passengers because he came into the world for a publick benefit The time most seasonable and accommodate the very fulness of time as the Apostle says Whereupon St. Ambrose Christus tanquam maturitas advenit ut nihil acerbum nihil immaturum nihil immite sit he came when all the fruits of comfort were mellow ripe and delicious that nothing might be sower or harsh or distasteful to us Tardius enascitur cupressus seris umbram factura nepotibus says Pliny the Cypress tree is long a growing yet when it is grown up to a tree the shade of it serves for an harbour to the child unborn So the long expectation of Christs coming is requited with those blessings that grow up more and more and spread wider and wider for all generations to come The company that came from heaven to congratulate this day most glorious and chearful a multitude of heavenly host and what a mighty army hath he levied to take our part in respect of those few scattered forces which are against us The manner of his birth most edifying and instructive in all abjectness and low estate in all poverty and humility A magnificent pompous Saviour would have been a scandalous example as we may well mistrust it to the high imaginations of our hearts and might sooner have destroyed this proud world than redeem'd it we did not want a Champion in arms but an Infant in swadling clouts We did not need a Prince guarded with his Peers but one in the form of a servant whose best companions that came about him were silly Shepherds It was not for our turn to have one that would keep state and ruffle Superbia non est magnitudo sed tumor Pride is not greatness verily and in truth nay but a tumor that is blown up with appearance It was for our profit to have one that did empty himself of his glory and make himself of low degree that man may blush away his own pride when he sees the Son of God invested with humility Finally the fruit of this Nativity O the fruit of it is passing delectable and unutterable grace illumination vacancy from fear of condemnation tranquility of conscience angelical protection here angelical society hereafter to know the rigor of the Law was the old lesson to know the Covenant of Grace the new to live and dye were vulgar things to rise from death and to live for ever came by him who being our head was made mortal that we might be immortal members of his body So I have pointed only to severals as in a map to the felicity of the Womb he chose of the place that received him of the time that exactly fitted him of the company that congratulated him of the humility that adorn'd him of the precious fruit that grew from him that the Sum might redound to make up this principal point of my Text everlasting blessing is the free gift of God to this whole world through the Incarnation c. The second Evangelical observation above that which the woman conceived that spake these words is thus Both the Womb and the Paps also of common Mothers are obnoxious to many miseries and to such great ones sometimes that they prove mortal The subtilty of the Serpent brought this curse upon the Womb of mothers Gen. iii. 16. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and conception in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children That calamity is a common wound to that tender sex not so apt to bear any sore affliction But the birth of Christ was without the pangs and hard travail of the Mother The malediction was not upon Mary but Blessed was the womb that bare him Ipsa genetrix fuit obstetrix says St. Cyprian Mary was both the Mother and the Midwife of the Child Far be it from us to think that the weak hand of any woman could facilitate that work which was guided only by the miraculous hand of God The Lord did do his own work so great so transcendent without all humane assistance And mark another reason of St. Austins if any should headily contradict it Quod sine voluptate carnis concepit sine dolore peperit The Virgin conceived our Lord without the lusts of the flesh and therefore she brought him forth without the dolour without the curse of the flesh And many other of the Fathers for it was their common tradition have these similitudes upon it As a Bee draws hony from the flower without offending it as Eve was taken out Adams side without any grief to him as a Sprig opens the bark of a tree to grow out of it as the light sparkles from the light of a Star such ease it was to Mary to bring forth her first born Son Gravida sed non gravabatur says Bernard Shee had a burden in her Womb before she was delivered yet she was not burdened that lies upon this proof that shee took a journey instantly before she was delivered from Nazareth to Bethlehem above forty miles and yet she suffered it without weariness or complaint For such was the power of the Babe that he did rather support the Mothers weakness than was supported And as he lightned his Mothers travail by t he way that it was not tedious to her tender age so he took away all dolour and imbecillity from her travail in Child-birth This was a benediction upon her Womb Blessed is the Womb c. Thirdly In this the woman prophesied more than shee understood that whereas nature is like Hagar that bringeth forth children unto bondage and all the off-springs which Mothers bring forth are in themselves accursed from the womb for we are all born and conceived in sin Prius reati quam nati only this child this Immanuel this holy of holies was a righteous branch that knew no sin that had no part in iniquity and therefore exempted from that malediction which lies upon our shoulders from the first hour wherein we are born According to the strictness of the Law by which no flesh is justified that sentence is most righteous against us all Deut. xxviii 18. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body Therefore Job sell out with his birth-day and so did Jeremy for until the time that we are regenerate and born anew 't is most true which they perhaps disgusted in discontent Cursed be the day wherein I was born let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed St. Ambrose reduceth it very well to this moral application let the day of my first birth perish that I may be accounted to live from the day of my regeneration Pereat dies secularis ut dies spiritualis oriatur vanish those days of sin that none but spiritual days may shine upon me But all that bitter mourning came from hence that nothing but wrath and rejection belongs unto us as we are born in original depravation This is true in all one only excepted who in the similitude of sinful flesh took our nature upon him
unto the worlds end The Schoolmen collect a threefold opening of the heaven in holy Scripture and every way through the power and act of Christ Says Ales In baptismo aperta est coeli janua per figuram in passione per meritum in ascensione per effectum 1. The gates of heaven were opened at this Baptism as in a Type or Figure that they should be opened and God will certainly make good whatsoever he did but shadow in a Figure 2. They were opened at the shedding of his bloud upon the Cross as by those means which did meritoriously procure the opening Therefore we sing in the Te Deum When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers 3. They were opened effectually when his own glorious body entred in once into the most Holy of Holies when the heads of the everlasting doors were lifted up at the day of his Ascension And where the head doth sit at the right hand of God the Members of the body having their sins washed clean away shall reign also The Earth never opened in holy Scripture but upon some Curse for the destruction of man The Heavens never opened but that some mighty Blessing might distil down upon us the probatum whereof is in the second general part of my Text for the first Miracle which we have handled did but make way unto the second And after the heavens were opened he saw the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon him That John Baptist had this Miracle so clearly in his eye that he saw the Spirit of God I find it not so material to the business of the Text as to insist much upon it For although some observe upon it that the first Witness that preach'd of the Son of God is conceited to be the first Witness that saw the Holy Ghost yet the Miracle hapned not so much for Johns sake as to lead the whole multitude into a right apprehension that Jesus was that holy One which came into the world for the redemption of Israel John was born of a barren woman his Garments very strange and uncouth no better than the skins of Camels clapt about him as they were flay'd from the beast his austerity of life stupendious his Preaching powerful high in estimation so that all the Regions round about came to him to be baptized this drew them to conceit that none could come into the world to be compared with John But Columba columbam docuit the Dove taught the Dove the Spirit taught the Church who was the Christ the Saviour of mankind by the descending of the Dove That which I will speak to this Point briefly shall be brancht out into a threefold inquiry 1. Whether this were a living bird or no more than the figurative Apparition of a Dove 2. How aptly the Spirit came in one figure upon Christ in another of fire and cloven tongues at the day of Pentecost upon the Apostles 3. That the figure of a Dove doth sweetly admonish us of the properties of the Holy Ghost What manner of Dove this was is not a question of such doubtful resolution as the former how the heavens were opened for treading in the path of the Scripture as I adjudge it we may find the truth For three Evangelists say that the Spirit did sit upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were a Dove then add St. Luke unto it that the Dove came in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a bodily shape and these put together me seems do strongly prove two things 1. That it was not viva columba a Pigeon out of the Dove-Coats with a living soul for to notifie that there was but the outward fashion and resemblance of such a bird in three Gospels we read it was but quasi columba like a Dove And yet that you may not take it to be mere Phenomenon a shadow to perswade the eye having no substance in truth St. Luke hath not omitted that it was a bodily shape Verae effigies columbae a body created for this service having the true lineaments of a Dove To make both these opinions good by several illustrations And first what need it to be of the true Species of Doves Was not miraculous Omnipotency as much seen to frame such a shape out of the Elements at an instant and to put motion in it to descend upon the head of Christ as if it had been a very foul It was a work which could not be effected but by the infinite and incomprehensible Trinity For the Dove was a representation of the Holy Ghost the voice which came from heaven did speak the Father only the humane nature was united only to the Person of the Son but the Dove the voice the humane nature were the works of the whole Trinity which coequally works all effects in the world You may fully conceive what natural composition this Dove had by those bodily shapes wherein the Angels or God appeared of old to the Patriarchs they were not actuated by a soul but moved about by God or his Angels for the present turn as a Ship is by the Pilot. When their Errand was dispatcht the body vanisht away into air So the use of this Miracle being accomplished at Jordan the Dove was no more seen but instantly resolved into Elements Besides that which came down upon the Disciples at Whitsontide was a cloven tongue like as of fire did ever any man say it was fire indeed So this Apparition upon the head of Christ was like a Dove But for what purpose or necessity should it be a Dove indeed For Christ was man indeed because he took upon him the nature of man to redeem it therefore the reason is forcible that the Holy Ghost should not come down in a Dove indeed because he took not upon him the nature of a Dove to redeem it Secondly I gathered from St. Luke though it had not the life of a Dove yet it had lineaments and compacture of true substance like a Dove Christ came among us bodily in the flesh wherefore says St. Austin to shew that the assumption of a corporeal nature did not make an inequality of persons in the Godhead a voice was heard from heaven in the Person of the Father as if it had proceeded from the instruments of the body and a bodily Dove did descend from heaven in the Person as it were of the Holy Ghost Likewise the coming down is the motion of a body The Spirit is every where and cannot descend to any place which was not filled with his presence from the beginning of the world but in hôc signo in this bodily shape and effigie he came down And mark Beloved the Devil is Spiritus cadens I saw Satan fall like lightning down he tumbles to the nethermost Pit and all that follow him but the Holy Ghost descends like an humble Spirit according as our Saviour bids us place our selves at
the Feast Go and sit down in the lowest room but litterally descension is infallibly the motion of a body And otherwise the wonder had herein consisted not that such a Dove was seen but that such a strange spectacle appeared to John and to all the multitude which was not to be seen John did see the object it did not phantastically in a shadow deceive him as if he saw it And it is a touch worthy to be observed by the way that my Text says he saw the Spirit which is a clear Metonimy of the sign for the thing signified for in truth he saw no more than the outward sign of the Spirit To call the holy Spirit by the attribute of the Dove is a Sacramental signification not an essential mutation just such a form of speech as when Christ brake bread at his Last Supper and said unto his Disciples This is my body I proceed to that which follows how aptly the Spirit came in one figure at this time upon Christ in another of fire and cloven tongues at this day of Pentecost upon the Apostles If I would rake old Heresies out of their dead embers to refute them here I had occasion The Arians extorted from hence that Christ did receive the mighty gift of Sanctification at this Baptism and other admirable graces of the Spirit which he had not before If they were worth the refuting I could tell them Joh. i. 14. As soon as ever the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us he was full of grace and truth On the contrary the Macedonian Hereticks men of corrupt minds did make a difference of dignity between Christ and the Holy Ghost as the body of a man was more excellent which belonged to Christ than the body of a Dove wherin the Spirit sate upon him Then belike if an Angel should come in the shape of a man or of an Eagle which is more glorious than a Dove he should also have the preheminence But the blindness of the error came from hence that they did not distinguish how Christ took upon him the nature of a man but the Holy Ghost did not assume the nature of a Dove Let these blasphemies go let them rot and consume with the Authors which invented them the Father the Son and the Spirit are all one in Glory equal in Majesty coeternal Upon occasion of Baptism the Master sent forth his Disciples saying Go and baptize all Nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Can I pass by the surpassing wit of St. Austin upon that place Non in nominibus sed in nomine patris ubi unum nomen est ibi unus Deus Not in the names but in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Where there is but one name and no more there is but one God and no more As in like argument St. Paul Gal. iii. 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the Promises made he saith not and to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ Let me return into my own path which I am to beat that Christ had one sign of the Holy Ghost coming down upon him and the Apostles had another Upon which diversity thus I find the Fathers exercising their wits in several meditations First The Spirit sate upon our Saviours head in the shape of an whole entire creature in no other figure but a tongue upon the Apostles which is no more than a little part of the body for we receive the grace of God by scantlings and pittances and small measures the whole Spirit flowed into Christ in all abundance In like manner Gregory shews the odds between his fulness and ours in Analogy between the head and other members of the body A body hath the sense of touching only and no more the head is the continent of all the five senses Ita membra superni capitis in quibusdam virtutibus emicant ipsum caput in cunctis virtutibus flagret So the Saints have several gifts and ornaments divided among them some in one kind some in another but the head of the Church hath all flourisheth with all those vertues united in himself which are parted among his members Secondly The tongues of holy men and Prophets did often promise grace and reconciliation to the world and therefore a tongue did sit upon them as it were a Crest of Armory a Dove when time was did actually exhibit that God was pacified and appeased when he had been wroth I mean the Dove which returned to the Ark with a dry Olive branch in her mouth in token that the waters were dried up and that Noah and his Family might come forth with safety Therefore a Dove most properly did belong to Christ Most properly I say but more transcendently says St. Chrysostom now than ever The first Dove did comfort the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that punishment was taken away this Dove is a sacred pledge that grace and blessings shall be bestowed upon us Now it appeared not to bring one man and his family safe into the possession of the earth but to bring all Believers safe into the possession of heaven Thirdly The Spirit came not to Christ in fire for he was full of Zeal nor yet in the shape of a tongue for full of grace were his lips But discite quia mitis learn of me because I am meek and gentle therefore says Bernard the Dove came to testifie the placidness of the Lamb. Quod agnus in animalibus columba in avibus such as the Lamb is among the beasts of the field such is the Dove among the fouls of the air Fire is stern and formidable Christ would have none of that that which sorts with consolation to recreate a trembling conscience was his peculiar choice therefore the third Person descended like a Dove and sate upon him Fourthly The tongues wherein the Apostles received the grace of God were cloven and divided not to signifie a rent and a division Linguarum distantiae non sunt schismata but because there is a diversity and a dispreading about of the gifts of God Then comes down one single Dove to honour Unity Spiritus sanctus divisus in linguis unitus in columbâ says St. Austin it was pride which caused that diversity of tongues it was the Holy Ghost through the humility of Christ which sanctified that diversity Quod turris dissociaverat Ecclesia collegit Babel the Tower of pride scattered the world the Church which is the Tower of humility gathers the world together But the Dove was the Ensign of our Saviours Kingdom standing for the unity of the Spirit which is the bond of peace Fifthly The Holy Ghost was made manifest to the Chruch first in a Dove at the feast of Christs Baptism afterward in fire at the Feast of Whitsontide to betoken it is the same Spirit which requires innocency in the
do all that God bids Give me a contented heart ready to endure all that God imposeth and then as thou shalt be an heir with Christ in the inheritance of heaven so thou shalt share with him in his sweetest title upon earth Thou art my beloved Son c. The last part of the Testimony comes now to my hand to be be dispatch'd that Christ is Filius complacentiae in whom and through whom the Father is well pleased O delicious words fit to be uttered by a voice from heaven and at the appearance of the Holy Gbost Partem aliquam venti Divum referatis ad aures We have delighted our hearts in the former Treatises to consider that from Servants we are become Sons from a People justly hated we are become beloved but to whom do we owe all this Surely as Mary and Martha said to Christ If thou hadst been here my brother Lazarus had not died So may we turn it and say if thou hadst not been here we had all died in our sins Therefore the voice points upon him that we may take notice how he is worth the knowing Hic est quem quaerimus hic est This is he that hath turned anger into reconciliation and enmity into peace As who should say I was once pleased at the making of the first Adam and I said all was very good for he was endued with original righteousness that he might have done all things well How much better am I pleased with the second Adam who hath done all things well and though it repented me afterward that I made man my Son yet now I am pleased with all that repent for my Sons sake Therefore thou art he for whose sake I will give heaven to them who have deserved the nethermost Hell thou art he by whom I have ordained to execute my pleasure to save the world To whom therefore do we owe our Salvation Or what moved our Father which is in heaven to elect us to the fruition of his glory If you will have an answer both clear according to Scripture and befitting our own humility it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the good pleasure of the Father whose will is the true and only cause that can be given for the happiness of all things that shall enjoy him who hath predestinated us to himself unto the adoption of Sons by Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will Eph. i. 6. To ascribe our Election to any thing discerned in our selves as I apprehend it shakes the foundation of the Gospel which in every passage makes Salvation the free gift of God by grace in Christ But Christ is both the exemplary the final and the meritorious cause of our Salvation The exemplary for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of his Son Rom. viii 23. From whence Aquinas fetcheth it that Christ is the true Pattern by which we are predestinated respecting the manner by which we obtain that infinite good which is by mere grace For as the humane nature was united to the Godhead by no precedent merits so by his mere good pleasure without any thing precedent in us to attract him we shall be united to his glory 2. He is the final cause of our Election for to what end are we beloved To what end pluckt out of the jaws of Hell like a brand out of the fire But that he might be glorified among his Brethren God ordained his Son to be head of the Church and then he gave unto him a portion to be members of his body Wherefore the Church most aptly is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fulness of him that filleth all in all Eph. i. ult As if Christ had not esteemed his own glory to be full and perfect without us But 3. He must also be acknowledged the meritorious cause of our Salvation For God so loved the good of his Creature that he did not forget to see his own justice satisfied by the obedience and death of Christ which satisfaction the Father lookt upon as the meritorious cause that we should be ordained to adoption of Sons God lookt upon the ransom of this Sacrifice when he did predestinate us to Salvation which surely is the sense of this voice This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Therefore this clause of my Text was St. Pauls warrant for so much as he wrote to the Colossians Chap. i. 20. It pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto himself by him by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven The self-same three things which are considerable in my Text and not yet opened are here likewise in their proper notions 1. That peculiarly above other Persons of Trinity the Father is said to be pleased with us and the Father reconciled 2. That it is assigned to the Office of the Son by it self to please and reconcile 3. That the Father is pleased in all things both in heaven and earth by the reconciliation of the Son cursorily of each For the first still the Scripture speaks that the Sacrifice placatory was offered up to the Father that he might draw us to himself who were aliens and castaways When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. v. 10. Believe it that every sin is committed against the whole divine Majesty and as every person in Trinity was dishonoured in the offence so we have need of pacification with all in the reconcilement But that the Scripture makes us rather take notice how the Father is reconciled unto us there are two reasons One that the Father is the Fountain of all Divinity the first person in order against whom we sin yet we sin against all So the first Person in order that is reconciled unto us yet we are reconciled to all 2. Though every work belonging to the Church be the conjunct act of the Trinity yet there are proper Offices belonging to several Persons to make our conceit more methodical So we know it by the phrase of Scripture that it is proper to the Father to receive us into grace proper to the Son to pay the price of our redemption and proper to the Holy Ghost to seal it to our hearts and to beget assurance in us It follows secondly that it belongs to the Office of the Son to make us pleasing and to reconcile us to God There is no other name under heaven but his in which Salvation can be hoped for Acts iv 12. for should the Angels or should men be appointed to such an Office to knit us into amity again with God and to reduce us to that eternal concord who were become open enemies It could not be For Angels and men owe as much obedience for their own part as they could perform Neither ought it to be for it was not fit that man should owe his Redemption to any other than to whom he owed his Creation
for the value of the benefit would compel us to love our Redeemer better than our Maker So Bernard Plus nos ad charitatem excitat redemptio quam creatio Therefore God could not so dispose for our souls that occasion should be given to love an Angel or Saint better than himself the King of glory The Son that sits at his right hand is the Person in whom he is well pleased who thought it no robbery to be equal with God He alone was fit for this dispensation who by an exceeding mystery did receive and accept the Sacrifice of reconciliation as God offended in his divine nature and yet did offer up that Sacrifice to the divine nature being the Mediator God-Man The close of all is sweet like the rest that the Father is pleased in all things both in heaven and earth by the reconciliation of his Son Reconciliation is the knitting up of Friends into amity again and reducing them to concord that were enemies Then how can it fitly be said that God is reconciled with his Sons whom he loved from everlasting Says Beda to it Deus miro modo quando nos oderat diligebat He loved us according to that nature which he had made and hated us according to that sin which we had made Neither is the Father so said to be reconciled to us upon earth as if he loved us at any time now when before he did not Sed quia per hanc reconciliationem sublata est omnis odii causa says Aquinas but because by this act of reconciliation all cause of anger and displeasure was taken away I mean our sins were covered and the righteousness of Christ imputed to us And as the Angels minister to us so let me minister one speculation about them to the Text. God is pleased in Christ both with things in earth and with things in heaven No question but Christ is head of the Angels as well as of men for they as well as other members receive direction from Christ and are illuminated by him so that an influence is poured on them from Christ as members take from the head but as one distinguisheth judiciously Influens in Angelis non est finis incarnationis sed quiddam incarnationem consequens It was not put into the ends why he was incarnate to infuse vertue into the Angels but it is a gracious consequent which fell out upon it This perhaps will not be doubted of But how can it be said that he did reconcile unto himself things in heaven that is the Angels by the bloud of Christ They had never made any rupture with the friendship of God as men had and could they be reconciled Certainly the word Reconciliation properly taken is only agreeable to us who were Sons of wrath but are become elect and precious through Christ But Analogically it is truly said the Angels were reconciled in Christ because he obtained for them to be confirmed in grace and to be so established in the divine favour that it was impossible any breach or rupture should come between therefore this establishment in grace to them is the same that reconciliation to us That beatifical and glorious eternal life which the Angels have with God is a reward far above the merit of any Creature Therefore Angels are admitted into that glory not by condignity but as they challenge Christ for their head and themselves members of his triumphant body Paul therefore adjures Timothy before God and the elect Angels There is no election either of Angels or men but with respect unto Christ and the good Angels are called the Sons of God Job xxxviii not as begotten of him for Christ is the only natural Son as I have said before but because they are adopted through Christ therefore this is the beloved Son in whom with Men and Angels God is well pleased But to us especially this benefit is extended who were perfect enemies but being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN XXI SERMONS UPON THE TENTATION OF OUR SAVIOUR THE FIRST SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the VVilderness to be tempted of the Devil I Have already entreated before you of many things concerning our Lord and Saviour his Incarnation Circumcision Adoration by the Wise-men about his Baptism in Jordan Let us not rest here but say as that devout man did unto him Luk. ix 57. Lord I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest Therefore I invite your attention to go with me into the Wilderness another passage of his pomp and victories and to see him tempted of the Devil In Num. xxi 14. a Book is mentioned which was called the wars of the Lord. Rupertus says very well that the whole Scripture will not unfitly bear that name Quid aliud continetur vel agitur in sacrâ Scripturâ nisi bellum certamen verbi ad destructionem peccati mortis What is contained and agitated throughout all the contents of that divine Book but Christ warring and striving to destroy sin and death And if the whole Scripture were summed up into one Chapter you might draw out this Verse for the Contents Gen. 3.15 I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between her seed and thy seed As if the Lord had said the Devil hath drawn my servants to consent to him Facti sunt socii consentanei rebellionis they are agreed like friends and have conspired in one rebellion against me but I will dissolve this friendship and turn it into hatred I will break this agreement and turn it into opposition I will divide them into an enmity that shall never be reconciled Three things I admire especially in the dispensation of Gods providence herein First We were his enemies rather than the Devils yet when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. v. 10. Secondly It is well for us that the Lord said ponam inimicitias he would make the quarrel between us and Satan break out into an open enmity It is an act of his most gracious wisdom to take away those weapons from the Devil wherein he was so cunning Leave the Devil to his wiles and deceipts and he goes away a conquerour proclaim him an open enemy and we have far more advantage against him Thirdly To the end this great Adversary might be beaten and vanquished to our hand our Saviour fought a combat with him in the Wilderness and overthrew him the narration of which great enterprise begins thus as I have read unto you Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil In the handling of which verse it will be worth the labour to insist upon these five things 1. Here is the hinge upon which all the story turns Christ was tempted 2. We must work somewhat out of the consideration of the Tempter the Devil 3. The
answers it better fight single against Satan one to one in the Wilderness than fight against Satan and wicked men who will entice you to sin as fast as Satan Therefore let them take out my Lesson and eschew the frequent Societies of populous places who find the Contagion of pestilent multitudes rub some rust upon them and infect their integrity It is not the place but the corruptions of the place which the meditations of the Fathers gathered out of my Text do lead you to abandon therefore the words of our Saviour shall stand in the last place to shut up this Point Joh. xvii 15. I pray not that thou shouldst take them that is the Disciples out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil So much for the circumstance of the place My Sermon thus far hath been upon the Wilderness against the handling of the next Point it is fit to ask What went we forth into the Wilderness to see Why to behold Christ fasting before he fought with the Devil Though that is not all he did there for there is much more behind yet this is enough to make it worth our labour Esurivit panis sicut defecit via sicut vulnerata est sanitas sicut mortua est vita says St. Austin By the same wonderful dispensation that the way of life was weary health it self was wounded life it self died by the same dispensation the bread of life fasted and was afterwards an hungry A sanctified fast hath two religious ends in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Paul says 1. To chastise our own body and to take revenge upon it 2. To put it into a good temperature for the minds sake Neither of these causes could be set before Christ in this long fast for his Flesh had never rebelled against the Spirit neither was there any inordinateness in his natural constitution which could be corrected by temperance Some therefore hold an opinion that Christ went not into the Wilderness to fast that fell out so indeed and was a necessary accessory because there was no food to be had You know the people ran after Christ into these spacious fields to hear Christ preach and not to fast with him yet there they continued three days fasting and had nothing to eat until four thousands were fed miraculously with five loaves and two fishes In like manner Moses went not up into the Mount to fast but to receive the Tables and truly this opinion is not to be contemned for St. Mark remembers that he was in the Wilderness tempted of Satan and quite omits his fasting This is prest the more zealously by some and with sufficient probability to shew upon what weak foundation they build who fetch it from hence that Christ observed the fast of forty days on purpose to constitute a yearly Lent in the Church for ever or a Quadragesimal fast for if it were by accident that Christ fasted here that can be no constitution of his intendment Nor indeed did he appoint any such thing as I will shew in just time Yet I concur not in the main sentence with those Authors for it seems to me this was purposed by Christ to go into the Desart and spend his time in Prayer and Fasting Now was the conflict at hand now was the first institution and undertaking of the greatest matter in the world the salvation of mankind and could not begin with a better Praeludium than an extraordinary Fast In this I will be directed by the interlineal gloss Jejunat ut tentetur tentatur quia jejunat He did fast that he might provoke tentations against himself and he did provoke tentations because he fasted For the better explication of the causes why he was pleased to fast I will lay down the distinction of Christs will as I find it considered in the School three ways Sicut ratio est unibilis corpori sicut est omnino conformis Deitati ratione membrorum 1. The soul is united to the body and for that union sake the will desireth the good of the whole man 2. God and man were united in Christ into one person therefore his will was subject in all things to the divine Law and pleasure 3. He was the head of the body which is the Church and therefore his will did graciously affect the prosperity of his members In these three respects there are so many causes of moment why Jesus fasted 1. Because it is profitable to conserve the whole man against tentations 2. It was the divine pleasure to provoke the Devil to give the onset by macerating and enfeebling his body and Satans foil was the greater because he was the challenger 3. He had regard unto his members to avenge himself on the Tempter by the victory of temperance who brought sin into the world through our first Parents by the sin of Gluttony Other causes I leave behind for refutation First I say it gives us a lesson to fast and withdraw the ordinary sustenance from the body when we perceive our selves in likelihood to encounter some temptation King Jehosaphat had a great battle to fight with the Ammonites and before the conflict he set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a Fast throughout all Judah 2 Chron. xx 3. So did Esther when she undertook the great danger to go in to Ahasuerus against the Law to intercede for the deliverance of the whole Nation of the Jews she would not venture upon so great a peril unless all the Jews would fast three whole days before the Lord and neither eat nor drink Est iv 16. What should I say more out of many examples Ezra suspecting what great opposition he should find to re-edifie the Temple of the Lord he proclaimed a Fast that all the People might afflict themselves before God Ezra viii 21. And St. Basil a great Practiser of this doctrine as any was in the world which is better than a Teacher bid all his Scholars take it upon his word that Sobriety was the best Antidote in the world to expel the venom of the Devil This holy Father was so good a spiritual Physician that the Church had not a better since his time I think to prescribe a good diet for the soul Adam went out of Paradise with a full stomack poor Lazarus went fasting to heaven scarce fraught with the crums of the rich mans Table Moses did fast upon Sinah for forty days when he talked with God But the People who in the mean time did commit Idolatry sate down to eat and to drink and rose up to play Daniel refused the meat and drink allowed him from the Kings Table 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to honour his temperance and fasting the very Lions into whose Den he was cast were taught to fast and hunger and not to eat up Daniel who was thrown before them to be a prey unto their teeth Thus far he If you ask me wherein we honour God in what part it
snow did not equal him His countenance was altered and his raiment was white and glistering Then for strange persons such as long since were departed and gone out of the world because the world was not worthy of them they return in visible shapes to play a new part upon the stage of the earth Behold there talked with him two men which were Moses and Elias I enter upon the handling of these Points without more circumlocution I have acquainted you before with two things of main consequence in this Miracle of the Transfiguration first the final cause why Christ was transfigured Secondly the efficiency from whence this exceeding brightness was derived Now I come to set it forth unto you first in his face then in his raiment Distill out the very best that all the Heathen have wrote and it is not able to teach us so much as is contained in this portion of Scripture touching the immortality of the soul and the beatitude of the life to come Here are the two last Articles of the Creed exemplified and set out in their real truth the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting The immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the flesh are confirmed in the persons of Moses and Elias who are brought forth to appear before mortal men face to face And our Saviour makes himself a spectacle of the happiness of the world to come for the fashion of his countenance was altered or thus in another Evangelists description his face did shine as the Sun I may say unto him as Daniel did to Nebuchadonosor upon the interpretation of his dream Tu es caput aureum Thou O King art the head of Gold Dan. ii 38. But we are sure if that head be gold the inferiour members under him shall not be iron and clay Of his glory we shall all receive and with the light of his face all the body shall be beautified This is a Beacon shining upon the top of an hill which shines from the East unto the West from one end of the earth unto the other But it is a pacificous Beacon which portends peace and not war where you read that the Lord looks like burning fire there he threatens us to beware of his indignation so John makes a character of Christ Rev. i. 14. His eyes were as a flame of fire in a great commotion of passion the eye will look like a forge of wrath as Tully displaies Verres ardebant oculi toto ex ore crudelitas emicabat His eyes did burn with anger cruelty did every where sparkle out of his face The Philosopher says that the Phancy is seated in the middle Region of the brain above the eyes which upon great and sudden wrath calls up the spirits hastily unto it self and with that swift motion they are heated and seem to flame in the eyes Flammea torquens lamina says the Poet of his Turnus Therefore this phrase of speech is borrowed from the manner of men that the eyes of Christ were as a flame of fire And it bids us kiss the Sun lest he be angry if his wrath be kindled yea but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him But at this apparition which I entreat of he did recreate his servants with his looks Here is no mention of fâ—â—e in his eyes but of light in his face and that is always taken in good part for an auspicious Omen They looked upon him and were lightned and their faces were not ashamed Psal xxxiv 5. They that stand before him and have a reflection from the light of his countenance shall not knit their brow and look down for fear unto the earth as Cain did Yet more than so this Sunshine Majesty wherewith he was beautified doth not only dissipate shame but serve us with the hope of Salvation Make thy face to shine upon thy servant O save me for thy mercies sake Psal xxxi 16. It is a good thing to be safe under his mercy the chearful aspect of his face doth promise that at the least And doth not this glistering transmutation assure us likewise that his grace shall shine in our hearts to produce the fruits of life The life is the light of men says St. John and by inversion it is true to say that this light is the life of the soul Therefore this was not the irradiation of the Sun or any other star which though it be a comely creature yet it is but an inanimate thing but to shew it was Lux viva and Lux ad vitam living light and light that begetteth eternal life therefore it sparkled from the living flesh of the eternal Sun of God And it may be observed how usefully St. Matthew says his face did shine like the Sun not as if he did then illuminate half the world at once with his face for then the rest of the Disciples who went not up to the Mountain must have known somewhat of this alteration it being most probable that the Transfiguration fell out in the night but because the Sun doth enough on his part to shine unto all men and if any want the benefit it is not for defect of the light which is spread sufficiently abroad So Christ by himself and his Priests hath annunciated the truth openly that it is our own fault and not his if it be not tendered to all people and known throughout the world 2. The Sun before he ariseth sends out beams and gives some light to the Horizon but makes the day more clear when he is risen upon the earth So Christ did give the Patriarchs a glimpse of faith before he was incarnate and lived upon the earth but he did embrighten the Church much more with faith when the world had heard and seen with their eyes and looked upon and their hands had handled the word of life And do you mark who were present witnesses at the fulgor of this transfiguration Both Moses and Elias who had lived on earth in the Age before and three Apostles who did live in that present Age because he was that light which gave the lustre of faith both to the former and to the latter Ages of the world take heed your heart be not thick clay and gross earth which will not admit and give transparency to this spiritual light He that believeth not abideth in darkness It is perilous to be in darkness and most horrible to abide in it and without faith you shall abide in the darkness of Hell for ever Though this which I have said already be much yet this prospective of admirable light leads us further for in this Transformation the Master did shew what Liveries of glory the Servants should wear when they should dwell with him in his Kingdom for ever As Zalumna said to Gideon of Gideons brethren so doth this enlightened countenance of Christ say unto his Saints As thou art so shall they be each one according to the form of the Children
is one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one who hath the preeminence in all things the Master who is over all and above all which is Jesus Christ I mean not as it is alleaged out of Bartholus and some of the impudent Canonists that Christ as he was God and Man was Lord of the whole World Monarchically and Peter after him and by Peters right the successive Bishops of Rome by which fetch those branded Flatterers entitle their Popes to the direct right of all the Kingdoms of the earth indeed the Devil promised our Saviour all the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them and since He refused it then the same Devil by the mouth of those Canonists profers it again to try though He will none of it himself if some other in the name of a Vicegerent will take it for him This is not the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that he is our Master in Heaven and Earth the Head to which all the Body is fitly knit by joynts and bands Colos ii 19. Joints and Bands Beloved neither of those words is idle or superfluous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commissurae the joints are all those blessings and benefits which are bestowed upon us and knit unto us Christ by reciprocal gratitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 juncturae are all those offices of Christian charity which bind the Members one to another all things which belong to the Communion of Saints and hold us together under the Head which nourisheth us with his influence Now it is a very ill disjunction which some make to argue upon the two natures of Christ according to whether he is our Master and our Head If you name the one or the other alone you will confuse your own Creed and know not what to believe for all the conditions belonging to a Head are in neither but in both First it was fit the Church should have such an Head which is agreeing and conformable to the Body which is knit unto it a spiritual Head and fleshly Members are not consonant to make an unity Therefore Christ and his Church are said to be like Man and Wife which are one flesh Ephes v. 31. But the Head of the Church must be fit to nourish every part of the Body with spiritual blessings and make it increase with the increase of God this can come from none but the Divine and Infinite who can give spiritual life alone and quicken them which are dead in their sins this He can do as he is Magister Verbi Magister Spiritus who but Christ is Master of the Word preacht and who but the same Christ is Master of the Spirit which gives power unto the Word You see then it is no complemental Name which is given to Christ in courtesie but a Title of due Royalty and condign Authority when we call him Master Master says Peter it is good for us to be here Upon the same Bank of earth you may gather Flowers and Weeds the Flowers are set by art in the Garden the Weeds are the natural offspring So in this same speech which the Apostle uttered in a rapture of love and delight here are good conclusions to be approved and bad contents to be reprehended but the errors arise naturally out of the words the good conclusions are rather forc't than natural yet they deserve the precedency in my discourse and this is the begining that when Peter started out of sleep and saw Christ in glory it pleased him at the heart bonum est says he this is good and he never spake truer in his life The bravest Nations in the World when they have been at the height of their Empire have took more pride and delight in Theatrical Shews and Magnificent Spectacles of Triumphs than in any other pomp for the satisfaction of the eye when it meets with a right object is above any other pleasure But all other things in the world are Counterfeits to right Jewels in respect of the Object of Divine Glory when the eye gets that to gaze upon the Soul dilates it self with such greediness to be filled with it that it would be infinite to receive it O how amiable are thy dwellings thou Lord of Hosts Psal lxxxiv David takes up his verse and goes no further to express it but leaves off with indefinite admiration And Theodoret refused to comment upon those words non tam explicandus sensus quam intimo sensu degustandus the sense and meaning of that Verse is not to be expounded but to be rellished and tasted by our affections We have stoln a name from virtue and called our Riches our Goods but beware to steal from Heaven as Prometheus did and to call the fruition of any thing upon earth good if the delights of the earth could speak they would say unto you why do you call us good nothing is good but to dwell in the Tabernacle of the Most High One day in thy Courts says the Psalmist is better than a thousand The days of this Life are called Thousands of days the Life of Glory is called One day These are called Thousands for the mutability that 's called One for the unchangeable eternity says St. Austin Howsoever it is true in this sense the shortest salutation of those supernal joys is more satisfactory Canis ad Nilum a touch and away than the longest saciety of these transitory exhilarations Two great Prophets rise from the dead to represent the glory of the life to come three living Disciples Peter especially are ravisht with it si mortuis non credideris saltem viventibus credas either believe the dead or the living which you will it is a good thing to see Christ in the Majesty of his glory Mark those words says Tertullian with special note quae fingendi non habent arbitrium extemporary acclamations wherein a man hath no leisure to invent dissimulation so out of the first pure passion of his mind which could not be forged St. Peter cried out when he saw the Glory of Christ bonum est it is good We cry out of the times now adays and the Age we live in but the more unthankful we for we do or may live more happily by far under the New Testament than the Jews did under the Old Every vision of Majestical glory did exceedingly terrifie the antient Israelites When the Lord came down upon Mount Sinah with triumph and with the sound of the Trumpet the people removed and stood afar of and durst not come near it now the Gospel hath expelled this fear so far that the Spectators did not shun the glory of Christ when they saw it but desired they might continue upon the place where it was for ever Deus se magis amandum exhibet quà m spectandum says one upon it God doth exhibit himself in the New Testament rather to be loved than to be dreaded and doth not now intend our terror but our comfort The glory of the Gospel
our Lord who is head of the body above all the members of the body that the Scriptures did indigitate he would rise again the third day after his death and burial but neither day nor year nor age is specified of the general Resurrection when our Carkasses shall be raised up to incorruption It is a common rule and best exprest in Bernards words Dies ultimus salubriter ignoratur ut semper praesens esse credatur It is good and useful to be ignorant of the day of judgment that we may always think it to be at hand and imminent And whereas the custom hath held in all Christian Churches since the Apostles I know not any custom which hath found less contradiction for this hath found none at all to gather all persons that can examine themselves to the Lords Table at the Feast of Easter among other sound and fruitful reasons rendred this is one because it is no imprudent conjecture that God will raise our bodies out of the Grave about the same season of the year that his own body was brought back again from the dead It is fit therefore to sanctifie our vessel at this time as well to eat his flesh and drink his bloud by faith as to make our Lamp ready to meet the Bridegroom And that he may not come upon us unawares like a flash of lightning let us send up our prayers unto him with much zeal and strong intercession as St. Hierom says like a clap of thunder Another varies the meaning why the Angel had this fashion in his countenance on this wise Aspectus sicut fulgur quia omnia abscondita erunt clara This lightning in his Aspect doth betoken that our most hidden sins shall be revealed and that all things shall lie naked and open before the judgment of Christ To what purpose doth Adam hide himself in the shade of the Garden Or Jonas lie concealed under the hatches of the Ship Or Saul imprivacy himself in a Cave Or Benhadad run into an inward Chamber Doth the Adulterer look for impunity that he walks to his stallion by twilight Or the Thief that he gets his prey in the darkness of the night Nec teste quisquam lumine peccare constanter potest sayes Prudentius Some have that check of modesty in their bloud that they cannot sin with alacrity where there is any light if there be but a Candle in the room they must put it out miserable shifts and mists raised before their eyes by the Devil who can work no greater infatuation among the wicked than to puff them up with this blind error as if they had Gyges ring upon their finger that they might walk where they would and never be discerned But the lightning will pierce into every corner those eyes of Christ which are likened to a flame of fire Rev. i. 14. let nothing escape them unrevealed and as a Burning-glass transmits the beams of the Sun to shine upon those things which it will set on fire so Gods eye is upon all the works of ungodliness both to view them and to revenge them with everlasting fire If Elisha could say that his heart went along with Gehazi when he ran after Naaman to take a bribe doth not the Spirit of the Lord much more attend all secret compacts of bribery and corruption If Elias could tell Ahab all the conspiracy that He and Jezebel had closely framed against Naboth so that Ahab cried out in astonishment Hast thou found me out O mine enemy then no innocent bloud shall be spilt without witness no Inheritance craftily wrung from the true possessor but the God of Elias shall challenge them for it so that the wicked shall be astonished and say hast thou found us out O Lord and are all our misdeeds before thee To end this point let the good Christian say with David Blessed is the man whose unrighteousness is forgiven and whose sins are covered not so covered but that thou O God knowest them all together St. Hierom says it thus Peccata deleta per poenitentiam nunquam patefient they shall not be discovered to our shame before Men and Angels at the publique reckoning of all faults or at least their deformity and that guilt in them which calls for vengeance shall be covered and though our sins be known yet it shall be to our triumph and praise if we be truly penitent and detest that in our selves wherein we have rebelled against a loving Father And so far on the first point that the countenance of the Angel was like lightning which teacheth us that there will be great terror to the wicked at the solemn day of the last Resurrection that Christ will come suddenly like the lightning out of the clouds and that the light will discover the most hidden wickednesses of the Sons of men I call'd you know this first verse upon which I entreat a description of Gods Watchman and by that name Angels are often called in holy Scripture I saw a Watchman and an holy one come down from above Dan. iv 13. This Angel in the superior parts had an aspect like lightning and from thence downward his raiment was white as snow The times are taxt that there are some such who come to Church to see faces and to look upon gay clothes I am afraid I may believe it Why here is employment in my Text for such Auditors though they be the worst that can come to a congregation as we have lookt our fill upon the countenance of the Angel so now I refer you to look upon his clothing Look over all the Apparitions of Angels in the Old Testament and in the Gospel till you come to this place you shall never read that they had apparel or what kind of apparel they did wear This is the day for whose sake they took a new Habit a new Comportment a new Splendor and these three things are taught us in this Raiment white as snow puritas gaudium gloria First that purity belongs to all those that hope for the resurrection of the just So St. John 1. Ep. iii. 23. We know when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and every one that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure And although the Angel did personate this purity only in the outward superficies yet our instruction rests not in that but refers us to the purity of the heart The pattern which is set before us is far from a fair semblance without a good inside no 't is extra albedo intus Angelus great pulchritude without and within an Angel That grace to the outward eye which man saw is nothing to those internal invisible graces which only God saw Sometimes one may be compared in holy Scripture to be as white as snow and yet be impure Gehazi went out from the presence of Elisha a Leper as white as snow and therefore David knew that the purity of the
that he passed into heaven without death is twâ—fold Quoad alios quoad ipsum partly in regard of others partly in regard of himâ—â—lf In regard of others what greater consolation upon the proof did befall the Church in that Age than from hence that there was an apparent instance that after this life God had prepared another for his Saints These are the very words of life Non solùm in verbo sed in facto God did not only give a promise but took this man away as a real pawn of his favour that Death should be swallowed up in victory Two things had hapned which shook the world with much fear First that Abel who had offered a good and a pleasing Sacrifice should be slain by Cain Is this the reward of the Righteous Shall Sinners always have the upper hand Hold ye contented says God do not ye see that Enoch is accounted worthy to decline Fate and Mortality because he was found obedient and just in the sight of God Put Abels persecution in one scale Enochs glorification in another and you will find how equally the lives of the Saints are mixt with afflictions and consolations The other discomfort was that Adam the Father of all flâ—sh was dead before their eyes and this struck wonderful terrour into their hearts till their fears were mitigated in the Assumption of Enoch For he that assumed body and soul together into heaven for power he was able and for mercy very willing though he marred the bodies of his Children with corruption to repair them again There was Seth the fifth Patriarch above Enoch then living far stricken in years and every day looking for his dissolution within fifty years after he was carried to the grave like a timely fruit dropping from the tree What a comfort it was unto him to see a Son of his own loins caught up alive into the Mansions of Beatitude As who should say at last such honour have all his Saints Such as love to put forth curious questions demand why Adams eyes were shut that he never saw this blessing for it fell out 150. years after his death why he alone of all the good Patriarchs was excluded from this common consolation It is ingenuiously answered that he had as much comfort as that came to proper to himself for he received the very words of the Covenant out of Gods mouth The Seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head No man else was so happy to have the living Oracle of the Lords voice sound in his ears that Christ should prevail against the enmity of the Devil Therefore to see or hear of the rapture of Enoch was not necessary for him but for all others it was that had not heard the primitive consolation Can you imagine but it kindled great desires in all them that believed to fly away like a bird unto the hills and to possess that requium which Enoch enjoyed Did not their hearts burn within them to see that glory which one of their Brethren and Kindred enjoyed How much more should the same mind be in us to be with Christ Who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the way-maker unto life who is gone before to prepare a place for us No Enoch no Abel is our pattern but Christ himself hath shewn us by his own Ascension how our thoughts should ascend upward to sit at the right hand of God for evermore Hitherto I have declared that Enochs rapture was a comfort to all true believers against the terrours of death but I do not say as some do that the Resurrection of the body was any way exemplified in this mans translation The Scripture hath left it out among the Arguments of the Resurrection and the best instances are those which are applied by the Holy Ghost As our Saviour propounds the Prophet Jonas who was three days and three nights in the belly of the Whale and came forth alive St. Paul proves it to the Romans by this Argument If you have the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead he will also quicken your mortal bodies As if he had said being it is the same Spirit it will produce the same effects And he perswades it to the Corinthians with many strong demonstrations this is the principal if Christ be risen from the dead then are we also assured of our Resurrection for it is not possible that the head should live and we that are his members remain in death These are Apostolical reasons and we are not sent to learn this Lesson from the rapture of Enoch or Elias For indeed those ensampies belong to another purpose to that refining of the mortal body and not putting off of the flesh which shall befall them that shall be found alive at the great day of the Lord. The Mystery which was opened to the Thessalonians The dead in Christ shall rise first then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds So says Tertullian Enoch and Elias never slept with their Fathers Quare documenta sunt futurae integritatis therefore they shew that body and soul shall be indissoluble which he calls integrity in them that shall be the last Generation of the world And Irenaeus The translation of Enoch makes it manifest that these gross bodies of ours shall be no impediment to meet the Lord in the clouds For as the hand of God which made man of the dust of the earth put him into Paradise so the same hand though he be still but dust and earth can exalt him to a better Paradise And that exaltation though it prove not the Resurrection so absolutely yet directly it proves that the body is fit and capable to be carried away with the soul into the Kingdom of God Thus far upon the benefit quoad alios which redounded unto others from meditating upon this story that Enoch was not and the Lord took him I must joyn a little to this of the benefit quoad ipsum how commodious and good it was to himself for two respects I told you in my last Sermon that instead of walking with God the Jerusalem Targum reads it and Enoch laboured in the truth before the Lord he was an assiduous Teacher of the wicked world to reclaim them from their vices a Prophet that spent himself and his strength like a candle to give light to others all the impediment was that it is an hard matter to gain credit to good Doctrine from them that are hardned in their sins and it is a great honour from God to the Labourer in his harvest when scornful men do not despise his Message Therefore to win authority to Enochs Prophesies the Lord did as it were stretch out his arm from heaven and take him away in the Palm of his hand this was a sure seal indeed to all people that his Doctrine was given by divine inspiration Many false Prophets have commended their vain impostures to the world giving out
King Agrippa's leave almost a Christian was three parts an Atheist Such a glimmering light of zeal is like a Morning mist which quickly vanisheth away and it is Christus suffuratus as the Souldiers said Christ stoln away and pilfered out of our heart I know not how He that never saw the Sea is as near his journeys end to pass it over as he that wades but to the ankles The hands of Zorobabel have laid the foundation of this house and his hands shall finish it Zach. iv 9. that was a blessing from the Lord. To be of Caesars mind Nil actum credens cum quid superesset agendum to think nothing done when any thing was undone that was a Spirit to make a Conquerour My love is a bundle of Myrrh Cant. xiii As if she were like Seleucus shafts which could not be broken in the cluster Such a bundle of Myrrh is in St. Peter 2 Epist i. 5. Give all diligence and add to your faith vertue to your vertue knowledge to knowledge temperance to temperance patience to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to all these charity What will all these serve the turn when they stand as thick as corn in harvest Yes says the Apostle Si abundaverint if they abound in you they will make you you shall not be barren and fruitless Thus then Truth and Mercy will forsake us if we do not further the gift of God take away the single Talent and give it to him that hath ten more The next way to make our heart cast this happy brood and to miscarry when it travels with Truth and Mercy is admotione contrarii by taking part both with God and Belial Asahal was not more nimble than St. John to fly away when he spied Cerinthus the eldest Son of Satan in the same Bath with him and therefore do not think to make your soul an Ark for the clean and unclean beasts to lie together A little frosty air is so forcible that it bursts the clouds and forceth out the hot exhalation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is spirted out between the fingers and gone before you can think of it Beloved that field in Israel was hated like Aceldama which was sown with divers seeds and Nehemiah cursed the children that spake one half in the Hebrew Tongue and another part in the Language of Ashdod Covetousness is so wealthy and it thrives so fast that it easily purchaseth the whole heart of man and whom at first you entertained like a foreiner to have one moyety in your heart it buys the whole possession over Mercies head Veios migrate coloni and so casts it forth And likewise so incompatible is truth with the least falshood that the haters of the Lord were found liars at our Saviours arraignment when he spake nothing Is it not strange Very strange That Christ should come before unrighteous Judges be impeached by malicious Adversaries all this while hold his peace and yet the Witness not agree Will you know the reason There came two false Witnesses Mat. xxvi Averring that this fellow said I am able to destroy the Temple of God and to build it again in three days There is another tale told Mar. xiv We heard him say I will destroy this Temple made with hands and will build another without hands But what said our Saviour in very deed You shall find his saying Joh. ii 19. Neither I can destroy with the former nor I will destroy with the latter But vos solvite do you destroy and solvite templum hoc the Temple of his body and in three days I will raise it up You cannot clap good and bad together but with waxen pins if you move them a little they fly asunder the wax melteth and it confounds the Chariot and his Rider For what agreement hath light with darkness or the Temple of the Lord with Idols Touching the third manner and the last how a quality may cease to be desitione subjecti when that faileth wherein it is it hath no place only in Truth and Mercy Other things indeed we can expect to remain no longer than the house of our body lasteth beauty ceaseth with the bloud and strength faileth with the sinews nay tongues shall cease and knowledge shall vanish away but mercy and charity abideth for ever Yea and truth also but veritas in visione not in fide Truth in the clear vision of God and not darkly in faith In a word as Joseph furnished his Brethren both with food for their travel and Corn to keep house with in the Land of Canaan So there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. James gifts for our Pilgrimage in this life and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts to abide with us in our Country above perfect gifts descending from the Father of lights So some endowments drop away with this house of flesh but after glorification this voice shall no more be heard in our ears let not Mercy and Truth forsake thee But this uncomfortable deserant that Gods gifts may forsake us is to view Jacob but as a Criple halting and failing in his combate but nè deserant let them not forsake thee shews Israel wrestling with the Angel and keeping God as I may speak it with reverence fast unto him with a chain of Faith To begin therefore with Mercy there are two ways to keep a firm possession of it by Meditation and by Petition The Meditations also shall be twain and very short ones for the time sake First Consider that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Fathers call it the deep engagement of our Charity in the Lords Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our brethren and no otherwise Lord what a deep curse do we bring upon our soul if this be not said in earnest Secondly Consider the compassion of all the Members in that mystical body whereof Christ is the head He that is hard hearted against a Christian is cruel against a part of himself Nero might fill the streets with the slaughtered bodies of the Saints For why he was none of ours but a Lion in the Sheepfold but a little bitterness a disdaining contempt a reviling malediction the neglect of the misery of a Christian at the hands of a Christian is more unnatural It was St. Basils counsel and most elegant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that as he that looks upon the sore eye of another man may chance to provoke the rheum in his own eyes so our eyes should grow feeble and conceive tears when we see the tears of our brother If we chance to offend against Mercy and to forget one of these Meditations it is very likely that it will stop at the other but if both fail then we must fly unto uncessant Prayer and Petition That is Anchora sacra for the last refuge let us fall down before his footstool and confirm Gods grace to our soul as Elias made the heavens of brass I do not mean so
from thence he assists his Sacraments sanctifieth his Ministry gives grace unto his Word And if they did not escape who refused him that spake on Earth much more shall not we escape if we turn from him that speaketh from Heaven Secondly Our Jerusalem is above not only in the Head but in the Members I do not say in all the Members for the Church is that great House in which are Vessels of honour and dishonour Terms of Excellency though indistinctly attributed to the whole are agreeing oftentimes only to the chiefer or more refined part Some there are in this Body whom though we salute not by the proud word of their Sublimity yet in true possession which shall never be taken from them they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that are above Witness that the Angels make up one Church with us being the chief Citizens that are reckoned in the triumphant part fellow Servants with us under one Lord adopted Sons under one Father Elect under one Christ This is the language of the Scripture and surely Members of one Mystical Body for the same Jesus is the Head of all Principality and Power Colos ii 10. Of this Family also are the Saints departed even all those holy Spirits that obey God in heavenly places and do not imitate the Devil and his Angels This is that Church which hath neither spot nor wrinkle for when I speak of such a Church says St. Austin in his retractations I mean none but those in Heaven After these that make the front and first File of our March there are many among us I trust who have their part in this description Jerusalem which is above the Elect of God the Church invisible invisible I say not for their persons but for their qualites for who can see who hath an internal union with Christ the Head Who can tell whether this or that may be filled with his Grace and quickned with his Spirit Cusanus says very well that there is no certain judgment to be made by the outward fruits who are living Members of the Church but in Infants that are newly baptized With the mouth we confess the truth but with the heart man believes unto righteousness and only God can see the heart But these whose integrity their Master knows and loves no matter in what base condition they wander here they are greater by far than the ungodly that over-peer them in promotion they are above indeed for they are as high as the pinacle of blessedness and their names are written in the Book of Life for their sakes God hath dropt down the beautiful style of Jerusalem upon the Houshold of Christ but without these no name were so fit for it as Sodom or Samaria Such as will wrangle where no occasion is offered have carped at this as if we removed all from the Church but such as are Israel in occulto and have their sins forgiven in Christ It was never our meaning neither can we help it but that we must keep communion with all those that profess the common Faith But if the Church had known Hypocrites it had not admitted them into the Portion of the Lord or else it had excluded them Et quid prodest non ejici coetu piorum si mereris ejici says St. Cyprian What the better is it for an Hypocrite that he is not cast out of the Congregation since he deserves to be cast out he may abide with us in the outward Society of them that call upon Christ praesumptivè non veraciter as Spalatensis says because we presume he is faithful though indeed he is the Child of the Devil numero non merito he makes up one of the Multitude that go in the broad way he is none of the few that strive to enter in at the steight gate he keeps the formality of a Christian with others beneath he perteins not to Jerusalem which is above Thirdly We have obtained this dignity to be ranked as them that are above because our calling is very holy He hath saved us and called us with an holy calling 2 Tim. i. 9. called to Doctrin which is above which flesh and bloud did not reveal but the Father that giveth wisdom plentifully 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Theophilact upon my Text God did preach the Gospel from on high with his own voice for take a Breviary of it and it is no more but that which he said from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased We are called to obey the truth by illumination from above from thence is sent the spirit of them that are baptized the spirit of the Apostles and Martyrs the spirit of Bishops and Doctors the spirit of all those that have lived in the Truth and shed their bloud for the Truth 's sake We are called to that Religion which consists in celestial Functions in Faith and Hope in Prayer and Charity not in a Religion which presseth them down that observe it with an insupportable weight of Shadows and Ceremonies but the hour is come when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth Beware of those of the Concision says St. Paul and among bad marks which they carry this is the conclusion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they mind earthly things that is they are pleased with carnal Ordinances with these low and beggerly Observations of the Levitical Priesthood but immediately turning himself to the Fundamentals of the Gospel and the practice thereof says he nostra politeia our way of serving God our manner of worship is in Heaven So Bernard says that the Synagogue moved in a low Orb. But Solomon speaking of the New Testament says Quae est ista quae ascendit Cant. iii. 3. Who is she that cometh up from the Wilderness perfumed with mirrh and frankincense with all the powders of the Merchant Above all we are called to holy actions which savour not of mans passions and purposes but are qualified from above Our fortitude is heavenly fortitude our temperance heavenly temperance our liberality to the poor heavenly liberality but the moral deeds of the Heathen living out of the Church that had the best gloss upon them were smutcht with some bad vapour below and every grane of vertue that grew out of their stalks did abound with the chaff of vanity And what exceeds all that I have said beside to make our calling heavenly and holy God is so gracious to those things which are done in the Church in the name of his Son that where an unfit instrument may seem to marr all by his extravagant profaneness by his impenitent conscience nay by his heretical pravity yet Christs presence and assistance are not wanting to his Word and Sacraments but their efficacy is free and current to the people though they be performed by a crooked and an adulterous Generation As the Posterity of Jacobs Handmaid had a Princedom among their Brethren in the Land of Canaan
desired him to add two Collects naming first that for the second Sunday in Lent and then afterward that for the first Sunday after Trinity both most pertinent to that great occasion and then to give the Blessing which being done he thanked him heartily with a faltring speech whereby the Company plainly perceived that with the end of his Prayers he drew near the end of his mortal life and desired to be left alone and so all departed the Room save a couple of Servants who within half a quarter of an hour gave notice of his placid departure with as gentle a transmigration to happiness as I think was ever heard of Thus I have declared sincerely the Life the Sickness the Departure of this worthy Christian Prelate who lived as good men desire to live and as many men that are but shadows appear to live and then departed with as easie an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as any man could desire to die His Funerals onely remain which were performed by the Reverend and Learned Dr. Scattergood his Lordships Chaplain in the Cathedral Church where He was interred neer the Body of his Predecessor Bishop Langthon as old people said both great Benefactors to that Church under a fair Tomb erected by the Piety of the most accomplisht Sir Andrew Hacket his Eldest Son and Heir both of his Estate and Virtues He was attended thither by multitudes of the Loyal Gentry and sorrowful Clergy of his Diocess all desirous to pay the utmost dues and rights they were able to his Memory thinking no Flowers too sweet for his Herse and no Box of Ointment too costly for his Burial all admiring his past Diligence sage Government admirable Ministrations and bewailing the great and universal loss by his Death Quantum praesidium Ausonia quantum Tu perdis Iule O Diocess of Lichfield what a Father hast thou lost O University of Cambridge what a Friend O House of Aaron what an Ornament O Church of England what a Saint Sic ora ferebant But we will no more deplore his Death or repine that He is taken from us but rather rejoyce and give God thanks that we ever had Him and that He lived so long with us This World was not worthy of Him who was fitter Company for Angels and Stars of Heaven then Clods of dust and bloud below and therefore God took Him from this Dunghil to stand before his Throne Where we leave thee blessed Soul among the Angelical Choir joyful in the illumination of the holy Trinity and ravisht with thy contemplation of the Divine and unconceivable glory We will endeavour not only to read and admire but practise all thy holy Counsels which now sound more loud from thy Books and Writings then they formerly did from thy rare Discourses and Preachings We ascribe the glory of all to God and will compose our selves to imitate thy Graces and Virtues O Divine Hacket whose Name is renowned and Memory for ever blessed And will hereafter listen with patience for the voice of the Arch-Angel and Trump of God for the Resurrection of the Dead the Renovation of the World the Creation of the New Heaven and New Earth at the glorious appearing of Christ Jesus with all his holy Angels and Saints and then in the Number of godly Prelates and faithful Doctors of the Christian Church I shall see again my Bishop and Father and hope to be seen of Him in Glory AMEN Come Lord Jesu come quickly OPTIMO PATRI PIENTISSIMVS FILIVS ANDREAS HACKET MILES F. F. JOANNIS HACKET Episc Lichf Coventr cinerib sacrum PRimaevae pietatis Et summae eloquentiae Praesulem Ecclesiae Anglicanae fidei orthodoxae Assertorem strenuum Concionatorem etiam ad ultimum assiduum Et Superstitionis Babylonicae tam maturum hostem Vt penè in cunis straverit Loyolitas Raro exemplo Vt Poeta praeluderet Theologo Vitae denique integritate innocentiâ Morum suavitate candore Charitate ergà pauperes eximiâ Et liberalitate erga suos insignem typum Verbo omnia Joh. Williams Metropol Ebor. Patroni sui Ectypum Desine ulterius quaerere Ista omnia Tabula haec unico in Hacketo exhibet Adversus positum caetera marmor habet Obiit 28. Oct. 1670. sub anno aetatis suae 79. Sistamus ergo Morae pretium est scire Quis demum Langthono claudit latus Solus HACKETUS tanto dignus contubernio Cujus piae liberalitati debetur Quod Langthoni cineres non frigescunt Aedis Cathedralis Lichfieldiae Instanrator illic Restaurator hìc jacet Ecclesiae Anglicanae antistitum par ingens Eóque ingentius quòd sibimet pares Scire vis Lector Quà m multis ille bonis flebilis occidit Schola regia Westmonast Alumnum Collegium SS Trinitatis Cantabr Socium Ecclesia S. Andreae Holbourn Quadragenarium Rectorem Et Cheam in agro Surriensi Quadragenarium Rectorem Aedes D. Pauli Residentiarium Sedes haec Episcopalis dignissimum sibi Praesulem abreptum deflet Sed ludo te Viator Dum inter mortuos refero Eum VIRVM Quem restauratae Pauli reliquiae Ceddae ruinae Quem Hospitium Episcopale SS Trin. Coll. de novo extructum Et Cantabr Bibliotheca libris cumulatè aucta Longum dabunt superstitem At the head of the Statue upon the Monument is ingraved I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep till I have found out a place for the Temple of the Lord. Psal 132. At the Feet Quam speciosa vestigia Evangelizantium pacem The Motto of the Coat at the Head of the Tomb Zelus domus tuae exedit me On the opposite Coat at the Feet Inservi Deo laetare Upon the Grave-stone that covers the Body in the Isle contiguous to the Monument JOHANNES HACKET Episcopus Lichf Coventr heic situs est THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 7. And she brought forth her first born Son and wrapped him in swadling cloths and laid him in a Manger because there was no room for them in the Inn c. THis is a part of that joyful news which God did impart at first unto the Angels which the Angels in the twelfth ver did reveal unto the Shepherds which the Shepherds in the seventeenth verse made known abroad and thereby at first perchance it came to St. Luke which St. Luke made known in this Gospel to the Church which the Church from time to time hath delivered unto us which I at this day deliver unto you and which you must tell unto your Children that one Generation may comfort another with it unto the ends of the World I am in love with my Text but how shall I open and dilate my joy upon it No that most venerable name Mary the blessed Mother of our Lord knew not how to do it For although when Gabriel brought tidings unto her that she should conceive then she could come out with a strange word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if her spirit friskt and danc'd within for gladness
out of this spiritual sleep of sin for the voice of preaching and for good admonition he will be wakened with a mischief never any so sleepy and sluggish but Gods wrath or the hour of death or the final day of Judgment will start them out of their lethargy and then they shall awake as Sampson did that shook himself when he lifted up his head from Dalila's lap but the Lord was departed from him I have multiplied many precepts upon former occasions that you should be like watchful Shepherds expecting the coming of Christ one thing which I do not remember was then delivered shall serve at this time instead of many points of caution A man that cannot hold up his eyes and awake when need requires must be shaken and pincht violence must be offered to his drowziness So lest we sleep in sin Excitandus è somno Vellicandus est animus you must prick and gourd your own conscience with the terror of judgment with the menaces of damnation Suffer not your eye-lids to shut but sift and shake your own heart examine your self remember what a blessing it is to be a watchful Shepherd that an Angel of comfort may come and sing salvation unto you Watchfulness as it is only a restraint from bodily sleep is not that which I urge and enforce this is a season wherein I know its much in use to sit up late they that intend games and revels and pastimes are watchful enough though they turn the night into day and the day like heavy sluggards into night The luxury and voluptuousness of our Feasts in many Families do reach to midnight and then we think we have kept Christmas when we sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play Perchance excess and surfeiting do so distemper us that it is well when we have eat and drunk if we can rise up to play Some relaxation and triumphs of mirth were ever allowed to our Saviour's Nativity as Mordecay said of the days Purim that they were days of feasting and joy and sending portions one to another and gifts to the poor but the Devil envying our gladness hath turned it into riot and the very madness of luxury The careful progenitors made it many days work to labour hard and to leave a fair inheritance to their posterity and my dissolute heir makes it some few nights play to lose and consume it as if the day were not long enough he borrows the best part of the night to make riddance of his patrimony Great difference between such unlucky night ravens and these Shepherds in my Text that watch over their flocks by night I know the application runs in a right line upon the Priests of God but this is not a place for those instructions this I will not omit a certain postilling Frier that preferred his Monastery before the Pulpit knowing our labour and his own ease did thus observe upon the former verse that Christ was born in a Manger ut Anchoritarum caenobia solaretur to patronize the solitary Cells of Hermites and Anchorites an exact pattern of Solitariness I wiss to be born in a troublesome Inn nay in the Stable therefore which is common for all men and at such a time when Town and Countrey were gathered into Bethlehem Every house full of Strangers to pay their Subsidies to Caesar in the midst of this throng Is not our Frier much mistaken to put us in mind of a Monastery but rather we may note that the blessing of Christs Birth was first annuntiated not to slothful Monks but to Shepherds that watch over their flocks Our Saviour is diversly call'd both a Shepherd and a Lamb Vt Agnus apud greges annuntiatur Christ the Lamb is revealed unto Shepherds it is fit they should first hear of the yeaning of a Lamb. Christ the Shepherd is revealed among the flocks it is fit the flocks should be comforted that the Prince of Shepherds was born I add Christ the head of the Church under whom all Shepherds have their charge it is fit he should be notified to Shepherds that attend their charge that watch over their flocks To include you all every man and woman in the application suppose you are no bodies keeper but your own Vigila saltem super animam tuam why be watchful and prudent over the safety of your own soul and when I have spoke that word your soul I perceive instantly that you have a whole flock to look to and it is all your own the affections and passions of your mind them I mean if you bridle their lust and wantonness if they do you reasonable service you have a rich flock sheep that shall stand upon the right hand of God if they usurp and fill you full of uncleanness they are a flock of goats that shall be condemned unto the left What says Cato of our affections they are to be governed like a flock of sheep you may rule them altogether so long as they follow and keep good order but single one out alone and it will be unruly and offend you as who should say all our affections must be sanctified to God the whole flock let one passion have leave to straggle and all will follow it to destruction Many sit up late and eat the bread of carefulness for the increase of riches but those are the thorns that choak the seed Let the watchfulness of the heart especially be fixt upon this flock the desires the passions over all that issues out of the soul as the Star cast his beams directly upon the place where Christ was born Dei secreta non cognoscimus si in terrenis desideriis vigilemus we shall not find out the secret of God that is his Son if we watch over fleshly and earthly things Finally all the providence of our watch will be in vain as David says not sufficient to give repulse to the wolf that lies in wait unless the eye of God keep centinel over us Our custody is weak unless the Lord send his Angels as he did unto these Shepherds to pitch their pavilions round about us Wherefore pray we that the Watchman of Israel may be always about our paths and about our beds who neither slumbers nor sleeps to whom be Glory and Honour c. Amen THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE INCARNATION LUKE ii 9. And lo the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid NO Scripture more fertile of wonders or fuller of variety touching the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour than this Gospel and therefore I continue in this story year by year upon this glorious occasion And you may discern how we go up by stairs and degrees in every verse till at last we make the highest pitch that the eloquence of man can fly to We began with a Treatise of a most humble stile a Babe wrapt in swadling clouts lying in a Manger from thence
this celestial Embassador hover'd above their heads to shew the property perchance of a glorified body or whether he walk'd and convers'd upon the earth as man to note our fellowship with Angels by the Birth of Christ yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 supervenit is one that came suddenly never lookt for at that season which construction says Beza is indifferent to both and well he doth apply the verse unto it Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora an hour of felicity came at an instant upon us which we never dream't of and so much for the manner how the Angel took his place 5. Now follows the fifth interrogatory upon which I shall stay longest why men were not accepted to do this office to manifest the Birth of Jesus but loe an Angel of the Lord. There are many reasons for that expediency which I will marshal in their order 1. As an evil Angel did co-operate to bring death into the world so a good Angel was a choice instrument to bring the tidings of salvation for why did the Son of God take flesh to repair the fall of man How did man transgress by the subtilty of the Serpent Who was the Serpent our adversary the Devil Who shall make amends for the mischief which the Devil wrought one much different in grace but of the same Essence and Nature and Creation the Angel Gabriel But you will say no fault was committed by the good Angels they were neither enticers nor abettors of Adams prevarication why should they trouble themselves true but a kind of blot did stick unto their name and for a full measure of recompence they would satisfie for that which was none of their transgression Our first disobedience was occasioned by a tree our Redemption was purchased upon the tree of the Cross We were wounded by the appetite of Eve we were healed by the Womb of Mary Here was tree for tree and woman for woman So an evil spirit tempted us to our loss and therefore a good Spirit is zealous to be an instrument of our restitution there 's Angel for Angel 2. They were exceeding busie to declare Christ unto the world many ways Concipiendum conceptum natum before he was conceiv'd to Mary when he was conceiv'd to Joseph after he was born to the Shepherds for they are willing to partake all good things unto us in the Militant Church because we shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exalted to be equal to the Angels in the day of Christs second appearing Choristers of one Quire to praise the Lord and members of one triumphant Church for ever They came in humane shapes like unto men nay they are often called men in Scripture Vt demonstrent intelligibilem societatem cum iis habendam in vita futura because we shall make up one spiritual society and fellowship to sing Hallelujah hereafter I am not of their mind that say the Cherubims in many things were unresolv'd about the Mystery of Christs Nativity and that they came with these messages to instruct both themselves and us St. Peter doth not make good that fancy because he says these are things â—nto which the Angels desire to look 1 Pet. 1.12 and Dionysius roves at random who imputes it to them that they would better understand that point of Faith because it is written Isa 63. Who is this that comes from Edom but many ancient Fathers do adjudge that the Angels take delight to be present in our Christian Assemblies when we meet in this house together to offer up the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving Paul enforceth modesty to the Corinthian women in the house of Prayer because of the Angels 1 Cor. 11.10 Angelos testes habent honesti pundoris aut impudentiae as the most expound the Angels make one congregation with us and therefore they are witnesses of their modesty or impudence Where is then your reverence your bodily humiliation when you come to Gods house do all things with decency and well-beseeming devotion for the Angels are our invisible associates says holy Bernard Non ausus es illo presente facere quod me praesente non anderes Dare you do those unbecoming things where the Angels are by to witness which you durst not do for fear of censure if the Ecclesiastical Magistrate did look upon you 3. The Incarnation of Christ is I may say the perfection of all things in the world and therefore good reason that all creatures should have some participation and interest in it Men did share in him in his own sex and person women in the Womb that bare him poor men in the Shepherds great ones in the sages of the East the Beasts by the stable wherein he was born the Earth in the Gold that was offered the Trees in the Myrrhe and Frankincense and to reckon up no more the Heavens in the Star that blaz'd all the works of God even they which by natural obedience bless him and magnifie him for ever did claim some office to make one in the solemnity when their Creator was born Why surely some room was left for the Angels it was fit they should be in the train at the Inauguration of this mighty Prince and their place according to their dignity was very honourable they were Gods Embassadors and as if they had a Patent to use their office frequently they had many errands from Heaven to Mary to Joseph to the Shepherds Non satis est semel missum esse duobus aut tribus testibus stat omne verbum says St. Ambrose They came three several turns and no less that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established 4. Angelus in carnis specie Christum in carne venturum praenuntiat says Aquinas the advent of the Messenger was in some wise a commentary and explication upon the message the tidings to be open'd surpass'd the apprehension of a natural man though he were the wisest Dictator of Philosophy that the Eternal should be begotten the Infinite be contain'd in the finite that God who is a Spirit incomprehensible should be made flesh O unutterable mystery what visible inducement could be thought of to make man believe it how should the dull and ignorant apprehend this transcendent operation Behold Gods Nuntio this Angel that came to the Shepherds go no farther than him and you shall have an instance what the Almighty can bring to pass for the Essence of Gabriel was pure and spiritual not mixt with elements no bodily concretion in him yet he tells his errand to the world in the similitude of flesh and bone notifying that the Spirit of all Spirits God himself should be made flesh 5. Angels and Principalities were first upon this Ministry to preach the Nativity of Christ to honour and countenance their office who in the same calling do succeed the Angels Look not upon the poor Fishermen whom Christ did call from the Sea of Tiberius but estimate your Clergy by the excellency of
commanded to be made unless he had dominion over them that is unless he were Lord over them before they were made Rom. iv he calleth things that are not as things that are therefore he hath authority as a Lord over things that are not as much as over things that are The fair conclusion of it is the actual relation of the Creatures to his dominion began in time but their subjection to his will and power is for ever therefore God is the Lord from all eternity Whatsoever distinction may be put between these names yet when we praise God let us do as Zachary doth joyn them both together when we confess him let us do so likewise as Jonas did I am an Hebrew who worship the Lord God that made heaven and earth When we say our Belief let us do the same even as the Nicene Fathers did before us I believe in one God and in one Lord Jesus Christ And if you please your selves to distinguish accurately upon such Titles because St. Paul hath said that there be Gods many and Lords many let us distinguish between them and this supreme one the Lord God of Israel who is blessed for ever more Christ says the Scripture calleth them Gods to whom the word of God came Joh. x. 34. That Scripture is Psal lxxxii 6. I have said ye are Gods and ye are all the children of the most high From thence and from my Text you may state a profitable difference 1. Dixi I have said ye are Gods he hath said it and that made them so unless he had Godded them they had had no such pre-eminence What they have it is by entitling and nuncupation 2. Dixi Dii estis there are many of those Gods not only every Prince and Ruler chalengeth it by his Crown but every Christian hath his interest in it by adoption of filiation So I cited it from the mouth of our Saviour before the Scripture hath said they are Gods to whom the Word of God came 3. Estis ye are for a while ye are and after a while ye shall go from hence and be no more seen ye shall die like men but the true God abideth for ever 4. These heathen Semi-gods these that carry that badge upon earth shall not only die like men but like sinful men for it follows in the Psalm that when they fall God shall arise to judge the earth after they have judged they shall be judged upon it hereafter how they have judged But O man thou must not reply against the God of heaven his judgments are indisputable 5. The ever blessed God is praised in every thing that pertains unto him he is praised in all places of his dominion he is praised in all his works He hath done all things well say the people of Christ but among the actions of the best men Sunt bona sunt quaedam mediocria sunt mala plura Among some good there is much evil among some flourishing sprigs of praise there are divers dead boughs of frailty 6. These Nuncupative Gods preside over Civil Governments each of them is a golden head over his own Political body but Christ only is head of the whole Church from whence the whole body increaseth with the increase of God he alone is the Lord. And it is likewise upon some remarkable appropriation that the Psalmist says the Lord is his name he bears it certainly with many notorious marks of difference from all the Lordlings in the world First The dominion of man is joyned with some servitude in the Master for he that stands in need is a servant to his own necessities and the Master stands in need of the drudgery of the labouring man as much or more perhaps than that drudge stands in need of the wages of the Master But all our service is of no use or benefit to the King of heaven I said unto the Lord thou art my God my goods are nothing unto thee Psal xvi and therefore says St. Austin God did not make the world from all eternity to shew that he did not want the help of his Creature Secondly All things serve the Lord above nothing is hidden from the Scepter of his dominion but man in the highest Office upon earth is confined to a small scantling of authority he can command the body of his Vassal but not his soul He cannot command his Grass to grow or his Trees to bear or his Cattel to encrease or the weather to be seasonable But as the people said in admiration of the Miracles of the Son of God Who is this that commandeth the Winds and Seas and they obey him Thirdly All the Lordship upon earth is subalternate and dependant from a greater command Masters do that which is just unto your Servants knowing that you also have a Master in heaven Col. iv There is but one Lord and none but he that is responsive to no other the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Our Saviour though an unscrutable Abyssus of humility assumed that unto himself Ye call me Master and Lord and ye say well for so I am Joh. xiii 13. Such a Lord to whom all the Sons of men do bow and obey Such a Lord that though he were Davids Son yet David in spirit calleth him Lord The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstoole Lord of all things by the Essence of his Godhead Lord of all things in his Manhood by the Hypostatical Union but by special interest Lord of all those whom he redeemed with his most precious bloud Lord God of Israel in which numbers as soon as ever he believed Thomas concluded himself saying My Lord and my God As we have the Humanity of Christ expressed in the two subsequent actions so we have as surely his Divinity set forth in these Titles the Lord God of Israel But that God that filleth the heaven of heavens and that Lord who hath stretcht out the line of his power over the whole earth he is Canton'd in this Text to a little Region of the earth but a Molehill in respect of the extent of his Majestie the Lord God of Israel It was not with Zachary the Priest in this elegant Canto as it useth to be with other Poets who out of affectation do strain their Poetry to make honourable mention of their own Country where there was neither cause nor merit But this holy Prophet had sufficient warrant from the Spirit which cannot err to nominate him the Patron of this people rather than of any other the God of Israel and that for two reasons Propter notitiam verbi propter promissiones seminis benedicti First The Oracles of the Scriptures were committed to them and God was not truly worshipped any where but in the Synagogues of the Hebrews and therefore says the Psalmist Notus Deus in Israele God is well known in Israel there they knew him that he was to be adored that he
since he was tempted of Satan Lord let me not fight alone lest my foes prevail against me Thus tentation begets fear and fear begets prayer and prayer calls for succour and heavenly succour will assist us to be conquerours Gregory incloseth it in his meditation Vnde pertimescit homo enerviter cadere inde accipit fortiter stare that tentation which makes a just man distrust he shall fall affordeth him occasion to set his feet upon a sure place Cast not your selves therefore into tentation Brethren but when you are in them endure them with joy and courage as it is said of the Machabees that they fought with chearfulness the battels of Israel so go on with alacrity against those innumerable evils that take hold upon you The just man triumphs with David against the powers of darkness as if he saw them already made subject unto him they are cast down and faln but we are risen and stand upright Pelopidas being environed with an Ambush alas says his Lieutenant we are faln into the hands of our enemies And why not rather our enemies faln into our hands says Pelopidas So let not the name of Satan and tentation be dreadful unto you he hath more cause to fear he shall be repulsed than you have reason to fear he shall prevail since Christ hath blunted his weapons in this conflict The Fathers call that verse the Saints Jubilee after their trial with the evil one Psal lxvi 12. We went through fire and water but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place And therefore I bequeath St. Pauls exultation to your use Thanks be to God who hath given us victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Fourthly Christ was tempted to give us an example how to encounter with the roaring Lion and to win the Mastery As a young Learner will observe diligently every ward and thrust that an experienced Gladiator makes so the Holy Ghost hath set down for our advertisement every passage how Christ did turn and wind the delusions of the Serpent These things had need to be scanned beloved we had need to be cunning at our fence for if the Devil sought our overthrow in Christ how much more will he do it in our selves If these things were done to the green wood what will be done to the dry But mark how the man of Gods right hand chased away the enemy mark how he demeaned himself from first to last and you are fortified with the best president that ever the world afforded Ut cujus munimur auxilio ejus erudiremur exemplo says Leo he looks upon our conflicts from heaven and helps the weaker side both by the presence of his grace and by the president of his example Observe him that we might instance in all his ways retiring into a desart from the contagion of the world observe him fasting observe him drawing his shafts out of the quiver of the holy Scripture to maintain his cause and say this is the true Charm to make the evil Serpent break as Daniel in the Apocryphal story choakt the Dragon with lumps of strong confection Christ himself could not receive increase of the Spirit either by being baptized or by being tempted for he had the fulness not of sufficiency but of abundancy before without measure but it was for the proficiency of his members that were under him And therefore the Schoolmen have a disceptation since Christ was much greater than the Angels and did far excel them in grace why he should be tempted of the Devil For we do not read that any of the Angels confirmed in grace were ever tempted One of them answers Quia Angelus non habet membra sub se quomodo Christus habet Christ is head of a body and hath members under him to give erudition unto by his example and so have not the elect Angels Wherefore if the Children of Israel lookt up by faith upon the brazen Serpent in the Wilderness that they might be healed when they were wounded how much more should we look attentively upon Christs Tentation in the Wilderness that we may not be wounded of the Serpent The Fathers in their piety say it is easier to avoid ten sins that compass us round about and have not yet taken hold of us than to recover our selves sound again from any one sin that we have committed It is the Angelical part of Christianity to take out this Lesson Prevent us O Lord from evil in all our doings There is a great deal of the old man and his ragged lining in the best repentance You may learn repentance from Christs Gospel but not from Christ himself but innocency and clearness of life and to be impregnable against tentations not Verbum Christi but Christus Verbum not the Word of Christ but Christ the eternal Word makes you cunning in that by his own example He that knows not the experience of many tentations doth not well know himself says St. Austin Nescit se homo nisi in tentatione discat se But he that knows not the experience of Christs combate will not know how to deal with tentation Fifthly Says Bonaventure very acutely he began in the ministry of the Gospel first to refute the false Doctors before he taught his Disciples the truth first to beat down the Synagogue of Satan and then to build the City of God First root up the Tares and bind them in bundles and then dress the Wheat A Bishop must be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince gainsayers Tit. i. 9. Conviction of falshood requires the greater care and diligence and the great Bishop of our souls begins with that How soon were all divinity learnt What little pains would go to Preaching and Exhortation if it were not that Heresies and Falshoods beget us a most laborious drudgery to refute them Innumerable errors are disseminated that they are like Augias his Stable so foul that they are never to be cleansed It held our Saviour forty days in the Wilderness to untie all the knots of Satan and thus we must build up Hierusalem like Nehemiahs builders with the Sword in one hand with the Trowel in the other Having the Sword of the Spirit to cut in twain the snares of the wicked one you shall the sooner build up the walls of Sion Sixthly And then I take off my hand from this Point Let no man say I am cast out from the face of the Lord because he is beset with daily tentations God had one Son that was free from sin but he hath no Son that is free from the incumbrances of Satan If there be no more in it than an outward occasion cast before you to try if you will bite which is Exterior pulsatio as a man that comes not into the house but stands without and knocks at door This is your praise in the highest respect that your vertue is impenetrable As the Lord sent a blast upon Sennacharib and made him return to his
good effects Then the will of man according to that free liberty it hath which is helped toward good works not taken away doth all things with that indifferency that it may cast away this initial grace or embrace it work fruitfully with it or unfruitfully This is that qualification and condition of grace which some wicked ones are said to resist this is that Spirit which other sensual men are said to grieve They will not understand they will not be gathered together they will not follow their Leader through the servile liberty of their own concupiscence It is this first pittance and portion of a good life that many are said to begin in the Spirit and to end in the flesh In the work of conversion though a man hath power to resist it being founded in the natural liberty of the will yet no man doth actually resist the grace of conversion yet this grace of preparation many do resist out of the pravity of their will in which respect they are said to quench the Spirit I cannot speak so much as I might in this subject but because the understanding of Gods favour and justice and the provocations of our own duty depend much upon it therefore I will give you some short rules and corollaries to bear away 1. I do not say all men but as many as are invited by the preaching of the Word are made partakers of some preparatory grace for as a Vein and Artery run together in the body natural to convey bloud wherein the life consists so the Word preacht and some measure of supernatural grace go hand in hand in the mystical Therefore St. Paul says We are Ministers not of the Letter but of the Spirit It is told to no man in vain that Christ died for him the possibility of apprehending the benefit of that sacrifice is offered him if he do not hinder the work of God 2. In this previous grace and for the good use of it we apply unto you the exhortations comminations invitations of all the Prophets and Apostles giving you truly to wit that God hath given you the means to be saved if you do not reject them The last end at which we drive in all our Sermons is your conversion and regeneration that is the Crown of all diligence in this world but the immediate and next end that we labour is that men and women do their diligence to make good use of this preparatory grace 3. This grace of preparation before convertion is shorter in some than in others God did presently hasten the conversion of Paul of Lydia of the Jaylor Why may he not do what he will with his own And give a Peny to them that have laboured one hour as soon as to them that have laboured ten But usually there is large trial and with some this preparatory grace continues alone till anon before they end their life 4. God forsaketh no wicked man within the Church till he hath quenched this grace and interrupted the chain of those means which were prepared for his conversion Prius quam deseratur neminem deserit multos desertores saepe convertit says Prosper which is in part thus Englished 2 Chron. xxiv 20. Because ye have forsaken the Lord he hath also forsaken you Solomon was an excellent Divine as well as a Philosopher Prov. i. 24. Because I have called and ye refused ye have set at nought my counsel they hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord therefore I will mock at their calamity but though he forsakes none untill they forsake him yet he forsakes not all that forsake him So said Prosper Multos desertores saepe convertit Peter and Judas both did reject this grace of preparation and fall from it yet the one hath efficatious grace given to convert him the other hath not This inequality is from the pure pleasure of God and no man can sound the depth 5. Some are much more largely watered with this heavenly dew of preparatory grace all may drink their fill but some have their cup brim full some are endued with more patience proved with fewer tentations Yet none can justly grudge why hath he five talents and I but three Why doth God stand longer at the door to knock for him than he will for me God is not bound to follow men with all manner of grace 6. If these works of preparation be not hindred if this grace be not quenched God will follow the soul with saving grace Not that any man in the world did ever use this precedaneus help so well but that it deserved to be taken from him How many sins do we incur How stubborn how disobedient is the heart of every man Here we might be for ever forsaken according to our misdeeds but the Lord will accept of small endeavours as great accomplishments In a word the good use that we can make of this gift of God is no way meritorious to salvation the ill use of it in those that perish is demeritorious and makes them justly undeserving to be called to salvation This I am perswaded is the true doctrine of this Point to stop the mouth of them that are lost and to shew the plenteous riches of Gods mercy in the vessels of Election Fourthly I labour for the easiest notions I can invent to make these intricate things plain the fourth Point will require an intelligent Auditor with what great and mighty power the Spirit doth lead the children of God in converting grace I have spoke of the first preparation of grace and the will prepared so I must speak distinctly of the act of renovation and the will renewed and the nature of renovation or conversion is best conceived in these six heads 1. What this converting grace adds above that preparatory help 2. God doth work it alone and the will doth passively receive it 3. It doth infallibly attain its effect 4. It is no violent compulsion upon the will 5. It is more than a moral perswasion 6. This is not repugnant to the Promises to the comminations or to the exhortations of God First It adds this above preventing initial grace that it doth but dispose a man to life but after this act we may say justly this man is born of God That is common to them that are lost who quench the first beginnings of divine assistance by their own evil will this is only given to the elect servants of Christ God works by several quantities and doses of Sanctification 1. That they can resist if they will as in Adam before his Fall 2. In others that they will not though they can as in those in whom he doth conserve his preparatory grace 3. In others that they will not nor cannot in the introduction of that act as in them whom he doth actually convert 4. In others that shall never can nor will as in the Angels and Saints of heaven God foresaw if he should only give this grace of preparation all
of the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is sometimes Simpliciter assumere not Assumptum transferre barely to take along in company not to transport or transpose in the taking as Christ took up Peter and James and John into the Mountain where he was transfigured that is he made them his Associates but their own feet did bear them The Verb indeed will bear both significations and more fit a great deal that in this place it should bear the latter and not the former For first the great Wilderness which is generally allowed for the place where our Saviour was tempted is distant from Jerusalem a journey of two days supposing all the way should be trod on foot now all the three tentations were dispatch'd in part of one for Christ fasted forty days and no longer and the Tempter did not settle to his work till upon the end of the Fast Secondly If Christ had gone up stairs to the top of the Temple what means the Scripture to say that the Devil set him on a Pinacle Or thirdly with what authority or favour did our Lord get up unto the top of that holy place since none but the Priests came so far as into the Temple or sanctuary and the people were admitted no further than the outward Porch Fourthly If there had been stairs to ascend to the Pinacle and Christ had pass'd up that way then there had been no colour for this presumptuous Proposition Cast thy self down c. the answer had been very obvious no I will return back the same way I came I forsake this opinion therefore because it cannot be defended against these objections that Christ did only go along with Satan to the holy City The third opinion which being opened and inlarged will much better shew the mischief and subtilty of this tentation is thus Then Satan did transport our Lord from the Desart wherein he fasted to the highest Battlements of the Sanctuary This will appear hard at the first to the infirmity of some Auditors So Gregory did suppose it would trouble some when he wrote the truth Aures humanae audire expavescant Some mens ears for a while will be unwilling to hear it till the scruples be removed But when you shall understand how much the patience the wisdom the power of Christ did surmount hereby how at every turn he over-reacht Satan in his own contrivances you will grant the Exposition to be sound delightful and profitable Mark I beseech you doth it appear a thing not to be assented unto that Christ would fly through the Air with Beelzebub the greatest enemy of God That seems uncouth but this will allay the horror of it Remember Satan was permitted at this time to use all his engines to provoke our Saviour to sin if Christ had refused him to cut a passage through the Air with him as far as the principal Pinacle of the Temple it would have left him confident that our Lord durst not hazard himself to that tentation Let him do the best he can or he will never confess himself utterly conquered Nemo victus est quandiu pugnare vult No body is quite beaten as long as he offers to fight again and if he were not beaten at all his own weapons the wicked Fiend would say he had not lost all his glory Origen therefore brings in the Devil to say you have well answered about my Proposition for making bread of stones but will your courage serve you to go with me to the highest Tower of the Temple And then in his phrase Christ answers Duc quò vis tenta ut placet sustineo quae suggesseris Come your ways I will not stay behind see I am ready for you at all suggestions What ready to be put into his hands and be carried Even so says Gregory it was his Fathers will and his own patience and humility Quid mirum est si se permisit ab illo duci qui se pertulit ab ejus membris crucifigi It is nothing strange to adventure himself to be taken up by Satan knowing by his own power and vertue his passage should be safe when as none will deny but he suffered himself to be led to Caiaphas to Pilate to Herod to Mount Golgotha by those that were the members of the Divel to be buffeted to be scourged to be crucified Now this opinion certainly seems not rigid to the understanding Auditor and yet to mollifie it more St. Chrysostome and many his learned followers say this miscreant came not to Christ in his own most ugly Diabolical shape but was now transformed into such a glorious humane shape as the Angels of light were wont to assume when they came from God And upon this fair appearance he closeth with him The Angels of God are your guard and custody and loe I am an Angel of light that will conduct you with all diligence and tenderness This is the first deception which Satan swallowed he thought he was so perfectly trasfigured that Christ did not know him like the Ass in the Fable having put on a Lions skin he thought the Countrymen would not know him by his long ears but our Saviour let his enemy play with his new disguise as if he pass'd without discovery O how easie it is for the sharpest wit when it would be wiser than God to be more ignorant than a beast God did open the eyes of Balaams Ass to know a true Angel then what should hinder the Son of God to know a counterfeit But secondly Is not this a matter to be stumbled at To be taken up and born away implies a kind of power and superiority in him that beareth another for his vertue must exceed the others As the Angel had authority over Philip when he lifted him suddenly from Gaza in the Desart to Azotus Acts viii And Habakkuk was in subjection to that Angel who took him up by the hair of the head and carried him into Babylon Beloved All such transportations are not alike some earthly bodies indeed are removed miraculously and violently from one place to another conferring no vertue of their own to the motion but suffer themselves to be moved by some spiritual efficacy applied unto them as in the fore-named instances of Habakkuk and Philip and in Paul who was wrapt up he knew not how into the third heavens Again some bodies make use of another thing to bear them as a Chariot or any Instrument so the Psalmist says of God himself that he came flying upon the wings of the wind and in this sense St. Austin justifies that Christ was neither violently nor imperiously carried by Satan but moved himself by his own vertue and let the Devil assist as an Instrument Says the Father Si dicas meliores sunt qui portant quam qui portantur ergo jumenta meliora sunt hominibus If you litigate that the bearer is better than him that is born then you shall confess that the beast is better
congruae viae ad perficiendum bonum But in the ways which are of advantage to finish and absolve that which is good we are under the care and diligence of those ministring Spirits even as Satan hath confess'd it in my Text He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee And so much for the Supreme assistance which the Devil did promise Christ I have begun to touch upon the instrumental helpers as they were under the Lords appointment but now I will finish the time with a more large Explication of their aid and protection and in their hands they shall bear thee up c. Hortensius the Orator commended the brave quality of Eloquence to the heavens that himself might be lifted up to heaven in the commendation So the Tempter spares not to give the Angels their due and much more than their due that his own presence and assistance might be the more regarded For this is the cunning of it Habes Angelorum custodiam ego ipse Angelus lucis sum The Angels are all your Servants to attend you and I that am so near at hand unto you am an Angel of light Well for his part he shall be detected to his shame what he is after the third Tentation howsoever he roves extreme wide from the scope of the Prophet David Scriptum est ad corporis consolationem non ad capitis This promise of Angelical safeguard belongs not to the tuition of the head who is above all but to the consolation of the body The beginning of the Psalm receives the righteous into the Sanctuary of the most High and he shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty but Christ is that Almighty under whose shadow the Angels themselves are received So Origen retorts should the Angels watch left he dash his foot against a stone Nisi Iesus adjuverit Angeli offendent pedem suum yea unless Christ be about their paths and about their ways the Angels shall dash their foot against a stone and never rise they borrow their illumination their confirmation in grace their whole subsistance from Christ and not he from them What could be more spightfully cast forth than this comparison of the Tempters What could be more contemptuous to Christs glory than to make him a Pupil of the Angels What more opprobrious to all faith As if we did fly to such a Saviour who was not sufficient to keep himself but had a convoy of Gods best Servants to deliver him So the Jews following their Father the Devil frumpt him upon the Cross Let us see if Elias will come and help him when he called not upon Elias but twice together upon God The Lamb of God when he was so flouted by the Jews yielded up the Ghost and did not contradict them because they deserved for the hardness of their heart to live and die in their errour so he did not vindicate himself from this indignity of Satans that he was Lord of the Angels and not under their Pupillage Satan would have laid his ear to that but it might not be discovered unto him that he might still lie upon the rack of doubtfulness and infidelity manger all his Tentations Christ was not ashamed to let his Prophets and Apostles say thou madest him a little lower than the Angels Heb. ii 7. But the next words do recompence that humiliation Thou crownedst him with glory and honour and didst set him over the works of thy hands But how lower than the Angels will some man say Not ratione naturae assumptae not because he took flesh of the blessed Virgin for he keeps that body in his glory and yet as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and man he is Prince of all the Angels But thus it is best read thou hast made him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a little while lower than the Angels in his Mortality in his Passion while he lay in the Grave before he rose from the dead but after that no longer in any respect lower than the Angels Satan shall see and malign that after the tentation is finished at the eleventh verse of this Chapter Angels will come and minister unto him as honourable Servants not as Jobs Friends who were his Allies and equals He shall see at his Agony an Angel from heaven comforting him Non ad necessitatem sed ad servitutis exhibitionem says Remigius Not as one that had need to bring help but that ought to give attendance Nay because you read Acts i. passively that Christ was taken up into heaven and that two men meaning two Angels stood by in white apparel therefore St. Austin says that Angels bore him up in their hands into heaven not because he should fall if they had taken away their hands but they were delighted marvellously in that homage and imployment And thus the Father amplifies it The Lord hath said heaven is my seat Quia coelum portat Deus sedet ideo coelum melius non est If the heaven be his seat and carry him yet is not he much better that sits upon it So is Christ much better than all the Angels though it should be granted to Satan that they did bear him in their hands But for our part to whom this benefit is meant let us own it and confess it is our Psalm it is our consolation those hands of the Angels are reacht out to hold us weak ones up left at any time we dash our foot against a stone They pluckt Lot and his Family out of Sodom they guarded Jacob from the wrath of Laban they went before the Israelites through the Wilderness and through all their trouble they filled all the Mountains round about to protect Elisha they destroy'd the Host of Sennacherib and saved the holy City We are not only Oves in medio luporum Sheep in the midst of Wolves but also Oves in medio Angelorum Sheep in the midst of Angels over every Wolves head there is an Angel so that we are hoop'd about both above and below Above for our defence below for our perdition What should move the very Heathen to harp upon this string Or who did light their Candle to find it out One of them speaks thus roundly to the matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there are certain Angels appointed about the earth who are Guardians and Bishops or over-lookers of all humane actions Surely that which moved them to this Sentence must be to consider what plots and conspiracies against the innocent are often revealed in a way clean contrary to the reach of mans wit what mischiefs are prevented by that which we call Chance and Fortune that is by the way of Gods secret Providence which cannot be discerned And what comforts flow into the minds of the distressed which no mortal man could administer Good reason will conclude some heavenly Ministers must be the Instruments of these strange and unlook'd-for blessings or they could never come to pass In these straights of time take these
distinction in Aquinas so well accepted by some that there are so many forms of adoration as there are kinds of excellencie for honour and worship are done to the person for the excellency which is in it Now excellency is either divine and infinite in God which deserves that adoration call'd by him latria or humane excellency which is grounded or in mens honours or in their virtues and so deserves civil and political reverence or it is an excellency less than divine yet more then humane which is in the Angels and souls of holy men departed and that claims the worship of dulia unto it self Put this into plain meaning he that can and shew me how these three are distinguisht in outward or bodily adoration I will agree that in those things we worship we do apprehend excellency three manner of wayes First there is cultus sacrosanctae religionis the religious and pious worship which we give to God for his omnipotent and most glorious excellency Secondly there is cultus civilis subjectionis the worship which we give to our superiors in authority as we live in political subjection because they are set over us for our good Thirdly there is cultus moralis reverentiae the worship of moral respect and reverence which we give to some for their good gifts and qualities although we are not under them in any political ordination All these worships are performed upon several excellencies apprehended in the persons worshipped but the act of worship it self as concerning that which the head the knee the hand or any part of the body doth execute may be the same for the distinguishing of one and another must be in the heart and mind as I proceed now to shew at large unto you The definition of divine worship must be thus framed adoratio est talis veneratio exterior quae ex corde pio religioso procedit that 's the adoration due to God and to him alone which with the exterior veneration of the body proceeds out of the pious and religious intentions of the heart If you yield any token of outward obeysance and mean it to honour him who hath made you redeem'd you sanctified you and conferred all other benefits upon you then it is raised up from civil homage and duty and is become divine worship a distinction will help the memory of them that can conceive it a little further There are three things which concur to that virtue which we call the worship of God First the act of the understanding must put forth it self to apprehend and know the glorious excellency of God that he made the whole world out of nothing and susteins all things by the word of his power Then secondly the act of the will comes in wherein we assent and apply our selves to adore his excellency to magnifie him and devote our hearts unto him Thirdly these two joyned together do urge and command the exterior act of worship which is performed by the body tanti est adorare all these must be in it if it be true adoration S. Paul speaks of some that have the forms of godliness but deny the power thereof The formal cringing and bending are but like a part play'd upon a Stage if they be sever'd from the power of godliness from the knowledg of the understanding what glory belongs to God and from the will and purpose of the heart to exalt his holy name both privately and in his holy Temple Well I can but call upon you to prepare your hearts and you will every one say I am sure my heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed The Lord knows but we that are your instructors do not whether that internal part of worship be well discharg'd by you therefore I come to that quarter of the virtue whereof men may be witnesses if it be carefully executed unto outward adoration it was upon the quarrel of outward worship that Christ here disputed with Satan God had respect to Abel and to his offering Gen. iv 4. to Abel that is to his internal piety to his offering that is to his external worship Abel had been unrespected at that time if he had not been good at both And as a plaister of cordial ingredients laid to the stomach or an unction well slickt upon the skin comforts the spirits within and makes them execute their vital functions chearfully so outward reverence helps us greatly against our dulness and drowzie infirmities The lifting up the hands and eyes make a man crave more passionately the knocking of the breast whets our repentance with indignation against our selves bowing down the head and knee imprints into us the great distance which is between God and us the uncovering the head makes that needful thought sink into our heart in whose presence we stand Glorifie God with your body 1 Cor. vi 20. Tertullian and S. Cyprian read it Portate Deum in corpore vestro Carry God in your body in every joynt and member of it It may be they met with some Greek Copy that read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Religion is compared to a Marriage there is a contract between God and our soul and this is gain'd from the similitude that the Wife is the Husbands as well in bodie as in affection and so are we the Lords As Man and Wife are but one flesh so Christ the Bridegroom of the Church did assume the whole man bodie and soul into the unity of his person He hath conjoyn'd them both unto God and let us conjoyn them both to the worship of God A Sermon cannot be spent upon a subject which doth more deserve our exhortation The Lord created a Star on purpose only to bring the Magi of the East to worship Christ and they did so even when He lay in most despicable manner before them in the Manger of a Stable and shall we be slacker to kneel before his footstool when he reigns triumphantly in the highest Heavens the Heaven and Earth the Stars and Prophets all lead us to the worship of God Scriptura mundus ad hoc sunt ut colatur qui creavit adoretur qui inspiravit so St. Cyprian The Scripture and the world are to this end that He that created the one and inspir'd the other might be worshipped It is no mean duty which made those wise men of the East take so tedious and long a journey to post in twelve days from the mountains of the East to Bethlem and that other Traveller Acts viii the Treasure of the Queen Candace came from the uttermost parts of Ethiopia to Jerusalem and all for no other end but this to worship The Scripture saies so expresly and when they had done that they went home again We had need carry a very true heart to God in these daies for many of us put him off all together with the zeal of our heart and think it will excuse us if we neither honor him with our
him whose dominion is in the Sea and his right hand in the Flouds From him therefore Satan could not go from the light of his countenance from the comfort of his face he might go Nemo loco sed iniquitate à Deo elongatur No distance of place is remote from him who is with every thing and about all things and in all things He is as much in that place which every Creature takes up as the Creature it self yet without any impediment to the locality of it but our iniquities separate between God and us and where there is the most sin there is the greatest separation But to come to the plainest and most textual answer Christs Manhood is not receptive of Omnipresency so the Devil left his Humane Nature for a season and was not near it he went away to seek out those with whom he might more probably skirmish to get a victory If I should say the Tempter went not far from thence but hovered somewhere about Judaea the conjecture were not altogether without a foundation reason leads me to think he was very inquisitive about our Saviours ways and watchful to espy what miracles he wrought what he said how he might stir up enemies and unbelievers against him and some worse than Parricide to betray him St. Luke says He left him but for a season after these temptations as if he were ever in harms-way to offend him But above all I perceive by another of the Evangelists that the brood of Hell frequented the Land of Jurie in the days of our Saviour more than all other places in the earth a Legion of them in one man many Regiments of them in others that were possessed There was their Theater to play their wicked part where the Gospel might be most offended rather than in all the world beside Therefore St. Mark says one of the Devils which he cast out besought him that he would not send him out of that Country Mar. v. 10. They should want work in unfrequented places Idolatrous Cities though most populous were their own already their quickest trade lay in Judaea at this time here grew the unwillingness to leave that Country But now it is time to leave that question to what place Satan shifted when he was commanded to leave our Saviour Give ear to the next question Whether ever he returned again It is St. Lukes meaning that we should take notice he returned again and infested our Saviour after this bout for he says his departure was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a season and no more It was but for a short truce indeed till he had cast about to rise up against Christ in another fashion not by tempting him to sin but by exercising his patience under rebukes and misery and finally to work his death by treachery He knew him by this time to be his own Lord against whom he had rebelled in whom it was impossible to imprint any blot or blemish of iniquity But because that Humane Nature which Christ had assumed into his Person was of the Seed of Abraham and therefore obnoxious to death the Devil plotted his destruction from time to time and wrought his purpose at last by putting it into the heart of Judas to betray him being not advised out of the Scripture as he might have been by reason if God had not blinded him that our Saviour by death would overcome death and pull down the mighty one from his seat by triumphing on the Cross An ordinary curse ever since upon malicious persons the ruine of those against whom they are bent falls upon their own head and crusheth them to pieces But this was the service for which Satan returned again to vex his body after a season because his soul was spotless to oppose his prosperity because he could not hurt his vertue Thus Bonaventure comprizeth it Tentavit emollire per blanditias sed modicum tempus tentabit frangere per miserias Now he tried our Saviour with fair offers after a while he will thrust at him with foul calamities Now his own hand is in the work but then his Instruments The use of it shall come home to our selves thus The Lord sometimes takes off our foe from us and gives us breathing time after temptations it is but for a season not to flatter our selves with quietness and security but to repair our ruines to keep out the batteries that will ensue It is but a refreshing after the fit of an Ague the sick day is coming again Like a calm upon the Sea while a sweet gale blows what sensible man will not have all things ready for a tempest Remember the Parable Luke xi And what the unclean Spirit said I will return into my house from whence I came Like the Assyrian Souldiers when they had once found the way into the Land of Judaea they could never be dealt withal to forget it Hezekiah or whosoever might hire them to go home again for one year but the next Summer following they were sure to make a new invasion And do not stand too much upon affiance I have conquered these and these tentations often I dare trust my self now upon the brink of these sins and shall never be thrust in to make such security more doubtful and suspicious Cassianus hath a fit similitude says he A Fox will stretch himself for dead that Poultry may come into his reach and never fear him yet if they do stalk towards him they shall find to their cost he is not past doing mischief So the Tempter will give back as if he were fled for ever but he departs only for a more seasonable opportunity and will return again with seven spirits worse than himself when you are worst prepared The holiest Fathers of the Church had flesh and frailty in them and can speak in this point as well by Experience as by Art and Meditation and this is their common verdict Quo valentius vincitur eò ardentius ad insidias instigatur If he be vanquish'd by him that is strong in faith it sharpens his edge the more to make his part good again by Art and subtilty And so much for this last Point upon the first general part Satan departed from Christ but for a season But now he is gone though like a Wolf regardant looking back upon the Flock from which he was beaten And Christ had such company in exchange that my Text bids us mark and see the succession that followed and behold Angels came and ministred unto him This Particle of wonder Behold is a Dial or Index to three things First To note a moral alteration a lewd one is dismiss'd to receive an holy train in his room here was an accursed Spirit parlying with Christ instead of him here is a volly of Angels Whosoever he be that hath taken delight in the company of wicked men and sorted himself with those that have not the fear of God before their eyes let him cast them
fullonicant ingeniis suis says Origen Hereticks set a bright gloss upon their false opinions they in his construction are those Fullers upon earth that would make their doctrine if it were possible as white as truth but if you pattern it with the Scripture you shall see it colours not with that spiritual light which comes from Christ That Doctrine which hath the simplicity of the Spirit without the knotty entanglements of mans wit that which says let God have the glory but to us belongs shame and confusion of face That which impresseth humility into the thoughts zeal and devotion into the heart all manner of vertue into the practice This is that true light which comes from heaven no Fuller upon earth none that sit in the pestilent Chair of deceitful tongues can make a thing so white and every one that is of the truth loveth the light and hateth darkness And so far upon this admirable vision His countenance was altered and his rayment white and glistering These were res mirae strange and uncouth things the next general part of the Text doth handle personas miras strange persons whom a man would not expect in that place and at that time Behold there talked with him two men which were Moses and Elias If any of the people had been by that took him to be Elias or Jeremias or one of the old Prophets they should have seen a difference in this Vision between the head and the feet between the Lord and his Servants For surely some of the old Prophets two for all and those whom the Jews did most admire came upon this Theater to be seen that Christs glory might appear the more Let the eyes of Peter look upon them together and see if Christs glory be not far exalted above all the Saints Quantùm lenta solent inter viburna cupressi Among the Gods there is none like unto thee O Lord Psal lxxxvi 8. Non in Angelis coelestibus seu in altissimis says the Chaldee Paraphrase not among the Angels nor among any of the blessed souls that live in the highest places Was this such a business to be taught will some men say to bring the dead out of their graves Can any mistake that the honour of Christ is far exalted above all his Servants For to which of the Angels did the Father say at any time Sit thou on my right hand untill I make thine enemies thy footstool Beloved are there none that keep the festival days of the Saints with more devotion and observance then the first day of the week for ever to be sanctified because Christ rose from the dead on that day Do they not make more Pilgrimages and Vows to some Patrons of their own invention who have been but men Are not there more Temples erected in their name More costly Ornaments bestowed upon their Images More Prayers poured out unto them than to Christ himself And had I not need to remember you that two men who were now glorified talked with Christ upon Mount Tabor that they might appear like little stars obscured before the greatest Planet Moses did but verifie in person what he had taught in a Song before Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods Who is like unto thee Exod. xv 11. I adjudge it for another reason that two men beatified came to talk with him because he would not seem to ingross the light of glory to himself without derivation to others It is not a treasure to be reserved unto himself but a communicable donative The glory which thou gavest me I have given them Joh. xvii 22. As a seed-corn is fruitless unless it die and bring forth stalks of Wheat so Christ compares himself to such a grain of Wheat which must die to bring forth much fruit or else it abideth alone as if all were marred unless we were accommodated by his fruitfulness The Kings honour is in the multitude of his people the joy of the Father is in the Olive branches round about his Table The glory of the woman is for the children to grow up and call the mother blessed The felicity of these consists herein to have some that are partners of their felicity But God is all-sufficient to contemplate his own glory though he had never made the world he did not make man to praise him as if he wanted voices to magnifie his name and make him God Yet he is pleased to express his love so far that his honour should be alone unless the goodly fellowship of Saints and Prophets were round about him Except a seed-corn fall into the ground and die it abideth alone Joh. xii 24. Lord why dost thou esteem thy self alone and heaven to be solitary without us But O man how canst thou be without him in thy heart on earth that would not be alone without thee in heaven Behold when he brought down heaven upon earth in his own body two of the Elect brought down their glory to the Mountain to assist him His own Disciples were yet but earth and corruption and therefore incapable of such illuminated brightness till the time should come to be translated out of the prison of mortality And Angels were not fit to be his Compeers at this bout because he manifested the glorification of the flesh which pertains not to Angels but to Men. None of the living would serve the turn to appear with him in Majesty they were not supernaturalized to undergo it nor any of the Angelical Order they were not of the right Predicament two men came down unto him who had been exalted into Heaven and now I will shew with what great congruity these two men who were Moses and Elias But to omit nothing which is fit to be observ'd I will make three general heads of this matter 1. Whether all Elias and all Moses did appear both body and soul 2. From whence they came to be Parties at the celebration of this great Miracle And 3. If I can reach so far Why they became the representative persons for the whole Body of the Saints in Heaven To the first that these two Witnesses presented themselves in bodily shapes there is no wit so scrupulous I think that can make a question of it for S. Matthew says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these men were seen of Peter James and John Then they were heard talking and by their talk discover'd to be those grand Prophets as I will shew hereafter They talked as men to men vocally not in an intellectual fashion as spirits do And the Apostles in their extasie mentioned the making of Tabernacles to shrowd them in but a Tabernacle is a Coverture for a Body and not for a Spirit The controversie doth not consist in this therefore I pass it over That which hath caused diversities of judgments to arise is herein what manner of Bodies these were wherewith Moses and Elias were cloathed to attend the Transfiguration of Christ I will make bold to remove
for the profit of my Soul rather than upon all the eloquence and wit in the world There is more to be learnt by meditating upon his Passion seriously and devoutly one day than by ripping up all other needless questions through the whole year Si Christum discis satis est si caetera nescis Si Christum nescis nihil est si caetera discis Says the Old Verse If you have learnt Christ crucified for thy sins do not bewail thy ignorance simple Soul though thou knowest no more if thou hast not learnt his sufferings and that with his stripes thou art healed bewail thy knowledg great Master of Arts and Sciences though except that one thing thou hast learned all And what though you fix your speculations upon Christ himself yet all is in vain that you can preach of Christ until you set your notions afloat upon his blood and sail down to this out of all that he was crucified for our transgressions If you be not enemies to his Cross you will easily agree with the truth of the whole Gospel if you do not agree with his Cross as with the only cause by which we obtain salvation you will be an enemy to all the truth of the Gospel Turn this key right that we are justified from our sins by his blood shedding and all is open wrench the door with any other key as if we would pick open the lock of Heaven gates with our own sufferings and righteousness and all is shut Surely St. Paul did pattern his preaching by this Copy of Moses and Elias 1 Cor. ii 2. I determined not to know any thing among you saving Jesus Christ and him crucified Secondly Yes indeed this was fit communication for Paul to impart nothing else to the Corinthians who did abound with the Greek Philosophy and eloquence and it sorted the better to speak of nothing but the sorrows of our Lord while fears and persecutions and death did daily environ them but in my next Observation it shall appear that this discourse was well chosen rather than any other at the Transfiguration of glory here was nothing upon the Mountain but celestial joy and in the height of this joy no other talk to entertain the time but about a Cross and about a woful tribulation If our sorrow be not enlightned with some joy it will turn to a melancholick desperation so if our joy be not dampt with the sadness and seriousness of some sorrow it will fly out into excess and presumption The Graecians did not allow their frisking Lydian Musick to be playd without the gravity of the Dorique Instruments which they called in one name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So David tun'd this mixture upon his Harp Psal ii 11. Serve the Lord in fear and rejoyce unto him with reverence Surely Peter and the other Apostles thought they were past all the bitter storms and frowns of the world where the place whereon they stood was more bedeckt with beauty than ever they had read of Paradice as if God had rained down Heaven upon Earth their mind was filled with this saying and their lips in the next verse spake nothing less Give us the Kingdom which is prepared for us give us the fruition of thy glory Nay hold and take this before Priùs de calice cogitate quà m de regno Drink of my cup before you reign in my Kingdom hear Moses and Elias preach of my Cross before you be enthronized among the Elders to sing praises unto the Lamb for evermore But was this a gratulatory Oration fit for the Prophets to make to Christ in the brightness of his Excellency did He love to hear of this above any thing that He should die an ignominious death at Jerusalem yes it was as the most pleasant thing to our Saviour and none so acceptable to be spoken of When a poor woman annointed his head with ointment in the house of Simon the Leper he defends her for it against the indignation of his Disciples says He In that she poured this ointment on my body she did it for my Burial I have a Baptism to be baptized with and how I am straitned till it be accomplished Luke xii 50. never was such haste made to any place as he made to Mount Calvarie there past but a little time from midnight to midday betwixt his Attachment his Arraignment and his Execution as if his feet had stood upon thorns until his head were crowned with them The content he took in those torments is thus laid forth in St. Paul who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross Heb. xii 2. A certain Author makes an elegant comparison between that triumph when Christ rode upon an Ass to Jerusalem and between this triumph of the Transfiguration on Mount Thabor Infesto palmarum illacrymat considerans mala nostra in hoc festo mirabiliter exultat recolens mala sua Though he was then received with Palm branches and shoutings yet he wept upon Jerusalem to consider their sins at this Feast he is all glorious and rejoyceth for our sakes to hear the commemoration of his own sorrows And thirdly it must not be forgotten how Moses and Elias were those chosen Orators which spake of his decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem all that was mystical in the Types and Shadows of Moses Law all that was darkly delivered in the deep style of the Prophets concerning this passion is explained against the teeth of the Jews Moses and Elias came to interpret themselves Moses say the Fathers saw what medicine and healing was in the cross when he lift up the brazen Serpent in the Wilderness to cure the people that were stung and wounded and Prudentius in a sweet versifying way that Moses learnt how all spiritual foes Death Satan Sin and Hell should be vanquisht by the Cross when by the stretching out of his hands the Amalekites were destroyed in Battel by the Children of Israel Passis in altum brachiis sublimis Amalech premit crucis quod instar tum fuit Again they make the same Commentation upon Elias that he laid his body upon the Childs body his hands upon the Childs hands which he brought to life again even as Christ did stretch himself out upon the Cross and hath quickned us being dead in our sins having forgiven us all our trespasses Colos ii 13. and not us only who have been born since the time that his blood was actually shed but all those who lived with the Fathers under the Law and from the beginning of the world who did believe to escape eternal death by the blood of that Sacrifice which should be offered up upon the Tree of malediction A strange Medicament that the drops of this sacred bloud should cure so many millions before it self was extant If an Herbalast say he will make a Panacaea a rare juice of salutiferous roots the next year can it cure this Spring yet the Remedy of the Cross
the Torturer Is John Baptists head so soon forgotten that it could be suspected of this Herod he would pitty Christ could it be imagined so chast a person could find good usage before such a man whose Marriage was incestuous This was like the removing of the Prophet Jeremy from the Kings Prison to the Dungeon of Malchal Jer. xxxviii But thus it was fit to be say the Fathers to toss Christ between Annas and Caiaphas Herod and Pilat that he might be reviled by four slanderous Judges as his glory should be revealed in the Gospel by four Evangelists yea Pilat and Herod interchangeably made another mystery flat against themselves For Herod clad our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a white shining Robe says St. Luke as the Ancients read it Pilat did alter the colour and made it purple says St. Matthew to express against their own corrupt proceedings that he was candidus innocentiâ rubicundus martyrio that his Soul was white with innocency and his Body died purple with passion according to that which Solomon spoke mystically of Christ I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lilly of the Valleys the White Lilly of the Valleys in his sanctified life the Red Rose of Sharon in his bloody sufferings There is a superstition in some men and perchance it is all the Religion which they have they will not put their own finger into an ill Cause but they make no scruple to sollicit and procure it by their Instruments This was a piece of Statism which Saul observed against David let not my hand do him hurt but let the hand of the Philistins be upon him Like our lascivious Gallants who call them Bawds and Panders who deal for other mens sins and are Officers for these voluptuous Markets but to enjoy that sin which their Instruments compounded for as they think it is no stain to their reputation So Pilat in my Text shifts our Saviour from his own Tribunal Justice forbid that He should hurt him but he removes him into Herods Court to receive his Sentence from a Tyrant Alas then this was not enough to make Pilat innocent But thirdly his Apologie stands upon one point more for perceiving the insatiate rancour of the Jews that nothing would content them except they had revenge upon the Body of Christ he stript him naked and scourged him that his stripes might give satisfaction and his life be saved Debilem facito manu debilem coxa pede vita dum superest bene est says Mecaenas a smart in the hand or in the head may be patiently taken to save our vitals 'T is true that such pitty is in the wisdom of the Judg when a lesser offence is compared with a greater but it is more injustice to chastise an innocent like a petty malefactor than to punish a petty Malefactor like a notorious Offendor The Jews cried out that if he spared his life but I say if he race his skin he is no Friend to Caesar but as it happens unto some Beasts that if they taste of blood it puts a thirst into them to make them raven and devour every prey that they catch So the drops that trickled from his shoulders put a ravenous appetite into the Jews to thrust a Spear into his side as deep as to his heart to make a passage for a greater effusion the very nakedness of his body when he was stript to be scourged and to be crucified says St. Austin was irksom to a modest man Obtenebratus est sol ut celaret pudicitiam creatoris in nudo corpore says the Father but to take such a scourging that Pilat himself shook his head to behold the man Et fuit in toto corpore sculptus amor says a Christian Poet that the testimony of his love was enameled or engraven in every part of his body to fall into the hands of such Executioners that did over-do their Commission and would gratifie the People in their Function as much as their Master had done in his Sentence before them will this defence hold water to make Pilat innocent Then let us hear his fourth Allegation When he had made a Protestation of Christ's integrity but it would not be believed when he had tempted Herod to end the Trial but the Cause was returned to his own Court when scourges were applied to take off the edg of his Enemies cruelty yet nothing was heard but crucifie him in the voice of the Multitude he casts about to save him by the priviledg of the Passover choose you who shall be released Barabbas that seditious Murderer or Jesus that is called Christ Is it come to the choice and the People made Arbiters then no doubt Christ must prepare for the Altar and Barabbas shall be hircus emissarius the Scape-goat let to run away into the Wilderness Et mecum certasse feretur may the Son of God say shall the Joy of Heaven and Earth come in scrutiny with Barabbas but we have no quarrel against him Non reprehendimus O Judaei quod per Pascha liberastis nocentem sed quod occidistis innocentem says St. Austin If you have a mind O ye Israelites to save a sinner at the Passover spare not to shew mercy who can be offended at it But if that be a business fit for the day it cannot be a good work to kill an innocent Upon what occasion the custom was grounded to acquit a Thief at the Passover it is not upon record Some are confident that it was very ancient in memory of their own deliverance out of the Land of Egypt some think it was later begun after the Roman Conquest upon this occasion Their Cities of Refuge were quite taken from them because the crimes of blood and death were translated from the Law of Moses to the Tribunal of Caesar wherefore this courtesie was instead of a recompence to release unto them one Prisoner at the Passover Now I strike at Pilats hypocrisie for this custom says Lyra was not ex imperiali sanctione sed consuetudine the surrender of one Malefactor was not strengthened by the Imperial Law but by courtesie Why did not Pilat then confine the Roman mercy to this just person but leave it indifferent as well for him as for the benefit of a Murderer There is no such Beast in the World as Demetrius and the City of Ephesus broke loose into a mutiny what they choose or what they refuse the greater part are always ignorant take the people in this wild phrensie and they would like the company of Barabbas before any man such an hair-brain would make a Ringleader fit to cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him be crucified Had Antiochus the chief Enemy of their Nation been living and set up against our Saviour surely the voice had gone not Him but Antiochus wherefore to propound Christ and Barabbas it was a delusion and will not hold to make Pilate innocent Give him water now to wash his hands manus lavet
of Heaven ut gentilis deprecatione ultio sanguinis istius à nobis ablata sit that the vengeance of his blood should be denounced against Israel and the Nations excused but yet Pilat was but mungril good and therefore his hand was in this bloody passion as well as the men of Jerusalem both Jew and Gentile did concur to his sufferings says Origen ut pro persecutoribus qui oraret gentiles non excluderet that when he prayed for his Persecutors the Gentiles might be at one end of his persecution and be partakers of his Prayers Had Pilat been as malicious as the Jews we poor souls had been liable to the vengeance of his blood had Pilat stopt his ears against the outcries and never yielded to the passion we had not been in the number of those Persecutors for whom he made intercession therefore this luke warm Magistrate began with Jacobs voice but ended with the hands of Esau neither could he say he was innocent of the blood of this just man Nay then I must tell you to forget Pilat a while were you all in this Assembly dearly beloved of none other but of the very choice and flower of the resurrection of the just a Rank of Patriarchs an Army of Martyrs a Company of holy Prophets yet Qui omnes conclusit sub peccato omnes conlusit suh homicidio he that doth lay sin to every mans soul doth lay the murder of our Lord and Saviour to every mans charge for the redemption of sins And then are you better than your forefathers Are you more righteous than the Prophets that you alone are innocent No you are also the crucifiers of your Redeemer and if your consciences do not say so bear witness of my words for an action of slander Solum peccatum homicida est Not Pilate but hypocrisie not Caiaphas but Simony not Herod but incestuous lust not the Souldiers but Bands and Troupes of Rapines and Blasphemies were the murderers of Christ When a Bullock was slain for a sin Offering to make an attonement for the whole Congregation Lev. iv 25. All the Elders of the City says Moses shall lay their hands upon the head of the Bullock that they being the representative body of all Israel might testifie that every soul in Israel was accessory to the death of the Sacrifice This was a figurative expression how the whole Generation of mankind did concur to be guilty of the bloudy Oblation of the Son of God As the trial hath been seen upon murderers when they have drawn near to the Carkass which hath been slain by their hands either fresh bloud from the wounds of the Carkass or an issue of their own bloud hath betrayed them as some say so let me question you when you stand before Christ especially when he stands before you in the holy Sacrament do not your hearts bleed within you to express your guiltiness of his Passion O give the flux a passage to come out I do not say in bloud but in tears which are the bloud of the soul The bleeding of the Vine draws away the life of the tree and leaves it barren of the Clusters which should hang upon it but the flowing of tears makes us fruitful to bring forth many Bunches of good works not the Clusters of an earthly but of an heavenly Canaan And now let me ask you as I would ask of men that shun those places out of horrour wherein they have spilt anothers bloud I say Why do you love this world so much wherein you have killed Christ Why are you not aweary of this place What can please us in such a soyl which should be unto us all as Aceldema was to Judas the Theater to act sins and therefore the field of bloud Wherefore do we not rather say with Tertullian Nihil nostri refert in hoc mundo nisi de eo quà m citò excedere We Christians have nothing to do in this earth but to make haste to forsake it for a better especially abandon the thoughts of deadly revenge do not wish for more bloud at any hand we have all spilt enough already in the funerals of our Saviour were he not both a Sacrifice slain for us as he is a Sacrifie slain by us more than ever we could answer for Make not your revengeful heart like Golgotha where Christ was crucified a place of dead mens sculls But least any man should be swallowed up with too much grief because he is endited for this hainous crime the bitter death of his Saviour let him take this for his comfort to put gladness in his heart it is not one death that our Lord Jesus doth stand upon Passus est quia voluit he never shrinks for one death but stretched out his arms upon the Cross to embrace it Take heed only that you do not crucifie him anew Nay mistake me not here though you sin ten thousand times over yet he can die but once for you but my meaning is the Summa totalis of all mens sins did abase the Son of God to the ignominy of the Cross yet this dolorous day was from Gods preordination But that we may not crucifie him anew first Do not neglect his death as if it were some common and uncommiserated anguish Secondly Do not run into admiration of your own merits as if had there been all such as you in the world his Passion had been spared Lastly Do not presume upon grace as if Remission of sins were a safe Indulgence for sins to be multiplied They that do commit such things are guilty not once but often to crucifie the Lord of life To conclude then against Pilates falshood and hypocrisie three things do concur in the crucifying of our Saviour Destinatio passionis executio passionis iteratio passionis In the Predestination of Christs Passion God did look upon all mankind the Elect especially as lapsed into sin and therein Pilate was not innocent The execution of his Passion upon earth was committed by the envy of the Priests the cruelty of the Souldiers and the power of Pilate What though his mind did not consent Yet he lent them his authority Herod was not willing it seems to have John Baptists head but it comes all to one pass if Herodias must have her content and therefore in the execution was not Pilate innocent The iteration of his Passion lights upon those who make an impenitent end and do not apply his sufferings to their sin-sick conscience and since Pilate lived a Vagabond for ever after and died like a desperate cast-away either by drowning at Vienna or falling upon his own Sword at Lions that is the difference of the History neither in this respect nor in any else could he say I am innocent of the bloud of this just person And so I pass to the second general part of my Text from this lie which Pilate told to his true testimony concerning Christ that he was a just person Yet I commend this disposition in
Marium says the Consul Marius and so daunted his Executioner Thus then our Saviour had escaped their hands divinitatem publicando 2. Where were the Legions of Angels that did attend him That Host of Princes who solemnized his Nativity with peace on earth and good will towards men would have recanted and sung a song quite of another nature to guard him from his passion And thus our Saviour had escaped exercitum producendo Durandus tries his skill for a third reason thus corpus in se mortale ad immortalitatem perducendo If you ask what he means by it I will enlarge his mind Our bodies do decay and decline every day more and more unto corruption necessarily because it is past the cunning of any mortal man to know precisely to a crum of bread what nourishment is best to fulfil the place of that which decays daily in our body but as for Christ scivit in alimento quantum necesse fuit sumere ad restaurationem deperditi He having the treasures of all wisdom hidden in him needed not the advise of any man to instruct him how the decays of nature being justly repaired could preserve his mortal body in a sound constitution for everlasting Scotus thinks this reason too weak and so do I also For although Christ had this inspection to discern wholsom from unwholsom in all the works of nature yet consumption and dissolution would happen to his body from two things The first prejudice to his health would be impuritas alimenti the earth and all the fruits thereof yield not such strength and vertue as they did before the Floud of Noah Si Adam habuisset alimentum nostrum mortuus fuisset senio says the same Schoolman very boldly if Adam in his best estate had been fed with such meats as we are and none besides age had brought him to his Grave Again there is potentiae nutritivae debilitatio that gentle heat which gives warmth to the faculty of concoction would have gone out like a candle in the socket and therefore it stands for a conclusion in his Divinity that a medicinal intelligence of herbs and fruits and other viands had not drawn out our Saviours life unto immortality There is a fourth reason how Christ could have restrained all agony and passion from his body for ever and it is without exception Death in a reasonable creature is the wages of sin they are relatives secundum esse so that a man may say here is a sinner and therefore a dead man here is the Tomb of a dead man and therefore the Grave of a sinner The next conclusion cannot be parted from the former for if Sin and Death be acus filum if one do draw the other after it then there must be some miraculous disposition in that mans body who is no sinner but innocent as an Angel of light and yet obnoxious to death as a vile transgressor Where then lies the miracle in the substance of our Saviour why thus the whole Manhood was united to the whole Godhead in the Union hypostatical but the influence the grace and priviledg of the Divine nature was not diffused over the flesh nay it cast not the celestial beams upon all the parts of his Soul till after the resurrection but it shined only upon the superior faculties of the will and understanding The strength then of our Samson did lye in capite in the Divine nature which he would not use to immortalize his Body before the Resurrection Potuit relaxare influentiam divinae naturae ut in inferiorem portionem redundarâ—t sayes Biel. It was a miracle then that He could confine the influence of his Godhead for a time to the superior faculties of the Soul and I think you will confess that there was no miracle done by necessity or compulsion but upon this presumption that the flesh was left unassisted of the Divinity there follows a threefold necessity of his death and dissolution The first is called necessitas naturae nature would have dropt away when it grew mellow ripe according to the course of humane constitution The second is called necessitas coactionis supposing the malice of the Jews and his obedience to unjust Authority he must have suffered by necessity of compulsion The third is called necessitas finis a necessity of death lay upon him from Gods eternal Decree to accompass the happy end preordeined which is mans Redemption But what is the fruit of this Doctrine now where are the sheaves to fill our bosom you will say now I doubt it not that Christ had power to lay down his life and to take it up Then enlarge your hearts to receive St. Austins Meditation Amplius tenemur Christo quod liberè voluit pati quà m quòd necessario Our engagement had been less if Christ had suffered by absolute and imperious necessity but we praise our God the more we bless him we magnifie him we give thanks unto him with the greater affection because our Sacrifice is of choice and liberty But I pass from the consideration of the mighty power which was in our Saviour Had he rejoyced like a Giant to run his course what death could have seized upon him had our Samson awoke out of sleep and shook himself no fetters could have held him But if you will lay your ear to the sweetest harmony that ever was tuned ad aquae lene caput sacrae if you will give attention to the soft and still bubling from whence sprung all our salvation voluit in a word he would not plead his innocency before Pilat he would be offer'd up he would be crucified It is a memorable accident which Plutarch doth report of a Sacrifice in Lacedaemon The Priests were in great distress for an unspotted Beast to be slain Satan no doubt desiring to supply them with fuel to kindle their Idolatry an unspotted Heifer swam over the River and laid it self down before the Altar I know not the truth of this Story but sure I am that I know a Sacrifice which will fit the Parable For when wrath had faln upon Mankind throughout all Generations and a burnt-Offering was wanting to appease the Lord to the end that Isaac and the Sons of Promise and Election might escape the blow of death the chief Ram of the Flock vir gregis even Jesus Christ thrust his horns into the Thicket and entangled his strength in the guilt of our sins so Isaac was saved and the Ram was sacrificed Voluit would he suffer was there no remedy but to cut off the Head to save the Body had not Christ humbled himself so far as to the death of the Cross yet had not our Redemption been finished by the ignominy of his poor Nativity the lowliness of submission to his Parents the pang of his Fastings the horror of his Agony in the Garden might not all other reproaches have ransomed his life This curious Question the Schoolmen ask therefore let them resolve it First says Biel
glory Put thy fear into us all that we do not crucifie our Lord anew by Blasphemies by Vncharitableness by an Impenitent heart lest we be brought into the bondage of sin lest our heart wax gross and want understanding lest we lose thy favour as thine own Israel did upon earth lest we lose the light of thy countenance in heaven for ever O Lord hear us and be merciful to us for his sake who died upon the Cross c. THE SECOND SERMON UPON THE PASSION JOHN xix 34. But one of the Souldiers with a Spear pierced his side and forthwith came there out Bloud and Water WE cannot meddle with any part of our Saviours Body this day but we shall touch a wound and the greatest of them all without controversie is this in my Text. Thomas might put a finger in where the nails had entred but where the Spear had opened his side Christ bad him thrust in his hand Of Evils be sure to choose the least as David did but of Blessings such were all the wounds of Christs Passion wisdom without art will lead our meditations to the greatest And as Lot chose the Plain of Jordan to dwell there before all the Land of Canaan besides because it had variety of Springs of waters so this wound was the moistest and had the most plentiful issue of all the five it gushed out into two streams of blood and water I have not found such a passage in the Meditations of the Ancients that they came to drink at the hands or feet of Christ although the bloud trickled down from them also But it is usual with them in their Allegories to speak unto their Soul as if they laid their mouth unto the side of our Lord and did draw at it for the Fountain of everlasting life Did they suppose said I that they laid their lips there Nay Bernard could not satisfie his desire till he found a way to lay his heart upon the place and at length thus he hit upon it he believed as he had received that this Souldiers Spear entred at the right side of our Saviour Now says he that Elisha stretcht his living Body upon the dead Corps of the Child to raise it again to life it is a figure that Christ should apply his Body to our body which is dead in sin that it might live unto God his mouth which bled with buffeting upon our mouth that hath been full of deceit and bitterness his brows enameld with the pricks of thorns upon our heads which have contrived mischief and malice his hands which were riveted with nails upon ours that they may be washt in innocency his feet upon ours that have trod in the crooked ways of the Serpent then the Orifice of this Wound laying his right side to our left shall ly directly upon our heart and cure that part which disperseth iniquity to all the body The other three Evangelists exact in most circumstances of the Passion have all omitted this violence done to the dead Body of Christ surely had they wrote like meer men you might have thought the long story of these sufferings to be so lamentable that they could not for very compassion draw it quite out to an end John says in the next verse that he saw it done and that he knows he speaks the truth Amatus amans vulnera Domini the beloved Disciple that loved the wounds of his Master and would not let one of them be unrecorded this is the last wound that the Son of God received and therefore it is recorded by the last Evangelist The whole Story is comprized in this one verse and it will yield us these two points the malice of the living and the blessing that came from the dead The malicious action conteins four circumstances 1. Who was that evil person who did offer ignominy to the Body of Christ one of the Souldiers 2. What was the violence he offered he pierced him with a spear 3. Upon what part of his Body this fury did light upon his side 4. When he smote him you shall find by the thirtieth verse when he had given up the ghost In the second general branch which is the blessing that came from the dead there is the mystical opening of the Fountain of life wherein I consider first the two streams severally Bloud and Water 2. Their Conjunction Bloud and Water together 3. Their Order first Bloud and then Water 4. The Readiness of the Fountain that gushed out the stream could not be stopped no not for a minute forthwith there came out Bloud and Water Of these in their order Vnus militum one of the Souldiers did a despiteful fact upon the Body of Christ The Romans having the whole Nation of the Jews under their subjection at this time did gratifie them notwithstanding in many things to prevent rebellion and to satisfie their Law which forbids their dead to hang upon a tree after Sun-set lest the Land should be defiled Pilate gave them leave to take away the Bodies this day crucified from the Cross Wherefore to dispatch the Malefactors that they might be taken down two Thieves had their legs broken in whom there was life remaining It seems the chief Centurion would not be more rigid than the Law to do any further despite to Christ when he was dead already yet the cracking of his bones to splinters was the chief thing the Jews intended but one of the Souldiers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certainly says the Father for a fee to please the people thrust a spear into his side I doubt me that those who delighted in war bore no good will unto our Saviour His birth was destinated by providence unto the days of peace his Name was the Prince of Peace his Doctrin was utterly against the Sword qui gladium sumpserit gladio ferietur now see what comes of it when he is faln into the hands of Souldiers Joab and the mighty men of the Camp were all for Adoniah and all against Solomon Adoniah was like to live in the field as his Father David had done but Solomon's hand must spill no blood that it may build up a Temple The Emperor Probus let a word of meekness slip from him equus nascetur ad pacem he hoped to have horses brought up to do service in peace and not in war and the Captains of the Host cut short his dayes and so it far'd with the great Preacher of Peace Christ had as good be guarded by one of the Pharisees as by one of the Souldiers As Aristotle said of Bees and Swallows Nec feri sunt generis nec mansueti they were neither reckoned among those creatures that were wild nor those that were tame but of a middle sort Such was the condition of these Spear-men somewhat ruder than civil men somewhat tamer than Savages but violent in their disposition as they are pleased or provoked Yet I am not of Tertullian's mind to
the wrath to come behold a door is opened in the side that you may enter in You that want and have any thing to wish this is the beautiful gate of the Temple lie down here and ask your Alms. One said of our Saviours hands Non possunt claudi ad beneficia quia in cruce fixae apertae sunt Benefits must drop from them they cannot keep close because they were opened upon the Cross So in his side a gate is made that will never be closed against thee Thomas found it open and so shall I. You have heard of the Marriage of the Lamb and that his Beloved hath made her self ready Behold the time when he made a Wife unto himself and when the Marriage was celebrated For as Adam was cast into an heavy sleep and then God opened his side and made woman out of the man while he slept So says St. Austin Christ bowed down his head as if he did but nod and sleep upon the Cross the side of the Bridegroom was then opened that with bloud and water he might make a Spouse unto himself which is the body of his Church Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse says Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou hast ravished my heart as if we had not robb'd him of his bloud but of his very heart so infinitely is he enamoured upon the salvation of his Saints Vulnerasti cor meum that interpretation goes current with the Fathers thou hast wounded my heart my Sister my Spouse thou hast wounded my heart Twice wounded you see His enemies did wound him and so did his Beloved There is a carnal wound which was done by the violence of the Souldier there is a spiritual wound which he suffers for compassion of his Elect. Woe worth their malice that rent the wound in his flesh blessed be his own mercies which made a spiritual wound of love in his heart Why was thy side wounded O mirrour of sufferance when head and feet and hands and every part of thy body had suffered before Me thinks He answers because he would teach us throughly to crucifie the old man in our sinful flesh It is not enough to look to thy feet and thy paths It is not enough to set a watch before thy lips to make a Covenant with thine eyes Open thy heart dive into the depth of it there thou shalt find the root of evil and concupiscence St. Basil reasons seriously why our Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount Mat. v. was more earnest to repress the inward corruption of concupiscence in the heart than the outward disordered actions As for outward sin says the Father it cannot be done without attendance of circumstances opportunity and time of execution and yoke-fellows to draw on iniquity with Cartropes and bodily labour But the evil thought of the heart is still born without noise it is conceived with less labour than breathing it is fruitful at all seasons it betrays not a demure look then it boots not to crucifie and afflict and subdue the whole body unless the grace of God pierce into the bottom of our heart But let me ask again and it is sweet to question it Why was thy side wounded O blessed Jesus Was it not to shew that thou didst not love us in tongue and in word only but at the very heart John the Disciple did but lean upon his breast and yet he carries the title away from them all Discipulus amatus the Disciple whom he loved The breast was shut when John did lean upon it now his side is opened his Elect may go into his very bowels and see how he loved them The Use is proper for the place we are in for the world slanders the Court much or else there is more protestation of good will than sound affection among you Court holy water is an ancient by-word your consciences know best whether you deserve it God and his Christ have given you a most notable example to amend it It was not enough for our Saviour to stretch out his hands as if he would embrace us nor yet to pray earnestly and forgive us but to shew what the love of a Christian should be to a Christian he suffered the precious Casket to be broken open and let us see his heart Yea I will ask but this once why was thy side pierced and opened O sweet Redeemer Was it to set up a mark for our devotion That we may lay our mouth spiritually at it and suck at the fountain of eternal life Thomas touched it with his hand and it proved to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a demonstration for belief O taste and try how sweet the Lord is Let us be called dogs such dogs as the Canaanitish woman was full of faith so we may lick these wounds as the dogs did the sores of Lazarus Constantine the Emperour kissed the hollow pit of Paphnusius eye kissed it often which had been plucked out for the profession of the Gospel The Jaylor washed the stripes of Paul and Silas The wounds of them that suffer for the name of Christ are the wounds of Christ himself let them be more honourable to us than the most unspotted beauty in the world To end this Point We read of blessed souls under the throne of God there they are safe and happy we read of Lazarus in Abrahams bosome there he found refreshment But I even I says Bernard will direct my soul unto this gaping wound thither it shall fly I will take my aim at it Hora mortis meus slatus intret Iesu tuum latus A door it is but a narrow door cast away the superfluity of sin and the immoderate care for things of this world These are great burdens upon our back and a Camel cannot enter in at the side of Christ but especially they that look to pass through a raw and a tender part must not have the thorns of malice about them lest they tear and offend the wound of Christ It is a wound of love and by antipathy would bleed afresh if the malicious should approach unto it The fourth and last circumstance of the Souldiers violence is now to be scanned that pierced ejus latus Christs side when he had given up the Ghost A carkess bereft of life is no more a man but the image of a man Now as some have exprest their malice against their enemies Image when his person was out of their reach as the Antiochians brake the Statues of the Empress Pulcheria for anger So the Souldier runs his Spear at an Image at a shadow at the cold body of him who was stiff and dead A stout Souldier I wiss such a one as Aristophanes gibed at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he dare kill none but him that is slain already For with whom doth this Champion fight The divine nature of Christ is uncapable of a wound negatively unless he confounded the natures
time why God will provide himself a Lamb says Abraham He was more cunning in the mysteries of faith futura respondet filio de presentibus requirenti says Origen he put off his Son to the future age to the times to come then there would be a propitiatory Oblation worth all the bloud beside which was spilt in the world This was Abrahams Prophesie of Christ he saw a Ram behind him And I will tell you why it likes me to expound post eum behind him rather to time than place rather post seculum than post tergum for St. Austin tells it for news upon St. Hierom's credit that the Jews with whom St. Hierom spake in Palestina confessed unto him Vbi immolatus est Aries ibi postea crucifixus est Christus that by infallible tokens they know that Christ was crucified in the very plot of ground where the Ram was offered for a Burnt-offering as for the place then Abraham stood by the Pile of Wood and lookt upon it but it is a mystery in time that the Oblation for Isaac and for all the Elect was bound unto the Cross in after ages Vnus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem Mercy was sudden and ready to promise that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents head but the Divine Wisdom for the exercise of faith made the World look many a long look before the thing was accomplisht It was afternoon says Irenaeus as we read the cool of the day when the Gospel was preached to Adam that there should be a Saviour Quod adventus redemptoris ad mundi vesperam factus sit because time was far spent and the Evening of the World approached before the Advent of the Redeemer the Dove came in the Evening with an Olive branch in his mouth to the Ark of Noah Simeon was grown old at the very brink of the Grave Anna was far stricken in years before the Light of Israel did shine upon them in the Temple the revolutions of Heaven had had their courses for many ages before the Star appeared at Bethlem But because the case is altered in our days and the Ram is as much before our times as it was behind the time of Abraham Let this Mark pass as an obscure one the next is printed and engraven in him by which he may easily be known for he was caught in a thicket by his horns S. Austin writing upon the Prophecy of David concerning Christ I will open my mouth in Parables Psal 78. meditates thus upon it there would be no perplexity in it Si sicut os suum aperuit in parabolis ita aperiret etiam ipsas parabolas if he had opened the sense of the Parable as he did open his mouth in Parables but the sense of this mystery which I have read stands so direct before us as the Angel did in Balams way that we cannot turn aside and miss it If there be any variance it lies in a word and in the upshot that will make no variance at all The Septuagint and all the Fathers that follow the Translation read it Video arietem prehensum in arbore Sabec he saw a Ram intangled by the horns in a tree which is called Sabec the Interpreter forbore to give the Tree any other name but Sabec as it is in the Hebrew and since the whole Ram was held fast in a Tree well might St. Chrysostom say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see the Lamb of God fastned by the two hands to the Tree of the Cross upon that accursed Tree his arms were pluckt out at length as if you might have seen him beckning with his hands to both ends of the World to the furthermost places of the Earth to come unto him and to be Members of his Church which He had watered with his bloud When the left hand as the Tradition goes when that hand which is next his heart was first driven through with a nail unto the Beam then you might have seen nature shrinking at it for pain and the body contracting it self when you might have seen the other hand reacht too far and pluckt out with violence here we must conceive the immensity of his griefs the veins bleeding the nerves rackt and distented the bones disjoynted the wounds of the stripes made wider the wood of the Tree unsquared and the rough bark upon it chafing the tender flesh the weight of his body oppressing him downward as he hung and the harmony of all the ribs about his breast dissolved In a word as Tully said of Milo the Wrestler that his arms were deteined so fast in the cleft of a tree that there he remained to be eaten up by the Wolves of the Forrest so my Saviour hung by the arms upon the Cross while the Wolvish Jews gaped upon him with odious revilings and at length devoured him One thing I cannot omit what kind of death more like unto this in all the Scripture than the death of Absalon caught fast by the head in the arms of an Oak tree thrust through the heart with Joabs darts as Christs side was pierced with the Souldiers Spear is Absalon therefore justified is it enough to boast of likeness of punishment without likeness of innocency Martyrem causa facit non poena they are not Martyrs that dy for errors in Religion not the sufferance of death but the sufferance for a good cause that makes a Martyr But this Thicket as Aquila reads it and as all the later Writers do follow it is no Tree properly but spinarum perplexitas an intricate Hedg of thorns wherein the Ram was entangled retentus in rete cornibus as Symmachus hath it as if he were catcht like a Bird in a Snare among the bushes it is as much in a Parable as the Gospel speaks directly that they platted a Crown of thorns upon his head who is our strength our might the horn also of our salvation and our refuge Victimae coronabantur as Pliny says Sacrifices were brought to the Altar with Crowns of flowers and Garlands upon their heads The Priest of Jupiter brought out Oxen and Garlands Acts xiv 12. and therefore it came to pass that the Ram had his Garland upon his head before he was burnt upon the wood but it was a twist of thorns Let us insist upon it a little that we may gather grapes from these thorns which prickt our Saviour that we may see the good will of him that dwelt in the Bush First no measure of affliction should seem too much for a Christian sorrows if they be without number should not be accounted too grievous a chastisement since Christ was prickt with as many thorns as his head could bear Vidit haerentem in spinis says my Text Abraham saw the Ram sticking in the thorns not the thorns sticking in him Qualis est haec praedicatio what manner of saying is this but an expression that there were more wounds in his body than sound flesh that was not mangled
through him might be saved And indeed the best that we can say of the Figure is That it was harmless and no very Serpent But it were dotage to suppose that the material thing had any secret vertue of restauration no more than the Figure of the Cross upon the post-fact is operative a superstition which our Church hath justly disclaimed He sent forth his word and he healed them says David it was Gods Word and Promise that cured them and not the brazen Element But Christ conteined remedy in himself and in his all-sufficient Sacrifice For the Son of righteousness did arise with healing in his wings Mal. iv 2. What hath he not healed if we will lay the plaisters of his Passion to our sins By his Poverty he hath condemned Covetousness by his charitable Prayers for his enemies implacable malice by the price for which the holy One was bought and sold Sacriledge by his Crown of thorns Ambition by the humility of his Cross Pride by his Gall and Vinegar Luxury by his Patience Impatience by his infinite Love Envy all his torments were preservatives against poison every part of him is sanity And that not only because this Figure was unvenomed but chiefly because it was a dead lump and not a living Serpent Mortuus serpens vivos superabat says Macarius The living Serpents were charmed by the dead one that they had no power to kill The bloud of Christ purgeth us from our sins and his death was our victory against death that we might live for ever It was well done of Nicodemus to spare no cost to imbalm his body It was piously done of Mary Magdalen to pour her precious Ointment upon his head against the day of his burial for therein we became the savour of life unto life and his Funeral was our immortality As Samson found his honey comb in the Carkass of the Lion so the Church finds sweetness in the bitterness of his Passion Caiaphas did not feel the vigour of his own Prophesie it slipt from his tongue and not from his heart That it was expedient that one man should die for the sins of the people His Successors contradict it obstinately to this day and controul it thus How can he save us that is crucified I return them an answer from my Text How could a dead lump of Brass expel their poison that were wounded If they depended upon a thing inanimate for the life of their body wherefore do they not attend the mystery that they must depend upon a Saviour put to death for the life of their Soul Attenditur serpens ut nihil valeat serpens attenditur mors ut nihil valeat mors says St. Austin The Jews look'd upon a Serpent to be freed from Serpents and Christians look upon death to be delivered from death There is one analogy more to be collected out of the unity of the Figure One Serpent was lifted up for the general preservation of all the Camp of Israel Not twelve distinct ones according to the number of their Tribes and much less no uncertain multiplication according to the number of their Families Nulla salus sine unitate The hope of health and remedy is founded in unity Our Gods are not Plural our Redeemers are not many they that have divers Saviours have never a Saviour They that have tutelary Martyrs for almost every Church and Patron Saints distinctly for every Kingdom they have so many Serpents lifted up and they look so many ways that their wounds stink and are corrupt through their foolishness and they prosper no way We have one head to which the body is knit one Shepherd to guide the Flock one corner stone in the building one Serpent in the Wilderness One Mediator between God and man the man Jesus Christ An infinite vertue can admit of no co-partnership I tremble at their infidelity that frame Scholastical Cases out of their own brain how others are subservient to the Son of God in the work of our Redemption But he says I have trod the wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me Isa lxiii 3. Whether an Israelite chanced to be stung in the head or in the face whether upon the breast or in the lower parts of the body one Serpent upon the Pole was enough to heal all So we have sins original and actual of commission and omission of ignorance infirmity and presumption of thought word and deed Vndique morsus we are stung from the crown of the head to the soul of the foot But as all are dead so one died for all that they which live should not live unto themselves but unto him that died for us and rose again Now for the material part out of which this Figure was carved it was not wrought in stone The Law was written in Tables of stone but grace and mercy are of another complexion It was not Silver or Gold though they in some sort are most correspondent in nature with Serpents for they are the bane of godliness and justice but we were not redeemed with corruptible things as Silver and Gold but with the precious bloud of Christ as of a Lamb undefiled It was erected in the strong and durable substance of Brass For one Generation passeth away and another cometh but the vertue of Christs Cross is perpetual and endures for ever It is not my excogitation but Isidors In serpente mortuus in aere aeternus Dead as the Serpent upon the Pole but durable as the Brass because the benefit of his death continues always Therefore his bloud is called The bloud of the everlasting Covenant Heb. xiii 20. Sooner shall all the brazen Pillars and Monuments upon earth be resolved into dust than one jot of this Covenant should be violated the merit of his Passion makes intercession for us continually before his Father and never ceaseth Behold our Pardon is engraven in Brass never to be blotted out it is too strong to be dissolved I look not upon that which is fluxive and changeable but upon a propitiation in Brass Yet not upon the Altar of Brass lest the Israelites should think that their own Sacrifices of Sheep and Oxen did help them but upon the Serpent of Brass to let them perceive that it was the Sacrifice of Christ that healed them Beside could a Statue of Brass endure more injuries than were laid upon the tender body of our Saviour Could an Anvile sustain more stripes and blows When Job began to sink under the pressure of his afflictions says he Is my strength the strength of stones Or is my flesh of brass He was a man that had the courage to suffer much yet he had not a brazen body infirmity made him sink and wish for death but Christ endured for our sakes as a man of brass I pray God we have not hearts of steel that do not consider it Above all the Prophets Isidore doth well to call Jeremy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most passive of
of a Trumpet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Paul meaning no doubt some shrill clamour because the Son of God would have his Resurrection an Article of the Creed and Faith is of things not seen Yea because he did meditate nothing but to abase and obscure himself and to do us honour O glorious voice which summoned Fishermen from their Ships Publicans from their trade Matthew from the Custom-house Paul from the bloudy City of Damascus and Lazarus from the Tomb. To hear him pray there was Rhetorick in that to incline every heart unto Piety To see Lazarus reviv'd there was Logick in that a demonstration of his Divinity To hear him cry aloud there was Musick in that no note was ever so sweet no tune of such a relish as the voice of our Saviour In Demosthenis scriptis magna abest pars Demosthenis It is said that much of Demosthenes is lost in his Writings because the matter was set forth with such a graceful utterance And surely unless we supply it with faith much of our Saviours Miracles is lost to us for want of living in that Age when we might hear that loud voice which commanded the Miracle It is not a superfluous phrase when we read it often that Jesus opened his mouth and saith Aperuit os suum qui in veteri lege aperire solebat ora Prophetarum God did open the Prophets mouths in the old world but he opened his own mouth and told his own tale in the Gospel O what contention of spirit What earnestness our Saviour did use when he did watch a good turn for any of his poor Members He would venter to break his own sides rather than not to break the gates of death which did lock up Lazarus whom he loved as Antigonus rent his Lungs and so died with incouraging his Souldiers Duritia vincenda est non suadenda says Tertullian you must not use fair means and perswasions to them who are in a Lethargy of sin Like old Eli to Hophni and Phinehas What my Sons I hear an evil report Qui timidè rogat negare docet he that asketh any thing faintly teacheth you how to deny him Qui timidè redarguit peccare docet and he that chides faintly teacheth you to despise him and puts on audacity to sin the more Where is the courage of Elias Where is the tongue of St. Chrysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His life was like a flash of lightning and his doctrine like a clap of thunder As fast as the Pharisees could throw stones at St. Stephen he threw darts of rebuke at them Stiff-necked uncircumcised in heart despisers of the Law this was to speak against sin like a Commander and a Magistrate not like a Petitioner This was to cry with a loud voice to speak as it were under correction against Sacriledge usury corruption and the like to touch them as if you were loath to be understood God will say it is not Preaching but Libelling What labour What contention was this The softest whisper had it not been enough to command Satan and Hell and the Grave As Pompey said of his own power in Italy Si tellurem pede pulsavero copiae militum prodibunt So soon as he did but tread upon the earth it would serve him with a puissant army So Christ if He had but trod upon the Serpents head upon the Grave stone would it not have sufficed to have ransomed Lazarus and all the bodies that were buried Yes it had sufficed But this is dignum proclamatione fit for a loud voice to proclaim it Prayer like a good Angel went before it Publication like the Trumpet of Fame comes behind it You know it well says Paul to Agrippa speaking of the Resurrection it was not done in a corner Two Angels appeared in the Tomb where Christ rose from the dead Angelus nuncius Dei resurrectio erat annuncianda Angels are the Messengers of heaven and this is the prime and principal message Go tell Peter go tell my brethren How sollicitous was Christ to have it told Every one he met was sent to publish it And they that nestle in their Cells and forget this office summon them like dead men to come out of their Monuments Lazarus come forth This was matter for a loud voice then and business for the Pulpit now the suscitation of Lazarus but do you not disgrace the dignity of a Preacher when every petty vain occasion doth challenge the honour of a Sermon before it If ever there were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good work marr'd for being done unseasonably Now it is when grace before meat will not serve the turn but every luxurious feast must have the Benediction of a Preachers pains before it Quis te ferat caenantem ut Lucullus concionantem ut Cato Much less is it to be endured that some body must make a Sermon because Lucullus hath made a Supper It is such a flout upon our Calling me thinks as the Chaldeans put upon the Jews in their Captivity they in the height of their jollity must have one of the Songs of Sion I have done with the Dignity of this work I proceed now to the Divinity thereof which is brancht out into these three powerful circumstances Mortuus excitatur a dead man is raised 2. Lazarus four days dead is raised 3. Lazarus who was bound is raised and comes forth Mortuus excitatur behold that principally a dead man is raised It is noted in Hierusalem that she was implacable against the Prophets of the Lord for twice our Saviour called upon her O Hierusalem Hierusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee and yet her anger would not cease no not for a double Admonition It is noted of St. Paul that his mind was most bitter against the Saints for Christ was fain to toll on both sides once and a second time to summon him by his name Saul Saul why persecutest thou me The persecuting Rage of Hierusalem was invincible the Malice of Saul was hardly bridled both more headstrong than Death it self Non sustinuit mors secundas voces Domini says St. Austin Death was obedient at the first Command our Saviour called but once and no more Lazarus come forth Could you blame St. Peter whose heart earned and was sorrowful that Christ said the third time Peter lovest thou me One word is enough to make Hell it self fly open O Lord are our Hearts more hard than Hell that thou hast so often spoken and still they are shut up Lewis the 11 th of France was wont to say that he passed away his time in making or marring of men an honest confession for whether they be Kings or meaner persons their power is prone as well to root up as to plant as well to pluck down as to set up a Building But Christ hath not only passed away time but meditated from all eternity how to make the World
word of the power of Christ which coupled again those parts divorced the soul and body not by breathing a new life into the body but by breathing out a loud voice Lazarus come forth Such as had been but banished their Country in the days of Caesar the Dictator and were restored again by the grace of Augustus and Antony were called Charonitae as if they had been wasted back again into this world when they were quite extinguished Those Roman Potentates would be esteemed Gods of another world that could unlock a man from the fetters of banishment needs then must he be greater than the Kings of the earth whose authority can break the bars of death and bring the Prisoners forth from the captivity of corruption The Scythians says Lucian swear by these two Idols as the Gods of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Wind and by the Sword Hic spirandi est autor ille mortis The one gives breath to live the other takes life away Now that which gives life and that which takes away life can be no less than a God say the very Scythians These heathen knew no more of Gods power than to give life and to take away life Had they known what it was to restore life again that would have been the chief power of divinity even in their estimation Majus est restituere quà m dare quantò miserius est perdidisse quà m omnino non accepisse It is more admirable to restore the soul again than to create it at the first because it is more miserable for the body to have lost a soul than never to have received it The great Clerks the Athenians could not tell what to make of the infinite power of the Resurrection It is pretty that St. Chrysostome observes upon them Acts xvii when Paul preached unto them and mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Resurrection of the dead they thought this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been a God the unknown God at whose Altar they did worship Evil men can abuse that which is good God can make good employment of that which is evil Death upon the first sin was named to be a punishment It is Meritoria in Martyribus and I may say Gloriosa in resurgentibus it is made an instrument of great reward unto the Martyrs and the passage to an Article of faith to believe in the Resurrection We call them that are dead in the Lord Abraham and Isaac and Jacob alas there are no such now Abraham dissolved into dust is no longer Abraham the soul cannot be called Abraham only the whole man both soul and body but so sted fastly do we trust the dead shall rise again Quod defunctorum animas nominibus suppositi appellamus says Thomas We speak of the dead as if they were now alive because they shall live again even as Christ spake to the corps of Lazarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as to a Corps but as to one living not as to one that was dead but as to ears that could hear Lazarus come forth And it is well says the Father that among all the Corpses in the dust Christ pickt him out by name as who should say now I will have none but Lazarus to come forth others shall appear in their time otherwise all the Legions of the dead had come to light and stood thick upon the earth from the East unto the West Indeed the souls under the Altar cry our Quousque Domine fain would they stand before him like Enoch and Elias so eager they are and vehement instantly to have tongues to speak and hands to hold up and knees and heads to bow as if they were not contented that their days to come for those things were days of eternity We shall meet together all in the same Livery cloathed with bodies of youth according to the measure of our Saviours Age Eph. iv Alexander out of a surly Magnificence Soli Antipatro Phocioni salutem scripsit in Epistolis never wrote in the top of his Letters I wish you long life and prosperity but only to Phocion and Antipater But God will direct his voice to every member of his Church one summon shall call forth Abraham and Isaac and all the world which at this time begins for a relish of faith but with this person alone Lazarus come forth And thus much for the first thing wherein the power of his Divinity appeared Mortuus excitatur a dead Man was raised Now that Lazarus after four days was raised that he which was bound came forth of the Grave is discourse for some other time Thus much only in a word upon the present occasion The next thing that you shall read concerning Lazarus after he was raised is this he sate at Supper with our Saviour in the second verse of the next Chapter Why behold the Supper of the Lord there is the next place where you are to meet with Christ after you are risen from your sins and the preparation of this Table to replenish your hungry souls with grace is as great a testimony of our Saviours Divinity as to raise up Lazarus Tu das epulis accumbere Divum it is the highest power of God which he confers to his Church upon earth to give them leave to meet together before the food of Angels As Manna melted away with the Sun-rising and new store fell upon earth the next morning which is a kind of Resurrection so you that have quenched Gods Spirit that have melted away his grace and let it putrifie for want of good employment this is the Morning this is the Season to gather a new Omer full that you may cherish and increase your faith Which that you may do c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON THE RESURRECTION JOHN xi 44. And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with Grave-cloaths and his face was bound about with a Napkin THis is an Easterday Text notwithstanding that the party intreated of is Lazarus for as John Baptist was born a little before the birth of Christ and John was the Forerunner of his Nativity so Lazarus rose from death but a little before Christ rose and was the Forerunner of his Resurrection The Jews Passover was nigh at hand so you shall read in the 55. verse of this Chapter certainly it was not long before Christ the true Paschal Lamb was offered upon the Cross that this Miracle was done Feriâ sextâ ante Dominicam de Passione says one the Friday before Passion Sunday which is nine days past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom he put them into admiration with this work before this great day of admiration came Nor have we a Praeludium only how our Saviour should conquer death in this Chapter but you shall resent and perceive some resurrection wrought upon every person that had interest in this story First the news of Lazarus death was brought unto Christ beyond
Pollinctores quia pollutos ungerent But among divine Writers all do embrace this as a strong conjecture and indeed not to be denied that the Servants of God embalmed and anointed the dead both in the Old and New Testament in honour of the Resurrection So Joseph commanded the Physicians to embalm his Father So certain devout Widows washed the body of Tabitha and laid her forth in an upper Chamber Acts ix 37. Let me not omit how Christ himself did approve of that Ceremony while he was living A woman broke a box of Oyntment of Spikenard very precious upon his head and when some had indignation at it he forbad his Disciples to trouble her saying She is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying Mar. xiv 8. That woman spent her cost upon him when he was alive to give her thanks Mary came to pour her Spices upon his Grave when she thought he was dead true Love is munificent to them who are dear unto it when they live but more abundantly when they are deceased Now carry your attention with you to the third part of the Text that no season was so fit to be watch'd as this which the women laid hold of The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalen This coming was upon the third day after Christ had been laid in the Grave and it was upon the same day which from thenceforth was called the Lords day wherein our holy Assemblies every week do meet together these two things are fit to be examined before I leave the Treatise of this Point From the beginning of the world was there never any thing of so great expectation as the success of this day whether that which Christ had so often foretold should come to pass that he should die and the third day he would rise again How busie were the women to come abroad and try what they could learn And I verily think the waves of the Sea rowl not about so fast in a Tempest as the thoughts of the Disciples beat within their heart and earned within them between fear and hope whether the day were like to prove glorious or uncomfortable well God did rather go beyond his own word than come a whit behind it He made this third day the most memorable Feast that ever the Sun shined upon It was a third day when Joseph released his brethren out of Prison Gen. xlii 18. On the third day in the morning after the people had come to Mount Sinai the Law of God was delivered Exod. xix 16. On the third day Esther put on her Royal Apparel and stood before Ahasuerus and desired him to be good to her Nation Esther v. 1. On the third day Abraham came to the place where his faith was tried and Isaac was restored back again alive when the sacrificing knife had been at his throat Gen. xxii 4. To come near to the mark the third day Jonas was cast safe upon the Land out of the belly of the Whale and that was the sign which Christ gave to the Jews able to convince all infidelity as Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of the Whale and then came forth alive so Christ burst open the Monument the third day and appeared unto many Reason may be busie to enquire why the Son of God prefix'd such a space of time for his Resurrection before he would quicken his flesh rather than any other Certainly there is but one modest conjecture which is this he would lie no longer than some hours of a third day in the grave lest he should keep the weak faith of his Disciples too long in suspense yet sooner he would not open his monument lest his enemies the Jews should pretend he was but cast into a swoon by the sharpness of pain and not truly dead These following I will allow for ingenuous allusions and no more that our Redeemers body was bereaft of life unto the third day to appease the offended justice of every Person in Trinity God the Father Son and Holy Ghost to signifie that we were dead in sin by thought word and deed To bring unto eternal life them that believed either under the Law of nature under the Law of Moses or under the new Covenant of grace To restore the three parts of spiritual life unto us Faith hope and charity Tria sunt omnia says another three days are the sum of mans life both here and for ever A day of labour in this World a day of rest in the Grave a day of reward in the Resurrection If there be any Son of Adam that would have a fourth day Dies otii in hâc vitâ A day of ease and pleasure in this life such a one is Lazarus quatriduanus putet It may be said of him as the two Sisters said of Lazarus their Brother He hath lain four days in the ground and begins to smell Three days are all labour rest and reward these are allusions I said to the Resurrection of Christ upon the third day One thing is very observable to match this circumstance of the New Testament and an accident which fell out in the Old Even this very day wherein Christ arose and gate dominion over death the same day which was the third day after the eating of the Passeover Moses brought the Children of Israel through the Red Sea unto dry Land certainly intimating that they went through death to life and so did Christ St. Peter hath a Text 1 Epist 1.10 which doth authorize me yet to search further and more diligently about the time of this Resurrection Saies he The Prophets have enquired and searched diligently what manner of time the Spirit of Christ did signifie when it testified before hand the sufferings of Christ and the glory which should follow And surely there is a great mystery coucht in the circumstance of time that the Evangelists have differently set down other observations that concurred upon the Resurrection but all of them in one phrase do agree in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that this wonder was wrought upon the first day of the week 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vna Sabbati The Jews gave such honour to their Sabbath that every day following had the denomination from it the first second and the third day after the Sabbath and so unto the sixth The Latine Church in their Liturgies hath given the same honour to Easter Day for Easter day by principallity being called Feria the Holy Day The Latines from it call the days of the week primam secundam tertiam Feriam and so unto the sixth Our vulgar English calls the first day of the week Sunday and all other days following are denominated from some of the Planets we received such Language in this Island from our Forefathers who were Paynims and knew not God but we differ from them in the intention they did it out of Idolatry to the Sun and Moon c. we to signifie that God made the Host
Howsoever it was charm'd by Gods protection that man should not meddle with it a celestial Minister turn'd it aside from the mouth of the Pit A Cherubin in the Old Testament shut up Paradice and stopt the way of joy against us An Angel in the New Testament opens the Graves of sorrow He came and rolled back the stone from the door 'T is certain that the Scripture gives no reason why the Angel did it but this was one end to declare the truth of the Resurrection for after the Stone was cast aside says he Come see the place where He was laid He is not here It is not from the power of man but from Angelical help from Divine grace that we are led into the knowledg of the mysterie of the Resurrection The Law of Moses says one was written in Tables of stone and therefore was likened unto a Stone a Milstone which if Christ did not bear off the weight would grind us to powder Now the comfort of Redemption in Christ his Passion Resurrection Ascention the Coming of the Holy Ghost are mystically delivered in the Old Testament but are covered over darkly with the Letter of the Law as with a Stone but after the resurrection from the dead was well believed the Stone was rolled away I assure you great knowledg of Divine things ensued never before that time was the substance of faith so perfectly apprehended Beatus lapis qui non minùs corda aperit quà m sepulchrum says that Father whom I have often cited upon this Text. Happie stones at whose opening and rolling away not only the Sepulchre was unclosed but our hearts were opened to believe Beloved if there be one among you that is dull to conceive and slow to believe it is a sign that the Stone is not yet rolled away to him all is shut up to that poor Soul and he sees nothing such a mans Key must be continual prayer it behoves him to cry out earnestly Lord take away this stony heart and give me an heart of flesh Lord shut not up thy loving kindness in displeasure send down thy Holy Spirit to remove away all carnal impediments open mine eyes that I may look into thy Sepulchre and believe thy Resurrection Now the Scriptures assigning no cause for the rolling away of the Stone but to manifest that he was risen not that he might rise in his body when the mouth of the Cave was open and further as Gregory Nyssen urgeth the Angel doth not preach that he rose even now since He came down from Heaven but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surrexit he hath risen he hath departed out of the Grave as if he spake of a thing that was past before his coming from whence you may observe what a perplexful question ariseth to be handled how the Body of Christ being now made alive again came out of the Sepulchre I do not find the several opinions collected together by any man some may escape me but as many as I have noted I will rehearse them all One opinion among the Antient Fathers and the most general if they be well understood is thus That He came forth by his own mighty power after what sort we cannot tell for God would not trouble us with those strange effefts which we are not able to apprehend So one of our late Writers after much ado concludes Divino nutu viam sibi aperuit mirando nobis inexplicabili modo he made way to come forth as he would himself in a miraculous and unspeakable manner These are Paraeus words And I put Calvin in this rank who goes no further but Christum ante surrexisse quà m ab Angelo sepulchrum aperiretur Christ rose before the Sepulcher was unbarred by the Angel but he determined not what way and it was a becoming modesty in him I could name a multitude more but divers have borrowed the words of Musculus Christ did use the external ministry of Angels to roll away the Stone for us not for himself He that rose to life though death were upon his Body could come forth into the Garden though the Stone were upon the Sepulchre But after what sort he came forth all these put their finger upon their mouth and say nothing To determine after what manner great mysteries are brought to pass when the Word of God is silent hath done more hurt to the Christian Church by procuring endless Controversies than all the Persecutions that ever were raised I concur therefore in mine own judgment with this first rank of Divines yet you shall hear the second That he issued out the Stone remaining on the mouth of the Grave creaturae mutatione non sui corporis by an alteration caused in the Stone not in the Body of Christ So Justin Martyr he came out by the Stone even as he made the Seas fit for his own feet and for Peters to tread upon No mutation can be said to be in Christs Body for the Father says it was corpus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a solid Elementary Body certainly Peters body also was heavy and earthy for after a little while he began to sink yet he at first walkt upon the Seas because Christ stiffned the waies to support him and Peter like a solid Pavement So the Stone might be attenuated and made thin as easie as air to transmit a body St. Austin reports of a Ring falln from a womans Girdle yet the Ring remaining and the Girlde whole and unbroken Admit it were true yet the Ring passed not through the substance of the Girdle but the one substance passed by while in a moment by Gods power the other gave place unto it So the place through which Christs Body passed admit no rarefaction of the Stone might be whole and shut by and by and streight after he passed by it not in the instant of his passing that 's contrary to the nature of a true body Some in credulous Jew when Malchus ear was cut off and presently on again might think the Sword had never gone between his ear and his head yet we are sure it did In such a starting while which could not be perceiv'd might the Stone yield to Christs Body and come together again or if not made thin parted of a sudden to let him pass by and in an instant come close together again Thirdly some antient Writers and divers moderns hold probably that Christ made his egress repagulorum cessione non penetrationum dimensione not as if one body had penetrated another but the Stone in the trembling of the earthquake started off from the mouth of the Cave and clos'd again till the Angel rolled it quite away This is made the more credible from Acts 5.23 the Apostles were shut up in the common Prison the Angel brings them forth the Officers being question'd confess The Prison truly found we shut with all safety the Keepers standing without before the doors but when we had opened it we found no
And with a little motion with a turning about he was just behind her and now first she got the sight of him She got the sight of him but loe here is another degree of his appearance before he was clearly revealed he was presented to her in such a fashion that as yet she knew not that her blessedness was so near her She mistook him it is hard to say how for the Gardener that dress'd those grounds But how came this ignorance upon her I do not believe that Christ carried a rake and spade in his hand like a Gardener as vulgar Pictures make bold to set him out He might offer himself in a poor habit and without any upper Garment like one that was not far from home and being so early in the ground these circumstances would suit so well to no man as to the Gardener Very well this conceit might have taken her if our Lord had been a stranger to her knowledge But this is marvellous she sought none but him she knew no mans person in the world so well as him and yet the first glimpse he is any body but himself he is a Gardener How comes this I have it for you I think out of two Texts of the Gospel In the 12. verse of this chapter it is said that after Mary had seen him he appeared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in another form to two of them by the way Yet concerning the same parties we read Luke xxiv 16. Their eyes were holden that they should not know him We may collect thus much out of both these put together that in those forty days wherein Christ walked upon the earth after he was risen he seemed by his Divine power to wear many sorts of Garments but he wore none for a glorified body needs not the coverture of Apparel and the eyes of those that saw him had not the power to perceive who he was until such time as he saw fit to disclose himself And take it for very truth that I say their outward senses had no power to judg of their object but when he pleased for as I will shew in good time by and by Mary talkt with him and did not know his voice till he opened her ears When he thought it due time and not before her eyes and ears recovered their faculties But I confess the question doth yet depend upon a little more resolution why Christ would let her continue a while deluded that she knew not who he was I answer she deserved not to partake of more favour she loved much indeed but we cannot say that she believed much She believed no more than the High-Priest would have all the world believe that his body was stoln out of the Sepulcher Since therefore she was more zealous in her love towards Christ than all others he appeared unto her but because she would not believe in his resurrection no not for the testimony of the holy Angels therefore for a little space he hid himself from her contriving that in his body now which he doth continually in the sending of his Holy Spirit a little love shall have some reward but he will come and dwell with them and be known of them that believe without wavering As yet he passeth with this woman for a Gardener and that was no unhappy error it was he that did sow the seeds of faith in her heart and planted repentance in her soul that it might grow up and prosper to amendment of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she supposed him to be a Gardener it is true in the allegory but not in the letter Take heed that our carnal affections do not impress Christ into our thoughts otherwise than he is When we are full of earthy low flat cogitations we frame a God of a strange fashion to our selves As Mary Magdalen giving no trust to the Angels that he was risen from the dead took him for no better than the Gardener But to strike up this point to the head whatsoever Christ seemed to her he was himself without all transformation he had now a glorified body he did not change the form and lineaments of his body it was the poison which the Manichaeans suckt out of this Text says St. Hierom that forasmuch as the Lord seemed to this woman diverse from himself he was diverse from himself and had a phantastique body not made of flesh and bone of the seed of the woman ridiculous he contiued very God and very man in the unity of one person the same man Jesus Christ that was born of the Virgin But his wisdom did contrive it so as to reveal himself to this party by degrees First by his Proxies the Angels Secondly by the shape of a Gardener now thirdly he threw the Veil aside and shewed himself clearly as he was unto her and she that desired but to find him dead found him living for ever The manner the manner of it I say is that which is well worthy of a godly eare to mark it for which I still refer you to the 20. of St. John Our Saviour when he came in presence gave her occasion of discourse on this sort woman why weepest thou whom seekest thou Good expressions both of a most passionate love weeping and seeking Yet to seek did befit her diligence but to weep was out of date at this time and convinced her of a reproveable weakness It was no day to spend tears upon which offered occasion of eternal joy and shall so continue a day of gladness every week while the world endures But says St. Austin she that wept for her Brother Lazarus and obteined his resurrection with tears she makes assay if by weeping she could obtein the resurrection of Christ But whatsoever may be thought her infirmity in weeping it was gracious in Gods eyes when it was joyned with seeking Doubtless says St. Paul God is not far from every one of us Act. xvii 27. yea but he is always near at hand to those that seek him not far from any but thou Lord never failest them that seek thee Psal ix 10. Mary had done as much as diligence could express she had wept as much as grief could express now Joseph could not choose but make himself known to his Brethren now Jesus would hold the woman in suspence no longer but he chang'd the accent of his voice and spake so tunably that she knew him at the first word he said no more but Mary as God said unto Moses Thee have I known by name and then she turned and said Rabboni as who should say I know the voice of my Master and I am thine Handmaid It sounded well in her mouth to call him Rabboni or Master now he was alive for she continued to call him Lord when she took him for lost and that he was no better than one of the dead When all ignominy had been cast upon him when none would own him for a Lord yet she reserves his title to him they
give him at her Brothers house at Bethany as she was wont to do she called him Rabboni and as she was wont to do she would have toucht him but where there wanted Reverence Christ corrected her mildly Touch me not But as for these Women that prostrated themselves at his feet with Adoration to worship him they had leave to touch because in heart they had tasted the fruit of life The Ark of God would not endure Vzzah's touch he died for it but the Priests that came near it with holy access had authority to touch it and it was the dignity of their Office Not to roll this stone any longer that good Saint Mary Magdalen was mistaken as if Christ lived again no otherwise than as her Brother Lazarus did to converse in the world as he had done before Touch him not with the finger of that little Faith But they that saw some greater excellency in him than before and fell low on the ground before him they may hold him by the feet Yet there is one Interpretation beside which casts no imputation at all upon Mary Magdalen and I like it the better 't is thus Christ had great use of her to dispatch her to his Disciples it being expedient to send her upon that errand yet she was loth to depart surmising that she should see him no more therefore when our Saviour would have her to insist no longer in expressing her love says he Touch me not I am not yet ascended to my Father which is to this effect I am not yet ascending or going away you shall have more time to converse with me hereafter but now it will do more good to my Disciples to hear I am risen than for you to stay and touch me depart insist no longer in these expressions of Love touch me not I am not quite going away to the Father But for these Women who made no such fond delay but laid their hands on his feet and worshipt him and rose again no such Interdict was upon them as Touch me not which is the Sum of this Point And the next thing they did confirms me that the holding his feet was unblamable and a sanctified action for they worshipt him If when the first begotten was brought into the world it is said Let all the Angels of God worship then when the first begotten from the dead came into Jerusalem his excellency proclaims it let all that behold his glorified presence worship him The wise men fell down before his Cradle and ador'd him when he lay in a poor and despicable manner and this was their wisdom to see the brightness of the Godhead in the dark Lantern of his Humanity Nay the evil Spirit having possessed the body of him that lived in the Tombs fell down before him and with a loud voice said what have I to do with thee thou Son of God most high Luke viii 28. Hell it self is not so refractory but that the Spirits of darkness confess he is to be worshipped and they did it It was not their own body but in that body over which they had command they did that function of their own accord before they were bidden Yet it was not thanks-worthy in them because they executed no more than the duty of the outward gesture I do highly commend the lowly service and inclination of the body O let down your body to the very ground before your Maker as these women did a man cannot be too reverent to his God And as a Plaister of cordial Ingredients laid to the stomach or an Unction well fomented upon the skin without comforts the spirits within and makes us more chearful in our vital operations so outward reverence helps us greatly against the dulness and drowziness of our heart the lifting up of the eyes and hands makes a man ask in prayer more passionately the knocking of our breast provokes our repentance to a more eager indignation against our selves the bowing down the head and knee makes us the better to understand the great distance between God and us the uncovering of the head fills us with that necessary consideration in whose presence we stand Glorifie God with your body 1 Cor. vi 10. Tertullian and St. Cyprian read it portate Deum in corpore vestro Carry God in your body that is bear your Religion openly in the observance and humility of your body Christ is the Husband of the Church an Husband to the Soul of every Christian now this is gained from the similitude that the Wife is the Husband 's both in her body and in her affections so we are Christ's as well in our bodily worship as in our spiritual adherence to him But because the act of worship as concerning that which the head the knee the hand do execute may be used to our superiours in civil demeanor as well as in religious usance to God it is the addition of sanctity conceiv'd in the heart and mind which makes it Religious Adoration for the complete definition of it is thus adoratio est veneratio talis exterior quae ex corde pio religioso procedit that is that 's the adoration due to God and to him alone which with the exterior veneration of the body proceeds out of the pious and religious intention of the heart If you yield any token of outward obeysance and mean it to him who hath created you who hath given you all that you have who rose from the dead that we also might rise with him then it is raised up from civil homage and it becomes Divine Worship These apprehensions were in the hearts of these women and thereupon their bodies bowed down in lowliness and so it wants not one grain of due weight but that it was the worshipping of the Lord Jesus From those things which were personally performed by the women I remove forward to all that which was personally performed by Christ and that is conteined in his action or his words his action is but in this one passage Behold Jesus met them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not to overtake one or to come behind them but to meet them full but as our phrase is therefore it hath somewhat in it diverse from that Apparition which was made to Mary Magdalen and it can not be the same for he stood behind her and she turned about to look upon him but when he presented himself to these Women he met them face to face They were going to tell his Disciples and he that was no hindrance to their journey stood in their way Behold and marvel at it for the hope of the Resurrection was out of their heads they came to embalm his dead Body not to see him living Or suppose we that the Angels had lately persuaded them to that Faith that he was alive again yet to speak indifferently they had no cause to expect him in that place or any where near to Jerusalem for the Angel told them thus in the 7. verse
Christ God reigns in Kings as in his Deputies and they reign in God as in their Author and Authorizer and this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says S. Chrysostom the chief Dignity of their States that they hold not their Sovereignty from any mortal means but immediately from God Per me Reges regnant Prov. viii 15. Solomon acknowledgeth that he held his Tenure of one and but of one that was greater than himself Of him that is the Root of all Majesty according to the determination of the Prophet Daniel The Kingdoms are Gods and to whom be will he giveth them Dan. iv 14. And God is highly to be blessed that hath given such power unto men for better not be at all than not to be under Rule and Government For it is not as Core the Ringleader of the great Sedition thought that Moses took too much upon him because he guided the People with a faithful hand he took upon him that Authority which God had given to his Vicegerent and they that question'd it did not rise up against Man but against the Ordinance of God Omnia per illum all things are of him as St. Paul says Rom. xi 30. but all things are not of him as Kings do reign by him other Creatures have their dependance one of another in the connexion of natural causes but the Power of Sovereign Majesty is not mixed with Earthly Causes but hath an immediate copulation with the Power the Providence the Constitution yea and the Castigation of God if it do not decree righteousness For God is the Judg he patteth down one and setteth up another Psal lxxv 6. If there be any cavillation therefore with free Princes as there was with Moses Who made thee a Ruler we will answer it by remotion of false and pretended Causes 1. Satan hath arrogated the disposition of all earthly Magistracies to himself as Luke iv 6. when he had shewn unto Christ all the Kingdoms of the world and the Glory of them says he All this power will I give thee for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give it Execrable Spirit he dares assume that which is proper to the Almighty to speak the word and the whole world shall have a new face of Government and that he could remove Kings as our Saviour said that by faith his Disciples should remove Mountains he remembred how suddenly himself was deposed from glory that he fell like lightning And when God pleaseth all the Kingdoms of the World shall have as sudden a transmutation when he shall come in Glory to take all Power and Dominion into his own hand and to judg both the Quick and the Dead But in the mean time the Thrones of Kings are establisht in Heaven and Satan is a liar with an Hyperbole of impudency to say that it lies in him to manage or alter those Governments which God hath put in order O how many have gone to Witches and Necromancers and rak'd Hell to be informed how it should fare with the succession of some State or Empire so did Valens in the Ecclesiastical History so did Julian the Apostate and nothing did sway with him more to apostatize than because some Heathenish Priests foretold by Demoniacal Divinations that the Empire should descend upon him What can be more repugnant than this course to Honour and Religion it is God that makes the Day wherein Kings reign and not the Prince of Darkness that is condemned to eternal night it is God that is highly exalted above the Heavens and not Lucifer who is faln from glory and is debased beneath the Earth But secondly what say we to Intruders that make their own Day and exalt themselves in the Throne of Dominion as Adoniah exalted himself saying I will be King 1 Kings i. 5. and as Athaliah did take the Scepter into her own hand when God did never give it her why mark the lamentable end of them both and then you will perceive the irregularity of their action Let not the smoak glory that it riseth up of it self for so it vanisheth infelicity must be the event of that promotion where God doth not say friend sit up higher Thirdly lest Tyrants should snatch this honour to themselves there are such as have thought of a Remedy worse than the Disease namely that the Ratification of all Principality should depend upon the voice of the People and the continuation upon their good liking with a quamdiu se bene gesserit to have and to hold his Governance no longer than the popular opinion shall commend his good behaviour their reasons are first because when men and women multiplied and began to fill up the Body of a Common-wealth it was their own act and consent to put their necks under the yoke of a King Admit it were so yet you will not say but it was God and his inspiration that directed them to make a Supreme Head unto their Body for all order proceeds from that wisdom which comes from above Neither is it fit to be granted that it savours of the wisdom of God or of the well-order'd reason of man that in the first foundation of Kingdoms the Subjects set a Ruler over them to hold from thenceforth according to their windy and phantastical approbation The Bond which is made in Marriage is knit by the act and consent of man and woman yet being once made it doth not depend upon their consent but it holds of God In like sort at first were Kings espoused to their Kingdoms God did give the Bride as I may so say to the Husband and so the connexion is indissoluble Again howsoever it holds in other Republiques yet in that wherein God especially delighted I mean the Israelitish when the People thought it honourable for them to have a King like other Nations they did not call an Assembly and appoint themselves a King but they referred the matter to the Lord and he selected Saul out of all their Tribes to go in and out before them Secondly such as have meditated nothing but the confusion of an Anarchy have thus mutter'd if none but God doth make the Day of Annointed Princes then none but He can unmake them none but He can chastise them for injustice and violence Then how shall the cause of the poor be revenged when the Man of the Earth exalteth himself against him What an irreligious manner of arguing is this as if there were no hope of justice and redress if the cause be committed to God only When Samuel told the People that it would fall out that their Kings whom they desired would be very burdensom to them and inflict sore oppressions upon their State says he Clamabitis in illo die you will cry out in that day he doth not say you will reject your King and set up another but you have no other remedy but to cry out unto the Lord and forasmuch as your sins have deserved that oppression the Lord will
worship that which was base and despicable like Gods of Silver and Gold then cause might be shewn why flesh and bloud should disdain it O Beloved it is the King of Kings and the excellency of Jacob He sits upon a Throne that is circled about with a Rainbow Rev. 4. A Rainbow was his first Covenant which He made to spare the World and reason good that his Throne should be compassed about with Mercy Next unto the Rainbow sate Twenty four Elders that had Crowns of Gold upon their heads supposed to be Twelve Patriarchs and Twelve Apostles that propagated his glory unto all Nations both Jews and Gentiles as who should say All Kings shall fall down before him all Nations shall do him service To shut out all objections It is certain that Majesty and Dominion lose the hearts of men that should obey and purchase Envy and Hatred which cannot shift it self sometimes into Lowliness and Humility O see and be astonished at it if God have not submitted himself to the fashion of man For as the Ark of God when it was in the Wilderness had Pelles caprinas supra byssinum a Covering of Goats hair upon the silken Curtains which were costly and precious So the Lord Almighty who most properly is cloathed with light as with a garment hath also put on flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones that by all means He might allure us unto his Love sometime adoring him in Honour sometime admiring his Humility And I give them over as past all good that are as stubborn as Cato of whom it is said Dictatorem odit nec minùs Caesurem He neither lov'd the Dictator in his great Office nor Caesar in his private Calling that are not affected with the poor Nativity of the Son of man nor with the excellency of God in the highest heavens Love Jesus that was made man or where is thy thankfulness Honour and praise his name that ruleth over all or where is thy devotion I know it will be more profitable to my Hearers to instance in those particulars of Honour and Worship wherein God especially is delighted and I propound these four to your Christian practice 1. We must magnifie his Name 2. Obey his Word and Commandments and thus far the Angels go with Man and no farther but it is not enough for us Angelis dimidium mundi factum est sed nobis totum Heaven is but half the World which is made for Angels but Heaven and Earth the whole compass of the World is made for Man Therefore 3. in the third place we must give reverence to his Sacraments as to the Seals of his Love and Mercy And 4. obey his Magistrates Let us draw this division to some rule that you may be sure it is full and complete First you know God is to be considered in his own Essence bare and naked by it self next these three Attributes and properties are most inward unto it his Wisdom his Goodness and his Power Now the Essence of God is declared by his Names his Wisdom is revealed in his Word his Sacraments convey his goodness unto us and Kings and Princes bear the Image of his Power and Authority If any man can find out more ways to honour the Lord let him go on and prosper I had rather praise his name upon a ten-stringed Lute with David than with St. Peter set up three Tabernacles and no more and come short of one of those which I have propounded But first of the honour due unto his Name As the Sun is the cause of our knowledge to distinguish the hours of the day upon the Dial and yet we know not our time by the Sun it self immediately but by the shadow it casteth So the Essence of God is the cause of all things and yet we have not his Essence but his Name revealed unto us this is the Oracle of the inward Temple and the Star that leads unto holy Bethlem where Christ is laid Unto this Name we should lift up our hands in Prayer and for this Names sake stretch them out in Alms unto the poor And as David ask'd if there were any of the Race of Jonathan left to whom he might shew mercy and Mephibosheth was brought unto him an impotent Cripple but the Son of Jonathan So let us enquire if there be any thing of the Lord remaining among us if all be not lost by the Fall of Adam that we may do honour unto it alas it is but a small thing it is but the Name of our God but let us make much of it as he did of Mephibosheth let it be in great esteem and veneration When I speak of the honour due unto his Name I mean the honouring of God himself at the mention of his Name Our Mother-Church of England as careful that I may not enter into comparisons as any Church in the world to take away the yoke of superfluous Ceremonies and yet very provident to make the body of man submit it self to a decent outward worship of holiness hath prescribed unto us by a Canon that while we are in Gods House at the mention of the Name of Jesus we should do reverence with the Knee and uncover the Head I know not by what peevishness of some or by what presumption of others it is more neglected in many Congregations of this City than elsewhere throughout all the Realm Doth that Name which imports Salvation and Redemption from your sins no more affect you Or do you give no more obedience to the Church-Authority Are you not Fidelis in minimo faithful in a small matter How do you look that your heavenly Father should appoint you to be faithful over much I am not ignorant that some have made Sorcery rather than Religion and Blasphemy than Devotion of the holy Name of Jesus as among others that Frier that said when our Saviour did bend his head upon the Cross it was not as the Scripture says to give up the Ghost but he did bow it unto the Title Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews And Pope John the Twentieth gave an Indulgence to any body for the pardon of one enormous sin that should do reverence at the hearing of that Name yet on the other side me thinks they set light by their Salvation that neither will do reverence themselves nor love to see if in another at the mentioning of that holy name To make a difference between the names of God that one is more holy than another it is not my opinion and I think is scarce honesty in the Schoolmen to distinguish as they have done that when we call God the Just one Omnipotent Wise and the like they are Attributes belonging to the Divine Nature from everlasting and therefore to be respected with the highest Adoration but when we call him Lord Creator and Redeemer what 's that but Jesus they are Nomina in tempore à Deo sumpta relative names assumed since the beginning of the
are Clavis Ecclesiae sera Coeli Baptism the Key to open a door and give us admittance into the Church of Christ and the Eucharist is such a confirmation of grace that it is like a bolt that shuts us up into Heaven What reverence what devotion can be too much for such blessed mysteries Mistake me not when I speak of Reverence and Devotion I mean nothing less than Adoration and Worship to the Elements I allow not nay I abhor Popish Elevation and Procession I fear this lifting up of the Host ever since the Devil took up Christ to a Pinacle of the Temple I detest their gamish and gaudy Procession as if our Saviour did think it an Honour to ride upon the Popes Palfrey as Haman did upon King Ahasuerus Horse away with such ridiculous gesticulations But I am ashamed on the other side that there should be such froward Persons such unthankful Receivers of the Sacrament of thankfulness in our Church that deny the duty of their knee to the Supper of the Lord their feet stand stiff like the two Pillars which upheld the Theatre of the Philistines and Samson can scarce pluck them to the ground The very Devil durst not deny the truth in this Point Ask him what it is to honour Mat. 4. to fall down and worship As Maecoenas spake of a Roman that being amazed forgot to kneel unto Caesar when he came in his presence Hic homo timet timere Caesarem so these men are afraid lest they should over-reach themselves and give God more honour than his due It was an excellent speech of Scipio Africanus who being to ride in honour refused to sit in an Arch Triumphal Quia seni praetereunti non potuit assurgere if an old man passed by he could not rise up and do him reverence Beloved the Table of the Lord is a time of great triumph and solemnity and God is not passing from us but coming to us and is this all the honour that we will do him to stand upon stilts rather than kneel Will neither the apprehension of Christs Passion move us at that time Nor that Prayer which is used that body and soul may be preserved unto everlasting life will not that make us fall down Nor the consideration how Christ did humble himself for us unto the death of the Cross will not that make us humble Let it be the reproach of such profane men that Manna is faln down from Heaven round about our Tents and they will not stoop to gather it The fourth and last Honour which redounds to God is to obey the powers which are ordained of God It is good Divinity every day it is the proper Theam of this day O Lord make it a victorious and joyful day to thine Anointed Servant and our most gacious Soveraign many and many years and make it an happy and a triumphant day to his People that are under him and to their Children that are yet unborn Nazianzen speaking of Kings and Rulers to be the Images of God says that Monarchs and Kings in respect of God were like Pictures drawn clean throughout to the Feet the middle sort of Governours to Pictures drawn to the Girdle the third rank and lowest in authority to Pictures drawn but to the neck and shoulders but all in some sort are the Images of God only Christ is the express Image of his Person that sate down at the right hand of his Majesty Heb. i. O let Man who is made according to the similitude and likeness of Gods own goodness be faithful and Loyal to obey Kings and Princes in whom he hath imprinted the Image of his power and authority Mary Magdalen sate at our Saviours feet his Disciple John came nearer to his head and leaned upon his breast so God hath put all the world under his feet but Kings and Rulers lean as it were upon his breast as coming nearer to his love Now as the Altar was a refuge for them that fled unto it so Kings being as it were united unto God by an invisible copulation they are like priviledged persons always next unto the Altar and the hand of violence must not hurt them He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that honoureth you honoureth me But the Jesuit is more subtle than any beast of the field and he puts in a quarrel against Gods Anointed that if any prove an Heretick or a scandalous person to the Church nolumus hunc regnare then he hath lost the privilege of his Unction and his Scepter shall be broken by the Popes effulminating Authority I cannot answer this traiterous opposition better than by an Embleme of a Diamond with this word dum formas minuis He that pares a Diamond to make it give a better lustre and to point it artificially impairs the worth and value of the Diamond so to cut such large allowance from the due which God hath granted without that qualification to his Vice-gerents under pretence to make their Kingdom more beautiful and religious is the next way to break the neck of all Soveraignty it were well we had less of their art and more of their honesty As Agesilaus wrote to the Judges in the behalf of Nicias if Nicias his Cause be good let justice prevail if his Cause be wrong let favour prevail but be sure that Nicias prevail So say I if the Scepter of the King be a Scepter of mercy and righteousness God be blessed it is then we will honour it for righteousness sake if it should go wrong and not as we would have it so it hath far'd with other Common-wealths the Throne of the King is established in heaven and we must honour it for Gods sake but be sure the King be honour'd and obeyed There is a Fable which Plutarch hath to this purpose the Tail of the Snake began to cavil with the Head because the Head did always lead the way and direct the Body which way it list The Tail would not be contented unless it might go formost by course and the Head come sometimes behind but what followed upon this new contrivance the Tail prickt it self in thorns the Body was bruised every part offended and at last the Head was intreated to take upon him to lead and then the whole body was contented Beloved our part is to pray to God that the Head may run on in the right way like the matchless Pair that went before the mirrour of women pious Queen Elizabeth and the most excellent and learned of all wise Princes that ever were or shall be blessed King James Our part is to submit our wisdom to the secret counsels of the King and to demonstrate our faithfulness and love more amply by how much the times are like to be dangerous and troublesome but for the Tail to go formost it is a dishonour to God who hath given the Crown and Scepter to the King and it can breed nothing but disorder and confusion To sum up these four
whither should they dig but into Hell Which Phrase of the Prophet Amos may be grounded upon these four Reasons Sinners dig into Hell 1. Propter infinitatem peccati Iniquity is infinite like Hell and hath no bottom The waves of ungodliness will take a man in the first conceit to the ankles in the delight unto the knees in the act unto the middle in the custome to the neck in the contumacy the stream will go over our soul When we set foot into any bad action who knows his journies end Labitur labetur in omne volubilis aevum The Romans had an order in their Court to cut off a suit of intricate debate and called it Ampliùs when they would thereafter determine more of the matter Such an Ampliùs was in Davids Adultery such an Ampliùs in St. Peters denial Like a Cylindrus rouled down an hill so is the sin of our heart if you once let it go who can stop it As it is said of fluxus puncti that the least point may run into infinite so can Satan malleate transgressions broader and broader and bring in seven devils more where there was but one before and draw out as it were one Oxe hide into many thongs to compass a City 2. This Phrase doth note sterilitatem peccati the unfruitfulness of sin They that dig would find it foundation they that dig into Hell miss their aim and find none As when one that sleeps thinks he eats but when he wakes his appetite is hungry So worldlings have nothing but in a dream and when they awake they grasp nothing That World which the Devil promised to our Saviour could be but some phantastical representation because he shewed it in the twinkling of an eye Sin is like the tombe of Queen Semiramis that talks of a treasury to be hid within it but he that digs into it shall lose his labour and be laught at for his covetousness Satans Sophistry never had good conclusion and when you gather his harvest all is but Tares Wherefore out sins are compared to the hairs of our head and the sands upon the Sea shore What are the hairs of our head Neither bloud nor marrow but the excrements of our body What are the sands of the Sea But the barren wash which the Land hath spued out Such are the Sins that intangle us But for such sinners as we have to deal with there is to day a third reason why they dig into Hell Propter similitudinem cum damnatis for their resemblance to the evil spirits and the damned Those unhappy souls says Aquinas in whom all good must needs be extinguished Volunt ex invidiâ omnes illud malum perpeti quod ipsi patiuntur they desire that all the world may sink into the same Lake of fire with themselves And whereas the rich man requested to have some body sent to convert his brethren Ay says that learned Doctor he knowing that a remnant must necessarily be saved out of the root of envy had rather his own should escape harmless than another though they least deserved it but absolutely they wish the damnation of all Our Parliament underminers how like are they to these envious prisoners of darkness In whose eyes no life found grace to be preserved neither King nor Progeny Judah nor Levi Nobles nor Communalty the Reformed nor the Romish They did not thirst for one draught but for a bath of bloud Again says Ales the Fiends of Hell are so malicious Vt synteresis in iis extincta sit that the light of well-guided reason is extinguished in them And his Argument is this Quia in gohennâ se vellent esse potiùs quà m non esse ut pugnent contra Deum They had rather remain so tormented than be quite abolished that the red Dragon and his Angels might fight against God Was it not thus with those Romish Priests the main actors in this intended Tragedy who chose to lurk within this Island in despight of Laws awd terrour only to stir up Treason and Rebellion rather than to take fair leave granted to depart and to pack for ever Lastly There is a fourth reason noted by Lyra why some are said to dig to Hell because they use Sorceries and inchantments vain miracles to deceive and in the power of Antichrist strong delusions When a Thessalian Strumpet was accused to Olympias for inchanting her husband Philips affections she hath a smooth painted face and an alluring tongue says Olympias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there needs no other Witchcraft Neither will I accuse the Roman Church for dealing with familiar Spirits yet deluding Miracles are the next wall to Witchcraft but golden Promises and ambitious Titles Have been their Sorcery to entice away some discontented persons from us and then they glory in their victory and conversion It is well known you may get Fish enough with poisoned baits but what are those fish good for when you have them All that came to the Inchanteress Circe she won them to be her own a slender purchase when they degenerated into Hogs and Asses Neither let it move you beloved to hear a Jesuit boast that they have won the flower of our Gentry and Clergy at several times and left the ignorant part behind When the Athenian Orator called the Lacedaemonians unlearned true indeed says Plistonax we are the only Greeks that have learnt no ill manners from you It is our own case God be praised who of all Nations are least seasoned with the Tridentine Leaven But let them use their arts and inveagle them who were lost from the begining dig into Hell yet surely there is no inchantment against Jacob neither is there any divination against Israel says Balaam Num. xxiii 27. Were our foes spiritual powers of darkness in high places as they are but men yet for our comfort first says St. Austin Devils can do no more than God permits Quare nec propitiandos nec timendos existimamus They are not worth our fear or our courtesie never flatter and claw them with kindness to bind their hands Secondly Upon the speech of the Prophet Elisha to his Servant Plures nobiscum sunt Hugo concludes that we have the better side and that the number of good Angels exceeds the bad And Aquinas is not without a reason for it Sin says he is against the natural inclination of an Angel Ea verò quae contra naturam fiunt in paucioribus accident but in the effects of nature in any kind it is never seen but that nature doth more often hit than miss Thirdly Our Countriman Ales gives us this courage Thirdly That although the Divel who began the quarrel but with a Serpents sting and in these last days is grown more fierce and will end it with a Lions paw yet Major est Christi gratia ad ligandum quà m fuit priùs the virtue of Christ is more efficacious now than ever before to bind him fast What shall I say then since the worst
Heathen described justice in their Idol Jupiter it was Aquila cum fulmine an Eagles eye to discern a fault a Thunderbolt to strike a Malefactor and the way thereof is as the way of an Eagle in the air when at the highest pitch we cannot see him Wherefore address we attentions to hear the cause how that man perished c. I have seen malum sub sole says Solomon evil under the Sun He might well tell it for a wonder that such a difference should light together The Sun builds up nature like a Giant Psal xix and evil pulls it down as fast like a Monster It was the vision of Moses at Mount Horeb Exod. iii. a flame of fire in a bramble bush and he that will look like a Prophet shall see there is nothing among us but Flamma splendoris divini or spina peccati I renounce the Manichees I make not two main causes good and evil but I say every thing shews the brightness of Gods glory shining in his works or the thorns and briars of sin in the defacing thereof such thorns were the sinful Jebusites I would the world were as free from it as the Song of Solomon wherein the name is not once to be read lest it should breed a discord in the tunes of love There must be sin there must be heresies but sin what art thou Alas that every man can sooner sin than tell what it is When we talk of it then it grows upon us when we forget it it encreaseth more when we hate it then we sin because we do not hate it as we ought but call it in one word as St. John doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the breach of Gods Law and you have said enough Me thinks Moses made the definition when spying the trespass the Calf they worshipped in Horeb He cast the Tables from him as who should say the Law is broken Only here is the difference the Tables were crackt in few pieces perhaps but the Law hath been ground like the Idol into powder so that a remnant is not kept whole in man St. Paul Rom. iii. reduceth sin into every part of us both soul and body as unto certain common places or you may call it the Geography of wickedness There is none that understandeth thus our reason is ignorant none that seeketh after God our will is disobedient If the Leaven be so bad what hope remains in the lump Our tongues have used deceit and the kisses of our lips envenom like the Asp Our feet are not lazy but swift to shed bloud Our eyes not dim but wanting before them the vail of reverence There is no fear of God before our eyes Our throat not cramm'd up or strangled but wide as an open Sepulchre Was Goliah more furnisht to do evil with that tomb of brass upon his body Was Esau more rough and hairy from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot Or that Hermogenes whom the Wits of Greece plaid upon that the Rasor knew not where to begin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all his body was but one lock As we bring bloudy bodies into the world Tabe polluti occisis magis quà m natis similes says Plutarch so we bring a most wretched soul That as Marius could shew no honourable Pedigree for a Consulship to the Senate but thirty six wounds in his Breast so we cannot shew the glory of our immortal and heavenly created soul her Pedigree from God by reason of the wounds which stick fast upon it Aristotle said our soul was like a fair skin of Parchment wherein nothing was written O that it had been so they are rather like Ezekiels book within and without written with woes and lamentations or as Plato speaks of Dionysius his soul that it was scribled all over with evil Characters What an enditement may be made of this cause then when iniquity is a blemish all over as the whole bird was dipt in bloud Lev. xiv which was an Emblem of our pollution No words can sufficiently describe it but as one speaks of the Spanish Tyranny over the Indies the best Rhetorick was to besmear a bloudy leaf to express it Sin in its Essence is confederate with death and punishment It is the obedience of dumb creatures to chastise it The Earth waxed evil in bringing forth Plants and fruits when the choicest mold of it did fail in Adam it would not be so fruitful for a Sinner as for an Innocent The Prophetess Deborah knew so much Astrology that the Stars in their course fought against the Tyrant Sifera Et navicula Petri in quâ erat Judas turbabatur says St. Ambrose the Sea stormed at Peters Ship when Judas was in it but these are senseless scourges and God applies them What need I speak of Phinehas his righteous passion that killed the Princely Adulterer If the Angels might have their will no Tares should stand in the field they would root up every thing that had not the blade of Wheat But these are all heavenly Souldiers and holiness provokes them Well let the Devil be the judge and he delights both to accuse and punish Put it to evil men and they think Naboth should die for cursing God and the King The vilest persons for the most part are the Satyrs of the time and tax all the world like Angustus Nay put it to the sinner himself put it to Cain and Judas they find no favour no mitigation I dare say in the Court of their own conscience Prima est haec ultio quod se Judice nemo nocens absolvitur Let me lead you on with this distinction betwixt in and propter to perish in iniquity and for iniquity Sin is not always the propter the moving cause of Gods chastisements but sometimes the triall of an heroick faith so it was in Job Sometimes the confirmation of grace so it was in St. Paul the Messenger of Satan was sent to buffet him that Gods grace might be sufficient for him But in iniquitate is certain truth the wrath of God lights not but where transgressions have gone before Thus the Disciples were at a loss Joh. ix Did this man sin that he was born blind How was that possible in his Mothers Womb But was the sin of his Father or the guilt of his Mother imputed to him The imperfect fruit of the Womb could do no evil the offence of his Parents must not be thought his evil Rabbi quis peccavit Nec ille nec parentes says our Saviour neither for his nor his Parents sins was he born blind but that the works of God might be made manifest in him That was the cause and yet a mote had not troubled the eye of this blind man but that a beam of sin had possessed it before in his Mothers Womb I mean by original corruption Alas that we should be grown big enough for punishment before we are born to nature Sabores being but a breeding at the death of his
together enough to purchase a good Fee-simple in Canaan if the Lord had not given him his Portion Men think themselves now adays past the Law and penalties of death when they have sinned so much that they are grown wealthy in iniquity because if need be they can buy the favour of the Judg and he that has Achan's wealth a Wedg of gold and two hundred Shekels of silver legit ut Clericus I warrant him he is a learned Clerk and deserves his pardon But this man when he began to say deliciare anima when he was furnished to live sumptuously then he is cut off that as Solomon says the remembrance of death may be bitter to that man who thought it pleasant to live This was St. Austins rule when he was old and had learnt the World Mundus ille periculosior est cum se illicit diligi quà m cum se cogit contemni I fear no hurt from the World when it goes against me and casts a froward look upon my fortunes but my danger is near at hand when it smiles and flatters me as if all were happy When St. Basil observed how carefully Kings and Princes gathered up Pearls into their Treasury 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the wise God to shew the contempt of them had put into Oister-shells and scattered about the Sea-shore as vile and unprofitable You do not well says he to make a Treasury of that which is so mutable in the Generation and will ebb and flow from you like the Sea which begot them Fortune never stood long upon a Pinacle summo stare loeo nescia The Sponges that swell with liquors are most likely to be pressed and emptied You do all remember how Cesar gloried in his Victory among the cowardly Asiatiques veni vidi vici he did but set his feet upon their Soil and looked them in the face and so dismaied and vanquished them 'T is no more than King David tells of himself Psal xxxvii Vidi veni non inveni vidi I saw the ungodly flourish like a green Bay-tree veni I passed by and sought him non inveni he was quite gone in the twinkling of an eye I could not find him Now recollect these three qualities of Achan who was more likely to prosper than a Souldier in the flower of his age a joyful man at his journies end in the Land of his peace a wealthy man in the plenty of his riches Take it to thought all you that have the World tied unto you with a threefold Cord of health and peace and prosperity which men dream as if it could not be broken for it broke like Tow among the sparks and iste periit c. But as Demades said when news was brought that King Philip was dead and there was no other talk among the people Peace says Demades if he be dead to day he will be dead to morrow and the next day following so I will end my discourse how Achan perished it is the way of all sinners and not much to be lamented But for an innocent to be cast away it deserves pity wherefore St. Hierom reads my Text thus utinam solus periisset it makes not much for Achans death but I would he had perished alone in his iniquity There is no word of wonder beside this in the Text and here we must stay a while as all the Hoste of Israel did when they found the dead Corps of Amasa bleeding what the Spirit of God means by this vengeance non solus that he perished not alone in his iniquity It is St. Austins rule Relevatio mali non fit per communionem cladis sed solatium charitatis To perish together with more than our selves is no comfort at all but more anxiety So it made the Scene of Achan's Tragedy full and very bitter to see 36 Israelites that drew swords for the same Victory to be slain about him On the right hand there is more misery nati cruentâ caede confecti jacent the Sons ask for bread and their Father gives them stones to stone them Two things stand before us to be observed as the Angel did in Balaams way first what Companions Achan had in his punishment and secondly how it will stand with Gods justice that every man should not perish single by himself for his own iniquity First his fellow Souldiers turn their backs and are cut down at the Siege of Ai a sort of men that I presume are prepared alwayes to die but seldom provided to die well men that engender great love together as I think David and Jonathan did at first by entring their bodies into the same dangers Wherefore St. Paul did express his love to Epaphroditus in that name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my fellow Souldier and so to Archippus my fellow Souldier In the Roman Discipline it was held so honourable to save another of the same company that he carried for his reward civicam coronam a Crown upon his head made of the grass of that earth whereupon he saved anothers life The infamy of Achan was as notorious on the other side that caused six and thirty to be slain of the Camp of Israel To see that bad things are sure to do us hurt and the best things are not sure to help us The Ark of God was sent into the Camp at Shilob Arca fortitudinis Domini the Ark of Gods strength Psal 132. and yet the Philistins prevailed and the Ark was taken but if one Achan come down into the Battail there is plain treachery in that mans conscience and his Wedg of gold shall fight more against Israel than all the swords of the men of Ai. Good qualities stick close to them which have them as Virtue and Learning and we cannot part or bequeath them to any man Gifts of fortune as Honours and Riches may be removed to others as you like it But it is a hard case our vices are sure to fall down upon the head of such only as are dearest to us Beloved is it so Was the hand of the Lord in the battel of Israel and doth God direct the Sword of Simeon as well as the books of Levi Those that spend their bodies so courageously for our peace deserve to have their souls well instructed Nulla fides pietasque viris qui castra frequentant I trust it is but a slander that Souldiers have small Religion where the Angel of God did draw his Sword at the threshing flore of Araunah the Jebusite David built an Altar So in every just quarrel it is the Lord himself and his anointed King that draws the Sword Wherefore do not defile the Camp with oaths and lust and drunkenness for the ground is fit for Davids Altar and the place is holy I have told you what it was to Achan to lose his fellow Souldiers yet the loss was not Achans so much as Joshuahs and he like a loving Prince did fall upon the ground and shewed much bitterness for the death
right to go first and the Tail to come after but Officers were changed upon importunity the Body was scratcht the Head was bruised every thing was out of order and by consent of all parts the Head was restored to that dignity for ever after to lead the Body And when disobedience hath disjoynted the frame of any Polity it is obedience must set all together and unite the Fabrick Observation of Ceremonies and petty duties may seem perhaps to be maintained too severely and the peremptory keeping of Circumstances to be rather Rigour than Discipline But it was the answer of a wise Magistrate to this complaint that assault would quickly be made against greater matters if the lesser were despised For observe it in a Wine-vessel the small twigs bind about the hoops the hoops bind about the planchers the planchers alone seem to contein the liquor you would think yet cut the small twigs and the hoops fly asunder the planchers start and the wine is spilt So is it with Ceremonies to despise our Garments our Gestures our Canonical Ordinances may seem no damage to Religion but the very substance of our Christianity would lie open to the wild Boar out of the Wood to root it up if the Hedg were broken In some cases I will grant it to be very true that the Orator says generosus est animus hominis magisque ducitur quà m trahitur our mind is free and noble and would rather go alone than be forced to duty but what duty can be expected from them in greater cases who are headstrong against Ecclesiastical Government in the smallest Ceremonies They that zealously wish abundance of happiness in the Church will be so far from complaining that Ceremonies are a burden to their Liberty that they would wish I think that Canonical obedience did lie more strictly upon the Clergie in the whole course of their Profession Which if it did I am perswaded that the studies of the Learned and the painful industry of Scholars had been more renowned in this Island than over all the World It is the sweet lenity of our Pilots to give us sea room to sail at random 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if we were compelled to knit our strength in clusters our prowess would be better tried in Gods Cause than when we come single and scattered one from another to write a Controversie For when every man follows the genius of his own disposition licence cannot choose but bring in confusion for though every one should do well for his own part yet the work must be out of order Some Monk will say perchance this is our Religion and just as we would have it Immane quantum c. great is the difference between my Doctrin and theirs and I fear we shall not part friends thus First I commend obedience where the thing commanded is feizable and may be done as to build no houses to drink no wine they call for obedience in things impossible as to water a dead stick and make it grow to pour water into a Siev and the like This is not obedience but pertinax inertia loss of good hours wasting of time and fruitless negotiation I commend obedience which turned the heart of the Children toward their Fathers and gives this praise to the Rechabites that they would not be enticed by Priest or Prophet but in all things hearkned to the voice of Jonadab they commend those unnatural Monks that take a Cloister over their heads to sleep and fatten though their Parents be most unwilling and curse them for it I commend the Rechabites obedience which is grounded upon the Scripture approved by the Spirit of God and his Prophet Jeremy they have no ground for their Canonical Orders but mans institution Votum obedientiae non directè colligitur è scripturâ says Gregory of Valentia nay temporibus Apostolicis non institutae sunt religiones says Aquinas our Religious Orders are later than the times of the Apostles Lastly the obedience which I praise is such where the things commanded are lawful and just Wine in those hot Countries might well be forborn and temperance the better mainteined in Tents they might dwell and shades of Tabernacles to acknowledg themselves but Strangers and Pilgrims in this World and Heaven to be their Country some say it was to forewarn the Israelites that the Captivity of Babylon was hard at hand and it was in vain to build Cities for a long habitation Finally having neither Barns nor Store-houses their Herds and their Flocks were their riches and they forbore to sow the ground and to gather in the fruits of the Harvest these things are lawful and honest and in them it was expedient to hearken to the voice of Jonadab But the Romanists commend obedience wherein fas and nefas are alike to complot Treasons and Massacres to dissemble and lie for Priests to leave off their Weed and ruffle it in other Countries like Gentlemen all this is obedience yea Maffaeus commends a Novice of the Jesuits Order who was consecrating the Host at the Communion his Superior Liola call'd him away for no other end but to try his duty he left his God Almighty half made and half unmade in the midst of Consecration and hasted to his Superior This is sweet obedience Men that have reason and will subject themselves to the power and dominion of their Rulers by the inclination of their own will natural agents are compelled to yield to forcible agents because the weaker qualities cannot resist the stronger Now the Underling that obeys his Praelate is exempted two ways from his Authority as natural things two ways do controul the vertue of a superior agent 1. Propter impedimentum ex virtute superioris moventis if a greater force oppose a lesser the greater must carry the sway Green wood resists the flame of a little fuel because the mixture of the wood is too hard for so small a fire so the supreme dominion and power belongeth unto God and that obedience which is performed to Man against God it is sacrificium de rapinâ not Obedience but Atheism not Obedience but Sacrilege not Obedience but Flattery The second resistance is when a natural body is subject in some qualities and in some free from subjection as wax subject to the fire to soften to the Seal to set a stamp upon it So an Handmaid is to yield all bodily service of labour to her Lord but quoad prolis generationem aut corporis sustentationem non ligatur To surfeit her body by excess of meats or to pine it away with fasting to commit uncleanness or to enthral her self to Virginity this is beyond the Sphear of Authority and she is not bound unto it Let us gather up this second part of my Text into one closure we commend the Rechabites for their Obedience and by their example we owe duty to our Parents natural and civil those that begot us those that govern us We owe duty to the dead after
David for the pomp of Jerusalem nor for the taste of Meats nor for the noise of Musick then your inward delights are a River shut up the waters of comfort flit not out of the channel But if you desire to have a Portion in this life if you desire to taste a little of this honey as Jonathan did which hangs in the Trees round about you plenus rimarum effluis then the River opens your earnings and your desires will break out in a thousand Sluces If a Chrystal Glass were durable and not obnoxious to breaking with a fall it would be as estimable perhaps as a Silver Plate though the substance be not so precious So the vanities of this World which are but water or rather froth that passeth away had they been stable and of long endurance which God forbid for then who almost could have withstood their temptation as base as they are in themselves I say if they had not been so transitory they had deceived many instead of that which our Saviour commends so highly the water of Eternal Life But there is not such a terminus diminuens in nature not any word of more rejectment than to say they consume as fast as they are born they perish in their making and come to a perpetual end If I see a Meteor make a fair shew in a bright Evening I may take it for a Star but if it once glide in a flake of fire like a swift arrow I contemn it for a putrid exhalation so Honors and Riches make a gay sight but because they are as transitory as dreams and shadows I despise them Shall I moil my self like the Grecian Champions at Olympus for no more than a Garland of leaves that will wither before I go to bed for a corruptible Crown as St. Paul calls it How little did the recompense answer the danger These men you will say were fit to be laught at As they lived in a silly Age so they sped accordingly But now the World 's grown wiser they do not aim at a few flowers but at the whole Garden as Ahab did not at leaves but at fruit I warrant you and the trees that bear the fruit and the Lands and Lordships that the trees grow upon both to them and to their Posterity This will come to some value and not to be slighted like the labour of the Heathen for a Garland or for a corruptible Crown Yet for all this I will and must maintain that worldlings deserve the application both of this and of a worse Similitude I confess that the Heathen in their emulatory Sports aimed at trifles scarce fit to hang on the Posts of their Doors and no way comely for their head yet trifles as they were they engaged but a trifle against them their limbs and body but you venture your soul the Divine part of Man for things that may stick as little by you as a flower of the Garden Aut habebunt finem sui aut finem tui either your pleasure or your life or the whole World may pass away in a moment What a rotten pillar we lean upon which is subject to the hazard of three imminent casualties where lies the wit now they hazard Grass for Grass their Body against a Garland you hazard Heaven against Earth your Soul for Honours and increase of Substance you stake the hope of Salvation to drink in a few pleasing relishes of this World which fall away like water that runneth apace Because time is as transitory as these fickle things of fortune which I speak of therefore my discourse shall pass from this point without any longer trouble to you Now St. Austin observes how the pleasures of our natural life are not simply resembled here to River waters which you may take up with your hand and are in every mans fight that passeth by Our Saviour was now at Jacobs Well and he that will drink of it must draw it out from a deep bottom Et voluptas seculi est aqua in puteo seu profunditate tenebrosâ so our terrestrial pleasures are waters in a deep pit with which if you desire to fill your Pitcher this Body I mean which is an earthen Vessel you must bestow your labour to fetch it up from a low Abyssus from a dark profundity They that plunge themselves into delights of all fashions and conditions are not able to tell you how deep their own concupiscence is nor how far it would descend into vanities Tiberius the Emperor I confess no common example the worst not of men but even of four-footed beasts When he had run over all kind of pleasure that was known and common then he puts down the Bucket into the Well to fetch up rarities of sensuality and was so witty in nothing as to find out new studied pleasures unheard of to all former impiety Novum instituit officium à voluptatibus says Suetonius he created an Officer to reward such as brought forth new invented stratagems Are you not afraid when you go so low into these vile earthly things from one sensuality to another deeper and deeper I say are you not afraid that the next step should be into the bottomless pit A fugitive Servant in Plutarch being well nigh overtaken ran out of the way to hide himself in a Mill and the Mill was in those days instead of an House of Correction to torment Runnagate Servants O says the Master ubi te occuparem nisi in pistrino This is the very place where I wisht to find you So shall the Lord speak to those Epicures that make a mystery of their pleasures you are in the right way for my vengeance to find you out when you run into the dark and secret corners of voluptuousness as if you digged into Hell The deeper we reach into the Well Satan knows we must stoop down the more David complains what a snare it is when a man is enticed to dive as it were into a large bottom for his vanity incurvaverunt animam meam they have pressed down my soul Psal lvii 7. like Corn that 's beaten flat to the earth with a violent storm and when it is laid the Fowls of the air devour it As the eye of Cain which looked down dejectedly upon the earth was a sign of desperation is it not worse when the will and desire of the Soul tends downward to this base Element and to these transitory joys So it was with Israel when the Lord had forsaken them and left them to the dregs of their own carnal mind Es li. 23. I will put thee into the hand of them that have said unto thy soul bow down that we may go over thee A certain Parable and a Story go together on this wise Luke xiii A woman had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years and was bowed together and could in no wise lift up her self And a Fig-tree was planted in a good soil which for three years together bore no fruit Here 's the
which hath five barley loaves and two fishes that he did belong to him and his fellow Disciples 't is neither in the Book nor in the nearest likelihood Baronius says that it is descended by Tradition that this Lad was St. Martialis who became an holy Martyr and was Bishop of Limoges in France Whosoever the party was if it be yielded as no man can refuse it that these Viands were his own how came they into Christs hands without bargain and sale for ought we read When Offertories were frequent in the Church every Sunday a voluntary oblation presented to the Lord by all that could give then the answer to this scruple was quickly understood If this were St. Martialis piety revealed it self in him in his tender years for I may safely say he surrendred these things up unto Christ as a willing Offertory as soon as he knew that our Lord did ask for them No offices of Religion will vanish away insensibly so soon as those that be chargeable For can any man tell how free Oblations are quite laid down and disused among us unless it be at some Solemn Festivities and Magnificent Funerals no reason but that two much thrift hath marr'd our thankfulness Abel and Noah and Abraham did not forget it in those Sacrifices which they offered up unto the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of nature egg'd them on gratitude provokt them say the Clementine Constitutions to which I can give no less than the antiquity of the fourth Century The Israelites beside their Tithes and First-fruits and other Ceremonies to which they were taskt were left to their own discretion for the Choice Vow and the Freewill Offering and they perform'd it sumptuously knowing that it was a glory due to the name of the Lord to bring an offering into his House of their own accord Psal xcvi 8. The lights that shined in this piety under the Gospel was the poor Widow that cast her two Mites freely into the Corbâ—n Mary Magdalen that poured a Box of Spicknard upon Christs head of great estimation beside the Wise men of the East that cast their Gold and Myrrh before his Cradle and Nichodemus that dedicated his hundred pound weight of Aloes and Spices to his dead Body in the Sepulchre It were ostentation of reading to point to free Oblations out of Antiquity for there was no Age or Church without them Happy was he whose life was accounted so unreprovable that the Bishop would suffer him to bring a Gift to the Altar Sycophants Drunkards Whoremongers unjust Judges all scandalous persons were turned back disgracefully with their Oblation in their hand and it would not be taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but such as possessed any substance by lawful increase they did voluntarily bring a Portion to the Lord to acknowledg their Tenure that they held all from him and their debt that they owed all unto him And this is pressed unto you by putting the case if Jesus took the loaves by free donation But what shall we say if he commanded them before they were offered to him Bring them hither to me so he speaks in St. Matthew By what Title did he require them be brought unto him or by what authority did he take them if another had the right possession even by that authority wherein he was invested in the dominion of all earthly things by that Prerogative whereby he sent for the Ass and the Colt when he rid into Jerusalem Bring them unto me and if any man say ought unto you ye shall say the Lord hath need of them and straight way he will send them By that propriety which he had in the Gadarens Swine by that right which he had in the Figtree which he cursed manifest signs that he did dispose of all things as he pleased without asking leave of the owners Belike say some Papalines there was a temporal Soveraignty in our Saviour over all things here beneath and this did rest upon St. Peter after him and is now immanent in St. Peters Successors all the Kingdoms of this World are theirs nec Constantinus dedit quickquam Sylvestro in strict justice Constantine gave nothing to Pope Sylvester for he was Lord of all before a poor plea for so proud a purchase And surely Pilat was more just in this point than those flattering Canonists The Jews exclaimed against our Saviour that he made himself a King Pilat could find no such fault in him but pronounced him innocent And well he might for all things were given unto him by the Father yet not by ruling all things like a King in his Kingdom but by uniting the humane nature to the Godhead and that ye doubt it not but that he had power over all Creatures as he was Man by the influence of that hypostatical union he had a name written on his thigh King of Kings and Lord of Lords Revel xix 16. super femur mark that upon his thigh that is upon his humane nature Now what should I call this Dominion of Christs whereby he was made Heir of all things Heb. i. 2. Surely it surpasseth all description and it hath no name But I am sure he held it not after a Regal way as David and Solomon were Kings in Israel It was transcendent above humane Majesty commanding Men and Angels Heaven and Earth Quick and Dead things sensible and insensible yet withall he was most subject to Rulers paying Tribute to Cesar and refusing to divide a small Inheritance between them that were contentious A mystical Kingdom and not to be exprest ruling over all and yet most obedient to Magistrates commanding every thing under Heaven and yet ministring to his Servants seized of no Inheritance yet having right in every Inheritance quod de suo non habuit sumpsit de alieno says St. Austin of these Loavs he had not bread of his own but that which another had became his own there was a justice paramount wherein no mortal Creature succeeds him which gave him interest in all things Therefore without offence or injury to the owner he took the Loaves But if he had them from his Disciples amicorum omnia communia then he might usurp them without any litigious brabble moved against his power and that the possession was theirs may be as true as the contrary the truth inclines rather to that side as I conceive because our Saviour said unto them date vos illis give ye them to eat and they and none else took away the twelve Baskets of that which remained And was this the purveyance which they had made against hunger five barley loaves and two fishes little enough and coarse enough God knows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. Chrysostom this was the Phylosophy and austere temperance of the Disciples they abhorred luxury and superfluity Yet do you miss nothing to make up the Meal where was their drink the fish is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by our Evangelist
glory Thirdly He distributed to the Disciples and assumed them into the same works which himself did save only in the work of our Redemption but when he was acting that part either they fell asleep or run away as when he was laid hold upon to be crucified it was an exploit above a mortal man to assist it and would admit of no associate I have trodden the Wine-press alone and of the people there was none with me Isa lxiii 3. But the power of doing Miracles was communicated unto them for the edifying of the body of the Saints and that before a great Congregation where there were many witnesses that there was such virtue given to men as if Christ had said before them all these are they that shall work signs and wonders in my Name when I am gone to Heaven These are they indeed but to do such mighty things was an Heritage which they could bequeath again to their Sons and to their Sons Sons in all descending Generations As a Conqueror enters it may be in triumph into a City which he hath taken but when the Solemnity of the triumph is over a plain working-day fashion serves for after so the Gospel entred with triumph into the World by the power and pomp of Miracles overtopping all false Religions and captivating all imaginations but would you have Christianity to hold on its triumph when it hath vanquished both Judaism and Idolatry 1600 years ago Not so but as there is a time to every purpose under Heaven so there was a time to glorify God by Signs and Wonders and a time to believe though Signs are ceased But now was the season to communicate some share of that mighty vertue to the Apostles as well to prepare them to know their office as to prepare the People to know that those were the Dispensers of the Mysteries of God Lastly the Disciples received the Blessing immediately from Christ and they went between Him and the People to feed them with bread to teach us that it is for his Saints sake that the earth hath plenty of all things It was not unto them which murmured that God gave water of the rock but unto Moses that cried unto him It was to Elias that God gave rain after three years drought and not unto Ahab Forget not therefore which way all temporal Blessings come about There are holy and mortified men among us that spend the greatest part of their life in penance and devotion these make intercession for you that your Table may be furnished and though they do not give it you with their hand as the Disciples did in our present business they give it you with their Prayers when others revel it and waste their stock in vanity these grovel upon the earth with their bended knees that the Lord would not be angry As St. Austin said to such a purpose Quando ipsi laetantur nos pro illis gemimus when others pamper their genius with marrow and fatness these do macerate themselves with abstinence to avert famine from the Land A devout man whose zeal is free from faction and his heart clear from malice that drives not his private prosperity but every day spends some Canonical hours most strictly for publick blessings it may be hath nothing himself and yet procures all as the Apostles took bread from Christ not for themselves but to give away to the multitude or if some little came to their share they enjoyed it not without the envy of those that were the better for their benefit For when they had distributed their Masters Maundy once and again to so many folk yet they grudged them that which a Nest of Sparrows would make bold with when they pluckt a few ears of corn and rub'd them in their hands Well the World will never reform this ingratitude and yet the Lord doth not repent him that his Saints are so precious in his sight that they obtein riches health and peace for those that hate them and persecute them Such a poor Widow as Anna that continued in Prayers and Fastings day and night in the Temple in part Cesar did owe the prosperity of his Crown unto her the People were beholding to her that they had their Traffick the Priests that they had the exercise of their Religion they of the City that they had their health they of the Country that they had their Harvest May be there were Blasphemers Extortioners Adulterers that were filled with this Feast which Christ made so it shall be while good and bad are intermingled every where But do you mark it Christ committed the bread at the first breaking to the hands of the Disciples for faithful and good men are the Conduit-pipes of all the Blessings which the earth receiveth from the Father of mercies to whom be glory for evermore AMEN THE THIRD SERMON UPON JOHN vi 11. He distributed to the Disciples and the Disciples to them that were set down and likewise of the Fishes as much as they would IT will not be denied but if I share this Miracle between those that had their finger in it two parts to speak with the least must be given to Christ If therefore there be double as much in Christs act that be distributed to the Disciples as there is in their act who distributed to them that were set down it was as due required to put the Bucket twice into the Well to draw waters from the former and with half that labour uno pede stans that is at this once and no more to dispatch the latter And now I shall put it unto you that this Miracle is come down as low as it could descend The divine incomprehensible nature was the Origen of it and therefore Christ used that Ceremony when he took the Loaves into his hand to look up to heaven Our Saviours Humane Nature was the next Vessel into which the grace of the Almighty was poured for the Father had given all things into his hand Joh. xiii 3. The next and underneath his feet were the Apostles they had their Power and Commission from him As the Father sent me so send I you Joh. xx The last of all to whom the Apostles communicate their gift are the People and there the gift abides The Dove that is the Holy Spirit doth use to fetch this compass about before he lights O glorious Hierarchy O most beautiful degrees of strength and Majesty O golden Chain whose uppermost Link is fastned to the highest heaven and the nethermost part toucheth the lowest earth Thus doth our blessedness descend step by step from the Father to the Son from the Son to the Disciples and from the Disciples to all those that are nourished with the words of Truth and of good Doctrine 1 Tim. iv 6. So then we hold of God as the Author of all Grace of Christ as the head of the Body which is his Church of the Apostles and their Successors as his subordinate Ministers And
with all Christian Churches throughout the World We write our selves Christians and nothing else The name of Protestant as it was ever harmless so properly it concerned but the pleading of some grievances upon one day when a Diet of the Princes was held at Spire and when Sects were sprung up among Christians to be a Protestant was no more than to be a good Christian If our ill-willers call us by any other by-word the sin is theirs we have not the tongues of wicked men in a string that they shall give us no attributes but such as are worthy of us Non sumus Pauliani non sumus Petriani sumus Christiani Pastors must beget Children to Christ and not unto themselves therefore we are neither of Paul or Cephas but the Off-spring of Christ say the Divines of Doway and I would their deeds were suitable to their Annotation More smartly St. Hierom if you take the name of Marcionite or Valentinian you cease to be a Christian Not so will some say I can take the name of some excellent man upon me as a subordinate Servant to Christ But Ignatius goes on if you do take the name of man upon you you do lose the name of the Lord. A whole hour is not enough for all that can be said upon this point but this is enough for them that will learn how the faithful of the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision were in danger to be divided therefore they were both enclosed in the identity of one blessed name And c. So I have shewn what my Text speaks of fell out in a ripe season and a profitable opportunity now all times are capable of that which follows what this name imports and what it imposeth Our dear Redeemer having wedded the Church unto himself and having given it an interest in his precious bloud here and a lively hope to possess his glory hereafter it was meet that his Spouse should be called by his name and then either from Jesus or from Christ Jesus He was called for his Divinity for He that is Man could not save us from our sins unless He were the offended Party as well as the Ransom God and Man Christ he was called from being Man for he was anointed to execute the Offices of his Mediatorship in his humane nature Now judg in your selves whether we that are partakers of flesh and blood should have our nomination from his Godhead or from his Manhood rather only the Jesuit some Divine creature I warrant you is not contented with the common name of Christian but after much opposition of Courts of Parliament in France or Consistories in Rome he calls himself by the dear remembrance of the Epithet in which our salvation is sealed unto us But save us good Lord from such Saviours What will suffice them whom the Roialty to be called a Christian will not suffice In quo omnium sublimium nominum communionem adipiscimur says Nyssen whereby we have our share in all Titles that have sublimity in them as he that holds the fastning links of a Chain in his finger draws on all the rest to use the same Fathers Similitude The Heathen that looked for the signification of the word in their own learning and not in the Scriptures surnamed us Chrestiani à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you would say benign and gentle So Tertullian Cum perperam Chrestianus a vobis pronunciatur de suavitate vel benignitate compositum est when you miss our right name and pronounce us Chrestians it imports sweetness and benignity It seems there was a placidness and facility of nature in the Disciples which was far from giving just offence and won it self the affections of others And is not much better than a jarring harshness which is prone to discords and contentions The spirit of wisdom it courteous and humane Wisd vii 23. Yet this fell short of the true notation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who knows it not is unctus The Anointed not every Anointed but The Anointed as if it were written in capital letters whom the old Testament in the same sense calls the Messiah and the Hellenists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Caninius says that the wrathful Jews who will not own him for their Messias call him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not unctum but delibutum as you would say not anointed but stained and besmeared To whom I rejoyn videbunt quem transfixerunt they shall see him whom they have pierced with their blasphemies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Anointed of the Lord He is our Chief from whom we derive our nomination He was a King as the Psalms stile him Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion and so anointed He was a Priest a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedech and so anointed He was a Prophet that Prophet whom God promised to raise up to Israel among their Brethren Deutr. xviii and so anointed Ter Christus a triple anointed a triple Christ that sacred one to whom God giveth not the Spirit by measure but he is anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows and so is an infinite Christ from his superabundant unction we are replenished of his fulness we have all received some drops have trickled down from the head to the skirts nay to the feet and ancles to the lowest parts of the body and by the power of his Christhood we are transformed to be Christian Aptly hath St. Bernard ratified all this from that of Solomon Cant. ii 3. Oleum effusum nomen tuum Thy name is as ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love thee Christianus then to put good Greek into bad Latin is all one with Vunctianus anointed with the sprinkling of water in Baptism for the remission of sins and therefore Crism or Oil hath been applied as a significant Ceremony to the Infant baptized not only abroad but in our own Church I mean since it was reformed After this of Baptism follows the Unction of true Doctrin Ye have an unction from the holy one and ye know all things 1 Joh. ii 20. To these is added the Unction of Grace that we may be a sweet savour of life unto life and above all these the bloud of Christ is anointed upon the posts of our doors that the Destroyer may pass by and spare us and all these Lines meet in this one Center to call us Christian Is it not a grievous case that this Name so musical to the ear so melodious to the heart should be almost obscur'd to bring in another Catholick a word to be very well approved of it finds more acceptance with some than Christian These words of St. Luke in my Text are not more authentick with them hardly so much as those of Pacianus Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen illud me nuncupat istud ostendit Christian is my name Catholick my surname the indignity is
served under Decius the Emperour in Affrica banished hundreds of Christians out of Affrica threatning death unto them if they returned Divers of them did creep in secretly giving reason that they came to comfort their Brethren and to strengthen them in the faith St. Cyprian writes to them out of Prison to exile themselves again and to return no more else if they suffered they should be reputed not for Martyrs but for Malefactors I will not load them with envy though it be true that many of their Tenebrioes crept into England with damnable intentions make the best they can of their own actions St. Cyprian says if banisht men will enter into a Realm against the Law they shall die as Malefactors It is the Cause and not the Punishment that makes a Martyr What more trivial If a Virgin choose to die rather than to be ravished she is slain for the Word of If a good man be ruined rather than give his assistance to the ruine of an innocent it is for the Word of God c. But if he be brought to the Stake for confessing there are no Gods made with hands and that Jesus Christ God and man is the Saviour of all that believe if he stand to it and will not flinch for any terrour that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hold his Testimony then he is slain for the Word of God and for the Testimony of the Lamb as the Dragon fought with them that kept the Commandments of God and had the Testimony of Jesus Christ meaning such as were holy and faithful very godly in their works very Orthodox in their belief This is that mixture of sweet Spices in whose exhalation a Martyr becomes an odour of a sweet savour unto the Lord. They were victimae altaris and thymiamata altaris Sacrifices slain upon the Altar of burnt-offerings and therefore became sweet Spices offered up upon the Altar of Incense which shall be the conclusion of this Point and the beginning of the next where the Apostle did behold those Saints that had exchanged their lives to glorifie God under the Altar And where doth St. John mean Where about is that Every curious itching ear will be more attentive to it than to any instruction that can be raised out of the Text A Traveller that asks his way if many of the Country Folk be present at his question it is ten to one but they will diversifie in their opinions and set him in so many ways that he shall never be wiser for their direction So I have consulted with more than a few Expositors to learn where I may find this Altar and not miss of it one points this way another that way Et incertior sum multò quà m dudum Among their variety of directions I know not which way to move Cosmography is a very easie part of learning to design the confines or distances of City from City Kingdom from Kingdom But it is one of the most difficult tasks in Divinity to understand the several quarterings and Mansion-places of heaven I confess I have no skill in Ouranography But to cut off all Proem I will be brief in my relation what is said to it and more brief in my determination The discordious opinions may be drawn to three heads some mean by the Altar an allotted place some relate it to the condition of their body some refer it to the state and condition of their Spirit Whosoever give the words a local meaning that the Souls were under the Altar they all agree in this that it imports that the Saints are kept back awhile from the uppermost part of Heaven where the Angels do offer up Praises continually upon the Altar of Incense which is next to the Holy of Holies and they that have not the nearest access to the Vision of God in form of Prophetical speech may be said to be under the Altar Some who pitcht upon this Interpretation had such fumes in their heads that they did not see the light Tertullian conceived that their Mansion was an earthly Paradise whither Enoch and Elias are translated Origen you may be sure hath some roaving excursion it is thus that the souls of the Faithful are put to School in some secret places before they go to heaven where they are purified from ignorance by degrees and then exalted Victorinus Afer a better Rhetorician than a Divine thinks that to be under the Altar is as if the souls were under the earth in some ample and pleasant regions like the Elysian Fields All these are humane Phantasies and I slip them aside But the most beaten rode to this purpose is that the souls of the Martyrs have a remuneration for their labours and sufferings past but not a consummation of that glory which shall be revealed unto them a share in Heaven but not a possession in the highest Heaven In atriis non in domo They are kept a loof off from the perfect Vision of God in the fulness of time they shall see him face to face Which is Bernards meaning when he says the blessed that are under the Altar because they are admitted to see the Humane Nature of Christ and not the Divine Not so as if totally they did see nothing of the Divine Nature but because they see it with less perspicacity than they shall hereafter so St. Ambrose and St. Hilary close with him And St. Chrysostom upon the Eleventh to the Hebrews Praeveniunt nos in certaminibus non praevenient in coronis they have fought a good fight before us but they shall not be crowned before us not because our Resurrection shall be at once the words will not bear it and the body is but the Robe which we shall put on the glory with which we shall be filled brim full that is the Crown which we shall wear in our Fathers Kingdom I know this is much distasteful to the Prelates of the Florentine and Tridentine Councils who have defined that the pure Souls in heaven enjoy the clearest Vision of God before the day of Judgment and want nothing to their integral happiness but the resuscitation of their bodies It may be so as they will have it But I am contented to say their state is Heaven and will go no further Neither can I see cause why the Churches of Christ should dissent if one say without pervicacious obstinacy the Spirits of righteous men are in the highest Heaven and another will say nothing peremptorily but that they are in Heaven indeed and do live with the Lord. Malo timidus esse quà m temerarius The Conclusion now is thus much That if this be granted for a Local Posture that the Souls are under the Altar there is nothing against Analogy of Faith to say they are in the outward Rooms of Heaven and stay there in expectation of more abundant glory Secondly Some relate this to the condition of their bodies And the Jesuits Ribera and à Lapide will have no
it of the Gaulish Priests among the Romans that at first they were made Eunuchs only to punish their stubbornness against their Parents that they being a generation of disobedient Children might never beget Children that should obey them And therefore it is pitty that the same justice was not executed upon Pope Gregory the VII to cast him out for ever being called a Father of the Church who made the Emperor Henry the Fourth take arms against his own Father and depose him And that proud title of Rabbi should never have been given to the Pharisees rather to the vilest Begger in the Street because it was their Tradition to swear by the Gift upon the Altar never to relieve the wants of their distressed Parents Surely as a Parricide that killed his Father was to have no burial upon the Earth but sewed in an Ox Hide and cast headlong into the Sea so he that despiseth his Father deserves not to hold any place of dignity above others but to be a Slave to all men For what are we but Coin that hath our Fathers Image stampt upon it and we receive our current value from them to be called Sons of Men. And yet the more commendable was the obedience of the Rechabites that their Father Jonadab being dead his Law was in as good force as if he had been living It was a great mourning which Joseph and his Brethren did celebrate for their Father Jacob Gen. the last But that was the least honour done unto him When his Sons did carry his Body as he commanded them to be buried in Canaan in the Field of Mamre which Abraham bought for a Possession that was the best Solemnity in the Funerals of Jacob. It is an effeminate tenderness of heart says Tacitus prosequi defunctum ignavo fletu to weep and lament over the dead obsequi verò in iis quae jusserit to execute the will of the Dead that is the truest honour we can do them and a faithful expression that we reverence their memory Licurgus knew right well what great benefit Lacedaemon received by his Laws yet doubting the peoples inconstancy and foreseeing that when he was dead good Laws might be cancelled and bad Manners survive He took a long Journey and swore the Citizens to the observation of his Laws until he returned in safety but that was never And some short time they remembred their own Oath who on a sudden would have forgot his Laws and his Memory Very often is it seen in this dissolute Age of ours that which old Mitio said Dum id rescitum iri credunt tantisper cavent young Heirs forget their godly Education as soon as their Parents have breathed their last then they run riot and morgage their Temperance to Taverns their Chastity to Dens of uncleanness and their Lands to the Usurer What a rare example now is this of the Rechabites custode remoto being now in their own power and government to remember the Life and Doctrin of their Father Jonadab and to profess his austerity Non bibemus c. Concerning this Virtue of Obedience let us extend our discourse a little further and yet tread upon our own ground Obedience is used in a large sense for a Condition or Modus as the School calls it annexed unto all Vertues As the Magistrate may execute justice dutifully under his Prince the Souldier may perform a valiant exploit dutifully under his Captain but strictly and according to the pattern of the Rechabites Obedientia est sola virtus per se cum res jubentur adiaphorae ad praestandum says Aquinas It is one peculiar and entire virtue whereby we oblige our selves for Authorities sake to do things indifferent to be done or omitted for sometimes that which is evil may be hurtful prohibito to the party forbidden as the Laws forbid a man to murder himself sometimes a thing is evil prohibenâ—i so Treasons Adulteries and Thefts are interdicted but sometimes the thing is no way in it self pernicious to any but only propounded to make trial of our duty and allegeance as when Adam was forbid to eat the Apple and this is true obedience not to obey for the necessity of the thing commanded but out of conscience and subjection to just Authority Such obedience and nothing else is that which hath made the little Common-wealth of Bees so famous for are they not at appointment who should dispose the work at home and who should gather honey in the fields they flinch not from their Task and no Creature under the Sun hath so brave an instinct of sagacity Wherefore Epiphanius was wont to compare the godly Monks that undertook their Office by the appointment of their Superior some to labour with their hands some to pray and meditate I say he likened them to Bees that hum about and make honey together So some of these toil for the use of men some sing Psalms unto God thymum hymnum proferunt You shall hear an hundred boast of their great stomach and of a spirit that could not be kept under Brethren as St. Paul said your boasting is not good But almost I never heard of any that professed themselves of a spirit which was subject to all obedience One indeed I have read of Nicolaus of Crete how well it did become him who was subject to Theodorus his Prelate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he had no will of his own full of reason and understanding but utterly void of will and wilfulness What a pleasure was this both to him and his Disciple what a sight was this worth the seeing as the Angels says Aristotle are never weary of moving the Heavens and the Heavens are never weary of turning round Such is the harmony between the Prelate and the demure Obedient where Wisdom is the Sun and Duty is the Dial upon which it shines How near came this mans Soul to Adams in the state of Innocency whose original purity the Shoolmen call by an elegant Title aureum froenum a golden Bridle For the Appetite had a Bridle to be checkt under Reason Reason had a Bridle to make it follow the supreme Will of the Creator the very Beasts had a Bridle cast into their jaws to make them Homagers unto Man which now would raven upon our Carkasses Now there is nothing abroad or at home but bellum servile Zimri riseth up against his Master Nothing hath more carried the World aside than those glorious words of Liberty Power and Prerogative Among the Romans oppression and cruelty did not make a Tyrant but the very name of Soveraignty Nec clementes Dominos ferre poterant says Tacitus Masters though they were meek did offend as long as they were called Masters Angustum annulum ne gesta says Pythagoras as if all subjection unto Discipline were like a strait Ring that pincht the finger Plutarch coins a Fable that the Tail of the Serpent grudged at the Head because it went always foremost The Head indeed had the