ON HOSEA XIV. -VERSE 9. 287 and would fain seem God's servant, but be his own, therefore corrupt reason sets itself on work to exco- gitate such distinctions and evasions, as may serve to reconcile God's word and a man's own lust together. Lust says, Steal ; God says, No, " thou shalt not steal ;" carnal reason, the advocate of lust, comes in and distinguisheth : I may not steal from a neighbour, but I may weaken an enemy, or pay myself the stipend that belongs to my service, if others do not ; and under this evasion, most innocent men may be made a prey to violent soldiers, who use the name of public interest to palliate their own greediness. Cer- tainly, it is a high presumption to tamper with the word of truth, and make it bear false witness in favour of our own sins ; and God will bring it to a trial at last, whose will shall stand, his or ours. Lastly : this serveth as an excellent boundary, both to the ministration of the preacher, and to the faith of the hearer, in the dispensing of the word. 1. To us in our ministry, that we deliver nothing unto the people but the right ways of the Lord, without any commixtures or con - temporations of our own. Mix- tures are useful only for these two purposes, either to slacken and abate something that is excessive, or to supply something that is deficient, and to collect a virtue and efficacy out of many things, each one of which alone would have been ineffectual, and so all heterogeneous mixtures do plainly intimate, either a viciousness to be corrected, or a weakness to be sup- plied, in every one of the simples which are by human wisdom tempered together in order unto some effect to be wrought by them. Now it were great wicked- ness to charge any one of these upon the pure and perfect word of God ; and by consequence, to use deceit and insincerity, by adulterating it, either by
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