Fifty Godly and Learned Sermons (The Decades)

Let no man suffer himself to be seduced and carried away, with any coloured intent, how goo•ly to the eye soever it be, which is in deed a mere vanity and detestable iniquity. To God obedience is much more acceptable than sacrifices are. Neither do the decrees of the highest need any whit at all our fond additions.

Let no man suffer himselfe to bee seduced and caried away, with any coloured intent, how goo•ly to the eye secuer it bee, which is in deede a meere vanitie and detestable iniquitie. To God obedience is much more acceptable than sacrifices are. Neither doe the decrees of the highest néede any whit at al our fond additions.

Here followeth now the second part of the magistrates ordinance, which ¹consisteth in making good laws for the preservation of honesty, justice, and public peace. Which is likewise accomplished in good and upright laws. But some there are who think it mere tyranny, to lay laws on free mens backs, as it were a yoke upon necks not used to labour: supposing that every one ought rather to be left to his own will and discretion. The Apostle in deed did say: The law is not given for the just, but for the unjust. But the cause, why the law is not given to the just, is, because he is just: For the just worketh justice, and doth of his own accord the thing which the law exacteth of every mortal man. Wherefore, the law is not troublesome to the just man, because it is agreeable to the mind and thoughts of upright livers, who do ⟨p. 187⟩embrace it with all their hearts. But the unjust desireth nothing more than to live as he justeth, he is not conformable in any point to the law, and therefore must he by the law be kept under, and bridled from marring himself and hurting other. So then, since to good men the laws are no troublesome burden, but an acceptable pleasure, which are also necessary for the unjust, as ordained for the bridling of lawless and unruly people, it followeth consequently that they are good and profitable for all men, and not to be rejected of any man. What may be said of that moreover, that God himself, who did foresee the disposition of us men, what we would be, and hath still favoured the true liberty, which he desired always to have preserved among his people, as one that ever meant them good, and never did ordain the thing that should turn to their hinderance or discommodity, that God himself (I say) was their lawgiver, and hath not suffered any age at any time to live as people without all law? Yea too, those common weals have been happy always, that have admitted laws, and submitted themselves to be governed by laws: When as contrarily those kingdoms have of all other been most miserable, and torn in pieces by civil dissentions & foreign enemies, which having banished upright laws, did strive to maintain their own kind of freedom, their uncontrolled dealing, and licentious liberty, that is, their beastly lust and uncivil rudeness.