ST. PETER told these brethren before, that the Gentiles spake evill of them as of evill doers; either in generall that there was no thing so evill, which they would not doe; or more particularly, that they would doe this evill; they would not submit unto authority; Our Apostle therefore commeth from his generall to his more particular advices, by which hee would make it appeare unto all, that Religion was at no fewd with civill polity, that the best man was the best subject; which that hee might be and so acknow­ledged of al, he exhorts them to submit, &c. Which words contain a Duty, and the Motives; the duty, subjection to the Magistrate; the motives, 1. from God Christ Jesus our Lord v. 13. 15. 2. from the end why the Magistrate is sent [...] punishment and prayse, v. 14. 3. from their ene­mies, described to be [...], and to work [...] in their unjust slandering of them, who must be silenced by their obedience, v. 15. 4. from them­selves, that though they are free, yet they are withall servants of God, and therefore must not use their freedome to cover their Rebellion, to make it a matter of conscience to disobey, v. 16.

1. Of the duty, submission or subjection, and to whom wee must submit, to wit, the Magistrate, him that is in Authority; which is first described from his matter, an humane Creature, hee also is but a man. 2. from his supremacy, and subordina­tion: The King, and they, who are sent by him, [...], the Presidents. I enter now upon a subject, [Page] [...] [Page 1] [...] [Page 2] I know not whether more necessary or distastful; necessary it is, for wee must needs obey, Rom. 13. and yet nothing is more distastfull to corrupted nature than to submit. Whilst I told you that you were a peculiar people, a royall priesthood, &c. then I was heard with a greedy attention, every one of you then would be ready to alter the que­stion of the Apostles, and say, Is it not I? Is it any other than my selfe that you mean? but now that I am to shew that these priests have no better sa­crifice to offer than Obedience, that these kings are but subjects and must submit themselves unto the King, you will be ready to answer as the King of France did to our conquering Edwards letters, wherein hee barely termed him Charles de Valois, that he had read some such thing indeed, but he could not conceit that it concerned himselfe: so whatsoever you shall heare of this argument, I am afraid too many of you would believe that it concerneth not your selfe. The refusing of this submission was the first sin, and if Adam before corruption thought it too much to submit him­selfe to his Divine Creator, it wil be no wonder, if after so many sins, wee add this unto the rest, that wee will not without grudging submit our selves to an humane Creature. But whether wee like it or no it is our duty, wee must submit. The word in the Greeke is [...], which commeth from two words, that signifie be ye under order: wee must submit our selves to our superiors, that wee must be under their order, that which they order we must doe, whether that order concerne [Page 3] us or ours; whether it have a reference unto our persons or our goods. Concerning both of these their order may be, and it is our part to submit, to be under their order. All men, even the Chri­stians, the Regenerate must thus submit. Let eve­ry soule be subject, Rom. 13. 1. Every soule, that is, every person; if then a Christian be a person, hee must be a subject; he must have obedience, if a Be­ing. Be subject, that is, unto commands, and the commands of the Magistrate reach and that justly too, as well to the body as the purse. Honorthy Father and thy mother, thou must needs remem­ber this, if thou hast not forgot the Commande­ment, if they are not fled as far from thy memory as from thy practice: thy Superiors are thy Father and thy Mother, therefore thou must honor thy Superiors. Now honor in Scripture signifieth no lesse maintenance than good speeches, that both wayes thou shouldst submit. You will say this was Moses his commandement: but you cannot deny that this which followes was Christs; Render un­to Caesar the things which are Caesars, Mat. 22. 21. But who can deny that Caesar hath a right to thy full subjection? Where the word of a King is there is power, Ecc. 1. 4. now, what power were there in it, if it could not make thee every way submit? it followeth, and who may say unto him, What dost thou? as who should say, If thou sayest so unto him, thou sayst what thou canst not justifie, as hee writeth in his Epistles to Atticus, Hoc quod dicis & turpe, nec tamen tutum est, such a speech hath the disgrace of shamefulnesse, and not so much by way [Page 4] of recompence for that disgrace, as the benefit of safety. If thou sayest, What dost thou, he may doe that with thee that thou shalt not be able to say again. In the multitude of the people is the Kings honor, Prov. 14. 28. but the multitude must be o­bedient then; it is a dangerous honor if he have a multitude of refractary people, of such who know not to submit. Put them in minde to bee subject, &c. Tit. 3. 1. to obey Magistrates, to bee ready in every good worke: they are backward in every good worke, if they be not ready in this one; to obey Magistrates. And marke you, hee doth not say simply, Let them obey, or be subject, but put them in mind; this duty commeth so harsh unto the most, that they must be often put in mind of it before they will bee perfect in it. I exhort or desire therefore first of all, sayes St. Paul, that sup­plications &c. be made for Kings and all that are in authority, that we may leade a quiet and a peace­able life in all godlinesse and honestie, 1 Tim. 2. 1. we must pray for them that we may lead a qui­et life, then likewise we must submit to them that we may live a quiet life, otherwise they will trou­ble us into peaceablenesse, wee shall not be quiet unlesse we will be obedient. It is a proposition in the Schoole, Quaelibet res perficitur per hoc quod suo subditur-superiori: Every creature receiveth per­fection from its subordination, it would have more defects, if it did not submit its selfe to its su­perior; we must be subject therefore for our own good, wee should be worse if we were not under. Had God intended that all should be equall, that [Page 5] none should command, none should submit, with­out doubt hee would never have made heaven and earth, the one so much higher than the other. What in Kings towards the subject is command▪ that in the heaven towards the earth is its influ­ence, and what in subjects towards their prince is obedience, that in the earth towards heaven is the receiving of its influence. Now as the earth would be barren if it did not receive that influ­ence, so the subject would have no abundance, if he did not obey. Is there any harmony if all the strings are of the same bignesse? must there not be some greater, some lesser, some sharper, some flatter, if you: looke for musick from the instru­ment? Even amongst beasts, where ever there is a flocke, there is Dux gregis, the Leader of the flocke, to whose direction the rest submit their selves. Can a Ship be set to sea without a master? and must not all in the Ship submit to him? Now it would be strange if the Commonwealth should bee of easier guidance than a Ship, that it should not sinke without submitting to a Master. Nay, let us looke into our owne selves, there is the soul and the body; the Commander, and that which is to submit. Or let us goe farther into the soule, there is the Reason and the Appetite; in the Di­vine part which is indivisible which properly hath no parts, there is that which ruleth, there is that which is to obey. To teach us our submission to lawfull Governors, God would not let us bee without a kind of Commonwealth, a governe­ment within us. Besides, even the Heathens them­selves [Page 6] may be our Leaders here, and teach us our duty of subjection: In the East Country they al­waies esteemed their Princes to bee Gods, and their commands as Oracles; even the Germans, as Tacitus reports, were so addicted to their Gover­nor to manifest this submission, that hee saith of them, Principes pro victoria pugnant, Comites pro principe, that for what ever reason their Prince doth fight, they fight for nothing but for their Prince, if he be safe they are well, they are well because hee is safe, to whom they may submit themselves: what then was Leo the tenths En­signe, to wit, a yoake, with this word, It is sweet, (he used it whilst he was a subject, it was sweet to him to obey, and it was used of him when he was a prince, that it was sweet to obey him) may be all of ours, and if it be a yoake to be under Au­thority, we must account it a sweet yoake, that it is delightfull to submit. But you will say, where­fore is all this? who is there amongst us that doth not thinke it his duty to submit? onely we would know how farre this subjection doth extend, and how it can be made appeare, that we must submit both body and goods unto the order of our supe­rior? we must know therefore, that the Scripture hath commanded subjection in generall onely, the determination therefore of this generall is left either unto the Prince or people: not unto the people, for if they may ordaine that they will o­bey so far, by the same authority they may decree one degree short of that obedience, & so an other & an other, til they had decreed not to obey at all. [Page 7] It remaineth th [...] that the prince▪ that the chiefe Magistrate is to teach us how he will be o­beyed, unto what degree of subjection wee must submit. Besides, wee are to take notice who this Magistrate is, to whom S. Peter exhorts to submit, to wit, the Roman Emperour, with all the Lawes and ordinances, by which that Empire was commanded; amongst which Lawes this was one, that their persons and goods should neither bee exempt from serving of the commonwealth. And indeed if wee consider the blindnesse of our understandings and the depravation of our wills; we shall find that there is a necessity fully to sub­mit our selves to those, whose direction may di­rect our understandings, whose power may take order that our depraved wills may hurt no other than our selves. You will say then, if my under­standing be clearer, and my will more reformed than those, who are in authority, may I choose whether I will submit to them who are not so wise nor so good as my selfe? no, by no meanes, since thou mayst be too partiall a Judge of thine owne good parts, and their Right confirmeth them in their authority, what ever their parts are; nay, what hinders but that weake Princes may have able Ministers, and that is all one for thy direction. Againe, wilt not thou submit thy selfe to authority? why, by the same reason a se­cond will not, nor a third, and so, because we know not where to stop, none will. Now judge thine owne selfe whether it were not better to live with wild beasts than in such a place where [Page 8] there were no authority but what the stronger would usurp to his owne selfe, which must never be accounted unjust against the weaker. Breifely, thou wilt live alone or in Cōpany. If alone, who shall defend thee? if in Company, thou must have a Magistrate to defend thee, or that Com­pany will be worse than any solitarinesse: Lastly, there is none but would injoy the benefit of a Commonwealth, why then should any thinke it too much to indure the burden. You would all have peace, and riches, and righting from injury, why then of necessity you must submit unto Go­vernment, without which you cannot possibly injoy any of the forementioned blessings. If thou wilt gather the rose, the prickels must not af­fright thee; and if thou wilt not be miserable, it is as necessary that thou must submit. But must we submit, sayes the Anabaptist, wee, the Royall preisthood, the peculiar people? wherfore thē did our Saviour say, Then are the children free. Mat. 17. 26. He meaneth from paying tribute, and so by consequent, from any other law of Soveraign­tie. Againe, The law is not made for a righteous man, 1. Tim. 1. 9. Then the righteous are not un­der the law, they are not under that which was not made for them; and if not under Gods, much lesse under mans law, they should too much de­base themselves, if they would submit to that. The base son of one of our English Kings sued to the Pope for an Archbishoprick, the Pope de­nyed it him, if he would call himselfe by the name of his supposed father; the issue was this, [Page 9] that he should have the dignity, if he would re­nounce this dignity that he was a Kings sonne; upon which termes he refused it, he would not so farre debase himselfe for any other title what­soever. And these, because they suffer themselves to be Gods sons, the children of the King that ruleth heaven and earth, thinke it too low for them to be under any government. Yee are bought with a price, bee not yee the servants of men. 1. Cor. 7. 23. But you are their servants, say they, if you be their subjects, & in such a service, such a subjection, you seeme to deny that you were bought with a Price. Againe, the same A­postle (though not to the same men) saith, Owe no man any thing, but to love one another, Rom. 13. 8. If wee owe nothing but love, we doe supere­rogate, we doe more then is required of us, if wee pay service. In a word, there is one Lord, 1. Cor. 8. How then should wee submit to any o­ther besides him? Besides, if Christians must be subject, if these sonnes must not be free, then ei­ther to Heathen or Christian Magistrates: but not to Heathen, because they are enemies, nor to Christian, because they are brethren; it is folly to submit to the one, and that the other should sub­ject us, is unnaturall. Brothers must love, and not command their brothers. Besides, subjection was brought in by sinne; Christ then having freed his from sin, must needs have freed them from sub­jection, that they doe not sin, if they will not sub­mit. God indeed saith to Adam in his inno­cency, Have dominion, but over whom is it that [Page 10] he must have dominion? Over the fish of the Sea; and over the fowles of the aire, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genes. 1. 28. The Creature is subjected to him and not Man; nay to man, in him, is the inferiour Creature subjected, and thus S. Augustine collects in his 13. booke of the City of God, chap. 13. That God would not that his Reasonable Creature should rule over any but unreasonable Creatures, non ho­mo homini, sed homo pecori, and therefore the first just men are taken notice of, to be shepheards of sheep, rather than of men; to preferre the Crooke before the Scepter. But against these and all other darts of theirs, though we want not other armour, yet for this present wee oppose but this one buckler, that Peter commands us to submit. Whom doth he command? even the peculiar people. And what doth he command? that they should submit: now if wee must submit, we must be subjects. Since then truth cannot be contrary to truth, and S. Peter hath told us that we must be subjects, we must needs conclude, that they have mistooke the Scriptures who have cited them for freedome from subjection. To begin with the first. The sonnes are free, therefore we cannot be subject, in that we are the sonnes of God. But what if S. Matthew spake not what was his mind, but what followed out of Peters words; if we shall say so, we shall affirme nothing which the Text will not be ready to confesse with us. Christs demand of Simon is, Of whom doe Kings take tribute, of their owne children or of stran­gers? [Page 11] Simon replyeth, Of strangers: hence it ne­cessarily followeth from Simons opinion, whe­ther it were true or no, that the sonnes were free. They are free of whom Kings doe take no tri­bute, and in Simons conceit they tooke no tri­bute of their owne children. But if by their owne children hee understood their owne sub­jects, then Simons opinion was not true, for of whom doe earthly Kings receive tribute but of their owne subjects? Againe, because this is their principall reason, and I feare some seeds of Ana­baptisme have been sowne here, I am sure there have been those who would take away the Ec­clesiasticall Magistrate, & that is no good proofe of their subjection to the civill (especially seeing the Civill hath established, or at least wise con­firmed the Ecclesiasticall Magistrate) for these reasons I say, I would give the fuller satisfaction to this reason, and that is this. Sonnes in this place cannot be generally taken for all Sonnes of God whatsoever, for so no men should be subject at all, which yet the Anabaptist himselfe denyeth, seeing that all men in some sense are the Sons of God; it must admit then of a limitation, and such a limitation as shall agree unto the scope of the place: now the scope is, to prove that Christ had no necessity of paying tribute, that all his sub­jection was from his owne will, because he had received the command from his Father. To prove this then, there is no other thing to bee required than that sonnes should be understood for na­turall sonnes. So Peters answer is true, Earthly [Page 10] [...] [Page 11] [...] [Page 12] Kings receive no tribute of their naturall chil­dren, so Christs inference is most firme, Then ought I to be free, who am sonne, naturall son of that King, in whose hands are all the corners of the earth. Thus the sonne is free, and yet for all his freedome, they may still bee subject, because they are not the sonne, the naturall sonne: and by these opinions they cause us to have a shrewd guesse that they are not sonnes, his sons by grace. If they were, (though indeed it were true that the adopted sons were free likewise) they would imitate at lest the naturall sonne, and though they were not bound to it, yet least they should offend, lest they should bee scandalous, they would pay tribute. But, they are Righteous, and the Righteous are under no law. True, to be condemned by it; false, if they understand to be directed by it. Nay, in that they are righteous they are under a law; there is no righteousnesse without a law, in our conformity to which wee are righteous. But, they must not bee the servants of men. Well, what are the former words, yee are bought with a price, from whence the immediate deduction is this, therefore you must be his, that hath bought you: and therefore in the next place you must not be so the servants of men, as not to be his, who hath bought you with a price; so then you are not forbidden to be mens servants, unles that service hinder you from being his servants; where both can stand together you are injoyned to both. Nay, in that you are bought with a price and are Christs servants, for that very reason [Page 13] ought you to submit your selvs to men since here he hath commanded it, and in doing his com­mands you shew your selves his servants. But wee must owe nothing but love. What then? this place exhorts you to a speedy satisfaction of your Creditor, not to any disobedience against autho­rity; for your money that you have borrowed, pay what you owe; but for mutuall love, so pay it, that you thinke you still owe it, that you ne­ver conceive you have payed enough. Lastly (for the answer to others will be cleare out of these,) There is but one Lord, that is, originally and su­preme, but many by participation and subordi­nate. Now as it is a weake kind of arguing, Wee must be subject to the King, therefore not to the Governour; so it is of the same force, we must be subject to the Lord, therefore not to the King, since as the Governour is sent by the King, so the King himselfe is sent by the Lord, and to the end that we should submit unto him. But the Ana­baptist proceeds farther, & as he would have no Christian to submit, so, which is an apparent con­tradiction, he would have Christians onely to submit; he thinkes command and rule and empire to be things altogether incompatible with a Christian. Divers places they wrest for their purpose, but none seemes to make more for them than this present. S. Peter ex­horts all those unto whom he writes, and al those unto whom he writes were Christians, that they should submit. Must all submit? then none must rule, it is impossible that submission should be­long [Page 14] to him, to whom the rule doeth. Now all Christians must submit to the King, and there­fore it is utterly unlawfull, in their opinion, that any Christian should bee a King. Against this madnesse (for it is to be esteemed no better) let us take this into our consideration, that from their opinion it followeth, that in Christian times, either there must be no Magistrate, or an Heathen Magistrate; no King, or a bad one. That there should be no King, no Magistrate, I have shewed you before how absurd it was, (not to speake how ridiculous it is to imagin that Christ who came to take away sin, came to take away princes, that he so spoiled principalities and powers:) but then, that Christians should be perpetually under an Heathen Magistrate, is e­qually inconvenient. For that there should be an Heathen Magistrate unto the end of the world, implies that there should be Heathen until the end of the world, out of whom the Magi­strates may bee chosen, but where hath God pro­mised or threatned so? or who shall question the Almighty, if at this instant he will have all come to knowledge of the truth, and seeke out their wickednesse till he find none? Christians therefore may be Magistrates and to them wee must submit. Of which one word more. Wee reade, Submit your selves, and not let them in­force you to submission: as therefore wee must submit, so that submission must be voluntary, wee must be freely subject. What the Stoick said to his God, we must to our Prince, Nulla parendi mora [Page 15] est, adsum impiger. I deny not mine obedience, I am ready to be commanded. Here then wee see, how true the opinion of the Papists is, whereby they would exempt the Clergy from subjection, by which they would so prove them Preists, that they doe deny them to be Citizens. It is their o­pinion, that whosoever is in holy orders, for that very cause even by the Law of God is freed from paying tribute, and so should be slavish, if he did submit; as if with shaving away their haire, they had shaved away their obedience, and their oyntment had wiped off all that which be­longed to the King. And indeed this fancy though it hath no ground hath some age, even Hierome in his time could say, Christ suffered the crosse for us and payed tribute: nos verò pro honore illius tributa non reddimus, but we for his honour doe not pay tribute but are freed from it as if we were Kings sonnes: where yet you observe that he speaketh of the Fact, not of the Right; he sheweth, That he doth not shew wherefore they did not pay tribute. Indeed Bellarmine minceth it and saieth that they are not exempted from the obligation of those Civill Lawes, which are not contrary to the Canon Prop. 2. But then his third Proposition maketh this obligation to be just nothing, when he affirmeth that Clerks can­not be judged by the secular Judge, allthough they will not observe these Civill Lawes. A strong obligation that binds not at all, as that doth not bind them to the punishment when they have loosed themselves from their obe­dience. [Page 16] But if there were no other word for us against them, yet we cannot imagine, but that there were some Ministers amongst those to whom S. Peter writ, nay it is manifest that there were 1. E. 1. 2. Yet he exempts none, hee bids them in generall to submit. But though the Clergy cannot challenge this exemption, I am far from their mind that thinke they cannot re­ceive it, or that it is unlawfull for a Christian Prince to free them from every Command of a secular Magistrate. When the times of greatest devotion were, then were the times of their greatest freedome; it was unheard of then, that any should judge a Prophet, but a Prophet, when that noble Constantine could say unto them: Vos Dii estis, & non est aequum ut homo judicet Deos; yee are Gods and it is not fit for men to judge Gods. Breifely, for a Minister with the Papist to claime this exemption as a due, is an Imposture, but for a Christian Prince to bestow it on them, is a great expression of his Charity. Ioseph in the generall subjection of the Aegyptians to Pharaoh, could exempt the priests though idolatrous; and Ar­taxerxes himselfe an Idolater, could free the Priests and Levites &c. from paying toll, tribute, or custome, though they were of an other reli­gion, Ez. 7. 24. If one of these could free the Priests of a false, the other of a strange reli­gion, then sure it will be lawfull at least for a Christian prince to be equally indulgent to his Clergy, who are of the same, of the true religion. But lastly, this submission is both in body and [Page 17] goods. What then shall wee say to those, who if there be an office, which as it challengeth their personall imployment, so it brings in profit, they will be most greedy after it, and seeke it though it be denied; but if it be onely to doe service to the Prince, and it have not the sawce of profit, they would avoid it, even when it is imposed up­on them; doe these submit their persons? O­thers there are that stand not much on that, they will vouchsafe to be Constables, or Sheriffs, or the like, they can swallow the trouble which they are not payed for, onely, because in such places they may overtop and beare downe their neighbors; but if the King have any use for their purse, that he shall still finde shut, or if it be ope­ned, it shall bee with a mouth opened also; he shall have a reviling with his subsidy. But these consider not, that they are both wayes to be un­der, that they must thus submit. Submit wee then and that without any force, any constraint. Our Saviour saith, that a Kingdome divided against itselfe cannot stand, and if you doe not thus submit, you will of necessity be divided, the hu­mane ordinance will not easily part with his di­vine right. I told you that the Anabaptist would prove subjection to be unlawfull, because it was brought in by sin, from which they by our Sa­viour are freed; but they erre grossely in saying so, for even in innocency there of necessity must be rule. There would then have been fathers and children, husbands and wives, older and younger together, and to thinke that all these should have [Page 18] been equall, that there should be no subordina­tion amongst them, is a fancy which in absurdi­ty hath no equall. What a motive then is this, why you should be subject, since even man in in­nocency was to submit, hee should be no longer innocent than a subject? If thou wilt not be thus in­structed, O Ierusalem, saith the Prophet, my soule will depart from thee, the Hebrew word signi­fieth shall be loosed or disjointed Ier. 6. 8. Sub­jection and Command are the ligaments of the Commonwealth; if then you will disjoint the commonwealth by taking away subjection from pule, take heed lest you disjoint his soule from you. If he doe, you must needs perish. Rather be ready with the Israelites to Ioshuah, thus to bespeake your Prince All that thou commandes [...] us wee will doe, and whither soever thou sendest us, we will goe, Iosh. 1. 16. To your Prince I say, for that is hee to whom you must submit, He is that humane Ordinance.

OBedience cannot be but to a Superior; if I am subject, it is to one that is above mee: since then I have shewed you the necessity of submission, it will be necessary to shew you unto whom you must submit, and that is To every &c. where we have first the Distribu­tion, 2. the Appellation of Magistrate, and 3. the universality of them. 1. The distribution is into King and Governours [...] and [...] su­preme and those who are sent by him; to these, every one of these we must submit; to the King because he is supreme, to the Governours, be­cause they are sent by him, who is supreme; the chiefe power in the Commonwealth, that is the King; all subordinate, that is the Governour: you can suppose no power but it falls within this distribution, and you must be subject to all that falls within this distribution. The chiefe Magi­strate then was the Roman Emperour, and a­mong the Romanes the name of King was o­dious, yet the Greeke called him by that name which signified a King, this Prince had by league and conquest and inheritance, made himselfe Master of the greatest part of the known world, [Page 20] and so of necessity, where he could not reside himselfe (as Princes persons are not so great as their Empire) thither of necessity he was to send Deputies, Lieutenants, and those are the Governours in my text, to whom, together with him that sent them S. Peter exhorts these brethren to submit. All then that I have formerly spoken of submission, is here to be understood. I shewed you, that you were to submit, and the Apostle tels you that that submissiō must be to the King and to the Governours. But you will say, there are many unprofitable Princes, of whom the Com̄onwealth may cry, as that seditious Bishop did of one of our Kings, Mine head, mine head▪ others, that are harmfull likewise, who will ex­actly represent the King, that Samuel speaketh of, 1. Sam. 8. 14. who will take the fields and vineyards, and oliveyards, even the best of them, from his subjects, and give them to those, whom he pleaseth. Nay worse then this doe not many of them blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called, as S. Iames speakes: And farther, strive to make you blaspheme that worthy name likewise? Is it not possible, that a Turke, an In­fidell may have command over Christians? and is it fit, that Christians should submit to a Turke, or Infidel? Shall he be my King, who is a Re­bel against the King of Kings? or shall not the faithfull subject labour with all his power to de­prive and depose that Prince, who if it lay in his power would depose God? Who is so im­patient, that he would not suffer the Lord to be [Page 21] King? No surely, because he is a bad Prince, this doth not give thee licence, to be a bad subject, and the Christian man must not be a Traytor to an Infidel. Submit yee to the King saith S. Peter [...], as to the Supreme. But if the subject upon any ground, either of Policy or of Religion, either because he was a weake, or a wicked Prince could depose him, then he could punish him, if he could punish him, then he could be his Superiour, then in the same Common­wealth, there could be one above him that is highest, more supreme than the supreme. Every King in his owne Kingdome is [...], the su­preme, and therefore for no misdemeanor what­soever can he be punished by his Subjects, for, that were to make them supreme. Neither let any man object against this, that S. Paul sayeth, that all Magistates are [...], wee render, in au­thority, 1. Tim. 2. 2. And yet wee are sure that all Magistrates cannot be supreme, since we have allready distributed them into subordinate and supreme, I say this maketh nothing against us, since in a divers respect, the same authority may be supreme and subordinate, and even the infe­riour Magistrate, may have a supremacy in re­spect of the people, who, if we consider the King above him, can glory in nothing, but his subor­dination. That [...] hath given him his [...], his supremacy is under an others supre­macy, and there are higher than he. Thus it is manifest, that unlesse there be Higher than the Highest, no subject in any case whatsoever can [Page 22] depose his Prince. Doth Saint Peter tell us this alone? or is it not the verdict of the whole Scri­pture, which doth so uphold Majestie, that though it is the word of God, yet you wil suppose that it is For the King. Is it fit to say to a King, thou art wicked? and to Princes, Yee are ungodly? Iob. 34. 18. It is not fit, in his opinion to say to a King, that he is wicked, and doe you think he would have conceived it fit, to have deposed him for his wickednesse? Doth the speech dislike him, and would he have been contented with the action? Would he have given you liberty, to depose your Prince in case you were so mannerly as not to terme him wicked? In a word doth he tie your tongues onely against your Prince, and would he give a full liberty to your hands? No, he would not have thee to disgrace him, much lesse to de­pose, to unking him. According to that of Moses, Thou shalt not revile the Gods, (for all thy reviling, the holy Ghost esteemes them Gods,) nor curse the ruler of thy people. Exod. 22, 28. Give the King thy Iudgements, O God, is the Psalmists prayer; that is, grant that he may be good; but he sayeth in no place, that in case hee is otherwise, it is law­full for the people to give judgement upon him, that if he be not according to their mind, the wrath of the people, likewise should be as Messengers of death. If this be true; I know not why Solomon should say, that, The Feare of a King is as the roaring of a Lion, if there be so many roa­ring Lions against him, of whom, upon the case of misdemeanor, he may justly be afraid. The [Page 23] Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord, saith the preaching King Prov. 21. 1. But if subjects may judge their Prince, if there be some case, wherein they may not submit to him that is supreme, the Kings heart too often will be in the hands of his people, torne out of his royall breast in a popu­lar insurrection. A Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord; then how wicked soever it bee we must leave it unto his turning. Breifly, By mee Kings raigne, saith the Lord; and shall they be deposed by any other, than by him, by whom they raigne? How then doth Solomon number a­monst those things which are comely in going A King against whom there is no rising up, Prov. 30. 31. If there be so many cases, in which the sub­ject may rise up against him, and throw him downe? Out of these then and the like places let us strongly conclude, That we cannot lawfully rise up against wicked Princes, that we must sub­mit to those, who are supreme, though they be su­preme in wickednesse likewise; and as in their dominion, so in their iniquity, they have no e­quall. But because this is a truth, not affected of the most, because it is opposed by those, who in many other things are contrary, and doe chiefly agree in opposing this, to wit, the Papist, and those who would seeme the more reformed Protestants, I shall not think too much, to speake a little more of it, and defend that which one would thinke, none durst assault, Majesty. A­gainst thee, thee onely have I sinned, saith holy Da­vid; saith he, that would not mince his sin. Ps. 51. 4 [Page 24] How? is the holy Prophet to be reckoned a­mongst those men, who goe on ad excusandas ex­cusationes in peccatis, who aggravate their fault by depressing it, who augment the iniquity of their sinne, because they say, that never or at lest not fully they will confesse? What doe I heare? Against Thee onely have I sinned? Recollect thy selfe ô blessed David, and thou shalt find that though against him chiefly, yet against him onely thou hast not sinned. Hast thou not sinned against Vr [...]jah in taking away first his wifes chastity, and afterwards his owne life from him? Hast thou not sinned against Bathshebah, sinned against her, whom thou so lovedst; nay hast thou not sinned against her, in such a love, by which thou hast made her to be reckoned amongst the foolish women? Hast thou not sinned against the Commonwealth, by giving such a bad ex­ample? against the Commonwealth I say, unto which their Kings actions are the more preval­ling statute? Hast thou not sinned against the Church likewise, against which thou hast open­ed the mouthes of the adversary, who from thee will judge of all other Professors, and say, that lust and murder are the best fruits of thy Reli­gion. Nay, hast thou not sinned against the Ene­mies of the Church likewise, by making them to continue enemies, still to hate the Church, of which before these enormities of thine they might happily have desired to have been mem­bers. Hast thou sinned against all these? and yet darest thou say & that in thy profoundest humi­liation, [Page 25] when thou wouldst be thought rather to weep than speake; nay when thou pretendest such a griefe, that thou wouldst be thought ra­ther to bleed it out than weep, darest thou then say, that thou hast sinned onely against God? yes he dareth say it, and that with as much truth as confidence. He hath sinned in all those respects, which I have mētioned, & yet he may boldly say, that he hath sinn'd only against the Lord; he hath sinned only against the Lord, as against him that can take notice of, and punish him for his sin; a­gainst whomsoever he hath offended besides, it is all one as if he had not offended, in respect of pu­nishmēt; they may dislike, they cannot judge him, they must still submit even to such a Superior. But you will say, that David was a King, and therfore might be partial in his own case, he might affirme that in no respect, the subject might rise against his Prince, not because he thought it true, but because he found it to be convenient, that he did not thinke it safe to divulge that mystery of State, That notorious wickednesse subjected the Prince to his subjects, who could be no longer supreme than vertuous. Well, suppose he was partiall in his owne cause, shall we thinke that he was in Sauls likewise? and yet even then wee see that upon no pretence whatsoever will he make an Inferiour of the Supreme. And yet Saul was as bad as we can imagine, a man that spared those, whom God commanded him to kill, and killed those, which all the motives of Humanity and Religion would have perswaded [Page 26] him to spare, Clementior in Dei hostes quàm in Dei sacerdotes, saith one, who exercised more clemency towards Gods enemies than Gods preists, for he spared the best of their sheep and oxen 1. Sam. 15. 15. but these he utterly destroyed, both men and women, children and sucklings, oxen and asses, and sheep with the edge of the sword, 1. Sam. 22. 19. and which might inflame David the more, all this cruelty was exercised on them, for his sake. What shall I speake of his Tyranny, against the Gibeonites, against the league which God ap­proved of; of his perpetuall seeking of Davids life, who though he was annointed King by Gods appointment, yet he was kept so far from the Crowne that he had no great assurance of his Being; and yet for all this, for all Sauls badnesse in generall, for all his particular hatred against him, though he himselfe likewise was elected by God unto the Kingdome, yet when he had him at advantage, his heart smote him, because he had smote but the garment of the King, Dum ti­muit Deum, non laesit inimicum saith Optatus. It was Sauls oyle defended him and not his armour; David could not in any respect lift up his hand a­gainst the annointed of the Lord, nor not submit himselfe to him that was Supreme. Against this nothing can be replyed, but that David made conscience of what hee needed not, that he was too just; Sauls death had been an Execution not a murder, and therefore Magister hìc non tenetur, they will remember David and all his meekenes, as the Sept. reade it, Ps. 132. 1. They will re­member [Page 27] but they will not imitate it. And yet the Primitive Church would imitate it: For 300. yeares they were under ungodly Emperors, and yet for all that time they did submit. S. Augustin hath a memorable passage, concerning those Christians, that served in the army of Iulian the Apostate: When it came, saith hee, unto Christs cause, then they onely knew him for Supreme who is in heaven &c. but when he said, Goe forth with the Army, goe against such or such a Na­tion, without any more adoe they presently o­beyed; Distinguebant Dominum aeternum à Domi­no temporali, & tamen subditi erant propter Domi­num aeternum, etiam Domino temporali: They could well distinguish between their temporall and eternall Lord, and yet they willingly submit­ted themselves to their temporall for their eter­nall Lord. But for this they have an evasion; S. Paul injoyned, and the Christians for so long a time performed obedience to the higher powers, not because they were bound to it, but because they had no strength, to loose themselves from it; this subjection was more out of weakenesse, than out of Conscience; or if it was out of con­science, it was out of conscience onely of their weakenesse; thus Aquinas, and out of him Bellar­mine, with all the modern Jesuits: Soe that in these mens opinion they did submit for wrath onely, for feare of punishment; could they once but have pleased themselves with their owne strength; had they but consulted with their limbs, and found that they were able to try such [Page 28] a mastery, they then would have broke their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from them; when they could stand up, they then up­on no termes would have submitted. But this very objection did Tertullian answer a thousand yeares before ever it was made. Do you thinke, saith he, to the Heathen, that if we would right our selves by warre, we should want numbers or power. As if the Moores, or Marcomanni, or Parthians, people but of one Nation could be compared with those which fill the whole world. We are strangers to you, and yet we re­plenish all, that is, your Cities, Ilands, &c. onely we have left you your Idolatrous Temples. Cui bello non idonei, non prompti fuissemus etiam impa­res copiis, qui tam libenter trucidamur? What war are not we fit for, even though our numbers were smaller, who count it nothing to be slaine? Onely this hinders us, that apudistam disciplinam magis occidi liceat, quàm occidere, that our profes­sion thinketh it farre more lawfull to be killed than kill; as long as you are supreme, we can doe no other then submit. Besides, were it true that weakenesse onely caused the Christians to con­tinue subject to the Heathen, (which I deny,) yet it were a truth not to be divulged, unlesse we would divulge that which should cut the throats of all Christians; for if once bad Princes shall be informed, that good men will obey them no longer, than till they are strong enough to resist; how will this cause them to keepe downe, to oppresse good men, lest when they [Page 29] ceased to be weake, they would cease to be sub­ject likewise, and doe them most hurt, when they might doe them most good. But what saith Ieremiah to the Jewes Seeke the peace of the Citie whither I have caused you to be caried away Captives, Ier. 29. 7. They are caried away Cap­tives, yet they must seeke the peace of them which carryed them away Captives; they had caused their trouble, and yet they are comman­ded to seeke their peace. Besides, according to the vulgar we reade, He maketh the Hyprocrite to raigne for the sinnes of the people, Job. 34. 30. And we our selves reade, I gave them a King in mine anger. Hos. 13. 11. What God giveth in anger, and for the sinnes of the people, must be Gods just judgement: now it seemeth to be too much sawcinesse, that any man should strive to ex­empt himselfe from Gods judgements; which they seek to doe, who when it is in their power, will depose a wicked King. God giveth his judgements unto Kings, nay divers times he giveth Kings his judgements, and I should thinke, that he did merit a new one, who would not submit unto the former. And, to see the per­versnesse of it, those men that think it unlawfull to fly from a place infected with the plague, be­cause it is Gods judgement, to which we must submit, from which we cannot fly, are most earnest to maintaine that we may depose bad Princes, which yet they cannot deny to be Gods judgement. And yet the Plague is so Gods judgement, that I know not whether it be parti­cularly [Page 30] intended against mee or no, and in that respect may fly from it, when they cannot be ignorant that a bad Prince is their judgement in particular, and yet for all this will fly upon him. But they should consider, God giveth him in his anger, and he taketh him away in his wrath hee, and no other; it is not good that they in their wrath should take away, whom God hath given in his anger. In a word, if Infidelity, or Heresie were a sufficient ground for the subject to rise against his Prince, there were no Prince in Christendome, but might every day feare an insurrection; since by diverse of his subjects, he will be no better esteemed of then an Infidell and Heretick. Where there is a Protestant King, he will be an Infidell to his Popish sub­jects; and where there is a Popish King, he will be an Heretick to his Protestants, especially if either shall be any wayes vehement in his pro­fession. Now if on these pretences either side may take away their submission, who seeth not that the red horse will be let out, who hath power given him to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another. Rev. 6. 4? I conclude this point with this Argument, If it be lawfull to depose a supreme Prince, then it is lawfull in this respect, that he hinders and opposeth true Religion; But we cannot depose him, because he hinders and opposeth Religion, as I have allready shewed: and therefore in no case it will be lawfull to depose him. But you will say, may he doe what he list, may he play with the [Page 31] throats of his subjects, make murder his de­light, ravish their wives, assault their conscien­ces, and yet never be questioned for all this, be­cause he is Supreme? Wee must understand therefore, that such Princes as they, take notice of Davids sentence, Against thee Onely have I sinned, and so are sufficiently protected from the punishment of men; so they should remem­ber, Against Thee have I sinned, and so that they are not free from the punishment of God, which therefore shall be the greater, because it was not prevented by an inferior chastisement, and they shal at length finde, that it is a fearefull, horrendum, a most horrid thing, to fall into the revenging hands of the Lord. May we then up­on no termes seeke to depose him, that is su­preme? Harken then to this yee Papists, that in case of heresie affirme, that the Pope may ex­communicate the subject; nay depose his Prince. Your dictates these are, Defuisse Apostolis Reges, &c. That the Apostles wanted Kings to depose, and not a power of deposing Kings; that the Apostles could have exempted faithfull people from the subjection of Infidell Princes, if they had thought it fitting, or if their power could have effected that which they thought fit­ting. In a word, that they then endured their Persecutors, not for conscience sake, but for want of power to resist, if they had hearts to be Souldiers they would never have had mind to be Martyrs; and they would never have filled the Calendar, if they had had numbers enough to [Page 32] fill an Army. And here I cannot sufficiently wonder at that grosse doating, of the acutest of Schoolemen. Infidelity, saith he, doth not of it selfe destroy Dominion; his meaning is, that it is possible, and, with the good, safe, to be a Prince, and an Infidel together, that a man who hath not faith, may have dominion over them, that are faithfull; and yet in the same place he affirmeth, Infidels who have formerly been faithfull may and ought to be deprived of their dominion by the sentence of the Church. Is not dominion founded on Faith? How then can it be lost by Infidelity? Doth the Houses founda­tion stand, whence then is there a necessity of the houses falling? But if such Apostata Princes could not be so punished, Hoc vergere posset in magnam fidei corruptionem, such their impunity might turne to great damage to the Church; this pitch would defile shrewdly, well: is that the reason why they must be deposed, by the Popes sentence? But before their Apostacy, when they were yet but bare Infidels, they might doe, and perhaps did great harme to the Church, and yet then himselfe confesseth, they were under no Censure of the Church. Briefly, the harme that they doe to the Church, is a just ground of de­posing, or, it is not a just ground: if it be not, why doth he urge it? if it be, then contrary to his owne acknowledgement, even negative Infideli­ty will uncrowne; and against the Apostle, The Church will judge of those who are without. Againe, is it in nocase lawfull, to depose the [Page 33] supreme power? Then what shall we say to those pretended brethren of ours, who though they confesse it unlawfull for the people, indulge it to the Superiors? who dare affirme that in re­gard of incorrigible excesses, a Prince may be put downe by subordinate Magistrates? But what are subordinate Magistrates? are they not the [...] here mentioned? these Governors in my Text? and what is said of these Governors? is it not, that they are sent by him, who is su­preme? Now it would be most strange, if he that were sent should have a power over him, that sent him; that the Governour should trample downe the Supreme. This sending is his delega­tion, now he that hath a power to make, hath a power to revoke his delegate; and he were too unwise if he would not revoke it then, when he saw that they would prove Authenticall rebells against his owne self. It is true, he that hath the sword, hath it not in vaine; but it is as true, that he that put the sword into his hand, can pull it out againe at his pleasure, and few will be of Traians mind in any case, to charge inferior Ma­gistrates to imploy their swords against them­selves. I had thought that what S. Peter had said of servants in respect of their Masters, had been appliable to inferiors in respect of the Supreme, Bee subject in all feare, not onely to the good and gen­tle, but also to the Froward. 1. Pet. 2. 18. Name what vice you will in a Prince, it is but his Fro­wardnesse, and God forbid, that we should be re­bells, because he wil be Froward. And they that re­sist, [Page 34] saith S. Paul, shall receive to themselves damna­tion. Rom. 13. 2. They whosoever they be, People or Magistrate, You or They which are sent, if they shall resist the Supreme, there is nothing remaines but damnation; they shall be Fiends in Hell, who in Earth will not be good subjects. Lastly, wee must submit to them who are sent likewise, to the Inferiors; he must not resist the Supreme, but wee must obey him. Now those Governours are either Civill or Ecclesiasticall, your obedience to the Civill I have fully pressed before, and I shall need to say no more for your submission to the Ecclesiasticall likewise, but that he is sent by the Supreme, and we are to obey him, and those, who are sent by him. Let us not then with some perverse men judge of Religion by our stubborn̄es against Bishops, nor prove that we are called from hence, because we can be bit­terly witty against their calling. Rather consider we, that such are in dignities, and S. Iude termeth thē but filthy dreamers, who speak evil of digni­ties. O let not us be filthy, who would be accoun­ted Pure, nor be dreamers who would be estee­med of all men to be the onely wakefull ones. But because I shall speake more of this in my next dis­course, concerning the appellation of Magistrates, that they are call'd an humane Creature, I wil add no more at this time, but a Thanksgiving to our Divine Creator, to whom, Father, Sonne &c.

WE have heard the Distribution, let us now proceed to the Appellation of the Magistrate: they are either supreme or subordinate; Kings, or they who are sent by them: but supreme, and subordinate; Kings, and they who are sent by them, are here called, their Appellation is but, an Humane Creature. This therefore shall be the method of of our proceeding: Wee will first shew why the Magistrate is called an humane Creature, accor­ding to the Greeke, and then what the humane ordinance may signifie, according to the English: Submit your selves, therefore, unto every ordinance; or, to every Creature of man.

1. To the humane Creature, and why the Magistrate to whom we must submit is termed 1. so. And that may be principally to humble him; that they may learne what David taught the Na­tions, that they are but men. Naturall it is for all those that are in high places to thinke too highly of themselves, to raise their mind and counte­nance and outward port unto their places, that so others may have the greater estimation of them, nay they do too often forget their owne condition; and when once their mountaine is made so strong, they are ready to give out, that they shall never be removed. Nihil est quod credere [Page 36] de se non possit, cum laudetur Dii [...] aequa potestas, Make a God of a Man once, and he will be ready to perswade himselfe, that he can doe all things. When Moses did first deliver his message to Pharaoh concerning the dismission of the Israe­lites, all the reply he could get from that proud Prince was this, Who is the Lord? Exod. 5. 2. as who should say, I know no other Lord but my selfe, there is no God but Pharaoh. Thus Rab­shakeh, when he would have wonne Jerusalem by words, when he would have intreated them out of their necessary defence, what argument doth he presse more eagerly than this, that they should not beleeve that the Lord could defend thē? Who are they amongst all the Gods of the Lands, that have delivered their Land out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Ierusalem out of my hand. Es. 36. 20? The Lord could not deliver them, why? because the King of Assur would oppresse them, then of necessity in his judgement the King of Assur was of greater power than the Lord. So the King of Tyrus, if he enjoy a City inriched and fortified by the Sea, his heart is straight lifted up, as it were with a wave of the sea▪ and he is ready to say, I am a God, I sit in the seate of God, in the midst of the Se [...]. Ezech. 23. 2. Thus, not to trouble you with multitudes, the Pope calls himselfe, at least suffers others to call him Vice-God, the onely Deity on Earth, the Best and Greatest. Lest then those, that are in au­thority should imitate these impieties, left they should make their irreligion of higher note then [Page 37] their dignity, the same Spirit that termes them Gods, sayth in the next breath, that they shall die like men, that they shall find at length themselves to be but Humane Creatures; that they are but humane Creatures, I say, whose breath is in their nostrills, whom the Poet could call [...]. a thin shadow, a very nothing to talk of. Doe they not come into the world the same homely way with their subjects? and when they are entred in thither, are they not as weake and froward infants as the meanest? Can they command away those yeares of childishnesse, that they may sud­denly be men, that they may suddenly be sen­sible of the glory of their height? And whē they have attained unto those yeares, when they thinke of nothing but Empire and Dominion, yet how many things are there then, which if they should be so foolish as to command, they should never be so fortunate as to see done? They cannot make the Sunne rise a minute before his appointed time, and when he is once risen, till his owne time againe they cannot cause him to set; it is in their power to take mens lives away, that they shall not see the Sunne, but it is not in their power to obscure the Sunne; even but for that one instant, that he might not see their Cruelty. What can he doe to the Ayre? unlesse perhaps this be much, that he can build a Tower, which shall look up high into it; to the top of which if he do ascend, he may perceive the smal birds flying about him, and securely smiling at his commands: and for the Sea, there is a pretty [Page 38] story of our Canutus a Dane, that sometimes conquered England, who being magnified by his Flatterers to be one, that could doe what he pleased; to whom, as unto God, nothing that he willed was impossible, and so that he was more than an Humane Creature; he to expresse his modesty and cause their shame, commanded his Royall throne to be set neer to the sea-side a­gainst the comming in of the Tide: in briefe, he forbad the sea to touch his throne, but that remitted nothing of its pace, for all his forbid­ding; and had not his servants been more offi­cious than the Sea, he might have been well washed for his labour; but this he did to the end that they might see how that he did not esteeme so highly of himselfe, but that with the Kingly Prophet he kept his soule downe, like a weaned child. But you will say? that though he have no power over the Elements, yet he can command men. I reply, that he can neither command those that are dead, nor those who are not yet borne, he commands but men, and he cannot command all them neither. And for diseases, which of them can he injoine, to punish any of his rebells? nay which of them can he forbid, when God sends it, to punish his owne selfe? But in a word, he can by no meanes free himselfe from death, after all his glory, all his pompe, all his magnificences, [...] one Night or one Feaver sends him to the grave, and teacheth him then, that he is but an humane Creature. Man, even this man, even a King dieth, he [Page 39] wasteth away, yea hee giveth up the Ghost, and where is he? Job 14. 10. Which maketh the holy Ghost to insult over the overweening King of Tyre, Wilt thou yet say before him that slaieth thee, I am God? Ezech. 28. 9. as who should say, at that time thou hast learned perfectly that thou art but man. Mors sola fatetur, quantula sunt hominum corpuscula, we never know our true quantity till our death, till in the Prophets phrase the worme be spread under us, and the worme cover us; till that alone covers us which will leave nothing at length to bee covered. Which meditation did so inflame Origen, that he cryeth out in his first Hom. in Ps. 36. You that doe so admire these great Men, these Kings and Governours, goe saith he, ad Cadaverum eorum reliquias &c. to the remainder of their carkasses, if so be it be possible to find them, if this humane Creature be not al­together lost, by being the food of some other Creature. But last of all, they are as subject unto judgment as the meanest of their brethrē; We shall all stand before the judgment seate of Christ. Rom. 14. 10. Kings & Governours are not exempted from standing there, and they who have commanded all upon earth, if they have dyed out of Gods fa­vour, shall intreat as vainely as the poorest, that the mountaines would cover them from the fierce anger of the Lord. Thus you see that they are but men, and that it is fit they should know it. What comfort then is here to them who are unjustly dealt with and opprest by proud great­nesse? Let them threaten as fearefully as they [Page 40] will, yet it is possible those threatnings may want effect. A man cannot doe all that he would, nay and if they have done any great harme, either in their body, goods or name, yet there is comfort for the unjust sufferer; they are but men, and it is possible to outlive a man: nay, if finally they have taken away al hopes of expecting their death, by taking away their life, yet their comfort ends not with their life. Still they are certaine that their Enemies are but Humane Creatures, and with Solomons rejoycing young man, God shall bring them into judgement. And then what will it profit them to have been great men, and to have done what pleased them, when they shall be found but men, miserable men that cannot a­void the damnation of hell? S. Paul saith to the distressed Christians for the losse of their friends, Comfort yee one another; and let us say to ty­rannizing Superiours, to Kings and Governours who will trample on them, that doe submit, fright yee one another with these words. But a­gaine are Kings and Governours, Supreme, and those who are sent by them, but men? Why then inferiors cannot bee excepted from the common frailty, without doubt they cannot be more than Humane Creatures. What then shall we say to the Covetous, whose eye lusteth after what­soever it seeth, from whom Naboth cannot keep his vineyard if it lie commodious for him? sure­ly this man hath goods laid up for many yeares, but he hath forgot, that this night they shall take away his soule from him, and then whose shall those [Page 41] things be which thou hast provided? Luc. 12. 20. As who should say, Whosoevers they be, thine they cannot be, wherfore then doest thou so strive to get what thou art sure thou canst not keepe? Why wouldst thou prove an eternity by thy un­limited love of riches? and by the perpetuall la­bouring for them flatter thy selfe that thou art a divine, when indeed thou art but an Humane Creature? In a word, thou art either God or man; if God, thou hast no need of riches; if man, thou canst not have an eternity of being rich; that must have an end, which is no more than an Humane Creature. In time then forsake this vanity, enter at length into thy selfe, and say with him in the Preacher, For whom doe I labour and bereave my soule of good? Eccl. 4. 8. For whom doest thou labour? for thy self? but thou shalt not live to enjoy it, thou art but a man. For another? but perhaps he doth not deserve to injoy it, at lest he doth not deserve it thus far, that for him thou shouldst bereave thy soule of good: & if it were possible that he could deserve that likewise, yet because he is but an humane creature, it is possible that he may die before thee, and than the questiō wil stil return a question that thou canst never be able discretely to satisfie, For whom doe I labour and bereave my soule of good? if thou doest la­bour, thus labour &c. thou bereavest thy soule of good, as of others principally, so of this also, of the longer stay in the body: thou art so cove­tous because that thou hast forgot thy mortality, and by that covetousnesse thou doest but hasten [Page 42] thy mortality, and so onely the sooner prove thy selfe to be but an Humane Creature.

2. The Magistrate may be called an Humane Creature, because he is elected by men, as we know divers nations doe choose their Kings, ac­cording to that of the Panegyricke, Eligatur ex omnibus, qui imperet omnibus, all must have the choice of him, who is to have the rule of all. But, this we shall have a better occasion to discusse, when we come to the first reason of our submis­sion, which is, for the Lord.

3. Then, the Magistrate may be termed an humane Creature, because he is ordained for the benefit of humane creatures; nothing doth bet­ter agree with man, than a good Magistrate; and yet because I shall speake of this in my second reason of submission, to wit, the end why the Magistrate was given, I shall say but little to it in this place, onely this, that if the Magistrate be for our good, this can be no small motive to our submission. In the Fable, the Horse quarrels with the Hart, who being too hard for him, he desireth the assistance of the man, the man pro­miseth if he will let him ride him; in brief, the Hart yeilds to subjection, so he may have de­fence, he will suffer the man to ride him; rather than his enemy to overcome him. Nay, in the History, the Campani having many factions a­mongst themselves, and powerfull enemies of their neighbours the Samnites, willingly offered themselves up, to be servants to the State of Rome, so that the Romans would protect them [Page 43] from the Samnites, so their enemy might not prevaile they would be content, with what Ma­gistrate soever, and they were so in love with this humane Creature, that they would sell their liberty for it. How then can we disapprove, what they so generally liked of? How should we thinke our selves reasonable men, if we did not affect this humane Creature? And thus much for the word as wee reade it in the Greek. Come we now to our English, ORDINANCE, which I told you might be taken for law, & from hence­forth inforce, that as we are obedient to the Prince, So we must be to his law likewise, to e­very Governour and to every law. But before we handle that: doe not we all cōclude, that All good things come from God, and that Lawes are a­mongst the numbers of good things? Doe not we know that they are onely inferences and de­ductions & determinations as it were of the Law of nature? and is not the Law of nature imme­diately from God? for instance, that a murtherer should be put to death, is the Law of nature, but, that he should bee put to this death, is an hu­mane Constitution: God saith, Let him die, but the King, Hang him. Are lawes from God, and yet shall we dishonor them, as an invention of man? are they a divine, and shall we terme them but an Humane Ordinance? Surely all good Lawes even of men are Divine and Humane: Divine in their Principles, Humane in their Conclusions. God saith, That the thing shall be done, and man, So. And that determination of mans may be termed [Page 44] an humane Ordinance, as the Magistrate him­selfe is called an humane Ordinance; not so much because man made it, as because it is made for the good of men. To a good Law, therefore it is required, that the Efficient should have Power, and the Matter, Goodnesse, at least no ill in it. If the Lawgiver hath authority, if the matter of the Law be good, or at least not evill, it hath all the Conditions required to an Humane Ordinance, and to such we must obey. The Ancients did shadow a Law under the figure of a Crowne, because as a Crowne compassed and kept in what was under it, so should the Law likewise, and therefore S. Hierome expounds that Pythagorean Rule [...] that we ought not to vio­late the crowne, after this manner, we ought not to teare or violate the Lawes, but keep them in their full vigor. And for this reason likewise they are compared to hedges, because as the hedge defends, and incloseth, so likewise doth the Law, it defends from violence of others; it incloseth and keepes us in, lest we should vio­late others, it is a strong hedge. And therefore well was it termed by the Greeks [...] be­cause it gave every one his due, defence to him that wanted it, and punishment to those who de­served it. If all this will not move thee to submit to it, yet consider it is an humane Ordinance, and to that God hath commanded thee to sub­mit. But, what if it be bad, you will say? what if it command mee to blaspheme my God, prosti­tute my wife, or with those wicked Barbarians, [Page 45] after certaine yeares, in case they lived too long, to become the Executioner of mine owne Fa­ther? Shall I submit then? No surely: for I ex­hort thee, to submit onely to a law, but these are no Lawes, but authorized impieties, but trans­gressions with a priviledge. Mihi lex esse non vide­tur, quod non justa fuerit, saith S. Austine; in his O­pinion what was not just could be no Law, and nothing can be more unjust than these tyranni­call Injunctions. In breif, I commend the Obe­dience performed unto Humane, I detest that which is done to devilish Ordinances. Take a reason out of the Text. Wee must so obey the Governours, those that are sent, that at the same time we must not disobey the King, the Supreme; solikewise we must submit our selves to the Lawes of the King, of the Supreme, but never when they contradict the knowne Commands of God, who hath sent them. But in case they are not contrary to Gods Lawes, we must submit, and that to their Ecclesiasticall Lawes likewise. The greatest Enemy of the Churches government can, in dis­grace say no more than this, that her Canons are but an Humane Ordinance, and yet we bring an infallible demonstration of the necessity, of our Obedience to those Lawes, even because they are an Humane Ordinance. The text saith, Submit yee unto every ordinance of man. How justly are they then to be reprehended, who, although they make conscience of other Lawes, doe se­curely contemne and deride these? insomuch that they who breake them, are termed good men, & [Page 46] whosoever stands up in the defence of them, and would by reason first, and in case that prevaileth not, by punishment, bring them to their obser­vation, are said to be Persecutors of goodnesse and of good men. A strange delusion of the De­vill, that whom S. Peter calleth presumptuous, self­willed, because they speak evill of dignities, 2. Pet. 2. 10. they for the same reason should count the onely godly. I was informed by one, that before my comming hither, here was flourishing Holi­nesse, as if since, there were no holinesse, at least that it was decaied by my fault. Now I appeale to your Consciences, whether I have not as my Text led mee exhorted you to all vertues of the first and second Table, and I am not guilty, how I have any way hindered Holinesse, unlesse it hath been by opposing Religious disobedience. What their Holinesse was before my comming, and whether Flourishing or but a Flourish, I judge not, God will; but if it were no other Ho­linesse than that which I oppose, they must give mee leave to call it but Holy Faction, for onely with that have I an enmity: whereof a part is this, that they will not obey that part of the Churches Law, which binds every one at the time of prayer, to frequent his owne Church. Wee urge the Law why they should come, and they this reason why they will not; The Law that binds us to a presence at the afternoone Service is either absolute or else admits of some Excep­tions. If Absolute, then in no case whatsoever may a man absent himselfe, then he must not [Page 47] follow his merchandize abroad, then it will bee a sin to be sick, for at that time he cannot come to his owne Church, but if the Law admit of these Exceptions, then why not this likewise, that since for their temporall, much more for their spirituall benefit they may be absent. Before I answer this, I will give them a like argument, that so by comparing both together they may judge whether theirs bee solid or no. The Law that binds us to a presence &c. in the Forenoon, or when we have Sermons, is either Absolute or hath some Exceptions, if Absolute, then all the former inconveniences follow, if it hath excep­tions, then if for our temporall good, why not, much rather for our spirituall good may wee not absent our selves even in the Forenoone, or when at home we have a Sermon? since others may preach more effectually than our owne Minister, and so from others, I may have more spirituall good, than I can have from him. I appeale to their owne Consciences, whether such an argu­ment be sound or no. If they say it is, then one Church shall be oppressed, when another is empty; one Minister will suspect an other, as if hee drew away his flock from him; there would be as many schismes as priests; and because a­mongst the Ministers, none is so well gifted, but some are, or would be thought better, whilest all runne after the best, there would be no cer­taine hearing of any, and we should have nothing but Confusion. But if they confesse the truth, that it is a weake kind of arguing, then they [Page 48] spoile their owne reason, which was the same in effect with this. To which in brief I answer, That the Law concerning &c. admits of Exceptions, but onely of such which are not against the in­tent of the Law. The intent of the Law is to pre­vent Schisme, and therefore to cause men to fre­quent their owne Churches. Now they that tra­vell, doe not crosse this intent, there is no feare of Schisme in them; and when they can, they doe frequent it, but they that goe to heare sermons abroad, for their spirituall good, as they pretend, take the ready way to make a Schisme, and doe never frequent their owne Churches. Now it would be strange, if the same Law, which was made to cause men to frequent their owne Churches, should admit of an Exception by which they never should come thither. But they may be absent for their Temporall, why then not for their spirituall good? Surely, because there is not the same reason: should they not trade a­broad, they were not able to live, but you will not say, that should they not heare abroad, it were impossible that they should be saved. This truth will be cleare in some few syllogismes. If it were lawfull to breake the Churches Law, then chiefly for our spiritual good we might break it. But we may not break it for our spirituall good, Ergo. The Minor is thus proved, If we may injoy as much spirituall good, by keeping as by breaking it, then wee may not breake it for our spirituall good. But wee may enjoy as much spi­rituall good by keeping as by breaking it, Ergo. [Page 49] The Minor is againe proved. All the good that wee can get by breaking it, is but the Confirma­tion of our Faith; But, the Confirmation of our Faith we may have, even when wee keep it. The Major appeareth; For, who are they that breake the Law, but such who account themselves called, and justified already? Now, I may be Confirmed, I may be strengthned, but I cannot be called after I am called. And for the Minor that our Faith may be confirmed though we keep the Law and stay at home, is manifest out of their owne confessions, which yeild thus much, that though the word preached alone begets, yet the word but read onely may nourish Faith. Thus if onely they keepe away, and break an Humane Ordinance, for their spirituall good, and that spirituall good be but confirmation of their Faith, and that confirmation they might have had at home without the breach of any Law, who seeth not that it is far safer to obey than to contest, to be subject to, rather than to subject under us, these humane Ordinances. I will presse but one reason more, and that upon a ground by themselves confessed. Where ever God hath commanded a thing in generall, there the Church may determine the particularities; as where God saieth, Let all things be done in Or­der, the Church may particularly describe, what that order shall be, and such a Command of the Church is to be received as a Law of God; this ground is confessed: But concerning Hearing there is a Command of God in generall, and a [Page 50] particular Command of the Church, concerning what persons and in what place, to wit, their owne Pastor in his owne Cure; therefore that Law is a Law of God to us, and so by all meanes must be kept. If they shall cavill, that they are onely bound to heare but when the Minister doth preach; I answer, that in the Law there is no such thing, they must not leave their Mini­ster when they may heare him, and they may heare him when he but reades the word of God. Examine and weigh these reasons, (for I stand to my former Protestation, which was mistooke for a threatning:) if these reasons be firme, fol­low them, if they be infirme, make it appeare, and I will follow you; but I am certaine you cannot make it appeare, unlesse you can produce some Ordinances of man, and that not contrary to Gods Law, unto which we are not bound to be subject. O then my beloved, let us no longer walke in the light of our owne eyes, nor follow that which Saint Hierome termes the worst Ma­ster, our owne Presumption. Away with those vaine words▪ [I care not for the commands of men] seeing in saying so you disobey the com­mand of God, who hath commanded you to obey men. You know what Saint Paul saith▪ The powers which be, are ordained of God; whosoever therefore resists the power, resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. Rom. 13. 1. 2. Submit your selfe to God, though you despise the Humane Crea­ture; and though you care not for his Ordi­nance, [Page 51] yet be afraid of damnation. Nei­ther talke, that you must have your Supper as well as your Dinner, that is, the afternoone as well as the morning Sermon. Know you not, that if you urge that proportion between Ser­mons and Dinners too farre, you will finde nothing but absurdities? For if you have two Sermons on the Lords day, and one in the Weeke, you suppose you are abundantly fed; but if you should receive no more corporall su­stenance in the Weeke, you would hardly sub­sist untill the Sunday. Besides, my carnall nou­rishment benefits mee onely at the present, but my spirituall, though it be almost neglected at the present, may upon Meditation, benefit mee many yeares after. Adde to this, that where you want the afternoone Sermon, you want not your Supper, as you terme it: for where you have a Sermon you may have per­haps a more plentifull repast, but whereever the word is, there is the meale. Besides, God regards not the multitude, but the use of Sermons, and if thou hast forsaken thine iniquity, if thou doest firmely cleave to thy Maker, it is all one to him whether it be after one, or one hundred Ser­mons. Wilt thou have him aske of thee, Who hath required these things at thy hands? and yet he must inquire it of thee, if thou wilt bind they selfe necessarily to heare two Sermons a day, which he hath never injoyned, and wilt not submit thy selfe to the Churches Lawes which he hath commanded. It is a good thing [Page 52] to heare Sermons, but a good thing must be done well. It is a good thing to heare Sermons, but not at all times, not at all places. If thou a poore man shalt goe to heare them in the weeke dayes when thou shouldst provide for thy Fa­mily; by hearing Sermons, thou mayst doe against the Duty, which thou shouldst learne in Sermons, the duty being this, that thou shouldst not heare them then; and so if thou heare not in the right Place, God will not so approve of thy Hearing, as he will be angry with thee for the Place. For I have showed you, that this partiall Hearing opens a gappe unto Schisme. O doe not make Preaching guilty of that Crime, nor let it be truely accu­sed, to be the scattering of that Church for whose collecting it was ordained. But if mans Lawes thus bind us, certainely Gods Law farre more; and one of his Lawes is, concerning the receiving of this blessed Sacrament. Which that you may doe well, consider what you are who are the Guests; what he is, who is the Food. We poore, sinnefull, miserable men; Hee, the rich, most pure and blessed God. God I say is our Food; our Food, whosoever draw neare with Faith unto this Table. It was a wonder when man was fed with the bread of Angels; what wonder then is this, when the Beleever is fed with him, that made the Angels? He opens his hand and fills all other things with his blessing, but the Faithfull with himselfe. For as sure, as we receive the Creature into [Page 53] our mouth and stomach, so sure our Faith maketh us receive our Creator in our heart: and if we shall receive him into our Soule, he will receive us into his Kingdome, there to raigne with him for ever.

WE have already shewed you what you must doe, you must submit; you have likewise heard, unto whom this must be done, and that is every Ma­gistrate, every Ordinance of man, whether Su­preme or Subordinate, whether they be Kings, or those, who be sent by them. But because proud nature cannot indure to submit, and alwayes striveth that it selfe may be Supreme, our A­postle doth not onely praescribe the dutie, but he giveth us reasons for it, and the first of them is drawne from the First from the Alpha of all things, as S. Iohn termeth him. Wee must sub­mit, and that, first, For the Lords sake, For so is the will of God. Where I shall shew you that we are exhorted to obedience, from Gods institution, & Command; frō his institution of the Magistrate, and from his Command, that we should obey the Magistrate. The Institution we have vers. 13. For the Lords sake; as who should say, Obey the Ma­gistrate for the Lords sake, who made him so: and the command vers. 15. For, so is the Will of God, so, to wit, that you should submit to every Ordinance of man &c. And that the Magistrate, the Ordinance of man, is a divine Institution, an Ordinance of God, is most cleare to every one, that respects God and that Ordinance. Iudges and Officers shalt thou make thee in all the Gates which [Page 56] the Lord thy God giveth thee throughout thy Tribes Deut. 16. 18. The people shall make the Officers, but it is by Gods Command that they shall make them, he that giveth the Gates, giveth the Magistrate likewise, who shall execute judge­ment in those Gates. This is acknowledged by Daniel, Hee (he meaneth the Lord,) removeth Kings, and sets up Kings. Dan. 2. 21. He that re­moveth, sets up; he that taketh away doth insti­tute Kingdomes, and he is no other than the Lord. Give yee unto Caesar the things which are Cae­sars, is our Saviours command Matt. 22. 21. Cae­sar hath some Things which he may challenge, and it is our Saviours injunction, that those things should be given him, now what could he challenge, had not God given him a right, and hee gave him that right when he made him Cae­sar, when he bestowed his Magistracy upon him. When Pilate was boasting of his Authority, daring to affirme, that it was in his power either to release or Crucifie the Sonne of God; Christ replyeth, not by denying his power, but by shewing whence he had it, Thou couldst have no power at all against mee except it were given thee from above. Joh. 19. 11. Hee doth not say, thou hast no power, but he affirmeth, that if he hath any power, he hath it from above; Pilate hath his Power from thence, from whence Christ hath his nativity; in a word, Daniel frights Nebuchad­nezzar, that they shall make him to eate grasse as the Oxen, and expresseth how long this shall continue, to wit, till thou knowest that the most [Page 57] High ruleth in the Kingdomes of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. Dan. 4. vers. 25. that, which Nebuchadnezzar was to know by such a miserable experiment▪ was most true, and he was to know that God onely made this Ordi­nance of man. A truth confest by the Poet [...] and confirmed by the Historian e­specially Iustin out of Trogus Pompeius that at first the Governours were Monarchs, and their Wills, the Lawes; which could not have been, had the people been their Creators, had they not received thē, & that with all the inconveniences accōpanying them, as a gift of God. But you will say, No man doubts whether that God be the Au­thor of the Magistrate, whether it be for the Lords sake, that there is government amongst men, since God is the God of order, and not of con­fusion; now what order would there be, where there not some under, and some above, some that were to cōmand in chiefe, & others, whose duty was to obey. But the question is, whether God be the immediat Author of the Magistrate? whe­ther as he ordaines, that there shall be a Magi­stracy, so whether he purposeth that there shall be this kind of Magistracy, and this man Magi­strate? I cleare it thus. That God ordaineth Go­vernment, no man doubts, since it doth not de­pend upon the consent of men whether they wil be governed or no, for if it did they might refuse to have any government, which were the ready way for the destruction of Mankind, whose liber­ty is so dangerous, that he can last no longer, than [Page 58] he is governed, that cannot be if he be not sub­ject: but whether he ordaineth, that people shall be governed by one onely, which rule we call a Kingdome or a Monarchy; or by the chiefest and best of the Commonwealth, which is called an Aristocracy; or lastly, by the command of the people, which goeth under the name of Demo­cracy; and whether God at the first did invest any particular man or men in any of these fore­mentioned kinds of government; this is disputed amongst Divines, some affirming that as Magi­stracy is Gods Ordinance, so is the Magistrate also, others beeing peremptory, that as one is from God, to wit Government, so the other is from man, to wit, the kind of Governour, that so at least in some sense, the Magistrate may be ter­med an Ordinance of man. Man must needs have somewhat to doe in his Election, otherwise if God doe all in all, how is he in any respect ter­med mans Ordinance? But these suppose, that which Sensible men can never grant, that the Ac­cident could be ordained without the Subject in which it is, that Magistracy could be executed without any Magistrate to execute it. Now we know that Magistracy is a thing, which cannot exist without a person, who should execute it▪ as absurd therefore it is to say, that God ordained Magistracy and not a Magistrate, as to affirme, that he made whitenesse, and no Wall nor other solid body, in which it should subsist; or that he made Faith and Hope, and yet no Creature in the world, which should have Faith and Hope: if [Page 59] then God be the Ordainer of Magistracy, he or­daines it in some Magistrate, he that executeth this Authority is from the Lord. And that upon better consideration our Adversaries will at length grant; Common sense tells them that he which institutes a Ministry, must institute a Mi­nister; and what Schismatick would care for E­piscopall jurisdiction, were there no Bishop ap­pointed to put it in execution? So then they con­fesse, that this power is in some subject; that God ordaining Magistracy, ordaineth a Magistrate: but they make the Subject of this power to bee the people. Bell. 3. l. de Laic. ca. 6. Secundò mira. But surely these men forget, what they have said be­fore, and the proceeding in such like discourse is not to fill a book but to blot it; that which fol­loweth being directly contrary to the former. They confesse the Magistrate to be from the Law of nature, and they cannot deny but that the Law of nature as it will be of force to the end, so it was from the beginning of Mankind. But was Mankind created in Multitudes? Did not God of one bloud make all Nations of men? as Saint Paul teacheth us Act. 17. 26. We know that there was a time; when there was but Adam and his wife, Cain & his brother in the world. I demand, was there then a Magistrate? if they say there was not, they must deny that Magistracy is from the Law of nature; if they say that there was, they must unsay, that the Magistracy is in the multi­tude, unlesse they will make the Accident to be before the Subject, and Magistracy in the Multi­tude, [Page 60] whilst yet there was no multitude, in which that Magistracy should be. But if they will make three a multitude, and Eve with Cain and Abel are those three, I shall againe inquire, why they shall rather place the power of government in them than in Adam, since all they sprang from Adam, and even the light of nature will guide us to this truth, that they which proceed from one ought to be subject unto him from whom they proceed? There is a Divine, and hee of some note too, who having made the question, whether subjects were before Princes, and ordained them; or Princes were before Subjects, and caused those to submit to their Dominion: answeres, that both in re­gard of nature and of Time, Subjects were before Princes, and gave them their power. But to omit, that these words Subject & Prince are Relative, and so neither can be before, or after another, for as soone as ever there is a Prince, he is the Prince of some Subjects; and as soone as ever there is a Subject, he is the Subject of some Prince: to omit this I say, it seemeth when he wrot these words he had forgot the first chapters of Genesis where Adam without doubt was before his grand chil­dren, and it remaineth (an hard taske for him to prove) that Adams Grand-children chose him to be the Prince over them. But if they shall reply, that Adams power was rather Fatherly than Princely, such an answer will prove no better than meer winde; for if it were so, yet as Saint Augustine hath well observed, Even as in speech one letter, so in government one Man est quasi E­lementum [Page 61] Civitatis & regni, the first element, the beginning of a Citie and Kingdome; now one letter is before the whole speech, & the govern­ment of one man is before the government of many: in briefe, a Family is ruled before a King­dome. But it doth not from hence follow, that a Kingdome is ruled quite contrary to a Family; that whereas in a Family the Fathers authority doth not depend upon the Children, in a King­dome the Princes authority should accrue to him by his Subjects. Besides, a Fatherly power is but over one Family, a Princely over many; they then who deny Adams Princely Authority must confine his Authority to his owne Family, must deny it to extend unto his childrens children, which with what authority they doe, it stands up­on them to consider. But if those first times are so farre removed from us, that in the search of them we can find nothing but obscurity, yet im­mediatly after the Floud, we have evident con­firmations of this truth, that one Supreme Magi­strate, (call him King, or Judge, or Father &c. but one supreme Magistrate) is immediately from God, that the Lord ordaining the power, ordai­ned the numericall person, that should execute it. Gen. 9. 6. we reade Whosoever sheads mans bloud, by man shall his bloud be shed. Here on all sides it is confessed, that there is an institution, or at lest a Confirmation of the Magistrate. He that kills, must be killed; but not rashly, nor by any one that lists, for the intent of the Law is to prevent murder, and such an interpretation would in­crease [Page 62] it, one would kill another, because he had killed his friend, an other would kill him for kil­ling, and so a third him, and thus in infinitum; then to prevent this mischiefe, the murtherer must be killed by him that is in authority, which pre­supposeth that there is one in Authority, who lawfully may kill him. But, who were then in the world? Surely, onely Noah & his Family, amongst these we must seeke the Magistrate who might lawfully shed the bloud of the Murtherer. In Noahs wife and Sonnes it could not bee, we can­not imagine them to have the command of their Father, of necessity it must be in Noah, that alone Emperour of the world. So that I hope it appea­reth sufficiently by this, that as the Magistracy is from God, so the Magistrate likewise; in parti­cular by man shall the murtherers bloud be shed, and, that man in those dayes was Noah. Is then the Magistrate the Ordinance of God? How should this inflame the Magistrate to all good­nesse, keep him back from all Evill, that being from God, he may be for God likewise, that he may not by his bad life call in question the Author of his Calling. Is he a Divine Or­dinance? why then, as Solomon tells us, A Divine Sentence should bee in the lips of the King. Proverb. 16. 10. according to that advice of Iehosaphat, he saith, Take heed what yee doe, for yee judge not for man, but for the Lord. 2. Chr. 19. 6. & we may say, that they are therefore to take heed what they doe, because they judge not from man but from the Lord; he onely is the Author [Page 63] of their power. Againe, is the Magistrate, and more especially the government by one, the or­dinance of God, how thankfull ought we to be unto God, that out of his tender mercy hath be­stowed this best and primitive kind of govern­ment upon us? There is none amongst us igno­rant, What Peace, what riches, what safety, and beyond all, what a truth of the word, and for what a space of time we have enjoyed this truth: and all these blessings I dare say, next unto the mer­ciful providence of God, we owe unto our forme of government. Not that I condemne other formes, no I condemne them not, I know that there is no power but from God, onely I desire leave to preferre our owne, wherein we have had the so long experience of multitudes of bles­sings, that all Christendome put together, may well envy them, but hardly be able to shew the like; In a word, God hath not dealt so with any nation; neither hath any Christian Kingdome so full a knowledge of his Favours: If then we shall despise this governmēt which I shewed you that God did institute in Adam and Noah; if contrary to the Israelites, who desired to be like to other nations by having a King wee shall desire to be like other nations by not having a King, but fan­cy to our selfe a better forme of rule, if either the nobles or the people were the Magistrate; shall we not shew our selves wonderous unthankfull unto God? shall we not deserve to lose his mer­cy for our disrepute of it? But you will say, you are not so traiterously foolish, you find, and [Page 64] would still enjoy the benefits of a Monarchy. Well, it is my desire, & hope that it is so, but I re­member what our late King was wont to say, No Bishop, no King; as if they, who would pull downe Bishops would pul down Kings likewise, & bring that parity into the Commonwealth, on which they so doated in the Church. I am sure the Ana­baptists urge the same text, against the one as plausibly as they doe against the other. It shall not be so among you, to witt Rule and Superiority; amongst Christians, saith the Anabaptists; amongst Ministers saith the Diseiplinarian: yet both wide enough from Christs meaning, which is not to forbid Government, but Ambition; nor to deny them to rule at all, but so as the Princes of the Gentiles. Let us then in Gods name sub­mit unto Gods ordinance, and that for the pas­sionatenes of S. Peters exhortation, he doth woo us unto this dutie for the Lords sake: for whose sake will we doe any thing, if we will not doe this for the Lords sake. For the Lords sake I say, which brings mee to the second Generall, for, that wee should submit, is the will of God. But you will say that this is to rack, and not to expound the Scripture, since S. Peter doth not say, that to submit, but that to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men is the will of God. If there be any amongst you that shall be so curiously idle, I would aske of them, what thing these brethren should doe, which beeing done would put to si­lence &c. surely, if they search the text, they will find it to be no other than this, their submission [Page 65] unto every ordinance of man. If then their sub­mission to Authority will silence the ignorant, who seeth not, that he who affirmeth, that it is Gods will, that they shall silence the ignorant, must imply necessarily, that they must submit to Authority, since by that submission to Authori­ty, the ignorance of the foolish would be silen­ced. In a word, if God would have us stop the mouthes of Detractors, and the mouthes of De­tractors are onely stopped by our obedience to the Magistrate, it followeth, that he will have us obedient to the Magistrate, that we may stop the mouth of Detractors: So then God willeth our obedience to the Magistrate. Now the places wherein God hath expressed this will of our sub­mission, I have already abundantly handled, and they require more your practice than my repetition. But, is it the will of God, that we should submit? then the chiefe ground of this sub­mission is his will; were it not for his will, for his command, it were in our choice, whether we would submit or no. I desire you to observe this the rather, because that some late Divines would beare us in hand, that Gods nature, and not his Will was the rule of our goodnesse. Their mea­ning is, that then we may be said to bee truely good, not when we doe what God commands, but when we strive to make our selves like God, who hath commanded us: as, we must be just be­cause hee is just, pure, because he is pure, holy, because he is holy. But I conceive this to be at best but a plausible error, I am sure, if we shall [Page 66] put this rule in practice, we shall never performe the duty of this text. By their rule, we must doe a thing, because God doth it, then likewise, we must not doe a thing, because God doth it not; now God doth not submit to any Magistrate, therefore we should not be subject neither. A goodly rule, whereby Disobedience to Gods law will prove conformity to Gods nature, wher­by the Traitor will boast, that hee is like unto God. Doe we not know, that there are divers vertues, which we cannot performe without a body? now in the exercising of them, it is im­possible to be like unto the nature of God, unlesse we will heretically, and blasphemously in our minds paint out the Almighty with a body. If we abstaine from unlawfull lust, if we use tempe­rance in our diet, discretion in our speech, mode­ration in our apparell, we shal exercise many ver­tues; yet who dares say, that in doing these things we shal cōform our selves unto the nature of God? Besides, God cōmanded Abraham to kill his Sonn, The Israelites to robb the Aegyptians, and by strong hand to dispossesse the Canaanites of their Country, which for 400. yeares, or more, they had quietly enjoyed, shall we imitat him in these acti­ons? Shal we kill our children, rob our neighbours, cast strangers out of their possessions, & then dis­creetly sooth our selves, that we have been imita­tors of God? How then can Gods nature, be the rule of ouractions, which neither we can perfectly understand, and when wee understand, we un­derstand thus farre, that in many things it is to be [Page 67] admired and not imitated. But our Saviour hath said, Bee ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matt. 5. 43. where he seemeth to propose the perfection of our hea­venly Father, as a paterne which our perfection should represent; and so our goodnesse will prove to be nothing els, but a resemblance of his nature. But, one Swallow they say, maketh no Sum­mer, neither doth it follow, that because in some particular respect, we are commanded to set God for our patterne, that therefore he is to be our paterne in all things, and because that by doing one duty, I must resemble him, therefore I doe no good duty, wherein I doe not resemble him. Our Saviour in that place exhorts us to the love of our Enemies; this that he may the more easily allure us to, he presseth us with the exam­ple of God, who loveth his Enemies thus farre forth, that he maketh his Sunne to shine upon the E­vill, and the Iust, Matt. 5. 45. Now this would be strange, because we must doe one act, and which is commanded us likewise, that in so doing we may be like unto God; therefore our goodnesse is not in doing that, which is commanded us, but onely in being like unto God. Rather let us hear­ken to our Saviour, who saith, If ye love me keep my Commandements; keep my Commandements, he doth not say Imitate my Father, unlesse it be in some particular cases, where in imitating the Fa­ther we keepe his Commandements. To the Law and to the Testimony; these, as they are the Ca­non of Faith, so they are the rule of goodnesse. [Page 68] In a word, the secret things belong unto God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us; they belong unto us, to make us good. Let us then in all things square our selves unto this will of command; leave we unto God why he hath injoyned it, and let us bee diligent to doe that which injoyned, whether it be harsh or pleasant, whether it wil make us like or not like unto God, yet if it be his will, let us doe it, though they who are sent for the punishment of Evill-doers, and praise of them that doe well, should for our obe­dience punish us as Evill-doers, which yet they will not doe, for, it is against the end of their sending, which is &c.

WHen Isaacs servants digged one, and a second Well, the Heardsmen of Gerar strove with the Heardsmen of Isaac, Gen. 26. 20, 21. but when they came to the third, that which hee called Roboboth, or Roome, for that they strove not: the name of the later sheweth us why they strove for the former, to wit, because in the two other there was scarce roome, it would not suffice for Isaac and for them of Gerar likewise. Would you see the true Reboboth, the place where there is roome enough? cast your eye upon the Scripture, more particu­larly upon this Text,; we have discoursed amply upon it already, and behold there is still roome for more; wee have shewed you that you must submit from the Author of Authority, and now wee must exhort you to the same duty from the the end of Authority, which is, for the punish­ment, &c. But sent by Him for, &c. By whom? Im­mediately before we reade of the King, of him that is supreme. Is that He that sends the Gover­nours for the punishment, &c. or is not he himselfe likewise sent unto the same end? But we read in Story, where Kings have preferred divers men onely because they would preferre them, with­out any respect at all unto this end; nay some­times with a contrary respect, for the praise of [Page 70] evil-doers, and for the punishment of such as doe well; and wee are not ignorant likewise that the King, the supreme Magistrate himselfe, is sent for this end, for the punishment, &c. If then divers Governours are not sent for this end by the King, and if the king be sent himselfe for this end by God, how commeth it that it is here said of all inferior Magistrates, and of them only that they are sent for, &c. For answer: Sent by him may be understood for, sent by the Lord, which, though not immediately, yet not farre off neither, prece­deth these words; and then the very Text will shew us, that both King and Governour, the Su­preme and He that is sent, is sent from the Lord, and howsoever they doe too often violate it, yet that this was the end of their sending: But if you had rather that, sent by him, should be understood of the inferiour Magistrate and the Prince, this excludeth not the Prince himselfe to bee sent by God, and for this end too: neither doth it in­force, that he alwayes proposeth this end unto himselfe in their sending, but onely that this is the duty both of him that sendeth, and of him that is sent, They should punish, &c. Or lastly, why may we not say, that though it bee possible and too frequent, that the chiefe Magistrate may mi­stake in the offender, as when he taketh the true Christian for an evill-doer, and thinketh he doth well which persecuteth him, and so punisheth the true Christian, and praiseth the persecutor; yet hee doth ayme at the discharge of his office, since he punisheth him whom he thinketh to bee [Page 71] an evill-doer, and he praiseth him, of whom hee is perswaded that he doth well. Thus whether we referre these words, Sent by him, to the Lord, which is the fuller sense; or to the King, which is the better Grammar, neither interpretation will bee absurd; and the inferiour Magistrate, though under a wicked Prince, may bee said to bee sent by him likewise, for the punishment, &c. So then in respect of two kindes of people, here is propo­sed to us a double end of the Magistrate: The two kinds of people are, good, and evill; the two acts of the Magistrate proportioned unto these people, are, praise, and punishment, The punish­ment of Evill-doers, &c. I begin with the first, where we shall observe, that unto them who doe ill, besides those eternall torments which are to come, temporall punishments are due likewise at the present. If this were not cleare to the sense, it would abundantly be collected from this place, the Magistrate will not neglect the end of his sending, and he is sent for punishment; Tribula­tion and anguish upon every soule of man that doth evill, Rom. 2. 9. upon every soule, and every tribu­lation likewise; there is no person shall escape that will be wicked, and he shall escape no kinde of punishment; against such God hath threatned, that he will make the heaven as yron, & the earth as brasse, Deut. 28. 23. that there shall come as much raine from one, as much corne from the other, as you may look for out of Brasse and Iron. Here hee threatens them with famine and poverty; hath God nothing else to doe thinke you, but to [Page 72] inrich transgressors? if thou art of the number of them, who goe forward in their transgression, the Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the Emerods, and with the Scab, and with the Itch, whereof thou canst not bee hea­led, Deut. 28. 27. Here hee threatens such with sicknesse, which with the paine hath shame like­wise: Who is not ashamed of Scabs and Itch? especially if they bee lasting, if they bee such whereof hee cannot bee healed? and indeed what punishment is fitter for the wicked? what can be more prudently just than this? For, why should hee be well who will not be good? why should he have health, that will not have righte­ousnesse? But to come nearer to the words of the Text, to shew that they shall not onely bee temporally punished, but punished by the Ma­gistrate, Whosoever sheds mans blood by man shall his blood be shed. By man? by what man? surely by the Magistrate, by the ordinance of man, otherwise one mans fault would give another licence to commit the same fact; and because one private man had shed mans blood, another private man might shed his; and then to what end should God have said, Thou shalt not kill? It is the Magi­strate therefore that can kill the murderer, onely Hee, but he without doubt; for, He beareth not the sword in vain, Rom▪ 13. 4. The sword is born in vain with which we strike not, & whō should he strike with that sword but the evill-doer? Is it not fit that they whose evill is against man should bee punished by man? now the evill of the wicked is [Page 75] against man, some in act, and all of it by example. Doest thou hate and slander thy neighbour? thou doest evil to him in act: doest thou spēd too much time in good company, and art no mans foe but thine owne as they terme it? thou doest evill to him in example; the malicious man doth him a more sensible, but the drunkard an harme like­wise: so likewise the luxurious, the proud, the Schismaticke, the perfidious, or what other vice you can name contrary unto sound doctrine, whether it bee by act or example, it matters not, still they doe harme unto men; and shall not men punish them then? Shall Achan trouble Israell, and shall not the Lord by Israell trouble Achan this day? Ioshua 7. 25. Againe, what can bee more wisely done than to inflict upon an offender the punish­ment which he most feareth? Now the wicked stand most in awe of temporall punishments. The Schooles have noted well, that as all sinne is from, so all punishment ought to bee against the will. Let the Act bee never so bad, yet if my will subscribe not to it, it is more my misery than my sinne; as if a madd man should kill his Father. And let the torture bee never so hideous, yet if I delight in it, it is in it selfe a torture but to mee no punishment; laesio, but not ultio, as they speake; an harme but not a revenge: Now they are onely these temporall punishments of im­prisonment, losse of members, and life, which the wicked stand in feare of, which come against their wills; they are frighted with death when they will be damned. There is a pretty strange [Page 72] [...] [Page 75] [...] [Page 72] [...] [Page 75] [...] [Page 72] [...] [Page 75] [...] [Page 76] place in the Psalmes, that, According to thy feare so is thy wrath; or, as you usually reade it, Even as a man feareth, so is thy displeasure, Psalme 90. 11. Is Gods wrath no greater than our feare, doe his punishments depend upon our apprehension of them? then if wee feare but a little, GOD hath but a little wrath; if wee have no apprehension of it at all, there is no punishment at all for us to suffer? who then would not blesse himselfe in his evill acts? who would not strive for obduratior that so hee might bee without feare, if being without feare he should be without punishment▪ then the best way would be to turne Libertine whose chiefe perfection was, Omnes scrupulos ab­jicere, Bell. l. 2. ca. 2. de Amiss. Grat. to cast away all scruples; and indeed who would not doe so, if by so doing hee might cast away all judgement, which our timorousnesse did bring upon us, and not Gods vengeance? We must understand ther­fore that David speaketh of Gods wrath, displea­sure and judgements, not as they are in them­selves, but as they are in the conceit of the un­godly: in truth his anger is beyond the suffe­rance of Angels, but it is conceited by the wicked like a fire of thornes, which with much noise doth soone goe out. Were there then nothing else but the feare of hell to restraine them, who could live with safety by them, since they feare not that at all? Of necessity therfore there must bee somewhat else, which, though in it selfe it be nothing neare so terrible, yet in their conceit hath more power to keepe them in. I remember [Page 77] a Story to this purpose in Iustin, A whole Nati­on went out at once to warre, and left at home onely their wives and slaves, and in their ab­sence their slaves marry their wives, and enjoy all that they had left, so that at their returne in stead of a welcome they had a repulse from their owne houses; to make short, Masters and Slaves come to battell, where the Slaves were hard e­nough for their Masters: in brief, against the next day the Masters take counsell, and in stead of comming into the field with swords, every man had provided his whip ready; upon the unexpe­cted sight of these, the slaves instantly ranne a­way, as being frighted with that, with which they were so often before punished. The sword is more terrible than the whip, yet those slaves runne away from the whip, which could not bee frighted with the sword; and damnation is infi­nitely more fearefull than any torture of the Ma­gistrate, and yet many may abstaine from evill for feare of those tortures, which care not for damnation; which will runne upon the sword, but away from the whip. Lastly, S. Austine hath given a good reason why temporall punish­ments should bee inflicted on the ungodly; for, saith he, if nothing should bee punished in this world, Gods justice would not be knowne at all; and if all things should bee punished here, then God would not be thought to be just hereafter: that therefore the world might know his justice, he causeth divers to suffer in this world, especially by him that is sent for punishment. But then you [Page 78] will say, they are punished twice for the same fault, and what justice can there bee in that? I re­ply, that every offence in it selfe merits eternall damnation, and so, that no man can bee punished twice for the same fault, since if for one fault onely hee should bee punished for ever, every dayes torment would bee but a part of his one punishment. Is it so then that unto them who doe evill, temporall punishments are due, and that from the Magistrate; what then shall we say to those milde Magistrates that will not punish, but rather reward the evill-doers? sure these doe not consider, that in the Arke there was laid up as well Aarons rod, as a pot of Manna; why there­fore will they have nothing but sweetnesse, but Manna for their Inferiours, when a Rod will be needfull for the wicked? The old Aegyptians fi­gured GOD by an Eye and by an Hand, by an Hand as well as by an Eye, and by an Hand im­mediately under the Eye: If the Eye did signifie his Providence, it nothing hinders that the Hand should intimate his severity; God is an eye therefore he can see all wickednesse, and God is an hand underneath that eye, and therefore hee will punish that wickednesse which he doth see; why then should any Magistrate whom GOD hath called god, imitate him but in one of these? why should hee content himselfe with the eye, when the hand is expected from him, & think it enough that he can finde out lewd practices, if it be not his intent to bee revenged of them? A wise King (saith Salomon) scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheele over them, Prov. 20. 27. This [Page 79] scattering proceeds from his wisdome, not from his cruelty; there may bee terrour, but there is no injustice in such a wheele. If a body be full of corrupt humours, will you say it is cruelty to take a Purge? or, if the blood be overheated, is he an enemy that opens a veine? These then should know, that necessary severity is the common­wealths purge, and seasonable execution is the o­pening of the kingdoms vein. Did Davids guard consist onely of the Pelethites? did not the Che­rethites belong unto that number also? as you may read, 2 Sam. 15. 18. A Pelethite signifies a de­liverer, and a Cherethite a killer; now Davids guard consists as well of the killers as of the deli­verers. Let those Magistrates then consider with themselves, whether halfe of Davids guard be e­nough; whether it will suffice to have the Pele­thite without the Cherethite, the deliverer with­out the killer. Indeed it was an old saying, Romani ignoscēdo crescunt; The Romans obtain their Em­pire by their mercy; their pardoning of others advanceth thē, & it holds good still: the Romans increase by their pardons, their indulgences doe principally reflect homewards, & they would not be so rich, were they not so gracious. Indeed mer­cy raised thē, but not to punish incorrigible evil­doers, is not mercy, was not their mercy: had it bin, what S. Peter complaineth in the Church, would have bin verified in their cōmōwealth, Quāta pu­tamus impunitas ista parturiret punienda; How many things that ought to be punished would that wāt of punishment have brought forth? After a great [Page 80] drought Elijah at length heard the sound of a­bundance of raine, but it was after he had destroi­ed all the Preists of Baal, 1 Kings 18. 42. to teach them that are in authority, that if they will looke for favour, they must, where it is deserved, shew severity; if they will have raine, they must when occasion serveth, give blood. But, so they shall shew themselves cruell men, men of blood? No such matter; let them heare what the same Elijah sayes in another place, If I am a man of God let fire come downe from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty, 2 Kings 1. 10. as if the consuming of the wicked were the onely testimony of a man of God; as if such a punishment did make one not an harsh, not a cruell, but a divine man. And if they are thus reproveable who will not punish, what are they who will reward the evill-doer▪ as some have set a price upon drunkennesse; the Spartans rewarded theft, if it were cunning, and the theefe was rather punished for his bodging than for his felony; because he was unskilfull, not because he was unjust. And no doubt many such there are at this day, who invert their office, who punish and praise, but the contrarie way, who pu­nish those whom they should praise, and praise those whom they should punish; as too many are suffered and incouraged, and that by some of the civill Magistrates in their opposition to the Churches discipline: but these should thinke of the doome of Ely, his children he corrupted not, neither did hee exhort them unto evill to bee done, neither did hee reward them for doing it, [Page 81] nay, he reproved them likewise, and that with those words which are full of gravity and holi­nesse; yet because he went no farther, because he so remembred he was a father that hee forgot he was a Judge, the Lord would suffer him to be no longer Judge nor father; and so because he would not be troublesome, he proveth pernicious to his children: His reproofe is not enough; and doest thou thinke that thy soothing, thy flattering of men in their offences is not too much? especially since his weaknesse may bee somewhat excused by fatherly affection, which, as Chrysostome saith, is a kinde of naturall tyranny; when thine can have no other name but a devilish corruption. Againe, must the Magistrate punish the wicked? why then let me intreate all those who as yet are not reformed, to see in what a dangerous estate they are that are in no safety, whether they look up to the heaven, or remove out their eyes from the earth? if they looke upward, there they may see God writing grievous things against them, sealing their iniquity in a bag, and treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath for them; if they looke downward, there the Magistrate hath prisons, rackes, haltars and swords for them, what then shall they doe, when for being of the world God hateth them, and yet the world doth not love these that are of the world? Indeed if they could perswade God to be like unto them, which the Psalmist saith they foolishly imagine, they then needed not to care what man could doe un­to them, or if they could effect that the Magi­strate [Page 82] would not punish them, it would prove a kinde of Repreeve unto them, though no par­don; but now that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, and the Magistrate on earth bea­reth not his sword in vaine, when the one will judge, and the other must punish, in what straits is the evill-doer placed? A child, if either the father or mother bee fond of it, will bee wanton, but if both frowne, it will be ruled; nay, a dogge, as long as there is any to set him on, will bee violent, but quiet enough if hee see all against him: The wicked then are more sottish than Children, or the very beasts; who, though God and man oppose them, will not give over to bee wicked. Lastly, must the Magistrate punish the wicked? is it the end of his Office? was hee or­dained for that purpose? wherefore then should the wicked be offended with the Magistrate for punishing of them? He is a madman who would be angry with the fire because it did burne, the water because it doth moistē, the earth because it doth drie; & the reason is, because drying, moyst­ning and burning were the end of the earth, the water and the fire; they are made for those pur­poses: Certainly then his judgement is to bee called in question, who is angry with the Magi­strate for his just punishment; when one end of the Magistrate is to punish justly. Great Male­factors on the Scaffold and the Blocke, forgive their Executioners; and why? because they doe nothing but what they are commanded: Is it sufficient for their forgivenesse that they are [Page 83] commanded by the Magistrate, and is it not more sufficient for the forgivenesse of the Magi­strate, that he is commanded by God to punish thee? Whosoever thē by his deserts, whether for drunkennes, filching, or factiō hath bin punished by the civill or Ecclesiasticall Magistrate, let him not blame them, but his own selfe; and with the good Theefe, Luke 23. 41. affirme, Wee indeed justly suffer, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this Ordinance of man hath done no­thing amisse for punishing us according to our deeds. And if Magistrates are not to be hated for punishing, neither are they, who, by their Office and place, are to certifie the Magistrate of our of­fences, that they may punish us, since the Magi­strates Office is to punish the evill-doer, and if he doe not know him, he cannot punish him; and, unlesse he bee informed, hee cannot know him: And yet how many are there, that if after all o­ther wayes tried, they are complained of to the higher powers, suppose it bee for faction, for di­viding the Church, for making new Parishes of their owne head, &c. are so farre from reforming themselves, that they hate him who would re­forme them; and cannot indure neither the Ma­gistrate which is to punish, nor him who infor­med the Magistrate: If any such be here, I would advise them, that if they cannot take away their hatred, yet they would place it rightly, and that against their offence, that so they may be bette­red, and not against the Magistrate, that so they may increase their judgement. Well then, the [Page 84] Magistrates duty it is to punish: But here you will first aske mee, why the Apostle when hee speaketh of punishment and praise, sets the pu­nishment of the evill-doer, before the praise▪ &c. which seemeth to be quite contrary to Gods method? The Angell cryeth in the Revelation, Hurt not the earth, nor the Sea, nor the trees, before wee have sealed the servants of our God in the fore­heads, Revel. 7. 3. Here is sealing before hurting, here is a preventing of the harme of the godly, before God will inflict any punishment upon the wicked: And so, the Angell can doe nothing till Lot be out of Sodome; the good man must bee praised, must bee delivered before the punish­ment of those evill-doers. Why then doth not the Magistrate imitate God? why doth hee pu­nish first? it may be it is to intimate the corrup­tion of the subject, who is so bad, that if hee have a Magistrate, the first thing that that Magistrate can doe, is to punish; or, to expresse the nature of many Magistrates, who had rather be feared than loved, Quibus Gratiaon [...]i, &c. as the Historian observeth, who, whensoever they will praise, they will first bee sure to punish. A­gaine, is punishment due to evill-doers, and but praise to the good? but punishment is somewhat reall, when praise is nothing but a word; are words sufficient reward for the well-doers? I take it the Holy Ghost doth thus expresse him­self, either because that the covetousness of great ones is such, that at most they doe but praise, they doe not bountifully reward the well-doer; or, he [Page 85] so speaketh to raise up the wel-doer to the expe­ctation of an heavenly Crowne, & in that respect hee would have him content himselfe, though for all his good deeds upon earth he have no o­ther reward than praise: Or lastly, praise may be taken for reward in generall, since, whosoever is rewarded for any good act, is, in that reward, praised; the Magistrate and all good men praise him whom they see worthy of a reward for goodnesse: and thus to reward the good, the Ma­gistrate was ordained: where I shal be very brief. This, Scripture, reason, Christian and Heathen Authority make good; all agree in this verdict, that the great are to respect the good, that the Ordinance of man is to praise the well-doer. what then shal we think of those great ones, who are so farre from praising, that they disgrace; from rewarding that they injure the well-doer? Such as Caligula, who put his friend to death for giving him good counsell, Qui officiū ut cōtumeliā excepit, saith Philo; who esteemed his duty to bee no other than contempt: or such as Helioga­bulus, who being himself given to incredible sen­suality, and willing to bring up his Successor in the like, banished all the Philosophers from Court, upon a pretence that they did debauch and corrupt him, as if luxury had beene the onely prevention, and the sole way to be spoyled were to bee bettered: Such have forgot their end, which is to reward, and praise, not to injure nor dishonour goodnesse. And must well-doers bee praised by greatnesse? who then would not be a [Page 86] well-doer, a meeke, a peaceable, a conscionable man, if not that hee may bee saved, yet at least that he may bee praised; if not for the good hopes from his God, yet for the good word of the humane Ordinance? Wilt thou not be afraid of the power? doe that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same, Rom. 13. 3. there is no medium betweene feare and praise; the Ma­gistrate frights him whom hee doth not honour, and he must honour all that doe well. Doe well then, and that because in so doing thou shalt bee praised, because in so doing the Magistrate will praise thee. Who is there that is not affected with praise? who is there almost, who when hee cannot be drawne to any act by profit, cannot ea­sily be perswaded unto it by glory? in so much that Tacitus observeth of Thrasea Pato, otherwise a very rigid man, that hee was somewhat, desi­rous of glory; Quando etiam sapientibus cupido glo­riae movissima exuitur; where hee affirmeth, that they who care for nothing else, care for this. Oh then, why will wee not strive to bee well­doers, when we shall be praised for for it, which you should strive to bee if we were dispraised for it? but for it wee shall bee praised by Princes; Princes which did sit and speake against David, shall speake for us if wee doe meditate in Gods Statutes. Many seeke the Rulers favour, Proverbs, 29. 26. It is there an accusation, but thus it may bee advice, if that favour bee to bee obtained by goodnesse: in the meane time it sheweth us what all desire, and how joyfull Haman will bee [Page 87] the onely subject that is invited to Queene Esthers banquet. But yet if man should neglect thee, which yet hee ought not to doe, hee was ordained for this end, to praise; yet GOD will never faile thee; with him there is alwayes a reward for the righteous: To him there­fore, the Father, &c.

THE motives by which S. Peter would per­swade to obedience, are drawne from Heaven and earth, from God and from man. From God, Submit for the Lords sake: from man, and him either above you, the Magistrate, which we have handled already; or, against you▪ your enemy, which wee are now to handle: or lastly, your owne selves, of which hereafter. Now then wee must obey, and that for our enemies sake: as if S. Peter should have said, Hath God or­dained the Magistracie? hath he ordained it for such necessary ends, and will you not yet submit? why then, where reason will not prevaile, let fear doe it; if you will not submit for the Lord, sub­mit atlest for your enemies sake— Aliquis (que) malo siet usus in illo; for your enemies sake I say, that so by wel-doing ye may put to silēce the ignorance of those foolish men. Where wee shall observe three propositions. 1. That foolish men are com­monly speaking evill of the good. 2. That the ground of this evill-speaking, is their ignorance. 3. That wee must silence them; and how? 1. Foolish men, &c. It is cleare from the Text, Prop. 1. wee are commanded to silence them, but wee cannot silence them who doe not speak; as blind­nesse presupposeth sight, and silence of necessi­ty implyeth a former speaking. The foolish then [Page 89] speak evill, &c. Be mercifull unto me, O God, saith the Prophet; and why? for man would swallow me up; Psalm. 56. 1. the word in Hebrew signifieth, doth breathe against me: what is this breathing, but his evill-speaking? and it is so terrible to him as if that breathing were a swallowing up. They made me pay that which I owed not, Psal. 67. 4. The Fathers interpret the place of Christ, and make this the meaning, that he which knew no sinne was made sinne for us; hee owed no punishment, to wit, for himselfe, and yet he paid it. This ex­position I reprove not, and yet the words may make for our present purpose. What they speake of punishment in generall, and of Christ, give me leave to apply to defamation in particular, and of the faithfull; they deserve no evill speeches, yet they shall not want them; they shall pay those bad words which they doe not owe: Otherwise, if it were not thus, if it were not so lamentable to bee thus, the Psalmist would never have com­plained, My soule is amongst Lyons, and I lye even amongst them that are set on fire, even the sonnes of men. Here you see the sonnes of men are put in the last, in the aggravating place; as if it were more dangerous to lie amongst men than a­mongst Lyons, and why so? truely, because their teeth are speares and arrowes, and their tongue a sharpe sword, Psalm. 57. 4. It is not enough that their tongue be a weapon, unlesse it bee weapons, and that not of defence onely, but of offence also nay, it must offend both at hand and a farre off likewise: it contents them not, that it is a sword [Page 90] to hurt them that are neare, unlesse it be a speare and an Arrow which can harme at a farther di­stance. Indeed, what distance can secure us from it, when they set their mouth against the Hea­vens, and their tongue walketh throughout the earth; in so much that a man can almost as well hide himselfe from Gods presence, as from its malice. Indeed such men shew that they are of neare kinne to the Serpent, whose chiefest mis­chiefe is in his mouth. Take out the teeth of a Snake, and you may put it in your bosome; make it so gentle, and tender Ladies will make a Play­fellow of their terrour: And so if these mens tongues were gone, they would bee farre more tractable; as long as those remaine, they ac­count them their owne, and they will use them at their pleasure. In a word, SOLOMON saith, Every foole will bee medling, as other­wise oftentimes, so alwayes with his tongue. Doth not Iosephs Mistris impute that fault to Io­seph, whereof her selfe is guilty? doth shee not speake against his lust, whereof she was desirous? The Hebrew servant which thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mocke me, Gen. 39. 13. where I take no notice of her womanly malice, or cunning, that would make her husband Authour of al the mischiefe, ( Which thou broughtest unto us; here would have beene no mischiefe, hadst not thou brought it in:) to passe by that, I say, you see she would make her husband believe, that who­soever had brought him in, had consulted shame to his house; had brought in an Adulterer, and [Page 91] not a servant: And yet by the way, see how shee betrayeth her selfe in her owne speech; how she accuseth her selfe in that solemne speech where­in shee would lay the fault on Ioseph: To mocke, to deceive one, is to doe that which he expected not, or not to doe that which hee expected. Poti­phars wife then confessing that Ioseph came in to mocke her, doth withall confesse, that hee came in not to doe that which she expected; now she expected, shee hoped that hee would have com­mitted folly with her; so that in accusing shee ab­solveth him: his comming in had beene guilty, if he had not come in to mocke her. How ready is the Devill to speake ill, at least to mince, to ex­tenuate Iobs well-doing? Doth Iob serve God for nought? as who should say, A great peece of ser­vice! if he serveth thee, thou rewardest him; nay, thou rewardest him first before he serveth thee; hadst thou no reward thou shouldst have no ser­vice: Hast thou not made an hedge about him? saith hee, Verse 10. Doth hee serve thee? certainly hee can doe no otherwise, thou hast taken order that hee cannot bee a fugitive, that hee cannot runne away from thy service, thy hedge will keep him well enough in for that. Nay, all that tedious discouse of Iobs friends harps onely upon this, they conclude his wickednesse from his soares; they see hee is exceeding miserable, and hence inferre, that he must needs be exceeding sinfull. And though words are winde, and quickly flie a­way, yet these words remaine even at this time; otherwise how should that of S. Iames hold good, [Page 92] that a bad tongue sets on fire the whole course or wheele of nature, as it is in the Greeke, if that part of the wheele which runs in our time were free from it? But wee see, that if a man oppose faction, foolish people will give out, that hee op­poseth religion; if hee cause some seditious per­sons to bee punished for hearing, where they should not, it shall bee given out, that hee is an enemy of the Word, that hee punisheth them for hearing. But here wee must observe, that all are not foolish who speak evil of others, no more than all are Saints of whom evill is spoken. Of a man that is a perpetuall drunkard, swearer, or ir­reformably seditious, good cannot bee spoken, if we speake the truth; and such cannot with any colour challenge righteousnesse unto them upon this ground, because they are spoken against: I therefore point at this, because there are a gene­ration in the world that doe much abuse this do­ctrine, that when ever they heare that foolish men speake against the righteous, they take it for granted, that they are the righteous, and those are foolish wicked people that speake against them, whilest yet in the meane time they live in manife opposition against authority, and when they are censured one day, for a fault, like the drunkard in the Proverb, the next day they com­mit it againe. If you tell these, that these courses tend unto schisme, their reply is, That by that which we call schisme they worship the God of their Fathers; if wee say, they are seditious for doing so, oh say they, men will speake evill of [Page 93] the righteous, as of evill-doers; thus applying all those Scriptures, which the Apostles, in a good cause, have used against the Jewes and Heathen, in their bad cause against Christian & Ecclesiasti­call Magistrates. But doe not they see that they say no other thing than any damnable Heretique would alleage for himselfe in the like case? Tell the Anabaptist, Familist or Papist, that most of their opinions have a strong sent of heresie; what will bee readier in their mouthes than, You call it heresie, but we know that it is the worship of the God of our Fathers? so then you see that it is not enough to urge the Text, but to have a title, a just right to urge it, which I deny that any sedi­tious Archdisciplinariā hath; the reason is mani­fest: that falsly called heresie was the true worship of God, but they shal never be able to make their schisme to bee any part of the worship of God; for indeed, how specious soever, it is against it: I instance in voluntary absenting after admonitiō frō their own Church: God hath not commanded thē to absent thēselves, therefore their absenting is no part of his worship; and the Magistrate hath commanded them to present themselves there, which neverthelesse they will not doe, which must needs bee against Gods worship, since that is against his worship which is against his command, and it is against his command to disobey the Magistrate. When then we shall see such hate to bee reformed, they must pardon us if wee call them what they are, I hope they will not count us foolish, if we shall say, that in so [Page 94] doing they are evil-doers: But, though this Text maketh nothing for the factious, it maketh for the good, they have the greater incouragemēt to perswade themselves that they are good, because they are spoken against by foolish men; why then should they bee dejected with such speeches▪ such speeches are but part of their momentany affliction, and that petite affliction shall worke a farre more excellent and eternall waight of glo­ry. In Exod. 24. 10. God sets his feet upon a paved work of a Sapphire stone, the word in He­brew is, Of a Brick, which had the shape of a Sap­phire stone. Wherefore was this apparition of God? surely, for the comfort of his people, to shew that after their bondage they should have glorious liberty; their Bricke with which they were plagued in Aegypt should bee changed in­to Sapphire stones: He suffered thee to hūger, and he fed thee with Manna, Deut. 8. 3. Why after hunger doth hee presently make mention of Manna? surely for no other reason but either because that hunger was Manna, that afflictiō was a blessing to thē; or because that hūger should get thē a better stomacke to their Manna, their affliction should make them onely more sensible of their blessing. And obseve the phrase, it is, He suffered thee to hun­ger, but he fed thee, &c. as if the crosse were but by permission, onely the blessing were Gods act. And here we may be the more ravished with that mercy, which would not so much as suffer our hunger, if it were not to feed us with Manna, hee would not permit that men should speake [Page 95] evill of us for his names sake, but to the end that hee might make us blessed. And hereupon it is, that whereas wee reade, Deepe cals upon deepe, because of thy water-spouts, Psal. 42. 7. which are ex­pounded for miseries and crosses, it may be read, Deepe, &c. because of thy Pipes, thy musicke, as if miseries to Gods children were to no other end, than that they should be his musicke. David saith of the wicked, especially of his evill-speakers, The Plowers ploughed upon my backe, Psalm. 129. 3. You will easily understand this of the tormenting of David; the ground is as it were tormented when it is torne, when it is ploughed up; but what if it bee for the comforting of David? It will seeme strange, but yet the ground would not bee fruitfull were it not ploughed, and David would not have beene so good, had hee not been afflicted; thus to injure was to right him, thus to tear him was to make him whole: And therfore Chrysostome wittily cals the wicked, The husband­men of the righteous, Hom. 4. ad pop. Ant. the Husbandman ploughes the ground, these the righteous; ploughing maketh the ground fruit­ful, affliction the righteous; & wil any man be dis­mayed with that by which hee is made the more fruitfull? But if foolish men speake against thee, beware that thou doest not become one of those foolish men, and speake evill againe, that thou maist give him as good as he brings, as too com­monly and foolishly they use to say. The same Chrysostome saith, A woman dispraiseth thee, wilt thou turne woman? as if to use or returne bad [Page 96] speeches were to fall downe from the noblenesse of our Creation, and to new mould us into wo­men; and therefore David when hee would re­prove Abishai, who whetted him unto revenge against Shimei, for his evill-speaking, saith, What have I to doe with you yee sonnes of Zerviah? 2 Sam. 16. 10. he cals them from their mother, not from their father; to shew, that they who are too im­patient of evill speeches, have too much of the mother remaining in them. Wee read that Annah suffered harsh speeches from Peninnah, wee doe not reade that shee did returne them; wee heare the one objecting barrennesse unto her, and wee find it true too, but it is of reproaches not of chil­dren. Neither is it any excuse for thee, that ano­ther begun first; for if one raile, and thou railest against him, what difference is there betweene you, but onely in the time? hee first, and thou af­ter, but both of you doe raile. Now Tertullian hath acutely said, Nulla in maleficio ordinis ratio; God hath no regard of order in evill-doing; thou shouldest not doe ill, no though thou be the last that doth it. Doth this seeme strange? then that of S. Basil will amaze us, in his judgement, Hee that returneth evill speeches is more faulty than hee that began to speake evill; for, saith hee, such an one hath time to consider the deformity and uglinesse of the fault in another, & yet neverthe­lesse he dareth goe forward in it, in so much that he useth his enemy for his teacher; (he doth that which he seeth him doe before him) nay, he car­rieth his image in his countenance, whose hatred [Page 97] in his heart, that so he may bee as it were a loo­king-glasse of his adversarie. And indeed, bad words are as burning coales, put one by it selfe upon a pavement, and he will doe little hurt, but adde others to him, they will flame then; who then is the occasion of the flame but hee that ad­ded the other coales? So, let there be a bad word unanswered, there is one single burning coale which will doe no great hurt, but reply, you add many other burning coales, you are the occasion of the mischiefe. Chrysostomes similitude is excel­lent, Hom. 11. in 1. Epist. ad Thess. If two doores di­rectly against the other stand open, and the winde blow fiercely, shut one of them and thou shalt take away all the power of the winde: There are two doores, saith hee, thine enemies mouth, and thine owne; shut thine owne and thou hast taken away the greatest power of that stormy winde and tempest. Againe, who would willing­ly doe that which his enemy would have him? now thine enemies desire is to grieve thee, and to make thee confesse that thou art grieved, Id­circo quis te laedit ut doleas, quia fructus laedentis in dolore laesi est, saith Tertullian, If thē all the benefit of the hurter be in the griefe of him that is hurt, grieve not, rave not, and thou hast made him lose all the benefit that hee hoped for. And in this respect Hagar is to be preferred before Sa­rah, for shee by her harsh speeches amongst the rest, caused her to flie; but Hagar being deman­ded of the Angell the reason of her flight, giveth no bad word of her Mistris; she doth not say, She [Page 98] hath turned me out of doores, but, I went away from my Mistris; as if she had rather confesse her selfe a fugitive, than her Mistris cruell. Let then the so often before mentioned Chrysostome close this point, where he exhorts unto suffering, his words shall bee mine, Non exeas, &c. in this case of evill-speaking, Goe not forth to fight, and thou hast overcome, strive not and thou art crowned. But then, what discomfort is here to those evill-speakers? They should consider, that even Heathen Philosophers terme those things which are the fountaines of these speeches, Passi­ons, and not actions; as envy and malice the ground of evill speaking in their language are passions of the minde; that we might learne, that when ever wee were envious and malicious, &c. we our selves did rather suffer than inflict harme upon others. Was not the Viper burnt that lea­ped upon Pauls hand? the Text saith, Hee shook it off into the fire: & all these viperous mouthes which are filled with the venome of evill­speaking, they may touch Paul, but they shall burne themselves, and that with fire unquencha­ble, if they repent not; since wee reade, that the reward of such tongues is a sharpe Arrow, to shew the swiftnesse, and hot-burning coales; or, out of the Hebrew, Iuniper coales, to shew the lasting of their judgement. In a word, the good man is cal­led a stone, a lively stone, as I have already shew­ed; now they that bite a stone hurt their owne teeth, & not that which they would bite; they are but Curs, & those foolish ones too, that wil weare [Page 99] their teeth out against stones. For shame or feare then at last, leave off this evill speaking, especially since by continuing it thou shalt but shew thy self a foole, since the principall foundation of it is but ignorance. 2. Proposition. Here I could shew Prop. 2. you their ignorance of God, and how they ope­ned their mouth against the Saints, their igno­rance of themselves likewise, who, as Esau for Iacob, so themselves likewise are made for the ser­vice, and nor for the contemning of the faithful; but I will now onely insist upon their ignorance of the godly, wee need seeke no farther for the ground of all their evill speeches. Now it is most manifest that they doe not know them; God, we know, doth esteeme them as gold, as Jewels, as precious stones, nay, hee hath called them his pe­culiar treasure, such of whom hee glorieth, and that to Sathan the accuser of the brethren. Wee finde that the fine linnen in the Revelation is the righteousnesse of the Saints; how then doth God respect their persons, to whom hee giveth such rich cloathes? How shall not they which are ar­rayed with this soft cloathing, bee of the Palace of the geat King? Thus it is manifest he respects them highly, when on the other side the world thinketh of none so basely as of them; they ac­count them worms and not men, the out-casts of the people, the off-scourings of the earth: If they see them sorrowfull, they say they are disdainfull; if they see them merry, they affirme then they are madd, all their actions shall be interpreted the wrong way; and what would not be taken notice [Page 100] of in another, shall bee sufficient to condemne them. What can be more contrary than the esti­mation which God and the world have of the same people? Now wee know, that the judge­ment of the Lord is most true, (and therefore di­vers times the Holy Ghost in Scripture, when he would affirme that a thing was done indeed, af­firmeth, that it was done before the Lord, as, No­ah walkt uprightly before the Lord, &c. that is, hee was upright indeed, hee appeared so in his eyes, which no affection can blinde:) so then the judg­ment of the Lord being true, and their judge­ment of the same persons being so thwart, so cō ­tradictory to the judgment of God, it appeareth that their judgement is most false; if God know­eth, then certainly they must needs bee ignorant of the righteous. S. Paul saith of the Jewes, that had they knowne him, they would not have cru­cified the Lord of glory; and wee may say of the wicked, that had they not beene ignorant of them, they would never have so grossely defa­med the most beloved servants of the Lord of glory, nor reproached the footsteps of Gods an­noynted. Oh the glory of the righteous, of whom no man could speak ill if he did know them; unto whose fame nothing is required but their know­ledge! whom, whosoever reproacheth, must in that reproach his owne selfe, must confesse his own ignorance▪ But, oh the folly of the wicked, which will hate them of whom they are igno­rant! who will open their mouth to the contu­mely of those, to whose praise (if they knew [Page 101] them) their mouthes ought to bee more open▪ We know that they do not know the righteous, and yet wee know that they speake evill of those whom they doe not know; Cum oderint & igno­rent, as Tertullian, they hate those of whom they are ignorant, when they should rather hate their owne ignorance, and strive to love and know them. But was ignorance the ground of their evill speeches? surely, wee shall bewray our owne ig­norance, if wee lay no other ground for them: without doubt, living together, they could not chuse but know their meeknesse, their patience, their contentednesse; and therefore when they spake against them, they spake of purpose, not of ignorance. Saint Paul saith, Hee obtained mercy because hee did it (that is, hee persecuted the Church) out of ignorance: not that ignorance was the cause of mercy, not that GOD therefore did know S. Paul, because S. Paul would not know his people; but because his ignorance being not affected, excused him à tāto, though not à toto, because he should not have obtained mer­cy so easily, had he done it of purpose, and not of ignorance. Why then of these enemies of good­nesse is no more said than that their enmity was ignorance? Perchance because S. Peter would shew that he did sleight them; as who should say, They speak grievous things against you, but take them not to heart, they are but fooles for their labour, and you should suffer fooles gladly. The heart of the foolish proclaimeth foolishnesse, Prov. 12. 23. It is most certaine, that what ever commeth [Page 102] into their hearts they will proclaime, but who careth for a fooles proclamation? or rather it is our Apostles charity maketh him speake thus, and not his indignation; it is unlikely but that amongst so many evill-speakers, some speake e­vill out of malice; and yet because hee would not seeme to despaire of any of them, hee saith, that they doe it out of ignorance. When God had commanded Ezekiel to speake to the rebellious house, hee againe commands him to speake to them, And be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house, Ezek. 2. 8. S. Peter, where hee taxeth their evill-speaking, speaketh but mildly of it; as if God had said unto him, Be not thou a bad speaker like unto these bad speakers. Doth Saint Peter use the Heathen so gently, and shall wee bee harsh un­to Christians? doth hee make the best of the enemies actions, and shall we make the worst of our brethrens? Rather, if they doe an indifferent act, let us think they doe it out of a good mind; & if we see that it be bad, let us not make the worst of it; let us not say, quite contrary to S. Peter, that it was out of malice, when, for ought we know, it was but out of ignorance. But though we must not make the worst of our adversaries, wee must doe the best that we may for our selves; we must silence it howsoever, whether it be from malice, or but simple ignorance. 3. Proposition. The Prop. 3. word in Greeke is [...], which signifieth to muz­zle, and is used by the Apostle, 1 Tim. 5. 18. Wee must not muzzle the Oxe which treads out, but here we must muzzle those wild Buls w ^ch tread down [Page 103] the corne: for [...], which we render ignorance, Clement Alexand. readeth [...], which wee may render, worke; as if, either those foolish men did worke nothing but ignorance, or, if wee did well, wee should thereby take order that they should doe nothing, that they should be without worke: Not that wee must use any violence against them, like him that sealed up the mouth of one that railed against him; not that we must strive for the last word, and gaine the victory by our good sides, not by our good manners; no, this silencing must not bee physicall, but morall; wee must doe such good acts, and so often, that they can speak no more against us, than if indeed they were become speechlesse; and this the Text tels us is effected by well-doing, [...]. It was well-doing made them first speake against us for envy; and now they must bee silenced by the lustre, by the frequency of our well-doing. Now well-doing is either taken for a particular duty, for our obedience to the Magistrate, or univer­sally, for our faith, hope, patience, for all our du­ties both towards God or man. If wee under­stand the word in the first sense (which is most litterall and shall be hereafter proved at the next Verse) we may conceive how highly God estee­meth of our loyall submission, how he counts it in effect all our duty; how he termeth it well doing indefinitely, as who should say, If we did so, we could not do ill. But if we understād the word in the second sense, we shal then find, that only ver­tuous and religious actions, & all of thē too, (they [Page 104] will not serve the turne single) can silence the ig­norance of foolish men. Wouldst thou then not bee spoken evill of? canst thou not indure to heare disgracefull speeches? doe well, doe no­thing else but well, doe it constantly; upon these termes God is not silent, that thine enemy will bee silent. When a mans wayes please the Lord, hee maketh his enemies to be at peace with him, Pro. 16. 7. and surely they will not speak evill of them, with whom they are at peace. In vaine then dost thou strive, whilest thou art yet bad, by Authority, power of friēds, or by bribes to stop the mouth of thy detractors; thou must never look to compasse that by evill-doing, which is the reward of doing well. But I told you that the word here did not so much signifie to silence, as to muzzle; indeed the difference is not great, for hee that is muzzel­led will keepe silence, and yet some there is. We doe use commōly to muzzle the mouthes of such beasts of which we are afraid, as of Beares, and such like; which whilest they are so held, are tra­ctable, but dangerously unruly if they get loose. What then will you think of those who shall un­muzzle them? will you not suppose, that they throughly deserve all the inconveniences which they shall suffer,? And yet this is the case of eve­ry negligent Christian, of the secure Professour: onely well-doing, universall, perpetuall well-do­ing muzzles up the mouthes of these beasts: If then wee faile in either of these respects, if wee doe some bad actions; who seeth not then that wee unmuzzle them, that wee open their mouth [Page 105] to our owne devouring. And this may bee the reason that GOD would punish David, even where hee pardoned him; in one Verse wee read, Thou shalt not die; and in the next Verse, Neverthe­lesse, because thou hast given great occasion to the ene­my of the Lord to blaspheme, thy childe, &c. shall sure­ly die, 2 Sam. 12. 14. As if God could have freely forgiven him, had hee not caused the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme; as if it had beene a grea­ter crime to unmuzzle them, than to un-man, to kill Vriah. Let us then bee wary of this fault, and let not our bad lives open those mouthes, which our good lives should silence; and if wee live well wee shall silence them. Say ye unto the righteous, it shall be well with them, Esa. 3. 10. it shall bee well with them in this respect likewise, that they shall bee well spoken of. Indeed, this is not frequent; many would not beleeve it, did not the Lord a­gaine and againe repeate it, did hee not give an expresse charge that the Prophet should say so. But, since hee hath said it, it must bee, nay, more likewise; whatsoever man saith of them, the Angels shall never cease to praise GOD for their conversion, and them for their. obedience.

WE are at length come to the last motive, which S. Peter useth, and that is drawne from their owne selves. If neither because God is the Author of the Magistrate, nor because the Magistrate is or­dained for praise and punishment, nor because upon the neglect of this, your foolish enemies will cry out against you; if for none of these rea­sons you will submit, yet consider what your selves are, what your selves call your selves, the Servants of God: Now then a Servant must doe that which his Master will have him, and your God, your Master will have you to submit unto the Magistrate; howsoever then you are free, yet you are Gods Servants, and therefore, upon his command, to submit; otherwise you shall be A­theists, as well as Traitors; by not honouring the King you shall shew that you feare not God. Or, which I will now insist upon, these words doe not so much containe a motive to obedience, as they satisfie an Objection, which might be made against the necessity of obedience. Should we submit, might they have said? but we are free, what hath freedome to doe with submission? Saint Peter therefore grants their proposition, but denieth their Inference, he denieth not that they are Free, but he denieth that [Page 107] their Freedome is incompatible with Submission to Princes, nay he concludeth that therefore they must submit, because they are Free; this Bondage is very naturall unto their liberty, as I shall here­after shew you. So that this shall be our Method for the present 1. S. Peters Grant, You are Free. 2. The limitation and restraint of this Grant, which is double. 1. That we must not abuse our Freedome, not using your Liberty &c. 2. That for all our Freedome we must know, that we are Servants, as the Servants of God. As free and not using &c. Then whosoever is a Christian is Free, Freedome is annexed unto Christianity. But be­fore I shew you the Christians Freedome, it will not be amisse to make it appeare, what a desired thing it is, to be free: it is indeed most desirable, and therefore S. Paul where he speaketh of liber­ty, knoweth not what better Epithet to bestow upon it than that of glorious, Rom. 8. 21. the glorious liberty of the Sons of God. Adam was content to ex­change his innocence for his liberty, and had ra­ther not be immortall than not Free. Not that Adam got a liberty by sinning, for he ran into a most miserable slavery, but because so the Divell perswaded, and such was the presumption of his folly: Ye shall be like Gods, faith the Tempter; now They are most Free. And therefore Heathen Philosophers have termed man [...], as wee should render it, one who is under his owne rule, and certainely such an one cannot complaine of want of liberty. Yet I am perswaded that they could not thinke that this was true, but that they [Page 108] imagined it was fit; it could not be convenient in their opinions, that so excellent a Creature should not be free, & onely under his owne rule. Nay, the Jewes themselves were so in love with this liberty, that they would boast of it, even when they had it not, as if they could have more willingly heard any other reproach, than the want of that. When our Saviour said unto them The truth shall make you free. Ioh. 8 32. they in a great fume reply, We be Abrahams seed, and were never in bondage unto any man; to be made I'ree supposed that now they were not Free, and they could not indure to heare of that. We were never in bondage under any man? Why? but at this very instant, they were under the bondage of the Ro­mans, who had lately conquered them, and made a Province of their Kingdome. We were never in bondage under any man? But when the wind turneth we shal have you cry, It is not lawfull for us to put any man to death, and, was not that a part of your bondage? &, we have no King but Casar, & had not He taken away your liberty from you? if you were conquered how then are you yet Free? if the Roman yoake lie heavy upon you, how can you deny that you are under bondage? It may be that they said so because the Romans had suffe­red them to retaine many of their former pri­vileges, which they called liberty, shewing by that esteeme of the shadow, how highly they would have valued a true liberty. All then being so desirous of liberty, we shall speake no meane thing of the Christian, when we shall shew that [Page 109] he is Free. Stand fast in the liberty, saith S. Paul to his Galathians 5. 1. therefore he presupposeth that they are Free; a man cannot stand fast, no nor at all, in that which he hath not. In the for­mer mentioned place of S. Iohn, our Saviour tells them, that if they know the truth, the truth shall make them free. What is the truth but Christian Religion? and this all Professors are supposed to know. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Iesus hath made mee free Rom. 8. 2. where, as wee take notice of the author of this liberty, the Spi­rit of life, together with the instrument by which he effects it, the Law of the Spirit of life; so likewise we shoud not forget the Subject, in which it is effected, to wit Him, to whom there is no Condemnation; Him, who is in Jesus Christ. How often in the New Testament doe we reade, that we are bought, that Christ hath redeemed us? God sent his Sonne to redeeme them that were under the Law. Gal. 4. 4, 5. Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Iesus Christ Rom. 3. 24. He gave himselfe for us, that he might redeeme us, Tit. 1. 14. now as redemption taketh away our pride; they were slaves who are redee­med; so it confirmeth our gratitude, they who are redeemed are Free. Men have freedome ei­ther by nature or by Courtesie; by nature when they are borne, by courtesie when another ma­keth them free, and that is either by giving away his owne right when they are slaves to himselfe, or buying out anothers title, when they are in bondage to another. Freedome by nature we [Page 110] cannot have; by nature, we are no lesse the chil­dren of bondage than of wrath: so then if wee have any Freedome, it must be either by manu­mission or Redemption; by Manumission it is not, for so we should not bee Christs, by Redem­ption therefore it must needs be, or else wee should be the Divels Servants. In a word Chri­stians are redeemed, and the Redeemed are Free. You may observe that at the resurrection of La­zarus when he came forth of the grave, bound hand and foot with grave-cloaths, Jesus said unto them, (his Apostles, S. Aust: saith,) Loose him, and let him goe. It is in every mans Spirituall rising verified, what was seen in this Resurrection. He is loosed before he goe to Christ, he is free when a Disciple. Amongst the orders of the Nazarites, this was one of them, that all the daies of his sepa­ration, there should come no razor on his head Num. 6. 5. if the Nazarite signified the Christian, I am sure the not comming of a razor on his head si­gnifieth the Freedome of the Christian; since amongst the Ancients, as they who were Cap­tives had their haire shorne, so to weare it at its length was a manifest signe of liberty, as if their Freedome grew with their haire; and he that cut off that, had cut off their liberty. Shall not Chri­stianity make her Professors free? But the Hea­thens imagined that Philosophy made her pro­fessors free: now it were hard if Christianity should yeild to Philosophy, the Mistris not have so great a privilege as the hand-maid. Hac ipsum Philosophie servire, libert as est, saith Seneca Ep. 8. [Page 111] Had he put out Philosophy, and put God in the place of it, we might have thought he had stole his sentence out of our liturgie, which affirmeth of God what he doth of Philosophy, That his ser­vice is perfect Freedome. Briefly, the Sonnes are free, saith Christ, now the Christians are Sonnes; he then that denyeth their liberty, must deny their filiation also, he must crosse that which the Scripture so often averreth, that they are born of God. But the doubt is rather of the kind than of the Thing. Supposing then that the Christian hath liberty, we will now inquire what it is, & in what it consists, which that we may the more solidly performe, we must distinguish of the Christian. For there are some, who say, that they are Jewes and are not, others that are true Israe­lites indeed, in whom there is no guile, many that have the forme of godlinesse, denying the power; others that with the sonne have the power also; not a few, who are in the Church but as corrupt humors, not as sound members; others that are not so much in the Church as the Church, even that blessed company, which shall at length raigne with their Savior for ever. And yet though all, that beare Christs name shall not injoy Christs Kingdome; neverthelesse, they shall injoy many Privileges, even for bearing the Name, to show what benefits they shall injoy, who give their soules to Christ. Those are no small savors where­of they are made partakers, who onely give their names to Christ. Even this freedome, this liberty after a sort belongs to them. First then, whosoe­ver [Page 112] calls upon that name is for ever free from the burthen of the Ceremoniall law. Now there­fore why tempt yee God to put a yoake upon the neck of the Disciples, saith S. Peter to thē who would have the Brethren to be circumcised, and to keepe the law of Moses, Acts 15. 10. If once they are Disci­ples, the yoake is not to be put upon their neck, and marke, he saith, if any urge these ordinances, that They put on the yoake, They and not God, they put on the yoake, frō which God had loosed them. Nay when S. Peter out of humane infirmity had forgot in practice his owne Doctrine, and by a dangerous example, had given occasion to the Gentiles to suppose, that they were to live after the manner of the Jewes, S. Paul withstood him to the face because he walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospell Gal. 2. 14. Let him once any manner of way cause the Gentiles to Judaize, the brethrē to loose their liberty, he walketh not up­rightly; he stoopeth himselfe if he would bring them downe unto this yoake. In a word, he is our Peace who hath broken downe the middle wall of par­tition between us, having abolished in his flesh the En­mity, even the Law of the Covenant Ephes. 2. 14, 15. The wall of Partition between us and the Jewes, was onely the Law of Ceremonies, for to that of Manners all Nations were bound, that was a wall of union and not of partition. What a perversnesse then is this of them who will build againe what God hath pulld downe; and like Hiel the Bethelite lay once more a foundation of a cursed Jericho? Iacob a little before his end [Page 113] cries out against Simeon & Levi, because in their selfe-will they digged downe, and we may as justly enveigh against those, who in their selfe-will, will raise a wall, a wall which God himselfe hath razed. For truely if man must not separate what God hath conjoined, neither may he joine againe, what God hath separated, our obedience unto those precepts. Especially our madnesse will be the greater in reviving of them if we consider what they are called, and they are called En­mity; Having abolished the enmity even the law of the Covenant; that law hath no better name than Enmity, whether it were so called because it oc­casioned hatred between the Jewes and the Gentiles, of which the one was proud, and the other envied; or because by reason of its neglect or not due performance, it caused hatred be­tween God and the Jew, the Jew detesting so many burdensome commands, and the Lord de­testing their detestation: whether for these or any other reasons, it were called Enmity, it mat­ters not, still they are fooles, who would againe bring in Enmity. What then shall we say to some amongst us, who seeme to be desirous of this En­mity, who would againe at least in part bring in amongst us the Ceremoniall Law, and write a­gaine those contrary ordinances, which Christ hath cancell'd on his crosse? I meane those rigid and Jewish observers of the Sabbath. And yet you must not expect here a full dispute upon the controversy, whereof I shall onely briefly shew you the Sum. In the fourth precept of the [Page 114] Decalogue all agree, that there is somewhat al­terable; which may be changed, somewhat unal­terable to which we are obliged for ever. Alte­rable, as the particular Detormination of the time, to witt, that the Rest should be just upon the very seventh day after the Creation, and the strict Observation of the day, as that therein a man might not gather sticks, and had made him­selfe a brand of Hellfire, if he had but made a fire: these all agree to be alterable, to be altered, and at this day to bind none. Now that which they say is unalterable in the Sabbath, they affirme to be some certain time of Worship & a Solemnity carefully religious; and yet in this agreement they differ, for some will have that time which is unalterable to be, though not a certaine, yet one day of the Seaven, though not Monday or Tuesday, yet at least they or one between them, which God or his Church should determine: whilst others thinke, that time to be no more bound to the weeke than it is to the Saturday to any other time, than it was to the Jewes Sabbath: and so likewise, as touching the observation they vary; the former prescribing a rising before day, quick arraying, private prayer, til the Minister be in the Church, repearing and prayer after, till he come thither againe, then hearing a second Ser­mon, and then a third, if they may; and so ha­ving other formes till midnight: the other think­ing that they have conscionably discharged their duty if without so many observances, fit rather to tire the body than refresh the soule, after their [Page 115] private Devotions they religiously frequent the publick Service of God; which being ended, they beleeve they may as well bestow moderate Re­creation as temperate Diet on their body. But I would aske of the former sort of these, when they say, that somewhat is unalterable in the Sabbath, by whom they meane it is unalterable? if they say by man, it is no great matter which they say, all men know that what by God is e­stablished must needs be unalterable by him; to change anothers ordinance is the onely privi­lege of an higher power. But if they say, that it is by God unalterable, I shall againe aske whether it be simply unalterable or upon the presupposed approbation of his will and pleasure. Not the lat­ter, nothing in the Sabbath is so unalterable, if there be, they must shew it in the Scripture. If they shall reply, that he hath expressed his will in the fourth Commandement, which being placed amongst the morall precepts must needs have something morall in it, and seeing that is not the seventh Day, therefore at least it must be a seventh which is morall: I shall onely desire them to review the Commandement, where we shall find that the Jewes are commanded to keep that day holy, in which the Lord rested, nay therefore to keep it holy because in it the Lord rested, they are to hallow that Day, which the Lord had hallowed; now, in what day did he rest? What day did he hallow? was it not the seventh day? For in six dayes, they are the words in the commandement, the Lord made heaven and earth, [Page 116] and rested the seventh day; so that from hence they may prove the Jewes Sabbath, but they will destroy the Lords Day. The seventh day is established by this commandement, but it is a weake Foundation for One in Seven. Well then at length they are driven to this, to affirme that there is some what in the Sabbath, to wit, the ne­cessity of sanctifying one in seaven, which is sim­ply and absolutely unalterable. But to omit, that they but affirme and cannot prove this, see what the consequence of this wouldbe, if there were as much truth as there is the confidence in that Assertion If it be simply unalterable, then it was simply necessary that at first it should be ordai­ned, then, observe it, it was then simply neces­sary, that either upon Saturday or Sunday, or some other one day in seven, God should or­daine a Sabbath, but he could not ordaine one in seven to be a Sabbath, unlesse he had first ordai­ned that there should be seven dayes, so then it was simply necessary, that there should be seven dayes, and because the Sabbath was made for man, therefore, if there must of necessity be a Sabbath, of necessity there must be a man for whom the Sabbath should be, and since Time is only the measure of the creatures actions, there­fore if time be by necessity (as it must be if the Sabbath is) by the same necessity the Creature must be, whose actions are to be measured by time. And thus we have learned a new and good­ly Divinity, that whereas the ancient Fathers affirme that, Deus nihil agit ad extrà necessariò [Page 117] that God doth nothing necessarily but beget the Son, and breathe the holy Ghost; and that, what­ever he doth outwardly he doth freely, that is; he might either doe it, or not doe it, these mens o­pinions would cause him, to make the world out of a necessity, and that he could not possibly doe otherwise: the summe of all is this; That God maketh lawes for man, not for himselfe, he might have chose whether hee would have made man, and when he hath made him whether he would make a Sabbath for him; That when ever you shall heare men laying stumbling blocks in the way, and making scruples, when the Sabbath be­ginneth and when it ends, and whether you may lawfully dresse or eate your meate that Day, you desire them to shew you Scripture for that which they require, which if they cannot, know you are not bound unto Judaisme, S. Peter ac­knowledgeth that you are free. But are Chri­stians free from the Ceremonies of the Law? How can it be? Since a man is not said to be freed from that, under whose bondage he never was, and the Christians, especially such as spring from the Gentiles, were never under those ordi­nances. He shewed his word unto Iaacob, his statutes and judgements unto Israel, Ps. 147. 19. Besides as I shewed you before, those Ceremonies were the partition wall between the Jewes and Gen­tiles, now it could not have parted, had they both agreed in it, had it been given to the Hea­then, also; if then they were never under it, how can it be properly said, that they are free from [Page 118] it? S. Austine hath well satisfied this point discoursing of an other argument, where he saith, that this word. Freeing in Scripture is not onely taken for a deliverance from some danger, or burthen which is past, but sometimes for a prevē ­ting of that to come: he instanceth, as I remem­ber, in that speech of David, thou hast delivered my Soule out of the nethermost Hell, the nethermost Hell is the Hell of the Damned, and into that the Soule of David, of a penitent Sinner, never did, never shall come; to deliver out of Hell, there­fore, must be expounded to hinder him lest he should come thither: here the Preventing is the Freeing; and so likewise, when we say, that Christians are freed from the yoake of the Cere­monies, we doe not suppose that they ever were under them, but that they never shall be under them, that that hand-writing against them is for ever blotted out. But thus you will say even the Heathen, the Infidell are Free, they likewise ne­ver were, never shall be under the Ceremonies of the Law: What a privilege then is that for the Christian, which is communicated to the very Infidells, when all the world, which Clau­dius onely thought to make partakers of the Pri­vileges of Rome; are made partakers of this im­munity? Tis true, none of the Heathen are bound unto the Law, and yet they cannot boast of their freedome from it, as the Christian can, because though he be free, yet God hath not revealed so much unto him, God leaveth him in his times of ignorance, wherein he is subject unto most mi­serable [Page 119] thraldome by worshipping of stocks and stones, which he doth because he thinketh he is bound to it, and because he thinketh he is bound, hee is not free, as the Christian is. In the second place, from the bondage of all indifferent things, to wit, thus farre forth, that in respect of Consci­ence, he may either doe or omit them; by these performed he hopes not to please God, neither doth he feare to offend him, by neglecting of them. This is the Doctrine of the Apostle in the 14. to the Romans, 1. Cor. 8. and where not [...]. All things are lawfull unto mee, but all things are not ex­pedient, 1 Cor. 6. 12. All things are lawfull? why then Murder, Prophanenes, Atheisme are law­full: no, he speakes not of things generally, but onely of indifferent; in the use of which as we must avoid some as not convenient, so we must account none as not lawfull; and that I perswade my selfe to be the meaning of the latter part of the verse, All things are lawfull unto me, but I wil not be brought under the power of any, to wit, of any in­different thing, that which is in it selfe Adiapho­rall, shall never have the power over me to make mee doe it of necessity, or to make me thinke the not doing of it absolutely unlawfull; there may be a circumstāce that may bring a non-expe­dit, It is not profitable; there is none can bring a non-licet, that it is against the Law. This we shall make manifest in the point of observing of daies, excepting the Lords day; a man may according to his occasions either doe or abstaine from the works of his calling, either the Act or the Omis­sion [Page 120] is then indifferent unto him. But, if Authori­ty shall appoint such a day to be kept holy, and will have this to be part of the hallowing of it to abstain from all works of our vocation, it wil not be lawful to do thē then, not because it is not in­differēt to work or not to work, but because it is not indifferent to obey, or not to obey; to obey is cōmanded, is a duty. So likewise according to my meanes I may weare silke or garments of mea­ner Stuffe, it is all one in point of conscience, what rayment I ordaine for my body; but if the Magistrate shall confine mee to a meaner we [...]d, I sinne if I weare silke, not because the silke, but the Disobedience was unlawfull. In a word, S. Paul hath taught us that meates com­mend us not unto God▪ 1. Cor. 8. 8. therefore neither if I eate, am I approved of him, neither rejected if I eate not. In point of Religion it matters not much whether for my ordinary provision, I have fish or flesh, whether I goe to the Sea or the shambles for my Diet. Meates then being thus lawfull in themselves, there comes an Injunction from Superiors that I shall abstaine from some kind of Meates. Are those meates that are thus forbidden unlawfull? What God hath cleansed, shall we or any commandement of man make common no certainely, to eate is not unlawfull, but to eate against the command; the meate re­taineth his indifferent nature still, but the Magi­strate for a time hath restrained its indifferent use, and that without any prejudice to thy Free­dome, whose liberty must not cancell thy obe­dience, [Page 121] because as Saint. Austine hath well said in Ps. 71. Nihil [...] expedit anima quàm obedire, meate is not so wholsome to thy body, as to thy Soule obedience. And cannot the Magistrate then make things of themselves indifferent, in themselves unlawfull? what then shall we say to those, who on the contrary side will put such a rate upon in­differences, as if they were enacted by the Law? Such we have too many of Ministers and others who propose to us a kind of preaching by do­ctrine, Reasons, use, meanes, motive, and that, in this order, and they must be named too, as if it were absolutely necessary, in so much that they who use it, are esteemed, sanctified and power­full, they who either use an other, or doe not say that they use this, must be either ungodly or unfruitfull. But to the Law, to the Testimony, where there shall we ever find, that we are tyed to this or any other Forme of Method? There I find that the manifestation of the spirit is given for every man to profit withall. 1. Cor. 12. 7. I doe not find that Doctrines and uses, proclaimed to be such, are the onely manifestation of the Spirit, it is our duty to imploy our gifts that way, by which they may profit; but it is man onely and not the holy Ghost who saith, they can onely pro­fit this way. Christ saith to his Apostles Goe teach all Nations Matth. 28. 19. He doth not say: Teach them thus: he would have one Doctrine taught▪ he doth not say, he would have one manner of teaching. All Scripture is given &c. for Correction for instruction, 2. Tim. 3. 16. We may safely say that [Page 122] the Method of the Sermon may be the same with that of the Scripture, and there if Corre­ction and Instruction be the same with Doctrine and use, yet Correction is put before Instruction, sometimes the Use is set before the Doctrine. In a word, Saint Paul preacheth to his Timothy, that he should preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, here you see he binds him unto di­ligence, but he leaves him free to his owne Me­thod. And indeed, I cannot but wonder that they who would have no set Forme of Prayer, should tie all to a sett Forme, to one set Forme of preaching, that they should thinke the Forme a confining of the Spirit, though there bee many formes of them, and this no confining where there is but one. If any after so often instruction shall urge the necessity of this kind of instru­ction; for my part I would onely confute him by my practice, I would use another forme and so confirme that I were free. Againe, there are others that thinke themselves bound in consci­ence to heare two Sermons upon the Lords day, (though some of them will scarce practise one of them in any day of their life) and therefore if their Minister preach not twice on that day, they suppose, that they are bound to heare an other. But I desire these to direct mee to the Scripture, where this is required of them. It is required of them indeed to heare, but how often in one day, I find not; onely this I find, that they must not be their owne choosers, nor heare whom and where they list. I am sure they heare but ill by the [Page 123] Apostle, who heape to themselves Teachers, having itching eares 2. Ti. 4. 3. If they must not heape up to themselves, then they must accept of those whom Authority hath set over them, those and onely those. But what if they doe not speake, how can we heare then? What if the mute devill be in them, shall the deafe devill be in us, and shall we be bound to starve if our owne Pastor will not feed us? I answer, Either hee preacheth not so much as his Duety requireth, or not so much as an others Fancy; if he speake not as much, as they in their fancy would have him, it matters not much, hee is their Minister not their Mar­tyr; he must use meanes to bring them to the spirituall, he must not throw away his corporall life. But if he speake not so often to them as his duety requireth, he offends indeed, but, they are not to punish him, neither must the defect of his tongue be mended with the nimblenesse of their legs. Plainly, they have no Commission that I know of, to leave him, they have, to accuse him to Superiors, who will either urge him to his duety, or take order that an other should per­forme what hee neglects. But, wee goe away to increase our knowledge. Would it were no worse, and yet if it be so well, we are not to gaine knowledge with the hazard of our obe­dience; a good end doth not justifie that action which is not good. Saul might not reserve any of the forbidden spoile though it were for sacrifice. But, you have heard the contrary heretofore. I question not what you have heard but whether [Page 124] it be true, which you have heard, neither doe I much care unto what it be contrary which I said, so it be agreeing with the truth. But lastly, some will object that this Doctrine of frequen­ting our owne Church where there is but one Sermon, doth not make so much for the flouri­shing of holinesse, as that which would have us heare two or more wheresoever. God forbid that I should hinder, that I should not promote the flourishing of holinesse, and yet God forbid that I should affirme that it made for the flourishing of holinesse to heare promiscuously, whom we pleased. It maketh for the flourishing of Schisme▪ and if it be generally permitted, it will make for uncleannesse too and not for holinesse. But that let Superious looke to. In the meane time if my opinion did not in some mens opinion make so much for holinesse, as the contrary; yet it is à say­ing of one, whom you cannot except against, and I honour, Doctor Twisse, that it is a very pre­posterous course, that when ever we dispute of the truth of a thing we should bring the contro­versie to this issue: An eò sc. ad officia hominis Chri­stiani aptiores fiamus, whether by holding such an opinion, we should make our selves more fit for Christian Duties, when certainly a man is more fitted unto such Duties by Truth than Error. So then the last issue is this, if we are commanded to heare two Sermons upon Sunday, all Ministers must preach, all the people must heare twice; but if we are not commanded, let no man lay a snare upon his conscience, even a pretext of piety [Page 125] must not take away our Freedome. And thus I have shewed what liberty agreeth to Christians in generall; Liberty from Ceremonies, liberty from indifferences. What remaineth but that I restore those words to religion which Seneca u­surps of Morality, O ars verè liberalis quae liberum facit! O how liberall, how free this Art, that thus many waies doth make us free. As it doth the true Christian in an higher measure. But of that hereafter. Now to him, that hath brought us all out of service, at least unto this Liberty, and which if we will be obedient children, will bring us through an higher liberty, unto Glory, bee all praise, &c.

THere are two vices extremely opposite to themselves, and no better agreeing with the right, Prophanenesse I meane, and Superstition. Prophanenesse, by which a man will doe according to no law of God; Superstiti­on, by w ^ch he will make himselfe more lawes thā God hath: the one of the seturneth our liberty in­to licēciousnes, the other into bōdage; by the first we are the more daring, by the second the more solemne and grave offenders. Of the former, Pro­phanenesse, I shall have occasion to discourse ere long; of the latter, Superstition, I have discoursed already, and yet must add a few words, since this over-service, this voluntary worship, this inventi­on rather than devotion, carrieth it selfe to the greater deceit of the beholders, under the shape of pietie and religion; and for antiquity challen­geth Christianity it selfe, since these Tares were sowne almost as soone as that Come; since this restraint was as early very neare, as that publi­shing of liberty. In Acts 15. 5. it is said, that there rose up certaine of the Pharisees which beleeved, say­ing, that it was needfull to circumcise them, & to com­mand them to keepe the law of Moses. No sooner had they received the faith, than these Pharisees [Page 128] would have filled them with superstition; they had but scarce begun to be Christians, and they are already tempted to become Jews: And so in the Fathers time there rose a sect which were termed Minaei, of whom S. Hierome elegantly, Dum Iudaei cupiunt esse & Christiani, nec Iudaei sunt nec Christiani; Whilest they strive to bee Jewes & Christians together, they are neither Jews nor Christians: not Jews because they were bapti [...]ed, not Christians because they joyned Circumcisi­on to their Baptisme: Nay, would to God that this mischiefe had stopped here, and not derived it selfe unto our times, wherein divers men, more cunningly, and yet as truely, restraine our liberty. Not to speake of Judaizing Sabbatarians, who scrupulously dispute of the beginning, and the end of that day, whether it bee naturall or artifi­ciall, whether if they sleepe in any part of it they prophane it, wherein they rest, and so rather keepe it. Whether they may make a fire upon that day, and venture upon that high offence of dressing meat, which yet they will eate on that day, as if the eating were not a labour to their teeth, as wel as the dressing to their fingers: With many such impertinēt queres, of w ^ch you shal not finde one, either in the Scripture or the Ancient, and were onely invented, as so many thornes and prickes to wound the tender consciences of the godly. I say, not to speake of these, you shall have others, and those at best but private Ministers, make orders themselves, which they will not for­sooth have to be called parts, but onely helps un­to [Page 129] worship, which yet they do so presse and urge, upon such termes of necessity and inforcement, that a man having accidentally omitted any one of thē, beginneth instantly to doubt whether he bee called, or no; as if the certainty of his calling depended upon these observations. And then will it not bee high time for us to demonstrate and insist upon the doctrine of Christian liberty, to make you know how far you are free? which freedome I told you, was more generall, and a­greed to all that were called Christians; or more particular, and onely belonged unto them who were Christians. Of which freedome we are now to intreate. And indeed were there not this li­berty, what where the former freedome but a milder bondage? for what comfort could it yeeld to any mans soule, that hee was not under the Ceremonies, if hee were under the curse of the Law? or what great matter is it, that indifferent things cannot binde my conscience, if it be sub­ject to Gods wrath for the breach of things which are not indifferent, for the violation of his Law? The true Christian then, the man after Gods heart, hee that is borne of GOD, is not onely free from the Ceremonies of the old Law, but from all lawes of indifferent things to binde the conscience, but also from the morall law it selfe. This seemeth strange, Is hee that a­lone amongst mankinde strives to keep the law, free from the Law? are other men damned for not observing it, & is it in his choice whether he will observe it or no? Nay, is he who is the only [Page 130] obedient, the onely superstitious one? for, hee is superstitious, who bindes himselfe, where he is free, and the true Christian bindes himselfe to the performance of the Law, to which you say hee is not obliged: wee must understand there­fore how he is free, to wit, from the rigour, from the curse, but not from the observation of the Law: There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus, Rom. 8. 1. Whosoever is in Christ Jesus is so free from the Law, that it shal not con­demne him; Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us, Gal. 3▪ 13. we shall not bee that which Christ for our sakes was; hee was a curse, therefore shall not wee bee accursed, but be freed from that which he indu­red: In a word, The Law is not made for a righteous man, 1 Tim. 1. 9. Which cannot be understood as the words sound; for, no man can bee righteous but by conforming himselfe to a law, which con­formity is his righteousnesse; so that it is so farre from truth, that a Law is not made for the righ­teous, that it is principally made for him, that by obeying it hee may prove his righteousnesse: they must necessarily then be understood of some respect, in consideration of which he is not under that Law, and that is onely, the penalty annexed; the just that is under the obedience, is not under the penalty of the Law: neither is he under the rigid command of it, that is, hee is not bound to it in its strictnesse, in so much that God will not impute disobedience to him, though hee hath not so accurately observed it, as the letter see­meth [Page 131] to exact: for Christ hee pardons their fai­lings, and Christ hee esteemeth of them, as if they had not failed at all: And as they are free from the curse, so are they free from the cause of the curse; their liberty extends no lesse to a free­dome from sinne, than from punishment. Sinne shall not have dominion over you, for yee are not under the Law, but under Grace, Rom. 6. 14. where the A­postle from the first inferres a second freedome; because wee are not under the curse of the Law, therefore neither are wee under the dominion of sinne; sinne is in us, but it hath no command in us; we are free, not from its existence, but from its tyranny. As a meeke man is not without cho­ler, but hee over-ruleth it, so the true Christian man hath sinne, but it is in fetters; hee is freed from it, that it shall not raigne, hee shall be freed from it, that it shall not bee in him. And this, if it bee rightly considered, is a more glorious freedome than the former; more glorious, more happy, more desirable to bee free from sinne ra­ther than misery. Divers men doe not esteeme it so miserable to bee in bondage, as to bee in bon­dage to such an one; Oh, you shall heare divers say, I care not whom I serve, so it bee not that Master: Pharaoh can pray that he may bee ridde of that death only, & Ieremy doth not care whi­ther he be carried, so it be not to the house of Io­nathā the Scribe; he had rather be under any tor­turer than under him. If thē these might have the happines, though not to be freed from al misery, yet frō that frō w ^ch they would chuse to be freed, [Page 132] would they not esteeme themselves fortunate men? And this is the case of the truly faithfull, they had infinitely rather be free from sinne, than from punishment; and it is Gods mercy that they are freed from sinne, freed from it, that if they cannot root it out of them, yet it shall take no deepe roote in them; and even that scantling which it is not Gods pleasure, as yet, to take out of them, it is his pleasure not to see: Hee seeth no iniquity in Iacob; not because there is none to bee seene, but because hee will take no notice of that which is. Thus, when hee pryeth into the least circumstances of the sinnes of the wicked, and sealeth those in a bag, ready to be opened at the last day, for their eternall confusion, hee will not so much as see them of his servants; for, Blessed is the man whose sins are covered: Or if he see them, it is that hee may no more see them; it is, as Mi­cah speaketh, Chap. 7. 19. To subdue them and cast them into the depthes of the Sea: as if he thought he could execute no fitter judgment, than to drown them which would damne us, than to cast them into the Seas waters, which would plunge us in­to hell fire. And it is observable, that we first read hee will subdue our sinnes, and then that hee will cast them into the depths of the Sea, to shew, that our sinnes are terrible monsters, are furious wild beasts, they require even an Omnipotent arme to subdue them: which consideration of their power cannot chuse but aggravate our happines, that wee are free from them. But, amongst all these freedomes wee doe not finde that wee are [Page 133] free from the obligation of the Law, that we are not bound to keepe the commandement. The faithfull is freed from the condemnation, not from the observation; and he that doth not strive to observe it, is not free from the condēnation of it neither. Seneca hath well said, Non est libertas ni­hil pati, That is not liberty to bee under nothing, that is arrogance and not liberty. To all such as thinke Christ hath freed them to doe what they please, as if he had no other thing to do, thā to suf­fer the most bitter pains of death, that men might bee securely wicked, I must tell, that to them the Law is in as full force, as it was in the very first minute to the Israelites, as if the Inke remained yet fresh upon the hand-writing that is against them. Divines observe, that God punisheth more severely the faults committed against his, than against himselfe; and therefore hee was silent at Pauls blasphemies, but Christ himselfe must ap­peare and strike him to the ground, when hee maketh havock of the Church: So likewise where Elies sonnes seized upon their part of the offe­ring, before they had burnt the fat unto the Lord, which by the law they were bound to doe, the Lord scarce takes notice of it, besides the bare relating of it; but when by taking away the portion of the people, they kept them from fre­quenting the Tabernacle, and so hindered their spirituall good, it is presently said, That the sinne of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord, 1 Sam. 2. 17. as if, had they not made men to abhorre the of­fering, [Page 134] God would not have esteemed their sin so great, as for it to abhorre them. This sheweth us, that God doth principally take order for his Childrens injuries, but i [...] doth not shew, that hee neglects his owne, that hee will free them from the punishment, who have freed themselves from the observation of his law: Nay, such men should know, that they are the principall of the wicked, they are the principall of the wicked, who in Scripture are termed, The sonnes of Belial; & these despisers of the law are the sonnes of Belial. For, to omit the other derivations which Divines doe fancy of that word, as it commeth of two Hebrew words, which signifie, either without light, or without profit, or lastly, without ascent, whith all agree very fitly unto them; they are the children of darknesse, their actions are nowise spirituall, profitable either to themselves or o­thers: and lastly, they shall never dwell in Gods holy hill, into which none can come but hee that ascends; Heaven is not scituate in a descent, or a levell. To omit these, as Prettinesses without much solidity, the true etymology of the word is; Without a yoak; Those are the true sons of Belial who would be without a yoake: and who would bee without a yoake, but they who would bee without a Law? Whomsoever then wee shall see to goe forward in whoredome, drunkennesse, swearing, covetousnesse, malice, schisme, or any such notorious offence, wee may conclude, that hee would bee free from the yoake, that hee is a sonne of Belial. And thus all unrepentant sin­ners are, whence the Prophet saith, They were [Page 135] haughty, and committed abomination against mee, Ezech. 16. 50. Iunius reades it, Exaltarunt se, They exalted themselves; as if none could commit abo­mination who was not first proud and haughty, who had not first exalted themselves, which no man can doe under a yoake; under that he will be humbled, not exalted. But, let them looke to it in time; God punisheth all sinners, but heeresists the proud onely; as who should say, Though many did offēd him besides, yet it was but timo­rously; none durst fight hand to hand with him, but the proud, only they put God to his defence, to resist; but though he resist them, they shall ne­ver be able to resist him, When the day of the Lord of hosts shall bee upon every one that is proud & lofty. Esay hath a pretty strange speech, The earth, saith he, shall be removed like a Cottage, and the transgres­sion thereof shall be heavy upon it, Esa. 24. 20. The transgression is heavy upon the earth, what then? Therefore it shall be removed; but one would think, Therefore rather it shall stand still; that which lyeth heavy upon a thing, hinders it from being removed. Oh the strange power of sinne, that by making a thing waighty maketh it the more moveable; for whose sake the earth, which stands stil, must be removed, and removed by a waight! As those then should suddenly repent, who are yet under, so should they alwayes triumph & re­joyce in the Lord, who are free from the curse of the law: and yet oftentimes none so dejected as they, especially when the Devill doth thus as­sault them, Whosoever doth not exactly per­forme [Page 136] every the least circumstance of the Law, is subject to eternal dānation; thou hast not exactly performed every circumstance, thou hast beene sometimes unadvisedly angry, rash words have escaped the prison of thy mouth, thy heart hath beene a denne of corruption, and thou hast a­gaine and againe done that evil, against w ^ch thou hast vowed, as if thou hadst repēted of thy repen­tance; what thē remaines for thee but the black­nesse of darknesse? to be cast into that fire which was as well prepared for thee, as for the devill and his angels. This is Sathans sophistrie, but yet his major is untrue, and his minor, although it bee true, doth not inferre his conclusion. It is true, Whosoever doth not exactly perform the Law, &c. is subject to the eternall punishment; but it is legally true, and thou art not under the Law, but under Grace: thou canst not deny but that in ma­ny things thou hast offended; but thou must an­swer that CHRIST, in whom thou art offended, never. The summe is this, the Devill hath no­thing to doe with thee if thou art free from the Law, and if thou art in Christ thou art free. Nei­ther let any man thinke that I would sooth him in his bad courses; that I would say, The soule shall live, which God hath said shall not live; and so that I would onely pitch him a smoother Caw­sey unto hell; no, you may remember I affirmed, that they, who shall bee free from punishment, must be free from the dominion of sinne; if then that have dominion over thee (and it hath, if thou obeyest it in the lusts thereof) this comfort doth [Page 137] not at all concerne thee, a corrosive is fitter for thee than a cordiall; but to those dejected soules, who, after all their indeavor, finde not the cōfort of godlinesse, who have the gift, but not the joy of beleeving, and therefore doe doubt of the gift, because they doe not feele the joy; to those, who runne after Gods commandements, and will not lie still though they fall: to these I proclaime, that they are free frō the laws curse, & therefore heires of heavens blessing; one confirmation of which they enjoy from hence, if they doe not use their liberty as a Cloake, &c. which is the first re­straint of S. Peters grant. Where wee shall consi­der, 1. What maliciousnesse is. 2. What it is to use our liberty as a cloake of maliciousnes. 3. That wee must not so use it. Maliciousnesse in the latitude of the word, may either be taken for that vice which is opposite to charity, and ter­med malice, or for sinnes in generall, which all proceed from the depravation, from the malici­ousnesse of our nature; or particularly for that of­fence, to whose contrary duty he had before ex­horted, even disobedience to the lawfull Magistrate. But wee are not so much to enquire what the word may signifie in it self, as what it must signi­fie here, and it cannot signifie Malice in the for­mer sense, not that it is lawfull to use our liberty as a Cloak even of that malice, as to abstain from reproving our brother, because wee hate him; as if it were an indifferēt thing to reprove or no; as, if we performed it to our friend we did well, but not ill, if we did not performe it to our ene­my, [Page 138] even when wee had just reason to suppose that such a reproofe would amend him; I say, it is not lawful to use our liberty for a cloak of that malice; but that is not the malice of which our Apostle here speaketh, for he speaketh of such a malice which is opposite to subjection; now ha­tred and rancor is opposed [...]o charity, not to subjection; and he that upon pretence of his liber­ty, denyeth obediēce to Magistracie, doth it not out of malice, because hee hateth him, but out of injustice, because hee will not give him what is his due, not feare to whom feare, nor honour to whom honour appertaineth. Not to speake in the meane time, that the word in the Text is not malice, but maliciousnesse, betweene which there is a great difference. It being then not so aptly to bee interpreted of uncharitablenesse, let us see in the next place whether it will sound better for Sins in generall: they al proceed from maliciousnesse or corruption, and wee must not use our liberty to cloake this malice. This indeed is thought to be the meaning by the most, & that not without good probability; for a generall reason may not unfitly bee used in a particular exhortation, and the argument holds good, We must not refuse subjection by reason of our liberty, because uni­versally wee must not doe any bad act by reason of our liberty: But we must know that the word is, [...], which signifyeth evill-doing, and is op­posed to [...], or well-doing in the former verse. If therefore well doing, as I there proved, must signifie our obedience, evill-doing or mali­ciousnesse [Page 139] must needs import our disobedience to government. This you see is Gods account of rebellion, of disobedience; he cals it maliciousnesse, sinne, without any addition; as if it were the onely, or, at least, the greatest sinne: and therfore no wonder if wee must not use our liberty to cloake it; the meaning of w ^ch phrase we are next to finde out. To use our liberty for a cloake of maliciousnesse, in generall, is to pretend, that those Actions are indifferent, which indeed are unlawfull, and upon that pretence to practise them, and it principally holds, where the A­ction that these would doe is, of it selfe, indiffe­rent, or at least seemeth to bee so, and is onely made unlawfull by some circumstance. For instance, it is, in it selfe, indifferent whether I eate one or two meales in a day, & that meale w ^ch I eate, whether it be of this or that kinde of meat; but if Superiors shall command, Eate not at such a time, or, at other times, eate not of such a meat; if thou, pretending thy liberty, doest the contra­ry, and feasts when thou shouldst eate nothing, and emptiest the Bucher-Row, when Authority sends thee to the fish-market; I say, if thou pre­tendest thy liberty, that with thy liberty thou doest cover thy disobedience, thou thus makest thy freedome a cloake of maliciousnesse. Doe I sin then, wilt thou say, if hunger wil not suffer me to fast, if tēdernes or antipathy make fish a kind of poison to my body? No certainly, thou offen­dest not the law, if thou contemnest not the law­maker; but thou dost contemne him, if thou dost [Page 140] onely urge thy liberty as a sufficient plea against the obligation of his law: In a word, if thou dost it not publikely, if thou make it appeare that thy excuse is true, and after all this doest willingly submit to his judgement, thou sinnest not, though thou doest not what man commands, but this, not by making thy liberty a cloake of thy maliciousnesse, but by making thy infirmity to cover thy omission, which, if it had not beene, thou hadst done otherwise. Thus, Hee that re­gards a day, regards it to the Lord, and hee that re­gards not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it, Rom. 14. 6. which sheweth, that the regarding or the not regarding, is, in it selfe, indifferent; if hee had commanded or forbidden either, both of them could not bee done to the Lord. But Au­thority interposeth and faith, that such a day I wil have you to observe the Nativitie, the Passiō, the Ascension, the Resurrection of our Saviour; on them thou shalt abstaine from thy ordinary labours, frequent the Church, and make it an ho­ly rest. Thou neverthelesse wilt put off thy busi­nes unto this day, thou cāst find no such time for sowing, or plowing, or the like, as this, and that by reason of thy Christian liberty, which hath taken away the distinction of dayes. But hearken, Christianity hath taken away the distinction of dayes, but it hath not taken away distinction of orders; there must bee some to command, some to obey; it hath not taken away obediēce; if upon this colour thou shalt flinch from it: this is with thy liberty to cloake thy malice. In a word, as [Page 141] you have some that Jewishly observe, so there are too many that Atheistically neglect the Lords day; these have no journeyes but onely then, as if they would ride away, not so much from their place, as their duty; to Church they will not come, their house is a Church: in a word, they give themselves to feasting, sporting, all kinde of excesse then, and that forsooth because they are free. But this is onely a cloake, and a thred-bare one, which will appeare when wee take it off. Thou art free indeed, but yet not from Lawes which God hath immediately made, or which hee hath published by the Church. Now that there should bee a time indefinitely for pub­like worship, God hath intimated in his fourth Commandement, and when, and how that day shall be observed, hath beene determined by his Church; to wit, principally in praying, hearing, meditating, in acts of mercy, and such like. So that thy freedome is not a truth, but a pretension, not a garment w ^ch sits close to thee, but a cloake w ^ch the least winde can blow off, nay, it is not so much a cloake as one of Adams fig-leaves▪ which, as the fathers observe out of naturall Historians, will rather serve to annoy thee with its rough­nesse, than to hide thee with its quantity. This then is to cover malice with liberty, and this is utterly unlawfull, whether we consider it in ge­nerall of any wickednesse so covered, or particu­larly of disloyalty to Princes. Of w ^ch in the third place. And that this is too usuall we may collect by the very position of these words, first wee [Page 142] have, As free; & then immediately, Not using, &c. as if most men did use their liberty unto malici­ousnesse, as soone as ever they conceived that they were free: and therefore S. Paul when hee had but newly said, Brethren, yee have beene called unto liberty, presently adds, Onely use not your liber­ty for an occasion to the flesh, Gal 5. 13. to shew, that most did use it for an occasion of the flesh, who were taught, that they were called unto libertie. A place almost the twinne with this here, As free, there, Called unto liberty. S. Peter speaketh against Cloaking maliciousnes with liberty; S. Paul, Vsing liberty for an occasion to the flesh, to wit, for an occasion whereby either the flesh might practise or cover its maliciousnesse. But though this bee frequent, it is unfit; he that hath put on zeale as a cloake, cannot indure that liberty should be used as a cloake. Liberty is a great priviledge; now it is most unnaturally absurd, that a priviledge should bee used against the Donor. If a Prince make one his Lieutenant in a Province, can hee endure that, by reason of that Lieutenantship, he should not doe what hee would, hee should doe that which hee would not have him? No more can God indure that by our liberty, by which we resemble him, we should take occasion to breake his lawes, and oppost him. To doe thus, is to de­nie the faultinesse of our Action, and to deny the fault, is to make it more faulty. All men when they have done that which is evill, either if they can possibly, they deny the fact, or, if that cannot bee done, they would faine deny the un­lawfulnesse [Page 143] of the fact. Milo, if hee cannot de­ny that hee killed Clodius, will affirme, that hee did it justly; and most, if they cannot say with Gehazi, Thy servant hath gone no whither, yet are ready to say with Saul, Yea, though I went thither, though I did such an act or the like, yet I have o­beyed, or at least I have not trāsgressed the voyce of the Lord: And thus, whē they should rather strive for a robe of mercy, they lay a cloake of liberty upon their maliciousnesse, but, as I told you, to the aggravation of their sinne. For, though the quantity be great before, if you adde but a little more to it, it is the greater; now the deny all of the fault, and excusing it by liberty, or by such pretexts, is an addition to the fault. But this one­ly proves that it maketh the same fault greater, I therefore goe further and affirme, that it makes a new fault, greater than the first; for the former might bee out of ignorance, passion, or vehemen­cy of temptation, when this, the putting on of this cloak, must needs be out of deliberation and choice; no man can pretend his liberty to an act, who is not first presumed to have discussed the point. Briefly, hee that sinneth, hainously, for the most part, knoweth it, and knoweth that he must be damned without repentance, but he that pre­tends liberty for his malice; thinkes he hath done no otherwise than hee ought to doe, and such an opinion will rather inflame him to boasting, than to repentance. No man repents of indifferent, but only of sinful acts. Here thē I could justly re­prove them, Qui in diem vivunt, as hee speaketh, [Page 144] Who are dead in security, who never looke unto any of their actions, nor consider whether they be commanded or left at large, whether they bee necessary or free; these neither know that they are free, nor can use their freedome even where it ought be used for the justifying of their indiffe­rent acts, but though they live as if they were fre [...] in al things, yet they cā give no reason why they live so, but are rather blockes than men. Others there bee, that loose themselves where they are bound, and tie themselves where they are free, that doe not with their liberty cover their mali­ciousnesse, but with their folly smother their li­berty. If any thing bee out of order in their cloathes, they dare not present themselves in Gods house, when yet they will impudently e­nough thrust in thither, though their soules bee altogether out of order; thus to manifest them­selves to be the wicked, they feare where no fear is, and they doe not feare where they should. And thus much for not covering wickednes in general. I should now shew, that you should not cover this wickednes of disobedience by your liberty; but I have performed it already in the first Sermon on this Text, and therefore thinke onely this ne­cessary to urge you to that duty, by shewing you that so you shall approve your selves servants of God. Where I shall briefly consider the necessity and the glory of that Title. For the first, not [...] speake of our Creation, Redemption, overwhel­ming with benefits, & the like; I will only ground my self on that of Aust. Fieri potest ut malè servias, [Page 145] ut non servias fieri non potest: Thou mast serve him ill, but it is impossible not to be his servant; that, is most necessary. For, suppose thou dost not what he commands, thou doest what he will order to his owne glory: why then wilt thou not bee his servant willingly, whose servant by force thou shalt be? Oh then seriously and timely addresse thy selfe unto this service, and that for the glorie of it. The greatest glory is to be supreme, the next, to be neare unto him, and even he in a mean office is honoured, who is the Kings servāt. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee, saith the Queene of Shebah unto Solomon, 1 King. 10. 3. Where she esteemeth the servants to be almost as happy as their Ma­ster, the attendants as Solomon: What an happi­nesse then, what a glory will it be for us to attend upon the true Solomon, the everlasting Prince of Peace? Where observe yee, that of those whom she first cals servants, she immediatly saith, They stand continually before thee; as if it were the same thing to be ones servant, and, to stand perpetual­ly before him. How this can bee true in all other services, I list not to enquire; I am sure it is most certaine in the Lords: be his servants, and you shall stand perpetually before him, in his favour now, in his Kingdome hereafter.