Paxton Hood on Puritan Adams 4

It was an absurd fashion of speech, here are two illustrations of this most singular mode; from both sermons I leave out, as too long, the more ludicrous of similar passages from the text “Take thou thy son," etc.

Not to preface away any more tyme, please yew to call to mind these four generalls observable in the text.

1. Victima, the Hoast or Sacrifice; described here by a double name. 1. Proper, Isaak. 2. Appellative, or a name of relation, Sonne; which likewise is further illustrated by two other attributes; the one taken ab electione divina, the other ab afleclione humana. 1. Unigcnitus, his onely sonne; there's God’s inscrutable election. 2. Dilectus, his beloved sonne; there's Abraham’s deerest affection.

2. Sacerdos, the Priest which was to ofl'er up this sacrifice. The person not exprest, but in the word Tolle, Take thow. God speakes to Abraham: The Father must bee the Priest and Butcher of his own sonne. .

3. Altare, the Altar or Place where this was to be offered; set downe 1, Generally, the land of Moryah. 2, Specially super uno montium, one particular mountayne in that land.

4. Ritus, the Rite and Manner of sacrificinge, or the kind and quality of the sacrifice: Holocaustum, it must bee an whole burnt ofl'ringe.

Again, from the text, “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them,” &tc.

In which Prayer and Supplication of his these six thinges are observable.
l. Quando, the tyme when. When hee was hanginge now on r. the Crosse, and ready to yield up the Ghost; Tune, then Jesus sayd.
2. Quis, the party prayinge. Dixz't Jesus, it was Christ Jesus.
3. Cui or ad Quem, the object to whome his prayer is directed; and that is God his Father.
4. Quid, the matter and subject, or thinge for what he prayed; which is Pardon and Forgivenes.
5. Pro quibus, for whome hee prayeth; Illis, them, his Enemyes.
6. Quare, the ground and reason of his petition; which was theyr Ignorance; for they know not what they doe.
The Tyme, when: the Persons, who; the Person, to whome; the Persons for whome; the Thinge, for what; and the Cause, wherefore.

In a state of transition from the times which produced these curious formularies was the age when Thomas Adams began to preach. He must have been contemporary with Bishop Andrewes and Dr. Donne. I love Bishop Andrewes, but his style, almost through every line of it, abounds with strange readings and words, thus, “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel ? Let Him be arrayed in scarlet, it is His due. His “Doctor’s weed”

On the birth of Christ at Ephrata

Even so, Lord, saith our Saviour, for so is thy pleasure. And since it is His pleasure so to deal, it is His further pleasure (and it is our lesson out of this Bethlehem minima). Even this, ne minima minimi, that we set not little by that which is little, unless we will so set by Bethlehem and by Christ and all. He will not have little places villified, little Zoar will save the body, little Bethlehem the soul, nor have, saith Zacherie, (dies parvus - little times - despised, unless we despise this day, the Feast of Humility. Nor have one of these little ones offended. Why? for, Ephrata may make amends for, parvula, ex te for in.

How quaint and singular reads the following: - 

Will ye now to this inglorious Signe heare a glorious Song; to this cratch of humilitie, a hymne of caelestiall harmonie? If the Signe mislike you, ye cannot but like the Song, and the Queer (choir) that sing it. The song I shall not be able to reach to, will ye but see the Queer?and that shall serve for this time: For, by all meanes, before I end, I would deal with somewhat that might ballance this Signe of His low estate. This the Evangelists never faile to doe; Ever, they look to this point carefully: If they mention ought, that may offend, to wipe it away streight, and the Scandall of it, by some other high regard. See you a sort of poore Shepherds? Stay, and ye shall see a troope of God's Angels. Heare ye one say, layed in the crotch below? abide, and ye shall heare many sing, Glorie on high, in honour of Him that lyeth in it.
Vidisti vilia (saith St. Ambrose) audi mirisiea: Were the things meane you have seen?
Wonderful shall they be, ye now shall heare and see both. Vilescit praesepe, ecce Angelivis cantibus honoratur: Is the Cratch meane? Meane as it is, it is honoured with the musike of Angels, it hath the whole Queer of Heaven to sing about it. This also will prove a signe, if it be well looked into; a counter-signs to the other: That, of His humilities,- this of His glorie.

Lancelot Andrewes illustrates the monastic method in a Protestant Church, listen to him intently, bring to his words what you will certainly meet in them, a spirit of prayerful devotion; forgive the quaintness of the preacher for the holiness which shines through all his words, and you will not listen in vain. His sermons will bear modern adaptation, if the mind adapting them and using them be itself informed and filled with ardent and seraphic reverence for the great truth of the Incarnation ; for indeed there is the glow of a seraph about him - quaint as he is the aureola of a saint shines over him; cloistral and monastic, his sermons are wholly free from the wider inspirations of thought and worldly knowledge, they are narrow in their range but they are intense; the live coal from off the altar has given to all his faculties a pure flame; but even as a coal presents strange and grotesque faces in the fires, so with the ardours of his style, they are as grotesque as they are holy; fancies in words took him captive, often it must be admitted very pleasantly. Thus Christ the Conqueror coming from Edom and from the grave.

And comming backe thus, from the debellation (defeat) of the spiritual Edam, and the breaking up of the true Bozra indeed, it is wondered, Who it should be. Note this that nobody knew Christ at His rising; neither Mary Magdalen nor they that went to Emmaus. No more doth the Prophet here.
Now there was reason to aske this question, for none would ever think it to be Christ. There is great oddes; it cannot be He.
1. Not He: He was put to death and put into His grave and a great stone upon Him not three days since. This Fame is alive and alives like. His Ghost it cannot be: He glides not (as Ghosts, they say, doe) but paces the ground very strongly.
Not He: He had His apparell shared amongst the souldiers; was left all naked. This Partie hath gotten Him on glorious apparell, rich scarlet.
Not He: if He come, He must come in white, in the linnen He was lapped in, and laid in his grave. This Partie comes in quite another colour, all in red. So the colours suit not. To be short, not He; He was put to a foile - to a foule foilc - as ever was any : they did to Him even what they listed; scorned and insulted upon Him. It was then the houre and power of darknesse. This Partie, whatsoever He is, hath got the upper hand, won the field  marches stately, Conquerour-like. His the day sure.

The following little extract illustrates the refreshing way Andrewes had of pressing out comfortable truth in his barbarous Latinities.

There was then a new begetting this day. And if a new begetting, a new Paternitie and Fraternitie, both. By the hodié genuite of Christmas, how soone Hee was borne of the Virgin's wombe. Hee became our brother (sinne, except) subject to all our infirmities ; so to mortalitie and even to death it selfe. And by death that brotherhood had beene dissolved, but for this dayes rising. By the hodie genuite of Easter, as soon as Hee was borne again of the wombe of the grave, Hee begins a new brother-hood, founds a new fraternitie straight; adopts us (wee see) anew againe, by His fratres meos; and thereby, Hee that was primogenitus ad mortius, becomes primogenitus inter multos fratres: when the first begotten from the dead, then the first begotten in this respect, among many brethren. Before Hee was ours : now wee are His. That was by the mother's side ; so, Hee ours. This is by Patrem vestrum, the Father's side; So wee His. But halfe-brothers before; Never of whole bloud, till now. Now, by Father and Mother both, Fratres germanie, Fratres fraterrimi, we cannot be more.

Paxton Hood on Puritan Adams 3

Spotted Salamander
(Camazine at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons)

The mind of Puritan Adams did not express itself in the copious and sonorous eloquence of Hooker, nor had his fancy the solemn, quaintly gargoyled style and thoughtfulness, the subtle paradoxical of Sir Thomas Browne; for, as we have already said, he was a preacher, and he evidently thought constantly of his audience; but in his sermons will be found many of the best characteristics of all the wit of Fuller, and the allegoric lights of Bunyan, and much of the out-of-the-way learning and radiant fancy of Jeremy Taylor. His method and style of treating a text or subject are altogether his own; a style, however, adopted and found very taking since his day. We cannot commend it. Thus in his sermon, “A Generation of Serpents,” from the text, “Their poison is like the poison of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear,” he expounds eleven characters -

1. The Salamander, the troublesome and litigious neighbour, whoever loves and lives in the fire of contention.
2. The Dart, that is, the angry man.
3. The Dipsass, the drunkard. This serpent lives altogether in moorish places: the serpent in the fens, the man at the ale-house.
4. The Crocodile, the hypocrite.
5. The Cockatriee, said to kill with its eyes - the courtesan.
6. The Caterpillar, or the earthworm, emblem of the covetous.
7. The Asp, the traitorous seminary.
8. The Lizard, an emblem of the slothful.
9. The Sea Serpent, the pirate, a very common character in Adams' day.
10. The Stellion, the extortioner.
ll. Draco, the great red dragon.

Sometimes his illustrations are of the very queerest. Thus he speaks of the wonderful making of the tongue: -

To create so little a piece of flesh, and to put such vigour into it: to give it neither bones nor nerves, yet to make it stronger than arms and legs, and those most able and serviceable parts of the body.
Because it is so forcible, therefore bath the most wise God ordained that it shall be but little, that it shall be but one. That so the paruity and singularity may abate the vigour of it. If it were paired, as the arms, legs, hands, feet, it would be much more unruly. For he that cannot tame one tongue, how would he be troubled with twain!
Because it is so unruly, the Lord hath hedged it in, as a man will not trust a wild horse in an open pasture, but prison him in a close pound. A double fence bath the Creator given to confine it - the lips and the teeth - that through those bounds it might not break.

A certain quaint and frequently happy ingenuity characterises all the sermons and the writings of Adams. We have before noticed his resemblance to Herbert: the quaintness of the good parson of Bemerton is found in abundance here, not less than his piety. Churchman as he was, we do not find, indeed, the same temple-er stillness, or carved imagery of thought. Herbert’s life was secluded, lonely, and hermetic; that of Adams was passed apparently for the most part in London. Herbert, too, was a more intense ecclesiastic; his fervours were monastic; and although his poems are not organ-like airs, they are notes from a choir, a strange piercing song. Adams was a man of action, interested in all that went on in the great world; and quaint as he is, his quaintness is rather that we notice in the carved oak traoery of some domestic hall or ancient manor, than the writhing gargoyles, or the dim forms of ancient church window. He did not, like Herbert, invite his fancies in to stay and converse with him; he followed them out; and even while he followed one, a host started up, and we sometimes think he chases them all in rather undignified gait or mood. Yet there are some notes, and they are very frequent, which remind the reader of George Herbert or more aptly Jeremy Taylor.

Men and brethren, let us be thankful. Let our meditations travel with David in the 148th Psalm, first up into heaven. Even the very heavens and heights praise Him. And those blessed angels in His court sing His glory. Descend we then by the celestial bodies, and we shall find the sun, moon, and all the stars of light praising Him. A little lower, we shall perceive the meteors and upper elements, the fire and hail, snow and vapour, magnifying Him, even the wind and storms fulfilling His word. Fall we upon the centre -  the very earth. We shall hear the beasts and cattle, mountains and hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, extolling His name. rl'he chirping birds still sing sweet psalms and carols to the Creator’s praise, every morning when they rise, every evening when they go to rest. Not so much as the very creeping things, saith the Psalmist, noisome dragons, and crawling serpents in the deeds, but they do, in a sort, bless their Maker. Let not man, then, the first-fruits of His creatures, for whose service all the rest were made, he unthankful.

And the following is very sweetly expressed: - 

Pride, fraud, drunkenness, is as Mount Seir to the lovers of them. But, alas 1 how unsafe : if stronger against, and further removed from, the hand of man, yet nearer to God’s hand in heaven, though we acknowledge no place far from God or from His thunder. But we say, it is not always the safest sailing on the top of the mast. To live on the mountainous height of a temporal estate is neither wise nor happy. Men standing in the shade of humble valleys, look up and wonder at the height of hills, and think it goodly living there, as Peter thought Tabor. But when, with weary limbs, they have ascended, and find the beams of the sun melting their spirits, or the cold blasts of wind making their sinews slack, flashes of lightning, or cracks of thunder, soonest endangering their advanced heads, then they confess (checking their proud conceit) the low valley is safest. For the fruitful dews that fall fast on the hills stay least while there; but run down to the valley: and though, on such a promontory, a man further sees, and is further seen, yet, in the valley, where he sees less he enjoys more!

Again

There is so much comfort in sorrow as to make all affliction to the elect, a song in the night. Adversity sends us to Christ, as the leprosy sent those ten. Prosperity makes us turn our backs upon Christ and leave him, as health did those nine (Luke xvii.) David’s sweetest songs were his tears. In misery he spared Saul, his great adversary; in peace, he killed Uriah, his dear friend. The wicked sing with grasshoppers, in fair weather; but the faithful (in this like sirens) can sing in a storm. When a man cannot find peace upon earth, he quickly runs to heaven to seek it. Afflictions sometimes maketh an evil man good, always a good man better.

We could imagine the author of the Urn Burial had the following in his mind in a famous passage: 

No, they that are written in the eternal leaves of heaven, shall never be wrapt in the cloudy sheets of darkness. A man may have his name written in the chronicles, yet lost; written in durable marble, yet perish; written on a monument equal to a Colossus, yet be ignominious ; written on the hospital gates, yet go to hell ; written on his own house, yet another come to possess it. All these are but writings in the dust, or upon the waters, where the characters perish so soon as they are made. They no more prove a man happy than the fool could prove Pontins Pilate a saint, because his name was written in the Creed. But they that are written in heaven, are sure to inherit it.

But it was the age of strange conceits; and absurdities inwrought themselves with every department of taste, the age had not recovered from the grotesque freaks of the Elizabethan time. From those outrageous leaps, and acrobatic displays of genius, even Shakespere is not free, and the architecture of the time, like the speech, we know abounds with strange displays; allegoric lessons were constantly offering their teachings from classic forms and allusions, and essays on the wisdom of the ancients were written in a way which often to us seem ludicrous enough, graceless and tasteless in the different departments of domestic architecture. The pulpit of those times has often been found in harmony with the taste which only employed the power of its genius

To raise the ceiling’s fretted height,
Each panel in achievement's clothing,Rich windows that exclude the light,And passages that lead to nothing.

And quaintness and queerness did assuredly inspire not only many of the lines of the poets and designs of the architects, but the plans and conceptions of the preachers too. Few could preach without interlacing the English with little bits of Latin, - to our ears and eyes it seems the merest pedantry - purposeless, for nothing is illustrated, and nothing proved. ....

Adams on Genesis 25:27 (Final Bit)

1. The principal is to please God, whose displeasure against double-dealing the sad examples of Saul for the Amalekites, of Gehazi for the bribes, of Ananias for the inheritance, testify in their destruction. Whose delight in plain-dealing Himself affirms: "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" (John 1:17).

2. The credit of a good name, which is a most worthy treasure, is thus preserved. The riches left thee by thy ancestors may miscarry through others' negligence; the name not, save by thy own fault. It is the plain-dealer's reward, his name shall be had in estimation; whereas no faith is given to the dissembler, even speaking truth. Every man is more ready to trust the poor plain-dealer than the glittering, false-tongued gallant.

3. It prevents and infatuates all the malicious plots of enemies. God, in regard to thy simplicity, brings to nought all their machinations. Thou, O Lord, hadst respect to my simple pureness. An innocent fool takes fearless steps, and walks as securely as if it stood girt with a wall of brass.

4. It preserves thy state from ruin. When by subtlety men think to scrape together much wealth, all is but the spider's web, artificial and weak. What plain-dealing-gets, sticks by us, and infallibly derives itself to our posterity. If thou wouldst be good to thyself and thine, use plainness.

5. It shall somewhat keep thee from the troubles and vexations of the world.

6. The curses of the poor shall never hurt thee. Though the causeless curse shall never come, yet it is happy for a man so to live that all may bless him. Now the plain man shall have this at last. Gallant prodigality, like fire in flax, makes a great blaze, a hot show, but plain hospitality, like fire in solid wood, holds out to warm the poor, because God blesseth it. So I have seen hot spurs in the way gallop amain; but the ivy bushes have so stayed them, that the plain traveller comes first to his journey's end.

7. It shall be thy best comfort on thy death-bed: the conscience of an innocent life. On this staff leans aged Samuel: "Whose ox or ass have I taken?"

8. Lastly, thou shalt find rest for thy soul. Thou hast dealt plainly; so will God with thee, multiplying upon thee His promised mercies.

Adams on Genesis 25:27 (More)

Bryson Burroughs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I. His STRENGTH: A HUNTER. Huntingin itself is a delight lawful and laudable, and may well be argued for from the disposition that God hath put into creatures. He hath naturally inclined one kind of beasts to pursue another for man's profit and pleasure. He hath given the dog a secret instinct to follow the hare, the hart, the fox, the boar, as if he would direct a man by the finger of nature to exercise those qualities which His Divine wisdom created in them.

1. This practice of hunting hath in it delight.

2. Benefit. Recreations have also their profitable use, if rightly undertaken.

(1) The health is preserved by a moderate exercise.

(2) The body is prepared and fitted by these sportive to more serious labours, when the hand of war shall set them to it.

(3) The mind, wearied with graver employments, hath thus some cool respiration given it, and is sent back to the service of God with a revived alacrity.

II. HIS POLICY: A CUNNING HUNTER.

1. He had a ravenous and intemperate desire. This appears from three phrases he used:

(1) "Feed me, I pray thee" (ver 30); satisfy, saturate, satiate me; or, let me swallow at once, as some read it. The words of an appetite insufferable of delay.

(2) To show his eagerness, he doubles the word for haste: "with that red, with that red pottage;" red was his colour, red was his desire. He coveted red pottage; he dwelt in a red soil, called thereon Idumea; and in the text, "therefore was his name called Edom."(3) He says, "I am faint," and (ver. 32) "at the point to die," if I have it not. Like some longing souls that have so weak a hand over their appetites, that they must die if their humour be not fulfilled.

2. His folly may be argued from his base estimation of the birthright; that he would so lightly part from it, and on so easy conditions as pottage.

3. Another argument of his folly was ingratitude to God, who had in mercy vouchsafed him, though but by a few minutes, the privilege of primogeniture; wherewith divines hold that the priesthood was also conveyed.

4. His obstinacy taxeth his folly, that, after cold blood, leisure to think of the treasure he sold, and digestion of his pottage, he repented, not of his rashness, but (ver. 34) "He did eat, and drink, and rose up, and went his way" — filled his belly, rose up to his former customs, and went his way without a Quidfeci? Therefore it is added, "he despised his birthright." He followed his pleasures without any interception of sorrow or interruption of conscience. His whole life was a circle of sinful customs; and not his birthright's loss can put him out of them.

5. Lastly, his perfidious nature appeareth, that though he had made an absolute conveyance of his birthright to Jacob, and sealed the deed with an oath, yet he seemed to make but a jest of it, and purposed in his heart not to perform it. Thus literally; let us now come to some moral application to ourselves. Hunting is, for the most part, taken in the Holy Scripture in the worst sense. So (Genesis 10:9) Nimrod was a hunter, even to a proverb; and that "before the Lord," as without fear of His majesty. Now, if it were so hateful to hunt beasts, what is it to hunt men? The wicked oppressors of the world are here typed and taxed, who employ both arm and brain to hunt the poor out of their habitations, and to drink the blood of the oppressed Herein observe —

I. The persons hunted.

II. The manner of hunting; and,

III. The hounds.

1. The poor are their prey: any man that either their wit or violence can practise on.

2. You hear the object they hunt; attend the manner. And this you shall find, as Esau's, to consist in two things — force and fraud. They are not only hunters, but cunning hunters.

3. Now for their hounds. Besides that they have long noses themselves, and hands longer than their noses, they have dogs of all sorts. Beagles, cunning intelligencers - the more crafty they are, the more commendable, Their setters, prowling promoters; whereof there may be necessary use, as men may have dogs, but they take them for mischievous purposes. Their spaniels, fawning sycophants, who lick their master's hands, but are brawling ever at poor strangers. Their great mastiffs; surly and sharking bailiffs, that can set a rankling tooth in the poor tenants' ribs. Thus I have shown you a field of hunters; what should I add, but my prayers to heaven, and desires to earth, that these hunters may be hunted? The hunting of harmful beasts is commended: the wolf, the boar, the bear, the fox, the tiger, the otter. But the metaphorical hunting of these is more praiseworthy; the country wolves, or city foxes, deserve most to be hunted.

Adams on Genesis 25:27

Two things are observable in the holy patriarchs, and commendable to all that will be heirs with them of eternal life.

1. Their contempt of the world. They that dwell in tents intend not a long dwelling in a place. They are moveables, ever ready to be transferred at the occasion and will of the inhabiter. "Abraham dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise" (Hebrews 11:9). The reason is added, "for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." These saints studied not to enlarge their barns, as the rich cosmopolite (Luke 12.), or to sing requiems to their souls, in the hoped perpetuity of earthly habitations. "Soul, live; thou hast enough laid up for many years." Fool! he had not enough for that night. They had no thought that their houses should continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations; thereupon calling their lands after their own names (Psalm 49:11). God convinceth the foolish security of the Jews, to whom He had promised (by the Messiah to be purchased) an everlasting royalty in heaven, by the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35:7), who built no houses, but dwelt in tents, as if they were strangers, ready on a short warning for removal. The Church esteems heaven her home, this world but a tent, a tent which we must all leave, build we as high as Babel, as strong as Babylon. When we have fortified, combined, feasted, death comes with a voider, and takes away all.

2. Their frugality should not pass unregarded. Here is no ambition of great buildings; a tent will serve. How differ our days and hearts from those! The fashion is now to build great houses to our lands, till we have no lands to our houses; and the credit of a good house is made, not to consist in outward hospitality, but in outward walls.

Adams on conscience

Deeds prove more than words; never tell me your science, show to me the fruits of your good conscience ...
Knowledge directs conscience; conscience perfects knowledge ...
Conscience is to the soul as the stomach is to the body ...
(5) The fifth is the manual, the pocket-book, the bosom-book of our conscience. The other books will manifest what we should have done; this, what we have done. We cannot except against it, because it hath always been in our own keeping, and nothing shall be written in it, but what is subscribed by our proper hand.

It hath three offices: first, to give in testimony of something acted or omitted. Secondly, to examine whether the action or omission were lawful or unwarrantable. Thirdly, to give judgment according to that evidence.

It can both bind and loose; it binds a man faster than the Philistines bound Samson, and looseth him sooner than the angel loosed Peter. It is a private law within man : when law and chancery too have done with him, (and that not seldom is long before it hath done with him,) then conscience taxes him in hand. It is a true looking-glass, that represents all blemishes, without favour or flattery. It is below God, but above man, a vice-god ; and deals with us here, as God will do hereafter. There is a bill framed out of the law, it is high treason against our high Sovereign's crown and dignity: our works are the evidence, and conscience is the witness, which will not be bribed to give a false testimony.

If the main course of our life be gracious, and our conscience will speak for our works, that they proceed from a sound faith and honest heart; we are then quit by proclamation, for nobody comes in against us: the world may not, our sins shall not, our conscience must not, the angels dare not, God will not, the devil cannot, for he is the father of lies, and his word will not be taken.

But if otherwise, all these will be against us: there need no subpoenas to fetch in witnesses; they come unsent for, and cannot be kept back; they will speak the truth, and all the truth. As intelligencers for statesmen mingle themselves with all companies, but use their best art to keep themselves concealed; so the conscience is God's informer, a spy in the soul, mixing herself with all our thoughts and actions: it is indeed the reflection of the soul upon itself. Though we know not what this conscience is, yet this conscience knows what we are. As Pilate asked Christ, What is truth? John xviii. 38, when the Truth stood before him; so many ask what is conscience? when indeed conscience is within them.

Exposition of 2 Peter, 34, 588, 670

Adams on the wise men

The Bible is to us what the star was to the wise men; but if we spend all our time in gazing upon it, observing its motions, and admiring its splendour, without being led to Christ by it, the use of it will be lost on us.

Adams on sinful silence

In the Three divine sisters Adams says this

This one office of love is almost forgotten in the world. Our eyes and ears are conscious of many horrid sins, whereof we make also our souls guilty by our silence. Like chameleons, we turn to the colour of our company. Oppressions, that draw blood of the commonwealth, move us not. Oaths, that totter the battlements of heaven, wake us not. Oh, where is our kindness! Whilst we do not reprove, we approve these iniquities. He is conscious of secret guiltiness that forbeareth to resist open iniquity. Thou sayest it is for love's sake thou sparest reprehension. Why, if thou love thy friend never so dearly, yet thou oughtest to love truth more dearly. Let not, then, the truth of love prejudice the love of truth.

Want of a nail

photography by Christophe.Finot, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

This is a well known nursery rhyme

For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost,
for want of a horse the knight was lost,
for want of a knight the battle was lost.
So it was a kingdom was lost – all for want of a nail.

The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes gives as the oldest version the words of Adams in his complete sermons of 1629

“The want of a nail loseth the shoe, the loss of a shoe troubles the horse, the horse endangereth the rider, the rider breaking his rank molests the company so far as to hazard the whole army.”

Garvie on Adams

In his 1921 book Christian preaching A E Garvie has a place for Adams in his history. He puts him between Henry Smith and Thomas Goodwin and says Even greater as a Puritan preacher than Henry Smith was Thomas Adams (died after 1630), "the Shakespeare of the Puritans."

"While Adams is not so sustained as Jeremy Taylor, nor so continuously sparkling as Thomas Fuller, he is surpassingly eloquent, and much more thought-laden than either." While doctrine of the Calvinistic Evangelical type had a large place in his preaching, he did not overlook morals and manners. He insists on both learning and piety in the preacher, and warns him against seeking the applause of men. In a sermon on the Fatal Banquet he anticipates Bunyan in describing the vanity of human desires and efforts.

The following sentences explain why he was likened to Shakespeare:

"Oh, how goodly this building of man appears when it is clothed with beauty and honour! A face full of majesty, the throne of comeliness, wherein the whiteness of the lily contends with the sanguine of the rose; an active hand, an erected countenance, an eye sparkling out lustre, a smooth complexion, arising from an excellent temperature and composition. Oh, what a workman was this, that could raise such a fabric out of the earth, and lay such orient colours upon dust!"

Aware of man's dignity, he is moved by the tragedy of man's sin and refusal of God's grace.

"Come then, beloved, to Jesus Christ; come betimes, the flesh calls, we come; vanity calls, we flock; the world calls, we fly: let Christ call early and late, He has yet to say, 'Ye will not come unto me that you might have life!"

Adams on Psalm 141:2 & 147:3

141:2 As the evening sacrifice. This should be our daily service, as a lamb was offered up morning and evening for a sacrifice. But, alas! how dull and dead are our devotions! Like Pharaoh's chariots, they drive on heavily. Some, like Balaam's ass, scarce ever open their mouths twice.

147:13 He hath strengthened the bars of thy gates. Blessed is the city whose gates God barreth up with his power, and openeth again with his mercy. There is nothing can defend where his justice will strike; and there is nothing can offend where his goodness will preserve.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David

Adams on Psalm 139:14

14 I will praise thee, etc. All God's works are admirable, man wonderfully wonderful. "Marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well." What infers he on all this? Therefore "I will praise thee." If we will not praise him that made us, will he not repent that he made us? Oh that we knew what the saints do in heaven, and how the sweetness of that doth swallow up all earthly pleasures! They sing honour and glory to the Lord. Why? Because he hath created all things: Rev 4:11. When we behold an exquisite piece of work, we presently enquire after him that made it, purposely to commend his skill: and there is no greater disgrace to an artist, than having perfected a famous work, to find it neglected, no man minding it, or so much as casting an eye upon it. All the works of God are considerable, and man is bound to this contemplation. "When I consider the heavens", etc., I say, "What is man?." Ps 8:3,4. He admires the heavens, but his admiration reflects upon man. Quis homo? There is no workman but would have his instruments used, and used to that purpose for which they were made ... Man is set like a little world in the midst of the great, to glorify God; this is the scope and end of his creation.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David

Adams on Psalm 133:2, 135:6 & 137:8

133:2 That ran down...that went down, etc Christ's grace is so diffusive of itself, that it conveys holiness to us, "running down from the head to the skirts", to all his members. He was not only anointed himself, but he is our anointer. Therefore it is called "the oil of gladness", because it rejoiceth our hearts, by giving us spiritual gladness, and peace of conscience.

135:6 In heaven and in the earth, etc. His power is infinite. He can do what he will do everywhere; all places are there named but purgatory; perhaps he can do nothing there, but leaves all that work for the Pope.

137:8 He that sows evil shall reap evil; he that soweth the evil of sin, shall reap the evil of punishment. So Eliphaz told Job that he had seen (Job 4:8), "they that plough iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same." And that either in kind or quality, proportion or quantity. In kind, the very same that he did to others shall be done to him; or in proportion, a measure answerable to it. So he shall reap what he hath sown, in quality or in quantity; either in portion the same, or in proportion the like. The prophet cursing Edom and Babel saith thus, "O daughter of Zion, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us." The original is, "that recompenses to thee thy deed which thou didst to us." ... Thus is wickedness recompensed suo genere, in its own kind. So often the transgressor is against the transgressor, the thief robs the thief, proditoros proditor;as in Rome many unchristened emperors, and many christened popes, by blood and treason got the sovereignty, and by blood and treason lost it. Evil men drink of their own brewing, are scourged with their own rod, drowned in the pit which they digged for others, as Haman was hanged on his own gallows, Perillus tormented in his own engine!

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David

Adams on Psalm 128:3 & 130:4

128:3 By the sides of thine house. Not on the roof, nor on the floor; the one is too high, she is no ruler; the other too low, she is no slave: but in the sides, an equal place between both.

130:4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. One would think that punishment should procure fear, and forgiveness love; but nemo majus diligit, quam qui maxime veretur offendere - no man more truly loves God than he that is most fearful to offend him. "Thy mercy reacheth to the heavens, and thy faithfulness to the clouds" - that is, above all sublimities. God is glorious in all his works, but most glorious in his works of mercy; and this may be one reason why St Paul calls the gospel of Christ a "glorious gospel": 1 Tim 1:11. Solomon tells us, "It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence." Herein is God most glorious, in that he passeth by all the offences of his children. Lord, who can know thee and not love thee, know thee and not fear thee? We fear thee for thy justice, and love thee for thy mercy; yea, fear thee for thy mercy, and love thee for thy justice; for thou art infinitely good in both.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David

Adams on Psalm 126:5

5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy

They sow in faith

and God will bless that seed: it shall grow up to heaven, for it is sown in the side of Jesus Christ who is in heaven. "He that believeth on God", this is the seed; "shall have everlasting life" (Joh 5:24); this is the harvest. Qui credit quod non videt, videbit quod credit, —he that believes what he doth not see; this is the seed: shall one day see what he hath believed; this is the harvest. They sow in obedience

this is also a blessed seed, that will not fail to prosper Wheresoever it is cast. "If ye keep my commandments"; this is the seed: "ye shall abide in my love" (Joh 15:10); this is the harvest. (Ro 6:22), "Ye are become servants to God, and have your fruit unto holiness"; this is the sowing: "and the end everlasting life"; this is the reaping. Obedientia in tetris, regnabit in coelis,—he that serves God on earth, and sows the seed of obedience, shall in heaven reap the harvest of a kingdom. They sow in repentance

and this seed must needs grow up to blessedness ... Many saints have now reaped their crop in heaven, that sowed their seed in tears. David, Mary Magdalene, Peter: as if they had made good the proverb, "No coming to heaven with dry eyes." Thus nature and God differ in their proceedings. To have a good crop on earth, we desire a fair seedtime; but here a wet time of sowing shall bring the best harvest in the barn of heaven. "Blessed are they that mourn"; this is the seeding: "for they shall be comforted" (Mt 5:4); this is the harvest. They sow in renouncing the world, and adherence to Christ

and they reap a great harvest. "Behold", saith Peter to Christ, "we have forsaken all, and followed thee" (Mt 19:27); this is the seeding. "What shall we have therefore?" What? "You shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Mt 19:28-29); all that you have lost shall be centupled to you: "and you shall inherit everlasting life"; this is the harvest. "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, and reap in mercy": Ho 10:12. They sow in charity

He that sows this seed shall be sure of a plentiful crop. "Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only"—a little refreshing—"in the name of a disciple; verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward": Mt 10:42. But if he that giveth a little shall be thus recompensed, then "he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully": 2 Cor 9:6. Therefore sparse abroad with a full hand, like a seeds man in a broad field, without fear. Doth any think he shall lose by his charity? No worldling, when he sows his seed, thinks he shall lose his seed; he hopes for increase at harvest. Do you dare trust the ground and not God? Sure God is a better paymaster than the earth: grace doth give a larger recompense than nature. Below thou mayest receive forty grains for one; but in heaven, (by the promise of Christ,)a hundred fold: a "measure heapen, and shaken, and thrust together, and yet running over." "Blessed is he that considereth the poor"; this is the seeding: "the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble" (Ps 41:1); this is the harvest.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David

Adams on Psalm 124:7 & 125:3, 4

7 Our soul is escaped as a bird The snare of the fowler was the lime-twigs of this world; our soul was caught in them by the feathers, our affections: now, indeed, we are escaped; but the Lord delivered us.

3 The rod of the wicked It is, their rod, made for them; if God scourge his children a little with it, he doth but borrow it from the immediate and natural use for which it was ordained; their rod, their judgment. So it is called their cup: "This is the portion" and potion "of their cup." Ps 11:6 (from commentary on 2 Peter)

4 Lastly, they have the lot of heaven. Hell is the lot of the wicked: "Behold at evening tide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us": Isa 27:14. Therefore it is said of Judas, that he went "to his own place": Ac 1:25. "Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup": Ps 11:6. But the lot of the righteous is faith, and the end of their faith the salvation of their souls. God gives them heaven, not for any foreseen worthiness in the receivers, for no worthiness of our own can make us our father's heirs; but for his own mercy and favour in Christ, preparing heaven for us, and us for heaven. So that upon his decree it is allotted to us; and unless heaven could lose God, we cannot lose heaven. Here, then, consider how the lottery of Canaan may shadow out to us that blessed land of promise whereof the other was a type.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David

Adams on Psalm 119:4, 5, 51, 136, 162

4-5 Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently; this is God's imperative. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!; this should be our optative.

51 The proud have had me greatly in derision The saints of God have complained of this in all ages: David of his busy mockers; the abjects jeered him. Job was disdained of those children whose fathers he would have scorned to set with the dogs of his flock, Job 30:1. Joseph was nicknamed a dreamer, Paul a babbler, Christ himself a Samaritan, and with intent of disgrace a carpenter ... Michal was barren, yet she hath too many children, that scorn the habit and exercises of holiness. There cannot be a greater argument of a foul soul, than the deriding of religious services. Worldly hearts can see nothing in those actions, but folly and madness; piety hath no relish, but is distasteful to their palates.

136 Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law The vices of the religious are the shame of religion: the sight this hath made the stoutest champions of Christ melt into tears. David was one of those great worthies of the world, not matchable in his time yet he weeps. Did he tear in pieces a bear like a kid? Rescue a lamb will the death of a lion? Foil a mighty giant, that had dared the whole of God? Did he like a whirlwind, bear and beat down his enemies below him; and now, does he, like a child or a woman, fall weeping? Yes, he had heard the name of God blasphemed, seen his holy rites profaned, his statutes vilipended (treated with contempt), and violence offered to the pure chastity of that virgin, religion; this resolved that valiant heart into tears: "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes."

162 I rejoice at thy word "Euripides," saith the orator, "hath in his well composed tragedies more sentiments than sayings;" and Thucydides hath so stuffed every syllable of his history with substance, that the one runs parallel along with the other; Lysias's works are so well couched that you cannot take out the least word but you take away the whole sense with it; and Phocion had a special faculty of speaking much in a few words. The Cretians, in Plato's time (however degenerated in St Paul's), were more weighty than wordy; Timanthes was famous in this, that in his pictures more things were intended than deciphered; and of Homer it is said that none could ever peer him for poetry. Then how much more apt and apposite are these high praises to the book of God, rightly called the Bible or the book as if it were, as indeed it is, both for fitness of terms and fullness of truth, the only book to winch (as Luther saith) all the books in the world are but waste paper. It is called the word, by way of eminency, because it must be the butt and boundary of all our words; and the scripture, as the lord paramount above all other words or writings of men collected into volumes, there being, as the Rabbins say, a mountain of sense hanging upon every tittle of it, whence may be gathered flowers and phrases to polish our speeches with, even sound words, that have a healing property in them, far above all filed phrases of human elocution.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David

Adams on Psalm 116:16

16 I am thy servant The saints have ever had a holy pride in being God's servants; there cannot be a greater honour than to serve such a Master as commands heaven, earth, and hell. Do not think thou dost honour God in serving him; but this is how God honours thee, in vouchsafing then to be his servant. David could not study to give himself a greater style than - "O Lord, or, truly I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid," and this he spake, not in the phrase of a human compliment, but in the humble confession of a believer. Yea, so doth the apostle commend this excellency, that he sets the title of servant before that of an apostle; first servant, then apostle. Great was his office in being an apostle, greater his blessing in being a servant of Jesus Christ; the one is an outward calling, the other an inward grace. There was an apostle condemned, never any servant of God.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David

Adams on Psalm 109:10-13, 16

10-13 Many penurious fathers are so scraping for their children, that they ravish the poor children of God; but the hand of the Lord shall be against their young lions. Na 2:13. They join house to house and field to field but their children shall be "vagabonds and beg", "seeking their bread out of their desolate places." How many a covetous mole is now digging a house in the earth for his posterity, and never dreams of this sequel, that God should make those children beggars, for whose sake their fathers had made so many beggars! This is a quittance which the sire will not believe, but as sure as God is just the son shall feel. Now if he had but leave to come out of hell for an hour, and see this, how should he curse his folly! Sure, if possible, it would double the pain of his infernal torture. Be moderate, then, ye that so insatiately devour, as if you had an infinite capacity: you overload your stomachs, it is fit they should be disburdened in shameful spewing. How quickly doth a worldly minded man grow a defrauder, from a defrauder to a usurer, from a usurer to an oppressor, from an oppressor to an extortioner! If his eyes do but tell his heart of a booty, his heart will charge his hand, and he must have it, Mic 2:2. They do but see it, like it, and take it. Observe their due payment. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath: they got all by extortion, they shall lose all by extortion. They spoiled their neighbours, strangers shall spoil them. How often hath the poor widow and orphan cried, wept, groaned to them for mercy, and found none! They have taught God how to deal with themselves; let there be none to extend mercy to them. They have advanced houses for a memorial, and dedicated lands to their own names, Ps 49:11; all to get them a name; and even in this they shall be crossed: In the next generation their name shall be quite put out.

16 But persecuted the poor If any man will practice subtraction against the poor, God will use it against him, and take his name out of the book of life. If he be damned that gives not his own, what shall become of him that takes away another man's? (Augustine) If judgment without mercy shall be to him that shows no mercy (Jas 2:13) where shall subtraction and rapine appear?

Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let strangers spoil his labour, Ps 109:11: there is one subtraction, his estate.

Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out, Ps 109:13: there is another subtraction, his memory.

Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children, Ps 109:12: there is another subtraction, a denial of all pity to him and his.

Let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin, Ps 109:7: there is another subtraction, no audience from heaven.

Let another take his office; there is a subtraction of his place: let his days be few, Ps 109:8: there is a subtraction of his life.

Let him be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous, Ps 69:28; there is the last, the subtraction of his soul.

This is a fearful arithmetic: if the wicked add sins, God will add plagues. If they subtract from others their rights, God shall subtract from them his mercies.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David.

Adams on Psalm 106:6,13,15

6 We have sinned with our fathers. Let us look a little further back, to find the age of sin; even as far as the original, from whence comes all the copy of imitation. Be they never so new in act, they are old in example: "We have sinned with our fathers." God tells them they had rebelled of old; "As your fathers did, so do ye" (Acts 8:51). Antiquity is no infallible argument of goodness: though Tertullian says the first things were the best things; and the less they distanced from the beginning, the poorer they were; but he must be understood only of holy customs. For iniquity can plead antiquity: he that commits a new act of murder finds it old in the example of Cain; drunkenness may be fetched from Noah; contempt of parents from Ham; women's lightness from the daughters of Lot. There is no sin but hath white hairs upon it, and is exceeding old. But let us look further back yet, even to Adam; there is the age of sin. This is that St Paul calls the old man; it is almost as old as the root, but older than all the branches. Therefore our restitution by Christ to grace is called the new man.

13 They soon forgat his works They forgat, yea, "soon"; they made haste to forget, so the original is: "They made haste, they forgat." Like men that in sleep shake Death by the hand, but when they are awake they will not know him.

15 And he gave them their request, etc The throat's pleasure did shut up paradise, sold the birthright, beheaded the Baptist and it was the chief of the cooks, Nebuzaradan, that first set fire to the temple, and razed the city. These effects are,
1. Grossness; which takes away agility to any good work; which makes a man more like a tun upon two pottle pots. Caesar said he mistrusted not Antony and Dolabella for any practices, because they were fat; but Casca and Cassius, lean, hollow fellows, who did think too much. The other are the devil's crammed fowls, too fat to lay. Indeed, what need they travel far, whose felicity is at home; placing paradise in their throats, and heaven in their food?
2. Macilency (leanness) of grace; for as it puts fatness into their bodies, so leanness into their souls. God fatted the Israelites with quails, but withal sent leanness into their soul. The flesh is blown up, the spirit doth languish. They are worse than man eaters, for they are self eaters: they put a pleurisy into their bloods, and an apoplexy into their souls.

As quoted in Spurgeon's Treasury of David.