these were greater sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered such things. I tell you nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish :" meaning, that although there was great probability to believe such persons, schismatics (I mean) and rebels, to be the greatest sinners of the world, yet themselves, who had designs to destroy the Son of God, had deserved as great damnation, And yet it is observable, that the holy Jesus only compared the sins of them that suffered, with the estate of the other Galileans who suffered not; and that also applies it to the persons present, who told the news: to consign this truth unto us, that when persons, confederate in the same crimes, are spared from a present judgment falling upon others of their own society, it is indeed a strong alarm to all to secure themselves by repentance against the hostilities and eruptions of sind; but yet it is no exemption or security to them that escape, to believe themselves persons less sinful for God sometimes decimates or tithes delinquent persons, and they die for a common crime, according as God hath cast their lot in the decrees of predestination; and either they that remain, are sealed up to a worse calamity, or left within the reserves and mercies of repentance; for in this there is some variety of determination and undiscerned providence.

2. The purpose of our blessed Saviour is of great use to us in all the traverses and changes, and especially the sad and calamitous accidents, of the world. But, in the misfortune of others, we are to make other discourses concerning Divine judgments, than when the case is of nearer concernment to ourselves. For, first, when we see a person come to an unfortunate and untimely death, we must not conclude such a man perishing and miserable to all eternity. It was a sad calamity that fell upon the man of Judah, that returned

eLuke, xiii. 2.

d Χρόνῳ τοι κυρίᾳ τ ̓ ἐν ἡμέρᾳ

Θεοῦς ἀτίζων τις βροτῶν δώσει δίκην. - Æschyl. Ικέτιδες.

Pins scilicet Deus partem percussit sententiæ suæ gladio, ut partem corrigeret exemplo, probaretque omnibus simul et coercendo censuram, et indulgendo pietatem. Salvian.

e De Anania et Sapphira, dixit Origines, digni enim erant in hoc seculo recipere peccatum suum, ut mundiores exeant ab hac vita, mundati castigatione sibi illatà per mortem communem, quoniam credentes erant in Christum. Idem ait S. Aug. lib. iii. c. 1. cont. Parmen. et Cassian.

to eat bread into the prophet's house contrary to the word of the Lord: he was abused into the act by a prophet, and a pretence of a command from God; and whether he did violence to his own understanding, and believed the man because he was willing, or did it in sincerity, or in what degree of sin or excuse the action might consist, no man there knew and yet a lion slew him, and the lying prophet that abused him, escaped, and went to his grave in peace. Some persons, joined in society or interest with criminals, have perished in the same judgments; and yet it would be hard to call them equally guilty, who, in the accident, were equally miserable and involved. And they who are not strangers in the affairs of the world, cannot but have heard or seen some persons, who have lived well and moderately, though not like the flames of the holocaust, yet, like the ashes of incense, sending up good perfumes, and keeping a constant and slow fire of piety and justice, yet have been surprised in the midst of some unusual, unaccustomed irregularity, and died in that sin: a sudden gaiety of fortune, a great joy, a violent change, a friend is come, or a marriageday, hath transported some persons to indiscretions and too bold a license; and the indiscretion hath betrayed them to idle company, and the company to drink, and drink to a fall, and that hath hurried them to their grave. And it were a sad sentence to think God would not repute the untimely death for a punishment great enough to that deflexion from duty, and judge the man according to the constant tenour of his former life; unless such an act was of malice great enough to outweigh the former habits, and interrupt the whole state of acceptation and grace. Something like this was the case of Uzzah, who, espying the tottering ark, went to support it with an unhallowed hand; God smote him, and he died immediately. It were too severe to say, his zeal and indiscretion carried him beyond a temporal death to the ruins of eternity. Origen, and many others, have "made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven," and did well

f

Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum

Vulgarit arcanæ, sub iisdem

Sit trabibus, fragilemque mecum

Solvat phaselum: sæpe Diespiter,

Neglectus, incesto addidit integrum.- Hor. lib. iii. Od. 2.

after it; but those that did so, and died of the wound, were smitten of God, and died in their folly: and yet it is rather to be called a sad consequence of their indiscretion, than the express of a final anger from God Almighty. For as God takes off our sins and punishments by parts, remitting to some persons the sentence of death, and inflicting the fine of a temporal loss, or the gentle scourge of a lesser sickness: so also he lays it on by parts, and according to the proper proportions of the man and of the crime; and every transgression and lesser deviation from our duty does not drag the soul to death eternal, but God suffers our repentance, though imperfect, to have an imperfect effect, knocking off the fetters by degrees, and leading us in some cases to a council, in some to judgment, and in some to hell-fire: but it is not always certain that he who is led to the prison-doors, shall there lie entombed; and a man may, by a judgment, be brought to the gates of hell, and yet those gates shall not prevail against him. This discourse concerns persons, whose life is habitually fair and just, but are surprised in some unhandsome, but less criminal, action, and die, or suffer some great calamity, as the instrument of its expiation or amendment.

3. Secondly: But if the person upon whom the judgment falls be habitually vicious, or the crime of a clamorous nature or deeper tincture; if the man "sin a sin unto death," and either meets it, or some other remarkable calamity not so feared as death; provided we pass no farther than the sentence we see then executed, it is not against charity or prudence to say, this calamity, in its own formality, and by the intention of God, is a punishment and judgment. In the favourable cases of honest and just persons, our sentence and opinions ought also to be favourable, and, in such questions, to incline ever to the side of charitable construction, and read other ends of God in the accidents of our neighbour than revenge or express wrath. But when the impiety of a person is scandalous and notorious, when it is clamorous and violent, when it is habitual and yet corrigible, if we find a sadness and calamity dwelling with such a sinner, especially if the punishment be spiritual, we read the sentence of God written with his own hand, and it is not sauciness of opinion, or a pressing into the secrets of Provi

dence, to say the same thing which God hath published to all the world in the expresses of his Spirit. In such cases we are to observe the "severity of God, on them that fall severity;" and to use those judgments as instruments of the fear of God, and arguments to hate sin; which we could not well do, but that we must look on them as verifications of God's threatening against great and impenitent sinners. But then, if we descend to particulars, we may easily be deceived.

4. For some men are diligent to observe the accidents and chances of Providence upon those especially, who differ from them in opinion; and whatever ends God can have, or whatever sins man can have, yet we lay that in fault, which we therefore hate, because it is most against our interest; the contrary opinion is our enemy, and we also think God hates it. But such fancies do seldom serve either the ends of truth or charity. Pierre Calceon died under the barber's hands there wanted not some, who said it was a judgment upon him for condemning to the fire the famous Pucelle of France, who prophesied the expulsion of the English out of the kingdom. They that thought this, believed her to be a prophetess; but others, that thought her a witch, were willing to find out another conjecture for the sudden death of the gentleman. Garnier, earl of Gretz, kept the patriarch of Jerusalem from his right in David's tower and the city, and died within three days; and, by Dabert the patriarch, it was called a judgment upon him for his sacrilege. But the uncertainty of that censure appeared to them, who considered that Baldwin (who gave commission to Garnier to withstand the patriarch) did not die; but Godfrey of Bouillon did die immediately after he had passed the right of the patriarch and yet, when Baldwin was beaten at Rhamula, some bold people pronounced, that then God punished him upon the patriarch's score, and thought his sacrilege to be the secret cause of his overthrow; and yet his own pride and rashness was the more visible, and the judgment was but a cloud, and passed away quickly into a succeeding victory. But I instance in a trifle. Certain it is, that God

g Pendula dum tonsor secat excrementa capilli,

Exspirans cadit, et gelidâ tellure cadaver

Decubat: ultrices sic pendunt crimina pœnas.—Valerand.

h Baron. A. D. 1100 et 2024.

removed the candlestick from the Levantine churches, because he had a quarrel unto them; for that punishment is never sent upon pure designs of emendation, or for direct and immediate purposes of the Divine glory, but ever makes reflection upon the past sin: but when we descend to a judgment of the particulars, God walks so in the dark to us, that it is not discerned upon what ground he smote them. Some say it was, because they dishonoured the eternal Jesus, in denying the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. And in this some thought themselves sufficiently assured by a sign from heaven1, because the Greeks lost Constantinople upon Whitsunday, the day of the festival of the Holy Spirit. The church of Rome calls the churches of the Greek communion schismatical, and thinks God righted the Roman quarrel, when he revenged his own. Some think they were cut off for being breakers of images; others think that their zeal against images was a means they were cut off no sooner: and yet he that shall observe what innumerable sects, heresies, and factions were commenced amongst them, and how they were wanton with religion, making it serve ambitious and unworthy ends, will see that, besides the ordinary conjectures of interested persons, they had such causes of their ruin, which we also now feel heavily incumbent upon ourselves. To see God adding eighteen years to the life of Hezekiah upon his prayer, and yet cutting off the young son of David begotten in adulterous embraces; to see him rejecting Adonijah, and receiving Solomon to the kingdom, begotten of the same mother, whose son God in anger formerly slew; to observe his mercies to Manasses, in accepting him to favour, and continuing the kingdom to him, and his severity to Zedekiah, in causing his eyes to be put out; to see him rewarding Nebuchadnezzar with the spoils of Egypt for destroying Tyre, and executing God's severe anger against it, and yet punishing others for being executioners of his wrath upon Jerusalem, even then when he purposed to chastise it; to see Wenceslaus raised from a peasant to a throne, and Pompey, from a great prince, reduced to that condition, that a pupil and an eunuch passed sentence of death upon him; to see great fortunes fall into the hand of a fool, and

¡Estius.