Christs Justification of Marys Choice, Part
I have told you of many evils that come by the preference of unnecessary or less necessary things, but one remaineth to be noted, which the Text expresseth in Martha's instance: while she is over-careful and troubled about many things, which were then less necessary, she thinks her Sister should have been of the same mind, and done as she did, and grudgeth at her and accuseth her to Christ, as if Mary's work had been less necessary than hers: which sheweth us,
Observ. That they that choose unnecessary or less necessary employments, are apt to account Religious exercises less necessary, and to censure those that choose them.
The wrong censuring of Mary's choice and work, was as much of Martha's fault as her own worst choice and needless trouble. Those that sin against Knowledge, and confess that they do ill, are often desirous that their Children and Friends should do better: But they that think their Sin is their Duty, will censure those that sin not with them, as if it were Sin to fear Sin and avoid it. And no wonder: For, 1. That which is true to one, is true to another; and that which is best to one, as a common duty, is best to another: and it is natural to us to desire that our Friends should know what we know, and choose that common good which we choose, and avoid the errour, Sin and Misery which we avoid: Our Love to Truth and goodness will make us desire that they may be common: And our Love to our Friends will make us desire that they may be happy by choosing what is best: And the Love of our selves maketh men desire that others may be of their Mind and way: As God first loveth himself, and next that which is most like himself, so naturally doth a selfish man: Though a holy man as such first loveth God, and then that which is likest God; yet when he erreth, he thinketh that to be like God which is not. And then even the Love of God also will be abused to the promoting of errour, and the angry censuring of Truth and Duty. No doubt but Martha's Love to Christ himself was abused by her errour, to censure her Sister that did not serve him in the way that she thought then most necessary.
2. And when several things are contrary or inconsistent, the over valuing of the one, must needs cause the undervaluing and rejecting of the other; the weighing down of one end of the ballance will lift up the other: As all men that are earthly minded are so much the less spiritual and heavenly, and he that loveth the world hath the less love to God, so they that over-value unnecessary things, will naturally grow into a greater disesteem of things truly necessary; contrary things cannot be both at once preferred (in the same respect) when unnecessary things seem necessary, inconsistent necessary things will seem unnecessary.
All this we see verified constantly in our experience, in mens judging both for themselves and others.
1. Mark any that grow more in loving and caring for Ʋnnecessary, Worldly, Fleshly things, and you shall find that they grow more indifferent to Prayer, and to all holy exercises that employ the mind; a little of this will serve their turns: Mark them that over-mind their Ornaments, their Conveniencies, their Appetites or their Worldly gain, and you shall see how heartless and dead they grow towards God, and Holiness, and Heaven; when shadows seem substances, the substance goeth but for a shadow: A little of God will serve them, when a little of the World will not serve them; and spiritual things lose all their sweetness, when fleshly Pleasures and Hopes grow too sweet.
2. And you shall see that such Persons do judge accordingly of others: Their love of Vanity maketh serious Religion seem a vanity to them: When they are over eager for the Flesh or World, they judge Gods Servants to be over earnest in Religion; when we wonder what they can find in an empty world to take up all their thoughts and hearts, their talk, labour and time, they wonder what we find in Religion to take up ours; as we say to them, what needs all this adoe for Vanity? cannot you have Food and a Grave without this over-much care and trouble? so they say to us, [What needs all this adoe in Religion, cannot a man be saved without so much violence and stir? is God so ill natured that no less will please him? Thus God must be thought to be like them, Psal. 50. and to leave his holiness when they leave theirs, (or never had it) and to grow indifferent and reconcileable to sin when once they love it.
And when serious Godliness is thus rejected by themselves, it first seemeth in others to be but a needless honest Superstition, the effect of a weak Judgment, and a timerous and trembling heart; and afterward they grow on to call it foolishness, and entitle it as Christ did Martha's Case, A care and trouble about many unnecessary things: And from thence many grow to think it evil; and from thence to think it the most insufferable evil, and to take serious Conscience of our duty to God to be the greatest rebel against Kings, and the greatest troubler of the Land, the greatest Schismatick, and the most dangerous Enemy, and most intollerable Plague; and so they proceed to hellish malignity and cruel Persecution: This is the natural Progress of over-valuing and over-minding needless things.
3. And alas, not only the history of thirteen hundred years, but the notice of our own age hath told us, that even in the Churches the same Cause hath produced the same Effect, when many needless and troublesome things are overvalued and thought necessary; Mary is accused, and her hearing so much Preaching, is taken for the effect of Idleness or itching Ears: In the Church of Rome where things first called indifferent have been preferred, true Knowledge, explicite Faith, spiritual Worship, and a holy Life, are taken to be necessary only to some few Votaries, or Saints that are to be Canonized as wonders, and not to all that will be saved; and a mass of Ceremonies hath shut out mostly serious Preaching, Praying and Holy Living; their Tree beareth sometimes only Leaves, and at other times the Pricks of Thorns and Thistles. Images pretended to be for the honour of departed Saints, are cherished where Saints and sanctity are hated; as their Forefathers the Pharisees, Mat. 23. They build the Sepulchers of the Prophets and righteous men, and condemn those that murthered them, and keep holy-dayes in honour of them, and go on implacably to kill those that imitate them, and to do as their Forefathers did that Persecuted them. Ceremony is become the Substance of too many mens Religion, and an Image and Shadow of Faith and Godliness, Justice and Charity hath taken place of Life and Substance. Too many Churches are filled with Statues and Carkasses instead of real Saints: The Shell which is but to keep the Kernel, is valued in its stead, and the Kernel cast away instead of the Shell. The Letter which is for the signification of the sence, is first taken up as enough without it, and then turned as an enemy against it; and the oft repeated names of Jesus, and Mary, and Saints are used, first instead of holy love to Jesus and Saints, and then to cherish a malignant murderous hatred of them that are Saints indeed within their reach. It was St. Dominick and such other of their holy men, that promoted the murder of real Saints, even of many thousands, if not hundred thousands; Do but call them Hereticks, Waldenses, Albigenses, Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, Hugonots, Bigots, Lollards, Whigs, Puritans, and then Conscience is as loose and free to hate, revile, imprison, silence or murder them, as if they were so many Robbers or Rebels, or as bad as their Accusers and Persecutors feign them. Paul doth foretell that in the last daies some shall be haters of those that are good, and foreign, Devils, which we translate false Accusers, and yet have a form of Godliness, while they deny the Power. Diabolism begins in false Accusation, and proceedeth to the cruelest Persecution; what on earth can be liker a Devil, than first to Print such horrid lies of the Servants of Christ, as they have done of Luther, Zuinglius, Bucer, Calvin, Beza, and the reformed Churches, and then to torture and burn such as Hereticks, and to make it a Law and part of their Religion to compell Princes to do the like in all generations to come, and even to burn the Bones of the Dead, as they did by Bucer, Phagius and Wickliff; yea, to murder them by thousands, as in France, and by hundred thousands, as in Ireland; and all this began with the overvaluing unnecessary things, worldly Pomp, and Power, and Wealth, and Pleasure, and Images, Ceremonies and Formalites? What dreadful work was made about lmages, against the Eastern Emperours! how many Councils of Bishops were the Authors of Schism and Rebellion for them! and at last for them did the Pope rebelliously cast off his Sovereign, and cut off the Western Empire from him, and give it (as if it had been his own) to the French: To this day, do but speak against their deified Wafer, or their Mass of Ceremonies, or their adoring Images, or their false Doctrine, or their Papal or Prelatical Tyranny and Usurpation, and you presently deserve to be painted with the Picture of Devils, and after the torment of the Inquisition to be Cursed from Christ, and Burned to Ashes; and all this as for Christ, the Church and Faith.
And the German Interim told the World whither the overvaluing of things called Indifferent doth tend, when the Churches were deserted, the Ministers silenced and persecuted, and sadly divided among themselves, and the Reformation almost overthrown; and all because the Pastors refused to conform to a Book compiled by the Emperour's Command, by a few self-conceited Bishops, pretending to be moderate Reconcilers, obtruding divers of the Romish Formalities as the means of the Peace and Concord of the Churches. It would grieve ones Heart to read what Confusions this imposed Book, called the Interim, did cause.
But alas, they are not the only Instances of the calamitous Effects of the overvaluing and obtruding unnecessary things. As the Ruines of Troy long told Spectators what a War for one Helena, a beautiful Whore did cost that part of the World, (which became the Subjects of the famous Poems of divers Ages;) even so the Ruines of the Eastern Churches, sometime the most great and famous in the World, and now the Habitation of Owls and Serpents, deluded Mahometans, with some ignorant, sad, oppressed Christians, proclaim to all that read, hear, or see them, what are the fruits of striving about unnecessary things, even about worldly Preeminence and Wealth; which Patriark should be greatest, and which Bishop should sit highest, and go first, and have his Will, and pass for the most Orthodox, or have most Followers; and about ambiguous words, who it was that spake wiselyest, and who should make the words of other Mens Creeds and Professions; (for the Trade of making Litturgies which whole Nations or Provinces must be confined to, was not set up till after that of making Creeds:) In a word, Church-Wars; 1. About the Jurisdiction of Prelates; especially, whether Rome or Constantinople should be the Chief; 2. And about hard and doubtful words; 3. And about Images and Ceremonies; have laid East and West in the Condition of Apostasie, Desolation, Shame and Slavery, in which with Amazement we see them at this day.
And what are all the religious Wars, Murthers and Cruelties exercised for, by the Papal Party, but that one Prelate and his Confederates may be the Masters of all the Christian World, and may have their Wills in all religious Matters directly, and in all Civil Matters in order to the Religious; and that all their Laws may be obeyed, their Formalities used, and their Words believed? Killing, burning, tormenting, confounding, seem not too dear to accomplish this. Behold how great a matter a little Fire kindleth! Who would think, that never before saw it, that a little Gunpowder should blow up Houses, as it doth? And who would have thought that so many Churches, Kingdoms, Lives and Souls should have been blown up, or ruined, as they have been, for the unnecessary Domination, Wealth, Formalities and Ceremonies of the Clergy.
I have often, too often heard Preachers themselves, instead of a Sermon, pour out Scorns against those that preached and lived more seriously, strictly and holily than themselves: And I have too oft heard the Common Rabble revile them that were most careful and diligent for Salvation, as a company of Precisians, Puritans and Hypocrites: And I have thought with my self; Have these Men found better and greater things to lay out their own Care, Time and Labour for? And alas, I perceived that instead of God, and Christ, and Holiness, and Heaven, they had nothing to take them up, but Vanity and Vexation; their Bellies, and their Purses, and their Walls, and their Titles, and their Pride, and Lust, and selfish Wills; and are these more necessary than Mary's Choice? Mark what those Persons are saying and doing every day, who think Serious Godliness to be over-doing; and you shall see, that instead of it, some are doing nothing, and some worse than nothing; wasting their short time, deceiving and destroying themselves and others.
And indeed it is not possible that any one that is a serious Christian himself, and hath tryed truly a holy Life, should think it needless, or make it a matter of Reproach to others. But we grant, that particular Duties may be misplaced, and Prudence is necessary to know their time, and length, and manner; and it's possible, both that a Mary may sometime here imprudently over-do, and that a Martha may by mistake be quarrelsome, and accuse the Innocent, that yet is not against serious Piety it self. Therefore I think meet to annex these two Cautions to the Hearers in this Case.
I. Do not presently take your selves to be truly godly, because some others accuse you of over-doing, or of being religious over-much. Every one is not a Saint that is derided for Sanctity; every one doth not sincerely preach, hear, pray, or practise, that is derided for these things: If you have no better Evidence of Grace, than that some call you Puritans, Precisians, or such like, it will be an insufficient Evidence. 1. Bad Men will deride those that seem holy, though they are not so. 2. And good Men in their faulty weakness, may misjudge of the Circumstances of your Duty, and unjustly blame you, and yet you may not be sincere in the main. 3. And you may actually mistake in Circumstances your selves, and deserve the blame that is cast upon you. The Pharisees were over-strict for the Sabbath, and in avoiding Publicans and Sinners, and thought Christ too loose: Judas pretendeth more Charity to the Poor than Christ had. That is not rightest which seemeth strictest, but that which is most agreeable to the Law of God. Though some misapply Solomon's words, Eccles. 7. 16. Be not righteous over-much, neither make thy self over-wise; as if it had been written against serious diligent Obedience to God, and true proper Righteousness and Wisdom; yet we must know, that it was written by the Holy Ghost, and not in vain. A Pharisaical Superstitious sort of Religion, and Observation of vain Traditions, and a zealous Strictness which God never commanded, is a Righteousness equivocally so called, and it is over-much: Such is much of the Popish Righteousness, and such is the affected Austerity of several Sects, old and new. Touch not, Taste not, Handle not, are oft a humane counterfeit Righteousness, which God doth neither require, nor accept. As God liketh not a Popish Charity, that killeth or tormenteth Men in love to God and Religion; so neither doth he like those Superstitious Austerities which destroy our own Bodies, and disable us from chearful Thankfulness and Obedience; which maketh Solomon say, Why shouldst thou be desolate, (or destroy thy self?) That is good which is fitted to do good. All Grace and Duty is for Edification.
II. And as every one is not truly Godly who is derided as Godly by the prophane, or blamed for some superstitious strictness, so you must not take every one for malignant or ungodly, who speaketh against such strictness, as either is real superstition, or seemeth so o… worse to him.
For, 1. If you are guilty of superstition, it is a friendly office to shew you your mistake: 2. And if you are in the right, and another that is in the wrong misaccuseth you, in many Cases his errour may stand with Love to Truth and Holiness in the main: Every one is not ungodly who misreproach …s with the Anabaptists for Baptizing …nfants: Or with the Antinomians as …etting up the abrogated Law; and so of many others. As men differ in …udgment about Gods Law, they will …ccuse each others differing Practice: But opposing Serious Godliness as such, is another thing.
And indeed it is usual with malignant enemies of a holy Life, to make themselves a Religion of Formalities, and Imagery and shadows, to quiet their Consciences while they resist the Truth, that it may not seem to be an act of impiety and malignity which they do, but an opposition to the faults of others.
But the Use which you should make of this Lesson, is this: Take heed lest you be tempted to an over-valuing of any unnecessary or less needful things, whether it be Wealth, and Honour and Fleshly Interest; or else any formalities, or things indifferent about Religion, lest before you are aware (as Imagery stole away the Hearts of the old Idolaters from God, so) these should secretly consume your holy zeal, and turn your Hearts from the Life and serious exercise of Religion, and worshipping God in Spirit and Truth; and afterwards draw you to condemn that zeal and diligence in others which you want your selves. We have Bodies as well as Souls, and must have a just regard to bodily necessaries; and a care that our Bodies do their duty: But let the Body and it's Interest keep their place: Remember how far it is below the Soul, and use it, and all it's interests accordingly. The least things that are good are not to be despised: But alas what work is made by preferring little things! The Traditions of their Fathers, their Tithing Mint and Annise, their Washings, their building the Sepulchers of the Prophets, their Domination, Pomp and Ceremonies, did pass with the Pharisees instead of the great things of the Law, and Sacrifice went before Mercy, Truth and Judgment; yea and became a Cloak for devouring Widows houses, and for Persecuting and Silencing the Preachers of the Gospel, and for Slandering and Murdering Christ himself.
What Ruins this hath made in Souls, Churches and Kingdoms, I have already told you: Know therefore wherein Gods Kingdom doth consist, Rom. 14. 17, 18. And what and whom God bindeth you to approve, and learn what this meaneth, I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice, that you may not deceive your selves or condemn the guiltless. Even Martha will murmur at her dear Sister and accuse her, if she be her self but tainted with this ill disease.