given why you should commit your way to the Lord, why you should cast your care upon him, why you should not leave him, to trust to your selves, David faith, He made us, and not we our selves: he saw us imperfect in the wombe: he fashioned us. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me; he took me from the Wombe. 1 He addeth, Upon thee have I depended ever fince I hung upon the breasts of my mother. When we are hungry, begiveth bread that strengthneth mans heart. : When we had not wit and understanding to shift for our felves, who fed and cloathed and preserved us then? (urely his handis not shortned, but his arme is stretched out still. Suppose that without him we could get bread; Man liveth not by bread only. Suppose that without him we could fowe much seed; It is only be that giveth increase. Let us observe the examples of Gods judgments upon suchas forsake God, and trust their money, or their friends, or corrupt means to preferve them: One day telleth another. The Chaldeans trust not in God: their own net is their god, their own yarn is their idol, they kisse their own hands. But fear yee the Lord all his Saints, and trust in him, for he never faileth them that trust in him. 1 I have blamed some for buying and felling on the Sabbah; They have answered that they are poor and are forced to it, to help to feed them. 1. Is not this infidelity? they dare not trust God for their meat, they dare trust to their own ways against the precife Commandment of God. Unlawful recreations on the Sabbath are so defended; poor labouring men that work all the fix days, must have some time. to refresh themselves. But I would fain know by what indulgence they may difpense with the law of the Sabbath. God hath bidden thee to remember to keepthe whole day holy: if thy recreations be holy, thou keepeft the law; if unholy, thou breakest it. When fome are detected of fraud and theft, their plea is their necef Mm 3 necessity Here is a root of infidelity: for doth God lay a neces fity upon any man to break his law? He hath laid on thee a nece City of labour; if that will not do, he hath given the rich charge of thee. The truth is, that this root of infidelity doth yet remain in the hearts of most of us, and is the cause of all the fins that are committed. For the light of the Gospel doth shine much more clear now then ever it did in thisland, and the knowledge of the truth is more spred then ever before here. : Yet never was there greater corruption of manners, nor more cunning shifts devised for the advancing of mens particulars. The crying fins of the Jews, Injuries done between man and man. Corruption of Justice. To all these our land doth plead guilty. Where's the fault? Have you not heard? have you not been taught the ways of the Lord? have you not been admonish't of your duty? have you not been chidden, and threatned for these things? hath not the seal of Gods judgments written within and without with lamentations, mourning and wo, been opened and read to you? Hath not God rained examples thick of his justice and judgment against high and low for these things? why then is not this amended? There is a root of infidelity, we do not, we dare not trust God; and from bence comes 1. In some Atheisme, they live without God in the world. 2. In others Epicurisme, they live all to delight. 3. In others temporizing, and following and serving men. 4. In others heresie, embracing their own opinions. 5. In others Apostacy from religion and faith. 6. In others hypocrifie, seeming what they are not. 7. In most carnal security, not caring for threatnings. 8. In many wilful ignorance, not caring for the knowledge God. hou man and woman of God, fly these things,& know the Lord Lord; the more thou knowest him, the more thou lovest him; the more thou fervest him, the more thou trustest him, and the more he blesseth thee, 2. Ambition, that he may fet his nest on high. Ambition is a limbe of pride, and it is well fet forth in my text, it is a building of a neft on high; it is but a nest that the ambitious man doth fet up, but he would have it high to overlook all; yet that doth not make it fafe; for there be clouds that can carry fire from below to confume it, and there is lightning from above to inflame it, and there is tempests and strors winds to shake it. And the axe is laid to the root of the tree in which the neft is built, and with the fall of that tree the nest comes to the ground. The highest tree for a subject to build his nest in, is the favour of the Prince; yet David faith, Trust not in Princes for there is no help in them, their breath departeth, they return to the earth, and their thoughts perish. It may be that he that fitteth next in the chair of soveraignty, will be no tree for the fame birds to build in. Ambition is an inordinate defire of honour. Saint Gregory hath a rule which would stop the mouth of faitors and competitors for honour. Locus regiminis defiderantibus negandus est, fugientibus offerendus. Virtutibus ergo pollens coactus ad regimen veniat. Naturally the love that every man beareth to himself, and the good opinion that pride putteth into him of himself, doth make him defire to set his nest high, and therefore every man obferveth the course of the times, in which he liveth to see which is the readiest way to rife. The king is called the fountain of honour; for from the Ruler of the People all iubordinations of rule derive themselves; and therefore : Many seek the face of the ruler. The way of preferment is foon found, and ambition hath a foot for it: The Prophets phrase, Pes fuperbia, the foot of pride. If only vertue were the way, only vertue would be studied. But I look not fo low as the Throne of earthly Princes for Mm 2 the Pro.29:26 the fountain of honour. I hear the Pfalmist say, Plal.75.6 For promotion cometh neither from the East, nor from the West, nor from the South. Verf. 7. But God is judge, he putteth down one, and setteth up another. Many are ambitious of high places, who have both friends and means, and yet cannot climbe; Many more unlikely speed before them, and I can ascribe this to nothing but the supream hand of God, from whom all promotion cometh, he will have his Will done. Some he raiseth to their own ruine, others to the punishment and correction of the sins of the time in his anger: Others for the good of men in favour of his Church, and the Commonwealth. It becomes not us to censure the Powers that are ordained of God, as the Apostle teacheth, or to envy their high nests; but let every foul be subject to the ordinance of God, and rest in his will by whom Princes reign, and by whom they advance where he pleaseth to set up. But ambition of high nests is the theme of our discourse, which is an inordinate defire of honour, and that is a fin. It corrupted the Angels which fell, and they impoisoned our Parents with it in Paradise; both desired to be like God, neither stood content with the glory of their Creation. Concerning which, understand that the state of Creation did give man no further dominion then this; Gen.1.28. Replenish the earth, and fubdue it, and have dominion over the fisb of the sea and over thefowls of the ayre, and over every living thing that movethupon the earth. Here is no dominion given to man over man. But all mankind is endowed with equal dominion over all these things, and man is to acknowledge no soveraign lord but God his Maker. But presently after the fall For the punishment of the woman, who had brought the defire of her husband subject to her, by tempting him to eat of the forbidden fruit, God faid to her, Thy defire shall be subject to thy : Yea when God faw Cains countenance cast down, he called Gen.3.16 husband, and he shall rule over thee. him to account for it, and knowing his discontent to be againft Abel Abel, he said to Cain, Unto thee his defire shall be subject, and Gen. 4. 7. thou shalt rule over him; Which Saint Chryfoftome doth expound de Priviledgio Primogenitura. But as fin brought in the law, for Justo non est posita lex: fo fin brought in Magistracy for execution of the law, and brought down the sword of God amongst men: and the equal condition of mankind in his Creation by finne was changed into male and female: not in fexe, but in subjection, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free. So that this ambition of an higher nest came in with finne; and being so brought in at first, it cannot be without fin. Saint Hierome speaks bugs words, Cave honores quos fine culpatenere non potes; fublimitas honorum magnitudo fcelerum. L And Saint Augustine complains of nothing more then that he was made a Bishop; He was an holy man, but a man, and his passion transported him. In nullo sentio Deum ita iratum mihi quam in hoc, quod cum indignus effem poni ad remum, positus sum ad amplustre, five gubernaculum Ecclefia. But howsoever his humility unworthied him to himself, it was Gods great blessing to his Church not only then, but in all succeeding ages that God so promoted him. One thing amongst the rest maketh ambition an unmanly fin: for two contraries meet in the ambitious, that is,pride and a base mind. Pride striving to climb high, and a base mind fervilely attending the means of rising, waiting and observing fuch as may help him up, as one that climbeth, embraceth every bough, & huggeth in his armes what he shortly treadeth under his foot. But Seneca saves me a labour, for he doth describe such a man to the life; Ambitiosus semper est pavidus. Timet quod dicat vel faciat, quidoculis hominum displiceat;honeftatem mentitur, humilitatem fimulat, cunctis adulatur, cunctis inclinat, omnium est ferons & tributarius, gravem habet in se pugnam. The end of the Chaldeans ambition to set his nest so high, is that he may be delivered from the power of evil. Herein is a great fallacy; for be high nests the safest? and is greate 1 |