hath promised to give to them that fear him all that they need, food and raiment: but he adds, out of the treasures of his mercy, variety of food, and changes of raiment; some to get strength, and some to refresh; something for them that are in health, and some for the sick. And though that skins of bulls, and stags, and foxes, and bears, could have drawn a veil thick enough to hide the apertures of sin and natural shame, and to defend us from heat and cold, yet when he added the fleeces of the sheep and beavers, and the spoils of silk-worms, he hath proclaimed, that although his promises are the bounds of our certain expectation, yet they are not the limits of his loving kindness and if he does more than he hath promised, no man can complain that he did otherwise, and did greater things than he said. Thus God does; but therefore so also must we, imitating that example, and transcribing that copy of divine truth, always remembering that his promises are yea and amen. And although God often does more, yet he never does less; and therefore we must never go from our promises, unless we be thrust from thence by disability, or let go by leave, or called up higher by a greater intendment and increase of kindness. And therefore when Solyman had sworn to Ibrahim Bassa that he would never kill him so long as he were alive, he quitted himself but ill, when he sent an eunuch to cut his throat when he slept, because the priest told him that sleep was death. His act was false and deceitful as his great prophet. But in this part of simplicity, we Christians have a most especial obligation: for our religion being ennobled by the most and the greatest promises, and our faith made confident by the veracity of our Lord, and his word made certain by miracles and prophecies, and voices from heaven, and all the testimony of God himself; and that truth itself is bound upon us by the efficacy of great endearments and so many precepts; if we shall suffer the faith of a Christian to be an instrument to deceive our brother, and that he must either be incredulous or deceived, uncharitable or deluded like a fool, we dishonour the sacredness of the institution, and become strangers to the spirit of truth, and to the eternal word of God. Our blessed Lord would not have his disciples to swear at all, (no not in publick judicature) if the necessities of the world would permit him to be obeyed. If Christians will live according to the religion, the word of a Christian were a sufficient instrument to give testimony, and to make promises, to secure a faith; and, upon that supposition, oaths were useless and therefore forbidden, because there could be no necessity to invoke God's name in promises or affirmations if men were indeed Christians, and therefore in that case would be a taking it in vain: but because many are not, and they that are in name, oftentimes are in nothing else, it became necessary that man should swear in judgment and in publick courts. But consider who it was that invented and made the necessity of oaths, of bonds, of securities, of statutes, extents, judgments, and all the artifices of human diffidence and dishonesty. These things were indeed found out by men; but the necessity of these was from him that is the father of lies, from him that hath made many fair promises, but never kept any; or if he did, it was to do a bigger mischief, to cozen the more. For so does the devil: he promises rich harvest, and blasts the corn in the spring; he tells his servants they shall be rich, and fills them with beggarly qualities, makes them base and indigent, greedy and penurious; and they that serve him entirely, as witches and such miserable persons, never can be rich: if he promises health, then men grow confident and intemperate, and do such things whereby they shall die the sooner, and die longer; they shall die eternally. He deceives men in their trust, and frustrates their hopes, and eludes their expectations; and his promises have a period set, beyond which they cannot be true; for wicked men shall enjoy a fair fortune but till their appointed time, and then it ends in perfect and in most accomplished misery: and therefore even in this performance he deceives them most of all, promising jewels, and performing coloured stones and glass gems, that he may cozen them of their glorious inheritance. All fraudulent breakers of promises dress themselves by his glass, whose best imagery is deformity and lies. SERMON XXIV, PART II. 4. CHRISTIAN simplicity teaches openness and ingenuity in contracts, and matters of buying and selling, covenants, associations, and all such intercourses which suppose an equality of persons as to the matter of right and justice in the stipulation. MITT ayapar afdar was the old Attick law: and nothing is more contrary to Christian religion, than that the intercourses of justice be direct snares, and that we should deal with men, as men deal with foxes and wolves, and vermin; do all violence, and when that cannot be, use all craft and every thing whereby they can be made miserable. Η διλω τα βιη, η αμφαδόν και κρυφηδον*. There are men in the world who love to smile, but that smile is more dangerous than the furrows of *By secret treachery or open force. a contracted brow, or a storm in Adria; for their purpose is only to deceive: they easily speak what they never mean; they heap up many arguments to persuade that to others, which themselves believe not; they praise that vehemently which they deride in their hearts; they declaim against a thing which themselves covet: they beg passionately for that which they value not, and run from an object which they would fain have to follow and overtake them; they excuse a person dexterously where the man is beloved, and watch to surprise him where he is unguarded; they praise that they may sell, and disgrace that they may keep. And these hypocrisies are so interwoven and embroidered with their whole design, that some nations refuse to contract till their arts are taken off by the society of banquets, and the good-natured kindnesses of festival chalices: for so Tacitus observes concerning the old Germans; De asciscendis principibus, de pace et bello, in conviviis consultant, tanquam nullo magis tempore ad simplices cogitationes pateat animus, aut ad magnas incalescat: as if then they were more simple, when they were most valiant, and were least deceitful when they were least themselves. But it is an evil condition that a man's honesty shall be owing to his wine, and virtue must live at the charge and will of a vice. The proper band of societies and contracts is justice and necessities, religion and the laws; the measures of it are equity, and ourselves, and our own desires in the days of our need, natural or forced: but the instruments of the exchange and conveyance of the whole intercourses is words and actions, as they are expounded by custom, consent, or understanding of the interested person; in which if simplicity be not severely preserved, it is impossible that human society can subsist, but men shall be forced to snatch at what they have bought, and take securities that men swear truly, and exact an oath that such is the meaning of the word; and no man shall think himself secure, but shall fear he is robbed, if he has not possession first; and it shall be disputed who shall trust the other, and neither of them shall have cause to be confident upon bands, or oaths, or witnesses, or promises, or all the honour of men, or all the engagements of religion. Ουδείς γαρ αν οτι πιστεύσαι δύναιτο ὑμῖν, ουδ' οι πάνυ προθυμειτο, ιδων αδικούμενα στον μάλιστα φιλια προσήκονία, * said Cyrus in Xenophon : a man, though he desires it, cannot be confident of the man that pretends truth, yet tells a lie, and is deprehended to have made use of the sacred name of friendship or religion, honesty or reputation, to deceive his brother. But because a man may be deceived by deeds and open actions as well as words; therefore it concerns their duty, that no man by an action on purpose done to make his brother believe a lie, abuse his persuasion and his interest. When Pythius the Sicilian had a mind to sell his garden to Cannius, he invited him thither, and caused fishermen (as if by custom) to fish in the channel by which the garden stood, and they threw great store of fish into their arbours, and made Cannius believe it was so every day; and the man grew greedy of that place of pleasure, and gave Pythius a double price, and the next day perceived himself abused. Actions of pretence and simulation are like snares laid, into which the beasts fall though you pursue them not, but walk in the inquiry for their necessary provisions: and if a man fall into a snare that you have laid, it is no excuse to say, you did not tempt him thither. To lay a snare is against the ingenuity of a good man and a Christian, and from thence he ought to be drawn; and therefore it is not fit we should place a danger which ourselves are therefore bound to hinder, because from thence *Lib. 2. Instit. |