The Christian Armory, Book 2 · Chapter 8
CHAP. VIII. Of Offences taken by Gods children.
Question.
WHat are the offences that Gods children (in their ignorance or weakenesse) many times take and conceiue?
A. First, the long life and flourishing prosperity of euill Rulers, Tyrants, Persecutors.
Secondly, the long impunity, & Gods toleration of lewd, wicked, prophane, and villanous persons.
The third▪ is the inuoluing, or inwrapping of holy & innocent men with the wicked in the execution of publicke iudgements.
Q. How shall Gods children arme & comfort themselues against the long life and tyranny of wicked rulers?
A. They must note and consider diuers things: First, that these Tyrants and oppressors doe not raigne and dominere without Gods holy and prouident disposition, and that either for the exercise of the good, or for the plague and punishment of euill doers; and therfore they must seeke either by their innocent carriage, and dutifull obedience to pacifie and please them, or else they must learne to endure with patience their tyranny.
Secondly, that austere and tyrannizing rulers, are sometimes necessary for the common wealth, to restraine vice, & to curbe and kéepe downe insolent and wanton people, who by security and ouermuch liberty grew to this height of prophanenesse; and therefore, they that know not how to louelove, must know how to feare.
Thirdly, that the excesse of sinne, and licentiousnesse in the multitude, who delights more in pleasure, then in piety, in goods, then in goodnes, and in louelove of money, then in true liberty, doth (if not cause, yet) increase tyrants and oppressors.
Fourthly, that eueryevery state and gouernment at one time or other, is subiect to such tyrannicall oppressors.
Fifthly, that tyrants and oppressors hauehave their golden fetters, yea, they oftentimes drinke poison in gold: they feare the multitude, as much as the multitude doth them, and they doe not wrong others, altogether without punishment and reuenge, but are mette withall one way, or other.
Lastly, because nullum violentum est perpetuum:A Similitude. for the more boisterously the winds blow and rage, the sooner will they cease; and the more that tyrants and oppressors rage and persecute, the sooner God will remoue them, or breake their hornes.
Q. How must the people and subiects behaue themselues?
A They must first of all performe Honour, Tribute, Reuerence, Subiection, and obedience vntounto them;Rom. 13 7 and if they will not this way bee wonne, they must rather endure all euill then seeke priuate and vnlawfull reuenge: But if these tyrants commaund any false worshippe, then the subiectes must take another course; they must obey God their supreame Lord, and not the Magistrate, lest otherwise their vnlawfull obedience to man, bee punished as the highest disobedience to the God of Heauen.
Q. How shall the godly cleare Gods iustice when they see the most villanous and mischieuous men, long to escape vnpunished in this world?
A. First, they must remember that quod defeitur, non aufertur, forbearance is no forgiuenes. The stiller that the waters are, the more deepe and daungerous are they: God doth not spare the wicked for a time, because hee liketh of their doings; but he will ha…e their sinnes to grow ripe first, and withall leaue them without all excuse: but he will at length plague and punish them, yea damn and destroy them; God commeth (as the Prouerb is) with wollen feet, (…. faire and softly) but he striketh with iron hands & punisheth so much the more seuerely. Sinne is in the heart, and vengeance at the heeles.
Secondly, they are like the fish which hath swallowed the Anglers bit,A comparison. which though it sport it selfe with the baite for a time, yet when the Angler draweth his Angle rod, it is taken; and they though they reuell and roist it out, yet they are Gods prisoners, alwaies in his sight, and repriued for a time vntounto a further doome, their iudgement and damnation sléepeth not, the terrour of imminent punishment cannot bee remoued out of their minds, neither is the image of direfull death conueied out of their sight; but terrifieth them as the hand writing on the wall did Belshazzer, Dan. 5.5.6.
Lastly, though the children of God, who cleanse their harts, and wash their hands in innocency, bee corrected and ch…istened eueryevery morning,Psal 7….13 14. v. …3.24. yet God is with his, hee will guide them by counsell, and afterwards receiue them to glory. Wherefore let vsus rather supplicate for such wicked doers, then bee scandalized at them; and let vsus wait but vntill they hauehave played their parts, and acted their tragedie, and they will make a ruthfull Catastrophe or conclusion, & all men that sée it, shall say, that it is Gods doing.
Q. But why doth God punish sometimes with visible and manifest punishment, some euill doers, and not all?
A. First,Ro 20.21. God is an absolute Lord, and his will is iustice it selfe, and therefore wee must rather reuerence and adore Gods iudgements, then rashly to require a reason of them: for shall an earthly Prince disdaine to be accountable to his subiects concerning all his procéedings,A Similitude. and shall a Master of a family scorne that his seruant shall exact an account of him? how much more will the diuine Maiesty refuse that his actions and counsels should bee called into question?
Secondly, a few punished, are a purgation for, and a warning to the rest: so that it is a mild iustice towardes many, which séemeth cruelty to a few.
Thirdly, if God should visibly, and manifestly punish all euill doers, then nothing would bée thought to bée reserued to the last iudgement, and if none should bee here punished, men would thinke that either there were no God, or (at least) no iustice and prouidence.
Q. How shall Gods children in the execution of publike iudgement, iustifie the equity of Gods proceedings, or practise patience: when they temporally smart for the sinnes aud idolatries of their fore-fathers?
Ezech. 18.20.A. Many wayes they are to stay and comfort themselues. First, (to speake properly) God doth punish the idolatry and sinnes of the children, and not of the parents: for if they tread in the footesteppes of their parents, and doe not repent of their sinnes, it standeth with Gods iustice no longer to put off their correction.
Secondly; though in the vniuersall deluge,Psal. 51.5. Iob. 14.4. and in the destruction of Sodome, and in the sacking of Cities the very Infants perished with their Parents: yet wee must note that they were not sinnelesse and innocent before God, but borne and conceiued in sinne, the children of wrath, & subiect to euerlasting damnation.
Thirdly, albeit God correct good men for the bads sake, & inuolue them in the common calamities of warre, famine, pestilence, shipwracke, fires, &c. yet these afflictions are rather preseruatiues then punishments: for as Physitians doe by bitter medicines preserue and restore a mans health: so God doth turne the punishments that they hauehave deserued into a medicine, a trial, a preseruation.
Fourthly, Gods children though they resist sinne and wickednes,Psal. 130.4. Dan. 9.5.6 7. yet they in hearing Gods word, in praier, and in the performance of the duties of pietie, iustice, charity, faile and are vnperfect; and therefore they cannot say that God offereth them any wrong, if they with the wicked be included in the same outward and publike euils, as Jonathas, Iosias, &c. were.
Fifthly, we are all of vsus the children of rebellious and traiterous Adam, who hath tainted our bloud, and forfeited his and our estate to God almighty, & there is a chaine of faults reaching from Adam to vsus, which though wee repent of, yet God may in his iustice punish the remainders of them in our posterity.
Sixthly, there is (if not alwaies) a deriuation of speciall fins from the forefathers to the posterity, yet there is a deriuation of punishment, and therefore God doth afflict herein the Parents, and their posterity as one body.
Seuenthly, as in one and the same person a fault committed in youth,Lypsius. is iustly punished in old age: So God in kingdomes, empires, persons doth punish old and inueterate sinnes, for they are before God ioyned together by an outward fellowship, both in time and parts.
Lastly, if wee will bee heires to the commodities, and rewards which are due to our ancestors, it is no reason that we should refuse their burdens and afflictions.