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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A45200 Contemplations upon the remarkable passages in the life of the holy Jesus by Joseph Hall. Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. 1679 (1679) Wing H376; ESTC R30722 360,687 516

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the style of the Tempter If thou be the Christ The gracious heart is credulous Even where it sees not it believes and where it sees but a little it believes a great deal Neither doth it presume to prescribe unto God what and how he shall work but takes what it finds and unmovably rests in what it takes Any miracle no miracle serves enough for their assent who have built their faith upon the Gospel of the Lord Jesus XVI Matthew called THE number of the Apostles was not yet full one room is left void for a future occupant who can but expect that it is reserved for some eminent person and behold Matthew the Publican is the man O the strange election of Christ Those other Disciples whose calling is recorded were from the Fisher-boat this from the Toll-booth They were unlettered this infamous The condition was not in it self sinfull but as the Taxes which the Romans imposed on God's free people were odious so the Collectours the Farmers of them abominable Besides that it was hard to hold that seat without oppression without exaction One that best knew it branded it with poling and sycophancy and now behold a griping Publican called to the Family to the Apostleship to the Secretaryship of God Who can despair in the conscience of his unworthiness when he sees this pattern of the free bounty of him that calleth us Merits do not carry it in the gracious election of God but his meer favour There sate Matthew the Publican busie in his Counting-house reckoning up the sums of his Rentals taking up his Arrerages and wrangling for denied Duties and did so little think of a Saviour that he did not so much as look at his passage but Jesus as he passed by saw a man sitting at the receit of custome named Matthew As if this prospect had been sudden and casual Jesus saw him in passing by O Saviour before the world was thou sawest that man sitting there thou sawest thine own passage thou sawest his call in thy passage and now thou goest purposely that way that thou mightest see and call Nothing can be hid from that piercing eye one glance whereof hath discerned a Disciple in the cloaths of a Publican That habit that shop of extortion cannot conceal from thee a vessel of election In all forms thou knowest thine own and in thine own time shalt fetch them out of the disguises of their foul sins or unfit conditions What sawest thou O Saviour in that Publican that might either allure thine eye or not offend it what but an hatefull trade an evil eye a gripple hand bloudy tables heaps of spoil Yet now thou saidst Follow me Thou that saidst once to Jerusalem Thy birth and nativity is of the land of Canaan thy father was an Amorite thy mother an Hittite Thy navel was not cut neither wert thou washed in water to supple thee thou wast not salted at all thou wast not swaddled at all None eye pitied thee but thou wast cast out in the open fields to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born And when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine own bloud I said unto thee Live yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy bloud Live now also when thou passedst by and sawest Matthew sitting at the receit of custome saidst to him Follow me The life of this Publican was so much worse then the birth of that forlorn Amorite as Follow me was more then Live What canst thou see in us O God but ugly deformities horrible sins despicable miseries yet doth it please thy mercy to say unto us both Live and Follow me The just man is the first accuser of himself Whom do we hear to blazon the shame of Matthew but his own mouth Matthew the Evangelist tells us of Matthew the Publican His fellows call him Levi as willing to lay their finger upon the spot of his unpleasing profession himself will not smother nor blanch it a whit but publishes it to all the world in a thankfull recognition of the mercy that called him as liking well that his baseness should serve for a fit foil to set off the glorious lustre of his grace by whom he was elected What matters it how vile we are O God so thy glory may arise in our abasement That word was enough Follow me spoken by the same tongue that said to the corps at Nain Young man I say to thee Arise He that said at first Let there be light says now Follow me That power sweetly inclines which could forcibly command the force is not more unresistible then the inclination When the Sun shines upon the Iceicles can they chuse but melt and fall when it looks into a dungeon can the place chuse but be enlightned Do we see the Jet drawing up straws to it the Load-stone iron and do we marvel if the Omnipotent Saviour by the influence of his grace attract the heart of a Publican He arose and followed him We are all naturally averse from thee O God do thou but bid us follow thee draw us by thy powerfull word and we shall run after thee Alas thou speakest and we sit still thou speakest by thine outward Word to our ear and we stir not Speak thou by the secret and effectual Word of thy Spirit to our heart the World cannot hold us down Satan cannot stop our way we shall arise and follow thee It was not a more busie then gainfull trade that Matthew abandoned to follow Christ into poverty and now he cast away his Counters and struck his Tallies and crossed his Books and contemned his heaps of Cash in comparison of that better Treasure which he foresaw lie open in that happy attendence If any commodity be valued of us too dear to be parted with for Christ we are more fit to be Publicans then Disciples Our Saviour invites Matthew to a Discipleship Matthew invites him to a Feast The joy of his Call makes him begin his abdication of the world in a Banquet Here was not a more chearfull thankfulness in the Inviter then a gracious humility in the Guest The new Servant bids his Master the Publican his Saviour and is honoured with so blessed a presence I do not find where Jesus was ever bidden to any table and refused If a Pharisee if a Publican invited him he made not dainty to go Not for the pleasure of the dishes what was that to him who began his work in a whole Lent of days But as it was his meat and drinks to doe the will of his Father for the benefit of so winning a conversation If he sate with Sinners he converted them if with Converts he confirmed and instructed them if with the Poor he fed them if with the Rich in substance he made them richer in grace At whose board did he ever sit and left not his host a gainer The poor Bridegroom entertains him and hath his water-pots filled with Wine Simon the