Naaman's service was truly no sin; but it had been a sin in him to have done it when he thought it to be a sin. And therefore the prophet's phrase, "Go in peace," may well be interpreted so,-Set thy mind at rest; for all that, that thou requirest may be done without original sin our own wills concur, as well as to any actual sin. An involuntary act cannot be a sinful act; and though our will work not now in the admitting of original sin, which enters with our soul in our conception, or in our inanimation and quickening, yet, at first, Sicut omnium natura, ita omnium voluntates erant in Adam—sin. Now that tenderness is not in our case in As every man was in Adam, so every faculty of every man, and consequently the will of every man, concurred to that sin, which, therefore, lies upon every man now, so that that debt, original sin, is as much thine as his; and for the other debts, which grow out of this debt (as nothing is so generative, so multiplying, as debts are, especially spiritual debts, sins), for actual sins, they are thine, out of thine own choice. Thou might est have left them undone, and wouldest needs do them; for God never induces any man into a perplexity that is, into a necessity of doing any particular sin. Thou couldest have dissuaded a son, or a friend, or a servant, from that sin which thou hast embraced thyself; thou hast been so far from having been forced to those sins which thou hast done, as that thou hast been sorry thou couldest not do them in a greater measure. They are thine-thine own, so as that thou canst not discharge thyself upon the devil, but art, by the habit of sin, become spontaneus dæmon (Chrysostom), a devil to thyself, and wouldest minister temptations to thyself, though there were no other devil. And this is our propriety in sin; they are our own. This is the propriety of thy sin; the next is the plurality, the multiplicity, iniquitates; not only the committing of one sin often; and yet he deceives himself in his account dangerously that reckons but upon one sin, because he is guilty but of one kind of sin. Would a man say he had but one wound if he were shot seven times in the same place? Could the Jews deny that they flayed Christ with their second, or third, or twentieth blow, because they had torn skin and flesh with their former scourges, and had left nothing but bones to wound? But it is not only that, the repeating of the same sin often, but it is the multiplicity of divers kinds of sins that is here lamented in all our behalfs. It is not when the conscience is tender, and afraid of every sin, and every appearance of sin. When Naaman desired pardon of God by the prophet, for sustaining the king upon his knees in the house of Rimmon the idol, and the prophet bade him “ go in peace" (2 Kings v. 19), it is not that he allows him any peace under the conscience and guiltiness of a sin; that was indispensable (i.e., not within the power of a dispensation). Neither is there any dispensation in Naaman's case, but only a rectifying of a tender and timorous conscience, that thought that to be a sin which was not if it went no further, but to the exhibiting of a civil duty to his master, in what place soever, religious or profane, that service of kneeling were to be done. the text. He that proceeds so to examine all his actions, may meet scruples all the way that may give him some anxiety and vexation, but he shall never come to that overflowing of sin intended in this plurality and multiplicity here. For this plurality, this multiplicity of sin, hath found first a sponginess in the soul, an aptness to receive any liquor, to embrace any sin, that is offered to it; and after a while, a hunger and thirst in the soul, to hunt, and pant, and draw after a temptation, and not to be able to endure any vacuum, any discontinuance, or intermission of sin and he will come to think it a melancholic thing still to stand in fear of hell; a sordid, a yeomanly thing, still to be ploughing, and weeding, and worming a conscience; a mechanical thing, still to be removing logs, or filing iron, still to be busied in removing occasions of temptation, or filing and clearing particular actions: and at last he will come to that case which St Augustine, out of an abundant ingenuity, and tenderness, and compunction, confesses of himself—Ne vituperarer, vitiosior fiebam, I was fain to sin, lest I should lose my credit, and be undervalued; Et ubi non suberat, quo admisso, æquarer perditis, When I had no means to do some sins, whereby I might be equal to my fellow, Fingebam ne fecisse quod non feceram, ne viderer abjectior, quo innocentior, I would belie myself, and say I had done that which I never did, lest I should be undervalued for not having done it. Audiebam eos, exaltantes flagitia, says that tender, blessed father, I saw it was thought wit to make sonnets of their own sins, Et libebat facere, non libidine facti, sed libidine laudis, I sinned, not for the pleasure I had in the sin, but for the pride that I had to write feelingly of it. O what a leviathan is sin, how vast, how immense a body! And then what a spawner, how numerous! Between these two, the denying of sins which we have done, and the bragging of sins which we have not done, what a space, what a compass is there, for millions of millions of sins! And so have you the nature of sin, which was our first; the propriety of sin, which was our second; and the plurality, the multiplicity of sin, which was our third branch; and follows next the exaltation thereof; Supergressæ sunt—“ My sins are gone over my head." They are, that is, they are already got above us; for in that case we consider this plural, this manifold sinner, that he hath slipped his time of preventing, or resisting his sins; his habits of sins are got, already got above him. Elijah bids his man look towards the sea, and he saw nothing; he bids him look again, and again to a seventh time, and he saw nothing (1 Kings xviii. 48). After all, he sees but a little cloud, like a man's hand; and yet, upon that little appearance, the prophet warns the king, to get him into his chariot, and make good haste away, lest the rain stopped his passage, for instantly the heaven was black with clouds and rain. The sinner will see nothing, till he can see nothing; and, when he sees anything (as to the blindest conscience something will appear), he thinks it but a little cloud, but a melancholic fit, and, in an instant (for seven years make but an instant to that man, that thinks of himself but once in seven years), supergressæ sunt, his sins are got above him, and his way out is stopped. The sun is got over us now, though we saw none of his motions, and so are our sins, though we saw not their steps. You know how confident our adversaries are in that argument, "Why do ye oppugn our doctrine of prayer for the dead, or of invocation of saints, or of the fire of purgatory, since you cannot assign us a time when these doctrines came into the Church, or that they were opposed or contradicted when they entered?" When a conscience comes to that inquisition, to an iniquitates supergressæ, to consider that our sins are gone over our head in any of those ways which we have spoken of, if we offer to awaken that conscience further, it startles, and it answers us drowsily, or frowardly, like a new waked man, "Can you remember when you sinned this sin first, or did you resist it then, or since?" Whence comes this troublesome singularity now? Pray let me sleep still, says this startled conscience. Beloved, if we fear not the wetting of our foot in sin, it will be too late, when we are over head and ears. God's deliverance of His children was sicco pede, He made the sea dry land, and " they wet not their foot" (Exod. xiv. 22). At first, in the creation, Subjecit omnia sub pedibus-"God put all things under their feet" (Psalm viii. 7); in man's ways, in this world, His angels bear us up in their hands; why? Ne impingamus pedem-"That we should not hurt our foot against a stone, but have a care of every step we make." If thou have defiled thy feet (strayed into any unclean ways) wash them again, and stop there, and that will bring thee to the consideration of the spouse, "I have washed my feet, how shall I then defile them again?" (Cant. v. 3.) I have found mercy for my former sins, how shall I dare to provoke God with more? Still God appoints us a permanent means to tread sin under our feet here, in this life; the woman, that is, the Church, hath the moon, that is, all transitory things (and so, all temptations) under her feet (Rev. xii. 1); as Christ himself expressed His care of Peter to consist in that, that if his feet were washed all was clean; and as in His own person He admitted nails in His feet, as well as in His hands, so crucify thy hands, | abstain from unjust actions, but crucify thy feet too, make not one step towards the way of idolaters, or other sinners. If we watch not the ingressus sum, we shall be insensible of the supergressæ sunt; if we look not to a sin when it comes towards us, we shall not be able to look towards it when it is got over us: for, if a man come to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, he will come to sit in the seat of the scornful; for that is the sinner's progress, in the first warning that David gives in the beginning of his first psalm. If he give himself leave to enter into sinful ways, he will sit and sin at ease, and make a jest of sin; and he that loveth danger shall perish therein. So have you then the nature of sin; it was sin that oppressed him; and the propriety of sin, it was his sin, actual sin; and the plurality of sin, habitual, customary sin; and the victory of sin, they had been long climbing, and were now got up to a height; and this height and exaltation of theirs is expressed thus, Super caput-" Mine iniquities are got above my head." THE ELECT.* But who are this We? why, they are the elect of God. But who are they, who are these elect? Qui timidè rogat, docet negare; if a man ask me with a diffidence, Can I be the adopted son of God that have rebelled against Him in all my affections, that have trodden upon His commandments in all mine actions, that have divorced myself from Him in preferring the love of His creatures before Himself; that have murmured at His corrections, and thought them too much; that have undervalued His benefits, and thought them too little; that have abandoned and prostituted my body, His temple, to all uncleanness, and my spirit to indevotion and contempt of His ordinances; can I be the adopted son of God that have done this? Ne timide roges, ask me not this with a diffidence and distrust in God's mercy, as if thou thoughtest, with Cain, thy iniquities were greater than could be forgiven; but ask me with that holy confidence which belongs to a true convert, Am not I, who though I am never without sin, yet am never without hearty remorse and repentance for my sins; though the weakness of my flesh sometimes betrays me, the strength of His Spirit still recovers me; though my body be under the paw of that lion that seeks whom he may devour, yet the Lion of Judah raises again and upholds my soul; though I wound my Saviour with many sins, yet all these, be they never so many, I strive against, I lament, confess, and forsake as far as I am able; am not I the child of God, and His adopted son in this state? Roga fidenter, ask me with a holy confidence in thine and my God, et doces affirmare, thy very question gives me mine answer to thee; thou teachest me to * Works, p. 333. say, thou art. God teaches me to say so by His apostle, The foundation of God is sure, and this is the seal; God knoweth who are His, and let them that call upon His name depart from all iniquity. He that departs so far, as to repent former sins, and shut up the ways which he knows in his conscience do lead him into temptations, he is one of this quorum; one of us, one of them who are adopted by Christ to be the sons of God. I am of this quorum, if I preach the Gospel sincerely, and live thereafter (for he preaches twice a day that follows his own doctrine, and does as he says), and you are of this quorum, if you preach over the sermons which you hear, to your own souls in your meditation, to your families in your relation, to the world in your conversation. If you come to this place to meet the Spirit of God, and not to meet one another; if you have sat in this place with a delight in the Word of God, and not in the word of any speaker; if you go out of this place in such a disposition as that, if you should meet the last trumpets at the gates, and Christ Jesus in the clouds, you would not entreat Him to go back, and stay another year; to enwrap all in if you have a religious and sober assurance that you are His, and walk according to your belief, you are His; and, as the fulness of time, so the fulness of grace is come upon you, and you are not only within the first commission, of those who were under the law, and so redeemed, but of this quorum, who are selected out of them, the adopted sons of that God, who never disinherits those that forsake not Him. one, JOSEPH HALL. GOD'S VINEYARD.* 1574-1656. LAY now all these together, And what could have been done more for our vineyard, O God, that Thou hast not done? Look about you, honourable and Christian hearers, and see whether God hath done thus with any nation. Oh, never, never was any people so bound to a God. Other neighbouring regions would think themselves happy in one drop of those blessings which have poured down thick upon us. Alas! they are in a vaporous and marish vale, while we are seated on the fruitful hill; they lie open to the massacring knife of an enemy, while we are fenced; they are clogged with miserable encumbrances, while we are free; briers and brambles overspread them, while we are choicely planted; their tower is of offence, their winepress is of blood. Oh, the lamentable condition of more likely vineyards than our own! Who can but weep and bleed to see those woful calamities that are fallen upon the late famous and flourishing churches of Reformed Christendom? Oh, for that Palatine vine, late inoculated with a precious bud of our royal stem-that vine, not long since rich in goodly clusters, now the insultation of boars and prey of foxes! Oh, for those poor distressed Christians in France, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, Germany, Austria, the Valteline, that groan now under the tyrannous yoke of anti-Christian oppression! How glad would they be of the crumbs of our feasts! How rich would they esteem themselves with the very gleanings of our plentiful crop of prosperity! How do they look up at us, as even * From a Sermon preached before the House of Lords. now militantly triumphant, while they are miserably wallowing in dust and blood, and wonder to see the sunshiné upon our hill, while they are drenched with storm and tempest in the valley ! What are we, O God, what are we that Thou shouldest be thus rich in Thy mercies to us, while Thou art so severe in Thy judgments upon them? It is too much, Lord, it is too much that Thou hast done for so sinful and rebellious a people. 2. Cast now your eyes aside a little, and, after the view of God's favours, see some little glimpse of our REQUITAL. Say then, say, 0 nation not worthy to be beloved, what fruit have ye returned to your beneficent God? Sin is impudent; but let me challenge the impudent forehead of sin itself. Are they not sour and wild grapes that we have yielded? Are we less deep in the sins of Israel than in Israel's blessings? Complaints, I know, are unpleasing, however just, but now not more unpleasing than necessary. "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of contention" (Jer. xv. 10). I must cry out in this sad day of the sins of my people. The searchers of Canaan, when they came to the brook of Eshcol, they cut down a branch, with a cluster of grapes, and carried it on a staff between two, to show Israel the fruit of the land (Num. xiii. 23). Give me leave, in the search of our Israel, to present your eyes with some of the wild grapes that grow there on every hedge. And what if they be the very same that grew in this degenerated vineyard of Israel? Where we meet, first, with oppression, a lordly sin, and that challengeth precedency, as being commonly incident to none but the great; though a poor oppressor (as he is unkindly, so he) is he a monster of mercilessness. Oh, the loud shrieks and clamours of this crying sin! What grinding of faces, what racking of rents, what detention of wages, what enclosing of commons, what engrossing of commodities, what griping exactions, what straining the advantages of greatness, what unequal levies of legal payments, what spiteful suits, what depopulations, what usuries, what violences abound everywhere! The sighs, the tears, the blood of the poor, pierce the heavens and call for a fearful retribution. This is a sour grape indeed, and that makes God to wring His face in an angry detestation. Drunkenness is the next-not so odious in the weakness of it, as in the strength. Oh, woful glory! Strong to drink. Woe is me! how is the world turned beast! What bousing and quaffing, and whiffing, and healthing is there on every bench, and what reeling and staggering in our streets! What drinking by the yard, the die, the dozen! What forcing of pledges! what quarrels for measure and form! How is that become an excuse of villainy, which any villainy might rather excuse-"I was drunk!" How hath this torrent, yea, this deluge of excess in meats and drinks drowned the face of the earth, and risen many cubits above the highest mountains of religion and good laws! Yea, would God I might not say that which I fear and shame and grieve to say, that even some of them which square the ark for others, have been inwardly drowned, and discovered their nakedness. That other inundation scoured the world; this impures it. And what but a deluge of fire can wash it from so abominable filthiness? Let no popish eavesdropper now smile to think what advantage give by so deep a censure of our own profession. Alas! these sins know no difference of religions. Would God they themselves were not rather more deep in these foul enormities! We extenuate not our guilt-whatever we sin, we condemn it as mortal; they palliate wickedness with the fair pretence of veniality. Shortly, they accuse us; we, them; God, both. But where am I? How easy is it for a man to lose himself in the sins of the time! It is not for me to have my habitation in these black tents; let me pass through them running. Where can a man cast his eye, not to see that which may vex his soul? Here, bribery and corruption in the seats of judicature; there, perjuries at the bar; here, partiality and unjust connivancy in magistrates; there, disorder in those that should be teachers; here, sacrilege in patrons; there, simoniacal contracts in unconscionable Levites; here, bloody oaths and execrations; there, scurril profaneness; here, cozening in bargains; there, breaking of promises; here, perfidious underminings; there, flattering supparasitations; here, pride in both sexes, but especially the weaker; there, luxury and wantonness; here, contempt of God's messengers; there, neglect of His ordinances, and violation of His days. The time and my breath would sooner fail me than this woful bead-roll of wickedness. FASHIONS OF THE WORLD.* If we love the world more than God, if we hate any enemy more than sin, if we grieve at any loss more than of the favour of God, if we joy in anything more than the writing of our names in heaven, if we fear anything more than offence, if we hope for anything more than salvation, and, much more, if we change objects, loving what we should hate, joying in what we should grieve at, hoping for what we should fear, and the contrary-in one word, if our desires and affections be earthly, grovelling, sensual, not spiritual, sublime, heavenly, we fall into the fashion of the world. Let the world dote upon vanity, and follow after lies; let our affections and conversation be above, where Christ Jesus sitteth at the right hand of God. Let the base earthworms of this world be taken up with the best of this vain trash, the desires of us Christians must soar aloft, and fix themselves upon those objects which may make us perfectly and unchangeably blessed. Thus fashion not your hearts to the carnal desires and affections of the world. LIFE A SOJOURNING.+ A man that sojourns abroad in a strange country finds himself no way interested in their designs and proceedings. What cares he who rises or falls at their court? who is in favour, and who in disgrace, what ordinances or laws are made, and what are repealed? He says still to himself as our Saviour said to Peter, "What is that to thee?" Thus doth the Christian here. He must use the world as if he used it not; he must pass through the affairs of this life without being entangled in them, as remembering who and where he is that he is but a sojourner here. No man that goes to sojourn in a strange country will carry his lumber along with him, but makes over his money, by exchange, to receive it where he is going. Ye rich men that cannot think to carry your pelf with you into heaven; no, it were well if you could get in yourselves without that cumbrous load; it may keep you out-it cannot carry you in. If we be strangers and pilgrims here, we cannot but have a good mind homeward. It is natural to us all to be dearly affectioned to our home. I must tell you it is no good sign if we be loath to go home to our Father's house. It is a true observation of Seneca, Velocitas temporis, saith he, "The quick speed of time is best discerned when we look at it past and gone;" and this I can confirm to you by experience. It hath pleased the providence of my God so to contrive it that this day, this very morning, fourscore years ago, I was born into the world. "A great time since," you are ready to say, and so indeed it seems to you that look at it forward; but to me, that look at it as past, it seems so short that it is gone like a tale that is told, or a dream by night, and looks but like yesterday. It can be no offence for me to say that many of you who hear me this day are not like to see so many suns walk over your heads as I have done; yea, what speak I of this? There is not one of us that can assure himself of his continuance here one day. We are all tenants at will, and, for aught we know, may be turned out of these clay cottages at an hour's warning. Oh then, what should we do, but, as wise farmers who know the time of their lease is expiring and cannot be renewed, carefully and seasonably provide ourselves of a surer and more during tenure? I remember our witty countryman, Bromiard, tells us of a lord in his time that had a fool in his house, as many great men in those days had for their pleasure, to whom this lord gave a staff, and charged him to keep it till he should meet with one that were more fool than himself, and if he met with such a one, to deliver it over to him. Not many years after, this lord fell sick, and indeed was sick unto death. His fool came to see him, and was told by his sick lord that he must now shortly leave him. "And whither wilt thou go?" said the fool. "Into another world," said the lord. "And when wilt thou come again? within a month?" "No." "Within a year?" "No." "When, then?" "Never." "Never! and what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment there whither thou goest?" "None at all." "No!" said the fool, "none at all! Here, take my staff. Art thou going away for ever, and hast taken no order nor care how thou shalt speed in that other world, whence thou shalt never return? Take my staff, for I am not guilty of any such folly as this." And, indeed, there cannot be a greater folly, or madness rather, than to be so wholly taken up with an eager regard for these earthly vanities, which we cannot hold, as to utterly neglect the care of that eternity which we can never forego. And, consider well of it, upon this moment of our life depends that eternity either way. My dear brethren, it is a great way to heaven, and we have but a little time to get thither. God says to us, as the angel said to Elijah, "Up, for thou hast a great journey to go;" and if, as I fear, we have loitered in the way, and trifled away any part of the time in vain impertinences, we have so much more need to gird up our loins and hasten our pace. Let us, therefore, in the fear of God, be exhorted to recollect ourselves; and since we find ourselves guilty of the sinful misspence of our good hours, let us, while we have pace, obtain of ourselves to be careful of redeeming that precious time we have lost. As the widow of Sarepta, when she had but a little oil left in her cruse and a little meal in her barrel, was careful of spending that to the best advantage, so let us, considering that we have but a little sand left in our glass, a short remainder of our mortal life, be sure to employ it unto the best profit of our souls, so that every one of our hours may carry up with it a happy testimony of our gainful improvement, that so, when our day cometh, we may change our time for eternity, the time of our sojourning for the eternity of glory and blessedness. THE strength of all government is religion; for though policy may secure a kingdom against This was Eliot's first speech after the accession of Charles I., and was delivered in Parliament, June 1625. Speaking of his style of oratory, John Forster remarks: "His vivacity was equal to his earnestness, yet never so displayed as to detract from it. He had in great perfection some of the highest qualities of an orator, singular power of statement, clearness and facility in handling details, pointed classical allusion, keen and logical argument, forcible and rich declama foreigners (and so I pray God this kingdom may always stand secure), and wisdom may provide all necessaries for the rule and government at home; yet if religion season not the affections of the people, the danger is as much in our own Achitophels, as from Moab and all the armies of the Philistines. Religion it is that keeps the subject in obedience, as being taught by God to tion; but in none of these does he at any time seem, however briefly, to indulge merely for its own sake. All are subordinated to the design and the matter in hand." |