Roll Upon the Lord

Jonathan Edwards, "Miscellaneous Remarks Concerning Faith," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, p. 587:

Sec. 63. Rolling oneself, or burden, on the Lord, is an expression used as equivalent to trusting. Psal. xxii. 8. "he trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him:" in the original, "He rolled himself on the Lord." Psal. xxxvii.5. "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass." In the Hebrew, Roll thy way upon the Lord. Prov. xvi.3. "Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established." In the Hebrew, Roll thy works.

John Winthrop, March 18, 1627 Letter to His Son, in Robert C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, p. 250:

But such as will roll their ways upon the Lord, do find him always as good as his word.

John Cotton, An Exposition of First John, p. 536:

How then can this be called believing on Christ, when the heart is not grounded in him nor rests in him? I answer, there is a faith in Christ when the heart does not rest on Christ but is only grounded on him, or rolls itself on him, which may be done while the heart is yet in motion. Sometimes it rolls one way, sometimes another; yet such a man believes on Christ, for he is rolling toward him so that he may lie on him. "Commit your ways to the Lord" (Ps. 37:5); in the original, "roll your ways upon the Lord"; lean your soul that way; roll toward him so that you might rest upon him. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding" (Prov. 3:6); a man may be said to lean upon the Lord, when he is not yet settled upon him.

Ps. 22.8, Bay Psalm Book:

Vpon the Lord he rold himselfe,
let him now rid him quite:
let him deliver him, because
in him he doth delight.

Anne Bradstreet, "In my Solitary houres in my dear husband his Absence," Robert Hutchinson, ed., The Poems of Anne Bradstreet, p. 74:

O stay my heart on thee, my God,
Uphold my fainting Soul!
And, when I know not what to doe,
I'll on thy mercyes roll.

Edward Taylor, "God's Determinations," in Thomas H. Johnson, ed., The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor, p. 91 (Lines 1625-1627):

And thus he doth involve the doubting Soule
In dismall doubts and makes it fear to rowle
Himselfe on Christ for fear it should presume.

Double Marriage

Although his conversion process clearly began years before, John Cotton claimed that he first received assurance of salvation on his wedding day. He married his first wife Elizabeth Horrocks, who was introduced him by Puritan Paul Baynes, on July 3, 1613.

Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. 1, p. 237:

Settled now at Boston [England], his dear friend, holy Mr. Bayns, recommended unto him a pious gentlewoman, one Mrs. Elizabeth Horrocks, the sister of Mr. James Horrocks, a famous minister in Lancashire, to become his consort in a married estate. And it was remarkable, that on the very day of his wedding to that eminently vertuous gentlewoman, he first received that assurance of God's love unto his own soul, by the spirit of God, effectively applying his promise of eternal grace and life unto him, which happily kept with him all the rest of his days: for which cause he would afterwards often say, God made that day, a day of double marriage to me!

Their marriage lasted 18 years until her death in 1631 and had no children. Elizabeth was noted for her piety and discretion. In fact, female parishioners felt so comfortable speaking with her that they shared their spiritual concerns with her (and she with her husband), that Cotton was enabled to address those same concerns pastorally. Cotton wedded his second wife, "a vertuous widow, very dear to his former wife," Sarah Story (née Hawkred), in 1632 and soon after emigrated to New England.

Her Husband's Best Concordance

John Fiske (1601/1608-1677) served as a minister, schoolmaster, physician and poet, and his anagrams, such as those written in honor of John Cotton, are studied by students of American colonial verse today. Fiske married in 1635, and emigrated from Old England to New England with his wife Anne (née Gipps) in 1636 for which Anne's parents disowned her. That rocky start to their marriage was compounded by the death of Fiske's mother on the journey across the Atlantic, and the death of their infant child shortly after arriving in Massachusetts in the midst of the Pequot War. But the couple went on to spend 37 years together, and Anne was the mother of five children altogether. Her knowledge of the Scriptures, not unlike the "living libraries and walking concordances" that have been mentioned here before, was such that she was known as "her husband's best concordance," a worthy tribute to a crown conjugal.

Reasons For the Great Migration

The Great Puritan Migration of 1630-1640 is the name given to the mass removal of approximately 20,000 Puritans from Old England to New England in one decade. This numerical increase of whole families to the small colony of Massachusetts helped to establish and solidify the tenuous European foothold on the northern American continent. Puritans in England at this time were suffering much persecution as a result of Archbishop William Laud's high church policies. The economic and religious refuge possibilities envisioned by the London Company and the Plymouth Company (later the Plymouth Council for New England) and, later, as a result of the efforts of John White of Dorchester (1575-1648), "Patriarch of Dorchester," "Founder of Massachusetts," and member of the Westminster Assembly, the work of the Dorchester Company and its successors, the New England Company and the Massachusetts Bay Company, along with the 1629 Royal Charter and Cambridge Agreement, providing financial and legal support for the colonial enterprise; the providential survival of the Pilgrim Separatists at Plymouth Colony after the hard winter of 1620-1621; and the ongoing Anglican persecution all contributed to this mass migration. In 1630, John Winthrop sailed to New England on the Winthrop Fleet, famously preaching the "City on a Hill" sermon ("A Model of Christian Charity") while on the deck of the ship Arbella. William Ames designed to come over to New England but died in Holland in 1633 before he was able to do so. Also in 1633, on the ship Griffin, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone crossed over to New England. As Cotton Mather reports (Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. 1, p. 242):

There were then three eminent ministers of God in the ship; namely, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, and Mr. Stone; which glorious triumvirate coming together, made the poor people in the wilderness, at their coming, to say, that the God of heaven had supplied them, with what would in some sort answer their three great necessities; Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their building:

The clearest account of the Puritans' motives in transplanting their families and churches, along with answering objections and concerns from those who felt that they were abandoning the Church of England in its time of need or separating from it, as well as providing Biblical justification for colonizing land peopled by the American Indians, is found is certain writings by some of the aforementioned men. Besides Winthrop's sermon above, see:

1. The Humble Request of His Majesties Loyall Subjects, the Governour and the Company late gone for New England; to the rest of their Brethren in and of the Church of England (1630). This document published by John Winthrop and his group may have been been drafted by John White of Dorchester. It sets forth their formal farewell to England, yet affirming their unbroken communion with the Church of England.

2. God's Promise to His Plantation (1630), a sermon preached by John Cotton upon the farewell of the Winthrop Fleet. In this sermon, Cotton provides "an ideological justification for engaging in such a risky venture, a promotional tract to encourage emigration, and a typological argument for possessing the wilderness" (Reiner Smolinski). He also promises a forthcoming more detailed justification for the colonial endeavor, which was to be provided by John White:

Ere long (if God will) thou shalt see a larger declaration of the first rise and ends of this enterprise, and so cleare and full a iustification of this designe, both in respect of that warrant it hath from Gods word, and also in respect of any other ground and circumstance of weight, that is considerable in the warrant of such worke, as (I hope) there will easily be removed any scruple of moment, which hitherto hath beene moved about it.

3. The Planters Plea, Or the Grounds of Plantations Examined, and usual Objections answered. Together with a manifestation of the causes moving such as have lately undertaken a Plantation in NEW ENGLAND: For the satisfaction of those that question the lawfulness of the Action. 2 Thess. v. 21. Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. (1630) by John White of Dorchester. This important document satisfies John Winthrop's promise and constitutes a full treatise on the history of the settling of Massachusetts to date, and setting forth the Biblical reasons for the planting of this particular settlement, its relation to the Church of England, and the establishment of colonial endeavors generally (including arguments "from Gods gift of the earth to men," "from the Law of marriage" and "from the benefit that comes to mens outward estates"), as well as answering concerns by friends and foes of the Puritans' enterprise.

Puritan Sweet Tooth

Cotton Mather, speaking of his grandfather, John Cotton, wrote of his practice to read John Calvin before bedtime (Magnalia Christi Americana I:250):

Even such a Calvinist was our Cotton! Said he, I have read the fathers and the school-men, and Calvin too; but I find, that he that has Calvin has them all. And being asked, why in his latter days he indulged nocturnal studies more than formerly, he pleasantly replied, Because I love to sweeten my mouth with a piece of Calvin before I go to sleep.

Puritan Begats

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. (1 Cor. 3.5-9)

The faithful preaching of the Word of God in the Age of the Puritans resulted, by the powerful and effectual working of the Holy Spirit, in a remarkable "apostolic" succession of conversions, a genealogy of Puritan "who's who's," as it were. It is a striking illustration of how the faithfulness of one man's ministry in God's providence plays a role in the lives of so many others. Or, as Clarence the Angel said in It's a Wonderful Life:

Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?

Darrett Rutman, American Puritanism, p. 7:

The generation of ministers of this sort approaches something of the quality of the opening chapter of Chronicles: "Richard Rogers begat (in a spiritual sense) Paul Baynes, who begat Richard Sibbes, who begat John Cotton, who begat John Preston, who begat Thomas Shepard.

To expand on this, Paul Baynes (1560-1617) was converted under the ministry of William Perkins (1558-1602), himself convicted of his sin after a woman in the street spoke of him as "drunken Perkins," and Richard Rogers (1550?-1618). William Ames (1576-1633) and Richard Blackerby (1574-1648) were likewise converted under the preaching of William Perkins. Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) was converted under the preaching of Paul Baynes. John Cotton (1595-1652) was converted under the preaching of Richard Sibbes. John Preston (1587-1628) was converted under the preaching of John Cotton. The preaching of Richard Sibbes and John Preston was influential in the spiritual awakening of Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680). Thomas Shepard (1605-1649) was converted under the preaching of John Preston. Shepard himself was known as "Pastor Evangelicus," who was "as great a converter of souls as has ordinarily been known in our days" (Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. 1, p. 380), and Jonathan Mitchell (1624-1668) traced his spiritual awakening to the ministry of Thomas Shepard.

We see how souls were converted on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean by means of such a golden chain. The ministries of these men have led to many conversions and influenced many millions more through their literature, even to the present day. Thank the Lord for these men who have planted and watered; to God be the glory for giving the increase.

Living Libraries

Harry Emerson Fosdick:

Life is like a library owned by an author. In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.

Have you ever known anyone who is a "walking encyclopedia" or a "living library"? Well, I have come across similar expressions a few times in my studies of the Puritans (and the Puritan-minded), so often known not only for their piety but their scholarship and intellectual acumen.

Andrew Willet (1562-1621), the great English Puritan Biblical commentator is described as a "living library." Thomas Fuller, Abel Redevivus, or, The Dead Yet Speaking: The Lives and Deaths of Modern Divines, Vol. 2, pp. 317-318:

...yet I am well assured that he had learned over and to good purpose many learned authors ancient and modern, till he [Andrew Willet] became himself [Gk.], "a living library."

In fact, Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), the famous English Church historian, earned a similar nickname as well. Life of Thomas Fuller, p. 69:

He was a perfect walking library...

John Quarles (1624-1665), son of Francis Quarles (1592-1644) -- both notable British poets -- wrote an elegy upon the death of a dear friend of the family, James Ussher (1581-1656), Irish Anglican bishop, in which the younger Quarles described him as a "living library." John Quarles, An Elegie on the Most Reverend and Learned James Usher, L. Archbishop of Armagh (1656), p. 4:

He was a living Library, in whom
A man might read things past and things to come.

Miles Smith (1554-1624), British bishop and Biblical scholar, was a one of the translators of the King James Bible and the author of its famous Preface. Another bishop described him as "a very walking library."

John Rainolds (or Reynolds) (1549-1607), English Puritan who helped to initiate and translate the King James Bible, is described by Daniel Neal as a "living library." Daniel Neal, History of the Puritans, Vol. 1, p. 440:

He [John Rainolds] was a prodigy for reading, his memory being a living library.

George Hakewill, An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God, states that Rainolds had memorized the entire corpus of Augustine, and indeed all classical authors, becoming "a living librarie" and "a third university."

Edmund Staunton (1600-1671), Westminster Divine, was known as a "walking concordance." John Stoughton, Ecclesiastical History of England, Vol. 2, p. 256:

Dr. Edmund Staunton, President of Corpus, has been called a Walking Concordance, on account of his minute knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.

Another Westminster Divine, Richard Capel (1586-1656) was styled a "living library." Samuel Clarke, Lives of Thirty-Two English Divines, p. 311:

He [Richard Capel] was a living library, a full storehouse of all good literature, a judicious preacher, and a sound orthodox divine.

Cotton Mather (1663-1728), American Puritan and historian, wrote of his grandfather English-American Puritan John Cotton (1595-1652), Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. 1, p. 273, that:

Mr. Cotton was indeed a most universal scholar, and a living system of the liberal arts, and a walking library.

Matthew Slade (1569-1628), English divine who took up academic duties in Holland, was also said to be a "walking library." Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, Vol. 2, p. 154:

...he [Matthew Slade] was esteemed, by all that knew him, an excellent Latinist, a good Grecian, one well read in profound authors, a stiff enemy to the Socinians, and a walking library.

Art and Music in Puritan Worship

Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, Appendix B, "Art and Music in Puritan Worship," pp. 268-272:

Macaulay has popularized a grave misrepresentation of the Puritans as fanatical Philistines, apostles of gloom, utterly antagonistic to the arts and music.
...
This charge would make all Puritans tone-deaf and colour-blind iconoclasts. Its untruth has been fully and finally rebutted Dr Percy Scholes in The Puritans and Music (1934).
...
The Puritan did not object to the arts as such: indeed, the Puritans numbered amongst their adherents such poets as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The typical attitude is that of John Cotton, who declares that whilst instrumental music is banned in the worship of the Church,

Nor do we forbid the private use of any instrument of musick there-withal.

The Puritans only objected to elaborate church music which did not edify the congregations and, indeed, the very complexities of such music made it impossible for the common people to sing the praises of God.
...
In conclusion, the Puritans must bear their share of the blame for the wholesale destruction of many beautiful monuments at the hands of such iconoclasts as William Dowsing. But their aim was not Philistinism. It might have been misguided, but it was nevertheless sincere. They thus hoped to uproot all idolatrous practices which God had not required in his worship. Their motto, to which they held inflexibly, was: 'Quod non jubet, vetat'. But if beauty was forced to abdicate from the churches, she was accorded a coronation in their homes. The Puritans objected to Sunday dancing, to the use of instrumental music in the worship of the Church, and to ecclesiastical representations of the Trinity and the Saints. But it is utterly untrue to affirm that therefore music, dancing and art were banished from the Commonwealth. Dancing was encouraged by Cromwell, celebrated by Milton in L'Allegro; it was an essential part of the education of Colonel Hutchinson's family, and it was at the height of the Puritan regime that Playford published his English Dancing Master (1651). As to the private encouragement of music, it will suffice to remember that 'Opera, so far as Britain is concerned, was actually an importation of Puritan times'. A group of people who produced Milton, and who popularized the Psalms, are unfairly described as Philistines. Privately they encouraged the arts and, if they objected to the use of the arts in the service of the Church, their conviction was not aesthetic but religious in basis. It was not that they disliked art, but that they loved religion more.

Geneva Jiggs & Beza's Ballets

George Wither (1588-1667) was a minor poet and author of what is said to be the "first work in English on literary aspects of the Bible," Preparation to the Psalter (1619), a discussion of the nature of the Psalms and of principles of translation," as well as "a defence of poetry" (David Norton, A History of the Bible as Literature, p. 131). His theological leanings over the course of his colorful life were all over the map from Arminian to Calvinist to Puritan to conforming Anglican to Quaker sympathies. He expressed love for the Psalms and wrote a version of the Psalter (Psalmes of David, 1632), while campaigning against exclusive psalmody and publishing a hymnal (Hymnes and Songs of the Church, 1623). He admitted to having a limited knowledge of Hebrew and the story is told that he took Parliament's side during the English Civil War and, after being captured by Royalist troops who were preparing to execute him, spared him at the request of Sir John Denham who allegedly claimed that they should do so "for the stated reason that at least 'whilest G.W. lived, he [Denham] should not be the worst Poet in England'" (Hannibal Hamlin, Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literaure, p. 52, citing John Aubrey, Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. O.L. Dick (Harmondsworth, 1949, rpr. 1982), p. 183).

I cite him here because he takes note -- in the context of his own dissatisfaction with the psalters then in use and expressed desire to improve them -- of a memorable derisive description employed by opponents of the Psalter.

Preparation to the Psalter (1619, 1919), p. 20:

...yet I vnderstand, that fome fectaries and fauourers of the Church of Rome, haue of late yeares difapproouved the tranflation of thefe Pfalmes into the vulgar tongues, & fcoffed at the finging of them in the reformed Churches; in fo much, that they haue in fcorne tearmed them Geneua Iiggs, and Beza's Ballets:

Albert Bailey claims (The Gospel in Hymns, p. 13) that Queen Elizabeth herself scornfully called called them "Geneva jiggs," in part due to their lively melody.

John Cotton defended the melodies used in Puritan Psalters, not claiming perfection, but inviting anyone to compare Psalms sung in Reformed Churches to cathedral chants. In answering the objection that "sinful men, or the man of sin hath an hand in making the melody" used in the Psalter, he writes, Singing of Psalms, A Gospel Ordinance (1647, republished as John Cotton on Psalmody and the Sabbath, 2006, p. 75):

And yet they that had an hand in making the melody of the English Psalms, (whether in Old England or New) were men of a better spirit then Ahab. But I can but marvel, why you should put in the man of sin, as having any hand at all, in making this melody. For neither the man of sin, (by whom I suppose you mean Antichrist) nor any Antichristian Church have had an hand in turning David's Psalms into English songs and tunes, or are wont to make any melody in the singing of them, yea they reject them as Geneva Gigs [Genevah Gigs, in the original]; and they be cathedral priests of an antichristian spirit, that have scoffed at Puritan Ministers, as calling the people to sing one of Hopkins Jigs [Jiggs], and so hop into the pulpit. God keep all anti-Psalmists from the like antichristian spirit. They that have been in antichristian churches can tell you, that Popish Churches are not wont to sing David's Psalms translated into verse in their own country meter, but they only sing the prose of David's Psalms in cathedral notes. Which how far yourself close withal, I leave to yourself to consider.

Tennis in Worship

Puritans in general were opposed to antiphonal or responsive reading and singing in public worship. This practice found in Anglican churches to which they objected they likened to, in the words of John Cotton, "Tennisse Plaie." Along with the use of organs in worship, and other ceremonial trappings, Puritans saw antiphonal or responsive reading and singing as a mark of confusion and not edification.

John Field in A View of Popish Abuses (1572) lists as his 13th Anglican abuse:

In all their order of service there is no edification, according to the rule of the Apostle, but confusion, they tosse the Psalmes in most places like tennice balles....As for organes and curious singing, thoughe they be proper to popishe dennes, I meane to Cathedral churches, yet some others also must have them. The queenes chappell, and these churches must be paternes and presidents to the people, of all superstitions.

A confession of faith written by Field while imprisoned at Newgate in December 4, 1572 includes:

Concerning singing of psalms, we allow of the people’s joining with one voice in plain tune, but not of tossing the psalms from one side to the other, with the intermingling of organs

The Puritan authors of A Request of all true Christians to the Honorable House of Parliament (1586) wrote :

That all Cathedral churches may be put down, where the service of God is greviously abused by piping with organs, singing, ringing, and trowling of psalms from one side of the choir to another, with the squeaking of chauting choristers, disguised (as are all the rest) in white surplices; some in corner caps and filthy copes, imitating the fashion and manner of antichrist the pope, that man of sin and child of perdition, with his other rabble of miscreants and shavelings.

Increase Mather, A Brief Discourse Concerning the Unlawfulness of the Common Prayer Worship (1686) described Anglican worship services as consisting of:

broken Responds and shreds of Prayer which the Priests and People toss between them like Tennis Balls

Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, p. 68, explains the Puritan rationale:

Moreover, the responses of the people were stigmatized as 'vain repetitions' because of their reduplications. The Puritans frequently cited I Cor. xiv. 16 as a proof that only one person should speak at once, which appeared to them to veto congregational responses, with the single exception of the word Amen.[*]
...
It was felt therefore that all responds or responsive reading ('the tossing to and fro of tennis balls') was prohibited by the Word of God.

[*] Further to the view that normally (excepting extraordinary vows, and apart from congregational singing, and the congregation's "amen" at the end of a ministerial prayer or sermon) only the minister should be speaking during public worship, see Thomas Cartwright, The Reply to the Answer of the Admonition, Chap. 2, 21st Division, Sec. 2, p. 109:

For God hath ordained the minister to this end, that, as in public meetings he only is the mouth of the Lord from him to the people, even so he ought to be the only the mouth of the people from them unto the Lord, and that all the people should attend to that which is said by the minister, and in the end both declare their consent to that which is said, and their hope that it should so be and come to pass which is prayed, by the word "Amen;" as St Paul declareth in the epistle to the Corinthians, and Justin Martyr sheweth to have been the custom of the churches in his time.

And also, William Gouge, The Sabbath's Sanctification, pp. 3-4:

Question 11. What duties are done by the people?
...
(4.) Saying "amen" audibly to the blessing.
...
As for an audible pronouncing of "amen," if the minds of them that pronounce it have been upon that which the minister uttered, and their hearts have given consent thereto, it compriseth altogether as much as the minister hath uttered. This is the only warrantable means for people to utter their minds in a congregation. It must, therefore, be uttered by everyone, altogether, so loud, as the minister may hear their consent, as well as they hear what he hath uttered in their name. For the one is as requisite as the other.

Samuel Stone's Whole Body of Divinity

Samuel Stone, who arrived in the New World on the same boat with John Cotton and Thomas Hooker (that "glorious triumvirate" -- Cotton Mather) was an assistant to Hooker and, with him, one of the founding fathers of Hartford, Connecticut. He served as pastor there until his death. He is known for producing the first American colonial systematic theology, A Whole Body of Divinity, which was left in manuscript in 1650s and has never been published. Samuel Bellingham, son of Massachusetts Governor Richard Bellingham, proposed to do so, but did not follow through. Samuel Willard transcribed the work in 1697 (and later produced his own systematic theology, A Compleat Body of Divinity, which was an exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism). Stone's work, the fruit of his preaching in the 1630s and 1640s, was not an exposition of the Catechism, but rather a systematic theology in the vein of Alexander Richardson, John Yates and William Ames. Cotton Mather reports that Stone's work ("this rich treasure") was so highly regarded that ministerial candidates were required to copy the manuscript by hand. Willard's transcript is owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society. It is being prepared for publication by Baird Tipson, president of Washington College, who notes that "Stone’s 540-page treatise is almost surely the first systematic treatment of any subject written in the new American colonies." In this reader's opinion, it will be a valuable contribution to the study of New England Puritan theology when it is published.

John Cotton on Limited Government

John Cotton, An Exposition Upon the Thirteenth Chapter of the Revelation:

This may serve to teach us the danger of allowing to any mortal man an inordinate measure of power to speak great things: to allow to any man uncontrollableness of speech; you see the desperate danger of it.

Let all the world learn to give mortal men no greater power than they are content they shall use -- for use it they will. And unless they be better taught of God, they will use it ever and anon: it may be, make it the passage of their proceeding to speak what they will. And they that have liberty to speak great things, you will find it to be true, they will speak great blasphemies. No man would think what desperate deceit and wickedness there is in the hearts of men. And that was the reason why the beast did speak such great things; he might speak and nobody might control him: "What," saith the Lord (in Jer. 3. 5), "thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldst." If a church or head of a church could have done worse, he would have done it. This is one of the strains of nature: it affects boundless liberty, and to run to the utmost extent. Whatever power he hath received, he hath a corrupt nature that will improve it in one thing or other; if he have liberty, he will think why may he not use it?

Set up the Pope as Lord Paramount over kings and princes, and they shall know that he hath power over them; he will take liberty to depose one and set up another. Give him power to make laws, and he will approve and disapprove as he list: what he approves is canonical, what he disapproves is rejected. Give him that power, and he will so order it at length, he will make such a state of religion, that he that so lives and dies shall never be saved; and all this springs from the vast power that is given to him and from the deep depravation of nature. He will open his mouth: "His tongue is his own, who is Lord over him" (Psal. 12. 3, 4).

It is therefore most wholesome for magistrates and officers in church and commonwealth never to affect more liberty and authority than will do them good, and the people good: for whatever transcendent power is given will certainly overrun those that give it and those that receive it. There is a strain in a man's heart that will sometime or other run out to excess, unless the Lord restrain it; but it is not good to venture it.

It is necessary, therefore, that all power that is on earth be limited, church-power or other. If there be power given to speak great things, then look for great blasphemies, look for a licentious abuse of it. It is counted a matter of danger to the state to limit perogatives; but it is a further danger not to have them limited. A prince himself cannot tell where he will confine himself, nor can the people tell; but if he have liberty to speak great things, then he will make and unmake, say and unsay, and undertake such things as are neither for his own honor nor for the safety of the state.

It is therefore fit for every man to be studious of the bounds which the Lord hath set: and for the people, in whom fundamentally all power lies, to give as much power as God in His word gives to men. And it is meet that magistrates in the commonwealth, and so officers in churches, should desire to know the utmost bounds of their own power, and it is safe for both. All intrenchment upon the bounds which God hath not given, they are not enlargements, but burdens and snares; they will certainly lead the spirit of a man out of his way, sooner or later.

It is wholesome and safe to be dealt withal as God deals with the vast sea: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but there shalt thou stay thy proud waves." And therefore if they be but banks of simple sand, they will be good enough to check the vast, roaring sea. And so for imperial monarchies: it is safe to know how far their power extends; and then if it be but banks of sand, which is most slippery, it will serve as well as any brazen wall. If you pinch the sea of its liberty, though it be walls of stone or brass, it will beat them down. So it is with magistrates: stint them where God hath not stinted them, and if they were walls of brass, they would beat them down, and it is meet they should; but give them the liberty God allows, and if it be but a wall of sand it will keep them.

As this liquid air in which we breathe, God hath set it for the waters of the clouds to the earth; it is a firmament, it is the clouds, yet it stands firm enough; because it keeps the climate where they are, it shall stand like walls of brass. So let there be due bounds set -- and I may apply it to families: it is good for the wife to acknowledge all power and authority to the husband, and for the husband to acknowledge honor to the wife; but still give them that which God hath given them, and no more nor less. Give them the full latitude that God hath given, else you will find you dig pits, and lay snares, and cumber their spirits, if you give them less; there is never peace where full liberty is not given, nor ever stable peace where more than full liberty is granted. Let them be duly observed, and give men no more liberty than God doth, nor women, for they will abuse it. The devil will draw them, and God's providence lead them thereunto; therefore give them no more than God gives.

And so for children and servants, for any others you are to deal with: give them the liberty and authority you would have them use, and beyond that stretch not the tether; it will not tend to their good nor yours. And also, from hence gather and go home with this meditation: that certainly here is this distemper in our natures, that we cannot tell how to use liberty, but we shall very readily corrupt ourselves. Oh, the bottomless depth of sandy earth! of a corrupt spirit, that breaks over all bounds, and loves inordinate vastness! That is it we ought to be careful of.