Meditations, Meditation 40 – Meditation 43
40
God is the iudge of the world, and iudgeth it generally by two kinds of iudgment. The first is by Deputies, and so by Kings, Magistrates and Iudges, he iudgeth mankinde. It is the iudgement of God which is committed to them, and they are his mouth to the people▪ How wicked and false are they then, that out of the mouth of God giuegive not the iudgement of God, but of their owne corruption! that seeke not what God iudgeth of the case, but what themselues may iudge, corruptly, if couertly. These are in the ranke of the old false Prophets, which said the Lord saith, when hee speaketh not by them. Thou standest ô corrupt man, in the place of God, to represent him, but thou actest this part ill fauouredly, and insteede of representing the pure, and by-bribes-vnflexible Lord of the world, thou plaiest the part of a base and rotten-harted slaue; so doest thou expresse thy owne vice not his iustice, and wee receiue that iudgement of mony, not of God. Yet is that indeede thy God, and tells thee what sentence thou shalt giuegive; and all this is wisedome if concealed from the eyes of men. But euen for that point also know this, that thogh thou art only in that place deputed to iudge, yet many others, particulars beeing heard, cā & do iudge as wel as thy selfe: these see & feele when the bias of couetousnesse, and corruptions, carrie thee from the straight line of iustice; they feele whē the iudge is some way allyed to the cause, & hath some feeling of it, because hee or his hauehave felt some thing for it; yea generally they talke of it, though out of hearing; for corruptnesse though it hauehave no other goodnesse, hath yet some modestie, and is ashamed to heare it selfe spoken of, for it knoweth it selfe to bee a vice: yet this is one more vice of that vice, to rage more against others that reueale it, then against the owner of it, that did such a thing which might iustly shame the Author of it, if reuealed. Let such a one be rather angry with himselfe for doing ill, then with another, for speaking truth. But because through this net of humane iustice and deputatiue iudgement, many guilty, if profitable offenders breake out and escape, God hath another greater net which he casts without these, wherein hee takes both the escapers, and the giuers of leaue to escape; This is the great and generall iudgement, wherein God in person will sit as iudge, and will examine the iudges themselues and the iudged. Then the righteous Iudge of the world, shall iustifie the iudges that hauehave iudged righteously in this world; But there they, that now are wrōgfully iustified shall iustly bee condemned, and the mooueable Iudges that missed their part, and changing iudgement, spake from thē selues, when they should hauehave spoken frō God, shall hauehave their faults repeated vntounto them, if vnrepeated; and by the iust mouth of God himselfe, shall with their faults be deliuered to Satan the iayler, who shall carry them to the dungeon, where the worme dyeth not, nor the fire goeth out. But because such men doe fortifie their consciences, against the terrors of the Lord, and his fearefully-great iudgement, and put the euill day either wholly or farre from them; that they bee not vtterly without feare in this world, God doth many times by particular iudgements strike, either them, their issue, or those whom they hauehave iustified in offences; by which particular stroakes on some among many, he puts them in minde that hee which now iudgeth some, shall hereafter iudge all sinne, being equally odious in all, and equally lyable to iudgment. Hee strikes not all, yet, because generall iustice is reserued for the generall iudgement; But he strikes some, that their iudgement might to al be an earnest of a generall iudgement, and might in the meane time terrifie men from wickednesse by present plagues, who feare not the future.
41
Moreouer; it is a great motiue from sinne, the shortnesse of the time betweene sinne and punishment: there is nothing but life betweene them; & howsoeuer we lengthen it in our imagination to keepe vsus from feare of punishment, yet if we consider it by the most earnest and most trusted iudgement, which is that of the worldly wise, it is therby valued but at seauen yeares or thereabout; yet if it be (as it is but with some) a continuance of thirtie or forty yeares, after thou commest to thy full age of wickednesse, aske the worldling what hee thinketh of himselfe when hee hath such a tearme in a liuing. He will by no meanes think himself a setled man, he will not much build vponupon it, for hee holds it but a short time, and is continually troubled that it weares so fast & is so neere an end. Surely the diuell hath a great aduantage vponupon vsus by this deceit of our flesh, that it can tell vsus truths in many things when their vse and end is earthly, but tels vsus falshoods in the same things when their vse is heauenly; it makes vsus wise for matters of this generation, but not for those of the Regeneration. But let vsus, where there is such a truth so found, take the line from the worldly things, and lay it on the spirituall, then shal we finde that grosly to appeare, which before was not perceiued, and so may we deceiue the Diuell himselfe, his aduantage beeing made ours. Accordingly let vsus take that life, wherewith the wisedome of the world doth measure life for worldly purposes, and lay it on the same life for our spirituall vse: then shall we finde that the sinfull pleasures of life, are but pleasures for a season, & that a short one, and that there is but the same short season betweene pleasant sinne and eternall punishments.
42
He that wil finde a good friend let him seeke a good Christian. For a Christian is more then a man, and hath the strength of God added to the strength of man: Christ the Rocke is his foundation, and he will stand the billowes, and beat backe the tempests, for hee is founded on a Rocke. But the Moralist, and the Romane of these times, are but flesh and blood, sand and dust; therefore floods and tempests wash him, and blow him away. Wonder not therfore my soule with the world, neither take vp the vsual complaints of the deceiueable vncertaintie of friends. Those that were once true friends are still so, those that are not, neuer were. If they had been of vsus, they would hauehave continued with vsus. If they had been truly Christian, louelove would hauehave grown in them, not decaied▪ For it is a speciall businesse of a Christian in this life to grow vp vntounto Christ in louelove: but their not continuing with vsus, shewes they were not of vsus: so they do vsus not wrong, but right by departing from vsus; for they rid vsus of il company, and tell our iudgemēt the truth, which before was deceiued in them. Yet that wee deceiue our selues no more, let vsus fasten on such no expectation: let vsus try the spirits, and if by true experience we find a spirit begotten of God, let vsus take him for that friend, which is better then a meere brother. Thy heart and his are one, and they will agree in spight of the diuell; though hee come against them accompanied with the flesh and the world; yea if such two should bee stirred as Barnabas and Paul euen vntounto parting, being parted, they would meete in louelove, and doe the offices of friendship each to other, vponupon any occasion. The heauenly loadestone, euen Christs Spirit of louelove hath toucht them, therfore though stirred, they returne to their point, and still rest in louelove.
43
When Adam was created, there was no corrupt lust: when there was no such lust, there was no shame; generation was cleane, and meerely pure: and when generation was pure, then the neerest kindred could not defile themselues with it, for pure things defile not. Therfore rightly God, who had aboundance of Spirit, made but one male and female, who could hauehave made many more: for though there were inforced thereby an intermarriage between brethren and sisters, yet thereby was inforced no incest; for when marriage and generation were pure and without shame, then the brother discouered not the shame of his sister, which is the wickednesse and vnlawfulnesse of incest. And thus might the state of generation hauehave continued in all posterities, if the state of the creation had continued: But man by his fall brought in lust, and thereby shame, and by both a necessitie of incest, which was not before. For God made onelyonly a necessitie, that brethren and sisters should purely and holily marrie together: but man turned this necessitated mariage into incest. For a brother and a sister being one flesh, it is a ground of nature, that the same flesh should couer the shame of the same flesh; which hee that doth not, goes so farre toward incest, as hee goes from this couering. Now the children of Adam, being brought by Adam into this necessitie, were suffered by the patience of the God of long suffering, who might still require his first course well instituted, that now by manis corrupted. After that some of the Fathers may be thought to hauehave done the like by a spirituall necessitie, that they might marry within the Church, and not with the daughters of men; or by diuine indulgence and dispensation, God being the Lord of nature, and so able to change the lawes of it, to giuegive what lawes he list vntounto it, much more to require the law in which first hee created man. But for vsus who neither are forced by a naturall necessitie, the world being filled with multitude; nor with a spirituall, the multitude hauing in them, though fewest, seuen thousand that bow not to Baal; nor any dispensation from God for it, but a law of God against it: this neere intermarriage is a loathsome abomination in the eies of God. It is a sinne against nature, and so abominable euen to mans first and naturall apprehension.