodness, in every degree by maturity and growing up to ripeness: as we cannot see the growing of a tree, yet know that it doth grow, by the magnitude of bulk, and branches and fruits: so we may perceive our conversion to God, which walking on must confirm.
Walking is a good ordinary pace, between violent running and lazy creeping; a moderate course between Jehu's march and Mephibosheth’s. It is better for a man to go soft and sure, than for a gird to run himself out of wind, and afterwards to stand still and breath him. Walk not slowly, for fear of coming short: not faster than we may hold out to the end, nor slower than we may come in good time to our everlasting rest. Any traveler may be called a side a little, to speak with his friend, or to look upon a novelty, so for a step and minute be out; but still his way lies before him: whereto recalling himself, and going constantly on in the proceedings of grace, he shall be blessed.
They despise government.] It is no wonder, if they that follow the flesh, contemn authority; and would have no other governor than that of their own choosing. He that hath set up this Dagon for his God, would have nothing to do with the Ark, nothing for the Ark to do with him. It is not enough for Egistus to abuse the bed, but also to shed the blood, of King Agamemnon. The Adulterer is fit to make a Traitor. Rome hath sent us too many prodigious proofs of this; that have at once lusted after the beauty of our women, and thirsted at the blood of our Princes. Palpable demonstrations, that the enchantment of adultery hath begotten instruments of conspiracy. And as a Jesuit is but a new word for a Traitor: so Seminary and seditious are but diverse terms of the same man. Who more despise the Magistracy among us, than the sons of riot, that take in the freight of lust at a Tavern, and than with wind and tide fail to the Brothels? being questioned for this, they turn men of war, stand at defiance, and rime away the awe of government with the ballads of scandal. A man would think, that none who profess the Gospel of Christ, should impugn the ordinances of God: or if they did despise the spiritual ones, as men that have no care of their souls; yet not the visible and temporal ones, as men that stand in fear of their lives. If there were none such, I might well have spared my Sermon, yea the Apostle might have spared my Text. But when this Vlcer comes to be searched, many moe will be found guilty, than be now suspected by others, or suspect themselves.
For method; here be two general things considerable. 1. The excellency of the thing despised; Government. 2. The pravitie of such as throw contempt upon it; Despisers. The former will appear, both by the Authority that ordains it, and by the necessity that requires it.
For the authority; this is from God himself: he gave man a fourfold regiment. 1. Imperium in animalia, over the creatures. 2. Imperium in se; over himself: before his fall by a potent freedom of will he governed all his actions; after his fall some relicts of this dominion appear: reason still retains some fragments of her regiment over the sensual part; though here she be but like a Queen in the midst of none but rebels. In the body, some parts are made to govern and direct the rest; as the head: some to obey, as the members. 3. Imperium domesticum, over his household: the Master is a little King in his family, as the King is a great Master in his kingdom. 4. Imperium politicum; whether Monarchiall, of one; or Aristocratical, of many and those the best: or Democratical, which is the popular state. All which are mediately or immediately of God, Rom. 13.1. Thou couldest have no power at all against me, saith Christ to Pilate, except it were given thee from above.
Against this Divine Institution there be some objections; to clear all which, hold we this distinction. There is the Power it self, the Assumption of it, and the Execution of it. The manner of assuming it may be from the Devil: either by bribery, as it is likely Felix came in: so that he could not sell cheap, who had bought dear. Or by cruelty and intrusion,; as Abimelech ascended the throne by the stairs of blood and fratricide. Or by invasion, as the conquerer makes himself King. Or by usurpation, as Athaliah kept the kingdom from the right heir, Joash. So also the manner of using this power may be from the Devil; as to set up superstition for religion, and cruelty instead of equity. Here neither the bad manner of acquiring, nor bad order of tyrannizing, are from God: yet the authority it self is of God. The hand doth violently extort another's good, or smite with the sword: these abuses are from sin, but the hand it self is given of God. The sight is sore, or adulterous, yet the eye is of God. Matrimoniall copulation hath the patronage of God, copulation not matrimonial is of Satan. The truth is plain; By me Kings reign, saith the Lord: let us hear what error objects.
1 Object. Hos. 8.4. They have set up Kings, but not by me: they have made Princes, and I knew it not. Answ. They chose the King without God's approbation, they set not up the kingdom without his Iustitution. Evil Princes are said to reign not by God; vel modo gubernandi, when they rule the people not by that Law which should rule the King. Vel modo arripiendi, when God calls them not to reign. Vel sibi, non Deo regnant; they reign not for God's honor but their own humor. God made the member he made not the ulcer: Potentiam Deus distribuit, elation ••• potentiae malitia invenit. When the Israelites chose Jeroboam their King; that treacherous revolting from their lawful Sovereign, and rebellious adherence to an usurper, an Idolater, was none of God's doing, he condemns it: yet the act was his, 1 King. 11.35. So Jerome says of Saul's election; that it was error populi, non voluntate Domini: it is true, the manner was the people's fault, but the matter was God's purpose: he meant to raise up a King, only takes the occasion by their headstrong importunity. So still doth it happen, that bad manners breed good laws. Without question the thing was good; Monarchy, the best form of government: but good things may be ill desired. So while they affected a King, they rejected the Lord. Therefore seeing they choose to have a King, God will choose the King they shall have. As he gratifies them in the monarchall condition, so he punisheth them in the monarchs person.
2 Object. Saint Peter calls it Ordinationem humanam, an ordinance of man; how is it then of God? Answ. He calls it human vel subjective, because the subject wherein this authority sticks is man: or Objective, because it is exercised in the affairs of man: or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , because it is for man's good. The fruits of the earth are brought forth by the industry of man, yet they cease not to be the gifts of God. The forms of administration may be of man, the original institution is of God.
3 Object. If every power, then the tyrannical, is of God; as the Mahometan, Pontifician, Diabolical. Answ. The Principalitie is, not the tyranny. Wealth is always good in it self, and God's gift; yet the unjust acquisition, and miserable usurpation, make it bad to such owners. Riches are not Mala, nisi malis. And were the Pope an orthodox Bishop, we would not deny his authority to be of God: but his challenge of universal dominion, is not Potestas, sed potestatis ulcus: which he hath by his own ambition, Satan's instigation, not God's Institution. And for the Devils power, it is by God's permission, not without his limitation; no other than a hang-man's office, to correct and punish whom the Divine Justice appoints. When he boasted of the kingdoms, they are all mine; this was but his lie, he had not one foot to bestow.
The power of government is then ordained of God, and that in a special manner, by direct Precept. Sickness indeed and war, famine and poverty, are ordained of God but not by commandment. Promotion comes neither from the East, nor, &c. Nor from the suffrages of People, nor lives of Ancestors, nor conquest of swords, but from the Lord. By him are kingdoms disposed, Kings inaugurated, Crowns of gold set on their heads, Scepters and states established, Angels with their wings shadowing their Thrones; that their Majesty may be higher by the head than the rest of the people. That one man should rule millions, restrain, contstrain, correct, command; how could it be but that God himself hath imprinted the characters of a Divinity in him; but that there is a Divine constitution in a human person. It is thou O Lord, that subduest my people under me. Saul is in David's cave, the soldiers would now have him carve his own revenge; they allege God's promise and this advantage concurring: but take it at the worst; Thou mayest do to him, as it shall seem good to thee: now, that might not seem good to him, that seemed evil to God. But their incentive to blood, David makes a preservative from blood; The Lord forbid, I should do this thing to his Anointed. Doubtless he had work enough to defend both himself and his persecutor: himself from the importunity of their instigation, his Master from suffering violence. Say, he could rule his own hands, it is not easily to rule a multitude. What was the Charme to allay the fury of those raging spirits? He is the Lord's Anointed: nothing else, this was enough: that holy oil was an Antidote for his blood. Saul did not lend David so impenetrable an armor, when he was to encounter Goliath: as David lent him in the plea of his unction. Not one of the discontented out-laws durst put forth a hand of violence against him. The Image and impress of that Divine ordinance strikes such an awe into the hearts of men, that it makes even Traitors, cowards: so that instead of smiting, they tremble, like them whose office is to suffer, not to do. Fear God, honor the King: there was never man that feared God, but he also honored the Prince.
For the necessity; without Government we were worse than beasts: It is the bond of the Common-weal; the life-breath which so many thousand creatures draw: who otherwise would prove a burden to themselves, a booty to their enemies. In the host of Heaven there is a Regiment: under God the Supreme, be orders and degrees of stars and planets; without which composition it could not be called an Army. There is a Regiment in the body; they are luxate and palsy members, that move not by the direction of the Head. In the Family is a Regiment; the servant acknowledgeth his Master, the child his Father. Among irrational creatures is a Regiment: the Bees have their King, the Cranes their Leader, and they keep their night-watches in disposed orders. All the Drove follows the principal beast, and the Sheep are not led by every Ram, but by their own delected Guide.
Thus Nature teacheth, that we are all bound to subject ourselves to Government. Man is a sociable creature, but there would be harsh society among them without a Ruler. None could say, This is mine; and Cheape-side would not be safer than Salisbury -plain. The first rule that Nature dictates to man by experience, is to seek a Ruler. We may say of all other creatures, Nascuntur artifices, they are borne their crafts-masters: Nature it self was their Tailor and Tutor, they came in apparel'd and armed; and by their estimative faculty, they are their own Cators and Cooks, Physicians and builders. They can at first entrance choose their own meats, build their own nests and burroughs, and being distempered, skill their own medicines. But man came in without a rag to his back, or a dinner dressed to his belly, or a house to put his head in; no weapons, no ableness to use them: his understanding like white paper, nothing written on it: all which really teach him to seek a protector. Therefore a common-wealth without a Governor, is like a body without a soul: where is no King, they are all kings. It were strange, if every member of the body should move by a several soul: how long could that man hang together? The son hath a great loss in the death of his father, the wife of her husband, the servant of his master: but in the Funerals of Princes the whole land reads not so much the Princes; as their own mortality: Et in una morte plares agnoscimus, Hectora flemus. One saith truly; Dum mors insignes percutit, • mnes petit. I know their fame is immortal, their goodness immortal, their souls immortal; but their bodies are mortal: there is so much of man in them, that they must die. They are lent to us for our sakes, but we must restore them again for their own sakes.
He is the Minister of God to thee for good. Either for our natural good, preserving our lives, which bloody-men would soon ruinate, who fear not so much hell as the halter: like beasts that are more afraid of the flash of the powder, than of the bullet. Or Civil good, preserving our goods and possessions; else robbery were law, and men like dogs, would try all right by the teeth. Or Moral good, in commanding and commending Virtue, which hath praise of the Power: or in punishing vice, He bears not the sword in vain. Or Spiri •• all good; the Magistrate by coactive power enforcing men to the duties of godliness. These seats would be empty, the Preacher wants his relative, hearers; the Sacraments would be vili-pended, the Service of God resigned to the service of Satan; but for Government. The Sabbath would not be distinguished from common days, the markets be fuller than the Temples; the wicked, like sullen children, would not forsake their play for their meat, but for the rod of correction. Many Saints in heaven might now confess, that they had not known God, but for the King. First, compulsory means brought them to the feast, whereof once tasting, they would never leave it. t Compel them to come in &c. It is a good storm that blows the wanton and secure Mariner into the haven. We could not converse together, had not God set authority over us, to repress our mutual violences.
Lewd wretches have not the fear of God, therefore God brings them under the fear of man: that being subjected to Rulers of their own kind, their outrage might be sent from temporal death to eternal. In that notorious apostasy of the Jews, when so many execrable enormities were committed, the Spirit still prefixeth; At that time there was no King in Israel. We read of a poor Levite wanting means; why? there was no King. If God had been their King, his Law had provided for the Levite. If Moses had been their King, his sword would have cut out a portion for the Levite. We are beholding to government for order, for peace, for Religion. For order; where is no King, every man will be his own king. For peace, he that is his own king, will be another's Tyrant. For Religion; every Micah would have a house of gods, beside God's house. We are worthy of nothing but confusion, if we do not bless God for Regular dominion. No wonder, if the Levites go a begging, while there is no King in Israel. The Tythes and Offerings were their due; had these been paid, none of the holy Tribe needed to wander for maintenance. Where both Legal and Regal authority appoints the Levite his right, the wickedness of man will defraud him. But what should become of the Levites, if there were no King? And what of the Church, if there were no Levites? No King, no Church: no civil government, no Ecclesiastical. How should the impotent child live without a nurse? It was God's promise unto his Church, Kings shall be thy Foster-fathers, and Queens thy Nurses. How should not the sheep be a prey to Wolves and Foxes, but for the Shepherd? What life or temper can be kept in the body that is head-less? Therefore, that the riches we have gotten by honest industry, may be assured to our posterity; that we may sit under the shadow of peace, and teach our children to know the Lord; that the lamp of our lives be not snuffed out with violence; that the good man may build up Temples and Hospitals, without trembling, to think of savage and barbarous sacrilege to pull them down: that our devotions be not molested with uproares, nor men called from their callings by mutinies: that our temporal estate be kept in liberty, our spiritual estate improved with piety, and our eternal estate to be given in us glory; that our lives may be preserved, and our souls saved; for such a King of men, bless we the God of the Kings.
This truth is plain enough, no reasonable man would look for impugners: yet we must be content to hear what the Synod of hell can plead for disobedience.
1 Object. Subjection came in with sin; but Christ hath taken away sin, therefore also subjection. Innocence knew no Superior but God: and the subjection of Eve was her punishment, this could not antecede her sin. Nomen Servi culpa meruit, non natura. Answ. Subjection is twofold; Servile, and civil. The Vassalage of a slave, bound only to seek his Masters proper good, was not before the fall: civil obedience for the common good, was. The former is a curse, such a one as Noah bequeathed to his impudent Son: not in it self considered, but by reason of the fear and sorrow united to it, which Innocency knew not. Civil subordination was before the fall: Encrease and multiply; this did put a plain distinction and inequality betwixt the father and the son. Eve was subject to Adam, before either of them was subject to sin. She might have Imperium apud virum, but he had Imperium in uxorem. Not that the Salicke Law accords with the Divine Law; as if no Queen might govern a kingdom: for the GOD of spirits hath often put great spirits into that sex. The Queen of Sheba was a famous Governesse; and that masculine virtues may shine in a female head, this land cannot forget the memory of so long and sweet experience. Yet this hinders not, but that man is fittest to govern. The Ruler was to bring for his sin-offering, a He-goat: the private offender, a She-goat: to show that the Male suits the Ruler best, and the Female the ruled. Thus Innocency had a superiority.
2. Ob. Every Believer is even now in the Kingdom of Heaven; but in Heaven there is no King but Christ. Answ. In this respect they are also called kings, yet the King that doth not find them subjects, judgeth them traitors. There is a spiritual regiment, standing in grace, peace and joy: here is no distinction of persons; neither father nor son, master nor servant, King nor subject, but Christ is all in all. There is a civil regiment, which cannot consist without distinctions and orders; here must be masters and servants, &c. If all were Commanders and rich, every man must be driven to curry his own horse, and cleanse his own stable. As it is but a Trunke which is all body, no head: so it is a monster, which is all head, and nobody. But they say further; The faithful have God's Spirit their guide, therefore need not human direction. Answ. It is one thing what we do, another thing what we ought to do. Yet could we live without transgression, we could not live well without protection.
3. Ob. The children are free; now if free from tribute, then from subjection. Answ. Christ there spake of himself, who was by birth heir to the Crown, therefore free: yet to avoid offense He paid it. And the freedom that he gives us is from the law, from sin, death and hell: a liberty of conscience, a spiritual enfranchisement; not an exemption and immunity from civil obedience. Licentiousness is not liberty, but slavery: this makes the wicked to affect their own insensible bondage, and to dote on their own libertine delights; as a mad man loves his chains, because they rattle, and (as he thinks) make a brave noise. He that made us free, taught us another rule by His own example: He obeyed his Parents in the flesh with humility, the Emperor with piety, the law with integrity, His heavenly Father, usque ad mortem, to the death. So the Christian is Inimicus nemini, multo minus Imperatori.
4. Ob. Civil government is full of cruelty; and the sword of Justice not only spills the life, but often kills the soul, but cutting off the time and means of repentance. Answ. Nay rather, the malefactor that is not moved at the sentence of death, despairs the possibility of amendment by longer life. Theevish Achan had suffered his sacrilege to lie fretting into his soul, had not the lot discovered him to death. Leasurely sickness and languishment is but the coachway to repentance, legal doom is the post-horse. How easy is it for men to delay the preparation for death, so long as they have hope of life? Sooner do you hear of a malefactors contrition at the gibbet; than of an Usurers in his bed: as a violent fire can thaw that ye, which lies long unmelted by a winters sun. Cataplasmes and fomentations draw not out the pleurisie, letting of blood does it. He sees, by the evidence of the fact; Intelligence of the Iurates, truth of the witnesses, impartiality of the Judge; an Image of that higher Tribunal, whither his sin will send him, when they have done with him. Here the Jail can hold him but to the Session, the Session is not long ere it come to sentence, the sentence is soon answered with execution, the suffering of death is short; all these passages take up no long time. But then comes another Judgment, where his conscience gives in testimony, all his crimes appear upon record, Satan solicits Justice, God cannot be unjust, the doom is certain, the execution eternal. Therefore with an humbled soul and broken heart, he cries for mercy before he comes to the seat of Justice; beseecheth Christ to procure him a pardon, and God to accept his Sons satisfaction. In this assurance he smiles death in the face, is free in prison, and never felt himself truly to live, till he is come to die. Thus he that could not live innocent, dies penitent; and seeing his body cannot be saved alive, he endeavors that his soul may be saved in death. As he hath followed Satan our common enemy in sinning, so he now defies him in repenting; and by his unfeigned tears disappoints that murderers hope of his damnation. Moe malefactors than that one have gone from the Gibbet to heaven; and from an ignominious place, after a more scandalous fact, been received up to glory.
5 Ob. But how if the Prince be bad, an enemy to truth and goodness, a ravisher, a persecutor, raising powers for the extirpation of the Gospel? Here, if ever, a subject may renounce all allegiance: for here is power against power, man against God, and the subject of both left to follow either. Answ. In this strait some, for fear of the King, shipwreck their faith, and these are traitors to God. Others by a defensive sword in their hand rebels to the King. There is no question, but God must be obeyed even against the King, when the King commandeth things against God. Hi carcerem, Ille gehennam minatur. What then? shall we resist him with violence? No, God never warrants that practice, no not against a Prince that denies him. There is an Active obedience, and a Passive. I may not execute his impious commands, I must suffer his unjust punishment. Obedire oportet malis Imperaoribus, non mala imperantibus. The vices of men cannot frustrate the Institution of God: be he never so ungracious, honor must be given, if not Principi, yet Principatui. Peruse Matth. 5.44. and Rom. 12.17. this will tie the hands of Christian subjects. Samuel offered not to depose Saul, though the express sentence of God had cast him off, and he was excommunicated by a higher power than ever came from Rome; Saul lived and died a King.
The captive Jews in Babylon, wrote to their brethren in Jerusalem, to pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar. This was Jeremiah's counsel, and Daniel's practice: all his speeches savoured of most perfect obedience, even to a King that not so well entreated him. Let him be a Darius, and make a decree against God; then he will enter into his house and pray, open his windows and pray, not pass many hours but pray; though every hair on his head were a life, ready to redeem his duty to God with the loss of them all. What resistance did the primitive Christians make to those barbarous outrages? but praying for the Emperors life, when under the Emperors command they were bleeding to death. Neither did they suffer because they were not able to resist: but it was their doctrine, Occidi magis licet, quàm occidere. Vis nobis non deest vel nummorum, vel numerorum; we have means sufficient: they filled all places of that Idolatrous Empire, Islands, Cities, Castles, all but the profane Temples. One night, and a few torches, could have offorded them an ample revenge. Mercy on us, had but the Jesuits such an advantage! Tertullian to these pagan tormentors; Noster est magis Caesar, the Emperor is more ours than yours: as being appointed by our God, and upheld by our prayers and obedience.
Christians never prove losers, but when they unjustly fight for their own preservation. Provide we Scutum, non gladium, the buckler of patience, not a sword as ready to give as ward the blow. He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it: hear is the way, either to die by living, or to live by dying. When the decree was gone out by Ahasuerus, this was their refuge; Preces & lacry ma. Potero stere, potero gemere. Rogamus, Auguste, non pugnamus. The Apostles could work miracles, yet they resisted not the ordinate powers. This charge Paul imposeth on the Romans, even while tyrannous Nero was their Emperor; a monster, whom diverse held to be Antichrist. Saul is in David's cave; the soldiers think that God sent him thither on no other errand, but to fetch his death. If Saul had seen his own danger, he had given himself for death, and expected to receive what he meant to bestow. But wise and holy David gives way neither to his own passion, nor his soldiers solicitation; but only makes this use of it; the trial of his loyalty, and the means of his peace. It had been as easy to cut Saul's throat, as his garment: but his coat only shall be the worse, not his person. Nor should the cloke have been maimed to seek his own revenge, but for a monument of his Innocence. The very piece of his garment shows, he meant no hurt to his Person; yet this violence strikes David's heart. He feels remorse for touching that, which did once touch the person of his Lord. How unlike are those spirits of Rome, that teach and practice, encourage and reward, yea, canonize the violation of Majesty it self? David regrets for cutting a royal robe, they make no account of shedding the royal blood; sheep to cut the throat of their Shepherd.
Evil Princes are indeed a punishment; Dedi in furiore. How miserable it is to have an intemperate Ruler, appears by the wisest Preacher. woe to thee o Land, when thy Princes eat in the morning: following the pleasures that attend on Majesty, and not the pains wh ch belong to Magistracy. There is a miserable dedesolation threatened to Israel; the staff of bread, and stay of water, the man of war, and the man of peace, the Judge and Prophet, the honorable and ancient, the cunning artificer, the eloquent orator; all shall be taken away. How comes it? I will give children to be their Princes, and babes shall rule over them: there is the Judgment fulfilled. Set thou a wicked man over him: among all other curses which he calls from heaven by the Spirit of Prophecy upon his malicious adversaries, running like oil into all the joints and bonds, of themselves, their wives, and children; this leads the army, as Judas led the soldiers; Set a wicked man to rule over him. They that were weary of Solomon, were wearied with Rehoboam. Secundum merita subditorum, disponit corda praepositorum. Yet must not all this expose them to contempt: Samuel would not pray with Saul, he would grace him before the people, to continue credit to the Magistracy. There is some good attained to under the worst Prince. Even by the power given to the devil, Job probatus est ut justus appareret; Petrus tentatus ne de se praesumeret, Paulus colophizatus ne se extolleret, & Judas damnatus ut se suspenderet. Julian sent his subjects to heaven in earnest, while himself went to hell merrily and in jest. But blessed be our God, we have no cause to complain: we have such a Prince, whom whosoever praiseth not, vel non diligit, vel non intelligit. Only let us bless him, and bless God for him, that we may all be blessed in him.
That religion then cannot be right, that pulls down Princes: seeing neither Moses in the Old Testament, nor Christ in the new, nor Levite nor Prophet, Apostle nor Disciple, either counseled or practiced against Government. Which should decide the point, that hath cost the lives of so many Christians, and still threatens more tragedies to come. They that in this argument found the weakness of their pens, have fallen to their penknives, multiplied the School into a Campe, arguments to armies, teaching all their Proselytes dismal conclusions. Thus they fight against God in his Lieutenant, and the root of all civil order they desire to root out. They complain of us for suppressing them, that will not let us live in quiet by them. What security can Sara with her Isaac have in the house if Hagar and her brat be not beaten out of doors? The peace of our state, nor scarce of any state in Christendom since Charlemaines time, hath not been violated, but the Pope or his Ministers have had a hand in it. To say nothing of their private turbulency, what pestilences they be to the houses that harbor them, where they rule all with the Lady; it is their sauciness with the Crown which our state suffers under. They do but turn the Text; Kings over subjects, and they over Kings. They will be Donatists, Anabaptists, Libertines, Pagans, anything, so they be not subjects. How did they more than despise, even despite that Queen of blessed memory? whom strangers came to see, as the Queen of Sheba did Solomon; foreigners reverenced, subjects loved, all Princes living admired and themselves outwardly flattered. By whose gracious hand God wrought those wonders, that the most potent Kings can hardly reach. Honor filled the circle of her Crown, her brow with Majesty, her heart with piety, her hands with pity, her lap with plenty, her throne with equity. All those virtues centred in her breast, which severally had commended the great Ladies of the former world. Yet how execrable were the treasons at home, the rebellions and invasions abroad which they contrived against her? Now when she is in glorious peace, have they not raked into her grave, and railed on her royal Name? She that lies buried, not in cold earth, but in the warm and living monuments of all religious hearts among us, is still persecuted by their barbarous violences. But as all their malice could not harm her Person while it was mortal on earth; much less can it reach her soul, which is now immortal and blessed in heaven. Lord, they have not despised her, but they have despised thee: revenge thine own cause; confirm the diadem where it is, and let not the man of sin pull down, what thou the God of righteousness hast built up.
Despisers.] The main antagonists of Soveraigntie are the Anabaptists and Papists: who, howsoever otherwise they dart fire one at another, yet here like Herod and Pilate, they shake hands, or those seditious Captains in Jerusalem, fight against the Magistrate as their common enemy. Thus Samson's foxes have averse heads, but are coupled together by their tails.
1 The Anabaptists did strike at the head of all Government; and with the sword in their own hand, sought to wring the sword out of the Magistrates. They inveighed against authority, and yet took authority upon themselves. As I have heard a man reproved for swearing, presently rap out an oath that he would not swear. It was