[167] Read Erasmus Colloqu. Peregrin. Relig. Ergo.
Quest. I. In what cases is it lawful to go to law with others?
Answ. 1. In case of necessary defence, when the plaintiff doth compel you to it. 2. When you are intrusted for orphans or others whom you cannot otherwise right. 3. When your children, or the church, or poor, whom you should do good to, are like to suffer, if you recover not your talent that God hath trusted you with for such uses, from the hands of unjust men; and they refuse all just arbitrations and other equal means which might avoid such suits. 4. When your own necessity constraineth you to seek your own, which you cannot get by easier means. 5. When your forbearance will do more hurt by encouraging knaves in their injustice, than it will do good. 6. Whenever your cause is just, and neither mercy, peace, nor the avoiding of scandal do forbid it: that is, when it is like to do more good than harm, it is then a lawful course.
But it is unlawful to go to law, 1. When you neglect just arbitrations, patience, and other needful means to avoid it. 2. When your cause is unjust. 3. When you oppress the poor by it. 4. When it is done in covetousness, revenge, or pride. 5. When the scandal or hurt to your brother, is like to be a greater harm than the righting of yourself is like to do good; then must you not go willingly to law.
Quest. II. May I sue a poor man for a debt or trespass?
Answ. 1. If he be so poor as that he cannot pay it, nor procure you satisfaction, the suit is vain, and tendeth but to cruelty. 2. If he have no means to pay, but that which will deprive him of food and raiment, and the necessaries of his life or comfort, you may not sue him unless it be for the supply of as great necessities of your own; or in trust for orphans, where you have no power to remit the debt; yea, and for them no cruelty must be used. 3. If your forbearance be like to make him abler by his diligence or other means, you should forbear if possible. 4. But if he be competently able, and refuse to pay through knavery and injustice, and you have better ways to use that money, if scandal forbid not, you may seek by law to recover your own from him.
Quest. III. May I sue a surety whose interest was not concerned in the case?
Answ. If his poverty make it not an act of cruelty, nor scandal prohibit it, you may; because he was willing, and declared his consent, that you should have the debt of him, if the principal pay not. To become surety, is to consent to this; and it is no injury to receive a man's money by his own consent and covenant. He knew that you had not lent it but on those terms; and you had reason to suppose, that he who would undertake to pay another man's debt, had sufficient reason for it, either in relation or counter-security. But as you must use mercy to the principal debtor in his poverty, so must you also to the surety.
Quest. IV. May I sue for the use of money, as well as for the principal?
Answ. This dependeth on the case of usury before resolved. In those cases in which it may not be taken, it may not be sued for; nor yet when the scandal of it will do more harm than the money will do good. But in other cases, it may be sued for on the terms as the rent of lands may.
Quest. V. May law-suits be used to disable or humble an insolent, wicked man?
Answ. You may not take up an ill cause against him, for any such good end; but if you have a good cause against him, which otherwise you would not have prosecuted, you may make use of it, to disable him from doing mischief, when really it is a probable means thereto; and when neither scandal nor other accidents do prohibit it.
Quest. VI. May a rich man make use of his friends and purse in a just cause, to bear down or tire out a poor man that hath a bad cause?
Answ. Not by bribery or any evil means; for his proceeding must be just as well as his cause. But if it be an obstinate knave that setteth himself to do hurt to others, it is lawful to make use of the favour of a righteous judge or magistrate against him; and it is lawful to humble him by the length and expensiveness of the suit, when that is the fittest means, and no unjust action is done in it; still supposing that scandal prohibit it not. But let no proud or cruel person think, that therefore they may by purse, and friends, and tedious law-suits oppress the innocent, to attain their own unrighteous wills.
Quest. VII. May one use such forms in law-suits as in the literal sense are gross untruths (in declarations, answers, or the like)?
Answ. The use of words is to express the mind; and common use is the interpreter of them: if they are such words as the notorious common use hath put another sense on, than the literal one, they must be taken in the sense which public use hath put upon them. And if that public sense be true or false, accordingly they may or may not be used.
Quest. VIII. May a guilty person plead not guilty, or deny the fact?
Answ. Common use is the interpreter of words. If the common use of those words doth make their public sense a lie, it may not be done. But if the forensic common use of their denial is taken to signify no more but this, Let him that accuseth me, prove it; I am not bound to accuse myself, or, In foro I am not guilty till it be proved; then it is lawful to plead Not guilty, and deny the fact, except in cases wherein you are bound to an open confession, or in which the scandal will do more hurt than the denial will do good.
Quest. IX. Is a man ever bound to accuse himself, and seek justice against himself?
Answ. 1. In many cases a man is bound to punish himself; as when the law against swearing, cursing, or the like, must give the poor a certain mulct which is the penalty, he ought to give that money himself; and in cases where it is a necessary cure to himself, and in any case where the public good requireth it: as if a magistrate offend, whom none else will punish, or who is the judge in his own cause; he should so far punish himself as is necessary to the suppression of sin, and to the preserving of the honour of the laws; as I have heard of a justice that swore twenty oaths, and paid his twenty shillings for it. 2. A man may be bound in such a divine vengeance or judgment as seeketh after his particular sin, to offer himself to do a sacrifice to justice, to stop the judgment; as Jonah and Achan did. 3. A man may be bound to confess his guilt and offer himself to justice to save the innocent, who is falsely accused and condemned for his crime. 4. But in ordinary cases a man is not bound to be his own public accuser or executioner.
Quest. X. May a witness voluntarily speak that truth which he knoweth will further an unrighteous cause, and be made use of to oppress the innocent?
Answ. He may not do it as a confederate in that intention: nor may he do it when he knoweth that it will tend to such an event, (though threatened or commanded,) except when some weightier accident doth preponderate for the doing it, (as the avoiding of a greater hurt to others, than it will bring on the oppressed, &c.)
Quest. XI. May a witness conceal some part of the truth?
Answ. Not when he sweareth to deliver the whole truth; nor when a good cause is like to suffer, or a bad cause be furthered by the concealment; nor when he is under any other obligation to reveal the whole.
Quest. XII. Must a judge and jury proceed secundum allegata et probata, according to evidence and proof, when they know the witness to be false, and the truth to be contrary to the testimony; but are not able to evince it?
Answ. Distinguish between the negative and the positive part of the verdict or sentence: in the negative they must go according to the evidence and testimonies, unless the law of the land leave the case to their private knowledge. As for example, they must not sentence a thief or murderer to be punished upon their secret unproved knowledge: they must not adjudge either monies or lands to the true owner from another, without sufficient evidence and proof: they must forbear doing justice, because they are not called to it, nor enabled. But positively they may do no injustice upon any evidence or witness against their own knowledge of the truth: as they may not upon known false witness, give away a man's lands or money, or condemn the innocent; but must in such a case renounce the office; the judge must come off the bench, and the jury protest that they will not meddle, or give any verdict (whatever come of it); because God and the law of nature prohibit their injustice.
Object. It is the law that doth it, and not we.
Answ. It is the law and you; and the law cannot justify your agency in any unrighteous sentence. The case is plain and past dispute.
Direct. I. The first cure for all these sins, is to know the intrinsic evil of them. Good thoughts of sin are its life and strength. When it is well known, it will be hated; and when it is hated, it is so far cured.
I. The evil of contentious and unjust law-suits.
1. Such contentious suits do show the power of selfishness in the sinner; how much self-interest is inordinately esteemed. 2. They show the excessive love of the world; how much men overvalue the things which they contend for. 3. They show men's want of love to their neighbours; how little they regard another man's interest in comparison of their own. 4. They show how little such men care for the public good, which is maintained by the concord and love of neighbours. 5. Such contentions are powerful engines of the devil to destroy all christian love on both sides; and to stir up mutual enmity and wrath; and so to involve men in a course of sin, by further uncharitableness and injuries, both in heart, and word, and deed. 6. Poor men are hereby robbed of their necessary maintenance, and their innocent families subjected to distress. 7. Unconscionable lawyers and court officers, who live upon the people's sins, are hereby maintained, encouraged, and kept up. 8. Laws and courts of justice are perverted to do men wrong, which were made to right them. 9. And the offender declareth how little sense he hath of the authority or love of God, and how little sense of the grace of our Redeemer; and how far he is from being himself forgiven through the blood of Christ, who can no better forgive another.
II. The evil of false witness.
1. By false witness the innocent are injured; robbery and murder are committed under pretence of truth and justice. 2. The name of God is horribly abused, by the crying sin of perjury (of which before). 3. The presence and justice of God are contemned, when sinners dare, in his sight and hearing, appeal to his tribunal, in the attesting of a lie. 4. Vengeance is begged or consented to by the sinner; who bringeth God's curse upon himself, and as it were desireth God to plague or damn him if he lie. 5. Satan the prince of malice and injustice, and the father of lies, and murders, and oppression, is hereby gratified, and eminently served. 6. God himself is openly injured, who is the Father and patron of the innocent; and the cause of every righteous person is more the cause of God than of man. 7. All government is frustrated, and laws abused, and all men's security for their reputations, or estates, or lives is overthrown, by false witnesses; and consequently human converse is made undesirable and unsafe. What good can law, or right, or innocency, or the honesty of the judge do any man, where false witnesses combine against him? What security hath the most innocent or worthy person, for his fame, or liberty, or estate, or life, if false witnesses conspire to defame him or destroy him? And then how shall men endure to converse with one another? Either the innocent must seek out a wilderness, and fly from the face of men as we do from lions and tigers, or else peace will be worse than war; for in war a man may fight for his life; but against false witnesses he hath no defence: but God is the avenger of the innocent, and above most other sins, doth seldom suffer this to go unpunished, even in this present world; but often beginneth their hell on earth, to such perjured instruments of the devil.
III. The evil of unrighteous judgments.
1. An unrighteous judge doth condemn the cause of God himself; for every righteous cause is his. 2. Yea, he condemneth Christ himself in his members; for in that he doth it to one of the least of those whom he calleth brethren, he doth it to himself, Matt. xxv. It is a damnable sin, not to relieve the innocent and imprisoned in their distress, when we have power: what is it then to oppress them and unrighteously condemn? 3. It is a turning of the remedy into a double misery, and taking away the only help of oppressed innocency. What other defence hath innocency, but law and justice? And when their refuge itself doth fall upon them and oppress them, whither shall the righteous fly? 4. It subverteth laws and government, and abuseth it to destroy the ends which it is appointed for. 5. Thereby it turneth human society into a state of misery, like the depredations of hostility. 6. It is a deliberate, resolved sin, and not done in passion by surprise: it is committed in that place, and in that form, as acts of greatest deliberation should be done; as if he should say, Upon full disquisition, evidence, and deliberation, I condemn this person and his cause. 7. All this is done as in the name of God, and by his own commission, by one that pretendeth to be his officer or minister, Rom. iii. 3-6. For the judgment is the Lord's, 2 Chron. xix. 5-8, 10. And how great a wickedness is it thus to blaspheme, and to represent him as Satan, an enemy to truth and righteousness, to his servants and himself! As if he had said, God hath sent me to condemn this cause and person. If false prophets sin so heinously who belie the Lord, and say, He hath sent us to speak this, (which is untruth); the sin of false judges cannot be much less. 8. It is sin against the fullest and frequentest prohibitions of God. Read over Exod. xxiii. 1-3, &c.; Lev.; Deut. i. 16, 17; xvi. 18; Isa. i. 17, 20, 23; Deut. xxiv. 17; and xxvii. 19, "Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, the fatherless, and widow, and all the people shall say Amen." Ezra vii. 26; Psal. xxxiii. 5; xxxvii. 28; lxxii. 2; xciv. 15; cvi. 3, 30; Prov. xvii. 27; xix. 28; xx. 8; xxix. 4; xxxi. 5; Eccl. v. 8; Isa. v. 7; x. 2; lvi. 1, 2; lix. 14, 15; Jer. v. 1; vii. 5; ix. 24; Ezek. xviii. 8; xlv. 9; Hos. xii. 6; Amos v. 7, 15, 24; vi. 12; Mic. iii. 9; Zech. vii. 9; viii. 16; Gen. xviii. 19; Prov. xxi. 3, 7, 15. I cite not the words to avoid prolixity. Scarce any sin is so oft and vehemently condemned of God. 9. False judges cause the poor to appeal to God against them, and the cries of the afflicted shall not be forgotten, Luke xviii. 5-8. 10. They call for God's judgment upon themselves, and devolve the work into his hands: how can that man expect any other than a judgment of damnation, from the righteous God, who hath deliberately condemned Christ himself in his cause and servants, and sat in judgment to condemn the innocent? Psal. ix. 7-9, "The Lord hath prepared his throne for judgment, and he shall judge the world in righteousness; he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness; he will be a refuge for the oppressed." Psal. xxxvii. 6, "He will bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon-day." Psal. lxxxix. 14, "Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne." Psal. ciii. 6, "The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed." Psal. cxlvi. 7. In a word, the sentence of an unjust judge is passed against his own soul, and he calleth to God to condemn him righteously, who unrighteously condemned others. Of all men he cannot stand in judgment, nor abide the righteous doom of Christ.
Direct. II. When you well understand the greatness of the sin, find out and overcome the root and causes of it in yourselves; especially selfishness, covetousness, and passion. A selfish man careth not what another suffereth, so that his own ends and interest be promoted by it. A covetous man will contend and injure his neighbour whenever his own commodity requireth it. He so much loveth his money that it can prevail with him to sin against God, and cast away his own soul; much more to hurt and wrong his neighbour. A proud and passionate man is so thirsty after revenge, to make others stoop to him, that he careth not what it cost him to accomplish it. Overcome these inward vices, and you may easily forbear the outward sins.
Direct. III. Love your neighbours as yourselves: for that is the universal remedy against all injurious and uncharitable undertakings.
Direct. IV. Keep a tender conscience, which will not make light of sin. It is those that have seared their consciences by infidelity or a course of sinning, who dare venture with Judas or Gehazi for the prey, and dare oppress the poor and innocent, and feel not, nor fear, whilst they cast themselves on the revenge of God.
Direct. V. Remember the day when all these causes must be heard again, and the righteous God will set all straight, and vindicate the cause of the oppressed. Consider what a dreadful appearance that man is like to have at the bar of heaven, who hath falsely accused or condemned the just in the courts of men. What a terrible indictment, accusation, conviction, and sentence must that man expect! If the hearing of righteousness and the judgment to come made Felix tremble, surely it is infidelity or the plague of a stupified heart, which keepeth contentious persons, perverters of justice, false witnesses, and unjust judges from trembling.
Direct. VI. Remember the presence of that God who must be your final Judge. That he seeth all your pride and covetousness, and all your secret contrivances for revenge, and is privy to all your deceits and injuries. You commit them in his open sight.
Direct. VII. Meddle not with law-suits till you have offered an equal arbitration of indifferent men, or used all possible means of love to prevent them. Law-suits are not the first, but the last remedy. Try all others before you use them.
Direct. VIII. When you must needs go to law, compose your minds to unfeigned love towards him that you must contend with, and watch over your hearts with suspicion and the strictest care, lest secret disaffection get advantage by it: and go to your neighbour, and labour to possess his heart also with love, and to demulce his mind; that you may not use the courts of justice, as soldiers do their weapons, to do the worst they can against another, as an enemy; but as loving friends do use an amicable arbitration; resolving contentedly to stand to what the judge determineth, without any alienation of mind, or abatement of brotherly love.
Direct. IX. Be not too confident of the righteousness of your own cause; but ask counsel of some understanding, godly, and impartial men; and hear all that can be said, and patiently consider of the case, and do as you would have others do by you.
Direct. X. Observe what terrors of conscience use to haunt awakened sinners, especially on a deathbed, for such sins as false witnessing, and false judging, and oppressing, and injuring the innocent, even above most other sins.
Quest. I. May I not speak evil of that which is evil? and call every one truly as he is?
Answ. You must not speak a known falsehood of any man under pretence of charity or speaking well. But you are not to speak all the evil of every man which is true: as opening the faults of the king or your parents, though never so truly, is a sin against the fifth commandment, "Honour thy father and mother:" so if you do it without a call, you sin against your neighbour's honour, and many other ways offend.
Quest. II. Is it not sinful silence, and a consenting to or countenancing of the sins of others, to say nothing against them, as tender of their honour?
Answ. It is sinful to be silent when you have a call to speak: if you forbear to admonish the offender in love between him and you, when you have opportunity and just cause, it is sinful to be silent then. But to silence backbiting is no sin. If you must be guilty of every man's sin that you talk not against behind his back, your whole discourse must be nothing but backbiting.
Quest. III. May I not speak that which honest, religious, credible persons do report?
Answ. Not without both sufficient evidence and a sufficient call. You must not judge of the action by the person, but of the person by the action. Nor must you imitate any man in evil-doing. If a good man abuse you, are you willing that all men follow him and abuse you more?
Quest. IV. May I believe the bad report of an honest, credible person?
Answ. You must first consider whether you may hear it, or meddle with it: for if it be a case that you have nothing to do with, you may not set your judgment to it, either to believe it, or to disbelieve it. And if it be a thing that you are called to judge of, yet every honest man's word is not presently to be believed: you must first know whether it be a thing that he saw, or is certain of himself, or a thing which he only taketh upon report; and what his evidence and proof is; and whether he be not engaged by interest, passion, or any difference of opinion; or be not engaged in some contrary faction, where the interest of a party or cause is his temptation; or whether he be not used to rash reports and uncharitable speeches; and what concurrence of testimonies there is, and what is said on the other side; especially what the person accused saith in his own defence. If it be so heinous a crime in public judgment, to pass sentence before both parties are heard, and to condemn a man before he speak for himself; it cannot be justifiable in private judgment. Would you be willing yourselves that all should be believed of you, which is spoken by any honest man? And how uncertain are we of other men's honesty, that we should on that account think ill of others!
Quest. V. May I not speak evil of them that are enemies to God, to religion and godliness, and are open persecutors of it; or are enemies to the king or church?
Answ. You may on all meet occasions speak evil of the sin; and of the persons when you have a just call; but not at your own pleasure.
Quest. VI. What if it be one whose honour and credit countenanceth an ill cause, and his dishonour would disable him to do hurt?
Answ. You may not belie the devil, nor wrong the worst man that is, though under pretence of doing good; God needeth not malice, nor calumnies, nor injustice to his glory: it is an ill cause that cannot be maintained without such means as these. And when the matter is true, you must have a call to speak it, and you must speak it justly, without unrighteous aggravations, or hiding the better part, which should make the case and person better understood. There is a time and due manner, in which that man's crimes and just dishonour may be published, whose false reputation injureth the truth. But yet I must say, that a great deal of villany and slander is committed upon this plausible pretence; and that there is scarce a more common cloak for the most inhuman lies and calumnies.
Quest. VII. May I not lawfully make a true narration of such matters of fact, as are criminal and dishonourable to offenders? Else no man may write a true history to posterity of men's crimes.
Answ. When you have a just call to do it, you may; but not at your own pleasure. Historians may take much more liberty to speak the truth of the dead, than you may of the living: though no untruth must be spoken of either: yet the honour of princes and magistrates while they are alive is needful to their government, and therefore must be maintained, ofttimes by the concealment of their faults: and so proportionably the honour of other men is needful to a life of love, and peace, and just society; but when they are dead, they are not subjects capable of a right to any such honour as must be maintained by such silencing of the truth, to the injury of posterity: and posterity hath usually a right to historical truth, that good examples may draw them to imitation, and bad examples may warn them to take heed of sin. God will have the name of the wicked to rot; and the faults of a Noah, Lot, David, Solomon, Peter, &c. shall be recorded. Yet nothing unprofitable to posterity may be recorded of the dead, though it be true; nor the faults of men unnecessarily divulged; much less may the dead be slandered or abused.
Quest. VIII. What if it be one that hath been oft admonished in vain? May not the faults of such a one be mentioned behind his back?
Answ. I confess such a one (the case being proved, and he being notoriously impenitent) hath made a much greater forfeiture of his honour than other men; and no man can save that man's honour who will cast it away himself. But yet it is not every one that committeth a sin after admonition, who is here to be understood; but such as are impenitent in some mortal or ruling sin: for some may sin oft in a small and controverted point, for want of ability to discern the truth; and some may live in daily infirmities, (as the best men do,) which they condemn themselves for, and desire to be delivered from. And even the most impenitent man's sins must not be meddled with by every one at his pleasure, but only when you have just cause.
Quest. IX. What if it be one whom I cannot speak to face to face?
Answ. You must let him alone, till you have just cause to speak of him.
Quest. X. When hath a man a just cause and call to open another's faults?
Answ. Negatively: 1. Not to fill up the time with other idle chat, or table talk. 2. Not to second any man, how good soever, who backbiteth others; no, though he pretend to do it to make the sin more odious, or to exercise godly sorrow for other men's sin. 3. Not whenever interest, passion, faction, or company seemeth to require it. But, affirmatively, 1. When we may speak it to his face in love and privacy, in due manner and circumstances, as is most hopeful to conduce to his amendment. 2. When, after due admonition, we take two or three, and after that tell the church (in a case that requireth it). 3. When we have a sufficient cause to accuse him to the magistrate. 4. When the magistrate or the pastors of the church, reprove or punish him. 5. When it is necessary to the preservation of another: as if I see my friend in danger of marrying with a wicked person, or taking a false servant, or trading and bargaining with one that is like to over-reach him, or going among cheaters, or going to hear or converse with a dangerous heretic or seducer; I must open the faults of those that they are in danger of, so far as their safety and my charity require. 6. When it is any treason or conspiracy against the king or commonwealth; where my concealment may be an injury to the king, or damage or danger to the kingdom. 7. When the person himself doth, by his self-justification, force me to it. 8. When his reputation is so built upon the injury of others, and slanders of the just, that the justifying of him is the condemning of the innocent, we may then indirectly condemn him, by vindicating the just; as if it be in a case of contention between two, if we cannot justify the right without dishonour to the injurious, there is no remedy but he must bear his blame. 9. When a man's notorious wickedness hath set him up as a spectacle of warning and lamentation, so that his crimes cannot be hid, and he hath forfeited his reputation, we must give others warning by his fall: as an excommunicate person, or malefactor at the gallows, &c. 10. When we have just occasion to make a bare narrative of some public matters of fact; as of the sentence of a judge, or punishment of offenders, &c. 11. When the crime is so heinous, as that all good persons are obliged to join to make it odious, as Phinehas was to execute judgment. As in cases of open rebellion, treason, blasphemy, atheism, idolatry, murders, perjury, cruelty; such as the French massacre, the Irish far greater massacre, the murdering of kings, the powder-plot, the burning of London, &c. Crimes notorious should not go about in the mouths or ears of men, but with just detestation. 12. When any person's false reputation is a seducement to men's souls, and made by himself or others the instruments of God's dishonour, and the injury of church or state, or others, though we may do no unjust thing to blast his reputation, we may tell the truth so far as justice, or mercy, or piety requireth it.
Quest. XI. What if I hear daubers applauding wicked men, and speaking well of them, and extenuating their crimes, and praising them for evil doing?
Answ. You must on all just occasions speak evil of sin; but when that is enough, you need not meddle with the sinner; no, not though other men applaud him, and you know it be false; for you are not bound to contradict every falsehood which you hear. But if in any of the twelve forementioned cases you have a call to do it, (as for the preservation of the hearers from a snare thereby; as if men commend a traitor or a wicked man to draw another to like his way,) in such cases you may contradict the false report.
Quest. XII. Are we bound to reprove every backbiter, in this age when honest people are grown to make little conscience of it, but think it their duty to divulge men's faults?
Answ. Most of all, that you may stop the stream of this common sin, ordinarily whenever we can do it without doing greater hurt, we should rebuke the tongue that reporteth evil of other men causelessly behind their backs; for our silence is their encouragement in sin.
Direct. I. Maintain the life of brotherly love. Love your neighbour as yourself.
Direct. II. Watch narrowly lest interest or passion should prevail upon you. For where these prevail, the tongue is set on fire of hell, and will set on fire the course of nature, James ii. Selfishness and passion will not only prompt you to speak evil, but also to justify it, and think you do well; yea, and to be angry with those that will not hearken to you and believe you.
Direct. III. Especially involve not yourselves in any faction, religious or secular. I do not mean that you should not imitate the best, and hold most intimate communion with them; but that you abhor unlawful divisions and sidings; and when error, or uncharitableness, or carnal interest hath broken the church into pieces where you live, and one is of Paul, and another of Apollos, and another of Cephas, one of this party, and another of that, take heed of espousing the interest of any party, as it stands cross to the interest of the whole. It would have been hardly credible, if sad experience had not proved it, how commonly and heinously almost every sect of christians do sin in this point against each other! and how far the interest of their sect, which they account the interest of Christ, will prevail with multitudes even of zealous people, to belie, calumniate, backbite, and reproach those that are against their opinion and their party! yea, how easily will they proceed beyond reproaches, to bloody persecutions! He that thinketh he doth God service by killing Christ or his disciples, will think that he doth him service by calling him a deceiver, and one that hath a devil, a blasphemer, and an enemy to Cæsar, and calling his disciples pestilent fellows and movers of sedition among the people, and accounting them as the filth and offscouring of the world. That zeal which murdered and destroyed many hundred thousand of the Waldenses and Albigenses, and thirty thousand or forty thousand in one French massacre, and two hundred thousand in one Irish massacre, and which kindled the Maryan bonfires in England, made the powder mine, and burnt the city of London, and keepeth up the Inquisition, I say, that zeal will certainly think it a service to the church, (that is, their sect,) to write the most odious lies and slanders of Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Beza, and any such excellent servants of the Lord. So full of horrid, impudent lies are the writings of (not one but) many sects against those that were their chief opposers, that I still admonish all posterity, to see good evidence for it, before they believe the hard sayings of any factious historian or divine, against those that are against his party. It is only men of eminent conscience, and candour, and veracity, and impartiality, who are to be believed in their bad report of others, except where notoriety or very good evidence doth command belief above their own authority and veracity. A siding factious zeal, which is hotter for any sect or party, than for the common christianity and catholic church, is always a railing, a lying, and a slandering zeal, and is notably described, James iii. as "earthly, sensual, and devilish," causing "envy, strife, and confusion, and every evil work."
Direct. IV. Observe well the commonness of this sin of backbiting, that it may make you the more afraid of falling into that which so few do escape. I will not say, among high and low, rich and poor, court and country, how common is this sin; but among men professing the greatest zeal and strictness in religion, how few make conscience of it! Mark in all companies that you come into, how common it is to take liberty to say what they think of all men; yea, to report what they hear, though they dare not say that they believe it! And how commonly the relating of other men's faults, and telling what this man or that man is, or did, or said, is part of the chat to waste the hour in! And if it be but true, they think they sin not: nay, nor if they did but hear that it is true. For my part I must profess, that my conscience having brought me to a custom of rebuking such backbiters, I am ordinarily censured for it, either as one that loveth contradiction, or one that defendeth sin and wickedness, by taking part with wicked men; all because I would stop the course of this common vice of evil speaking and backbiting where men have no call. And I must thankfully profess, that among all other sins in the world, the sins of selfishness, pride, and backbiting, I have been most brought to hate and fear, by the observation of the commonness of them, even in persons seeming godly: nothing hath fixed an apprehension of their odiousness so deeply in me, nor engaged my heart against them above all other sins so much, as this lamentable experience of their prevalence in the world, among the more religious, and not only in the profane.
Direct. V. Take not the honesty of the person, as a sufficient cause to hear or believe a bad report of others. It is lamentable to hear how far men, otherwise honest, do too often here offend. Suspect evil speakers, and be not over-credulous of them. Charity thinketh not evil, nor easily and hastily believeth it. Liars are more used to evil speaking, than men of truth and credit are. It is no wrong to the best, that you believe him not when he backbiteth without good evidence.
Direct. VI. Rebuke backbiters, and encourage them not by hearkening to their tales. Prov. xxv. 23, "The north wind driveth away rain, so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue." It may be they think themselves religious persons, and will take it for an injury to be driven away with an angry countenance: but God himself, who loveth his servants better than we, is more offended at their sin; and that which offendeth him, must offend us. We must not hurt their souls, and displease God, by drawing upon us the guilt of their sins, for fear of displeasing them. Tell them how God doth hate backbiting, and advise them if they know any hurt by others, to go to them privately, and tell them of it in a way that tendeth to their repentance.
Direct. VII. Use to make mention of the good which is in others; (except it be unseasonable, and will seem to be a promoting of their sin): God's gifts in every man deserve commendations; and we have allowance to mention men's virtues oftener than to mention their vices. Indeed when a bad man is praised in order to the disparagement of the good, or to honour some wicked cause or action against truth and godliness, we must not concur in such malicious praises; but otherwise we must commend that which is truly commendable in all. And this custom will have a double benefit against backbiting: it will use your own tongues to a contrary course, and it will rebuke the evil tongues of others, and be an example to them of more charitable language.
Direct. VIII. Understand yourselves, and speak often to others, of the sinfulness of evil-speaking and backbiting. Show them the scriptures which condemn it, and the intrinsical malignity which is in it: as here followeth.
Direct. IX. Make conscience of just reproof and exhorting sinners to their faces. Go tell them of it privately and lovingly, and it will have better effects, and bring you more comfort, and cure the sin of backbiting.
1. It is forbidden of God among the heinous, damning sins, and made the character of a notorious wicked person, and the avoiding of it is made the mark of such as are accepted of God and shall be saved: Rom. i. 29, 30, it is made the mark of a reprobate mind, and joined with murder, and hating God, viz. "full of envy, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters." Psal. xv. 2, 3, "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour." And when Paul describeth those whom he must sharply rebuke and censure, he just describeth the factious sort of christians of our times. 2 Cor. xii. 20, "For I fear lest when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults." Eph. iv. 31, "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind one to another, and tender-hearted—."
2. It is a sin which gratifieth Satan, and serveth his malice against our neighbour. He is malicious against all, and speaking evil, and doing hurt, are the works which are suitable to his malignity! And should a christian make his tongue the instrument of the accuser of the brethren, to do his work against each other?
3. It signifieth want of christian love. For love speaketh not evil, nor openeth men's faults without a cause, but covereth infirmities; much less will it lie and slander others, and carry about uncertain reports against them. It is not to do as you would be done by: and how essential love is to true christianity, Christ himself hath often told us.
4. It is a sin which directly serveth to destroy the hearers' love, and consequently to destroy their souls. If the backbiter understood himself, he would confess that it is his very end to cause you to hate (or abate your love to) him whom he speaketh evil of. He that speaketh good of a man, representeth him amiable; for amiableness and goodness are all one. And he that speaketh evil of a man representeth him hateful or unlovely; for hatefulness, unloveliness, and evil are all one. And as it is not the natural way of winning love, to entreat and beg it, and say, I pray you love this person, or that thing; but to open the goodness of the thing or person, which will command love: so is it not the natural way to stir up hatred, by entreating men to hate this man or that; but to tell how bad they are, which will command hatred in them that do believe it. Therefore to speak evil of another, is more than to say to the hearers, I pray you hate this man, or abate your love to him. And that the killing of love is the killing or destroying of men's souls, the apostle John doth frequently declare.
5. And it tendeth also to destroy the love, and consequently the soul of him that you speak evil of. For when it cometh to his hearing, (as one way or other it may do,) what evil you have reported of him behind his back, it tendeth to make him hate you, and so to make him worse.
6. It is a great make-bate and peace-breaker wherever it is practised. It tendeth to set people together by the ears. When it is told that such a one spake evil of you in such a place, there are then heart-burnings, and rehearsals, and sidings, and such ensuing malice as the devil intended by this design.
7. They that use to speak evil of others behind their backs, it is ten to one will speak falsehoods of them when they do not know it. Fame is too ordinarily a liar, and they shall be liars who will be its messengers. How know you whether the thing that you report is true? Is it only because a credible person spake it? But how did that person know it to be true? Might he not take it upon trust as well as you? And might he not take a person to be credible that is not? And how commonly doth faction, or interest, or passion, or credulity, make that person incredible in one thing, who is credible in others, where he hath no such temptation! If you know it not to be true, or have not sufficient evidence to prove it, you are guilty of lying and slandering interpretatively, though it should prove true; because it might have been a lie for aught you knew.
8. It is gross injustice to talk of a man's faults, before you have heard him speak for himself. I know it is usual with such to say, O we have heard it from such as we are certain will not lie. But he is a foolish and unrighteous judge, that will be peremptory upon hearing one party only speak, and knoweth not how ordinary it is for a man when he speaketh for himself, to blow away the most confident and plausible accusations, and make the case appear to be quite another thing. You know not what another man hath to say till you have heard him.
9. Backbiting teacheth others to backbite. Your example inviteth them to do the like: and sins which are common, are easily swallowed, and hardly repented of: men think that the commonness justifieth or extenuateth the fault.
10. It encourageth ungodly men to the odious sin of backbiting and slandering the most religious, righteous person. It is ordinary with the devil's family to make Christ's faithfullest servants their table talk, and the objects of their reproach and scorn, and the song of drunkards? What abundance of lies go current among such malignant persons, against the most innocent, which would all be ashamed, if they had first admitted them to speak for themselves. And such slanders and lies are the devil's common means to keep ungodly men from the love of godliness, and so from repentance and salvation. And backbiting professors of religion encourage men to this; for with what measure they mete, it shall be measured to them again. And they that are themselves evil spoken of, will think that they are warranted to requite the backbiters with the like.
11. It is a sin which commonly excludeth true, profitable reproof and exhortation. They that speak most behind men's backs, do usually say least to the sinner's face, in any way which tendeth to his salvation. They will not go lovingly to him in private, and set home his sin upon his conscience, and exhort him to repentance; but any thing shall serve as a sufficient excuse against this duty; that they may make the sin of backbiting serve instead of it: and all is out of carnal self-saving; they fear men will be offended if they speak to their faces, and therefore they will whisper against them behind their backs.
12. It is at the least, but idle talk and a misspending of your time: what the better are the hearers for hearing of other men's misdoings? And you know that it no whit profiteth the person of whom you speak. A skilful, friendly admonition might do him good! But to neglect this, and talk of his faults unprofitably, behind his back, is but to aggravate the sin of your uncharitableness, as being not contented to refuse your help to a man in sin, but you must also injure him and do him hurt.
Quest. I. Am I not bound to judge truly of every one as he is?
Answ. 1. There are many that you are not bound to meddle with, and to pass any judgment at all upon. 2. There are many whose faults are secret, and their virtues open; and of such you cannot judge as they are, because you have no proof or evidence to enable you: you cannot see that which is latent in the heart, or done in darkness. 3. You neither ought on pretence of charity, nor can believe an evident known untruth of any man.
Quest. Doth not charity bind me to judge men better than they are?
Answ. Charity bindeth you, 1. Rather to observe the best in them, than the worst. 2. And, as I said, to judge of no man's faults uncalled. 3. Nor to judge of that which is not evident, but out of sight; and thus consequently it bindeth you to judge some men to be better than they are; but not directly.
Object. Then a man is bound to err and believe an untruth.
Answ. No: you are not bound to believe that it is certainly true, that such a man is better than he is; because you have no evidence of its certain truth. But you are bound to believe it a thing probable or verisimile, likely to be true, by an opinion or fallible human faith; and this is not a falsehood; for that is likely and probable to you, which hath the more probable evidence, and more for it than against it: so that the thing which you are to believe immediately is this proposition, There is more evidence to me to prove it likely that this man is sincere than contrary: and consequently you believe this, and believe not the contrary, because the contrary hath no evidence. But you are not to take it as a certain thing, that the contrary hath no latent reality.
Quest. II. How far may I judge ill of one by outward appearances, as by the countenance, gestures, and other uncertain but suspicious signs?
Answ. There are some signs which are not so much as probable, but a little suspicious, and which men are very ordinarily mistaken by: as those that will judge of a man at the first look by his face; and those that will judge a studious, serious person (a lawyer, a judge, or a divine) to be morose or proud, because they are not complimental, but of few words; or because they have not patience to waste precious hours in hearing an empty vessel sound, an ignorant, self-conceited person talk foolishly. Such censures are but the effects of injudiciousness, unrighteousness, and rash haste. There are other signs which make it probable to a wise and charitable person, that the man is bad (e. g. proud, or covetous, or a hypocrite). If with these, there are as great sins to make the contrary probable, we must rather incline to the better than the worse. But if not, we may fear the worst of that person, but not conclude it as a certainty; and therefore we may not in public censures, proceed upon such uncertainties, nor venture to divulge them; but only use them to help us for due caution, and pity, and prayer, and endeavour for such a one's recovery and help.
Quest. III. How far may I censure upon the report of others?
Answ. According to the degree of the credibility of the persons, and evidence of the narrative; not simply in themselves, but as compared with all that is to be heard on the contrary part; else you are partial and unjust.
Quest. IV. Doth not the fifth command oblige me in honour to parents and princes, to judge them to be better than their lives declare them to be?
Answ. You are gradually to honour them more than others, and therefore to be more afraid of dishonouring them, and must not sit in judgment on them, to believe any harm of them, which evidence doth not compel you to believe. But you are not to judge any sin the less, because it is theirs; nor to judge contrary to evidence, nor to call evil good, nor to be wilfully blind, nor to flatter any in their sin.
Quest. V. Whom must we judge for sincere and sanctified christians?
Answ. 1. All those that profess to be such, whom you cannot disprove. 2. But as there are several degrees of evidence and probability, so must there be several degrees of your good opinion of others. Of some who give you the highest probability, you may have the strongest confidence short of certainty: of others you may have less; and of some you may have much more fear than hope. 3. And yet in matters of church rights and public communion, your fears will not allow you to use them as no christians; for their profession of faith and repentance is certain; and as long as your fears of their hypocrisy or unsoundness are but uncertain, it must not (on that account) prevail to deprive another of his right.
Quest. VI. But is not my error my sin, if I prove mistaken, and take that man for a sincere christian who is none?
Answ. If you judged it to be certain, your judgment and error was your sin; but if you only judged him a professor of christianity, and one that on that account you were bound to have church communion with as if he were sincere, because you cannot prove the contrary, this was no error; or if you erred for want of sufficient evidence to know the truth, this error is not in itself a sin.
Quest. VII. Whom must I judge a visible member of the church, with whom I am thus bound to hold communion?
Answ. 1. If you are the pastor of the church who are made the judge, at his admission by baptism, or afterwards, you must so judge of every one who maketh a credible profession of true christianity, that is, of his present consent to the sacramental covenant: and that profession is credible, which is, 1. Understood by him that maketh it. 2. Deliberate. 3. Voluntary. 4. Seemingly serious. 5. And is not disproved by valid evidence of the contrary. These are the true measures of church communion; for every man, next God, is the judge of his own heart; and God would have every man the chooser or refuser of his own mercies.
2. But if you are but a private member of the church, you are to judge that person a visible member of the church, whom the pastor hath taken in by baptism, and not cast out again by excommunication; except the contrary be notorious: and even then you are oft obliged for order sake to carry yourself towards him as a visible member, till he be regularly cast out.
Quest. VIII. Whom must I judge a true worshipper of God, and whom not?
Answ. Him that professeth true christianity, and joineth in true worship with a christian church, or privately (when hindered) acknowledgeth the true God in all his essential attributes, and heareth his word, and prayeth to him for all things necessary to salvation, and praiseth him accordingly, not giving the worship proper to God unto any creature; and doth all this as a sinner redeemed by Jesus Christ, trusting in his merits, sacrifice, and intercession, and giveth not his office to any other. And he is a false worshipper who denieth any essential attribute of God, or essential part of the office of Christ, or giveth these to any other; or refuseth his word, or excludeth in his prayers any thing essential to christianity, or absolutely necessary to salvation. But secundum quid, in lesser parts, or in circumstances, or measures, every man on earth is a false worshipper, that is, he offereth God a worship some way faulty and imperfect, and hath some sin in his worshipping of God; and sin is a thing that God requireth not, but forbiddeth even in the smallest measures.
Quest. IX. Which must I judge a true church of Christ, and which a false church?
Answ. The universal church is but one, and is the whole society of christians as united to Christ their only Head; and this cannot be a false church. But if any other set up a usurper as the universal head, and so make another policy and church, this is a false church formally, or in its policy; but yet the members of this false church or policy may some of them as christians be also members of the true church of Christ: and thus the Roman church as papal is a false catholic church, having the policy of a usurper; but as christians they may be members of the true catholic church of Christ. But for a particular church which is but part of the universal, that is a true church considered merely as an ungoverned community, which is a true part of the catholic, prepared for a pastor, but yet being without one: but that only is a true political church, which consisteth of professed christians conjoined under a true pastor, for communion in the profession of true christianity, and for the true worshipping of God, and orderly walking for their mutual assistance and salvation.
Quest. X. Whom must we judge true prophets and pastors of the church.
Answ. He is a true prophet who is sent by God, and speaketh truth by immediate supernatural revelation or inspiration. And he is a false prophet who either falsely saith that he hath divine revelations or inspiration, or prophesieth falsehood as from God. And he is a true pastor at the bar of God, who is, 1. Competently qualified with abilities for the office. 2. Competently disposed to it, with willingness and desire of success; and hath right ends in undertaking and discharging it. 3. Who hath a just admission, by true ordination of pastors, and consent of the flock; and he is to be accounted a true pastor in foro ecclesia, in the church's judgment, whom the church judgeth to have all these qualifications, and thereupon admitteth him into possession of the place, till his incapacity be notoriously or publicly and sufficiently proved, or he be removed or made uncapable.
Direct. I. Meddle not at all in judging of others without a call. Know first whether it be any of your work; if not, be afraid of those words of your Judge, Matt. vii. 1-5, "Judge not, that ye be not judged; for with what judgment ye judge, you shall be judged," &c. And Rom. xiv. 4, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth." And verses 10, and 13, "But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.—Every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more." 1 Cor. iv. 3-5, "But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment—Therefore judge nothing before the time till the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts—." Col. ii. 16, "Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of any holy day, or of the new moon, or sabbath."
Quest. But when have I a call to judge another?
Answ. You may take the answer to this from the answer to quest. x. chap. xxiii. tit. 1. 1. If your office and place require it as a magistrate, pastor, parent, master, tutor, &c. 2. If the safety of the church or your neighbour do require it. 3. If the good of the sinner require it that you may seek his repentance and reformation. 4. If your own preservation or welfare (or any other duty) require it.
Direct. II. Keep up a humble sense of your own faults, and that will make you compassionate to others. He that is truly vile in his own eyes, is least inclined to vilify others: and he that judgeth himself with the greatest penitent severity, is the least inclined to be censorious to his brother. Pride is the common cause of censoriousness: he that saith with the Pharisee, "I fast twice a week, and pay tithes of all that I have, I am no adulterer," &c. will also say, "I am not as other men, nor as this publican:" when the true penitent findeth so much of his own to be condemned, that he smiteth on his own breast and saith, "God be merciful to me a sinner." The prouder, self-conceited sort of christians are ever the most censorious of their neighbours.
Direct. III. Be much therefore at home in searching, and watching, and amending your own hearts: and then you will find so much to do about yourselves, that you will have no mind or leisure to be censuring others; whereas the superficial hypocrite, whose religion is in externals, and is unacquainted with his heart and heaven, is so little employed in the true work of a christian, that he hath leisure for the work of a censorious Pharisee.
Direct. IV. Labour for a deep experimental insight into the nature of religion, and of every duty. For no men are so censorious as the ignorant who know not what they say; whilst experienced persons know those difficulties and other reasons which calm their minds. As in common business, no man will sooner find fault with a workman in his work, than idle praters who least understand it. So is it commonly in matters of religion: women and young men that never saw into the great mysteries of divinity, but have been lately changed from a vicious life, and have neither acquaintance with the hard points of religion, nor with their own ignorance of them, are the common, proud censurers of their brethren much wiser than themselves, and of all men that are more moderate and peaceable than themselves, and are more addicted to unity, and more averse to sects and separations than they. Study harder, and wait till you grow up to the experience of the aged, and you will be less censorious and more peaceable.
Direct. V. Think not yourselves fit judges of that which you understand not: and think not proudly that you are more like to understand the difficulties in religion, with your short and lazy studies, than those that in reading, meditation, and prayer have spent their lives in searching after them. Let not pride make you abuse the Holy Ghost, by pretending that he hath given you more wisdom in a little time, and with little means and diligence, than your betters have by the holy industry of their lives: say not, God can give more to you in a year than to others in twenty; for it is a poor argument to prove that God hath done it, because he can do it. He can make you an angel, but that will not prove you one. Prove your wisdom before you pretend to it, and overvalue it not: Heb. v. 11, 12, showeth that it is God's ordinary way to give men wisdom according to their time and means, unless their own negligence deprive them of his blessing.
Direct. VI. Study to keep up christian love, and to keep it lively. For love is not censorious, but is inclined to judge the best, till evidence constrain you to the contrary. Censoriousness is a vermin which crawleth in the carcass of christian love, when the life of it is gone.
Direct. VII. Value all God's graces in his servants; and then you will see something to love them for, when hypocrites can see nothing: make not too light of small degrees of grace, and then your censure will not overlook them.
Direct. VIII. Remember the tenderness of Christ, who condemneth not the weak, nor casteth infants out of his family, nor the diseased out of his hospital; but dealeth with them in such a gracious gentleness, as beseemeth a tender-hearted Saviour: he will not break the bruised reed: he carrieth his lambs in his arms, and gently driveth those with young! He taketh up the wounded man, when the priest and Levite pass him by. And have you not need of the tenderness of Christ yourselves as well as others? Are you not afraid lest he should find greater faults with you than you find in others; and condemn you as you condemn them?
Direct. IX. Let the sense of the common corruption of the world, and imperfection of the godly, moderate your particular censures. As Seneca saith, To censure a man for that which is common to all men, is in a sort to censure him for being a man, which beseemeth not him that is a man himself. Do you not know the frailty of the best, and the common pravity of human nature? How few are there that must not have great allowance, or else they will not pass for current in the balance! Elias was a man subject to passions: Jonah to peevishness: Job had his impatience: Paul saith even of the teachers of the primitive church, "They all (that were with him) seek their own, and not the things of Jesus Christ." What blots are charged on almost all the churches, and almost all the holy persons, mentioned throughout all the Scriptures! Learn then of Paul a better lesson than censoriousness: Gal. vi. 1, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Let every man prove his own work, and then he shall have rejoicing in himself alone," &c.
Direct. X. Remember that judgment is God's prerogative (further than as we are called to it for the performance of some duty, either of office, or of private charity, or self-preservation): and that the Judge is at the door! and that judging unmercifully maketh us liable to judgment without mercy. The foresight of that near universal judgment, which will pass the doom on us and all men, will do much to cure us of our rash censoriousness.
Direct. XI. Peruse and observe all the directions in the last chapter against evil-speaking and backbiting, that I may not need to repeat them: especially avoid, 1. The snare of selfishness and interest. For most men judge of others principally by their own interest. He is the good man that is good to them, or is on their side; that loveth and honoureth them, and answereth their desires: this is the common false judgment of the corrupted, selfish world; who vilify and hate the best, because they seem unsuitable to them and their carnal interest. Therefore take heed of their judgment about any man that you have a falling out with: for it is two to one but you will wrong him through this selfishness. 2. Avoid passion; which blindeth the judgment. 3. Avoid faction; which maketh you judge of all men as they agree or disagree with your opinions, or your side and party. 4. Avoid too hasty belief of censures, and rebuke them. 5. Hear every man speak for himself before you censure him, if it be possible, and the case be not notorious.
Direct. XII. Keep still upon your mind a just and deep apprehension of the malignity of this sin of rash censuring. It is of greatest consequence to the mortifying of any sin, what apprehensions of it are upon the mind. If religious persons apprehended the odiousness of this as much as they do of swearing, drunkenness, fornication, &c. they would as carefully avoid it. Therefore I shall show you the malignity of this sin.
1. It is a usurpation of God's prerogative, who is the Judge of all the world: it is a stepping up into his judgment-seat, and undertaking his work; as if you said, I will be God as to this action. And if he be called the antichrist, who usurpeth the office of Christ, to be the universal monarch and head of the church, you may imagine what he doth, who (though but in one point) doth set up himself in the place of God.
2. They that usurp not God's part in judging, yet ordinarily usurp the part of the magistrate or pastors of the church. As when mistaken, censorious christians refuse to come to the sacrament of communion, because many persons are there whom they judge to be ungodly, what do they but usurp the office of the pastors of the church, to whom the keys are committed for admission and exclusion, and so are the appointed judges of that case? The duty of private members is but to admonish the offender first secretly, and then before witnesses, and to tell the church if he repent not, and humbly to tell the pastors of their duty, if they neglect it: and when this is done, they have discharged their part, and must no more excommunicate men themselves, than they must hang thieves when the magistrate doth neglect to hang them.
3. Censoriousness signifieth the absence or decay of love: which inclineth men to think evil, and judge the worst, and aggravate infirmities, and overlook or extenuate any good that is in others. And there is least grace where there is least love.
4. It showeth also much want of self-acquaintance, and such heart employment as the sincerest christians are taken up with. And it showeth much want of christian humility and sense of your own infirmities and badness; and much prevalency of pride and self-conceitedness. If you knew how ignorant you are, you would not be so peremptory in judging: and if you knew how bad you are, you would not be so forward to condemn your neighbours. So that here is together the effect of much self-estrangedness, hypocrisy, and pride. Did you ever well consider the mind of Christ, when he bid them that accused the adulterous woman, John viii. 7, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her?" Certainly adultery was a heinous crime, and to be punished with death, and Christ was no patron of uncleanness; but he knew that it was a hypocritical sort of persons whom he spake to, who were busy in judging others rather than themselves. Have you studied his words against rash censurers, Matt. vii. 3, 4; "And why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and behold a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite! first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote which is in thy brother's eye." I know well that impenitent sinners do use to pervert all these words of Christ, against any that would bring them to repentance for their sin; and account all men rash censurers, who would make them acquainted with their unsanctified hearts and lives. But it is not their abuse of Scripture, which will justify our overpassing it with neglect. Christ spake it not for nothing; and it must be studied by his disciples.
5. Censoriousness is injustice, in that the censurers would not be so censured themselves. You will say, Yes, if we were as bad, and did deserve it. But though you have not that same fault, have you no other? And are you willing to have it aggravated, and be thus rashly judged? You do not as you would be done by: yea, commonly censurers are guilty of false judging; and whilst they take things hastily upon trust, and stay not to hear men speak for themselves, or to inquire thoroughly into the cause, they commonly condemn the innocent; and call good evil, and put light for darkness; and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him, when God hath cursed such with a woe.
6. And false censuring is the proper work of the devil, the accuser of the brethren, Rev. xii. 10, "who accuseth them before God, day and night;" And christians should not bear his image, nor do his work.
7. Censoriousness is contrary to the nature and office of Jesus Christ: he came to pardon sin, and cover the infirmities of his servants, and to cast them behind his back, and into the depth of the sea, and to bury them in his grave; and it is the censurer's work to rake them up, and to make them seem more and greater than they are, and to bring them into the open light.
8. Censoriousness causeth uncharitableness and sinful separations in the censurers: when they have conceited their brethren to be worse than they are, they must then reproach them, or have no communion with them, and avoid them as too bad for the company of such as they: or when they have usurped the pastor's work in judging, they begin the execution by sinful separation.
9. Censoriousness is an infectious sin, which easily taketh with the younger and prouder sort of christians, and so setteth them on vilifying others: and at this little gap there entereth all uncharitableness, backbitings, revilings, church divisions, and sects, yea, and too often rebellious and bloody wars at last.
10. Censoriousness is a sore temptation to them that are censured, either to contemn such as censure them, and go on the other hand too far from them; or else to comply with the errors and sinful humours of the censurers, and to strain their consciences to keep pace with the censorious.
And here I must leave it on record to posterity for their warning, that the great and lamentable actions, changes, and calamities of this age have arisen (next to gross impiety) from this sin of censoriousness producing these two contrary effects, and thereby dividing men into two contrary parties: the younger sort of religious people, and the more ignorant, and many women, having more zeal than judgment, placed too much of their religion in a sharp opposition to all ceremonies, formalities, and opinions which they thought unlawful; and were much inclined to schism and unjust separations upon that account; and therefore censured such things as antichristian, and those that used them as superstitious and temporizers; and no man's learning, piety, wisdom, or laboriousness in the ministry could save him from these sharp, reproachful censures. Hereupon one party had not humility and patience enough to endure to be so judged of; nor love and tenderness enough for such peevish christians, to bear with them in pity, as parents do with froward infants; but because these professed holiness and zeal, even holiness and zeal were brought under suspicion for their sakes; and they were taken to be persons intolerable, as unfit to lie in any building, and unmeet to submit to christian government; and therefore meet to be used accordingly. Another sort were so wearied with the profaneness and ungodliness of the vulgar rabble, and saw so few that were judiciously religious, that they thought it their duty to love and cherish the zeal and piety of their censorious weak ones, and to bear patiently with their frowardness, till ripeness and experience cured them (and so far they were right). And because they thought that they could do them no good, if they once lost their interest in them, (and were also themselves too impatient of their censure,) some of them seemed (to please them) to be more of their opinion than they were; and more of them forbore to reprove their petulance, but silently suffered them to go on; especially when they fell into the sects of antinomians, anabaptists, and separatists, they durst not reprove them as they deserved, lest they should drive them out of the hive, to some of these late swarms. And thus censoriousness in the ignorant and self-conceited drove away one part to take them as their enemies; and silenced or drew on another party to follow them that led the van in some irregular, violent actions; and the wise and sober moderators were disregarded, and in the noise of these tumults and contentions could not be heard, till the smart of either party in their suffering forced them to honour such, whom in their exaltation again they despised or abused. This is the true sum of all the tragedies in Britain of this age.