God and God's vicegerent only are the lords of lives who made us judges, and princes, or gods? And if we be not such, we are murderers and villains. When Moses would have parted the duellists that fought in Egypt, the injurious person asked him, Who made thee a judge or ruler over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?' meaning, he had no power to kill, none to judge of life and death, unless he had been made. a ruler. Yea, but flesh and blood cannot endure a blow or a disgrace. Grant that too; but take this into the account, flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God.' And yet besides this, those persons have but a tender stock of reason, and wisdom, and patience, who have not discourse enough to make them bear an injury, which the philosophy of the Gentiles, without the light of Christianity, taught them to tolerate with so much equanimity and dispassionate entertainment. That person is not a man, who knows not how to suffer the inconvenience of an accident, and indiscretion of light persons or if he could not, yet certainly that is a mad impatience, when a man, to remedy the pain of a drop of scalding water, shall drench himself in the liquid flames of pitch and a bituminous bath.

7. Truth is, to fight a duel is a thing that all kingdoms are bound to restrain with highest severity it is a consociation of many the worst acts that a person ordinarily can be guilty of: it is want of charity, of justice, of humility, of trust in God's providence; it is therefore pride, and murder, and injustice, and infinite unreasonableness; and nothing of a Christian, nothing of excuse, nothing of honour is in it, if God and wise men be admitted judges of the lists. And it would be con

sidered, that every one who fights a duel, must reckon himself as dead or dying: (for however any man flatters himself, by saying he will not kill if he could avoid it; yet rather than be killed he will, and to the danger of being killed his own act exposes him.) Now, is it a good posture for a man to die with a sword in his hand, thrust at his brother's breast, with a purpose either explicit or implicit to have killed him? Can a man die twice, that in case he miscarries, and is damned for the first ill dying, he may mend his fault, and die better the next time? Can his vain, imaginary, and fantastic shadow of reputation, make him recompence for the disgrace and confusion of face, and pains and horrors of eternity? Is there no such thing as forgiving injuries, nothing of the discipline of Jesus in our spirits? Are we called by the name of Christ, and have nothing in us but the spirit of Cain, and Nimrod, and Joab? If neither reason nor religion can rule us, neither interest nor safety can determine us, neither life nor eternity can move us, neither God nor wise men be sufficient judges of honour to us; then our damnation is just, but it is heavy; our fall is certain, but it is cheap, base, and inglorious. And let not the vanities, or the gallants of the world slight this friendly monition, rejecting it with a scorn, because it talketh like a divine: it were no disparagement if they would do so too, and believe accordingly; and they would find a better return of honour in the crowns of eternity, by talking like a divine, than by dying like a fool; by living in imitation and obedience to the laws of the holy Jesus, than by perishing, or committing murder, or by attempting it, or by venturing it, like a weak, impotent, passionate,

and brutish person. Upon this chapter it is sometimes asked, whether a virgin may not kill a ravisher to defend her chastity. Concerning which,

as we have no special and distinct warrant, so there is, in reason and analogy of the gospel, much for the negative for since his act alone cannot make her criminal, and is no more than a wound in my body, or a civil or a natural inconvenience; it is unequal to take a life in exchange for a lesser injury, and it is worse that I take it myself. Some great examples we find in story, and their names are remembered in honour: but we can make no judgment of them, but that their zeal was reprovable for its intemperance, though it had excellency in the matter of the passion.

8. But if we may not secure our honour, or be revenged for injuries by the sword, may we not crave the justice of the law, and implore the vengeance of the judge, who is appointed for vengeance against evil-doers?' And the judge being the king's officer, and the king God's vicegerent, it is no more than imploring God's hand; and that is 'giving place to wrath,' which St. Paul speaks of; that is, permitting all to the divine justice. To this I answer, that it is not lawful to go to law for every occasion or slighter injury, because it is very distant from the mercies, forgiveness, and gentleness of a Christian, to contest for trifles: and it is certain, that the injuries, or evil, or charges of trouble and expense will be more vexatious and afflictive to the person contested, than a small instance of wrong is to the person injured. And it is a great intemperance of anger and impotence of spirit, a covetousness and impatience, to appeal to the judge for determination concerning a lock of camel's-hair

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or a goat's beard; I mean, any thing that is less than the gravity of laws, or the solemnity of a court, and that does not outweigh the inconveniences of a suit. But this we are to consider in the expression of our blessed Saviour: If a man will sue thee at the law, and take thy cloak, let him have thy coat also.'' Which words are a particular instance in pursuit of the general precept, resist not,' or 'avenge not evil.' The primitive Christians (as it happens in the first fervours of a discipline) were sometimes severe in observation of the letter, not subtly distinguishing counsels from precepts, but swallowing all the words of Christ without chewing or discrimination. They abstained from tribunals, unless they were forced thither by persecutors; but went not thither to repeat their goods. And if we consider suits of law, as they are wrapped in circumstances of action and practice, with how many subtleties and arts they are managed, how pleadings are made mercenary, and that it will be hard to find right counsel that shall advise you to desist if your cause be wrong, (and therefore there is great reason to distrust every question, since, if it be never so wrong, we shall meet advocates to encourage us and plead for it,) what danger of miscarriages, of uncharitableness, anger, and animosities, what desires to prevail, what care and fearfulness of the event, what innumerable temptations do intervene, how many sins are secretly insinuated in our hearts and actions! If a suit were of itself never so lawful, it would concern the duty of a Christian to avoid it, as he prays against temptations, and cuts off the opportunities

Matt. v. 40.

of a sin. It is not lawful for a Christian to sue his brother at the law, unless he can be patient if he loses, and charitable if he be wronged, and can prosecute his end without any mixture of covetousness, or desires to prevail, without envy, or can believe himself wrong when his judge says he is, or can submit to peace when his just cause is oppressed, and rejected, and condemned, and without pain or regret can sit down by the loss of his right, and of his pains, and his money. And if he can do all this, what need he go to law? He may with less trouble and less danger take the loss singly, and expect God's providence for reparation, than disentitle himself to that by his own frowardness, and take the loss when it comes laden with many circumstances of trouble.

9. But however by accident it may become unlawful to go to law in a just cause, or in any, yet by this precept we are not forbidden. To go to law for revenge we are simply forbidden; that is, to return evil for evil; and therefore all those suits which are for vindictive sentences, not for reparative, are directly criminal. To follow a thief to death for spoiling my goods, is extremely unreasonable and uncharitable: for as there is no proportion between my goods and his life, (and therefore I demand it to his evil and injury,) so the putting him to death repairs not my estate: the first makes it in me to be unjust, the latter declares me malicious and revengeful. If I demand an eye for an eye, his eye extinguished will not enlighten mine; and therefore to prosecute him to such purposes, is to resist or render evil with evil, directly against Christ's sermon. But if the postulation of sentence be in order only to restore myself, we find