Works, Book 1 · Discourse 30
DISCOURSE XXX.
IUDGES 1. 7.
As I have done, so God hath requited me.
THESE are the words of Adonibezek, one of the Kings of Canaan, whom the sons of Iudah and Simeon having taken prisoner in war, they cut off the thumbs of his hands, and great toes: The justness of which punishment so evidently sampling his fore-past sin, forced him, though with a heavy heart, to give glory unto God, and say, Threescore and ten Kings, having their thumbs and great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: As I have done, so God hath requited me.
These words (without any longer Preface) may be considered two ways; either simply or ab…olutely in themselves, or with reference to him who spake them. In themselves they are an Affirmation or Historical narration, That as Adonibezek had done, so God requited him. If we consider them with reference to the speaker, they are a Confession, as being spoken by him who did the fact, and suffered now the punishment; Adonibezek himself it is who saith, As I have done, so God hath requited me.
In the First Consideration I observe four things.
1. That God punisheth sin with temporal punishment in this life, as well as with eternal in the life to come. The first Consideration of Adonibezek's words.Thus this miserable King here feels the hand of God fall so heavy upon him, while he was yet in the world, that it makes him bitterly cry out, I have done cruelly, and God hath even here requited me.
2. That God doth not always presently inflict his Iudgments, while the sin is fresh, but sometimes defers that long which …e means to give home at the last. So saith our King here, As I have done; not as I did even now, but as I did long ago, and thought by this God had forgotten me, yet now I see he requiteth me.
3. That these Divine Iudgments by some conformity or affinity do carry in them as it were a stamp and print of the sin for which they are inflicted. So saith this unhappy King, As I have done; even just as I have done to others, now I suffer my self: Seventy Kings thumbs in my cruelty I cut off, and in my pride made them to feed like dogs under my table: now the measure which I mete unto others, is measured unto my self; for just as I have done, so God hath requited me.
4. That the Profit and Pleasure which men aim at when they commit sin will not so much as quit cost even in this life: Iudg. 1. 7.For if God's punishments be requitals, certainly the profit we have gotten by sin he will make us lose in the punishment; the pleasure we hope to find, and seek after in sin, will be over-poised in the pain we are sure to feel when the just hand of the Almighty shall requite us.
And thus have you heard already the Summ of what I mean to speak of in the First consideration of these words. Now I will return again, and speak more largely of them all, and that in the same order I gave them out.
The first Collection therefore which I made was, That God punisheth the sins of men with temporal punishment in this life, as well as with eternal in the life to come. Observ. 1.This verity (to use the words of Zophar, Iob 20. 4.) was known in the days of old, and found true ever since man was placed upon the earth. For as the Apostle saith of righteousness, that it hath both the promise of this life and of the life to come; so it is most true of unrighteousness, that it hath the curse of this life as well as of the life to come.1 Tim. …. 3.
The first sin of our first Parents, whereof we all stand guilty, was thus punished, as it were to be a Rule and Law of what God would do after. I say, the first sin of our first Parents was punished with a curse in things of this life. From hence come all the outward calamities and miseries of mankind, wherein the happiest man on earth hath his share; hence our labour and vexation of spirit; hence our pain, our want, and all our trouble wherein we travel under the Sun. No man in the world is exempted from this Law; all of us as well feel a present punishment here in this life, as fear that which shall be to come hereafter in the world to come.
Now as the universal misery we all feel is a temporal punishment of an universal sin; so the clods of daily sin, which we add unto this great mountain of transgression, doth usually bring us under some special kind of punishment, above that which we have in common with other men. The whole History of the Bible, if we look well into it, is most part taken up in Examples of this one Maxim: whosoever thinketh otherwise, he hath taken too slight a view and too short a survey of the world's affairs. Perhaps he sees the person of a Tyrant, of an Oppressor, of a Blasphemer, to live long in jollity, and to end his days in tranquillity; or, to use the words of Iob in the same argument, to spend their days in wealth, and in a moment (without any more trouble) go down into the grave. Chap. 21. 13.How is it then true, That God requiteth sin in this life, or that any regard should be had to any temporal calamities or worldly disasters; since these come alike to the just and unjust, to the fool and to the wise, to those whom God favoureth as well as those he favoureth not?
But for Answer hereunto, we must know, That the way of God in temporal punishments is one, and his way in eternal and spiritual another; he deals not after the same fashion in both. For eternal punishments in the world to come, the person which sinneth shall alone suffer, and no other for him; but as for temporal punishments, which are seen in this world, sometimes God lays them upon the person, sometimes upon the posterity of the offender, or sometimes upon others which in such like respects are near unto them, as he sees best in his wisdom. When therefore thou seest a man live in open and gross sins, confine not thine eye unto his person only, but look farther about him, survey his whole family; if nothing appear while he is living, yet after his death consider of his posterity, and thou wilt find the ways of God to be just and glorious in the avenging of sin and wickedness.
This question was long debated between Iob and his friends, and at last came to this very issue, Iob himself determining and assoiling it after this manner; I will teach you (saith he, chap. 27. ver. 11, &c.) by the hand of God; that which is with the Almighty will I not conceal. Behold, all ye your selves have seen it, why then are you thus altogether vain? This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage of oppressors, which they shall receive of the Almighty. If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword, and his off-spring shall not be satisfied with bread, &c.
The reason of this difference between temporal punishments and eternal is to be gathered from the several and differing Ends of them both: Because they are for divers Ends and Purposes, therefore the way of God is diverse in the execution of them. The End of eternal punishments is to satisfie the justice of God, in avenging sin; but the End of temporal punishments chiefly exemplary; that is, for example and warning unto others, that they might hereby know that God regardeth and observeth the actions of men, and therefore fear lest the like might come unto themselves which they have seen to have befallen other men.
Now for such an End as this, it is not always requisite that God should punish every offender in his own person; because the punishment here respecteth not so much the person of the offender himself, as others who have been witnesses of his sin, that they might take heed of committing the like. Now this End may be as well attained in the punishment of a mans posterity, subjects, servants, as of his own person: For by both alike may others see that God observeth the sins of men, and hath plagues in readiness for those which commit them: And by both alike will men be afraid of the hand of God; seeing most men do most vehemently wish the good and happy condition of their posterity and others having like relation unto them; Kings the weal of their Subjects, Fathers the good of their Children, Husbands the good of their Wives; and therefore will refrain from doing that which they see by experience of others may bring a plague or a curse upon any of them.
Yea God so much regardeth this exemplary End in temporal punishments, that I think this to be one chief reason why God forgiving the sin, and consequently eternal punishment, yet he remitteth not temporal plagues and chastisements; lest when the sin is notoriously known and scandalous, those who saw the sin, and could not so well know of the inward reconciliation between God and the sinner, might stumble and doubt in their hearts Whether there were a God or no, who observeth the ways of men.2 Sam. 12. 13 In this sort, and for this end, was David punished; whom though upon his humble repentance Nathan had told, The Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die: yet nevertheless did God raise up evil against him out of his own house,Verse 11. he took his wives from before his eyes,Verse 10. and gave them unto his neighbour, and the sword never departed from his house, according as the Lord had spoken. The reason hereof follows in the Text,Verse 14. in the words of Nathan; Because, saith he, by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also which is born unto thee shall surely die. The child also; that is, all the former plagues, together with the death of the child, shall come upon thee for this end.
This then being so plain, what End God chiefly aims at in his outward and visible judgments; we ought hence to learn what to do as often as we see the hand of God fall heavy upon any open and known sinner; namely, to accomplish in our selves the End which God a…ms at, to examine our actions past, to amend our lives, lest as bad, if not a worse thing, befal us or ours. And if at any time we see an Example of this upon one of God's own children, as we heard of David before, a man after God's own heart; let us learn to fear and tremble, and say, If such things befal those whom God most loveth. what shall become of us if we sin likewise? Again, when we see God thus punishing sin in the eyes of the world, let us acknowledge his All-seeing Providence, and say with those, Rev. 15. 3, 4. Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorifie thy Name, when thy judgments are made manifest? and with David, Psal. 9. 16. and Psal. 11. 7. The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth; for the righteous Lord loveth righteousness.See also Psal. 52. 7.
AND thus I come to the second thing I observed,Observat. 2. namely, That God often forbears and defers his punishments. As I did long ago (saith Adonibezek) yea again and again, seventy times one after another; so long and so often, that I thought God had either not seen, or quite forgotten me: yet now I see he requiteth me.
How true this Observation is, is sufficiently witnessed by their experience who have little less than stumbled and staggered hereat. This made Cato, a Heathen man, to cry out, Res divinae multum habent caliginis, The disposals of Divine providence are not a little cloudy and dark. Isa…. 73. 2.This made David, a man after God's own heart, to confess and say, My feet were almost gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped. This made Ieremy cry out from the bottom of an amazed soul, Righteous art thou, O Lord when I plead with thee;Ier. 12. 1. yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? why are they happy that deal very treacherously? Yea those Martyred Saints, Rev. 6. 10. are heard to cry from under the Altar, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our bloud on them that dwell upon the earth?
Now as these forenamed have stumbled at God's delaying and forbearing his judgments, so others there are who have been quite deceived, verily believing that with God Quod differtur, ausertur, what was forborn, was also forgotten. Such as one was Adonibezek here, who having escaped so long, thought to have escaped ever. And such were those whereof David spake, Psal. 10. 6. Who say in their hearts, We shall never be moved, we shall never be in adversity. Such an one is the great Whore of Babylon, Rev. 18. 7.that sings, foreign, I sit like a Queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Such an one was Pherecydes Syrius, master of Pythaegoras, and a famous Philosopher, and one that is said to have been the first Philosopher that taught among the Greeks the Soul to be immortal; and yet among all his knowledge had not learned this one Principle, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Prov. 1. 7.For as*Var. hist. l. 4. c. 28. foreign. AElian reports, he used among his scholars to vaunt of his irreligion after this manner, saying, That he had never offered sacrifice to any God in all his life; and yet had lived as long and as merrily as those who had offered several Hecatombs. But he that thus impiously abused the long-suffering of God, came at length to an end as strange as his impiety was unusual; for so they report of him, that he was stricken (like Herod, by the Angel of the Lord) with such a disease, that*Pliny l. 7. nat. hist. c. 5 1. Phere…d…s copiá serpentium ex corpore ejus erumpente exspiravit. Serpents bred of the corrupt humors of his body, which eat and consumed him being yet alive.
But that we may neither distrust the righteous ways of God, nor prevent his unsearchable counsels with our over-hasty expectation, let us a little consider of the Ends why God oftentimes de…ers and prolongs his Iudgments. These Ends I suppose may be referred unto four heads.
1. For the sake of godly ones, for whom God useth to forbear even multitudes of sinners. So had there been but ten righteous persons in Sodom, Sodom had never been destroyed; I will not destroy it (saith God) for tens sake. Gen. 18. 32.So for good Iosiah's sake God de…erred the plagues he had decreed to bring upon that people, that Iosiah might be first gathered unto his fathers in peace, and his eyes might not see all the evil that he was to bring upon that place: as it is 2 Kings 22. 20. For as the new wine (saith the Lord, Esa. 65. 8.) is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it; even so will I do for my servants sakes, that I may not destroy them all: That is, I will spare a whole cluster of men, even for one or two blessed servants of mine which I shall find therein. This is the first End; and this is most, if not only, found in publick judgments and common sins, such as concern whole societies of men; for in such properly doth God, for the sake of godly ones, forbear a multitude of sinners.
2. The second End is, To give time of repentance and amendment: For the Lord is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, as it is 2 Pet 3. 9. This is shewed by the parable of the Fig-tree, Luke 13. 7. Three years the husbandman came to seek fruit, and found none; and the fourth year he expected, before he would cut it down. An hundred and twenty years the old world had given them before the Floud came. And Ionah proclaimed (not, Yet one day, but) Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed. Ionah 3 4.This End concerns such punishments as deprive men of life, and of the means of salvation and of amendment of life: For such as these only can God be said to forbear, to give time of repentance. For as for other punishments (not the forbearance, but) the hastening of them rather would cause repentance; seeing men then use to remember and call upon God when they are in misery and affliction.
3. The third End of God's deferring his punishments is, The opportunity of example by them unto others, and of manifesting his own glory. God is Lord of Times; and as he created them, so he alone knows a fit Time for all things under the Sun. He therefore who knows all occasions, when he seeth a fit Time for his Iudgments, to profit other men by example, and most of all to set forth his own glory, then he sends them forth, and till then he will defer them.
4. The fourth End or Reason hath some affinity with this, and it is, When God intending some extraordinary judgment, suffers mens sins to grow unto a full ripeness, that their sin may be as conspicuous unto the world as his purpose is their punishment shall be. Thus God punished not the Canaanites in Abraham's time, but deferred it till Israel's coming out of Egypt; and that (as himself witnesseth, Gen 15. 16.) Because the iniquity of the Am…rites was not yet full. And therefore is not this last End to be looked for in all God's delays; but it seemeth proper to his extraordinary punishments: when God meaneth, as it were, to get himself a name amongst men, then God stays to have the sin full, upon which he will pour a full vial of wrath and indignation.
Having thus seen how many Ends there are why God should oftentimes defer the execution of his Iudgments; the consideration hereof may be a double lesson unto us. 1. A lesson of spiritual wisdom, that we should not think with Epicures and children of this world, That God's delay in punishing for a time is any argument he means not to punish at all. But, with wise Solon, let us account no man happy, but him who ends happily. 2. We may learn here also a lesson of Christian Patience. When we behold the prosperity of wicked men, let it not grieve us to see sin a while lye unrevenged; let it not grind our hearts to see those who make a trade of wickedness a while to triumph, and be, as it were, at defiance with Heaven it self: For either God doth it for the good of some of his Saints; and then how can we but bless him? Or else to give them time of repentance; and then who art thou, O man, that repinest at the mercifulness of thy God? Or else to wait a fit time when thy self and others may be the most edified thereby, or his own glory most illustrated, or when men may take greatest notice of his Iustice. Admire therefore his Wisdom, and let the expectation of that renown which God will one day purchase to himself, make thee rest in hope and possess thy soul in quietness. Why should the Heathen go before us in this duty? They knew not so much as we have heard this day, and yet could they rest themselves in an assured expectation of God's justice, though a while it were deferred: As is very observable in the words of Agamemnon, expressed by Homer, Iliad. 4. upon occasion of the Trojans perfidious perjury;
foreign,
foreign,—
Though, saith he, the God of heaven avenge not this presently, yet sure at last he will do it.
foreign,—
For of this I am sure, foreign, that there will be a day when stately Troy shall be overthrown:
Nam licèt haud sontes praesenti puniat irâ;
Sera tamen sumit Deus & gravior a malorum
Supplicia—
Though God doth not always presently inflict his judgments upon offenders, yet he will pay them home at last; and the punishments he defers long, are the more grievous when they come. What could Iob, David, or Ieremy have spoken more freely in such a case? Methinks I durst almost apply the words of our Saviour concerning the Centurion, We shall scarce find so great Faith in Israel.Matth. 8. 10.
BUT now I pass unto the third point I observed (and it is chiefly to be observed) in these words,Observ. 3. namely, The conformity between the Sin and the Punishment: Temporal punishments have for the most part, as it were, a character stamped upon them, in which men may read their sins as well, oftentimes, as if they heard God himself to speak from heaven. Adonibezek could do it with small learning; he saw his punishment so evidently branded with the mark of his sin; Threescore and ten kings (saith he) having their thumbs and great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: As I have done, so God hath requited me.
Which rule of God's Iustice appears by those words of our Saviour,Matth. 7. 2. With what measure ye mete unto others, the same shall be measured unto you: and by that of the Prophet Obadiah, verse 15. thus threatning Edom, As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee; thy reward shall return upon thine own head.
But for the better discerning of this Conformity with the Sin which God stampeth upon the punishment thereof, we must know that it is of Four several kinds. The first is, foreign, When we suffer by the hand of God the very same things our selves which we have done to others. Such was Adonibezek's punishment here, and such was that wherewith Habakkuk, chap. 2. 8. threatens the Chaldeans; Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee: and Ezekiel the Edomites; As thou didst rejoyce at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate,Chap. 35. 15. so will I do unto thee; Thou shalt he also desolate. Thus Pharaoh, who*Exod. 1. 22. & 12. 29. commanded all the males of the Hebrews to be drowned as soon as they were born, himself with all his Hoast was drowned in the Red Sea. The depths covered them, they sunk unto the bottom like a stone, Exod. 15. 5.*2 Sam. 11. 4. Chap. 16. 22. David committed Adultery with the wife of Vriah; his own son Absalom did the like with his Concubines in the sight of the Sun and face of all Israel. *2 Chr. 21. v. 4, & 17.Ioram like a villain slew all the sons of his Father; and so did the Arabians by the will of God slay all his sons likewise, only Iehoahaz excepted. Iehoiakim, who slew Vrijah the Prophet, Ier. 26. 23. and would not suffer his body to have honest burial, himself (according as Ieremy had foretold, Chap. 22. 19.) was likewise slain, and buried with the burial of an Asse, being cast forth beyond the gate of Ierusalem. I shall not need trouble you with profane stories, or tell you how Brutus and Cassius were forced to slay themselves with the same swords wherewith they slew Caesar; with many other like:
But I come unto the second kind of Conformity, foreign, When we suffer not the very same, but yet that which hath some Analogy and resemblance with our sins. Thus the universal overflowing of sin in the Old world was punished with an universal overflowing of waters. It was the common punishment of the Iews, when they served other Gods besides their own, for God to make them serve other Lords and Kings besides their own. Look in the Scripture, and see whether this were not the regular punishment of Idolatry, with God, thus to requite his people with that which resembled their sin; to give them over to serve other nations, when they served other Gods besides himself. As Ier. 5. 19. Like as ye have forsaken me, (saith the Lord) and served strange Gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours. So also, 2 Chron. 12. 5. Ye have forsaken, or left [foreign] me, and therefore have I also left you [foreign] in the hand of Shishak. And after they had humbled themselves, the Lord says by Shemaiah the Prophet, vers. 7. They have humbled themselves, therefore I will not destroy them, but grant them some deliverance, &c. verse 8. Nevertheless they shall be his servants, that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries: Vulg. Vt sciant distantiam servitutis meae & servitutis regni Terrarum, That they may know the difference between my service and the service of the kingdoms of the lands.
And certainly, if we look into the condition of the Church since Christ's time, we shall find the way of God's dealing in this case to have been the same. The Saracens, who spoiled and subdued so great a part of Christ's Church, were never heard of till six hundred years after Christ, even at the time when Christians began generally to fall to Idolatry, and to worship Images, Saints and Angels: Then God first gave us over to serve other Nations, when we began to serve other Gods besides the Lord our God. The Turkish fury could never be stayed from casting more and more this yoke of bondage upon our necks, until Iudah (I mean the now Reformed Churches) began to put away her Idols, some one hundred years since: From that time unto this, that God which would have spared Sodom for ten righteous sakes, hath spared the remnant of Christendom for their sakes who have turned again to the Lord their God to serve him as he would be worshipped.
But to go on: Solomon, when he divided that worship which was due unto the Lord alone, between him and the Idols of Zidon, Moab and Ammon, the Lord,1 Kings 11. 5. to give him the same measure, divided his kingdom, and that allegeance which was only due to him and his posterity, between himself and his servant Ieroboam: 1 Kings 12. 20.Because he served God with an imperfect heart, God left him an imperfect kingdom; Because he bestowed divine honour upon the vassals of the Lord of heaven, the Lord also bestowed his honour upon his vassal Ieroboam.
Nebuchadnezzar, who had lived like a Beast in his Palace, God made him to eat grass like an Oxe in the field, till he knew the most High ruled in the kingdoms of men, Dan. 4. 25, 32, 34.
Otho Bishop of Mentz, Of this Otho or Hatto 11. see Trithemias, Iseng…in…us …. 10. Rerum Spir. &c.in a time of famine shut up a great number of poor people in a Barn, promising to give them some relief: But when he had them fast, he set the Barn on fire; and hearing then the most lamentable and piteous cries and shreekings of the poor in the midst of the flames, he scoffingly said, Hear ye how the mice cry in the Barn. But the Lord, the just revenger of cruelty, sent a whole Army of Mice upon him, which haunted him a great deal worse than the Frogs did King Pharaoh; not only coming into his bed-chamber and upon his bed, but following him into a Tower which he had built for his last refuge in the midst of the River Rhene, never leaving him till they had quite devoured him.
So…rates hath a memorable story of one Cyricius Bishop of Chalcedon, who in a meeting of many Bishops inveighed very bitterly against good S. Chrysostom, and amongst other spiteful language called him often foreign, a kneeless fellow, because in a good cause he would never be gotten to bow and crouch to obtain the favour of men, which Cyricius accounted a stubborn and obstinate disposition. But when he had thus uttered his malice, Marathas another Bishop by chance trod upon his toe; which being at the first esteemed (as it was indeed) a very small hurt, yet afterwards so ranckled, that for the safety of the rest of the body his leg was fain to be cut off; which done, the other leg also was in like manner affected, and that so, that being otherwise incurable, it was fain to feel the same remedy the other had done. Thus he who called the holy man a kneeless fellow in one sense, God made him a kneeless Bishop in another. By which and the former Examples we see how God in punishing requites men with that which hath some resemblance with their Sin. And so much for foreign.
I come now to the third kind, which is Conformitas subjecti, The Conformity of subject; When though we suffer not the same, nor perhaps like unto that we have done unto others, yet are we punished in that subject wherein and whereabout we have sinned. Thus Adam our first Parent sinned in eating the fruits of the earth; and he and all his posterity are punished in the curse of the same, in that now in sorrow we eat of them all the days of our life. Touching God's dealing with Israel in this kind, see Wisdom chap. 11. verse 7, 13. Korah and his company sinned in offering strange fire unto the Lord,Psal. 106. 18. A … was kindled in their company, se… flames burnt up the …icked. and were punished by a strange destruction: The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up quick; and there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the men that offered incense, Numb. 16. verse 32, and verse 35. The Levites wise in*Iudg. 19. 2, 25. Iudges, sinned in the Commission of Fornication, and therefore died by the same, being forced to death by the men of Gibeah. Eli, by too much indulgence towards his sons, sinned against God, and was punished in them, being slain by the Philistines, and the Ark of God taken,1 Sam. 2. 22. &c. which they had carried with them. David gloried in the number of his people, and was punished in the Consumption of seventy thousand of them by the pestilence,Chap. …. 1…. 2 Sam. 24. 1, 15. Hezekiah, who sinned in shewing by way of ostentation his treasures and riches unto the Ambassadors of the King of Babylon, had his punishment threatned by the same things, that all he had thus gloriously shown should one day be carried unto Babylon, 2 Kings 20. 13, 17. Lastly, The Iews, who crucified our Saviour by the hands of the Romans, had their City and Temple rased by the same hands.
Now I come unto the last kind of Conformity, which I call Conformity of circumstance; When the Time and Place of Punishment agrees with the Time and Place of the Sin. Of the agreement of Place I find these Examples. The first of Ahab and Iezebel, in the place where the dogs licked the bloud of Naboth, they licked the bloud of Ahab and Iezebel; 1 Kings 21. 19. and 2 Kings 9. 36. In the place where Baal's Priests had committed Idolatry, were their bones, being dead, and the bodies of those who were alive, flain and burnt by Iosiah upon the Altar of Bethel, 2 Kings 23. 16.
Examples of concurrence of Time I find these. At the same time of the year wherein the Iews crucified Christ, hapned that fatal and final siege by the Romans, when that heavy curse fell upon them,Ma…th. 27. 25. His bloud be upon us and our children. The Spies, which brought an evil report upon the land,Numb. 13. 25. had spent forty days in searching it; and therefore God for this sin, that Time might agree with Time, made them wander up and down forty years in the wilderness. They are the words of God himself, According unto the number of days (saith he) in which ye searched the land, even forty days, Num. 14. 33, ….(each day for a year) shall ye bear your iniquities. Last of all, (because I will not be tedious in Examples) Pompey the great is reported to have died most miserably upon the very same day he triumphed for the spoil of Ierusalem.
AND thus having spoken of the three first Observations, Observat. 4.I come now to the fourth and last Observation, namely, That the Profit and Pleasure which men seek for in the works of sin, will not so much as quit cost in this life: Because God's Punishments are requitals; the Profit gotten by sin we shall lose wholly, if not doubly, in the Punishment thereof; the Pleasure found in sin will be overpoised in the pain of sorrow we shall undergo for the same. It is hard to conceive that a man should be so much the son of Belial, as to commit sin only for his mind sake, without any aim to a farther end.… But rather we may think, That as all actions are done for some End, so even in sinful and wicked actions men have some Ends why they commit them: And it is the conceit and apprehension of some such thing to be gotten by sin, which makes that which is indeed Evil to have a shadow of an appearing Good. To be short, The Ends men aim at in the commission of sin are those two bastard goods, Vtile & Iucundum, worldly Profit and carnal Pleasure. Within the compass of which two fall all those kinds of false Happiness whereabout the Philosophers were so divided, Riches, Honours, Pleasures, Bodily ease, &c. All are comprehended within the verge of these two, Vtile & Iucundum, Profit and Pleasure.
These are verily those two baits of the Devil wherewithal he inveigleth the Souls of men; with these two he insnared our First Parents in Paradise. Our mother Eve saw the forbidden fruit, that it was like to be as pleasant to the taste as it was pleasing unto the eye: on the other side, Knowledge like unto God, which she hoped to attain hereby, was a thing exceeding commodious and worth the compassing: Upon these Motives therefore she fell miserably: and upon the like do we fall every day. Nay the Devil thought with these to have tempted our Saviour Christ himself to worship him;Matth 4. 8. for he shewed him (as we read) All the kingdoms of the earth, with the glory of them. In a kingdom all kinds of Profit and means of wealth abound; and for Pleasure, what delight is equal unto that which is to be found in the glory of a Kingdom?
To speak of them severally: What power and force a Motive of Gain and Profit hath to sway our affection to commit sin, S. Paul hath told us, 1 Tim. 6. 9. Those, saith he, that will be rich, fall into temptation and a snare; and verse 10. that Covetousness is the root of all evil. The same also is apparent by the words of our Saviour, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, Matth. 19. 24.
And for the other, to wit, carnal Pleasure; so forcible it is, so much prevailing in tempting and drawing us unto evil, that the wise Son of Syrach sticked not to say, He that resisteth pleasures, crowneth his own soul. Chap. 19. 5.Besides, these Ends are so nearly linked together, that the one of them is commonly desired for a Means unto the other; for therefore do many desire wealth, that they might have means to live voluptuously.
But be they as they will be, Is this be all the good men do or can expect from the works of sin; if these only be those fair Ends we strive to attain by so foul a means; and when we have gotten them, if the just God requites the Pleasure we expect, with pain and sorrow; and the Gain we hoped for, with an equal yea with a greater loss: if the Pleasure of a moment be entertained with a remaining sorrow; if a single Gain be rewarded with a double loss, and that in this world: Surely it will not quit the cost to commit the most gainful or pleasing sin in the world. But certain it is that God useth thus to meet with our intendments, and to make us always fall short, first or last, of what we hoped for by Sin.
For as for Pleasure and Hearts-ease, as we call it, alas! who ever found this gotten by sin to be worth the while? To overpass such requiting pains as fall within the observation of other mens eyes; as when God makes our pain and sorrow to grow even from those members, those hands, those things from which we sought delight, as I shewed you in the last Observation: I will, I say, omit these, and put you in mind only of that secret pain, which no man knows but he that feels it, The sting of Conscience. Is there any man that finds not the honey of sin mingled with this gall? Surely the sting of Conscience never leaves a sinner, but is in all our pleasure like unto those wild gourds, 2 Kings 4. 39, &c. wherewith the young Prophets of Gilgal spoiled their whole pot of pottage: We cannot taste so much as one spoonful of this false pleasure, but presently we must cry as they cried, Mors in olla, Death is in the pot.
As for Profit and Wealth; It is even gotten into vulgar experience, that what in this kind is gotten by sinful and bad means, is nothing durable. Treasures of wickedness (saith Solomon, Prov. 10. 2.) profit nothing; and wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, Prov. 13. 11. Yea as the feathers of an Eagle are said to consume the feathers of other birds; so a little gotten by indirect and bad means often consumes a man's whole substance. I cannot stand to inlarge upon this point: I will only shew in the example of our first Parents, how God in this manner requited them.
First, They looked for Pleasure in the taste of so pleasing a fruit. This hope God repai'd them with pain and sorrow; I will multiply thy sorrow, Gen. 3. 16.(saith he unto the woman) and in pain shalt thou bring forth children: and to the man, In sorrow shalt thou eat the fruits of the earth all the days of thy life. Verse 17.They looked, secondly, to have gained much, and to have profited themselves exceedingly, as namely, to have gotten more knowledge than God had given them. This hope God requited, not only with the loss of that knowledge they had before,Verse 24. but even of the outward things they enjoyed in Paradise. Primum in unoquoque genere est mensura consequentium, The First in every kind is the measure of that which follows. Thus God dealt with them, and thus will he deal with us unto the world's end. Sin is utterly unprofitable; whatsoever is gotten thereby is like the change Diomedes made with Glaucus; like that which Rehoboam made of the shields in the house of the Lord,2 Chron. 12. 10 shields of brass for shields of gold.
Let us therefore hence learn to withstand such foolish Motives and such vain Hopes: when we are in danger to be ensnared by these baits, let us thus reason with our selves, What will it profit a man to enjoy an hour's pleasure, for many a year's pain? What will the sweet do us good, which is mixt with so much four? What will it profit a man to be rich in his youth, and a beggar in his age? What will it profit a man by guile and oppression to raise his house while he liveth, by that which shall most certainly ruine it when he is dead and gone? And lastly, if none of all this were,Mar. 8. 36. yet What will it profit a man to win the whole world, and lose his own soul?
NOW having done with the First consideration of these words,The Second consideration of Adonibezek's words. I come unto the Second, which is with relation to him that uttered them, and so they are a Confession. In which I observe Three things.
1. That the suffering of punishment extorts the Confession of sin. Thus this miserable King is made, for all his pride and stomach, to lament with an Ego …eci, with an I have done.
2. God's Iustice in the punishing of sin visibly is one of the strongest Motives to make an Atheist confess there is a God. Adonibezek, who scarce believed, or perhaps not well remembred, that there was a God till now, is here forced to confess, The unresistible God, that crusheth down the proud, he hath requited me.
3. As the Punishment in general bringeth sin to mind, which else would be forgotten: so the fashion and kind thereof well considered may lead us, as it were by the hand, to know the very sin we are punished for. Many sins had Adonibezek committed; the condition and manner of his punishment made him remember his cruel usage of the seventy kings, and say, As I have done, &c.
To begin with the First;Observat. 1. I say, The suffering of punishment extorts the confession of sin. The reason whereof is the very nature of Punishment, which always implieth some offence, and therefore is a good remembrancer of the same. Thus Ioseph's brethren, when they were distressed in Egypt, cried, We are verily guilty concerning our brother. Gen. 42. 21.Proud Pharaoh, when he saw the plague of hail and thunder, said, I have now sinned; the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. Exod. 9. 27.The proud stomachs of the Israelites came down, when once the fiery serpents stung them, and then they came to Moses, Numb. 21. 7.and said, We have sinned; for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee. Manasses, whom all the threatnings of God's Prophets in fifty years space could never move, yet when he was bound in fetters, and carried prisoner unto Babylon, Then he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 2. Chro. 33. 12.Whosoever therefore he be that feels not this fruit, and makes not this use of his crosses and afflictions, is worse than hard-hearted Pharaoh, worse than cruel Adonibezek. But if by this means we come to see and acknowledge our sin,Psal. 119. 71. then may we say with David, It is good for me that I was afflicted; and give thanks and praise unto our God, who is able out of such hard rocks as these to make flow the saving waters of repentance.
And thus I come to my second Observation, Observ. 2.which is, That God's judgment for sin is one of the strongest motives to make an Atheist confess there is a God. Those who say, There is no God, David accounts them in the number of fools: The fool saith in his heart, There is no God, Psal. 53. 1. Now Solomon styleth Punishment Eruditio stultorum, the Schoolmaster of fools. If for all fools, then also for Atheistical fools, that they either by their own, or by example of God's plagues upon others, may be taught to put away their folly.
Most certain it is, The not observing of God's judgments, or the supposed examples of some who seem to escape the hand of God in the greatest sins, is a main occasion of Atheism.Psal. 73. 2, 3. This made David himself to say, My feet were almost gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped: For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. It is reported of Diagoras Melius, surnamed the Atheist, that at the first he was very devout, and a great worshipper of the Gods; but having committed some certain money unto a friend's keeping, and afterwards demanding it again, his friend, loth to forgo such a booty, forsware that he ever received any: whom when Diagoras saw, notwithstanding this horrible perjury, to thrive and prosper, and no divine judgment to fall upon him, he presently turned Atheist and enemy to the Gods, and laboured by all means to bring other men to the like impiety.
For this cause therefore David, as jealous of God's honour, and knowing what force God's Iudgments have to keep Atheism from creeping into the hearts of men, desireth God (Psal. 59. 13.) that he would avenge himself of evil-doers, even for this end, that it might be known he was the Lord: Consume (saith he) in thy wrath, consume them, that they may not be; and let them know (that is, that men may know) that God ruleth in Iacob, unto the ends of the earth. And hence it is also that God often in Ezekiel doth plainly affirm this to be the End of his judgments, That it might be known that he was the Lord. As in chapter 6. v. 6. thus he threatens Israel, Your cities shall be laid waste, and your high places shall be desolate, &c. v. 7. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you; and you shall know that I am the Lord. And again, v. 12, 13. He that is far off, shall die by the pestilence; and he that is near, shall fall by the sword. Then shall ye know that I am the Lord. And chap. 25. 17. concerning the Philistins, I will execute great vengeance upon them, saith the Lord, with furious rebukes: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them. If this then be so as ye have heard, let us learn hence a good preservative against Atheism, and all the ill motions of the devil and our flesh drawing thereunto: not lightly, as most men do, to pass over the Iudgments of God upon sin; but duly and diligently to observe them: if in our selves, then more severely; if in our neighbours, curiously, but charitably.
And so I come to the third and last point,Observat. 3. which is, That as Punishment in general bringeth sin to mind, which else would be forgotten: so the fashion and kind thereof well considered may lead us, as it were by the hand, to know the very sin we are punished for. I have shewed already at large, That God's visible judgments have usually in them a stamp and mark of conformity with the sin for which they are inflicted: For either we suffer the same thing our selves that we have done to others, or some resembling or like unto it; or else are punished about the same thing wherein our sin was; or lastly, in the place or time where and when we sinned. I am perswaded there is no judgment which God sends for any special sin, but it hath one of these marks in it. Come therefore to Adonibezek, and let us learn of him, by God's stamp in our punishment to find out what sin he aims at. If we would once use to read this Hand-writing of God in our crosses and afflictions, what a motive would it be to make us leave many a sin wherein the Devil nuzzles us the greatest part of our life without sense and feeling? For if any thing would rouze us and scare us from sin, sure this would, to hear word from God himself what the sin is he plagues us for, and so sharply warns us to amend. Whensoever therefore any cross or calamity befals us or any of ours, either in body, goods, or name, or in the success of any thing we take in hand, let us not rebel against God with an impatient heart, or fret at the occasion or author of our misery; but let us take a just account of our life past, and thus reason with our selves, This is surely none other but the very Finger of God; I am punished, therefore have I sinned: I am punished thus and thus, in this or that sort, in this or that thing, in this or that place or time; therefore God is angry with me for something I have done, the same with that I suffer, or something like unto it, or because I sinned in this thing, or at this time, or in this place, when and where I now am punished: As I have done, so surely God hath requited me. Therefore I will not look any longer upon any other cause or occasion of this misery, of this cross or calamity, but look unto my sin, and give glory unto God, who sent the hand which hath done all this unto me.
Thus did the sons of Iacob, having no doubt learned of their good father to make this use of their crosses and afflictions: For when they saw themselves so roughly entertained in Egypt, being challenged for spies of the countrey; when their brother Simeon was to lie in prison in a strange land; and not only this brother, but another brother, so dearly beloved of his father, must needs be taken from him, and come into the like jeopardy; when all this distress fell still upon the head of a brother, and nothing but a brother; they presently discovered the Hand-writing of God, and cried out, We are guilty, and therefore is this evil come upon us: Gen. 42. 21.Behold the Finger of God. All this evil still lights upon one or other of our brethren; for we are verily guilty concerning a brother, our brother Ioseph, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. Verse 22.Ah! said Reuben, I told you, I spake unto you that you should not sin against the child, but you would not hear: therefore behold his bloud is now required. Yea this writing of God is yet more evident, for we sinned in the dearly-beloved of our Father, Ioseph, and now are we distressed about our brother Benjamin, the child whom our Father loveth: As we have done, so God hath requited us.
This is the last point I observed in these words, and it contains the Use of all the former. Verbum sapienti, one word is enough to him that is wise, and one Example is sufficient for him that is willing to follow it.