this unknown voyage he spent eight yeares during which time the Church lost many of her Masters and Children or rather sent them to heaven by a glorious martyrdom The death of S. James who was called the brother of our Lord according to the testimony of Jesephus himselfe drew upon the city of Hierusalem the horrid calamities of that famous siege which ruined it intirely Hee had governed that Church twenty nine yeares with so great a reputation of sanctity that the people when hee walked in the streets thought themselves very happy if they could but touch the hemm of his garment Eusebius and before him Hegesippus sayes that he was sanctified in his mothers womb that he ever abstained from all sort of liquours which might cause drunkenness and from flesh that a rasor never toucht his head that hee was never in the bathes and that by his long continuance in prayer there was a scale like to the skin of a Camel grown over his knees The Scribes Pharisees alwaies the same could not support the credit reputation of this man who converted sinners by his example as well as words Wherefore in a great assembly of the people they endeavoured to perswade him publickly to profess Judaism which hee refusing was forthwith precipitated from the top of the Temple where at the foot a dyer with a Lever killed him out-right We have a Canonical Epistle of his in which hee labours principally to prove the necessity of good works to refute the error of Simon the Magician who said faith alone was sufficient to salvation After him Simon the son of Cleophas also called the brother of Jesus Christ because he was his cozen was chosen Bishop of Hierusalem S. Barnaby the faithfull companion of the Apostle in his peregrinations at the same time time received also the crown of martyrdom in the Isle of Cyprus On the other side Mark the disciple of S. Peter and one of the Evangelists after he had governed the Church of Alexandria with great sanctity was taken on a Sunday by the Gentiles who put a rope about his neck and so dragged him for two dayes together about the streets and in rough and uneven places where in the end he finished his life The Christians that were under his conduct led a marvelous holy life Philo the Jew composed a book expresly in their praise called The Contemplative Life wherein hee gives them the name of Essens taking them for Jewes because in that time they retained many legal Ceremonies I know there are great disputes among learned men upon this passage but since I write not for them it were to little purpose to go about to cleare tha difficulty more curious then profitable wee shall doe better to return to Rome where the Church was agitated with a horrible persecution Nero in the tenth of his Empire increasing in wickedness as he grew up in years gave fire himself to the Citie of Rome The streets were too narrow for him and he had a mind to rebuild it that it might bear his name The fire began in that part of the Cirque which joyned to the Mounts Palatine and Caelius and from thence meeting with Magazines filled with combustible matter and being carried with the winde which began to rise it spread it selfe with such violence that remedies were too late to resist its fury The air ecchoed with the lamentable cryes of Women and children who in that apprehension of fear knew not whither to go for safety and hindered those that would have helpt them for whilest some either expected or would secure others they so troubled one another that they found themselves encompassed with flames In the narrow streets where there were many turnings the throng was so great there was no passing When men were gotten so far as they thought the fire could not reach them then they were suddenly surprised by it as it seemed rather to flie then to creep along Many to save their wives perisht themselves and others would not out-live them although they might easily have been saved Fathers lost their lives staying by their children in fine never was seen so horrible a spectacle such as would have brought water or pulled down houses before the fire were hindered with Officers who at the corners of streets throwing about fiery balls cryed out that what they did was by order meaning by the command of the Emperour who as is commonly reported during this sad calamity was singing on the stage the Burning of Troy Notwithstanding he sought to suppress this opinion causing many hutts to be built in his gardens for those who had lost their houses by the fire Of fourteen quarters which composed the city there were but four left intire The houses of three of them were intirely levelled with the ground and in the other seven there remained onely the tops of buildings half burnt and ruined Thus all the riches heaped together since the foundation of the Common-wealth of so many Statues so many Pictures and other other rarities transported from all the Nations of the world of so many Temples built with such magnificence and by the Superstition of the people rendered so famous and renowned there remained onely a little heap of Ashes a sad example of the vanity of all humane things But to see that great City all in flames was not so dreadfull as afterwards to behold a great number of Christians tormented by Nero as authors of the fire without distinction either of age or quality and adding derision to his cruelty hee commanded some to be covered with the skins of wilde beasts to the end they might be worried to death by fierce dogs Others he nailed upon Crosses and caused their bodies to be rubbed over with pitch and other things apt to take fire that in the night time they served for torches to light those who passed by whilest they consumed like living holocausts for the defence of the name of J. Christ His gardens were the theatre of this abominable execution Although the Christians were odious to the Romanes who distinguished them not from the Jewes Hereticks of that time whose abominations indeed by right deserved their publick hatred yet they had compassion of these for every one saw they perished not for their own crimes but to satisfie the unsatiable cruelty of the Emperor who would justifie himself at their costs This was the first persecution in which God would try his Church amongst the Gentiles It was a while interrupted by a conspiracy discovered against this Tyrant in which Seneca being accused to have a hand was forced to make satisfaction with his life let out by his veins a greater resolution could not be desired then what he shewed in his death but me thinks 't is yet to be deplored since this constancy was only Philosophical not Christian Plautus Lateranus whose Palace was afterwards changed into a Church which yet bears the name of Lateran many other persons of quality perished for
retire so to preserve their lives very necessary for the good of the Church were of the most considerable persons in the City They had received the Doctrine of the Apostle with great fervour and would so firmly imprint it in their minde that every day they turned over the Books of the Holy Scripture which St. Paul had alledged not that they doubted of his sincerity but to confirm themselves by their owne knowledge in the beliefe of those verities which he had declared unto them The Apostles following the shoar of the Aegean Sea turning towards the South and leaving Pella a famous City in giving birth to Alexander they came to Beroe a City of Macedonia The newes flew as far as Thessalonica from whence the enemies of Saint Paul ran in great diligence and being arrived prefently stirred up the ignorant people against him who announced truth unto them This caused the faithful to conduct him to the Sea-shore some of them accompanied him as far as Athens where he was met by Silas and Timothy This City once famous for the Empire of Greece and Sciences after divers revolutions was fallen under the power of the Romans And although it was extreamly declined from its first splendor and particularly from that of Philosophy and other Disciplines for which Saint Greogory of Nazianzen calls it the seat and abode of Philosophy yet there was still conserved in it enough to make the Apostle judge that it was very important for the glory of God there to make known the verities of the Gospel Besides Learning which there flourished the Councel of the Areopagits Sovereign Judges of Important Affaires rendered it very famous but Idolatry dishonoured it For it seemed to glory in gathering together all the Idols of the World as if it feared onely not to be superstitious enough After they had erected Altars to the known Gods adored by other Nations they raised others to the unknown Gods of Europe Asia and Africa as some Authors write and according to others to the unknown God as it is set down in the Acts of the Apostles to the end they might forget no Divinity believing that a great plague had happened to them for their neglect to some unknown God Saint Paul beholding this City so miserably plunged in the impiety of false Gods found his heart warmed with a new zeale and touched with a most sensible griefe for the loss of so many soules He disputed in the Synagogues with the Iewes and the Proselytes and in publique places to those he met he spake of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ The Epicurean Philosophers and the Stoicks disputed often with him Saint Luke makes no mention of Professors of other Sects These cared not to embrace a Religion that spake of nothing but how to mortifie their senses and renounce the voluptuous pleasures of body and minde to follow Jesus crucified for they place their sovereign good in pleasure denying Divine Providence and the immortality of the soule which is the Basis of Religion They also were more alienated by the vanity of their Opinions for they acknowledging no corruption in humane nature by original sin in which they agreed with the other Philosophers went yet further making a God of their Wise man or rather a Devil of Pride He onely according to their imagination was knowing happy powerful exempt from errour unsensible of irregular passions King of all things and of himselfe and without need of any thing but from himself These principles were very contrary to the Doctrine preached by the Apostles which hath for foundation mans ignorance in his understanding and infirmity in his will whence it comes that of himselfe sin having put him into this condition he knowes not what is fit for him to doe and Iess able to performe when he comes to know it This double wound presupposed and experience having taught the Iewes that their Law could not cure them and likewise the Gentiles that neither the light of nature nor that of Sciences had the power to give them a real remedy it was not hard to dispose men to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ which brought with it perfect health for every one desires to be freed from errour and weakness when he comes to know that he is plunged into it And on the other side we slight Physitians when we think we have no need of them Even so did these two Sects of Philosophers of whom we speak who finding as they thought great absurdities in the Doctrine of the Apostle some of them called him a Talker that proposed things which he could not prove others said that he discoursed of new Spirits not being able to comprehend that which he preached of the resurrection of our Lord and of his Divinity This Contestation which dayly grew into more heat in the publique place of meeting was cause that they conducted Saint Paul before the Areopagites to the end he might more clearly explicate the doctrin which he taught the novelty whereof had stirred up the curiosity of the Athenians who had no other employment all the day then either to learn or debate newes The Apostle appeared in this place where all others used to tremble with a bold modesty There they asked him if they might hear this new Doctrine which he taught and when silence was made he spake in this manner Athenians I observe that in your religious worship you forget nothing nay therein you are exact even to excess For you are not content to adore those Gods you know and to whom all the Earth does render homage but passing by the publique place of meetings I saw an Altar with this Inscription To the unknown God You have not raised this Altar but with designe to honour this unknown God and this day my designe is to make him known unto you Wherefore since I am to speak to you of a thing so important and since I desire to instruct you in that which you so solemnly desire to know I cannot but in reason promise to my self a favourable aud quiet Audience And this gives me also great confidence that I speak not to ignorant vulgar people prepossessed with common errours so as to be incapable of understanding any truth contrary to what they fancy Those who hear me are equally honorable by their Learning and by their Administration of justice the one of these cannot have a more noble Object then Divinity nor the other a more considerable employment then the setling of a true worship due to that Divinity God who has not onely created the matter of the world but all things in the world and has placed them in that order which we cannot behold without admiration dwells not in Temples made by the hands of men He cannot be inclosed because there is no other place that containes him but the incomprehensible immensity of his being He has no need of Victimes nor of Sacrifices nor of the homage of men finding in himselfe his glory his
which is to say he defiles the most holy thing under Heaven and upon Earth He participates in the offence of those Executioners that fastened him to the Cross He crucifies him after a more outragious manner prophaning a Mystery wherein he is to be adored and placing him in a heart corrupted with sin as if he were at the mercy of his enemies and still carried about him the likeness of sin he who lives by the life of God and resides in the bosome of his Father Hence he commands them diligently to examine themselves before they eat of this heavenly bread and drink of this holy cup lest being not well prepared they drink and eat their judgement that is to say receive Jesus Christ as a Judge whom they intend to receive as a Physitian and make it the food of death which ought to be a nourishment of life Certainly if those who goe so slightly to the holy Communion and who seem to fear a too exact discussion would attentively consider the words and threats which the Apopostle fulminates in this behalfe they would be more wary They would be seized with a beneficial apprehension and easily confess that our dispositions to a worthy receiving cannot be too pure and consequently those who communicate cannot be too exact that severity in this affair is less dangerous then any compliance or remisness It were to be wished that Christians would communicate every day as they did in the Infancy of the Church but then their lives should be also answerable to those Faithful of the Primitive times It is very good often to participate thereof but then we must make our profit by that participation for the Table of our Lord cannot be joyned with that of Devils that is to say the use of the body of the Son of God cannot consist with the love of vanity greatness and pleasures of the world which are enemies to the Sonne of God These irreverences of the Corinthians which Saint Paul mentions were but slight it was onely some excess of drinking and eating in the Assemblies where they communicated What wonld he have said if he had found them full of impurity envy vanity and ambition In his Epistle after he had regulated those things of most importance he sets down also how they should employ their free-graces as the gift of speaking al sorts of tongues of interpreting holy Scriptures of foretelling things to come and such like That he would have the rule of their actions to be the the glory of God and the good of their Neighbour and to the end they might love that Charity which he teaches them he makes an admirable discription of it whence it appears his heart did perfectly possesse that which he set forth with so much grace and efficacy Towards the end of the Epistle he treats of the great mystery of the Resurrection of the condition of a new life after the end of the world of the new raign of God over Jesus Christ and over the Elect of his ineffable residing in them by the which he shall be all things to them He explicates to the ignorant the Resurrection by comparison of a grain of Corne which rests in the earth where it is sowed and afterwards springs up and produces many ears of Corne nay ears of another kinde then the grain from whence they come the Corne being sowed without those coverings of straw and the ears comming together with the straw the which he applies to the difference of the state of a body before and after Resurrection He explicates this mystery which so much care that he might correct the errors of Cerinthus and Basilides the one of them teaching that Jesus Christ was not seen againe and the other that men should not rise again after death This explication of the Doctrin of the first Epistle to the Corinthians in my opinion will not be unprofitable to the Reader But now let us return to the course of our narration and follow Saint Paul into Macedonia which he traversed all over and carefully left not any Church unvisited to confirme there the faithful in the Evangelical Doctrine After that he took the way to Greece by Sea and in the course of his Voyage established Titus his beloved Disciple Bishop of the Isle of Creet now called Candia The customes there observed were so infamous luxury and other vices abounded there with so much impudency as a Doctor no lesse vigilant and couragious then he was necessary to abolish them and establish their contrary vertues The Apostle before his departure gave him profitable Documents and soon after wrote unto him excellent instructions how to discharge well the duties of his Episcopacy From Nicopolis where he passed the winter he sent a second Epistle to the Corinthians in which he takes off the Excommunication he had thundered out in his first against incestuous persons who had so much scandalized the Church He treats principally of the dignity of the Ministers of the New Testament and of the patience which they ought to have in their tribulations Hee seems to praise himselfe much in the eleventh Chapter where he speaks of himself of his pains and of his patience in termes contrary to the humility of an Apostle It is true according to the ordinary rules of humane wisdom t is odious to praise ones selfe and they are accused commonly of impudence that do it not blushing to speak those things of themselves which they would blush to heare another speak It is a kinde of usurpation by which we take away from those who are witnesses of our actions the liberty of judgeing of them and giving testimony of the esteem which they deserve For this reason the wise man in the Proverbs advertiseth the Prince whom he formes and all other men not to fall into this error Let a stranger saith he praise thee and not thine own Mouth Notwithstanding it is certain there are occasions when according to the rules of Divine and Humane wisdom it is not onely permitted but necessary for one to praise himself without offending modesty or giving any cause of reprehension more then in telling other truths To praise ones selfe to be praised is a shameful ambition To praise ones selfe to rob others of praise is an envy full of baseness But if one praise himself either in a just defence of his carriage against calumny or for the good of such as we are obliged to answer for before God or to discredit those who make ill use of their reputation or for the glory of the Ministery which is imposed upon us In such occasions I say when one praises himself he sinnes neither against wisedome nor modesty but does that which is just The great men of former Ages have used it in this manner and to alledge no examples but sacred Doc we not see that Job in his Book makes as well a Panegyrick of his patience as a Story of his miseries David in many of the Psalmes does he