CHAPTER IV.

DIRECTIONS TO LAWYERS ABOUT THEIR DUTY TO GOD.

Gentlemen, you need not meet these directions with the usual censures or suspicions, that divines are busying themselves with the matters of your calling, which belong not to them, and which they do not understand; you shall see that I will as much forbear such matters as you can well desire. If your calling be not to be sanctified by serving God in it, and regulating it by his law, it is then neither honourable nor desirable. But if it be, permit me very briefly so far to direct you.[114]

Direct. I. Take the whole frame of polity together, and study each part in its proper place, and know it in its due relation to the rest; that is, understand first the doctrine of polity and laws in genere, and next the universal polity and laws of God in specie; and then study human polity and laws, as they stand in their due subordination to the polity and laws of God, as the by-laws of corporations do to the general laws of the land.

He that understandeth not what polity and law is in genere, is unlike to understand what divine or human polity or law is in specie; he that knoweth not what government is, and what a community, and what a politic society is, will hardly know what a commonwealth or church is: and he that knoweth not what a commonwealth is in genere, what is its end, and what its constitutive parts, and what the efficient causes, and what a law, and judgment, and execution is, will study but unhappily the constitution or laws of the kingdom which he liveth in.

And he that understandeth not the divine dominium et imperium, as founded in creation, (and refounded in redemption,) and man's subjection to his absolute Lord, and the universal laws which he hath given in nature and Scripture to the world, can never have any true understanding of the polity or laws of any kingdom in particular; no more than he can well understand the true state of a corporation, or the power of a mayor, or justice, or constable, who knoweth nothing of the state of the kingdom, or of the king, or of his laws. What ridiculous discourses would such a man make of his local polity or laws! He knoweth nothing worth the knowing, who knoweth not that all kings and states have no power but what is derived from God, and subservient to him; and are all his officers, much more below him, than their justices and officers are to them; and that their laws are of no force against the laws of God, whether of natural or supernatural revelation. And therefore it is most easy to see, that he that will be a good lawyer must first be a divine; and that the atheists that deride or slight divinity, do but play the fools in all their independent broken studies. A man may be a good divine that is no lawyer, but he can be no good lawyer that understandeth not theology. Therefore let the government and laws of God have the first and chiefest place in your studies, and in all your observation and regard.

1. Because it is the ground of human government, and the fountain of man's power and laws.

2. Because the divine polity is also the end of human policy; man's laws being ultimately to promote our obedience to the laws of God, and the honour of his government.

3. Because God's laws are the measure and bound of human laws; against which no man can have power.

4. Because God's rewards and punishments are incomparably more regardable than man's; eternal joy or misery being so much more considerable than temporal peace or suffering; therefore though it be a dishonour to lawyers to be ignorant of languages, history, and other needful parts of learning, yet it is much more their dishonour to be ignorant of the universal government and laws of God.[115]

Direct. II. Be sure that you make not the getting of money to be your principal end in the exercise of your function; but the promoting of justice, for the righting of the just, and the public good; and therein the pleasing of the most righteous God.[116] For your work can be to you no better than your end. A base end doth debase your work. I deny not, but your competent gain and maintenance may be your lower end, but the promoting of justice must be your higher end, and sought before it. The question is not, Whether you seek to live by your calling; for so may the best; nor yet, Whether you intend the promoting of justice; for so may the worst (in some degree). But the question is, Which of these you prefer? and which you first and principally intend? He that looketh chiefly at his worldly gain, must take that gain instead of God's reward, and look for no more than he chiefly intended; for that is formally no good work, which is not intended chiefly to please God, and God doth not reward the servants of the world; nor can any man rationally imagine, that he should reward a man with happiness hereafter, for seeking after riches here. And if you say that you look for no reward but riches, you must look for a punishment worse than poverty; for the neglecting of God and your ultimate end, is a sin that deserveth the privation of all which you neglect; and leaveth not your actions in a state of innocent indifferency.

Direct. III. Be not counsellors or advocates against God, that is, against justice, truth, or innocency. A bad cause would have no patrons, if there were no bad or ignorant lawyers. It is a dear-bought fee, which is got by sinning; especially by such a wilful, aggravated sin, as the deliberate pleading for iniquity, or opposing of the truth.[117] Judas's gain and Ahithophel's counsel will be too hot at last for conscience, and sooner drive them to hang themselves in the review, than afford them any true content: as St. James saith to them that he calleth to weep and howl for their approaching misery, "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments moth-eaten, your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire: ye have heaped treasure together for the last days." Whatever you say or do against truth, and innocency, and justice, you do it against God himself. And is it not a sad case that among professed christians, there is no cause so bad but can find an advocate for a fee? I speak not against just counsel to a man that hath a bad cause (to tell him it is bad, and persuade him to disown it); nor do I speak against you for pleading against excessive penalties or damages; for so far your cause is good, though the main cause of your client was bad; but he that speaketh or counselleth another for the defence of sin, or the wronging of the innocent, or the defrauding another of his right, and will open his mouth to the injury of the just, for a little money, or for a friend, must try whether that money or friend will save him from the vengeance of the universal Judge (unless faith and true repentance, which will cause confession and restitution, do prevent it).

The Romans called them thieves, that by fraud, or plea, or judgment got unlawful gain, and deprived others of their right.

Lampridius saith of Alexander Severus, Tanti eum stomachi fuisse in eos judices qui furtorum fama laborassent, etiamsi damnati non essent, ut si eos casu aliquo videret, commotione animi stomachi choleram evomeret, toto vultu inardescente, ita ut nihil posset loqui. And afterwards, Severissimus judex contra fures, appellans eosdem quotidianorum scelerum reos, et solos hostes inimicosque reipublicæ. Adding this instance, Eum notarium, qui falsum causæ brevem in consilio imperatorio retulisset, incisis digitorum nervis, ita ut nunquam posset scribere, deportavit. And that he caused Turinus one of his courtiers to be tied in the market-place to a stake, and choked to death with smoke, for taking men's money on pretence of furthering their suits with the emperor; Præcone dicente, Fumo punitur, qui vendidit fumum. He strictly prohibited buying of offices, saying, Necesse est ut qui emit, vendat: Ego vere nin patiar mercatores potestatum: quos si patiar, damnare non possum. The frowns or favour of man, or the love of money, will prove at last a poor defence against his justice whom by injustice you offend.[118]

The poet could say,

Justum et tenacem propositi virum,
Non civium ardor prava jubentium
Non vultus instantis tyranni,
Mente quatit solida:——Horat.

But if men would first be just, it would not be so hard to bring them to do justly; saith Plautus,

Justa autem ab injustis petere insipientia est:
Quippe illi iniqui jus ignorant neque tenent.

Direct. IV. Make the cause of the innocent as it were your own; and suffer it not to miscarry through your slothfulness and neglect.[119] He is a lover of money more than justice, that will sweat in the cause of the rich that pay him well, and will slubber over and starve the cause of the poor, because he getteth little by them. Whatever your place obligeth you to do, let it be done diligently and with your might; both in your getting abilities, and in using them. Scævola was wont to say, (ut lib. Pandect. 42. tit. refer.) Jus civile vigilantibus scriptum est, non dormientibus. Saith Austin, Ignorantia judicis plerumque est calamitas innocentis. And as you look every labourer that you hire should be laborious in your work, and your physician should be diligent in his employment for your health; so is it as just that you be diligent for them whose cause you undertake, and where God who is the lover of justice doth require it.

Direct. V. Be acquainted with the temptations which most endanger you in your place, and go continually armed against them with the true remedies, and with christian faith, and watchfulness, and resolution. You will keep your innocency, and consequently your God, if you see to it that you love nothing better than that which you should keep. No man will chaffer away his commodity for any thing which he judgeth to be worse and less useful to him. Know well how little friends or wealth will do you in comparison of God, and you will not hear them when they speak against God, Luke xiv. 26; xvii. 33. When one of his friends was importunate with P. Rutilius to do him an unjust courtesy, and angrily said, "What use have I of thy friendship, if thou wilt not grant my request?" He answered him, "And what use have I of thy friendship, if for thy sake I must be urged to do unjustly?" It is a grave saying of Plutarch, Pulchrum quidem est justitia regnum adipisci: pulchrum etiam regno justitiam anteponere: nam virtus alterum ita illustrem reddidit, ut regno dignus judicaretur; alterum ita magnum ut id contemneret. Plut. in Lycurg. et Numa. But especially remember who hath said, "What shall it profit a man to win all the world, and lose his soul?" And that temptations surprise you not, be deliberate and take time, and be not too hasty in owning or opposing a cause or person, till you are well informed; as Seneca saith of anger, so say I here, Dandum semper est tempus: veritatem enim dies aperit. Potest pœna dilata exigi; cum non potest exacta revocari. It is more than a shame to say, I was mistaken, when you have done another man wrong by your temerity.[120]

CHAPTER V.

THE DUTY OF PHYSICIANS.

Neither is it my purpose to give any occasion to the learned men of this honourable profession, to say that I intermeddle in the mysteries of their art. I shall only tell them, and that very briefly, what God and conscience will expect from them.

Direct. I. Be sure that the saving of men's lives and health, be first and chiefly in your intention, before any gain or honour of your own. I know you may lawfully have respect both to your maintenance and honour; but in a second place only, as a far less good than the lives of men. If money be your ultimate end, you debase your profession, which, as exercised by you, can be no more to your honour or comfort than your own intention carrieth it. It is more the end than the means that ennobleth or debaseth men; if gain be the thing which you chiefly seek, the matter is not very great (to you) whether you seek it by medicining men or beasts, or by lower means than either of them. To others indeed it may be a very great benefit, whose lives you have been a means to save; but to yourselves it will be no greater than your intention maketh it. If the honouring and pleasing God, and the public good, and the saving of men's lives, be really first and highest in your desires, then it is God that you serve in your profession; otherwise you do but serve yourselves. And take heed lest you here deceive yourselves, by thinking that the good of others is your end, and dearer to you than your gain, because your reason telleth you it is better and ought to be preferred: for God and the public good are not every man's end, that can speak highly of them, and say they should be so. If most of the world do practically prefer their carnal prosperity even before their souls, while they speak of the world as disgracefully as others, and call it vanity; how much more easily may you deceive yourselves, in preferring your gain before men's lives, while your tongue can speak contemptuously of gain!

Direct. II. Be ready to help the poor as well as the rich; differencing them no further than the public good requireth you to do. Let not the health or lives of men be neglected, because they have no money to give you: many poor people perish for want of means, because they are discouraged from going to physicians, through the emptiness of their purses; in such a case you must not only help them gratis, but also appoint the cheapest medicines for them.

Direct. III. Adventure not unnecessarily on things beyond your skill, but in difficult cases persuade your patients to use the help of abler physicians, if there be any to be had, though it be against your own commodity. So far should you be from envying the greater esteem and practice of abler men, and from all unworthy aspersions or detraction, that you should do your best to persuade all your patients to seek their counsels, whenever the danger of their lives or health requireth it. For their lives are of greater value than your gain. So abstruse and conjectural is the business of your profession, that it requireth very high accomplishments to be a physician indeed. If there concur not, 1. A natural strength of reason and sagacity; 2. And a great deal of study, reading, and acquaintance with the way of excellent men; 3. And considerable experience of your own, to ripen all this; you have cause to be very fearful and cautelous in your practice, lest you sacrifice men's lives to your ignorance and temerity. And one man that hath all these accomplishments in a high degree, may do more good than a hundred smatterers: and when you are conscious of a defect in any of these, should not reason and conscience command you to persuade the sick to seek out to those that are abler than yourselves? Should men's lives be hazarded, that you may get by it a little sordid gain? It is so great a doubt whether the ignorant, unexperienced sort of physicians, do cure or hurt more, that it hath brought the vulgar in many countries into a contempt of physicians.[121]

Direct. IV. Depend on God for your direction and success. Earnestly crave his help and blessing in all your undertakings. Without this all your labour is in vain. How easy is it for you to overlook some one thing among a multitude that must be seen, about the causes and cure of diseases; unless God shall open it to you, and give you a clear discerning, and a universal observation! And when twenty considerable things are noted, a man's life may be lost, for want of your discerning one point more. What need have you of the help of God, to bring the fittest remedies to your memory! and much more to bless them when they are administered! as the experience of your daily practice may inform you (where atheism hath not made men fools).

Direct. V. Let your continual observation of the fragility of the flesh, and of man's mortality, make you more spiritual than other men, and more industrious in preparing for the life to come, and greater contemners of the vanities of this world. He that is so frequently among the sick, and a spectator of the dead and dying, is utterly unexcusable if he be himself unprepared for his sickness or for death. If the heart be not made better, when you almost dwell in the house of mourning, it is a bad and deplorate heart indeed. It is strange that physicians should be so much suspected of atheism as commonly they are; and religio medici should be a word that signifieth irreligiousness: sure this conceit was taken up in some more irreligious age or country; for I have oft been very thankful to God, in observing the contrary, even how many excellent, pious physicians there have been in most countries where the purity of religion hath appeared, and how much they promoted the work of reformation; (such as Crato, Platerus, Erastus, and abundance more that I might name;) and in this land and age, I must needs bear witness, that I have known as many physicians religious proportionably as of any one profession, except the preachers of the gospel. But as no men are more desperately wicked, than those that are wicked after pious education, and under the most powerful means of their reformation; so it is very like that those physicians that are not truly good are very bad; because they are bad against so much light, and so many warnings; and from some of these it is like this censorious proverb came. And indeed man's nature is so apt to be affected with things that are unusual, and to lose all sense of things that are grown common, that no men have more need to watch their hearts, and be afraid of being hardened, than those that are continually under the most quickening helps and warnings. For it is very easy to grow customary and senseless under them; and then the danger is, that there are no better means remaining, to quicken such a stupid, hardened heart. Whereas those that enjoy such helps but seldom, are not so apt to lose the sense and benefit of them. The sight of a sick or dying man, doth usually much awaken those that have such sights but seldom; but who are more hardened than soldiers and seamen, that live continually as among the dead? When they have twice or thrice seen the field covered with men's carcasses, they usually grow more obdurate than any others. And this is it that physicians are in danger of, and should most carefully avoid. But certainly an atheistical or ungodly physician, is unexcusably blind. To say, as some do, that they study nature so much, that they are carried away from God; is as if you should say, they study the work so much, that they forget the workman; or, they look so much on the book, that they overlook the sense; or, that they study medicine so much, that they forget both the patient and his health. To look into nature and not see God, is as to see the creatures, and not the light by which we see them; or to see the trees and houses, and not to see the earth that beareth them. For God is the creating, conserving, dirigent, final Cause of all. Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things; He is all in all. And if they know not that they are the subjects of this God, and have immortal souls, they are ill proficients in the study of nature, that know no better the nature of man. To boast of their acquisitions in other sciences, while they know not what a man is, or what they are themselves, is little to the honour of their understandings. You that live still as in the sight of death, should live as in the sight of another world, and excel others in spiritual wisdom, and holiness, and sobriety, as your advantages by these quickening helps excel.

Direct. VI. Exercise your compassion and charity to men's souls, as well as to their bodies; and speak to your patients such words as tend to prepare them for their change. You have excellent opportunities, if you have hearts to take them. If ever men will hear, it is when they are sick; and if ever they will be humbled and serious, it is when the approach of death constraineth them. They will hear that counsel now with patience, which they would have despised in their health. A few serious words about the danger of an unregenerate state, and the necessity of holiness, and the use of a Saviour, and the everlasting state of souls, for aught you know, may be blest to their conversion and salvation. And it is much more comfortable for you to save a soul, than cure the body. Think not to excuse yourselves by saying, It is the pastor's duty; for though it be theirs ex officio, it is yours also ex charitate. Charity bindeth every man, as he hath opportunity, to do good to all; and especially the greatest good. And God giveth you opportunity, by casting them in your way; the priest and Levite that passed by the wounded man, were more to be blamed for not relieving him, than those that never went that way, and therefore saw him not, Luke x. 32. And many a man will send for the physician, that will not send for the pastor: and many a one will hear a physician that will despise the pastor. As they reverence their landlords, because they hold their estates from them, so do they the physician, because they think they can do much to save their lives. And alas, in too many places the pastors either mind not such work, or are insufficient for it; or else stand at odds and distance from the people; so that there is but too much need of your charitable help. Remember therefore, that he that "converteth a sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins," James v. 20. Remember that you are to speak to one that is going into another world, and must be saved now or never! And that all that ever must be done for his salvation must be presently done, or it will be too late. Pity human nature, and harden not your hearts against a man in his extreme necessity. O speak a few serious words for his conversion (if he be one that needs them) before his soul be past your help, in the world from which there is no return.

CHAPTER VI.

DIRECTIONS TO SCHOOLMASTERS ABOUT THEIR DUTY FOR THEIR CHILDREN'S SOULS.

Passing by all your grammatical employment, I shall only leave you these brief directions, for the higher and more noble exercises of your profession.

Direct. I. Determine first rightly of your end; and then let it be continually in your eye, and let all your endeavours be directed in order to the attainment of it. If your end be chiefly your own commodity or reputation, the means will be distorted accordingly, and your labours perverted, and your calling corrupted, and embased, (to yourselves,) by your perverse intentions. See therefore, 1. That your ultimate end be the pleasing and glorifying of God. 2. And this by promoting the public good, by fitting youth for public service. And, 3. Forming their minds to the love and service of their Maker. 4. And furthering their salvation, and their welfare in the world. These noble designs will lift up your minds, to an industrious and cheerful performance of your duties! He that seeketh great and heavenly things, will do it with great resolution and alacrity; when any drowsy, creeping pace, and deceitful, superficial labours, will satisfy him that hath poor and selfish ends. As God will not accept your labours as any service of his, if your ends be wrong, so he useth not to give so large a blessing to such men's labours as to others.

Direct. II. Understand the excellency of your calling, and what fair opportunities you have to promote those noble ends; and also how great a charge you undertake; that so you may be kept from sloth and superficialness, and may be quickened to a diligent discharge of your undertaken trust. 1. You have not a charge of sheep or oxen, but of rational creatures. 2. You have not the care of their bodies, but of their minds; you are not to teach them a trade to live by only in the world, but to inform their minds with the knowledge of their Maker, and to cultivate their wits, and advance their reason, and fit them for the most man-like conversations. 3. You have them not (as pastors) when they are hardened in sin by prejudice and long custom; but you have the tenderest twigs to bow, and the most tractable age to tame; you have paper to write on (not wholly white, but that) which hath the fewest blots and lines to be expunged. 4. You have them not as volunteers, but as obliged to obey you, and under the correction of the rod; which with tender age is a great advantage. 5. You have them not only for your auditors in a general lecture, (as preachers have them at a sermon,) but in your nearest converse, where you may teach them as particularly as you please, and examine their profiting, and call them daily to account. 6. You have them not once a week, (as preachers have them,) but all the week long, from day to day, and from morning until night. 7. You have them at that age, which doth believe their teachers, and take all upon trust, before they are grown up to self-conceitedness, and to contradict and quarrel with their teachers (as with their pastors they very ordinarily do). All these are great advantages to your ends.

Direct. III. Labour to take pleasure in your work, and make it as a recreation, and take heed of a weary or diverted mind. 1. To this end consider often what is said above; think on the excellency of your ends, and of the worth of souls, and of the greatness of your advantages. 2. Take all your scholars as committed to your charge by Jesus Christ; as if he had said to you, Take these whom I have so dearly bought, and train them up for my church and service.[122] 3. Remember what good one scholar may do, when he cometh to be ripe for the service of the church or commonwealth! How many souls some of them may be a means to save! Or if they be but fitted for a private life, what blessings may they be to their families and neighbours! And remember what a joyful thing it will be, to see them in heaven with Christ for ever! How cheerfully should such excellent things be sought! If you take pleasure in your work, it will not only be an ease and happiness to yourselves, but greatly further your diligence and success. But when men have a base esteem of their employment, and look at children as so many swine or sheep, or have some higher matters in their eye, and make their schools but the way to some preferment, or more desired life, then usually they do their work deceitfully, and any thing will serve the turn, because they are weary of it, and because their hearts are somewhere else.

Direct. IV. Seeing it is divinity that teacheth them the beginning and the end of all their other studies, let it never be omitted or slightly slubbered over, and thrust into a corner; but give it the precedency, and teach it them with greater care and diligence, than any other part of learning; especially teach them the catechism and the holy Scriptures. If you think that this is no part of your work, few wise men will choose such teachers for their children. If you say as some sectaries, that children should not be taught to speak holy words, till they are more capable to understand the sense, because it is hypocrisy, or taking the name of God in vain; I have answered this before, and showed that words being the signs, must be learned in order to the understanding of the sense, or thing that is signified; and that this is not to use such words in vain, how holy soever, but to the proper end for which they are appointed. Both in divine and human learning, the memories of children must first be furnished in order to the furnishing of their understandings afterwards. And this is a chief point of the master's skill, that time be not lost, nor labour frustrated. For the memories of children are as capacious as men's of riper age; and therefore they should be stored early, with that which will be useful to them afterwards: but till they come to some maturity of age, their judgments are not ripe for information about any high or difficult points. Therefore teach them betimes the words of catechisms and some chapters of the Bible; and teach them the meaning by degrees as they are capable. And make them perceive that you take this for the best of all their learning.

Direct. V. Besides the forms of catechism, which you teach them, speak often to them some serious words, about their souls, and the life to come, in such a plain, familiar manner, as tendeth most to the awakening of their consciences, and making them perceive how greatly what you say concerneth them. A little such familiar serious discourse, in an interlocutory way, may go to their hearts, and never be forgotten; when mere forms alone are lifeless and unprofitable. Abundance of good might be done on children, if parents and schoolmasters did well perform their parts in this.

Direct. VI. Take strict account of their spending the Lord's day! how they hear, and what they remember; and how they spend the rest of the day. For the right spending of that day, is of great importance to their souls! And a custom of play and idleness on that day, doth usually debauch them, and prepare them for much worse. Though they are from under your eye on the Lord's day, yet if on Monday they be called to account, it will leave an awe upon them in your absence.

Direct. VII. Pray with them, and for them. If God give not the increase by the dews of heaven, and shine not on your labours, your planting and watering will be all in vain. Therefore prayer is as suitable a means as teaching, to do them good; and they must go together. He that hath a heart to pray earnestly for his scholars, shall certainly have himself most comfort in his labours; and it is likely that he shall do most good to them.

Direct. VIII. Watch over them, by one another, when they are behind your backs, at their sports or converse with each other. For it is abundance of wickedness that children use to learn and practise, which never cometh to their masters' ears; especially in some great and public schools. They that came thither to learn sobriety and piety of their masters, do oftentimes learn profaneness, and ribaldry, and cursing, and swearing, and scorning, deriding, and reviling one another, of their ungracious school-fellows. And those lessons are so easily learnt, that there are few children but are infected with some such debauchery, though their parents and masters watch against it; and perhaps it never cometh to their knowledge. So also for gaming and robbing orchards, and fighting with one another, and reading play-books and romances, and lying, and abundance other vices which must be carefully watched against.

Direct. IX. Correct them more sharply for sins against God, than for their dulness and failing at their books. Though negligence in their learning is not to be indulged, yet smart should teach them especially to take heed of sinning; that they may understand that sin is the greatest evil.

Direct. X. Especially curb or cashier the leaders of impiety and rebellion, who corrupt the rest. There are few great schools but have some that are notoriously debauched; that glory in their wickedness; that in filthy talking, and fighting, and cursing, and reviling words, are the infecters of the rest. And usually they are some of the bigger sort, that are the greatest fighters, and master the rest, and by domineering over them, and abusing them, force them both to follow them in their sin and to conceal it. The correcting of such, or expelling them if incorrigible, is of great necessity to preserve the rest; for if they are suffered the rest will be secretly infected and undone, before the master is aware. This causeth many that have a care of their children's souls, to be very fearful of sending them to great and public schools, and rather choose private schools that are freer from that danger; it being almost of as great concernment to children, what their companions be, as what their master is.

CHAPTER VII.

DIRECTIONS FOR SOLDIERS, ABOUT THEIR DUTY IN POINT OF CONSCIENCE.

Though it is likely that few soldiers will read what I shall write for them, yet for the sake of those few that will, I will do as John Baptist did, and give them some few necessary directions, and not omit them as some do, as if they were a hopeless sort of men.

Direct. I. Be careful to make your peace with God, and live in a continual readiness to die. This being the great duty of every rational man, you cannot deny it to be especially yours, whose calling setteth you so frequently in the face of death. Though some garrison soldiers are so seldom, if ever, put to fight, that they live more securely than most other men, yet a soldier, as such, being by his place engaged to fight, I must fit my directions to the ordinary condition and expectation of men in that employment. It is a most irrational and worse than beastly negligence, for any man to live carelessly in an unpreparedness for death, considering how certain it is, and how uncertain the time, and how unconceivably great is the change which it inferreth: but for a soldier to be unready to die, who hath such special reason to expect it, and who listeth himself into a state which is so near it, this is to live and fight like beasts, and to be soldiers before you understand what it is to be a christian or a man. First, therefore, make sure that your souls are regenerate and reconciled unto God by Christ; and that when you die, you have a part in heaven; and that you are not yet in the state of sin and nature: an unrenewed unsanctified soul is sure to go to hell, by what death or in what cause soever he dieth. If such a man be a soldier, he must be a coward or a madman; if he will run upon death, when he knoweth not whither it will send him, yea, when hell is certainly the next step, he is worse than mad: but if he know and consider the terribleness of such a change, it must needs make him tremble when he thinks of dying. He can be no good soldier that dare not die; and who can expect that he should dare to die, who must be damned when he dieth? Reason may command a man to venture upon death; but no reason will allow him to venture upon hell. I never knew but two sorts of valiant soldiers: the one was boys, and brutish, ignorant sots, who had no sense of the concernments of their souls; and the other (who only were truly valiant) were those that had made such preparations for eternity, as, at least, persuaded them that it should go well with them when they died. And many a debauched soldier I have known, whose conscience hath made them cowards, and shift or run away when they should venture upon death, because they knew they were unready to die, and were more afraid of hell than of the enemy. He that is fit to be a martyr, is the fittest man to be a soldier: he that is regenerate, and hath laid up his treasure and his hopes in heaven, and so hath overcome the fears of death, may be bold as a lion, and ready for any thing, and fearless in the greatest perils. For what should he fear, who hath escaped hell, and God's displeasure, and hath conquered the king of terrors? But fear is the duty and most rational temper of a guilty soul; and the more fearless such are, the more foolish and more miserable.

Direct. II. Be sure you have a warrantable cause and call. In a bad cause it is a dreadful thing to conquer, or to be conquered. If you conquer, you are a murderer of all that you kill; if you are conquered and die in the prosecution of your sin, I need not tell you what you may expect. I know we are here upon a difficulty which must be tenderly handled: if we make the sovereign power to be the absolute and only judge, whether the soldier's cause and call be good; then it would follow, that it is the duty of all the christian subjects of the Turk, to fight against Christianity as such, and to destroy all christians when the Turk commandeth it; and that all the subjects of other lands are bound to invade this or other such christian kingdoms, and destroy their kings, whenever their popish or malicious princes or states shall command them; which being intolerable consequences, prove the antecedent to be intolerable. And yet on the other side, if subjects must be the judges of their cause and call, the prince shall not be served, nor the common good secured, till the interest of the subjects will allow them to discern the goodness of the cause. Between these two intolerable consequents, it is hard to meet with a just discovery of the mean. Most run into one of the extremes, which they take to be the less, and think that there is no other avoiding of the other. The grand errors in this, and a hundred like cases, come from not distinguishing aright the case de esse, from the case de apparere, or cognoscere, and not first determining the former, as it ought, before the latter be determined. Either the cause which subjects are commanded to fight in, is really lawful to them, or it is not. (Say not here importunely, Who shall judge? For we are now but upon the question de esse.) If it be not lawful in itself, but be mere robbery or murder, then come to the case of evidence; either this evil is to the subject discernible by just means, or not: if it be, I am not able for my part to justify him from the sin, if he do it, no more than to have justified the three witnesses, Dan. iii. if they had bowed down to the golden calf, or Dan. vi. if he had forborne prayer, or the apostles, if they had forborne preaching, or the soldiers for apprehending and crucifying Christ, when their superiors commanded them. For God is first to be obeyed and feared. But if the evil of the cause be such, as the subject cannot by just and ordinary means discern, then must he come next to examine his call; and a volunteer unnecessarily he may not be in a doubtful cause: it is so heinous a sin to murder men, that no man should unnecessarily venture upon that which may prove to be murder for aught he knoweth. But if you ask what call may make such a doubtful action necessary, I answer, It must be such as warranteth it, either from the end of the action, or from the authority of the commander, or both. And from the end of the action, the case may be made clear, That if a king should do wrong to a foreign enemy, and should have the worse cause, yet if the revenge which that enemy seeketh would be the destruction of the king and country, or religion, it is lawful and a duty to fight in the defence of them. And if the king should be the assailant, or beginner, that which is an offensive war in him (for which he himself must answer) may be but a defensive war in the commanded subjects, and they be innocent: even on the highway, if I see a stranger provoke another by giving him the first blow, yet I may be bound to save his life from the fury of the avenging party. But whether, or how far, the bare command of a sovereign may warrant the subjects to venture in a doubtful cause, (supposing the thing lawful in itself, though they are doubtful,) requireth so much to be said to it, which civil governors may possibly think me too bold to meddle with, that I think it safest to pass it by; only saying, that there are some cases in which the ruler is the only competent judge, and the doubts of the subject are so unreasonable, that they will not excuse the sin of his disobedience; and also, that the degree of the doubt is oft very considerable in the case. But suppose the cause of the war be really lawful in itself, and yet the subject is in doubt of it, yea, or thinketh otherwise; then is he in the case, as other erroneous consciences are, that is, entangled in a necessity of sinning, till he be undeceived, in case his rulers command his service. But which would be the greater sin, to do it or not, the ends and circumstances may do much to determine; but doubtless in true necessity to save the king and state, subjects may be compelled to fight in a just cause, notwithstanding that they mistake it for unjust; and if the subject have a private discerning judgment, so far as he is a voluntary agent, yet the sovereign hath a public determining judgment, when a neglecter is to be forced to his duty. Even as a man that thinketh it unlawful to maintain his wife and children, may be compelled lawfully to do it.

So that it is apparent, that sometimes the sovereign's cause may be good, and yet an erroneous conscience may make the soldiers' cause bad, if they are volunteers, who run unnecessarily upon that which they take for robbery and murder; and yet that the higher powers may force even such mistakers to defend their country, and their governors, in a case of true necessity. And it is manifest that sometimes the cause of the ruler may be bad, and yet the cause of the soldier good; and that sometimes the cause may be bad and sinful to them both, and sometimes good and lawful unto both.

Direct. III. When you are doubtful whether your cause and call be good, it is (ordinarily) safest to sit still, and not to venture in so dangerous a case, without great deliberation and sufficient evidence to satisfy your consciences. Neander might well say of Solon's law, which punished them that took not one part or other in a civil war or sedition, Admirabilis autem illa atque plane incredibilis, quæ honoribus abdicat eum, qui orta seditione nullam factionem secutus sit.[123] No doubt, he is a culpable neuter that will not defend his governors and his country, when he hath a call; but it is so dreadful a thing to be guilty of the blood and calamities of an unjust war, that a wise man will rather be abused as a neuter, than run himself into the danger of such a case.

Direct. IV. When necessity forceth you to go forth in a just war, do it with such humiliation and unwillingness as beseemeth one that is a patient, a spectator, and an actor, in one of the sorest of God's temporal judgments. Go not to kill men, as if you went to a cock-fight, or a bear-baiting. Make not a sport of a common calamity; be not insensible of the displeasure of God, expressed in so great a judgment. What a sad condition is it to yourselves, to be employed in destroying others! If they be good, how sad a thought is it, that you must kill them! If they are wicked, how sad is it that by killing them you cut off all their hopes of mercy, and send them suddenly to hell! How sad an employment is it, to spoil and undo the poor inhabitants where you come! to cast them into terrors, to deprive them of that which they have long been labouring for! to prepare for famine, and be like a consuming pestilence where you come! Were it but to see such desolations, it should melt you into compassion; much more to be the executioners yourselves. How unsuitable a work is it to the grace of love! Though I doubt not but it is a service which the love of God, our country, and our rulers, may sometimes justify and command, yet (as to the rulers and masters of the business) it must be a very clear and great necessity that can warrant a war. And, as to the soldiers, they must needs go with great regret, to kill men by thousands, whom they love as themselves. He that loveth his neighbour as himself, and blesseth, and doth good to his persecuting enemy, will take it heavily to be employed in killing him, even when necessity maketh it his duty. But the greatest calamity of war is the perniciousness of it to men's souls. Armies are commonly that to the soul, as a city infected with the plague is to the body; the very nurseries and academies of pride, and cruelty, and drunkenness, and whoredom, and robbery, and licentiousness; and the bane of piety, and common civility, and humanity. Not that every soldier cometh to this pass; the hottest pestilence killeth not all; but oh how hard is it to keep up a life of faith and godliness in an army! The greatness of their business, and of their fears and cares, doth so wholly take up their minds and talk, that there is scarce any room found for the matters of their souls, though unspeakably greater. They have seldom leisure to hear a sermon, and less to pray. The Lord's day is usually taken up in matters that concern their lives, and therefore can pretend necessity; so that it must be a very resolute, confirmed, vigilant person, that is not alienated from God. And then it is a course of life, which giveth great opportunity to the tempter, and advantage to temptations, both to errors in judgment, and viciousness of heart and life; he that never tried it can hardly conceive how difficult it is to keep up piety and innocency in an army. If you will suppose that there is no difference in the cause, or the ends and accidents, I take it to be much more desirable to serve God in a prison, than in an army; and that the condition of a prisoner hath far less in it to tempt the foolish, or to afflict the wise, than a military. (Excepting those whose life in garrisons and lingering wars, doth little differ from a state of peace.) I am not simply against the lawfulness of war; (nor as I conceive, Erasmus himself, though he saw the sinfulness of that sort of men; and use to speak truly of the horrid wickedness and misery of them that thirst for blood, or rush on wars without necessity;) but it must be a very extraordinary army, that is not constituted of wolves and tigers, and is not unto common honesty and piety the same that a stews or whorehouse is to chastity. And oh how much sweeter is the work of an honest physician that saveth men's lives, than of a soldier, whose virtue is shown in destroying them! or a carpenter's, or mason's, that adorneth cities with comely buildings, than a soldier's that consumeth them by fire![124]

Direct. V. Be sure first that your cause be better than your lives, and then resolve to venture your lives for them. It is the hazarding of your lives, which in your calling you undertake; and therefore be not unprepared for it; but reckon upon the worst, and be ready to undergo whatever you undertake. A soldier's life is unfit for one that dare not die. A coward is one of the most pernicious murderers; he verifieth Christ's saying in another sense, "he that saveth his life shall lose it." While men stand to it, it is usually but few that die; because they quickly daunt the enemy, and keep him on the defensive part; but when once they rout, and run away, they are slain on heaps, and fall like leaves in a windy autumn. Every coward that pursueth them is imboldened by their fear, and dare run them through, or shoot them behind, that durst not so near have looked them in the face; and maketh it his sport to kill a fugitive, or one that layeth down his weapons, that would fly himself from a daring presence. Your cowardly fear betrayeth the cause of your king and country; it betrayeth the lives of your fellow-soldiers, while the running of a few affrighted dastards, lets in ruin upon all the rest; and it casteth away your own lives, which you think to save. If you will be soldiers, resolve to conquer or to die. It is not so much skill or strength that conquereth, as boldness. It is fear that loseth the day, and fearlessness that winneth it. The army that standeth to it, getteth the victory, though they fight never so weakly; for if you will not run the enemy will. And if the lives of a few be lost by courage, it usually saveth the lives of many (though wisdom still is needful in the conduct). And if the cause be not worth your lives, you should not meddle with it.

Direct. VI. Resolve upon an absolute obedience to your commanders, in all things consistent with your obedience to God, and the sovereign power. Disobedience is no where more intolerable than in an army; where it is often unfit for a soldier to know the reason of his commands; and where self-conceitedness and wilfulness are inconsistent with their common safety, and the lives of many may pay for the disobedience of a few. If you cannot obey, undertake not to be soldiers.

Direct. VII. Especially detest all murmurings, mutinies, sidings, and rebellions. For these are to an army like violent fevers to the body, or like a fire in a city, and would make an army the greatest plague to their king and country. How many emperors, kings, and commanders have lost their dignities and lives, by the fury of mutinous, enraged soldiers! And how many kingdoms and other commonwealths have been thus overthrown, and betrayed into the enemy's hands! And how many thousands and millions of soldiers have thereby lost their lives! In your discontents and murmuring passions, you may quickly set the house on fire over your heads, and when you feel your misery repent too late. Passion may begin that which fruitless penitence must end. The leaders of mutinies may easily have many fair pretences to inflame an army into discontents: they may aggravate many seeming injuries; they may represent their commanders as odious and unworthy, by putting an ill appearance on their actions: but in the end it will appear, that it was their own advancement which they secretly aimed at, and the destruction of the present government, or the soldiers' ruin, which is like to be the effect. A mutinous army is likest hell of any thing I know among God's creatures, and next hell, there is scarce a worse place for their commanders to be in.

Direct. VIII. Use not your power or liberty to the robbing, or oppressing, or injury of any. Though military thieves and oppressors may escape the gallows more than others, they shall come as soon to hell as any. If you plunder, and spoil, and tyrannize over the poor people, under pretence of supplying your own wants, there is a God in heaven that will hear their cries, and will avenge them speedily, though you seem to go scot-free for a time. You may take a pride in domineering over others, and making yourselves lords by violence of other men's estates, and when you see none that will question you for it, you may take that which you have most mind to. But the poor and oppressed have a just Defender, who hath a severer punishment for you than the sword or gallows! And though he take you not in the very fact, and his sentence is not presently executed, yet be certain of it, that your day is coming.

Direct. IX. Take heed lest custom, and the frequency of God's judgments, do harden your hearts into a reprobate stupidity. Many a man that formerly by the sight of a corpse, or the groanings of the sick, was awakened to serious thoughts of his latter end, when he cometh into an army, and hath often seen the dead lie scattered on the earth, and hath often escaped death himself, groweth utterly senseless, and taketh blockishness to be valour, and custom maketh such warnings to be of no effect. You can scarce name a more strange and lamentable proof of the maddening and hardening nature of sin! that men should be most senseless, when they are in the greatest danger! and least fear God, when they are among his dreadful judgments! and least hear his voice, when his calls are loudest! and live as if they should not die, when they look death so often in the face, and see so many dead before them! That they should be most regardless of their endless life, when they are nearest it; and sense itself hath such notable advantage to tell them of all this! What a monstrous kind of sottish stupidity is this! Think whither the soul is gone, when you see the carcass on the earth; and think where your own must be for ever.

Direct. X. Take heed of falling into drunkenness and sensuality, though temptations and liberty be never so great. It is too common with soldiers, because they are oft put to thirst and wants, to think they may lawfully pour it in, when they come at it, without moderation or restraint: even as many poor men take a gluttonous meal for no sin, because they have so many days of hunger; so is it with such soldiers in their drink: till drunkenness first have wounded their consciences, and afterwards grow common, till it have debauched and seared them; and then they have drowned religion and reason, and are turned sottish, miserable brutes.

Direct. XI. If necessity deprive you of the benefits of God's public or stated worship, see that you labour to repair that loss, by double diligence in those spiritual duties, which yet you have opportunity for. If you must march or watch on the Lord's days, redeem your other time the more. If you cannot hear sermons, be not without some profitable book, and often read it; and let your meditations be holy, and your discourses edifying. For these you have opportunities, if you have hearts.

Direct. XII. Take heed that command or successes do not puff you up and make you overvalue yourselves, and incline you to rebel against your governors. What lamentable effects hath England lately seen of this! A silly, half-witted soldier, if he be but made a captain, doth carry it as if he were wiser than the preachers, or the judge! as if his dignity had added to his wit! When victories have laid the power at men's feet, and they think now that none is able to control them, how few are they that abuse not such success to their undoing, and are not conquered by the pride of their own hearts, when they have conquered others! How ordinarily do they mis-expound the providence of God, and think he hath put the government into their hands, because they have the strength; and from the histories of former successful rebels, and the fairness of their opportunity, encourage themselves to rebel, and think they do but what is their duty! How easily do they justify themselves in those unlawful deeds, which impartial by-standers see the evil of! And how easily do they quiet their consciences, when they have but power enough to raise up flatterers, and to stop the mouth of wholesome reprehension! How lamentably doth prosperity make them drunk, and sudden advancement overturn their brains! And their greatness, together with their pride and fury, preserveth them from the accesses of wisdom, and of sober men, that so their malady may have no remedy: and there, like a drunken man, they rave awhile, and speak big words, and lay about them, and glory in the honour of a pestilence, that they can kill men; and we must not speak to them, till their heads are settled, and they come to themselves, and that is not usually till the hand of God have laid them lower than it found them, and then perhaps they will again hear reason; unless pride hath left their souls as desperate as at last it doth their bodies or estates. The experience of this age may stand on record, as a teacher to future generations, what power there is in great successes, to conquer both reason, religion, righteousness, professions, vows, and all obligations to God and man, by puffing up the heart with pride, and thereby making the understanding drunken.