of all the Royal Order yet neither the hand of man nor the fury of Satan could do him hurt but immediatly the Angel c. Brethren you see my Text speaks of a smiting Angel An Angel smote the first-born of Pharaoh an Angel made an exceeding slaughter in the Host of Sennacharib An Angel brandished a Sword before David when seventy thousand died of the Pestilence Conceive not of these things as if an Angel had a Sword of Steel or offered any visible violence per contactum but as Abulensis says the Angel did apply some pestilent noisomness to the air which in a moment entred into their bowels and destroyed their Vitals Beloved the holy Angels seem as it were desirous and ambitious to avenge Gods glory against the pride of Herod Indeed there is so little zeal in his cause now adays so few do stir in it as if to this hour we left all to them and expected Angels Nay rather as if we thought of neither God nor Angel Where is the Courage of Phinehas Where is the Zeal of Elias Where is the Voice of John the Baptist Where is the Sword that is not lent in vain unto the Magistrate The lean Cattel it may be shall go to the Shambles but Amalek and the fat ones are your prey and your Sacrifice Ecquid tinnit Dolobella Then no man cuts him off though he give not God the glory The world is grown as unconscionable as that heathen man who said He had rather heaven should lose a Star from the Firmament than himself to lose an heifer from his flocks of Cattel So we are more tender of our own reputation than to maintain his glory by whom Kings reign and by whom we hope to reign as Kings in glory The Noble Descent of our Ancestors the Antiquity of our House the Dignity of our Place the Gravity of our Years Praecedere quatuor annis these are things that our bloud will rise at if they be called in question but the profanation of the name of Jesus the alienation of holy things the demolishment of Churches irreverent carriage at Divine Prayers and the holy Communions are as little our care as matters of Religion did pertain to Gallio I must again recall you to the practice of the Angels For when the Sadducees did so much dishonour them that they said there were no Angels at all yet we do not read in all the Scripture that these Angels did avenge themselves of the Sadducees in their own behalf but in another quarrel in Gods cause they are as quick and hot as a flaming fire Nay for fear lest some body should step in before them to do the deed as soon as ever the word was out of Herods mouth that he was magnified as a God immediatly he is apprehended And that is the third part Tantus tam repentè without pause without time of revocation immediately c. The Judgments of the Lord are so sudden so accustomed to tread upon the heels of sin that all the comparisons of nimble motion are borrowed to express it The Flying Arrow Psal xci The noysom Pestilence that cleaves to the flesh in a moment in the same place The coming of a Bridegroom whose longing desires use not to be tardy Mat. xxv The Thief in the night that gives no warning The gliding of the Lightning from the East unto the West The blast of a Trumpet The crowing of a Cock that breaks our sleep What can be said more that Gods Angel doth immediately strike the insolent Nazianzen speaking of those Scoffers that abused S. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is marvel that Thunderbolts are not stirring upon such a trespass St. Hierom in his Commentary upon the Prophet Habakkuk relates That Julian the Apostate reading this story of Herods downfall cavilled against the Christians for saying their God was patient and of long suffering Nihil iracundius nihil hoc furore praesentius says he ne modico spatio indignationem distulit Nothing more angry nothing more sudden he did not defer his indignation no not for an hour It is true indeed sin and death are Acus filum iniquity draws on judgment as the Needle draws the thread immediately after it For such as are vessels of dishonour when they first jussel against Gods Commandments they begin to crack in the very moment although they break not in pieces till the fulness of time when the Milstone shall fall upon them and grind them to powder In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die says God to Adam that is thou shalt grow mortal and decline every minute more and more to the grave But there is a chosen Generation yet let them not presume upon grace that shall be pardoned seventy seven times Whereupon says St. Austin Commemoratione hujus numeri omnia peccata sunt dimissa quando ipse per quem omnia peccata remissa sunt septuagessimâ septimâ generatione secundum Lucam natus est That is if sins be remitted seventy seven times to the Elect then all their sins shall be remitted for he in whom all sins are remitted Christ Jesus was born by a mystery in the seventy seventh Generation from God the Eternal Father according to St. Luke Immediately he was smitten in such Splendour of Attire in such Celebrity of Attendants before the face of Strangers among those who in their hearts were no better than his enemies never did he come out of that Chair of the Scorner from that Throne wherein he was Canonized till he was stript of all Dignity and deprived of that Title by the Angel of the Lord. Had he been struck with sickness in any other place I know how it would have been excused the fault would have been laid upon his long journey from Galilee to Cesarea perchance the Sidonians had been charged to poyson him such suspicions are very rife as if it were impossible for Princes to come to their end by natural infirmities but now no such rumour could be broached Immediately c. Beloved It is the most dreadful thing upon earth to be suddenly apprehended by judgment What will not our strict Reformers cavil at who demand to have the Prayer against sudden death to be put out of the Litany It is well if they themselves be so well prepared for the hour of Judgment come it never so unexpected Indeed it should be so But let the Christian whom I would instruct pray every Morning as if he should see the Sun rise no more Pray every Evening as if he should see the Sun set no more be ready to meet the Bridegroom at Midnight and yet despise not that Supplication From sudden death good Lord deliver us He that promiseth God repentance hereafter pays him in the mean time with iniquity Ab hôc loco hoc ipso tempore Deo servire statui it is St. Austins Meditation If your heart be touched at any Sermon do not consult with your Almanack what day will be most
most proper time to have setled it had been when the people told him the Disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast often but thine do not But then he utters no more but this in general When tbe Bridegroom is taken from them they shall fast Here is no direction for time or manner all that is left free to the sound discretion and occasions of the Church They do but dally with Scripture that collect from the forenamed words when the Bridegroom is taken from them they shall fast therefore the sixth day of the week in every week must be a day of fasting and abstinence because on the sixth day of the week the Bridegroom was taken from them and died upon the Cross What more insolid than this For by collections from Irenaeus and others it is evident that even the Roman Churches did ceremoniously keep the fast of Satterday long before they observed a portional abstinence upon the sixth day of the week But let me not make you lose the head of my argument by this Parenthesis that Christ being demanded why his Disciples did not fast he leaves an indefinite answer with them The days will come when the Bridegroom is taken from them that they shall fast but for allotting any particular time not a tittle of Commandment Let this be added that when the ancient Fathers call their quadragesimal Constitution an imitation of our Lords fast there is no hurt in the Word if it mean not that his example was a necessary pattern to be followed I say they alledge also for the convenient observing of that institution how Moses and Elias fasted forty days in the old Law and indeed they might lay hold upon one as well as upon another for Christ made his Fast even with theirs to shew that the Gospel which he brought did not dissent from the Law and Prophets But the illation is good in this wise as the Jews were held to no necessary imitation of Moses and Elias no more is there any necessary obligation to hold the Christians that they should punctually observe a portional abstinence according to the time of forty days that our Saviour fasted So I have put off the first conclusion with good confirmation I think on our part Now I have to do with another sort that hold our Lenten temperance to be an Apostolical tradition hereby they burden the consciences of men that a partial fast of forty days is not merely derived unto us by Humane Laws but by Apostolical Authority a Sanction which came from men immediately inspired from God and therefore to be strictly held as any other Dictate of the holy Gospel And they that break Lent are condemned as Prevaricators of the divine Law But these opinionists are of two sorts the one Sect far more severe and unreasonable than the other who not only defend that a convenient abstinence is to be kept for forty days by Apostolical Authority but that even the abstinence from the flesh of beasts for that time and changing our diet into Fish and other Viands is by Apostolick command But their reasons are far worse than their opinion making a distinction as if one meat were more sanctified than another whereas all things are alike unpolluted to him that eats Gods Creatures with thanksgiving and a resolved conscience and with temperance But thus the Friers flash out that the Seas were never cursed for the sin of man the earth was cursed for his sin therefore the food of the Sea is better allotted for times of sorrow and repentance than what Than the flesh of the Cattel yea by this reason than the herbs of the Garden yet the feeding upon herbs and roots was ever accounted the clearer abstinence Such another imagination is this that Christ fed upon Fish after his Resurrection so he did upon an honey Comb and yet the Bees gather the fruits of their labours from the flowers of the field and not from the weeds of the water Such another rotten Argument is this that all Flesh was destroyed in Gods anger in the Deluge but Fishes were saved alive in the water You need require from me no better confutation of this cause than the naming of these reasons for who will not resolutely say that such frippery as this never came from Apostolical judgment The Decretals of the Pope a work wherein I am sure the Church of Rome can have no wrong done it but those Decretals attribute unto Telesphorus that he was the first that commanded the Clergie for seven weeks before Easter to refrain from the food of flesh this is but barely said and not proved but if it were proved all the Apostles were dead before Telesphorus was born therefore no way probable to be an Apostolick direction And indeed I find certain glances in the Fathers that the Clergy did admit of this institution before the rest of the people did which makes it more firm that it was Abstinentia cibi secundum Ecclesiae regulam an abstinence from some kind of food by a meer Ecclesiastical imposition to try their obedience Surely they may name ten places out of antiquity before they alledge one to the purpose that is for the commutation of their ordinary diet from flesh into fish Some quote Serapion in Socrates that entertained a Guest hard before Easter and being destituted of all provision except a piece of dried salted flesh he set that before the stranger who scrupulously refused it and said he would not break Lent because he was a Christian Serapion answers To the clean all things are clean eat it because you are a Christian From hence I collect 1. That Lent was kept by a Canonical Ordinance two hundred years after Christ in Serapions days 2. That to abstain from flesh was the Civil Law of the time as it is with us but so easily dispensable that you may conclude it was no Apostolical Ordinance I will adjoyn one place of St. Austin most falsely quoted by Salmeron the Jesuite 1 Tim. iv St. Paul says it was the Doctrine of Devils to forbid meats Faustus the Manichean infers then Moses in the Old Law wrote the Doctrine of Devils No says St. Austin Quadragesima â vobis sine vino carnibus non superstitiose sed divinâ lege servatur 1. You Manichaeans abstain both from wine and flesh in Lent 2. You observe it as from a Divine Law that was the error of the Manicheans to receive it as from divine Law it was not the Tenet of the Orthodox Christians the Church of Rome it self will stand for me in this quotation because no man is restrained from drinking of wine during that fast no not by their Injunctions So I have enough discovered their groundless opinion who take upon them to defend that abstinence from flesh in Lent is an Apostolical Constitution Therefore some state the matter in these words that although the prohibition of some meats for forty days be corroberated by Ecclesiastical Law and
lest he pluck the house about our ears Do we provoke the Lord to anger are we stronger then be O provoke him not lest he swear that ye shall not enter into his rest but with holy reverence and stedfast faith submit your selves to his revealed will Amen THE FOURTEENTH SERMON UPON Our Saviours Tentation MAT. iv 8. Again the Devil taketh him up into an exceeding high Mountain and sheweth him all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them THe Scripture makes mention that there is a season at the return of the year when Kings go forth to battel This is not the time all men know it well enough quite contrary now it is usual that the wearied Souldier should draw himself out of the Field into Garrison But all times and seasons are alike unto our Adversary the Devil all the changes and quarters of the year will serve his turn to fight against us who walks about continually seeking whom he may devour Wherefore I bring him out before you to let you see how he laid about him in his last skirmish for this third is his last tentation As the Carthaginians in their third Punick War lost their City and Kingdom to the Romans and never bore Arms more so you shall see Satan so repulsed at this onset that he left the Field to the Conquerour and never after propounded any blasphemous tentation in a visible shape to the Son of God David was much imboldned to fight with Goliah and assured himself of Victory because he had grappled with two savage beasts and slain them both and thus spake chearfully to Saul Thy servant slew both the Lion and the Bear and this uncircumcised Philistin shall be as one of them So the first tentation was unto our Saviour like a ravenous gluttonous Bear Command that these stones be made bread The second was like a ramping and a roaring Lion all boldness and presumption Cast thy self down from a Pinacle of the Temple Now he that escaped both these out of the paw of the Lion and out of the paw of the Bear shall triumph most victoriously over this great Goliah in the last and most bewitching tentation which begins in this form Again the Devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and sheweth him c. How divers is Satan from himself How unlike is this course to that which he took before Since Christ was so tender of his safety that he would not fall head-long the Tempter casts his Net on the other side of the Ship and promiseth as much as any man can wish in this world that loves himself The odds therefore are very great between the former motion Cast thy self down from a Pinacle of the Temple and between this motion Behold all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them c. The one is Passio corruptiva make away your self utter ruine and corruption This is Passio perfectiva the perfection and solace both of the eye and the heart to see the pride of the earth and all the excellency of it as upon a Theater The ways indeed are divers but the malicious intention is the same or rather far greater in this which I will demonstrate piecemeal as I handle the several particulars of which these are to be considered in this present Verse 1. The importunity of Satan he is upon our Saviour again Again the Devil taketh him up 2. The variety of his shifts from the Pinacle of the Temple he taketh him up to an exceeding high Mountain 3. Note by what gate or passage he would enter his tentation by the eye Ostendit illi he shews a goodly object unto him 4. The dignity of the Object he shews him Kingdoms 5. For the amplitude and generality All the Kingdoms of the world 6. In their most amiable and desirable shape he shewed them in their glory All the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them 7. Satan shewed himself to be an arch Juggler or Praestigiator as Artists call it for St Luke adds that he shew'd all this in a moment of time these are all distinctly to be handled and first of his importunity Again the Devil taketh him up c. A close Solicitor and a diligence worthy to be commended if it had been in a good cause But they that are in a wrong way are most zealous in their course and negotiate for hell more urgently than we do for heaven Many a soul is lost for want of teaching and instruction it is very dreadful to remember how God will require it at our hands but in this Satan triumphs that never any soul escap'd him for want of instance and prosecution And I hold it for a true Position that many times he is assiduous to subvert good men where there is no hope of speeding to provoke God to be angry with our lazy negligence upon the comparison I believe the Devil never thought to proceed so far as to a second tentation with our Saviour much less to a third but to get what he lookt for at the first motion yet since he found an hard match of it and was twice repulsed with such evidences of Scripture as could not be answered he redoubles his boldness and thinks in the end to weary out our Saviour as Dalilah did Samson with importunity St. Paul besought the Lord thrice that the Messenger of Satan might depart from him The one prayed often the other prick'd him often The evil Spirit vied it with the good Apostle the one exceeded in the number of devout Prayers the other was not one whit behind in the number of fleshly tentations St. Austin compared the Devil to a Mastive Dog Qui nec percussus ab hominis laceratione separatur Beat him thrust him away stave him off break his teeth in his head yet he flies upon you till he have torn and devoured you So this incensed Adversary never to be reconciled will not be quite driven from you with Vows with Fastings with Supplications but listens to hear you say as one discouraged with perplexity I am weary of my groaning untill this tyranny be overpass'd But that tyranny is uncessant the hatred of the Devil hath no stint expect it be ready for it and let it not sting your conscience with horrour if you find somewhat within you always warring against the Spirit tentations are not like some diseases which are not incident to a man above once in his life scape once and secure for ever but like hereditary infirmities which are ever recurring to torment the flesh A quotidian is more like to be cured if it be well look'd to than an Ague whose Paroxysms keep longer distance Nor shall the Tempter again or his importunities bow down our neck under the yoke of sin these quotidian fits shall not weaken the inward man if the fear of the Lord be ever in our heart and his name often between our lips to conjure down the Regiment of the Prince
his own mouth and Oracle any mortal man to build a place for him but the most conspicuous Prophet and the most conspicuous King in all Israel Moses for the Tabernacle and Solomon for the Temple and therefore Peter asked no ignoble office from Christ when he would be appointed from him to make him a Tabernacle If thou wilt let us make here three Tabernacles he asked his leave Matt. xvii 4. Of that humble submission I will speak a word by and by one thing calls me to consider it first that here is an infallible note of a large and a vehement love affectus sine mensurâ propriarum virium an affection which never measured how it could perform that to which it offered true love doth not consider how it shall be able to finish that which it undertakes we undertake to renounce the Devil and all his works to keep all the Commandments which all our frailties will not permit but love adventures to try what it can do and therefore love is called the fulfilling of the Law Mary Magdalen came to enbalm our Saviour's body in the Sepulcher and never thought till she was hard by that there was a stone upon the Sepulcher which she could not roll away when Christ was risen and she took him for the Gardner Sir says she If thou hast born him hence tel me where thou hast laid him and I will take him away Why a dead body useth to be born by four strong men to the ground and this had need of more help when his body was wrapt up with an hundred pound weight of sweet spices yet out of more confidence than strength she said she would bring his corps again into the Grave So Peter and his helpers would raise up three Tabernacles in Mount Thabor having neither Workmens tools nor materials nor skill I think in that Trade yet he would dispatch a Building instantly that he would to receive his Lord and those two Gloriosoes that were with him if Christ let him alone what unartificial work he would have made But true love strides over all impossibilities nihil erubescit nisi nomen difficultatis it would be ashamed of it self to think any thing were difficult You see his aim was above his skill and will it fully excuse him to say all was out of love never lay it upon that love Christ loves well but if it be love that is right and considerate says a most accurate Father of our own Church St. Paul commends love on this wise 1 Cor. xiii 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nihil perperam facit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not behave it self unseemly keeps decorum forgets not what belongs to duty and decency then the Lord accepts it Love may and doth forget it self otherwhile and then the Heathen mans saying is true importunus amor parum distat a simultate he that loves God inconsiderately and perversely is a kind of enemy Peter thought let him work and then there they would stay and all should be happy whereas there can be no true happiness where there is so much as faciamus any bodily work Though there was a fault yet love makes it but a diminutive error in him and as in every Evangelists relation we may read his love so in St. Matthew his obedience if thou wilt let us make three Tabernacles and well remembred of him that Christ said I came from Heaven not to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me Joh. vi so though Peter thought himself in Heaven yet he must not do his own will but the will of the Lord Nay if it were not for doing our own will against his there would be nothing but Heaven Cesset propria voluntas infernus non erit says Bernard Give up your own will to the will of the Lord into his hands and direction and there would be no Hell in the world The chief part of our wisdom is not to lean upon our own wisdom Let his will guide all that cannot deceive us whose will it was to suffer death upon the Cross because our own will had destroyed us A Client will refer his Cause to the direction of his Counsel a Builder the Fabrique of his House to a Master of Architecture the Lord will plead our cause against them that strive against us the Lord will build up the decayed places of Jerusalem and make us polished stones for his own Temple except the Lord build the house their labour is but lost that build it si tu faciamus not our will but thy will be done if thou wilt let us make c. This makes for the Apostles defence but there is some coliquintida in all things that man can do or say for as Peter consulted with God so he consulted also with his own fancy But in spiritual things says the Apostle I consulted not with flesh and blood Galat. i. 16. Here is Peter holding God in one hand and his own carnal imagination in another and indeed this was not to ask if Christ would such a thing but to tempt him to be willing to that which was scandalous and inglorious to his Majesty say the Apostles Acts i. Lord wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom unto Israel Their question may seem to be submissive but it was not there was venom in those fair words for they would have him willing to establish a temporal Soveraignty in Israel I will conclude this first part with an exact rule of St. Pauls Be ye not unwise but understand what the will of the Lord is Ephes v. 17. So much for the Builders faciamus let us make I proceed to the Fabrique or Building tria Tabernacula three Tabernacles either Booths compacted of arms of trees lopt off from the trunck called attegias by the Old Latins or pleasant Arbors of living boughs which are writhed in arch-wise over head and every sprig close twisted in to fence off the weather called arbuscula topiaria the best Shelters to receive these great persons that the poor man could think of whether the Mountain could afford them or no we have no evidence to make it appear that was never thought of when he spoke it for he was so surpriz'd with joy that he had no leisure to recollect himself but herein his zeal was very generous he would fain build another world and never see this again Quem seculi hujus illecebrosa non caperent gratia resurrectionis allexit says St. Ambrose though the provocations of this world could not intangle Peter yet he was catcht with that fair sight how God will honour us in the Resurrection there he would build there he would fain set his rest to dwell in a Tabernacle made of boughs and bushes with Christ and Moses and Elias affected him better than to enjoy a Palace in this sinful World Exilium in Pompeii causâ est tanquam patria says a Roman that a man could not miss his native Country that endured banishment