Published
articles, lectures, chapters
DECALOGUE DOD AND HIS SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BESTSELLER
A Four Hundredth Anniversary Appreciation
St Antholin’s Lecture, 2004
"Decalogue"
Dod …
The first thirty
years
John Dod was born
in around 1549 near Malpas in
We know little of
Dod's early spiritual life but at some point while a fellow at Jesus a false
accusation was brought against him of having defrauded the college of a sum of
money due from one of his pupils. Dod
fell into a severe fever and while ill
"his sins came upon him like armed men and the tide of his thoughts
was turned."[2] Dod was cleared of the charge and he thereafter
began to preach at a weekly lecture set up by the godly of Ely.
It was around
this time that the incident of the Sermon on Malt occurred. As recounted by the
DNB, Dod "had preached strongly at
Whilst at
Ministry at
Hanwell and beyond
In 1585, perhaps
upon Dod's marriage to his first wife Anne, step-daughter of Richard Greenham
and sister of the later renowned sabbatarian Nicholas Bownde[5], Chaderton recommended Dod to Sir Anthony
Cope, patron of St Peter's, Hanwell in Oxfordshire. Cope was, in Knappen's
words, "collecting a fine assortment of Puritan ministers"[6]
and in addition to bringing Dod to Hanwell, he secured, at around the same
time, the appointment of Robert Cleaver as minister of nearby Drayton.[7] Here Dod was to serve for almost twenty
years and the shape and character of his ministry at Hanwell and in subsequent
pastorates led Haller to make the remarkable claim that "no one probably
did more than he to fix by personal influence and example the way of life and
style of preaching followed for generations by the rank and file of the Puritan
ministry."[8]
Certainly his
ministry made a great impact upon many people and in many ways. At his funeral
sermon it was said that he gave himself at Hanwell to "much fasting and
prayer and as his seed-time was painful, so his harvest was gainful, hundreds
of souls being converted to his ministry."[9] A number of local ministers, resenting the
popularity of Dod's preaching forbade their parishioners to go to hear him.
Instead, perhaps, they went to the weekly lecture at Banbury, (a town which,
according to Collinson, was fast-becoming a "by-word for puritanism")
where Dod was one of four lecturers.[10]
Others included Robert Cleaver and, later, Robert Harris and Henry
Scudder. Dod was influential in knitting
together a community of clergy in the area and himself took tutees at his own
household seminary.[11]
Preaching
Dod's preaching
was all that the puritans looked for. It was godly, learned, plain, pithy,
affectionate and practical. His method
was typical and formative of puritan preaching:
John
Dod … would stand up to preach with nothing more in his hand than 'the Analisis
of his Text, the proofs of Scripture for the Doctrines, with the Reasons and
Uses.' … His manner was to begin by 'opening a verse or two, or more at a time,
first clearing the drift and connection, then giving the sense and interpretation
briefly, but very plainly, not leaving the text untill he had made it plain to
the meanest capacity.' Next he cleared
and exemplified the doctrines by reference to scripture itself, the preacher,
'opening his proofs, not multiplying particulars for oppressing memory, not
dwelling so long as to make all truth run though a few texts.' Finally he spoke
'most largely and very home in application, mightily convincing and diving into
mens hearts and consciences, leaving them little or nothing to object against
it'.[12]
His main themes
were so clear that he became known as "Faith and Repentance"
Dod. His directness was such that on one
occasion "a person being … enraged at his close and awakening doctrine,
picked a quarrel with him, smote him in the face and dashed out two of his
teeth." At this, "this meek
and lowly servant of Christ, without taking the least offence, spit out the
teeth and blood into his hand, and said, 'See here, you have knocked out two of
my teeth without any just provocation; but on condition I might do your soul
good, I would give you leave to dash out all the rest'."[13] And his insight into souls was so searching
that "some said he must have had spies and informers at work for
him." His reply, we are told was "that the Word of God was searching,
and that if he was shut up in a dark Vault, where none could come at him, yet
allow him but a Bible and a candle, and he should preach as he did."[14]
Others were less
appreciative and yet, again, his response tells us much about the man, his
priorities and his character:
When
someone complained at the length of his sermons, his rejoinder was that if
'Gentlemen will follow hounds from seven in the morning till four or five in the
afternoon, because they love the cry of dogs, … we should be content though the
Minister stood above his hour.' And he
added, 'methinks it is much better to hear a Minister preach than a kennel of
hounds to bark'.[15]
His preaching was
not, however, his whole ministry. After sermon any who wished to could go back
to his house to eat and to rehearse and further apply the sermon. Dod loved to be with people and he loved to
talk. He became known for his pithy sayings and later in the seventeenth
century broadsides of "Dod's Droppings" were widely sold, providing
biblical counsel, almanac style for generations to come.
Dod was also
ready at all times to meet with needy souls. Haller, following Clarke,
describes his practice:
His
habit was to use the church edifice itself for his pastoral study … There
perplexed souls would find him and "if he thought them bashful, he would
meet them and say, 'Would you speak with me?' And when he found them unable to
state their question, he would help them out with it, taking care to find the
sore: But would answer and deal so compassionately and tenderly, as not to
discourage the poorest soul from coming again.[16]
Physician of
souls and godly guide
Indeed, over the
years at Hanwell and afterwards, Dod "built up a national reputation as a
godly guide."[17]
On several occasions he helped dying believers to assurance. After early failures in which Dod declared
that 'the Devill's rhetoricke taught her against herself', Dod and Thomas
Hooker between them even brought the famously melancholic Joan Drake of Esher
out of her spiritual distress before her death in 1625, something which John
Preston, James Ussher, Richard Sibbes and Ezekiel Culverwell had all attempted
without success.[18]
Dod became a good
friend of John Preston, and it was after Dod persuaded him that "English preaching
was like to work more and win more souls to God" that Preston declined to
become the Lady Margaret Divinity Professor at Cambridge.[19] Later, in July 1628 and knowing that he had
little time left to live, Preston asked to be taken to Fawsley in order to
receive dying comfort from Dod. A few days later Dod preached Preston's funeral
sermon.[20]
His counsel was
sought by several puritans as they tried to make up their minds in the 1630s whether
or not to leave the country for New England. In 1633 he dissuaded George Hughes
and John Ball from doing so. John Cotton and Thomas Hooker, on the other hand
received a different reply. Dod explained that he believed it was legitimate to
leave although as an elderly man he did not intend to do so himself: 'When
Peter was young he might gird himself and go whither he would; but when he was
old and unfit for travel, then indeed God called him rather than to suffer
himself to be girt of others, and lead along to prison and death'. Cotton expressed concern for the
congregations of those pastors who left and Dod at once replied, 'That the
removing of a minister was like the draining of a fish pond: the good fish will
follow the water, but eels, and other baggage fish, will stick in the mud.'[21]
Nonconformist but
no separatist
Collinson
describes Dod as a "nonconformist within the Church of England" and
in this sense he is the typical early English puritan.
When
Simeon Ashe and John Wall wrote a commendatory epistle for one of [Samuel]
Clarke's earliest ventures, in December 1649, they expressed interest in the
further publication of the 'characters' of such as Preston, Sibbes, Dod and
Hildersham who all their lives had 'kept a due distance from Brownistical separatism and were
zealously affected towards the Presbyterial
Government of the Church'.[22]
His zeal for
presbyterial government is unsurprising given his membership of Chaderton's
group and his closeness to Cartwright back in the 1570s. Another indication of his nonconformity was
his setting up of three benches at St Peter's, Hanwell for the reception of the
elements of the Lord's Supper (this so that the elements would not be received
kneeling).[23] Three times he was suspended from the
ministry and on numerous other occasions he was cited. In 1616 he approved of
Henry Jacob gathering a covenanting church in Southwark.[24]
Moreover, Webster
tells us
There
is a small hint of the practice of particular church discipline in the refusal of
John Dod to read out in church the sentence of the ecclesiastical court on a
fornicator of his flock because the young man had already taken penance before
his fellow parishioners before he had been examined by the archdeacon in 1633.[25]
And yet, for all
this, Dod was no separatist. Spurr
refers to a communication of 1637 in which,
A
group of thirteen English nonconformist clergy, headed by the aged Dod and
Cleaver, wrote to the New England clergy … reminding them that when they had
all lived in the same kingdom, they had jointly 'maintained the purity of
worship against corruptions, both on the right hand and on the left'. But now
they had heard that their brethren in New England taught that set prayers were
unlawful, and the godly should not 'join in prayer' or 'receive the sacraments'
where such a 'stinted liturgy is used'. Did not this lend support to their
opponents' charges that 'nonconformists in practice are separatists in heart?'[26]
Dod would have
none of it. Nonconformist in practice he certainly was and he suffered for it.
Separatist in heart he emphatically was not, looking as he did for reform of
the national church according to the Word of God.
After Hanwell
In January 1604,
Dod, along with another thirty or so puritan ministers held private meetings
alongside the Hampton Court Conference.
The outcome of the Conference itself was a great disappointment to the
puritan party and over the next few years around three hundred ministers lost
their livings. That Dod and Cleaver feared exactly this is clear from the
Epistle Dedicatory of A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Tenne
Commandements, dated September 1604.
They give three reasons for dedicating the work to their patron, Sir
Anthony Cope, and all three reasons have some foreboding about them:
First,
to testifie our unfained thankfulnesse for all the singular favours, which we
have received at your hands, for the space of these twentie yeares. Wherein you
have alwayes shewed yourselfe as willing to ayde and defend us in our just cause,
as you were carefull to make choice of us, at our first entrance into our
places.
Secondly,
because we know not how soone we shall finish the dayes of our Ministerie, we
thought it our dutie to give some taste, and to leave some testimony thereof
unto the world, to witnesse your godly desire to discharge the trust committed
unto you, and our faithfull endevours to performe the dutie belonging unto us.
Lastly,
for that having formerly heard whatsoever is here set downe in writing, and
also having throughly knowne the manner of our doctrine and conversations, you
are best able even of your owne knowledge, to make our defence to any that
shall unjustly except against us.
Their anxieties
were justified. Shortly afterwards, Dod was suspended from his living by Bishop
Bridges of Oxford. For some while he
remained in the area, supporting his successor, Robert Harris, later Master of
Trinity Oxford and member of Westminster Assembly, and also preparing works on the Proverbs for
publication. The first of these was
issued in 1606 and Dod states simply, "We are now more willing to make
some work for the press because we have no employment in the pulpit."[27]
Taking into
account what has already been said about Dod's preaching ministry and his
counsel to many seeking godly guidance, the story of the next forty years is
quickly told. He held positions in Fenny
Compton in Warwickshire and then in Canons Ashby in Northamptonshire between
1607 and 1611, being 'silenced' by Archbishop Abbott in 1611. Little is known of the next twelve years of
his life beyond the publication of a series of books on the Proverbs with
Cleaver.
In 1624, however,
he was settled as Rector of Fawsley in Northamptonshire under the protection of
Sir Richard Knightley, the Puritan squire of Fawsley Hall. His preaching and lecturing, his cure of
souls, his encouragement of godly learned ministers and his writing continued
over the next twenty years. At over ninety years old he wrote to Lady Mary Vere
and offered if he 'might any way be helpful to your Ladyship to resolve you of
any doubts or questions in your heart, I should be glad ere my departure, now
at hand, to do you any service this way.'[28] In August 1645, at around 95 years of age, he
died.
Dod's Stature
Little man though
he was, Dod was a giant. Collinson,
possibly the foremost living scholar of Elizabethan puritanism calls him,
simply, "the great John Dod".[29] Numerous writers refer to him as a
"puritan patriarch". By
personal contact and involvement he was at the heart of English puritanism from
the 1570s right through until the 1630s. Thomas Cartwright, Arthur Hildersham,
Richard Greenham, Laurence Chaderton, William Gouge, Ezekiel Culverwell,
William Perkins, John Preston, Richard Sibbes, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker: the
list of those who honoured him as personal friend and leader of the movement
itself reads like a roll-call of puritan greats. Archbishop Ussher declared,
"Whatever some affirm of Mr Dod's strictness, and scrupling some
ceremonies, I desire that when I die my soul may rest with his."[30] Further, by personal example and influence he
advanced the cause of a learned and godly ministry and of biblically mature
personal religion as few others have done in the history of this nation. And in
his best-selling book, Dod's Decalogue, he provides us with classic
puritan practical divinity, the pure embodiment of the genre, and a powerful
example of what is and what is great about English puritanism. It is to that
book that we now turn.
… and his
seventeenth century bestseller
A Plaine and
Familiar Exposition of the Tenne Commandements by John Dod and
Robert Cleaver was first published in 1604 and became a publishing phenomenon
of the seventeenth century. In the
Epistle Dedicatory to their patron, Sir Anthony Cope, the authors explain the
circumstances which occasioned the book's publication. In 1603, some
enthusiastic hearers of Dod's and Cleaver's sermons on the commandments had
"published their notes (as themselves could gather them in the time of the
Sermon) without our knowledge or consent, and many faults were escaped in
writing and Printing which by due care and foresight might have been prevented:
therefore both for our clearing, and the better satisfying of the Christian
Reader, we were compelled to review and refine the whole Treatise. Wherein we
have jointly laboured as near as we could to set down every thing, without
addition or detraction, as it was first delivered in the public Ministry."[31]
The book proved
to be immensely popular, running to nineteen editions over the next thirty
years and, according to Collinson, making Dod and Cleaver "the most
successful co-authors of the century"[32] Other than the Bible and the Psalm-book, it
was the most commonly-owned book in early Plymouth Colony[33]
and in his well-known description of "the poorest or smallest library that
is tolerable", Richard Baxter places "Mr Dod. on the
Commandments" in his list of must-have "affectionate practical
English writers".[34]
One of the
earliest published commendations of the work combines quaintness with accuracy.
William Gamage, a Welsh gentleman vicar-poet wrote two "centuries" of
epigrams in 1613. One of them was for a friend who had lent him "Dod and
Cleaver on the Decalogue" and ran as follows:
Dod with his
Cleaver cleaves the stonie rocke
Of our hard harts through their laborious paine:
And plaines the way most plaine for Christ his flock,
That leads o’re
hils to the celestiall plaine.
These paire of friends with thankes I send againe,
Though two in Name, in Nature yet not twaine.[35]
The contents of
the book are easily described. After the
Epistle Dedicatory and "A Friendly Counsel to the Christian Reader"
in verse, the body of the work consists of eleven sections, namely, one section
on the prefatory words of Exodus 20.1-2 and then one section on each of the
commandments. These sections are on average thirty pages long with the longest
being the sixty-four page treatment of the fifth commandment and the shortest
the nine page treatment of the tenth commandment. The main body of the work is followed by a
thirteen page catechism borrowed from another author and giving such readers as
are "wearied with the larger Discourse upon the Commandments … a
compendious abridgement of all the substantial points of Religion."[36] The book closes with a versified meditation
on God's name from Exodus 34, a table of "Doctrines dispersed in this Book
gathered together"[37]
and finally an index, "A Table of the principal things contained in this
Exposition."
As to the genre
of the book, it is that most characteristic of puritan published works, the
printed sermon series and is therefore shaped by the distinctively puritan
method of sermon structuring. The puritan sermon had three parts: exegetical,
doctrinal and applicatory. In the first, relatively brief, exegetical part, the
setting, the words and the divisions of the text would be explained. Next would
follow "doctrine" and "use", sometimes just one doctrine
followed by between two and five uses, and at other times a whole series of
doctrines, each applied with a number of uses.
The doctrinal part would be built around and upon a didactic proposition
either stated in or deduced from the text and this would then be explained,
confirmed and illustrated with reasons given and objections dealt with. The uses
would bring the doctrine to bear upon the lives of the hearers. Common types of use were for trial ('where do
I stand in relation to this teaching, this promise, threat, encouragement or
warning?'), for reproof ('if this is true then the following beliefs and
behaviours are shown to be wrong'), for consolation ('if this is true then the
following people should feel encouraged'), and for consideration ('if this is
true then think, think, think about what follows from it').
Various
influences shaped this puritan method of preaching: the prophesyings of the
1570s; the spiritual brotherhood of the Cambridge circle: Chaderton,
Cartwright, Hildersham, Dering, Greenham, Perkins, Ames and scores and scores
of puritan ministers up and down the country who had learned pastoral ministry
from these giants; the published distillation of method by Perkins and Ames
(influenced by Ramus); the ease with which the method could be understood and
practised; and its success in enabling hearers truly to hear the Word of God,
to remember what they had learned, to think doctrinally, to see the demand of
Scripture upon the details of their belief, conduct and experience and to
reason with themselves and with others in accordance with Reformed divinity.
And all these influences made the puritan way of handling and communicating the
truth of Scripture the method for the moment, a moment, indeed, which lasted a
century and more. Dod’s Decalogue reflects
just this method.
Ames speaks for
all puritans in his assertion that “the chief scope of the Sermon … [is] the
edification of the hearers.”[38]
Theological innovation, unreachable exegetical certitude, man-pleasing
rhetorical impressiveness were all set aside for the sake of plain declaration
and powerful application of the Word. Ames again,
They
faile therefore who stick to a naked finding out and explication of the truth …
neglecting use and practice, in which Religion, and so blessedness, doth
consist, [they] doe little or nothing edifie the conscience.[39]
There is little question
but that Ames would have been well-pleased with Dod’s Decalogue. It was
not original and nor was it theologically distinctive but it was an early
example of its type, an example which was followed many times over in the decades
ahead. It did not break new ground theologically or exegetically but neither
did it stick at the level of an expository lecture. It was intended by its
authors to change lives by the plain statement and direct application of the
truth and, in God’s hands, it achieved this to a remarkable extent and degree
in the decades after it was published.
It is
astonishing, then, given the very great influence of this book in the
seventeenth century, that it has not been reprinted since. In introducing it,
therefore, I wish much more to provide a taste than an analysis. (Analysis can
follow if a way can be found of getting Dod's Decalogue reprinted). I will do this in four ways and, as much as
possible, in Dod's own words. Over the
next pages, then, we will firstly, explore Dod's Decalogue as a splendid
example of puritan practical divinity; secondly, comment briefly upon Dod's
treatment of particular commandments; thirdly, consider the challenge to us of
Dod's views about law and obedience to law as categories of Christian thinking
and living; and fourthly, enjoy a sampling of gems from Dod's Decalogue
leaving us, hopefully, with an appetite for more.
1. Dod's Decalogue as an example of
puritan practical divinity
This great work
exemplifies what is best about puritan practical divinity in a hundred
ways. Here are just seven.
1) Human life, as
well as Christian theology, is the "art of living to God"[40]
The puritan
vision of Christian discipleship was, quite simply, God-centred. A life of
communion with God and service to him is a life of utmost blessedness and yet
the focus of attention must be God himself rather than the blessedness. Our
confidence comes from him, from his greatness and perfection:
This
must teach us earnestly to seek his love and favour, which if we have,
nothing can hurt us: For in him we live, move, and have our being. Having
his love, we have all power, wisdom, and counsel on our side. If he be perfect
in himself, and all creatures have what ever they have, from him, what need we fear
(he being with us) what all the creatures can do against us? Seeing that all their power is derived from
him, and used at his direction.[41]
This sense of the
greatness and the reality of God brings boldness:
We
may learn not to be afraid or ashamed to stand for [the commandments], as also
to practise them in our lives, though the atheists and profane sinners of the
world mock and scoff at us never so much for the same. For what need we be
ashamed to maintain those words which God himself was not ashamed in his own
person to speak?[42]
This
serves therefore exceedingly to condemn their dastardliness, that are afraid to
keep the Sabbath, or to do any other religious duty, because they should be
counted and called Puritans. But is it not better that men should hate us
without cause than that God should have a quarrel against us upon a just
cause? Is it not much better that they
should scoff at us for good, than that God should plague us for evil?[43]
And confidence:
Nothing
has any power to do a man any good but God.[44]
Furthermore, the
whole of life is to be lived in the knowledge that God not only sees all that
we do but also that he is dealing with us in all things. In avoiding rash anger, for example, the
Christian must,
labour
to get wisdom always and in every thing to behold God's providence, to see his
hand ruling every thing and to persuade ourselves that all things come to pass
according to his purpose and direction …: and then we shall not so soon fret
against men … though it be unjust with men, yet it is just with God and though
we have not deserved it at their hand and so they wrong us, yet we have
deserved that at God's hands and much more too: he does us no wrong at all
though he appoints such evil instruments to afflict us.[45]
One of the keys
lessons of God’s unchangeableness is that the record of God’s dealings with
people in the pages of Scripture can be directly applied to our own lives.[46]
God afflicts and prospers, blesses and curses, delays and delivers now as he
did in Scripture times. This is not
naïve; if anything, and so soon in the early modern period, Dod has moved
through suspicion to the second naïvete. He knows that God is exalted and
majestic but this grounds rather than undermines a confidence that he is intimately
involved with human beings in the details of their lives. He knows that reading
providence is no easy task, that the righteous are afflicted for a variety of
reasons and that the human heart is deceitful beyond knowledge but this leads
him to humility in interpreting how God deals with men and women rather than to
abandoning the belief that he does so.
Thus, life with
our eyes towards God is life as life should be.
2) The gravity of
spiritual matters requires that we be in earnest about them
The matters of
eternity weigh more heavily than the transient. Only a fool would prefer
stubble to gold or value a dumb beast more highly than a human soul. How, for example, should one decide where to
live?
This
also serves much for the reproof of them that only look to their bodies and
present estate, without any regard to their souls: and therefore whithersoever
their commodities lead them there they plant themselves. Be the towns or families never so superstitious,
that is not respected, so that gain and honour may arise to them from thence,
there they will dwell, and there they will match their children.[47]
And we therefore
argue from the greater to the lesser to comfort ourselves in temporal
affliction:
Has
he removed the tyranny of sin, which would have damned our souls and cannot he
give us refreshing from the misery of our bodies? If God deliver from sin, death and hell,
never faint, as though he could not, or would not rid us from outward
afflictions. If he have overcome the greater, the lesser shall not withstand
him. If God grant us freedom from those things that are simply evil (as sin is)
and the cause of all ills then it is easier to succour us against those which
are medicines against evil and are often turned into blessings.[48]
Self-examination
If the teachings
of Scripture are true then one cannot be too serious about spiritual realities.
It is vital that individuals know where they stand spiritually and
self-examination is a key means to this which puritan preachers constantly
urged upon their hearers. For example, Dod tells us that since obedience is
rendered by those who know God to be their God, this raises the question as to
how a person is to know whether or not he or she is the Lord's. To find out,
self-examination is necessary in order to seek certain marks. Dod lists
several:
So
that, if God the Father has regenerated us, and Christ has killed our sins; and
the holy Ghost has made us ashamed of them, to confess them, likewise if it
work in us love, and patience, and moderation of our affections, and make us
able to pray to God, then God is our God, and this will make us obey: but if
this be shaken, all is shaken: for this is the foundation of all obedience.[49]
And in describing
them more fully it becomes clear that attention must be given to spiritual
experience as well as to outward conduct:
Also
God the Son, Christ Jesus, where he comes, he kills sin, he abates our lust and
worldliness, and works a fresh spring of grace and holiness: but if we feel no work
of death in us to mortify our sin, then how can we know that he died for us?[50]
Particular
circumstances, too, will prompt self-examination. For example,
… when we see that God does not bless us
according to his promises made to those that keep his commandments, then we
must examine our selves diligently concerning our obedience to this his law,
whether we live not in some sin, or whether some old sin lie not in us, which
has never been repented of. Wherefore, when he strikes us, we must begin to examine
our obedience.[51]
Universal
obedience
Spiritual
seriousness shows itself not only in self-examination but in endeavours after
universal obedience. After all, if the Ten Commandments are the demands of God,
obedience must be universal.
Whence
it is to be learned, that whosoever will have any true comfort by his obedience
to God's law, must not content himself to look to one, or two: but must make
conscience, and have a care to keep them all and every one.[52]
Partial obedience
is insincere because in reality it is serving self rather than recognising the
loving authority of God. And partial obedience is also unstable:
And
this was Herod's case, he did many things according to John' preaching,
and did hear him gladly, and for some other commandments was reasonably willing
to be ruled: but for the seventh he must needs have a dispensation; and he kept
this resolution that let all the preachers in the world say what they could, he
would not be brought to leave his incest, nor to part with his brother's wife.
Therefore we see how soon he fell to break, first the third commandment, in
swearing sinfully to that light and wanton woman, to give her whatsoever she
should ask, and then also he grew to persecute John and cut off his head: so,
taking liberty to himself to break the seventh commandment, he cast off all
care and regard of the rest.[53]
A further aspect
of this universal obedience and earnestness about spiritual realities is, of
course, the famed puritan concern for detail, the response to the charge that
puritans were "precisians" being, simply, "I serve a precise
God". Dod expresses this concern
too. On the tenth commandment:
The
least motion after the least thing of our neighbour's is sin … there is nothing so small but it is
something … though the matter be small wherein one offends, yet it is not a
small matter to offend God.[54]
And he proves
that "the first motion and inclination of the heart to any sin … is a
sin" because
… these
lusts break God's commandments, and are against the law of charity, and come
from an evil cause, and bring with them such evil effects, therefore the least
evil imagination arising in the heart, without any agreement of the mind to put
it into practice, is sin, and deserves the curse of God.[55]
3) The presentation of Christian truth must be
Scripture-saturated
This may be
briefly stated. The whole of Dod’s Decalogue demonstrates the puritan
conviction not only that Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture but
also that the preaching of one Scripture is an occasion for instruction in
other Scriptures besides. To give
illustrations of various human traits and behaviours from Scripture stories
will thus simultaneously strengthen doctrinal grasp and increase the Bible
knowledge of the hearer. Within the first few pages of the book Dod is using as
illustrations, Eglon listening to Ehud, David listening to Abigail and Balak
listening to Balaam; Jacob examining himself; Esther and the Jews being delivered
on the day of their greatest threat; Herod obeying many commands but not all
and thus falling into judgment; David, Zechariah and Elizabeth yielding true
though not perfect obedience; and Lot being vexed in Sodom.
And this
cross-referencing is for interpretation as well as for illustration: Dod is
unafraid, for example, to use the Old Testament case law in expounding the Ten
Commandments, whether with regard to the due penalty for adultery, the twenty
per cent to be added to what was stolen when making voluntary restitution, or
the application of kidnapping laws to the treatment of servants.
Dod is at home
everywhere else in Scripture too. Passages from the Old Testament prophets are
frequently used and the book of Proverbs is a particularly favourite source of
illustration and example: it is unsurprising that Dod's next published work was
an exposition of some chapters of Proverbs itself. To listen to his preaching was a workshop for
the Bible student as well as a workout for the Christian disciple.
4) True religion
begins in the heart …
One of recurring
themes of the whole work is that true obedience is spiritual and inward and
must both proceed from a renewed heart and affect a person's inner thoughts and
affections and motivations as well as his outward conduct.
Therefore
all the obedience performed to God, must proceed from within, and come from the
heart, else it shall be no whit acceptable to him. That which grows without, if it come not from
the root of sincerity within, shall afford no comfort to our souls in the time
of trial. But if we will have our outward obedience to bring forth any fruit to
our own souls, or glory to God, we must look that it have its beginning from an
upright, sound, and faithful heart.[56]
There is real
insight into the mixed motives which characterise the sinner. On anger:
We
must never be moved without a just cause … and we [must] proportion our anger
to the sin committed against God and not to the injury done to us, for that
proceeds from pride and is no better than revenge.[57]
None are exempt.
On the false gods of preachers:
For a
man may preach and exhort others to the love of God and yet if he do this for
vain-glory and not for God's glory, to get promotion to himself and not
salvation to God's people, he at that very time sets up an idol in his heart.[58]
And it is because
of this that the "how to" sections of the work often begin with the
exhortation to appeal to God for his purifying work upon the heart.
5) … yet, as preached
and as lived, the Christian life is immensely action-oriented
Faith is a busy,
active, productive grace:
But
men will say they have faith, and believe in God: which if they had, it would
bring forth obedience and have works. For how can they choose but obey God, if
they hold this sure, that God loves and regards them, and will give them reward
for every good thing that they do? And
this every one must perform, that will say, God is my God.[59]
True repentance
will bear fruit:
We
cannot be assured of pardon for that which is past nor perseverance in a better
course, unless there be true repentance. And true repentance never goes before
but willingness to make restitution follows presently after.[60]
There is,
therefore, a resolve to clear any and all obstacles put in the way of
obedience. They may be obstacles of
understanding (why does God punish the children for the sin of the fathers?)[61]
or of nervousness, such as the fear that Sabbath-keeping may cost us too much:
Better
it were that we should hazard some part of our outward estate than the wrath of
God to fall upon us. "But when our corn or hay lies in hazard like to be
spoiled by ill weather, what will you have us do then?" Trust in God's
providence, who as he has commanded you to rest, so he will see that you shall
be no loser by your resting … faithful obedience was never any man's hindrance,
but negligence and infidelity brings all their misery.[62]
Or, indeed, it
may be the obstacle of plausible-sounding excuses for sin. With regard to taking
something very small from another's goods:
Yet
men have excuses for this their stealing.
As first, "it is a small thing, you should not make so much ado
about so little a matter." Is it a small thing? Then, the more wretched and abject sinner
you, that will corrupt yourself for so small a thing.
"Oh,
but … he can spare it well enough."
God has absolutely forbidden to take any man's goods without any such
exception as this, 'unless he can spare it'.
"It
will do him no harm". This is not
the question whether it will hurt him or not: it offends God, he has forbidden
it and therefore if you do it you sin against God and hurt your own soul.
"It
will do me good". … That is not
true, it will hinder you rather and bring a further curse on you than before.[63]
In addition to
removing excuses and doubts, Dod energetically provides encouragements and
motivations. The God who gave the command will also give the power to obey:
Also this
serves for the singular comfort of all God's children that since all these be
God's commandments, even all as well as any one, therefore they shall have
power to obey them all, as well as one. For that God that has enabled us to
keep some, can as well strengthen us to keep all the rest: because that power
which we have to obey one, is not from our selves, but from the work of God in
us. And indeed God does not give us these laws, that we should imagine that we
can obey them of our selves, but that (seeing our own wants) we should go to
him for help.[64]
And if any fear
that there are some sins which they simply will not be able to defeat, some
duties which are beyond them, Dod will strengthen their hands:
So
that no man ought to discourage himself in respect of the corruption and
frailty that cleaves most fast to him. But oh, will some say, for other things
I have some hope that I shall overcome them: but I shall never get the better
of this or that sin while I live. Well then, other sins you hope you can
overcome: but whither have you power to subdue them - by any virtue of your
own, or from the working of God's Spirit in you? If you say, from your self, then you speak
ignorantly and foolishly: for flesh cannot kill any sin, this must be the work
only of God: but if you say that Christ Jesus did give help to you against
them, why should you doubt of victory against this? He that gave you ability to over-rule your
flesh in some things, cannot he give the like in all? Yea, this very mercy, that he has given you a
disposition and power to obey him in one commandment is a sure testimony to you
that he will do the like in the rest: so that by humble, faithful and fervent
prayer, you crave this grace at his hands. This therefore which he says,
"God spoke all these words", is a marvellous encouragement to the
saints that therefore seeing their wants in any duty they may go to God and
say, "Lord, you are the author of all these commandments alike and the
keeping of them all pertains to me as well as to any other: you know, O Lord,
that there is no power in me to obey the least of them; therefore I come now
for help and grace from you to make me obedient to all as well as you have to
some". So we shall obtain grace to keep
every one as well as any one.[65]
Warnings may be
given:
This
is also for the terror of the wicked. Is God Jehovah, constant and
unchangeable? Then look what plagues proud persons have had heretofore, the
same they shall have now, unless they repent and get pardon in Christ.[66]
Basic Bible
truths will be rehearsed:
The
want of this persuasion, that God looks always fully upon us, is the cause why
men have so many covetous, so many crafty and cruel thoughts and such impure
cogitations. Yea, many are not afraid nor ashamed to think and say that, "Thought
is free". But they shall find that though it be free from men, it is not
free from God.[67]
And the
unexpressed objections or beliefs hindering obedience will be brought to the
surface and exposed:
Consider
the deceitfulness of our own hearts. One thinks now that if he had a fairer
house he should be more at quiet but may not this be a false persuasion? May
not God cross him with sickness and diseases, with shame and disgrace, with
troubles and horror of conscience? And
then the walls will not comfort him, the roof and covering will not bring him
any peace. It is not the dwelling that will bring quietness, nor the change of
the house that can settle the heart: unless we change our covetousness and
wickedness for contentedness and goodness, we shall have great grief and
vexation in great and fair houses and in the midst of our abundance. But if our
heart be good and reformed, we shall live quietly and die blessedly in
whatsoever house or place we live and die.[68]
This was not
called practical divinity for nothing. In his Exposition of the Ten
Commandments Dod deals with an astonishing array of specific life
situations in which biblical wisdom is needed. He explains why putting young
children into the full-time care of others is often unloving; he gives warnings
against standing surety unwisely; he comments on enclosure, the use of lots and
the timely payment of wages; he insists that husbands should never criticise
their wives in front of others; he explains why sodomy and oppression of the
poor are alike; he shows that bad ministers are soul-murderers; and he
describes the the characteristics of rash and sinful anger.
Three further
examples may be of interest. What are
the marks of the godly application of corporal punishment?
First,
let it be seasonable and done in time … for indeed a small twig and a few blows
when he is a child and not hardened in sin will do more good than many rods and
abundance of stripes afterwards … Secondly, it must be done in great compassion
and mercy not in bitterness, to ease oneself with the pain of the child, for
that is rage and cruelty … Thirdly, it must be done with prayer, that God would
give them wise hearts to give due and seasonable correction and their children
also soft hearts to receive it humbly and meekly and to their profit.[69]
What must a
person say who has stolen but no longer has the means of making restitution?
Yet I
resolve with myself and make a covenant with mine own conscience, that if ever I
have it, I will pay him and if I had it now, I would defer no longer, he should
have it now. In the meantime I will not cease to supply that by my prayers
which by reason of poverty is wanting in my payment; that my humble suit to God
for him may as much profit him as my sin against God and against him has
damaged him.[70]
Who is to be
given what when you draw up your will?
Let
this be the first and main rule: that those children be best respected which
are best, and those have most goods given them that have most grace in their
hearts.[71]
No unreal
heavenly-mindedness here. Common sense and down-to-earth realism shine out on
every page. How are we and how are we
not to judge others:
But
yet this must be known by the way, that
though love will not allow suspicion yet it does not thrust out discretion. It
judges not rashly but it judges justly. It is not so sharp-sighted as to see a
mote where none is, nor so purblind but it can discern a beam where it is.[72]
And even in
matters of what today we might call "spirituality", Dod knows how
sinners work. He describes how "Popery" proceeds in trying to win
adherents to its false worship:
For
as an adulterer will first strive to draw the wife's mind from her husband by
accusing his government and dealings as hard and unjust, and afterwards
endeavour to entice her to his lure, so it is with these spiritual adulterers.
First, they will do what they can to bring us to dislike God's service and his
ministers and ministries (as indeed our love to Christ and his Word and
ministers is not so hot, for the most part, but that a few clamorous and false
accusations will quickly cool it). And
then, having withdrawn us from the true worship of God, we are easily caught
and persuaded to anything. So that no opinion can be so fantastical and
heretical but if the author of it can bring us out of our liking with God's
service and his ministers we shall be ready enough to embrace and follow it.[73]
6) … and
realistic and thoughtful in regard to human affliction
Christian
preaching and living must be active and confident, it is true, and yet this
does not mean that they are to be activist or triumphalist. Few groups in the history of the church so
far have wrestled as deeply, experientially and systematically with questions
of suffering and affliction as the puritans. Compassion, realism and confidence
in God mark their treatment of the subject.
Dod, again, is typical. Having just described how God blesses obedience,
he goes on:
Oh,
but this makes me doubt whether I am God's child or not, because I have such
long and fiery troubles: if God loved me would he afflict me thus? … [But] …
outward ease is no sure sign of God's favour, else none should have been so
much in God's favour as the Sodomites, Canaanites and such like: for they had
all the ease, wealth, and outward prosperity of the world. … But let us keep
God's favour, let us fear him and pray to him and then our long and strong
crosses shall bring long and strong comforts.[74]
And since
afflictions will come then it is Christian wisdom to prepare for them:
Let
us learn hence to prepare for crosses, since God's children may be sore
afflicted: else little do we know how they will sting us when they come. It is
our best course therefore to get wisdom while the price is in our hands, to
labour to get patience and to acquaint ourselves with God, that we may seek him
and wait for deliverance at his hands. For that makes crosses tedious and
grievous, when they hit us on the bare: whereas if we had patience to bear them
and wisdom to make a good use of them, and faith to empty our hearts by prayer,
they would be easy. Nothing makes afflictions so burdensome as when they meet
with an heart in which remains some sin unrepented or some passion not subdued.[75]
And on the same
theme:
Prepare
therefore for crosses and we shall be able to bear them. But if we go on in a
fool's paradise and think indeed this world is a vale of tears to others but to
me it shall be a place of pleasure: they must have trouble but I must have
ease: then, when, instead of joy, we find grief that we look not for, and we
dream of credit but there comes nothing but contempt; we imagine that God
should lift us up higher and higher and he casts us down lower and lower; this
casts us into such desperate passions, that we are neither fit to serve God nor
man.[76]
7) These things
will only be understood and lived if taught plainly and directly
In some ways this
is a further element of the action-orientation discussed above: the demand that
preachers be "plain". When matters of life and death and more were at
stake then clarity and directness were demanded. Never minding the sneers of
the elegant rhetoricians, the puritan minister (who was, recall, generally
well-acquainted with the original languages and university-educated) was
determined that the word of God should be heard by all.
And the godly
hearer, marked by the dual conviction that preaching was the release of the
Word and that the Word was really that of God, should not be stumbled by the
ordinariness of the messenger:
We
shall in truth show ourselves to believe, that God is the Author of these
words, if we can be content to endure that these precepts should be pressed and
urged upon us, though by one that is our inferior, and baser in outward respect
then ourselves. … So then, will we show that we do in truth believe that these
be the words of God? Then must we, when
any man shall press any of these laws upon us, straightways yield and stoop to
them, and then in deed we confess that God spoke all these words. But if we
begin to shift and cloak and colour, and distinguish, then we declare
evidently, that our heart is not persuaded that God is the author of them.[77]
Directness
A large part of
puritan plainness was directness. Hearers
were spiritually sleepy and needed waking up.
Dod could hardly be more direct.
On avoiding evil
company:
Ministers
and other faithful professors … will not willingly come into ill company and
among ill persons and hear ill words … because they know the curse of God be on
those that do so and fear their own weakness and frailty.[78]
On the use of
images as "laymen's books":
But
what be the lessons they teach? Even
lies. And what get the scholars of these
teachers? Even the curse of God.[79]
On theft by
stealth:
So
many things as a man gets by stealth from his neighbour, so many curses he gets
to his soul.[80]
On
rationalization:
Where
lust has dominion, it whets the wit to speak for it, and the devil helps: but if
God's Spirit come once, it drives men to a plain confession, and casts down
Satan's strongest holds and then lust rules the wit no more.[81]
On whom you
serve:
For
he that does God's work, he worships God and he that does the Devil's work, he
worships the Devil.[82]
Illustrations
When it comes to
what we might call illustration, Dod's way is again both plain and direct. When he wishes for examples and stories, he
finds them in Scripture and thereby deepens his hearers' knowledge of the Word.
When he needs analogies they come not from literature but from everyday life.
On radical
dependence upon God as a motive for obedience:
We
see, among men if there be one whose estate depends wholly upon his landlord’s
courtesy, that may put him out and beggar him when he please, how careful is he
to please him and have his favour lest (through his displeasure) he should be
turned out of all? So it is with all the men on earth: they be all God’s
tenants and that at will: no man holds anything by lease for an hour: our
breath is not our own but his. It is at his appointment what shall become of
our souls and bodies whether they shall be saved or damned. And he is such a
God, whose anger is an eternal anger, and his wrath an eternal wrath, and his
plagues everlasting plagues: therefore how careful and diligent should we be to
please him? And then we show ourselves to believe his eternal and unchangeable
truth, power, justice, goodness and mercy when it is our greatest care to seek
his favour and always to endeavour to do the things that are pleasing in his
sight.[83]
From the second
commandment on the evil of inventing our own ways of worshipping God:
He is
a good servant that does his master's will, not his own.[84]
From the eighth
commandment on hiding the possessions of others:
A man
were as good put a coal of fire into the thatch of his house or in the barn as
bring any stolen goods among his goods.[85]
Here, then, we
have a presentation of practical Christianity which is theocentric, deeply serious
about spiritual realities, and Scripture-saturated. It begins with the depths
of a person's heart and extends to action and change in every area of life. It
is careful and compassionate in the face of suffering and presented with
clarity and energy. These are, in fact, the characteristics of true religion as
understood bu the puritans. Dod's Decalogue, that is to say, is a
perfect example of puritan practical divinity.
2. Dod's treatment of particular commandments
In his comments
on Exodus 20.1-2, Dod gives some "Rules for the better understanding of
the whole Law"[86]
telling us that the law is spiritual and makes demands upon the inner person;
that it is perfect and requires comprehensive obedience; that "whatsoever
the law commands, it forbids the contrary"; that "many more evils are
forbidden and many more good things are commanded in every commandment than in
words is expressed" and that "where the law commands or forbids
anything, it commands and forbids all means and occasions leading thereto".[87] In the body of the work he applies these
principles thoroughly, yielding a directory for the conduct of the Christian in
every area of life.
The First
Commandment
Dod's treatment
of the first commandment is foundational in content and the most sermonic in
style. As he does with all the others he treats the requirements of first
commandment as both negative and positive. Negatively,
To
have none other gods is, not to have anything whereon we set our delight or
which we esteem more than God.[88]
Positively,
We
are commanded four special things: to know God, to love him, to fear him, to
trust in him. If we have these things in our hearts, then God bears the sway
there and is the chief commander of our souls and bodies.[89]
The Second
Commandment
Unsurprisingly,
Dod's emphasis in his exposition of the second commandment is anti-Roman. He
states a form of the regulative principle of worship and spends much time
arguing against the use of images, the Mass, the sign of the cross, prayers to
and for the dead, swearing by the Mass, instituting holy days while neglecting
the Sabbath, and in any other way showing "fond love" or making
oneself wiser than God.
A brief
discussion of less ordinary means of worship, namely, fasting, vows and the use
of lots leads to a general exhortation to spiritual worship and, in dealing
with the phrase, "that love him and keep his commandments", an
important discussion of the possibility of true, though not perfect obedience.
The Fourth
Commandment
The brother-in-law
of the great sabbatarian Nicholas Bownde
does not disappoint. He gives more space
to the treatment of the fourth commandment than to any other, bar the fifth, and
deals with numerous objections to Christian sabbatarianism including the claims
that the change of day, or Christ's attitude to the sabbath, or Colossians
2.16, or the ceremonial dimension of the sabbath somehow show that the fourth
commandment was dispensed with in a way that the other nine were not.
The Fifth
Commandment
Dod bases a
discussion of a whole range of social relationships upon the fifth commandment
and is typical of Reformed commentators in so doing. He writes of the relative duties of parents
and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives, ministers and their
congregations, magistrates and their people.
The Sixth
Commandment
An outline of the
teachings of the sixth commandment is typical of Dod's treatment of others. He
divides the requirements of the commandment into things prohibited and things
required. The chapter is structured as follows:[90]
1. Things
prohibited
a) omission of good
i. to body
§
the omission of works of mercy
§
failure of charity
§
failure to pay wages
§
sodomy and lack of charity are alike
ii. to soul
§
bad ministers are guilty of soul murder
§
fathers must not omit good to the souls
of those in their household
§
and masters must seek the spiritual
welfare of their servants
b) practice of evil
i. Inward
a) rash anger
·
what it is: anger which hinders the doing
of good to another or which is conceived without sufficient cause or exceeds in
the time or in the measure;[91]
·
how to keep from rash anger
1. Meditate
upon our own sin and vileness: "None are more eager and passionate against
the slips of others than those that are most slack and negligent to examine
their own great sins."[92]
2. "Labour
to get wisdom always and in every thing to behold God's providence, to see his
hand ruling every thing and to persuade ourselves that all things come to pass
according to his purpose and direction …”[93]
3. "Avoid
the occasions that will provoke us to it."
4. "Mark
and observe those that be stirred up with passionate anger, beholding their
countenance, how unseemly and disfigured it is, how rude their actions, how
absurd their words, how base and contemptible all their behaviour is. And the
sight of this in another will be some means to loathe it in himself."
5. "Consider
what testimony the word of God gives of this hastiness and of froward and
unquiet persons: … so much fury, so much folly; the more chafing, the less
wisdom."
6. "Weigh
the punishment which it deserves and draws upon us."
b) envy
·
definition of envy: "bitter
affection against the prosperity and the pre-eminence of another."[94]
·
examples of envy: Cain, Joseph's
brothers;
·
causes of envy: "The causes are
pride, and abundance of self-love, but exceeding want of true love. For love
envies not but self-love and pride would have all themselves and think that
they are wronged if another have anything more than they."[95]
·
the remedy against envy: "The way to
keep out this monster is to get store of charity into our hearts for then we
are armed and fenced against repining at another's good. When shall you have a
loving mother grudge at her child's beauty, goods, good name or such like? When will she think her child does too well
and be sorry because he is in so good an estate? Surely never. And why? Because she loves it. And this is a buckler
against all envy."[96]
ii. Outward
a) gesture
b) word
c) deed
i.
to strike to hurt without death
·
the wickedness of revenge with regard to
the attacked, the attacker and God
ii.
actual murder
·
secret murder
·
all murder
·
self-murder, proceeding from pride,
unbelief and cruelty
2. Things
required
a)
Inward
i. meekness
-
the parts of meekness
a)
forgiveness
b)
construing the best
c)
being peaceable
ii. compassion and pity
-
the example of Jesus and Paul
-
compassion to soul and compassion to body
b) Outward
i. amiable behaviour -
modesty and love
ii. defend the oppressed
and succour those that suffer wrong
-
various failures of this and the excuses given
iii. show mercy to the
needy
- store
up treasure in heaven to have a merciful and generous heart here
- rules
for works of mercy
a)
just
b)
cheerful
c)
to the household of faith
3. Things to
avoid which lead to a breach of the sixth commandment
a) pride
b) covetousness
c) riotousness and drunkenness
On eleven
occasions in the book Dod provides his own diagrammed outline, usually
representing only one half of his treatment of the commandment in question.
Three examples will give a taste:
The Seventh
Commandment
Things forbidden
in the commandment are
1. Inward - all unchaste lusts
2. Outward [taking a fourfold division
from Galatians 5.19 in the Geneva Bible]
a) adultery
b) fornication
i.
unnatural
A.
with others [sodomy and bestiality]
B.
with oneself
ii.
natural - in marriage
A.
entering unlawfully [marrying another of
a contrary religion; within
the degrees of consanguinity; without consent of
parents]
B.
using
1.
out of time
2.
immoderately
c) uncleanness
d) wantonness
i.
things pertaining to the body
A.
apparel
B.
food
C.
sleep etc
ii.
body itself in
A.
parts
1.
hand
2.
eye
3.
foot etc
B.
whole - as in dancing immodestly
The Eighth
Commandment
Things forbidden
are either
1. Inward - as the desire of the
heart
2. Outward
a) public
i.
Church
ii.
Commonwealth
b) private
i.
ill-using of a man's own goods
A.
wastefulness
1.
excess in anything
2.
idleness
3.
suretyship
B.
niggardliness
ii.
unjust pursuit of other men's goods by
A.
some show or colour of law
1.
crafty bargaining
2.
usury
B.
some means without colour as
1.
by force
2.
thieving
The Ninth Commandment
The things
commanded are either
1.
Inward, contrary to suspicion: a charitable opinion and good hope of our neighbour
which must be showed by
a) taking
doubtful things in the best part
b) defending his
name if we hear him slandered
c) being grieved
when we hear true report of his ill deed
2. Outward
a) general, to
speak the truth from one's heart and that,
i.
with a good affection
ii.
to a good end
b) special,
touching
i.
others - to speak of
A.
faults before their face
B.
virtue behind their back
ii
ourselves - to speak sparingly either of our
A.
faults or
B.
good deeds
3. Dod's views on
law and obedience
John Dod, in
respect of the use of Old Testament law, was a mainstream puritan and typically
reformed.[97] He believed that the law had a threefold use:
to restrain the evil-doer, to drive the sinner to Christ and to instruct the
righteous in ways pleasing to God. He
believed that law was an inescapable concept in a universe with a God who was
neither morally indifferent nor silent. God has standards and reveals those
standards and those revealed standards represent authoritative moral demands
upon his creatures. He further believed that the Ten Commandments represented a
distinct and special summary of God's universal moral law which in addition to
being written by the finger of God on stone was also stamped upon the
conscience of all humankind. These commandments were specially given to Israel
not to show that they were not binding upon all humankind but rather to show
that they could only be kept by a redeemed people. No human being, the Lord Jesus Christ
excepted, has ever kept these Ten Commandments, the summary of which is the
twofold love command, and thus all men and women deserve the curses announced
by the law. The Lord Jesus Christ came not to set aside the moral law but
rather to keep it, confirm it, expound it and intensify it and to bear the
punishment due to the elect for their transgression of it. And more, he came to enable his redeemed
people to keep it themselves and thus enjoy the blessings of obedience. The law, after all, was not a malicious
imposition of a spiteful tyrant but the loving, righteous, wise instruction of
a Fatherly God who loves to bless. Obedience to it by the pardoned and renewed
people of God represents the path to true human maturity and to the flourishing
not only of individuals but of societies. Those individuals and societies that
live by the law of God will enjoy the blessings of God and those that do not
will suffer the curse of God. Many times in his life Jesus, who declared that
Scripture cannot be broken and who lived by every word that came from the mouth
of God, sang, "Oh, how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day"
and "I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your
commandments" and "Seven times a day I praise you for your
righteous rules". Far from setting
aside the law, Jesus by his Spirit causes the law, which his servant Paul calls
holy, righteous, good and spiritual and says he delights in in his inner man,
to be written upon the hearts of his people. He gives them the new hearts which
are essential to a life of loving God which is, of course, a life of obeying
his not-burdensome commands. He also
gives them all manner of encouragements and motivations to obey, knowing that
obedience is a blessing and a delight to the renewed people of God. Those with new hearts will seek to please God
with their every thought, word and deed and will pursue universal obedience in
the fear and love of God.
The Ten
Commandments are expounded in the case law which helps us to understand
specific applications. They are
spiritual and require heart obedience. They bring positive and negative
requirements, touch the inner life and the outer life, direct the individual by
himself and in all his roles, responsibilities and relationships. Even now no believer perfectly obeys the
requirements of the law - far from it - and yet true and sincere obedience is
possible and God is - and does not merely pretend to be - truly pleased with
it, rewarding it with all manner of blessings in this life and the next. Such is his providence, however, that the
righteous continue to suffer much affliction, which, it should be understood,
God allows and uses for their real good; and also that the curse which rests
upon the unrighteous is rarely manifest in its full force this side of
judgment.
This is the
Reformed synthesis and Dod's Decalogue is fully in tune with it. He pays almost no attention to what some
would see as "negative" statements about the law on the simple grounds
that the law is negative only when misunderstood and misused by sinners.
Rightly understood and rightly used by the right people it is nothing but a
good gift of a loving God whose will for the faithful, who delight in and
constantly meditate upon the law, is prosperity, life, maturity, and true
humanness; in a word, blessing.
After this
synopsis, let us hear these things in Dod's own words.
The very first
sentence of the book, referring to Exodus 20.1-2, makes plain Dod's basic
position:
These
words contain a preparation to stir us up with all care and conscience to keep
the law of God.[98]
"We"
are to "keep the law of God", we are to do so "with all care and
conscience" and we need to be "stirred up" to do so.
The law in
question is expressed in the Ten Commandments which "must be exceedingly
reverenced because God’s own voice did speak them" and because "God
himself wrote them with his own finger".[99] There is no expression of God's perfect
standards for humankind quite like the Ten Commandments. In them there is a
wonderful
and perfect holiness [… which] shows who is the maker of them, because there is
no good duty, which God bound Adam to perform, but is comprehended and
commanded in one of these: and there is no sin that we are bound to abstain from
and eschew, which is not forbidden in some of these ten words. It was above the
wit of men or angels to contain in so few words, the whole perfection of our
duty to God and man.[100]
Indeed,
this
law is so absolute, and sets out so full and complete a righteousness, that if
one could fulfil them all, he should be fully acceptable to God, and need not
flee to Christ to be his Redeemer.[101]
The Ten
Commandments summarize the moral law and thus they
are
written and engraven in every man’s conscience … for, God has not left himself
without witness: but in every man's bosom, and everyone's nature, has planted
so much of his law, as will serve to leave them without excuse … Who can raze
these laws out of their own consciences, though they do what they can, and
strive never to much to extinguish this natural light?[102]
Since this is a
summary of the moral law, rather like the twofold love command, then Dod will
go so far as to claim that
all the
punishments that are at any time inflicted upon the world, have come from the
disobedience against this law; and all the mercies and benefits which men
enjoy, proceed from the obedience yielded to it. For when God sets down his curses and
blessings, do they not run thus? If you
observe and keep these Commandments, then you shall be blessed in soul, and
body, in children, in cattle, in field, and in all things you put your hand to.
Contrariwise, if you will not obey but neglect them, then you shall be cursed
in all things.[103]
And Christ did
not come to set these laws aside, neither in their substance nor in their
(positive and negative) sanctions, but rather:
Christ
himself came into the world to keep these laws. For they require a perfect and
absolute obedience, as they are perfect; which seeing no man could do,
therefore Christ took our flesh upon him to fulfil them; that as Adam by
his disobedience had cast us out of Paradise, so he by his obedience, might
bring us into heaven: and he came not only to perform them himself fully, but
also to make his saints able to obey them, though not in perfection, and
without any defect, (for that only he himself could do) yet in truth and
sincerity for that he requires of all his members.[104]
The law is
spiritual and has intensive reach: "It
reaches therefore to the inward parts of every man and lies close upon his
conscience."[105]
It is all from
God and therefore requires universal obedience:
Though
one be no thief, nor adulterer, yet if he be a Sabbath breaker, he breaks the
whole law. For if one ask him why do you not commit adultery? and he say,
because God commands that I should not; then he would keep the Sabbath also,
for they be both alike in the commandments of God: but if it be not because God
commands, then he does not obey the law, but serve himself." Therefore he that makes no conscience of all
God's laws has no soundness and fidelity in him, because he does not remember
that God spoke all these words.[106]
And
therefore he has no sound heart that allows himself in the breach of any one,
and addicts not himself to keep them all.[107]
Though binding
upon all, it is only the redeemed who are able to keep the law truly (and even
they, not perfectly) and they also have the strongest incentives for doing so -
incentives of redeemed status, covenant relationship with God, and assurance of
his goodness towards them:
Almighty
indeed I am, infinite, eternal and perfect, yet so as that I abase myself to
take care for you, to have a loving heart towards you, and to be your father
and to make you my child, to be your husband also and to make you my spouse;
one that have promised to give you all good things and to remove all ill things
from you: this is to be your God. If God had set down only his infinite majesty
and greatness and his glorious incommunicable name, that would have feared us
and made us flee from him: but now he encourages us by this, that he is our God
and gives us these commandments for our own benefit and because he loves us, to
submit ourselves to him and with all willingness to serve him.[108]
The commandments
are given for our good
[He]
gives us these commandments for our own benefit and because he loves us, to
submit ourselves to him and with all willingness to serve him.[109]
And there are, as
mentioned above, some important "rules for the better understanding of the
whole law,"[110]
namely,
The
first is, that the law is spiritual, reaching to the soul and all the powers
thereof. For it charges the understanding to know the will of God: it charges
the memory to retain and the will to choose the better and leave the worse. It
charges the affection to love the things to be loved and to hate the things to
be hated.
Secondly,
the law is perfect and requires full obedience of the whole man, not only
commanding the soul but the whole soul, not only to know, retain, will and
follow good, but also to do the same perfectly. So in condemning evil, it
condemns all evil and in commanding good, it commands all good in the fullest
measure and longest continuance.
Thirdly,
whatsoever the law commands, it forbids the contrary. As where all the false
means of God's worship are forbidden, all the true means are commanded. And
where the sanctification of God's name is required, there all abuse of his holy
name is condemned. And the law that forbids murder and cruelty does as strongly
command compassion and mercy: and so all the rest.
Fourthly,
many more evils are forbidden and many more good things are commanded in every
commandment than in words is expressed: as under idolatry is contained all
means of false worship: by killing all hindering of life and all
unmercifulness.
Fifthly,
where the law commands or forbids anything, it commands and forbids all means
and occasions leading thereto: as in the second commandment we are forbidden to
be present in body at idolatrous service or to reserve any special monument of
idolatry or to be companions with idolaters.
And on the contrary we are here required to use good books written
according to God's word and to be companions of the true worshippers of God
which be special means of keeping this commandment.
Although it is
true that these laws were given to Israel on their deliverance from Egypt, the
greater deliverance which the new Israel enjoys makes them all the more compelling:
For
that is more excellent than the deliverance out of bondage, by how much the
state of unregeneration is more grievous than their corporal thraldom. In that, men tyrannized over them; in this,
the devil, sin and death. There, the
body only was tormented; here the soul deadly wounded. There was some
intermission; this is perpetual, day and night. There death made an end of this
misery; here it begins it. That was felt, and therefore they were willing to be
relieved; this spiritual servitude is not perceived and therefore they will
neither seek help nor receive it when it is offered.[111]
And Christians
understand the Ten Commandments better than old Israel because "Christ
[is] the Law-Maker and therefore also the best expounder of it."[112]
For any foolish
enough to think that redemption can be found in the law, there are only two
possibilities, which quickly resolve to one: render perfect, total, constant,
flawless obedience to each and every law of God in its comprehensive
requirement or fall under the curse. When thinking of those redeemed by Christ,
however, we may speak in another way. Dod calls it "a sincere (but not
perfect) obedience."[113] The issue for the believer is no longer one
of perfect obedience or death. Rather it may be one of sincere and true
obedience which enjoys the blessing. Dod
brings Scripture examples to bear:
Why
then should not every Christian hope to be able to yield obedience to God, in
whatsoever God commands him? As God
witnesses of David that he was a man after his own heart in all things, save in
the matter of Uriah: for there he sinned presumptuously, his heart was upright
in all things else. And likewise as it is spoken of Zachariah and Elizabeth
that they were perfect and unblameable in all things: not that they were quit
from all infirmities (or had not their faults as well as other saints) but they
were upright and sincere, their heart was true with God and so God can and will
give grace unto all his, to obey every one of his commandments with a true and
upright obedience.[114]
Dod anticipates
the obvious objection:
Some
will object that if the love of God consist in the keeping of his commandments
then it should seem that none love him because in many things we offend all.
But for resolving of this know that there is a great difference between these
two, to keep God's commandments and to fulfil his commandments. For keeping
denotes a truth, fulfilling a perfection. Perfection, Christ only had; but
truth, every Christian must have. … This true keeping must be known by these
notes. First, we must aim at all, there must be a full purpose and true desire
to keep [each] one … Secondly, this obedience must be done willingly, with a
free and cheerful heart … Thirdly, the end of our actions must be good, to show
our loyalty to God, to approve our hearts to him in obedience to his
commandments and not for any other end or intent of our own.[115]
The obedience of
Christians is never perfect but this does not mean that it is not real, nor
that God is not truly pleased with it:
He requires
not of his children that they should perfectly fulfill his law, for that Jesus
Christ has done for them already, but that they should constantly and
faithfully endeavour to know and keep it according to that measure of grace and
strength which God has given them. If we will stand to be justified by our own
righteousness then we must either have perfection or confusion. But if we trust
to Christ, then we are under grace and there is mercy in Christ, rewarding all
our good, pitying and passing by all our infirmities.[116]
And the announced
sanctions still apply:
For
in the Law, God threatens that if we be disobedient to him and his
commandments, we shall be cursed in soul, body, wife, children, and all that we
put our hand to. But, on the other side, if we be upright and with a perfect
heart set ourselves to follow God's commandments, then we shall be blessed in
soul, body, wife, children and all that belongs to us, so that the blessing of
God shall meet us at every turn.[117]
The closing
paragraph of the book sums up much what we have just studied:
And
so much for the exposition of the law which must serve to this end, that seeing
our own unrighteousness and insufficiency, we should be humbled in our souls
before the judgment seat of the Almighty, and then to fly to Christ to be our
righteousness and sufficiency. And
finally, to make this the rule of our life and a lantern to our feet, that
though we cannot attain to the perfection which the law requires, yet we may
have that uprightness which God accepts in Jesus Christ. For if we have respect
to all the Commandments, and labour faithfully to keep them (though we cannot
perfectly fulfill them) then shall we constantly enjoy all those blessings and
graces which God has promised to his righteous servants, all the days of our
life: and when we have finished this short and troublesome pilgrimage, we shall
for ever inherit that glorious kingdom which our Lord Jesus Christ has
purchased for us with his most precious blood.
Unto whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, three persons, and one
only wise, holy, and eternal God, be ascribed all power, praise and glory for
evermore. Amen.[118]
4. A handful of other gems from Dod's Decalogue
That the puritans
ever came to be widely portrayed as sour, holier-than-thou, repressive,
world-denying, spiritually proud, pleasure-haters who could never say anything
briefly runs so far counter to the truth of the matter that only the father of
lies could have generated and nurtured such hostile prejudice. Lovers of
Biblical Christianity, who are necessarily lovers of much that the puritans
stood and lived for, must fight battles for words and perceptions as well as
for hearts and lives. Happily, Dod's Decalogue provides us with some
powerful weaponry with which to attack anti-puritan prejudice.[119]
Humility and
judgmentalism
Dod's puritanism
has no place for Pharisaical judgmentalism:
None
are more suspicious of other men's truth and fidelity than they who have been
the greatest deceivers and defrauders of others.[120]
When
one never examines his own life then he is most ready to pry into another man's
conscience and he that (for the most part) spares himself will lay the heaviest
load upon another.[121]
James
3.17 - He shows the cause why the best men be never forward to judge nor hasty
to pass sentence upon other men even because they, having good hearts and
desiring to be as good as they seem to be, have so much to do in fighting and
striving with their own corruptions as that they have no leisure to examine
other men's dealings which belong not to them, but would rather reform the
things which be amiss in themselves.[122]
The godly are not
only slow to judge, but also deeply consciousness of sin:
[We
have] continual humiliation for that our nature and the whole frame of our soul
is such as no minute (almost) goes over our head but some evil and vain motion
or other goes through our heart and springs our of the sink and puddle of our
flesh.[123]
Enjoying the good
gifts of creation
Puritan Dod
celebrates the good gifts of creation.
Husbands and
wives:
The
first duty of the husband is to dwell with his wife: that, since there is a
near and dear society between them, and of all others the nearest (for so she
is to him as the Church is to Christ, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone)
therefore he must be willing constantly and kindly to converse with her, to
walk with her, talk with her and let her have all comfortable familiarity with
him: that she may see he delights in her company and may well know that of all
others she is his most loved and welcome companion … This reproves those
foolish men (indeed not worthy to carry the name of husbands) that can take
more delight in any vain, riotous and unthrifty company and take more pleasure
in any lewd exercises than in the society of the loving and kind wife; that are
never so merry as when the wife is absent and never dumpish and churlish but
with her. Such also as dwell with hawks and hounds and drunkards and gamesters
not with their wives: these shall carry the brand and name of fools.[124]
On the eighth
commandment:
They be thieves that will not thankfully use his benefits,
but defraud and starve themselves.[125]
Proverbs
21.20: [the wise man] has joy and comfort and a blessing in the use of them and
he has not for necessity only but also for delight … for refreshing and
recreation.[126]
It is
our duty to take part of those things that God has given us and with a thankful
and cheerful heart to enjoy his kindness.[127]
It is
a most miserable and base thing for one to restrain himself of his lawful
liberty in meat, drink, apparel and honest recreation.[128]
And of those who
are too busy working or saving to enjoy good things:
This men
commonly call good husbandry and thrift for a man to wear out and waste himself
with immoderate travail and to pinch and starve his household by miserable
sparing; but it is plain theft in the sight of God for one to spend himself and
pull a want upon himself when he may live in plenty. God's marks be found upon
him for a wicked man and a cursed sinner when he has much but can use nothing …
miserable bondslaves to lucre and covetousness.[129]
Real obedience
flows from assurance and is a matter of delight
Neither the
alleged anxiety nor sourness of puritans find a place with Dod.
The
doctrine hence gathered is that if ever we will obey God in soundness then we
must know him to be our God, to have a tender care over us, to love us and that
we shall speed best when we yield most obedience to him.[130]
Therefore
if ever we would yield any cheerful obedience to God, let us labour to feel the
truth of that which God speaks, that he is our God, our Saviour, and has done,
and always will do more for us, then any other can, and therefore we will obey
him above all.[131]
On assurance and
obedience:
[Papists
make] this a certain point of their religion, that no man stands certain of
salvation: and by this means they hinder men from cheerful obedience, and cut
off all sound thankfulness.[132]
It is
a most tedious thing to a Christian heart to obey the Devil's commandments but
most joyous to follow God's … to pray,
to hear the Word, to read, confer, or do works of mercy and the rest of that
kind, it is even a recreation and delightful exercise for him.[133]
On
sabbath-keeping and recreation:
Is it
not a recreation for a Christian to hear the voice of Christ.[134]
The shortest way
to defeat sin is to embrace righteousness
Joyless repression
is no spiritual weapon for Dod. Rather the expulsion of sin is achieved by the
glad embrace of what is good for us.
Idolatry:
We
must labour to get the true and sound knowledge out of his word and a fervent
love of him: for till then a man is in danger to fall to idolatry … then we are
safe from idols when we have gotten a fervent love of Christ.[135]
Covetousness:
Let
us learn to set our minds on work always with some good meditation and holy
desires and thoughts … if we do not by grace direct our heart towards God and
man, corruption will draw it to all disorder and confusion. Therefore it is
that many are so troubled with ill motions and continual boiling of ill
thoughts because the heart is not busied and taken up with some good thing.[136]
Lust:
If
married persons get fervent and pure love one to the other, this will keep them
safe. For it is not the having of a wife but the loving of her that makes a man
live chastely … pure love is a gift of God and a spark that comes from heaven
and has this virtue to make a man live chastely.[137]
To
delight then and rejoice in the pure Word of God and to embrace it in one's
heart, this will so satisfy the mind and content the soul with sweet comfort
and delight … for no man can live without his delight.[138]
Social justice
Whilst affirming
God's hierarchical ordering of human society, the puritans were no mere social
traditionalists.
On the equality
of servants and masters:
Both
were made in the womb, both had one nature, one Creator and Redeemer. In all
the former respects there is no difference of bond or free but there is an
equality between the servant and master. The servant, if he be elect and holy
has as much right in the blood of Christ and shall have as good part on the
glory of Christ in heaven as the master.[139]
On coercive
redistribution as theft:
Ill
kings would take away the people's vineyards and fields and olives to bestow
them on their servants and on whom it pleased them. This is not mercy, nor to be
accounted liberality, neither does it deserve any better name than theft.[140]
On the justice of
enjoying earnings:
Let
the calling be good and the means good and then a man may with a good
conscience take the blessing and fruits thereof.[141]
On right regard
for servants:
The
most contemptible servant in the world is of more worth, by nature, than the
most excellent brute beast.[142]
And, briefly …
And finally, Dod,
like many another of the great puritan communicators, knew how to be pithy and
brief.
On transgressions
of the first commandment:
That
is every man's God that every man's heart is most set upon.[143]
And
self as our chief idol: So that every carnal man sets up himself, he does
nothing but seek and serve himself and therefore is his own idol, and another
god to himself.[144]
On the need for
inward religion:
If we
say and swear and protest never so much that we love and fear him, if this be
not in our soul, it is not before his face.[145]
Nothing is worse
than sin:
One had
better therefore die the death than use any bodily gesture of reverence to an
idol.[146]
On parents and
children:
The best way for any man to do good to his children is to
be godly himself.[147]
It is
better to be the child of a godly than a wealthy parent.[148]
Every
man is a bishop in his own house.[149]
Idleness as
theft:
An
idle man is a thief to himself: he does that to himself that if another should
do it all men would take heed of him for a notorious stealer.[150]
How covetousness
gets a grip:
The
ground of covetousness is this that men have a false and foolish imagination
that wealth will bring some happiness and if they have a great store of riches
then they should be in good safety.[151]
Wantonness of the
eye:
Reading
loving books of dalliance and filthiness … is a kind of contemplative
fornication.[152]
Greater and
lesser enemies:
So
that if Christ have washed us from our sins, the worst and sorest enemy (for
all the world cannot wash away one sin) then never fear these less matters.[153]
The hatred of
God:
False
love is true hatred: and in that they do those things which God hates and
forbids, whatever their pretence is, they are haters of God … sinful fond
affection is hatred.[154]
On possessions:
The
want of them shall not hurt us, if God be with us; for we live by his blessing.[155]
It is no surprise
that people travelled for miles to hear this man preach. The clarity and order,
the depth and reach, the urgency and considered-ness, the seriousness and joy
of his presentation of life with and for God are compelling.
Conclusion
And it is no
surprise that Dod’s Decalogue became a seventeenth century bestseller.
It was quintessential puritan practical divinity from a master of the art of
living to God and teaching others to do the same. John Dod had a profound
knowledge both of the Word of God and of the heart of the sinner and was
resolved that the one should so impact the other that all of human life should
come to be lived under and according to the holy, righteous and good laws of
God by men and women who had been pardoned and renewed by his grace in Christ
and through the Spirit. Dod’s work was
both formative and typical of the puritan approach to the Christian life as
well as massively popular in his own day. It provides a fine example and sets a
humbling standard for those called to be physicians of the soul by being
teachers of the word. And it lays out, for all those who are privileged to read
it, a vision of the all-encompassing renewal of the human individual and human
society which God brings about in his redeeming and restoring work through his
authoritative and life-giving Word.
APPENDIX: DOCTRINES DISPERSED IN THIS BOOK GATHERED
TOGETHER
Doctrines out of
the Preface
Doctrines out of
the first commandment
Doctrines out of
the second commandment
Doctrines out of
the third commandment
Doctrines out of
the fourth commandment
Doctrines out of
the fifth commandment
Doctrines out of
the sixth commandment
Doctrines out of
the seventh commandment
Doctrines out of
the eighth commandment
Doctrines out of
the ninth commandment
Doctrines out of
the tenth commandment
Further
Brook,
Benjamin, The Lives of the Puritans, London: James Black, 1813, 3 vols
Clarke,
Samuel, Lives of Sundry Modern Divines appended to A General
Martyrologie, 1677
Collinson,
Patrick, The Elizabethan Puritan
Movement, London: Jonathan Cape, 1967
Collinson,
Patrick, Godly People, London: The Hambledon Press, 1983
Dever,
Mark, Richard Sibbes, Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2000
Durston,
Christopher & Eales, Jacqueline (eds), The Culture of English
Puritanism 1560-1700, London: Macmillan, 1996
Haller, William, The
Rise of Puritanism, New York: Columbia University
Press, 1938
Hulse,
Erroll, Who were the Puritans?, Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2000
Kevan,
Ernest F., The Grace of Law, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976
Kishlanksy,
Mark, A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714, London: Penguin Books,
1997
Knappen,
M.M., Tudor Puritanism, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1939, 1966
Lake,
Peter, Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982
Morgan,
Irvonwy, Prince Charles's Puritan Chaplain, London: George Allen &
Unwin, 1957
Packer,
J.I., A Quest for Godliness, Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1990
Parker,
Kenneth L., and Carlson, Eric J., "Practical
Divinity": The Works and Life of Revd Richard Greenham, Aldershot:
Ashgate 1998
Seaver,
Paul, The Puritan Lectureships, Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1970
Shapiro, Barbara J., John
Wilkins: An Intellectual Biography, Berkeley: University of California Press,
1969
Spurr,
John, English Puritanism, 1603-90, Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1998
Stephen,
Sir Leslie, and Lee, Sir Sidney, Dictionary of National Biography, 22
vols, 1908-9
Webster,
Tom, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997
[1] The main seventeenth century
source for Dod's life is Samuel Clarke's account in his Lives of Sundry
Modern Divines appended to A General Martyrologie, 1677. The outline given here follows that given in DNB
with additional details from Brook, Haller, Webster, Eales, Collinson, for
which bibliographical details of which, see Further Reading.
[2] Clarke, Lives
p.168-9, cited by Haller, p.56
[3] Webster, Godly
Clergy, p.20
[4] Cited by Haller, p.58
[5] Anne was to bear Dod
twelve children. After her death he married for a second time.
[6] M M Knappen, Tudor Puritanism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939, 1966), p.292
[7] http://www.st-peter-hanwell.co.uk/HISTORYfront_page.htm
- accessed
[8] Haller, p.58
[9] Eales, p.195
[10] Collinson, Godly
People, p.484
[11] The words are from
Webster, Godly Clergy, p.28
[12] Haller, pp.134-5
[13] Brook, Lives of the
Puritans, vol III, p.6
[14] Haller, p.132,
following Clarke
[15] Haller, p.60
[16] Haller, p.58
[17] Eales, "A Road to Revolution:
The Continuity of Puritanism, 1559-1642" in Durston and Eales, Culture (184-209),
p.193
[18] Webster, Godly
Clergy, p.50. Hooker gained not only spiritual insight but also a wife from
the case: he met, fell in love with and subsequently married Mrs Drake's
woman-in-waiting, Susannah Garbrand.
[19] Haller, p.73
[20] Seaver, Lectureships,
p.265; Webster, Godly Clergy, pp.13,
42
[21] Webster, Godly
Clergy, p.277-8; see also p.169
[22] Collinson, Godly
People, p.516. Clarke's Lives of
sundry eminent persons appended to his General Martyrologie would,
of course, provide exactly the account which Ashe and Wall sought.
[23] http://www.st-peter-hanwell.co.uk/HISTORYfront_page.htm
- accessed
[24] Webster, Godly
Clergy, p.295
[25] Webster, Godly
Clergy, p.234
[26] Spurr, English
Puritanism, p.93
[27] Dod and Cleaver, A
Plain and Familiar Exposition of the Ninth and Tenth Chapters of the Proverbs
of Solomon, Epistle Dedicatorie.
[28] Eales, p.194
[29] Collinson, Elizabethan
Puritan Movement, p.456
[30] Brook, vol III, p.5
[31] Exposition, A2. All footnotes that follow with nothing other
than a page number refer to the Exposition. Spelling has been modernized and some small
editorial changes made for the sake of clarity.
[32] Godly People, p.496
[33] http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/History/religion.php accessed
[34] Richard Baxter, A
Christian Directory in Practical Works, vol.I, p.732 (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 2000)
[35] William Gamage, Linsi-Woolsie
or two centuries of epigrammes, (
[36] Epistle Dedicatorie, A3
[37] See Appendix
[38] William Ames, Marrow
of Sacred Divinity, 1641, p.157
[39] Ames, Marrow,
p.157
[40] The phrase, of course,
is William Ames: Marrow, pp.1-3
[41] p.13
[42] p.7
[43] p.7
[44] p.272
[45] p.235
[46] p.14
[47] p.20
[48] p.22
[49] p.18
[50] p.17
[51] p.11
[52] p.9
[53] p.9
[54] p.337
[55] p.330f.
[56] p.8
[57] p.234
[58] p.29
[59] p.18
[60] p.299
[61] p.76
[62] p.143
[63] All four of these
quotations are from pp.286f.
[64] p.11
[65] p.12
[66] p.15
[67] p.30
[68] p.333
[69] p.179f.
[70] p.300
[71] p.185
[72] p.304
[73] p.59
[74] p.22
[75] p.23
[76] p.23
[77] p.5f.
[78] p.60
[79] p.61
[80] p.286
[81] p.18
[82] p.68
[83] p.13
[84] p.70
[85] p.286
[86] p.24f.
[87] Forty years later the
Westminster Divines would gives a very similar list of "rules for the
right understanding of the ten commandments" in Q.99 of the Larger
Catechism
[88] p.26
[89] p.30f.
[90] pp.231-56
[91] p.234
[92] These six points are
all to be found on p.235f.
[93] See above, 1.a) for the
full paragraph
[94] p.236
[95] p.237
[96] p.238
[97] John Calvin, Institutes,
II.vii; Francis Turretin, Institutes,
Eleventh Topic; Westminster Confession,
Chapter XIX; Heidelberg Catechism,
Questions 92-115; William Perkins, The Whole Treatise of the Cases of
Conscience, 1606; Edward Elton, An Exposition of the Ten Commandments,
1623; William Ames, Marrow of Sacred Divinity, 1641; Anthony Burgess, Vindiciae
Legis, 1646; Thomas Shepard, Theses Sabbaticae, 1649; James Durham, The Law Unsealed, 1676
[98] p.1
[99] p.3
[100] p.3
[101] p.3
[102] p.4
[103] p.4f.
[104] p.5
[105] p.8
[106] p.10
[107] p.11
[108] p.16
[109] p.16
[110] p.24f.
[111] p.26
[112] p.257
[113] p.29
[114] p.12
[115] p.83
[116] p.85f
[117] p.81
[118] p.338
[119] Leland Ryken, Worldly
Saints (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), does a fine job of refuting some of
the most common errors about the character of puritanism.
[120] p.303
[121] p.303
[122] p.303
[123] p.331
[124] p.204f.
[125] p.281
[126] p.294
[127] p.295
[128] p.279
[129] p.281
[130] p.16
[131] p.17
[132] p.19
[133] p.84
[134] p.136
[135] p.69
[136] p.332
[137] p.263
[138] p.263
[139] p.335
[140] p.253
[141] p.298
[142] p.336
[143] p.26
[144] p.28
[145] p.29
[146] p.68
[147] p.81
[148] p.82
[149] p.233
[150] p.277
[151] p.271
[152] p.268
[153] p.22
[154] p.79
[155] p.29