corrupted the grass with their feet, and troubled the waters with their feet. Now, in the Scripture, when this word, feet, doth not signify that part of man's body which is ordinarily so called, but is transferred to a metaphorical signification, (as in our text it is) it does most commonly signify affections, or power. So the Lord will keep the feet of his saints; direct their desires, and affections in the ways of holiness. And then for power, (which is the more frequent acceptation of the word) he will not suffer thy foot to be moved, that is, thy power to be shaked; and all such places, Qui festinat pedibus, He that hasteth with his feet sinneth", our interpreters expound of a hasty abuse of power; and those, They have not refrained their feet, and then, Thy feet are sunk in the mire, are still interpreted of power, of a wanton abuse of power, or of a withdrawing this power from man, by God; feet signifies affections, and them corrupted and depraved, and power, and that abused. David seems to have joined them, (as when they are joined, they must necessarily be the most heavy) in that prayer, Let not the foot of pride come against me". The hand of pride, nay the sword of pride, affects not a tender soul so much, as the foot of pride; to be oppressed, and that with scorn; not so much in an anger, as in a wantonness. Rehoboam's people were more confounded, with that scornful answer of his to them, when they were come, (My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions 23) than they were with the grievances themselves, for which they came; when the king would not only be cruelly sharp, but wittily sharp upon them, this cut on every side, and pierced deep. And so do the rabbins, the Jewish expositors expound this text, literally, that in the captivity of Babylon, the great men of their synagogues, compounded with the state, and for certain tributes, had commissions, by which they governed their people at their pleasure, and so milked them to the last drop, the last drop of blood, and sheared them to the naked skin, and then flayed off that, and all this while laughed at them, contemned them, because they had 17 1 Sam. ii. 9. 18 Psalm cxxi. 3. 19 Prov. xix. 2. 21 Jer. xxxviii. 22. 23 1 Kings xii. 10. nowhere to appeal, nor relieve themselves: and this we complain to have been the proceeding in the Italian Babylon, Rome, with our fathers, they oppressed them, with their feet, that is, with power, and with scorn. First, for their illimited and enormous power, they had so slumbered, so intoxicated the princes of the earth, the weaker by intimidations, the stronger by communicating the spoil, and suffering those princes to take some fleeces, from some of the sheep in their dominions, as there was no relief any way. They record, nay they boast, gloriously, triumphantly, of threescore thousand of the Waldenses, slain by them in a day, in the beginning of the Reformation; and Possevine the Jesuit will not lose the glory of recording the five hundred thousand, slain in a very few years, only in France, and the Low Country, for some declarations of their desire of a reformation. Let all those innumerable numbers of wretches, (but now victorious saints in the triumphant church) who have breathed out their souls in the Inquisition (where even the solicitations of kings, and that for their own sons, have not prevailed) confess the power, the immenseness of that power, then, when as under some of the Roman emperors, it was treason to weep, treason to sigh, treason to look pale, treason to fall sick, and all these were made arguments of discontent, and ill affection, to the present government: so in Rome, there were heretical sighs, heretical tears, heretical paleness, and heretical sickness; everything was interpreted to be an accusation of the present times, and an anhelation after a reformation, and that was formal heresy, three-piled, deep-dyed heresy so that a man durst scarce have prayed for the enlarging of God's blessings to the church, because to wish it better, seemed a kind of accusing of it, that it was not well already; and it was heresy to think so. Let those Israelites, which found no way from this Egypt, but by the Red Sea, no way out of idolatry, but by martyrdom, as they have testified for Christ, so testify against Antichrist, how heavy his feet, as feet signify power, trod upon the necks of princes and people. But that that affected and afflicted most, was the scorn and the contempt, that accompanied their oppressions. To bring kings to kiss his feet, was a scorn; but that scorn determined in man; but it was a scorn to God himself, to say that he had said, it should be so, to apply Scripture to the justification thereof, Kings and queens shall bow down to thee, their faces towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet". But limit we all considerations of their scorn in one; in this, that they did these wrongs professedly, and without any disguise. Great men will oppress and ruin others, a great while before they will be content to be seen and known to do it. There is such a kind of reverence, not only for the law, but even to honour, and opinion, as that men are loath to publish their evil actions; to sin as Sodom did, and not to hide it, is an evidence, of neglecting, and scorning of all the world. And therefore the Roman historiographers would not forbear to note the insolency of that young gallant, who knowing what any man whom he struck could recover by action against him, would strike every poor soul or inferior person, whom he met in the street, and then bid his man give him so much money, as the law would for damages. And this oppressing with scorn, this proceeding without any respect of fame, we note (for haste) but in two things, in the Italian Babylon Rome; first, in that book, their Taxa Cameræ, and then in that doctrine, their reservatio casuum, that they durst compose, and divulge such a book, as their Taxa Camera, which is an index, a repertory for all sins, and in which every man may see beforehand, how much money, an adultery, an incest, a murder, a parricide, or any other sin, whose name he would never have thought of, but by that remembrancer, that book will cost him, that so, he may sin, and not undo himself, sin according to his means, and within his compass, that they durst let the world see such a book, was "rgument enough that they were seared up, and scorned all th 1 men could think, or say, or do in opposition. So also is their reservation of cases; that though all priests have an equal power of remitting all sins, yet are some sins reserved only to prelates, some only to the pope's legates, some only to the pope himself. Is not this a scornful spurning and kicking of the world, a plain telling them that all money, and shall be so, say all the world what it can? is done for They have a national custom in civil courtesies in that place in Italy, to offer 24 Isaiah XLIX. 23. entertainments and lendings of money, and the like, but it must not be accepted. It is a discourtesy, to take their courteous offers in earnest. Will they play so with the great seal of heaven, the remission and absolution of sins, and send out their priests with that commission, Whose sins ye forgive are forgiven, but see you forgive none upon which we have set a higher price, and reserved to ourselves. They had such a fashion in old Rome, whilst the republic stood; he that was admitted to triumph must invite the consuls to the feast, and the consuls must promise to come, but they must forbear, lest their presence should diminish the glory of the triumpher. So the priest must profess that he hath (as he hath indeed) power to remit all sins, but there are a great many, that he must not meddle withal. They practise this reservation upon higher persons than their ordinary priests, upon cardinals. A cardinal is created, and by that creation he hath a voice in all the great affairs of the world, but at his creation os clauditur à papa, he that made him, makes him dumb, and he that out of the nature of his place is duly to be heard over all the world, must not be heard in the consistory, the pope gives him an universal voice, and then shuts his mouth; he makes him first a giant, and then a dwarf in an hour; he makes him thunder, and speechless, all at once; fearful to the kings of the earth, if he might speak, but he must not. They were not content to make merchandise of our souls, but they make plays, jests, scorns, of matter of salvation, and 'play fast and loose with that sovereign balsamum of our souls, the absolution and remission of sins. Though, no doubt, many of them confess in their own bosoms, that which one of them professes ingenuously, and publicly, Diffite possumus abusum reservationum, et stragem animarum in iis25; We cannot deny the abuse of reservations, even to the butchery of those poor souls, who by reason of these reservations, want their absolution, dolendum, deflendum, pecuniâ numeratâ, omnia dispensare: this deserves all our tears, all our sighs, that for money, and not without it, all sins are dispensed withal; but there are fixed seasons for salvation, (some remissions and pardons are reserved to certain times of the year) and there are fixed shops of salvation, (some remissions and pardons are appropriated to certain fairs and markets, and cannot be given (that is, sold,) at any other time or place. And farther we cannot (we need not) extend this accommodation of the words of our text, literally intended of the condition of God's children in Babylon, but pregnantly appliable to the condition of our fathers in the Italian Babylon, Rome. But having at this time seen the oppressions that those shepherds inflicted there, for the rest which are many and important considerations, as first that they stayed, that they eat that grass, that yet they remained God's sheep, and remained his flock, his church, though a church under a greater church; and then the behaviour of the sheep, whilst they stayed there, their obedience to God's call in coming from them when he called them, and made them way; and lastly the little ground that our separatists can have, for their departing from us, either by Israel's departing from Babylon, or our fathers' departing from Rome, must be the exercise of your devotion another day. SERMON CVI. PREACHED at whitehall. The Second Sermon on EZEKIEL XXXiv. 19. And as for my flock, they eat that, which ye have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. As by way of accommodation, we have considered these words, as they concern the iniquity and oppression of the shepherds, (that is, the chief rulers amongst the Jews) in the Chaldean Babylon, and as they are appliable to the condition of our fathers in the Italian Babylon, Rome, so now in this exercise are we to consider, the behaviour of the sheep, their nature, and their demeanour under all these pressures; in which we have many steps to go; all these; first, manebant, that for all this ill usage there they did stay, they did not break out, nor scatter themselves, manebant: and then edebant, though their grass were trodden, and their water troubled, yet they did cat that grass, and they did |